Gregor was stretched out in the back seat, head lolling, eyes closed. Mikayla sat beside me, her bundle on her lap. A thin electronic version of Queen’s We Will Rock You drifted into the car.
“Your blanket’s calling.”
“If I answer, they’ll know something is wrong.”
“Then don’t answer it.” We were treated to two more bars of Queen done badly before it clicked over to voice mail. Mikayla dropped the cell phone back into her pile of booty. At a quick glance, I could see wallets, a laptop, several manila folders, a watch and who knew what else. The woman was a scavenger, a vulture who survived off carrion. But who was I to judge. After loading Gregor into the car, I had gone back and collected all the guns and ammunition I could find. Her skill with a razor had blinded her to the fact that for where we were going, we would need firepower.
“Jesus H Christ, what happened to you?” Helen stood in the door of her Silver Lake hillside home.
“Ran into some folks who didn’t like the cut of our jib.”
“Goddamn it, Moses, don’t. This is way past funny, Ok? I write about vampires and gangsters for the WB, I don’t know how to… shit, Moses, shit.”
“Can we come in?”
“Yes, damn you, yes.”
Gregor stumbled under his own steam over to the sofa and dropped down. Helen looked him over, shaking her head. “He needs a doctor.”
“No he doesn’t,” Gregor said.
“The girls?” I asked.
“Downstairs, poor little things.” I nodded to Mikayla, who set down her bundle and headed for the stairs.
“No you don’t, not before you wash the blood off your hands and face. Those girls have seen enough horror shows for this lifetime.” She got Mikayla a towel and showed her to the bathroom. Coming back, she looked worried.
“Nice company you’re running with.”
“Where’s Peter?”
“Locked up in my office, typing, calling. I haven’t seen him take a bite or a crap since they got here.” Dark circles ringed her eyes. I wished I could make it all go away. I wished I had something to say, but I was all out of sorrys.
Peter’s head snapped up when I entered. His eyes were black pin points surrounded by red. The shades were drawn and the only light was from the computer screen. In a machine gun rant, he told me of the article he was writing. His editor was holding a front page slot for him. This was going to blow the fucking top off those slave dealing bastards. He was sure once the story broke, the state department would have to give the girls asylum. He had reached out to a woman from the Angel Coalition, and another from Stop The Slavery. They would help the girls get a fresh start.
When I gave him the laptop and files, told him about the Israeli connection, he leaned back, rubbing his eyes.
“This is big times ten, damn… Are you sure, Mossad? Rogue or not, doesn’t matter, right? They’re here on US soil. Big. Let me see, um, yeah.” He flipped open the laptop and hit a few keys. Then slammed it shut. “Fuck, encrypted, fuck. No worry, I know a guy knows a guy. Yeah, alright.” I left him poring over the manila folders.
The sound of Russian voices led me out onto the lower deck. The girls looked fresh and clean, and if not happy, at least human. Nika turned to me, in a large tee shirt and sweat pants she looked thirteen years old. I looked away.
“I am glad you did not die.” She craned her neck, looking up at me.
“The day’s young.”
“My sister, she is?”
“Soon. Trust me.” I ran back upstairs, bile backing into my throat. All I could see was my dick in her.
I left the girls to Mikayla, who was trying to find out if they knew anything that might help us track down the Russians. On the way over, we had cruised the West LA mansion only to find it empty and abandoned.
Upstairs, I found Gregor with a monstrous turkey sandwich in one hand and the stolen cell phone in the other.
“You want to reach out and talk to that Russian bastard?”
“You found his number?”
“Dumbfuck didn’t clear his voicemail. The old man sounded real pissed to hear you had made it back to LA.” Some of the color had returned to Gregor’s face. Son of a bitch looked like he might actually survive.
Ten minutes of dialing proved the Russians smarter than I had thought. The phones had all been disconnected. Peter’s contacts discovered squat, the numbers all linked to prepaid dump phones.
Uncle Manny hadn’t left his office. Gray stubble patches dotted his chin. He looked sunken and old as dirt. He showed no surprise when I stepped in.
“How many times do you think you can sell me out before I put one between your eyes?”
“You will do what you must, as I have.”
“I used to look up to you. When did you become such a pussy?”
“You get a family, build a life, care and feed it. You have nothing, you have no idea what you would do to keep it safe.”
“Sold your soul for the rose garden, huh? Fuck you, Manny. You don’t think I have shit I care about? I have a life, old man. I want it back.”
“I don’t think that this is possible.”
“Then we’re both fucked. Call the Russians, tell them I want out.”
“It won’t be easy.”
“Neither is dying. Make the call.”
Manny left a message at their drop line, he told them I was there and needed to speak to them. After that, we had nothing to do but wait. Any anger I had for the old man was gone, replaced with sadness.
Behind us, the strip club sat empty. The scent of lust, sold out rain checks and broken promises permeated the stained carpet and soiled booths. How many men had busted a nut in the lap room hoping to feel alive, only to leave more hollow then when they came in? How many girls traded their joy for cynicism, one buck at a time? Burn the fucker to the ground. The price paid for this shit was way too high.
The phone rang like a gunshot to my head. Manny played it straight. Told them I wanted out. Told them he thought I was finished, ready to deal.
“He wants to speak to you.” He passed me the receiver.
“What?”
“And a good day to you, too, Mr. McGuire. You are a resilient termite, chewing at my structure, destroying so much of my life’s work. In light of your imminent extermination, you want to deal?”
“I want my woman back and you out of my life. Do that and I’ll let you get back to business.”
“Bygones will be bygones, this is your deal? I lose my property, my pride and it costs you what? Nothing? No. Here is my counter offer. Bring me the girls, all of them, and I will afford you twenty-four hours to leave the country.”
I hung up the phone.
“Time for you to blow town, Manny.”
“What did he say?”
“Forget him. I’m retiring you. Take your family, find a small town where I won’t have to see you. We clear on this?”
“Yes.”
Walking through the club, I fought the urge to set a match to it.
The noon sun burned onto the back parking lot as I descended. The daylight showed the club in all its shabby glory. Purple paint blistered and peeled on the stairs. I was unlocking the Crown Vic’s door when a shadow fell across my back. A huge form reflected in the window. I dropped down. A massive fist swung over my head, smashing the glass where my head had been.
Pasha the giant towered over me. I swung up, my fist bounced ineffectually off his gut. It was like hitting an iron plate. His fist flew down towards my face. Rising, I took the blow on the chest. I bounced off the door, leaving a dent. I gasped for air that wouldn’t come. Meat paws grabbed my shoulder, lifting me to my feet. His arm cocked back, ready to take my head off.
“Blin! He needs to tell us where the girls are.” A pale hood held Pasha’s hand back. It took a lot for Pasha not to swing. This was what he was built for. Slowly, the tension left his face.
“Where are they?” The pale boy pushed a pistol barrel into my crotch, snapping back the hammer. The blade made no sound cutting through his throat. His blood splashed down onto my face. The man fell, revealing Mikayla standing behind him, the wet razor in her hand. Pasha stood stone still. Gregor pressed the shotgun barrel into the back of his head.
“Dude, please, tell me where they’re holding Anya. If I take the leash off my girl, it will get messy, and I’ve had enough blood to last a lifetime.” We were parked on a quiet dirt road in Griffith Park. Pasha hadn’t said word one since leaving the parking lot.
“Fuck it, boss, time to start taking souvenirs.” Gregor hobbled over to the front of the car, using a shotgun for a cane. Pasha was bound, leaning against the hood, his eyes bored. Gregor flipped the gun up by the barrel. The butt broke Pasha’s lip and I could hear teeth snapping off.
“Chill.” I pushed Gregor back, he was getting ready to hit the Russian again.
“Fuck that, Mo, he knows where Anya is.”
Mikayla had her back to us, smoking. All this talk made her uncomfortable. Cut him and be done, was her plan. Always.
“I’m telling you, big man,” I said, moving between Pasha and the mad Armenian, “I can’t hold this shit together much longer. Just tell me where she is. You walk, Anya walks, happy fucking ending.”
“Nyet.”
“You speak, that’s something.”
“No happy ending.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe just a less ugly ending. Could we try for that?”
He closed his mouth into a tense bloody line.
“Enough talk.” Mikayla lifted her freshly cleaned razor and walked toward the giant.
“No, cut him one tiny bit at a time, turn him into so much ground chuck and he still won’t talk. Trust me.”
“We’ll see.” She raised the blade, resting it against his ear.
“I’ve run out of options, or I’d never ask you to do this.” Nika studied my face. The other girls were in Helen’s living room watching MTV and eating Spaghetti-Os.
“Will this get my sister back?”
“I don’t know, but it’s what I got.”
She nodded her head and followed me into the garage. Pasha was trussed up in the back seat. It took some pleading but Mikayla and Gregor had been convinced not to take him apart one piece at a time. I had lost some tough guy points in their eyes, but fuck it, I was too tired of destruction to care.
Moses closed the car door behind Nika and stepped away, leaving the teenage girl alone in the back seat with the giant. For a long moment, they stared at each other.
When she finally spoke, it came out as a whisper. “My name is Veronika Kolpacolva, I come from Yaroslavl. All I wanted were pretty clothes, a house with a swimming pool. That was forever ago. My sister is a good woman, she’s not trash to be thrown away. You are not trash. I need you to remember, please, remember. Once you were young and hoped life would be more.”
Pasha looked at this little girl. When had life gotten so ugly?
“Tell me where my sister is. I need her to be alive and safe. You can be a hero instead of this. Be a hero. Save my sister.”
I stood in the shadows of the garage, watching Nika. She was brave beyond her years, after all that men had done to her, she had the courage to sit in the car with this giant. I could barely hear her murmured Russian. After what seemed like forever, the giant spoke. Nika nodded her head. They spoke more. She leaned up and kissed his cheek.
“Here.” Nika handed me a slip of paper. “They are holding Anya there. Get her back.” The young bend but don’t break easily. Old fucks like me, that’s a different story.
Peter printed a map off the computer, the address was in Redlands, tucked between the Santa Ana river and the foothills of the San Bernardino mountains.
“You coming with us? See how it all ends?”
“My guy’s guy almost cracked the laptop. The wire’s crackling with an explosion in Chatsworth, bodies found. The story goes to press Friday. I’m up to my ass in fact-checking.”
“I wasn’t going to let you come anyway. Someone has to survive to tell the tale.”
When I returned to the garage, Mikayla was in the front passenger seat. Gregor was in the back. “Not this time, Gregor, I want you to sit this one out.”
“No.”
“Pal, look in the mirror. You’re done.”
“They have Anya.” Something in the way he said her name told me all the talk in the world wouldn’t get him out of the car.
“Where’s the big Russian?” I asked Mikayla, sliding in behind the wheel.
“The trunk.”
“Alive?”
She looked at me like I was an idiot child. I wanted to ask her why, but I knew her answer, we had what we needed and he was one less scumbag on the planet. I hoped she was wrong, hoped that redemption was possible, but I suspected she was right.