by Diane Duane
Three. Two. One.
As the second hand hit the twelve, MJ shot straight up out of the cramped little chair, almost into Delano’s face. He staggered a step backward, banging into a light; it swayed, and for one naughty moment MJ prayed that it might fall. But it steadied itself.
“You silly little man,” she said sweetly. “You distasteful, arrogant, stupid man. You don’t have enough talent to grow grass on a lawn. You’ve got about as much brain as a retarded billiard ball. If you had another brain, you’d still have just one. And what’s more, you’re cheap—I bet you’d walk miles in the snow for the chance to cheat an orphan out of a nickel.” She was scaling up now. “You’re a legend in your own mind, Delano. I bet you speak very highly of yourself. What makes you think you have the right to abuse these nice people the way you do? You’re a heel. You’re a lowlife. You barely know which end of the camera to look into. If I saw you being mugged in the street, I’d offer to hold the muggers’ coats and cheer. If I saw you drowning, I’d throw you a boat anchor.” MJ noticed, in a clinical sort of way, how Delano’s mouth was working open and shut. He looked like a flounder. “You look like a flounder,” she added, at the top of her lungs, unwilling to let the chance observation go. Then she paused. “Did I call you a fish-faced moron?”
Delano, his mouth still working, said, “No.”
“Well, I meant to. I quit.” She stalked past him as if he were a recently anointed fire hydrant, marched over to where the shoot manager was standing with his clipboard, and said, “Give me my money!”
“Uh—”
“Cash, right this minute,” she said, “or I’m going to take that rap sheet there, the one with the overinflated budget on it, roll it up very tight and small, and shove it in the first orifice that presents itself!”
The shoot manager’s eyes went appreciatively wide. He came up with an envelope and handed it to MJ.
Steaming happily, she opened it and counted the cash. Delano was muttering again, something about a lawsuit. MJ ignored him, waved good-bye to the crew, and headed for the door.
One last scream, of pure wordless fury, came echoing from behind her. She smiled. “Last refuge of the illiterate,” she said softly.
A couple of men stood near the door, smiling slightly at her. As MJ approached, one of them opened the door for her, almost reverently. The other, a small cheerful-looking man with dark hair, dressed in casual clothes, spoke. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I couldn’t help overhearing—”
MJ chuckled. “They probably overheard me in Nyack.”
“Yes, well.” He handed her a business card. “Would you give me a call tomorrow, if you have the time? I’d appreciate a chance to talk to you.”
She glanced at the card. It had a yellow, smiling-sun logo, and said Sundog Productions and under that, a name, Jymn Magon.
“Well, certainly, Mr. Magon,” she said. “Glad to. Please forgive me, though. I have to go off and spend my ill-gotten gains.”
“Right. I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”
Outside, MJ hailed a cab, climbed in, and as it drove off, immediately began to blush and practically to vibrate with embarrassment. She hated temper tantrums. She valued the ability to talk your way through a problem almost more than anything else. Nonetheless, sometimes it felt really good to blow up—and this was the second time in a month that she’d done it. I wonder if I’m coming down with something, MJ thought. But then again, there were extenuating circumstances. She sat back in the cab. And now I’ve got all this money, too. Maybe I should lose my temper more often.
She looked at the card again. Sundog Productions—some kind of film or TV production group, maybe? It had been a long time since Secret Hospital, the soap opera on which she had a recurring role for a time, and the luxury of a steady paycheck. This could be very interesting.
She decided to stop in the store on the corner and pick up some things for dinner, and make herself a snack. She hoped Peter would be back from the mafiosi in good time—but she didn’t know what kind of hours mafiosi kept. Probably better not to wait up. Meanwhile, she thought happily about all the money. Money always gave her a good appetite.
And with this kind of money, I could eat a horse!
* * *
THE long dark limo with the blacked-out windows met them at the Bugle at about seven. Peter and Mel climbed in, and Mel said amiably to the driver, “Hi there.”
The driver glared and said nothing—just waited until they closed the doors, then gunned the car around the corner a lot faster than it should have gone. He started to drive, fast, toward the Midtown Tunnel.
“I don’t suppose it would be wise to ask where we’re going,” Peter said.
Mel shrugged. “Brooklyn, somewhere,” he said. “You know and I know that the greater part of the Russian-language community is down there in Bensonhurst and Coney Island and Brighton Beach. I won’t be looking closely at any street signs, and I don’t recommend that you do so, either.” He squinted at the windows. “But I don’t think we’ll be able to see any.”
He was right; the glass was blacked out on both the inside and the outside, an interesting effect that left them with nothing much to do but sit back and enjoy the ride. It was a very plush car, a stretch Mercedes limo with all the extras: champagne bucket, television, phone. “I’d suspect this thing of having a pool,” Peter said.
“His other one does, I hear.”
“His other one?”
“Yeah. Just the Russian love for hot water, I guess. But also, Dmitri is a little, well, flamboyant. That’s why you’re along. He likes publicity—within reason—and he’ll find the presence of a photographer nice. He’ll feel more like we take him seriously.”
“Oh. And don’t we take him seriously?”
“Absolutely. But a little coddling never hurts when you know there’s an ego involved. Which there is. Try to avoid his bald spot.”
Peter chuckled.
After about forty minutes, the car began making a lot of turns. “Oh,” Peter said, “this is the part where we get disoriented.”
Mel laughed. “I was disoriented the minute we went through the Battery Tunnel.”
“It wasn’t the Battery. Had to be the Midtown.”
“See? What’d I tell you?”
Outside, the car engine noise seemed to change—got closer, more immediate—then a lot more echo-y. “We’re inside,” Peter said.
Mel nodded. The car stopped, then both the doors opened from the outside.
Peter and Mel looked at each other. Then carefully, keeping his hands in view, Mel got out. Peter did the same on his side.
They were in a parking garage, no telling on what level. There was nothing to see but unbroken concrete walls in all directions. All around the car stood a group of big, serious-looking men, some dressed more like bouncers than anything else, some dressed fashionably enough in dark pants and windbreakers or casual jackets. All had lumps here and there under their jackets, and all were holding guns, too, some of the biggest ones Peter had ever seen.
Mel turned to one of the men, who reached inside his jacket and removed his gun. There were a few grunts of admiration before the gun vanished. Then the men looked at Peter.
He held out his camera to the nearest of the large men. The man took it from him, examined it closely, and gave it back with utter unconcern. Then all of them turned toward one of the nearby doors in the concrete wall, and some of them began to head that way. Peter and Mel followed them.
They went up several flights of stairs, their many footsteps echoing together. They came to the door. One of the suited men pushed it open, and Peter and Mel went in after him.
They came out in a long hallway of what looked like an apartment building. The hallway had no windows, only doors, and all of them shut. The leading bodyguards led them down to the last door in the hallway and opened it.
Peter and Mel went in, looked around. It was an apartment, and a beautiful one: high ceilinged and very modem, with
big windows, except that all the big windows had their Venetian blinds down and shut. Tasteful lamps were on here and there, sitting on handsome antique tables and among old overstuffed furniture. The room was eclectic without looking designed. The way they were kept, the things in it obviously belonged to someone who liked them and took care of them. And sitting on one of the overstuffed couches was a little man in a light shirt and dark twill trousers, reading a copy of the German newspaper Die Welt.
Peter looked at the man, and thought that he had never seen anyone who looked so much like a weasel. It was partly the shape of his skull, partly his odd kind of widow’s peak receding hairline, partly the reddish cast of his hair. The rest of the effect was produced by little, bright, close-set eyes and a small delicate mouth. A bit of a surprise, that—Peter expected something bigger, somehow. The overall effect was of being looked at by someone who lived entirely by calculation, wits, wiles, and plotting.
As he saw them come, he tossed his newspaper aside and held out a hand for them to shake, Mel first. “Dmitri,” said the little man, “Dmitri Elyonets.” His voice was a light, pleasant tenor, not heavily accented at all.
Peter stuck his hand out. “Peter Parker.”
“Welcome. Please sit down.”
Peter looked around. “Before we get started,” he said, “I’d like to know what the ground rules are. Am I allowed to take pictures in here?”
“In here, yes. One warning: of me, take the back of my head only.”
That’s going to make it interesting trying to avoid the bald spot, Peter thought, but this kind of challenge was what made photography interesting, especially with vain, image-conscious celebrities. “One-third profile from behind?” Peter suggested.
Dmitri considered. “Which side?”
Peter went around the back of him and had a look. “Right, I think.”
“Very well. You’re a smart young man, you handle it that way.”
“What about your people?” All the men who had accompanied them up from the parking lot were now in the room with them.
Dmitri looked around and then waved some of them out. “Anyone here, them you may photograph.”
Peter was glad of that. If all he’d had to take pictures of was the back of Dmitri’s head and his furniture, it would have been a pretty bleak and limited shoot, even seen as an ego exercise. The bodyguards, by and large, had interesting faces, and looked like the population of a James Bond movie before the hero had shown up—a bunch of grim people seemingly ready to produce flying bowler hats with a sharpened rim or steel teeth at a moment’s notice.
Peter began to move carefully around the room, taking pictures of the contents and the men, trying to show, without emphasizing it, the gangsterish look of them as they stood in classic bodyguard pose, hands folded in front of them. “So,” Mel said. “You called for this meeting. I was glad to come. I’ve known about you for a while.”
Dmitri laughed. “Yes, I know you have. Sooner or later we would have had to meet. I prefer it this way.”
“I’d be curious,” Mel said, “about exactly what the cause of our meeting is. If rumor tells the truth, you’re doing well enough in business.”
“More than well enough,” Dmitri said. “The usual things endemic to this part of the world. Gambling.” He shot a quick glance at Peter to let him know he was included. “A little asset shifting.”
“You mean the laundry,” said Mel.
Dmitri rolled his eyes a little. “And some newer areas. Wire work—”
“Electronic fraud, you mean,” Mel said.
Dmitri laughed again. “Always the semantics, with you. Well, business has been doing well enough. But it never does exactly as well as you’d like, so one is always looking for new ways to expand, eh?”
“True enough,” said Mel. “But I get a feeling that you’ve found some people involved in some kind of expansion that makes you nervous.”
Dmitri said nothing for a moment, simply gave Mel a long cool thoughtful look. “There,” he said at last, “you would be right.” He hunched over a little, his hands clasped in front of him, and Peter got one of those “back of the head” shots that was still very eloquent of the man’s personality: his tension, the liveliness of the man.
“There are people in my business,” said Dmitri, “who are not as cautious as I am. When you’re here for a while, you learn that any business, whether one like mine or not, is a renewable resource. Yes? You have to treat it with respect, not stretch it too far, not overextend it. Push it too far, it dies. But don’t push it hard enough, it stagnates. Always a question of balance.
“But right now,” Dmitri continued, “there are people out there who only see the push. And their dealings are somewhat—” Dmitri shook his head. “They push, but they’re not afraid. They don’t care about the balance. They don’t look forward, not past tomorrow.”
“Do you know who these people are, specifically?”
“Ah,” Dmitri said, “well. You must be clear: my concern is not to go straight.” He waved a hand dismissively. “If I did straight business in this town, I would have to work ten times as hard to make a third, a quarter, of the money I make now. I know what I like. But I want things stable.” He leaned over to thump the coffee table in front of him. “I want things to stay the way they are. In the old days, on the collective farm when I was a boy, the world itself would show you what had to be done. Milk the cow too hard, too often, its poor old udders get sore, and the milk dries out. Milk it much too hard, and it dies, or someone takes it away from you. I don’t want that—dead cows, or missing ones. I want it to give milk for a long time yet. But there are people doing things that make that impossible. So—” He threw his arms wide, an expansive gesture. “I come to you. I come to the press. Here freedom of the press is everything, and what the press says is listened to. I want people to know. So I call you, and ask you to come listen to me, while I tell you about the people who are going to kill the cow.”
“What you’re saying, if I understand the agricultural idiom correctly,” said Mel, “is that there are people becoming affiliated with your—organization—who are pushing for such high-profile scams or amounts of money being shifted, that they would be impossible to hide. That they’re likely to attract the attention of the really big law-enforcement agencies down on you: the FBI, the CIA—”
“Oh, the CIA, they’re here: we know them, they know us,” Dmitri said. Peter wondered briefly just what that meant. “These people, they aren’t careful—they’re going to make business bad for all of us. They’re greedy—or else something worse than greedy, and I am not sure what that might be. But this I feel sure of: something else is going on in some of the other organizations which I do not understand.”
“Well,” Mel said, pulling out his notebook and a pen, “let’s hold that for a moment. Let me be clear, too. Some of these people are not friends of yours—there are old feuds. I am thinking in particular of the organizational head called Galya Irnotsji.”
Dmitri sat back on the couch again and rubbed his nose a little. “Well, he is an enemy of mine, yes. But that is not the reason I want to stop him. I want to stop him, and his people, because they are going to do something bad to,” he waved around him, “this place. Which is my home now, which has been good to me.” He shot a sidewise glance at Peter, who was taking another picture. “You’ll think perhaps it’s odd. I am—you know what I am.” Dmitri shrugged. “But still I want to be good to the place that was good to me. I’ll take what I need to live. I’ll make money from the fat banks and the big companies, and hide it where it can’t be found. But past that, people should live the best they can.”
Peter nodded, getting the feeling that here was a modem version of something he had thought had died out in the Middle Ages: a genuine robber baron, who nonetheless had started out as some kind of skewed gentleman.
“Now let me tell you what you ask,” Dmitri said to Mel. “Galya, yes. A thorn in my side for a long time now. He’s star
ted dealing with somebody, not one of us—not Russian or Ukrainian, not at all from the other community, the Italians, or any of the Chinese. This person that Galya deals with—I don’t know who he is or where he comes from. Now, lately, my eyes and ears”—he waved outside, suggesting that they were everywhere—“my people tell me he’s been bringing in a little hot stuff.”
“Nuclear material,” said Mel. “From where?”
“I cannot say. Not that I won’t tell you—I don’t know. I have to tell you, I have handled some of this myself, but not for here. To send away. There are always buyers for that. But the stuff that Galya’s handling is not going out of the country. It’s coming in, and it stays. Not just coming in and staying in one place, either, but being shipped many places. New York, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver—all the big cities. Everywhere, small shipments have been moving around for the past couple of months. The shipments, they’re labeled ‘industrial waste’ or something else—it doesn’t matter. We know what they are. When I started hearing about this, I didn’t know what Galya was shipping. I found out eventually. It’s hard to keep a secret in our business.
“Then, the other day, we hear that upstate, in the Adirondacks—here, in our state, our home—someone has blown up an atomic bomb. A little one, but a bomb. And I think about all those cans and packages of ‘industrial waste,’ and I wonder, What does this mean? For a while, I’m not sure that this means anything. Then, yesterday, I hear that Galya, several days ago, had a big payment —big payment—so that he’s having to launder it all over the place. And now I hear he’s gone down to the Caribbean, to Mauritius, I think it is, to see about the finishing touches, the last work on his new house. A big house, a lot of money spent on it—like a little town. You know what real estate costs down there. It must have cost a fortune, even by our standards.”
Dmitri leaned forward again. “At first I thought he just wants a house on a little island so he can run drugs easily. Everyone does it down there. You rent a flying boat, it files some fake flight plans—it’s easy. But I just don’t like it, don’t like the way it feels. All these things, together, at once—I think Galya is involved in something that’s going to be bad for business, bad for my people, bad for people in this country, this good country where we came to make a life for ourselves, a living.”
