by K. A. Tucker
I school my expression. Maybe they don’t care, or maybe they assume I don’t understand them. But I learned Russian from my grandfather. I might have earned some respect from these guys with that skill, but Rust warned me years ago that it was a good secret to keep under wraps.
I spend the rest of the meal listening quietly while Andrei, Rust, and Vlad pepper casual conversation with hidden messages in both English and Russian. Comments about a contact in Israel. A shipyard, and a person who is willing to help them “cut through the red tape.” Someone on the receiving dock that had to be “managed.” Nothing that a clueless person would pick up on or become suspicious of.
All things that are making me insanely curious.
Even dressed in an Armani suit and sipping a cognac, I feel like a ten-year-old boy at a table of grown men talking about the stock market right now. Rust should have filled me in before bringing me here. There’s no doubt, by the way both Andrei and Vlad watch me, that this meeting is as much about me being weighed and measured as it is a business planning discussion. I can’t be sure what they’ll decide. Perhaps that I need to be drawn and quartered.
After another hour of witnessing Andrei and Vlad be dicks to the wait staff and toss cutting remarks about Americans as a whole, Vlad drops a pile of cash—just like Viktor, these guys are all about no paper trails—to cover the bill, and Andrei turns to me. “So your uncle says that you’re ambitious.”
There’s no room for doubt. “I am.”
A crooked smile touches Andrei’s lips, one that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I hope so.”
Chapter 6
■ ■ ■
CLARA
Bill taps candid shots of two stony faces up on the whiteboard with his chopsticks, the container of pad thai resting in his palm likely cold by now. “Andrei Bragin. Flew in from St. Petersburg two days ago. Staying with his son, Vladimir, who has permanent resident status after marrying his American-born trophy wife. They’ve just finished eating dinner at Corleone’s with 12 and 24. Our informant couldn’t catch anything useful. They’d switch to Russian every time she was near, unless they were insulting her.” He adds with a smirk, “Douchebag sent his lamb back. Twice.”
Everyone shares a collective groan, drowning out the buzz of the sports reel on the TV. It’s rather ingenious, having a female C.I. planted in a restaurant that many high-level criminals would frequent. She’s worked there for years, feeding random bits of intel whenever the Feds tap her on the shoulder.
My eyes drift over the four guys sitting around the board in our makeshift “safe house”—Bill’s garage in a Portland suburb, and by all rights a man cave. I’m used to these kinds of nights back home, getting together with my coworkers for a few drinks and to blow off some steam where we can all be ourselves.
But aside from Warner, I don’t know these guys very well. I feel like I need to. They’re part of my cover team. The guys who take care of me—who gather information and relay it to Sinclair and me, who make sure my condo’s gas and maintenance bills are paid and that I get anything I ask for to help with my case. The guys who are going to keep me alive through all of this.
We don’t meet like this often. In fact, we don’t ever meet like this, relying mainly on phone calls. But now it seems that our case has found its legs and is about to take off running. We need to be ready to chase after it.
“What do we have on them?” Franky, the lanky agent sitting in the corner of the faded beige couch, asks. He has ten years of experience on a federal auto theft task force, so he’s a great addition to the group.
“They’re definitely part of an organized family based out of St. Petersburg, with reach across most of the country. Both clean on the books. Off the books, there are some weak links to smuggling gold and diamonds. Nothing solid so far. Vlad’s got a mansion out in Burlingame. Nice area.”
That name rings a bell from the case files. “Didn’t 24’s business partner live out that way?” I ask Bill. From what Warner’s told me, Bill’s been doing cover detail on this case since the beginning.
“Viktor Petrova, yeah. He and Vlad used to golf together occasionally,” Bill confirms, his bottle of beer finding a nice resting place on his small, protruding belly. He’s got the typical over-forty cop body—still strong but padded.
Viktor. Another Russian mobster. Another dead end in the Fed’s attempts to break into this car theft ring, based on what I’ve read. Originally they tried getting in through Viktor’s trophy wife, planting an agent in college to befriend her. Then the wife disappeared without a trace, without a missing person’s report, without anything. A C.I. confirmed the official rumor was that she abandoned Viktor in the middle of the night. They assume she’s in a shallow grave somewhere, but they had no reason to show up at the doorstep asking questions. It was too risky to the investigation. Nothing’s been done to locate her since. It’s another detail of this case nagging at me.
Then the Feds moved on to a female C.I. who had some pillow-talk connections to Viktor. It may have worked, but he went and got himself killed.
“Alright. While Clara’s working over 12, let’s see what we can dig up on these guys. Franky, Rix—” Warner looks at the fourth guy, an agent well into his thirties who could pass for a twenty-year-old common thief with his baby face and a pair of worn jeans hanging from his hips. “Keep your ear to the street; look for any orders dropping.” Though this network of thieves and wheelmen normally sticks to their group of criminals, Rix has managed to form a friendship with one of them. After four months of throwing darts and drinking beers with the lowlife at a local dive, dropping hints here and there, the guy finally asked Rix to help him on a job. Rix—having all the knowledge and car theft gadgets, courtesy of the FBI—has impressed him with how proficient he is. Now Rix is just biding his time until word spreads and the fence seeks him out for orders. Asking for them would speed things up, but then Rix would get slapped with an entrapment claim and all his intel would be inadmissible. It’s a slow process, but it’s another way into this ring, and we have to try every possible angle if we’re going to get anywhere.
“Bill, where are we at with the safe house? We can’t meet here anymore,” Warner asks.
“I’m working on getting the one a few blocks down from Bertelli’s assigned to us. Looks good for next month as long as the judge extends the warrant.”
Warner nods, throwing a wink my way. “Hear that? Go get us something useful.”
Chapter 7
■ ■ ■
LUKE
Rust always seems to have one eye on his surroundings. On faces, on storefronts, on nearby cars. I noticed it years ago. It’s just something I’m used to. But now, on this hour-long drive along the Oregon/Washington border toward Astoria, I would think his head is on a swivel, the way he scouts his rearview mirror and every side road we pass.
“Expecting someone?” I ask.
“Always. And you need to, too.”
I nod, afraid to ask stupid questions that’ll make him second-guess his decision to pick me up from the garage, telling Miller that I won’t be back today. Rust likes grand reveals. He was always the one insisting on surprise birthday parties and blindfolds when opening presents.
He turns his big black pickup truck—one of six vehicles Rust owns—down a lane gouged by tire tracks and riddled with small stones. Wide enough, though. It looks like it belongs to a logging company, leading into nothing but dense brush and trees. I spot the first camera a half-mile in, strapped to a tree. “Motion-activated,” Rust confirms. Another half-mile in, a simple metal gate blocks further passage. More hidden cameras are trained on it. Rust climbs out to unchain the padlock with a key tucked within a lock box. “Don’t ever come out here without telling me first,” he warns.
I exhale as softly as possible, trying to shake the edginess building in my chest. Wondering what I’m about to see. It can’t be too bad, though
. This is Rust! The guy who used to let me play hooky from school so we could head up to Seattle for a Mariners game.
When I don’t think we can drive any deeper into the woods, we round a bend and a double-story, forest-green metal shed appears, tucked among the trees. It dwarfs the small, dilapidated A-frame cabin set some fifty feet away, overlooking a small lake beyond. Solar panels cover the entire south side of the roof. I’m guessing we’re not on any grid out here.
“Who owns this place?”
“Your grandfather. He bought it five years ago.”
“The one who died ten years ago?” Can’t be the other one, seeing as we have no ties to that side of the family. They never approved of my parents getting married in the first place.
Rust smiles. “He has a far reach.”
I slide out the passenger side, whistling as my feet hit the ground. Nothing but snapping branches responds. “I never took him for a fan of the outdoors.”
Rust throws an arm over my shoulder and tugs me toward the shed, laughing. We’re the same height and our builds aren’t too far off. Even though Rust has twenty-two years on me, he takes good care of himself, hitting the gym almost as much as I do. That’s the freedom of not being tied down with a wife and kids, he has always said. You get to live by your own schedule. You don’t have to answer to anyone.
Sometimes I wonder if he’s lonely. I wonder, if I follow his advice and keep it shallow, if I’ll get lonely. I do know that when I’m around Jesse and Alex, seeing my best friend with a woman who he trusts unequivocally, envy spikes inside of me.
Rust unfastens the heavy-duty padlocks, before throwing his body into the metal door. It creaks open, and I sidle in behind him as he hits a switch and fluorescent panels flicker on, illuminating the junkyard within. That’s what it looks like at first glance, at least. But closer examination reveals that there’s order to the chaos. Closest to me is an assortment of air bags—an expensive car part if you ever have to replace yours. Farther down, catalytic converters sit stacked. Those things are about a grand each. Next to them are the rims of dozens of cars, with what are probably their matching tires beside them. All around the perimeter of this huge, windowless shed are the remains of cars—everything from factory stereo systems to batteries to quarter panels. And in the center of it all sits an array of used vehicles—Hondas, Toyotas, a shiny red Ford truck, even an ’87 Oldsmobile Cutlass.
“There’s a quarter-million sitting in here.” Rust watches my face, looking for a reaction.
An odd sense of satisfaction swirls through me, because I’ve guessed right all along. I just didn’t guess big enough. “So you’re chopping cars.”
He smiles. “Chopping cars. Selling cars. Andrei has good connections across seas . . .” I follow him as he strolls over to pat the hood of the Cutlass. “The foreign market is booming. Eventually you’ll be handling exchanges with Vlad. But I want you eased into this, so we’ll start you off small. You’re going to be handling two of my fences.”
Handling fences? What the fuck does that even mean? I’ll be Googling that shit the second he turns around. “I’m guessing these cars aren’t coming from RTM . . .”
“No, Luke.” A wry smile. “They’re not.”
My uncle is dealing in stolen cars, and not just a few here and there. Stealing isn’t a completely shocking revelation for me, given that I grew up with a grandfather who stored cases of name-brand booze under our dining room table and electronics under the basement staircase. All things that “fell off the truck.” That’s what he’d always tell me when I asked, followed by a wink and a warning to keep it to myself. I’m surprised he didn’t use a place like this to store all of that stuff. Then again, Rust always called Deda a “dabbler” and not a true businessman. I’d eavesdropped on enough conversations to know that Rust was pushing him to think bigger scale, to turn the thousands he earned into more. But Deda was happy doling out meat in his friend’s downtown Portland butcher shop. It was a good balance, he said.
Rust would argue that he has a good balance too, and his balance earns a helluva lot more.
My mind starts going into business mode, weighing how much Rust nets through the garage and RTM each year—which I’m guessing tips the low seven-figure range—compared to what this must bring in. “What’s the risk?” It must be worth it.
He shrugs. Not in an “I don’t know” way, but in a “who cares” way. “The cops are too busy chasing the idiots. The gangbangers, the joyriders. I’ve protected myself. There are enough layers that very few people could ever point out my involvement. The ones who do have as much to lose as I do. I’ve been running this ring for five years now and I know who to trust and who not to. Besides . . .” His face screws up with doubt. “I have police along the entire Western seaboard in my pocket. They’d tip me off if I were under investigation.”
An eerie silence fills the space as I absorb his words, his confidence.
“Isn’t it dangerous, though, having all this sitting here? It wouldn’t be hard for the cops to figure out who’s behind this if they see Deda’s name on it.”
A finger comes up. Rust’s “listen carefully” index finger. “It’s not about what they know. It’s about what they can prove.”
“Deda used to say that.”
“And he was right.” Another long pause. “So?” His arms stretch out in front him. “You wanted in. Now you’re in.”
I always knew I’d be doing something involving cars. This? Well, this is definitely . . . something.
My gaze lands on a big Ford F-250. It’s probably three years old, but it’s been well taken care of. Whoever owns the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror must have been pissed when their truck disappeared.
The phone in Rust’s pocket—I’ve seen him with various cell phones enough times to recognize that they’re burners—breaks into the eerie silence. No more than five words are exchanged before he hangs up, the air around him humming with energy. He’s excited. “You ready?”
I simply nod.
“Good. Because you’re about to get your hands dirty.”
■ ■ ■
The sky past the mountain range to the east is just beginning to lighten as we pass by the security gates at Pier Two in Astoria, slowing down to take in the black smoke rising from the pillars on the cargo ship about to set sail. The gray-haired guard glances up but then lets his attention fall back to the book he’s reading. I wonder how much he’s getting out of this.
“His name is Edgar. He has two daughters—one already in college, one about to start,” Rust explains as if reading my mind. “Tuition is forty thousand a year. He’s willing to look the other way for help in paying that. That’s the trick in this business . . . everyone has a weak spot. You just have to find it, and then buy them their peace of mind.”
Continuing on down the street about five minutes, Rust pulls into the driveway of a quiet motel, his wheels crackling over the loose gravel of the parking lot. The few spotlights actually working highlight a rental office with blue plastic waiting chairs and those faux wood panel walls that my grandparents had in their basement. Not welcoming, but then again, I’m guessing the people who stay here don’t care about being welcomed. Rust continues down to the far end, where the lights are all burned out. I can’t even make out the numbers marking the mud-colored doors.
“Tell me we’re not going in there,” I mutter.
Rust chuckles. “My prissy little nephew.” He parks alongside a black SUV. The window rolls down, and Vlad appears, another day’s worth of scruff aging him even more. His gaze flickers from Rust to me—my clothes black and ruined from a night of pulling apart cars—and back to Rust. In Russian, he spits out, “Why are you here?” I’m beginning to think he can’t manage sounding civil, ever.
Rust answers in English. “Why not?”
Another gaze my way, this one harder. Still in Russian, “Do m
y father and I need to be worried about the future of our business relationship?”
Rust’s lips curl back in a smile that is anything but pleasant. “I trust Luke more than I trust anyone else,” he says, his voice calm, easygoing . . . full of warning.
I clench my fist and force out a gritted smile, imagining punching that fuck square in the jaw. I’d probably end up knocked out, but at least I’d get the first hit in.
Another second’s pause and then Vlad mutters, as if bored, “The crates are all loaded. The ship will be leaving within the hour.”
“And the second delivery?”
“Da.” Yes. “Already in the containers.”
“Good. What’s going on over on the other side?”
“Your business is only on this side.” He does a cursory glance around before heaving a black duffel bag through the window to Rust.
The weight of it as Rust drops it onto my lap is surprising. He watches me, nodding toward it.
I pull the zipper. My heart rate spikes as stacks of cash appear.
“How do we look?” Rust asks.
How the hell should I know! I want to snap, frustrated with always being in the dark. But I’m guessing that it’s not about what I know; it’s about how I present myself, with Vlad sitting right here, watching. If they’ve ripped us off, we’re going to find out as soon as we count. And now isn’t the time to count.
“We look about right,” I answer, keeping my voice as even and steely as possible.
“Talk to you later.” Rust pulls away without waiting for a response. It isn’t until we’re back on the main road that the Russian slurs escape from under his breath. “Count that. Make sure that shithead didn’t undercut us.”
“You think he would?”
“Vlad was just a pimply-faced little brat when I first met him. Now, look at him. Thinks he’s something special.”
I guess that means yes. “How much should there—”
