Against the Law

by Against the Law (epub)

  Yelena too was a warrior, and Nikolai had spotted her right away; he knew her, apparently from back when. All he would say was that she was well-known in the underworld in both Moscow and the Russian parts of New York, that she had worked for them but now seemed to be working for herself, and that she could be handled.

  “Handled by who?” Richards had barked at Nikolai, still smarting, his ass and ego both bruised by that bumpy ride in the chopper. “You?”

  “Why not?” Nikolai had smiled slyly, in that spook way—CIA or SVR, they were all the same. “I was her handler after all. I trained her.”

  But now, it seemed she’d gone feral again, snapped her leash, and Nikolai was spreading the word to his people. She was on the endangered list with Joe. Toomey chuckled at the thought, that while they snoozed uncomfortably in their cramped, hot, stinky seats, they were in fact in the cattle car that would take them to slaughter. The flight attendant, who was helping return his seat to its upright position, thought the grin was for her. She smiled back, bright white teeth, bright blue eyes, and glistening blonde hair.

  “You seem happy to be in New York. Business or pleasure?”

  “Both, I hope,” he said, giving her his dimple. “What about you?”

  He was just her type, he knew: clean-cut, handsome, strong-jawed, with a military bearing even in his navy blazer and khakis. Plus sitting in the expensive seats. A catch. She made a pout and let her Southern drawl ooze out, sweet as syrup. “I love New York but gosh it’s so big. I never know what to do or where to go for fun.”

  “Sounds like you had the wrong tour guide.”

  She giggled. “Maybe so. Can you recommend one?”

  He chuckled. “As it happens, I might be available. But I’m all out of brochures.”

  Now she gave him a real laugh and a real smile. “Then why don’t I just give you my number?”

  The problem with Toomey, Victoria thought to herself as she watched him from afar, is that he takes all the fun out of being a sociopath. Just look at him, towing his luggage from customs into the chaos of JFK airport, frowning at the common rabble everywhere, hunting for the driver with his name on a sign. So uptight. So stiff and constipated. Always droning on about duty and destiny and all that boring bullshit. When she found herself, as a kid, in a therapist’s office, hearing herself described as “an extreme antisocial personality with poor impulse control, aggressive and narcissistic tendencies, and no capacity for empathy, guilt or remorse,” she thought, Hooray! Sounds like a right party for me! I can do anything I want! And that was what she did, anything she wanted, or anything they paid her enough to do.

  Victoria Dahlia Amalia St. Smythe was the last rotten fruit to drop from an exhausted, shriveling branch of a once proud and aristocratic family tree. She never met her father but was told he’d gotten married to get his hands on his trust fund, despite being exclusively interested in men and drugs. He had duly died of his pleasures. Her mother had been the schizophrenic descendent of an ancient, inbred, and now totally broke family, married off to get a piece of that same trust fund, and, for most of Victoria’s life, had been locked up in a very posh loony bin. The cost was about that of a luxury spa, and the fund having been rather diminished by Daddy’s bad habits, there wasn’t much left for little Vicky. At first, old family friends arranged for her to get a scholarship to the public school her forebears attended, but paying for Cambridge was out of the question. Plus there was that girl whose eye she’d put out in a badminton dispute, whose family were still, unlike hers, quite rich. So Vicky was cut loose, and for a couple of years she floated from the squats, where she hung with the punks, to the high-end clubs, where she seduced the sons (and daughters) of her family’s former friends, who were terrified she might carry on the family trade and trick one of them into marrying her. Finally, a black car picked her up and whisked her off to a fancy office, where she was asked if she might not like to serve her Queen and country.

  “Whatever do you mean? Run for parliament?” she had asked. Not quite. They had something more off the books in mind. Like a spy.

  A spy? She considered it. At first it seemed even crazier than running for parliament, all that code-talking and stuffing microfilm up her bottom, but then she thought, Actually, when you think about it, James Bond is really a sociopath, isn’t he?

  But that wasn’t quite what they meant either. MI-6 was definitely not looking for her type. They meant really off the books. So she was sent to a school that suited her much better than Cambridge would have, and learned martial arts, weaponry, shooting. She was even sent abroad for courses in torture. Then she was sent to take care of a prostitute who was blackmailing a very wealthy and powerful man. Next an Irish nationalist, once a big man in the IRA, who was considered to be a threat to the new order of things. Since she was strictly freelance, with employers who didn’t want to know or see her between jobs, she quickly found there were other people eager to pay very well for her services. Soon she was one of the world’s most highly paid assassins. That was how she met Richards, as a referral through some of the powerful parties who were backing him, and he had more or less put her on retainer. Which was why she was here, in New York, keeping an eye on things, and ready to solve the problems these more gung ho, know-it-all macho types were prone to create. Essentially, that was what she did: rich, powerful people, mostly men, made disastrous mistakes and she cleaned up the mess. And she loved it.

  That’s why, unlike Toomey, she’d put a bit of effort in, and met this flight in a long black wig, trendy oversized glasses, a Yankees cap, a tight sports bra–like top with a padded bra under it, tight jeans, and sparkly high-top sneakers, looking, she thought, just like some trashy American here to meet her dumb boyfriend or pathetic little relatives. She even had her nails done in multiple colors and a little glass jewel in her belly button. While Toomey found his driver, barked at him for not holding the sign that said “Toomie” high enough, and marched off, still wheeling his own bag, she was enjoying herself. And that’s why, when she saw Joe and Yelena come by next, carrying only a backpack and a small gym bag, less luggage than Vicky used for makeup and wigs, Yelena with a cigarette in her mouth ready to go, and Joe, unshaven with his hair sticking up and talking on a flip phone, Victoria actually stepped up and in her best New Yorkese (her sponsors had sent her to acting classes too, and she could do a number of accents) asked: “Excuse me, Miss. Can I get a cigarette?”

  Yelena turned to her quickly, as though startled, then gave her a stare so piercing that Vicky somehow expected her to see through her disguise to the truth. Thoughtfully, she plucked the cigarette from her lips and handed it over.

  “Thanks babe,” Vicky said, winking as she placed it in her mouth.

  “The cabs are this way,” Joe said, striding off, and Yelena turned and followed.

  Now, Vicky thought to herself, those two look like fun.

  16

  WHEN HE GOT HOME from the airport, Joe was relieved to find his grandmother out. He had Yelena with him, and while the old time grifter in Gladys recognized and appreciated a fellow pro, and Yelena had even brought vodka and caviar to their first meeting, the grandma side of her nature suspected that this girl wasn’t a healthy long-term romantic choice for her Joey. So he was happy to find the note she left—gone to AC—on top of the fresh laundry she left on his bed. He also dipped into the stash of money she kept squirreled away from Joe’s previous earnings, which he mostly passed on to her. They showered, changed—Joe took a clean black T-shirt and jeans to replace the ones he’d been wearing—and stopped in at his favorite Thai place for a big lunch before getting on the train to Bed-Stuy to break the news about Hamid to Juno.

  Juno took it hard.

  “What the fuck did I do?” he asked Joe, distraught, as they sat on the couch in the studio/bedroom/high-tech lab he ran from his Mom’s basement. His eyes were full of tears. “I knew that kid for years, man. Now I got him killed.”

  “You didn’t get him killed, Juno,” Jo
e told him now. “This is on me. I was supposed to take care of him.”

  Yelena shook her head at them both. “Are you two finished?”

  “Sorry?” Juno asked, in shock.

  “You are both wrong. Neither one of you is responsible.”

  “So who then?” Juno asked her.

  “I don’t know. And I didn’t really know Hamid, like you did. But we worked together and I liked him. So I am going to find out who did this, and I am going to make them pay. If you are done wallowing in guilt and self-pity, then you can help me.”

  Joe frowned at her. She had a point, but she could have used a lighter touch with Juno, whom he still thought of as a kid. But Juno burst into a laugh.

  “Damn I missed you, Yelena. I’ve never seen such an ice-cold bitch with so much heart.”

  She smiled. “Thank you, Juno. I missed you too.”

  Juno sniffed. “Okay, then, let’s do this. What’s the play? Get strapped and go hunting? I’m ready to get heavy on this one.”

  A tech wizard, Juno was definitely on the brains side of the business, and Joe wanted to keep him there. He didn’t need another Hamid on his conscience. “For now I want you to start going through all the data we managed to send back before the bomb in the safe blew.” He handed him the camera as well. “I know we lost the phone and the laptop, but maybe there’s something in what we do have. Some clue.”

  “Clue to what?” Juno reached for his own laptop and pulled up the files. “Yeah Hamid sent me a ton of stuff, thousands of pages. All of it total bullshit: shipping records, boring ass emails about defective canteens, bills of lading, invoices. I never though being a terrorist dope smuggler could be so lame.”

  “But they are smuggling it in, somehow. That’s the point. And you’re the only one I can think of who can figure it out.”

  “Aye aye, captain,” Juno said, saluting. “I’m on it.”

  “Thanks,” Joe said, clapping his shoulder as he stood. He pulled out a thick roll of cash. “You need any dough right now?”

  “Nah this is for Hamid.”

  Joe peeled off some bills for Yelena. “Get whatever you need. And maybe look around for a safe place to stay.”

  “What’s the matter Joe?” she asked as she folded the bills and tucked them into her pocket. “Grandma won’t let you have a girl sleep over?”

  Juno snickered, then waved at Joe. “Hey I understand. My ma’s strict too. She’s at church right now. Baptist.”

  Joe smiled. “She’s kidding. My grandmother’s in Atlantic City right now. Blackjack.”

  Joe went to the YMCA to meet Frank. He was midway through his own Sunday ritual, working out and then taking a steam. Frank Jones was a painter of some repute, a Black man in his seventies, who had been a Marine in Vietnam. He’d met Joe at the VA hospital, when Joe had just kicked dope and was feeling crazy, and Frank had invited him up to the studio to talk. He too had managed his nightmares and flashbacks with alcohol, drugs, and denial, and then found a more workable long-term solution: he painted them. Frank hadn’t known Joe very long, but he gathered he wasn’t the type to phone up just to say hi. So when Joe had called from the airport, asking if he could come by later, Frank told him where he’d be.

  “So where you been?” Frank asked as the men sweated, side by side, wrapped in towels, Frank sprawled comfortably with his back against the wall, Joe sitting up, hands on his knees. Around them the room filled with hissing steam. Droplets ran down the walls. A few old men sat across from them, vague sweating lumps in the thick clouds, and a big guy, with a towel over his head, was bent forward as though concentrated intently on sweating as hard as he could.

  “Afghanistan,” Joe told him.

  “Shit, man, what were you doing there?” He waved it off. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  The big man got up, poured a bucket of water over his naked flesh and left.

  Joe waited for the door to shut. “I lost someone. A team member. I guess I feel responsible. Anyway, since then the nightmares are back.”

  “Yeah well what did you expect? You see me hopping over to Da Nang for a weekend?” He laughed. “Who am I kidding, I haven’t even been to Brooklyn in years. Speaking of war zones, I hear Bed-Stuy is full of white hipsters now. Is that true?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Damn.” He shook his head, then sat up and faced Joe. “Look, you woke up your devils right? I checked in a dictionary once, when I couldn’t sleep. Nightmare comes from Old English. Mare was an evil goblin, like a demonic bitch that attacks in your sleep. Now you stirred her up. That’s all. Let it pass.”

  Joe glanced at him. “Did yours?”

  He shrugged. “Well I ain’t going to lie to you. It’s like this old scar . . .” He fingered a small knobby patch on his thigh that Joe could see was once a bullet wound. “Used to be so noticeable I was embarrassed to wear shorts. And of course it hurt like a motherfucker when it was healing. Now I forget it’s there. Sometimes in the cold I feel it. And heat helps. The steam. That’s one good thing about getting old, all your scars fade. Course by then, a bunch of new shit has gone wrong. But then the VA pays for it. So you’re all set.”

  “You’re not really reassuring me here.”

  “My point is . . .” Frank pointed to a couple of Joe’s own scars, a white line that ran along his calf, a small patch of discolored skin above his elbow. “These looked worse, I’m sure, back when you got them. Twenty years from now they’ll be hard to find. Same with the inner scars. The ones on your soul. Are you the same as before? No. But it fades.” His eyes narrowed as he located the star-shaped brand on Joe’s chest, up above the ribs on the left, off to the side of his heart: “Not that though. That’s fresh.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said, touching it reflexively, then sitting up so it was less noticeable.

  “And it’s not a scar is it?”

  “No,” Joe admitted. “Not exactly.”

  “Yeah well, it’s like they told you when you were a kid. Nightmares aren’t real, man. They can’t hurt you.” He nodded at the star again, or in its direction. “It’s reality that will kill your ass.”

  An old man got up, naked, and began doing a series of squatting exercises in the steam. “Talk about nightmares.” Frank muttered as he stood, tightening his towel around his waist. “I’m going to grab a cold shower and a hot steak. You coming?”

  Yelena went back to Brighton Beach with mixed feelings. She was definitely looking forward to the food. And where else was a Russian girl supposed to fade into the background? On the other hand, it was where her enemies were strongest. So her plan was to get what she needed, weapons, ID, and delicacies, and then go back to Queens to stay with Joe and Gladys, at least for the night. First stop was the Grandmaster Chess Shop, run by an old-timer everyone called Grandmaster, though no one had ever seen him play chess. He sold weapons from the basement, and she immediately felt better as she strapped a 9 mm Beretta to her ankle and stashed another, smaller .22 in a clip-on holster in the small of her back. Finally, she slid a knife in a sheath into her boot.

  Then she went to see Vova. Vova was another old man, who didn’t even speak English but who made a good living preparing expert false IDs in a cluttered apartment overlooking the boardwalk, every inch stuffed with books, Cyrillic newspapers, and huge antique pieces of furniture, armoires, leather armchairs, and heavy, padded couches. The first time Joe and Yelena worked together and found themselves on the run, they had hidden at Vova’s and he’d given them IDs and credit cards on credit. This time Yelena had cash. But it didn’t matter, Vova always greeted her the same way: he removed the ever-present cigarette from the corner of his mouth to give her a hug and kisses on each cheek, followed by a toast with vodka.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked her in Russian. “You know, the American from last time, who said he didn’t drink.” Vova chuckled at the memory of what he assumed was an absurd joke.

  “Joe? He’s not my boyfriend.” She told him what she neede
d—a complete set: passport, cards, the works—and he took some digital photos of her against a white wall. Then she went shopping while he worked. She went to Gourmanoff’s and spent the rest of Joe’s cash on caviar, blinis, duck, blintzes, and a host of other treats, then returned to Vova’s and laid the spread out after clearing the heaps of newspaper, books, and overflowing ashtrays from his table. He provided vodka, tea, and—by the time she was done with desert—her documents, which he brought out to the terrace, where she’d gone to escape the smoke, which even by her standards was getting to be too much.

  “Krasivaya!” she’d declared, thanking him with a kiss on each cheek. He blushed happily and lit another smoke. He was proud of his work. He had used a real blank Russian passport, obtained God knows where, forged a few entry stamps for authenticity, and threw in an international driver’s license and a couple of credit cards as well.

  She tucked them away in a pocket and turned to gaze out at the beach. It was a warm night and the boardwalk was buzzing. Everywhere below them Russians talked, ate, laughed, smoked, drank, and ate more. They filled the cafés and bars, the restaurants and the benches. Kids ran back and forth over the planks of the boardwalk and, in the moonlight, you could see teenagers clustered together on blankets on the beach. Off to the right, the lights of Coney Island pulsated as the rides spun and the roller coaster snaked back and forth. Snatches of conversation reached them with bits of random music. And behind it all, the ocean came and went, a constant whisper, forever arriving on the beach and forever falling away, back to the edge of the horizon, where the world ended and infinite darkness began.