MEXICO CITY — AUGUST 16TH 5:23 AM
Nika looked down on Mexico City as the plane circled for a landing. Volcanoes rose up above the brown haze that smothered the sprawling metropolis. It had been over twenty-four hours since she left Moscow. In Tel Aviv, she met a man in a very nice suit who had taken her Russian passport and given her an Israeli one. The picture the agent in Moscow had taken was on the new passport, but the name was not hers. When the man in the nice suit gave her a ticket and led her to the gate, he warned her not to talk to anyone until she was met in Mexico. With a kiss on each cheek he sent her off onto the plane. The last real sleep she had gotten was in Edgar’s squat. She stayed with him for three days while the arrangements were made for her trip. The only time he tried to kiss her was just before she climbed into the employment agent’s car to leave, and that was a sweet chaste kiss. She couldn’t believe how suspicious she had been of Edgar. He was nice, and sitting alone on the plane she wished he had come with her. This was her first trip in an airplane. She tried to sleep, but every bump of turbulence sent her heart into a rapid tattoo.
Nika let out an involuntary gasp when the wheels hit the runway. Many of the other passengers applauded the landing. Taxiing to the gate, they sat for several minutes with the seat-belt light still lit. Around her, people ignored the voice on the intercom advising them to please remain seated. The door slid open and a uniformed Mexican official walked onto the plane, followed by a young soldier. Passengers cleared the aisles and let him pass. In his hand he held a form and was checking it against the seat numbers. He stopped when he got to Nika’s row, looking her over carefully. Nika knew it was too good to be true. Somehow they had found out her plans. Now she would be sent back to Russia. She had been crazy to imagine she could escape her fate. The official checked his form once more and then spoke to her. She didn’t understand a word he spoke, but when he motioned for her to follow him, she understood. She walked with her head down, eyes averted from the other passengers, ashamed that so many had witnessed her failure.
With the official in front and the soldier behind, they led her past the customs lines and through a door into a small office. The official sat behind a desk and motioned for Nika to take a seat across from him. He spoke in racing Spanish, and only when he saw her lost eyes did he switch to English. “Do you speak English?”
“Yes.” Nika was relieved they had a common language.
“Passport please.” Nika handed it over and watched as he stamped it and stapled a form to it. “This is your student visa, it will allow you to stay in Mexico until you travel norte.” Placing her passport into an envelope, he handed it to the soldier, who stood at attention behind Nika. “Welcome to Mexico, and good luck on your travels.”
“Thank you.” Nika couldn’t believe what was happening, she could barely keep herself from shrieking with joy. The soldier led her through a series of halls that traversed the airport out of the public eye. They came out onto a freight dock where a white van was waiting. A middle-aged man with a face ruined by acne scars took the envelope from the soldier and opened the back of the van, it was windowless, like a dark cave. The man pointed for Nika to get in. Something about the man and the van scared her, but she pulled up her courage, reminding herself that nothing good ever came easily. Crawling into the van, she found no seats, only stained rough woven blankets and a few dirty pillows. The slamming door almost caught her feet as she scrambled to get in.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she discovered she was not alone. Pressed up against the far wall, two eyes gleamed.
LOS ANGELES — AUGUST 16TH 7:16 AM
A huge sloppy dog kiss woke me. Angel could sleep through the end of the world, but miss breakfast by ten minutes and she broke out in a rash. I had a sick gut and a head full of regret. I felt slow and clogged from my return to drinking. My mouth was dry, swollen and tasted like gym socks. That was it I told myself, no more drinking, I was done, time to climb back up on the wagon.
I poured two cups of kibble into a bowl for Angel and lumbered into the shower. While the hot water worked on my kinked muscles, I tried to reconstruct the previous night. Anya flitting across my inner-vision, beautiful and scared. The Russians picked up Marina at my club, then later Anya and the redhead in Santa Monica. The smaller of the two thugs, the one called Victor, had as much as admitted they were running whores when he denied that they did it in Hollywood. Was the blow job in my parking lot a one-time deal as Marina told me, or was she hooking out of the club and giving the cash to Victor? Was that the new scam, place girls in strip clubs so they could troll for Johns? Why not place an ad on Craigslist?
All these questions but no solid answers. It was time to reach out to Anya and find out what the fuck was going on. Drying off, I discovered a goose egg on the back of my skull, and a dark bruise had flowered on my jaw. Gifts from Victor and the giant.
“Privet! Smart boy, you found me, but sadly I am busy. You know what to do, so do it.” At the beep, I hung up without leaving a number. I didn’t know if Anya’s calls were being monitored. I made the call from a pay phone, if they checked her missed calls it wouldn’t give me up. The less they knew about me the better.
“Walk away, boss. You don’t want to fuck with these psycho Russians,” Gregor said as we sat the next morning, drinking thick Turkish coffee in his Frogtown apartment. “The ink — barbed wire across his head — that’s gulag shit. He was down for life without parole. The skulls, they get one for every man they murder.”
“Maybe they were fronting. Half the punks with spider webs never been locked down or even heard of the Aryan Brotherhood,” I said.
“No. Russian cons will kill anyone with ink he didn’t earn. First they cut the offending skin off. Sweet, yeah?” Gregor was a young Armenian thug, a big boy, six foot and pushing 250 hard. A blanket of baby fat surrounded his face, but the rest was pure muscle. When I met him, I’d broken his nose, then I’d hired him to cover my ass in a rescue mission that went sideways. He took a blast from an AK47 that ripped him up and left scars from his chest to his left knee. He never complained. After he recuperated, I set him up with an apartment outside of the grip of the Glendale Armenian Power boys. I had Manny hire him as a day bouncer. Plenty will say they got your back, Gregor had proven it. In our world, that was better than gold.
“Anya, the dancer, she had a tattoo on her hip, like a telephone pole.”
“Same as Marina?”
“Exactly.”
“Not a telephone pole, it’s a Russian cross. You’d know that if you weren’t a heathen.”
“Fine, church boy, so what’s it mean?”
“Old country bullshit. The Vors would mark the girls in their stable. A warning to other pimps to keep them from poaching.”
“Fuck me.”
“Yup, and they will. These guys are ruthless in ways you can’t even imagine. Best plan, forget the girlie.”
“Not an option.”
“Always an option. Put one foot in front of the other ‘til this is a bad memory. Or is she that fine?”
“She is, if she’s real. If she’s playing me, I’m fucked.”
“Either way you’re fucked, boss. You want me to ride along?”
“Unless you got something better to do.”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
At nine PM, I loaded my Smith amp; Wesson snub nosed.38 and dropped it into the pocket of my black leather sports coat. I slipped a Buck knife into my Levi’s then laced up my steel-toed Docs. If the shit went sideways, I was going to be ready this time. I picked up Gregor; no bulge showed under his wool greatcoat, but I knew he had his CZ 9mm strapped up under his arm.
Hitting the freeway, I cranked up Amanda Palmer, piano, accordion, hell, even ukulele, all in a punk sound — it was as if the decadent Germany of the twenties had been brought back and replayed through a busted speaker. It was one of the few CDs Gregor and I could agree on. Left alone, I would have played The Clash’s Give ‘Em Enough Rope. Bar none, the single best record ever made. Perfect for the necessary mind-set I was looking for, fuck ‘em all and let god sort it out. Someday, I would convince Gregor of the importance of The Clash, but it didn’t seem like this was the time. Settling into a groove on the freeway, I concentrated on the music. Trick was to let the sound take my head off the present situation. When you have no facts, it’s best not to let your mind make shit up. Conjecture killed more good men than bad intel.
I parked down a side street around the corner from Fantasia’s. Moving in the shadows, I scanned for the marauding Mercedes Benz. I couldn’t see Gregor but I knew he was somewhere on the street with his eyes on me.
“Anya called in sick, said she was visited by the monthly red tide,” Mac told me as we leaned against the bar. “Lot of that going around on Sunday nights. Slow as frozen molasses.”
“Got an address on her?”
“No, wouldn’t give it up if I did.”
“Fair enough. Her friend, the Russian redhead, she come in tonight?”
“Tatyana? Sure, she’s in the lap room. You wanna dance, just wait ‘til her man of the moment is broke.”
I waited for the time it took to drink two cokes. I turned down several offers to have my world rocked by the bored dancers. Finally, the curtains parted and Tatyana led a rumpled looking older gentleman out. She was a zoftig little girl, maybe five feet five and that was in heels, she had copper-penny colored hair cut in a short bob. They had only taken a few steps before I was at her side.
“Sorry, pal, I’m on a dinner break, you’ll understand I’m in a hurry,” I said, taking her hand.
“Sure, um, alright, I guess,” he stammered.
She followed me into the VIP room. I snapped the curtain closed behind us.
“You want a dance? Or maybe something more pleasing?” Her voice was a practiced combination of raw lust and innocence. Her accent was thick, but designed to be charming and exotic. Sitting down on one of the sofas, she looked up at me, wide eyed.
“Where’s Anya?” I stood over her.
“Who?” She looked at my bruised jaw. “I know you.”
“Let’s cut through the bullshit, I saw you in the car with Anya. Where is she?”
“Victor’s going to kill you.”
“He your pimp?”
“He’s our driver. Keeps us safe from crazy Americans who don’t know a fuck is a fuck, not a love affair.” Her young eyes had turned cold and jaded. “Now you want a dance or a blow job or a fuck? No? I go back to work.”
She started to stand. Placing a hand on her shoulder, I held her in place. My free hand snatched her purse off the sofa. “I’ll scream,” she said unconvincingly.
“And I’ll clue Mac in on your side action… Your choice.”
“You have no idea who you are fucking with.”
“That’s right, I don’t.”
“They can reach out and flick, your life is over, no one can stop them. You are a walking corpse, but you don’t know it.” Her eyes were beady and lifeless.
“If I believed every person who told me I was dead, I wouldn’t have made it out of the fifth grade.” She shrugged and studied her fingernails with practiced indifference. I rifled through her bag and came up with a cell phone, a wad of bills, a counterfeit driver’s license with an address in Brentwood and a postcard from Moscow. The note on the back was all squiggles, backward letters and too many consonants to make sense, but the address was in English. It was in West Hollywood’s Little Kiev, not far from where Victor and the giant had braced me.
“All I’m going to do is make sure Anya’s ok. If she’s copacetic, I’m gone and you’re free to continue business as usual. But if you get stupid and call Victor, folks are going to die.” I dropped a fifty and walked out, hoping she was smart or scared enough to keep her mouth shut.
“This goes down twisted, we could wind up in a lake,” I said.
“Pravda,” Gregor said.
“You want to wait here, call in the cavalry if I need it, cool with me.”
“What fun would that be?”
We had been watching the house for the past hour. It was a two story faux Tudor mansion, the rolling lawn guarded by a tall iron fence. We had circled around the back alley and discovered that that too was covered by an equally formidable fence.
“Bolt cutter?” Gregor said, looking at the locked front gate.
“Not yet.”
“What’s the plan, boss?”
“We wait.” Which we did. Around midnight, there still hadn’t been any movement from the house other than a few upstairs windows going dark as the occupants went to sleep. I sent Gregor out for coffee while I slunk down behind an overgrown hedge across the street.
He hadn’t been gone five minutes when the black Mercedes appeared. The giant and Victor were in the front. On the dark street, I couldn’t see who was in the back, but I’d bet the ranch whoever it was was lovely, young and partied for a price. They stopped in front of the gate while it slowly rolled open. As they drove in, I ran across the road, slipping through the gate as it slammed closed. Ducking to the right, I pushed in behind a thick line of cypress. I could hear several car doors open from the back of the property, then all went silent. From an inner courtyard, a fountain splashed and the crickets rejoined their song.
“Hey gulla boi, you ready to die?” Victor slipped out from behind a tree, pointed a large automatic at my head.
“Only if you’re ready to kill me,” I said.
“I think I am… Da, why not.” His thumb snapped off the pistol’s safety. There was a whistle of wind and a heavy object connected with the back of his bald head. His eyes shot up and his body went limp. As he fell to the ground, I saw Gregor standing behind him with bolt cutters in his hand.
“Can’t I leave you alone for one minute, boss?”
“Apparently not.” We pulled Victor to his feet. He was groggy and didn’t seem to be able to focus his eyes. Slipping his piece into my belt, we dragged him towards the back of the house.
A large shale turnaround separated the house from a free-standing six-car garage.
“Where is Anya?” I asked Victor, slapping his face hard to make sure he was paying attention. His head lolled, indicating a short stone stairwell leading down under the house.
At the bottom landing we found a short hall lit by a single bulb. A sturdy padlock secured a door at the end of the corridor. Gregor tried the bolt cutters, but the lock must have been made of hardened steel. With a shrug, he applied his boot to the door. The wood splintered in, snapping off a ragged panel that remained attached to the lock. As the door fell open, I tossed Victor through the opening. Guns in hand, we rolled in after him, Gregor went left and I right. On one knee, I swept the room. Cots were lined in three rows, it was a cramped dormitory. The walls were unpainted concrete, beams and floorboards made up the low ceiling. It was the sort of basement you’d expect to find tools and spiders in, instead we found eight beautiful young women. They were sitting or laying on the cots. Our kicking the door in got their attention, but none screamed or showed any real panic at having two armed men burst in on them. On a paint-worn dresser, a black and white TV showed a dubbed version of Pretty Woman. Out of Julia Roberts’ mouth came the voice of a bored Russian actor.
“Moses?” I hardly recognized Marina, she looked like a child in her flannel pajamas, her makeup scrubbed off. “Why have you come here?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked her.
“You have to leave, now.”
Looking past her, I scanned for Anya. Tatyana, the tiny redhead, sat close, burning into me with her cold eyes. “They will kill you for this,” she was a broken record.
“Anya?” I called out. Victor started to try and stand up. Gregor knocked him down and whipped a lock tie around his wrists.
Moving down the rows of girls, I found Anya at the back of the basement. Crumpled up into a ball, she seemed to be hiding from me.
“Anya?” I touched her leg and she looked up at me, her eyes full of fear.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, her eyes darting to the other girls.
“You want me to leave?” I said.
“Yes.” Her face wasn’t as sure as her voice.
“I thought you were in trouble.”
“Why? Did I say I was in trouble? No, I did not. Now go.” She had gotten up and was pushing me towards the door.
“I guess I’m an idiot.”
“Yes. Now go.”
“Foolish old man, I thought you were a prisoner. No?”
“No. We are free to come and go as we wish.”
“Right, only the lock on the door says different.”
“For our protection. The lock keeps us safe.”
“From guys like me. Ok, my mistake.” I looked from her to the other girls; their fearful sullen faces told me they weren’t intending to give us a parade, or jump into our arms with gratitude.
“Alright. Gregor, let’s go,” I said and walked between the bunks to the doorway.
“How about him?” Gregor stood over Victor.
“Leave him.” We were out in the hall when Anya caught up. Grabbing my arm, she looked into my eyes. A single tear rolled down her cheek.
“You don’t understand, I can’t go with you.” She spoke in a whisper.
“Yeah, you made that clear.”
“They have my little sister. If I don’t do what they say, they will kill her.”
“Get your sister and I’ll take you both out of here.”
“No, she’s…” She let out a sad string of Russian words.
“She says,” Gregor translated, “her sister left Russia, but they will not tell her where she is now. The sister’s thirteen. She must do whatever they want.”
“You think she’s being straight?” I whispered to Gregor.
“Yeah, boss, I do. Not the first time I heard shit like this. They took my cousin to Israel, told her she’d be a hotel maid, then threatened to kill her father if she didn’t work in their brothel.”
“What happened to her?”
“She killed herself,” he said.
“Get your things,” I told Anya, “We’re leaving.”
“I can’t.” Anya’s eyes darted back to the dormitory where all the girls were watching us.
“We’ll get your sister back, I promise.”
“Oh, you promise, that makes all ok? They will kill you and me, and then who will look after Nika?”
“How are you going to take care of her? Call it what you want, but you’re a slave.”
“Everyone is owned, at least I know who owns me.” She wasn’t budging. I looked to Gregor for help.
He spoke to her in soft Russian. After a moment, she slowly nodded her head.
“Let’s go,” Gregor said.
“She coming with us?”
“Of course.”
“What’d you say?” I asked him.
“Told her the truth.”
“What truth?”
“Told her she was screwed with the men here, they wouldn’t believe she didn’t bring us. And that we were bad motherfuckers, no Russian pussies are going to take us down.”
While she went to collect her things, Gregor and I climbed the steep stairs.
Stepping onto the shale turnaround I saw movement behind us. Spinning around, guns up and ready, we found ourselves facing three AK47s. The giant and two other Russian thugs stood against the house on either side of the stairwell. Gregor flicked his eyes to me, asking if we should go for it, let rip and see how many we could take down before they shredded us. Three full auto assault rifles vs. our pea shooters, odds were a little too lopsided even for a degenerate gambler like me. Dropping the hammer on my.38, I tossed it toward the giant. Gregor let out a grunt of displeasure, then gave up his piece.
The giant told us in Russian to put our hands on our heads. I may not have understood his words, but I knew the drill. After a rough pat search, they moved us through the back door of the mansion, through a kitchen that would make Emeril Lagasse drool, through a dining room with a long oak table and into the whitest room I’ve ever been in. I guess it was a den or some such. Thick white shag ran up to glossy white baseboards. A horseshoe of white leather couches faced a huge flat panel TV monitor. The screen was showing ten smaller pictures, images from security cameras. In the lower left picture I could see the girls in the basement dormitory. Anya was freeing Victor.
In a large white club chair, facing the screen, sat a man who looked well into his seventies. A fringe of white hair circled his wrinkled bald head. He looked from the monitor to me, his eyes dull and empty. A small smile crept into his lips, but died before it could make it to his eyes.
“What?” I asked.
“You Americans, your stupidity is only matched by your arrogance,” the old man said. “Somehow in your tiny reptilian brain, you thought you could stroll onto my land and pilfer my possessions. Can you truly be that dense?”
The question seemed rhetorical, a strike to the back of my head with a rifle barrel told me I was wrong. I stumbled forward, struggling to keep my face neutral.
“Too dull to answer a simple question?” the old man asked. “Let us try one that is a bit more specific: who sent you?”
My lack of an answer was met by another rifle hit. It must have been the giant behind me, because the blow drove me to my knees. Gregor tried to get to me, but two men threw him against the wall, and pinned him there.
“A slow learner, I see,” the old man said. “Victor told me you worked for Don Gallico, but I cannot see that as being truthful. If he wanted to send me a message, he would simply pick up the phone, not send a simpleton and his Armenian serving boy. With the tip and a tap, I can turn Gallico’s power off and he knows it. So the question remains, who sent you?”
“Fuck off.” The rifle butt knocked me flat onto the floor. The middle of my spine burned like it had a hot poker on it.
“Yes, yes, you are quite the deipnosophist. Pasha, kill the Armenian,” he said to the giant. When the giant turned to look at Gregor, I rolled onto my back and kicked upward with all I had. The steel toe of my boot connected with his groin. A high pitched shriek burst out of him, along with all the air in his lungs. Rolling to the left, I grabbed the barrel of the rifle that hung loosely in his hand. I swung it like a baseball bat. I could hear the crack of the stock when it struck his head. The giant took two wobbly steps then collapsed onto the floor.
Flipping the AK around, I drew a bead on the old man’s forehead. The room went still. The old man’s dead eyes opened only slightly. Gregor was still pinned to the wall, one of the goons pressed his rifle into Gregor’s eye socket.
“Better tell your punk to release my friend, before I get nervous and this whole deal gets wet,” I told the old man.