Against the Law

by Against the Law (epub)

  “You understand, Vova, they are looking for me?”

  “Who?”

  “Bratva.”

  He smiled, showing his hodgepodge of metal Russian and gold American dental work, with some fake white teeth and a few real ones, stained the color of smoke and tea. “Let them look. One trouble they have with us old-timers from the Soviet days? We’ve already been tortured by the best. I learned how to lie in Siberia.” Then he pulled out a key. “You need a place to stay too, Lenushka?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Thank you but not tonight. I’m going to Joe’s.”

  “Ha! The one who’s not your boyfriend?”

  Yelena shrugged. “He’s a friend. Anyway, his grandmother is there too.”

  “All together in one apartment? Like back in Moscow! What kind of Russian girl are you? Can’t you find a rich American with a good job?”

  “He has a job,” Yelena told him.

  “What job?”

  She grinned. “He throws drunks out of a strip club.”

  “What?” Vova shouted. “And he doesn’t even drink!” He laughed so hard the cigarette fell out of his mouth and dropped like a falling star to the beach.

  Donna ordered a round. By the time her mom got home from AC, ahead by thirty bucks after eight hours of work but happy so whatever, and they got Larissa to go back to bed, and then Donna got downtown to the, of course, roaring gay bar, Andy and Blaze had had a few. Donna fetched them refills and a beer for herself.

  “Okay, so spill it,” Andy said.

  “Let her at least taste her beer first,” Blaze put in, calming Andy with a steady hand and leaning back in her chair. “Then spill it.”

  “What is this,” Donna asked, “good cop, drunk cop?”

  Blaze shrugged. “You left for your dinner date at seven P.M. and came home, according to witnesses, at seven A.M. The evidence speaks for itself.”

  “Fine. I got laid,” Donna said, toasting them and then taking a long drink. “About time too.”

  “Hallelujah,” Andy said. “My husband is a genius. He’s definitely getting laid tonight too.”

  “How was it?” Blaze asked, clinking bottles with her.

  “Nice.”

  “Uh-oh,” Blaze said. “Nice isn’t good.”

  “Nice sucks,” Andy said.

  “No. Nice is fine,” Donna said. “It’s nice.”

  “What was wrong?” Andy asked. “Too fast? He was probably overeager.”

  “No . . . no . . . I mean he was eager all right . . .”

  “Too small, right?” Blaze asked with a knowing nod.

  “Now why would you say that?” Andy asked her. “You don’t even like dick.”

  “No but if I did I’d sure want a lot of it.”

  “Well I can’t argue there,” Andy said and they toasted again.

  Donna laughed and shook her head. “I’m glad you two agree. Just leave me out of it.”

  “Okay, let’s rewind. How was dinner?”

  So Donna told them the story, the lovely dinner, the warm vibes, the after-dessert walk, the perfect first kiss, and then the drunken asshole and the fight, followed swiftly by Agent Zamora’s intervention and arrest.

  “Well that explains it,” Andy said. “You threw his game off. Civilians aren’t used to seeing that shit.”

  “You emasculated him,” Blaze said. “You practically cut his balls off.”

  “I had no choice,” Donna said. “That drunk was about to cut something off for real. And for the record his balls were very much intact. Actually . . .” She shrugged. “The whole thing turned him on.”

  Andy nodded. “I’ve seen you kicking guys’ asses and it is pretty hot.”

  “Works for me,” Blaze agreed. “She’s great in a bar brawl.”

  “So you went back to his place . . .” he prompted.

  “And everything was fine. More than fine. Terrific.”

  “He like tore your clothes off and . . .” Blaze suggested.

  “What? No. Jesus. He, you know . . .”

  “What?” Blaze asked, clearly a little buzzed now.

  “He went downtown, right?” Andy said. Donna nodded and he frowned at Blaze. “What kind of dyke are you anyway?”

  Blaze shrugged. “So okay, he’s a man who knows his place. So far so good.”

  Donna sighed. “Fine. So yeah that was great. And then when we were, you know . . .”

  “Fucking?” Andy suggested.

  “Right, thank you Andy, when we were fucking, that was great too, but he kept talking about seeing me take down that dude, how powerful it was and all that.”

  “Uh-oh,” Blaze said.

  “And then after,” Donna said, plunging ahead, relieved now that she was getting it all out there, “he asked if I’d like, reenact that with him, like role-play arresting him, and even asked me to take out my gun, you know, without the clip, and . . .”

  “Fuck him with it?” Blaze suggested.

  “Make him suck it.”

  “I knew it.” Blaze slapped the table. “The guy’s a bottom.”

  “Total bottom,” Andy said, shaking his head. “I should have known. Typical Ari. When he said the guy liked strong women I thought that meant he liked Meryl Streep movies. Not shrimping.”

  “What’s shrimping?” Donna asked.

  “Ask him and see,” Blaze said. “But finish the story first. What did you do?”

  “I said I was tired and we went to sleep. Then as soon as it was light I snuck out.”

  “Typical top.” Blaze shrugged. “So what’s the problem? Sounds like a pretty good date.”

  “I didn’t say problem,” Donna phumphered. “I just. I mean, no judgment. It’s just not my thing.”

  “You’re not looking for a bottom bitch,” Andy said.

  Donna wrinkled her nose. “Not specifically, no.”

  Andy nodded. “Okay, fine, you want a top. That figures.”

  “Sure,” Blaze agreed. “Someone who makes you kneel and suck the gun.”

  “No.” Donna set her beer down with a thud, like a gavel. “I mean, are those the only choices?”

  “Then what do you want?” Andy waved beseechingly.

  “I want an equal! I want passion and love! And great sex! With a partner!”

  Andy and Blaze looked at each other. Andy shrugged.

  “Straight girls . . .” he said.

  “Don’t get me started,” Blaze told him.

  It took a couple more beers and an order each of calamari and fried mozzarella sticks before, having finally exhausted the topic of Donna’s sex life, Andy remembered the call.

  “Oh right, I almost forgot,” he said, when the subject of Monday being the next morning came up, “I got a call from the NYPD. Fusco. He’s Major Case Squad.”

  “I know the name, sort of,” Donna said. “He was on that last thing, the smugglers.”

  “Exactly. He still is, sort of. He has some evidence, a sample of this new heroin going around and he wants our lab to test it. He’s hypothesizing that it’s from the same supplier as your Zahir.”

  “What?” Donna sat up and focused. “Really? What did you say?”

  “I said send it over. I asked the lab to compare it to the dope you so bravely obtained last time. And Janet said she’ll run it tomorrow.”

  “And you waited till now to tell me this? This is major news. This is a case breaking wide open. Possibly. Maybe.”

  Andy smiled. “Honey, cases possibly maybe break open all the time. Now you getting laid, that is major news.”

  When Joe got back to the apartment, his grandmother was in her chair, counting her winnings.

  “Joey!” she beamed at him. “I knew this was going to be a lucky day.”

  He kissed her and sat on the couch. “How’d you do in AC?”

  “How do you think?” She fanned out her money. “How about you?”

  “Crapped out,” he said. “Let’s not talk about it.”

  “Fine.”

  “But I did
want to tell you. You remember Yelena?”

  “The Russian.”

  “She needs a place to stay.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. She will be here any minute. Sorry.”

  “What sorry? I’ve always encouraged you to bring home friends.”

  “I get the feeling you maybe don’t like this friend so much.”

  “I didn’t like that hyper one from third grade, what was his name?”

  “Danny.”

  “Who broke the lamp. Melinda is very nice.”

  “Yelena.”

  “I’m just not sure I like how you end up when you play with her.”

  Joe smiled. “Fair enough. Though I remember you drank your share of that vodka. But she’s not coming over to play. That’s what I have to tell you. She’s on the run.”

  “Law?”

  “Maybe. And Russian mafia. She’s out getting guns and a new passport now. But it could get dangerous.”

  Gladys frowned at her grandson. She folded the money and tucked it into her bra. “Then what are we talking about? Of course she can stay.”

  17

  “IT’S A MATCH.”

  Donna and Andy were in the lab, which was down the corridor from her cramped little tip-line office, getting the results on the heroin sample from Janet, the forensic scientist.

  “It’s the same supplier?” Donna asked, feeling the tingle of excitement pass up her spine: her hunch was becoming a legit case. “It’s Zahir?”

  “Give me a break,” Janet said. “I’m good but I’m not that good. I can’t tell you the name of who bagged it up. It’s from the same region. SWA.”

  “Southwest Asia.”

  “Right. The chemical composition is completely different from samples that come from, say, Mexico or South America. I can even say it probably came from the same country. Afghanistan. One big difference, though. That original sample, from the crime scene? That was like ninety-nine point nine percent pure. This is street ready.” She peered through her glasses at the report on her table. “Contains lactose and cornstarch.” She shrugged. “But it’s still really good. Just about fifty percent pure. If good is the word I want.” She pulled her vape pen from a pocket of her lab coat and peeked down the hall before taking a hit and blowing it at the air vent.

  “Good dope means a lot of junkies dying out there,” Donna said.

  “Dying happy,” Andy added.

  “Cynic,” Donna told him, then to Janet: “You, however, are better than good. You’re the best. Lunch is on me.”

  “K-town?” she asked. “Turntable Chicken Jazz?” Janet was Korean-American and while she usually ate every day in the choose-your-own-salad place, she’d been craving spicy fried chicken. She was also a serious jazz nerd.

  “I was thinking of the choose-your-own-salad place, to be honest,” Donna told her.

  “That chicken is really good,” Andy noted. “And I have the car.”

  “Come on, vinyl and spicy chicken, it’s like two of my biggest fetishes in one,” Janet said.

  “Fine,” Donna said. “Now I’m craving it too. Okay, here’s the plan. I pay. You order,” she told Janet. “You drive,” she told Andy. “And if we run late, we use the siren.”

  But they never made it out to lunch at all that day because when Donna stopped by her office to grab her bag, there was a message from Zahir.

  If you’re looking for a nice spot to grab lunch and catch up with an old friend, not many would choose a strip club, but it suited Gio and Joe: it was quiet (they didn’t open till six when the after-work crowd started drifting in), private (it was Gio’s place), and oddly cozy without the noise and sweat and lust in the air; a cool, dark place for two old pals to split two heroes—one sausage and broccoli rabe, one prosciutto and mozzarella—washed down with Manhattan Special Coffee Soda. Gio had picked the order up on the way.

  “So you think this Wildwater corporation is behind it? Why?”

  Joe shrugged. “Why not? Soldiers smuggled dope back from Vietnam. So in our new corporate age, it’s the contractors. Even the crime is outsourced.”

  “Sure. My dad knew some of those soldiers. From Frank Lucas’s crew. But you’re saying the top people in the corporation are in on it.”

  “I’m not saying anything yet. But someone in that office was connected to Zahir. Someone who also just happened to have a combat-ready squad and an attack chopper to send after us. That’s no grunt with a balloon full of dope up his ass.”

  “Okay, but we still don’t know how they get the shit into the country,” Gio said. “Or who is moving it for them here. Or why a bunch of American businessmen, corrupt or not, would be financing terrorists. What I do know is what’s up our own ass. Our heads.”

  “You’re right,” Joe said. “Sorry, Gio. If you want someone else to handle it . . .”

  “Who the fuck else is there?” Gio waved it off. Then he sat back in the booth and took a breath. “No. I’m sorry. I wasn’t mad at you. It’s just . . . let’s just say, I’m pretty comfortable outside the law. Sex, drugs, gambling, corruption, even violence when necessary . . . that’s my . . . what’s the word?”

  “Career?”

  “Métier is the word I was looking for but okay, fine. My meat. I admit it. But this other shit: religion, politics, nationalism, or whatever. People blowing up each other’s children. That I have no fucking idea what to do with.” He smiled sheepishly. “Except send you. Which isn’t fair. So I’m sorry.”

  Joe nodded once and drank his soda. Gio took a breath and went on: “Also.” He shrugged. “I guess things have been a little tense at home too. You know, since Paul left us.”

  “A little?”

  “A lot.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I mean, we’re working on it, Carol and me. Trying . . . things. But it’s like . . .” He held up two sandwich halves, one sausage, one prosciutto. “My life had these two sides, dark and light. And now they’re getting mixed up.”

  Joe grinned at the sandwiches. “But they’re both still pork.”

  Gio laughed. “Well I don’t have a vegan side, I admit.”

  “Actually,” Joe said. “I do know what you mean. That trip kicked my dark shit up too. It ain’t easy pushing it back down.”

  “I guess that’s also my fault. And I’m sorry about the kid Hamid. But at least you’re back, safe, in the light.” He waved his sandwich at the gloomy bar where topless women would soon be laboring for horny stiffs. “Then again, there are those who would say our light side is pretty dark too.”

  “I guess it’s relative. Different cuts of pork,” Joe said and went back to his lunch. Gio’s phone rang. He set his food down and wiped his mouth and hands with a napkin.

  “It’s my cop,” he said, and answered. “Yeah? Interesting. Thanks.” He shut the phone. “So . . . that new brand of dope on the scene? The one undercutting Maria and the rest?”

  “Yeah?” Joe asked.

  Gio reached for his sandwich. “Fusco had the FBI test a sample and it matches the shit you took off of that smuggler you whacked. So, Zahir or Wildwater or whoever the fuck they are, one thing we do know?” He took a big bite of sausage and bitter greens and chewed. “They’re here.”

  18

  WILDWATER’S CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS WERE in Midtown, in a glass and steel tower that was somehow both grandiose and anonymous, like a red carpet full of supposed celebrities you’ve never heard of. Robert Richards, the founder and CEO, was holding a press conference that day, and since it was open to the public, Joe decided this was as good a place as any to begin. Dressed like a tourist, in cargo shorts, Yankees cap, sunglasses, and a T-shirt that said “NYC Fuhgeddaboutit,” and with a camera slung around his neck, he passed through a metal detector, then entered the building’s giant atrium, where chairs and a small stage had been set up. The floor was of the same textured stone as the walls, which soared above them. Beyond a row of desks, elevators and escalators rose. There were cameras, lights, and a fa
ir-sized crowd comprising bored reporters, enthusiastic employees, and a mix of people interested in politics and business and those just looking for an air-conditioned place to sit and eat lunch. Joe took a seat in back.

  On his chair, on every chair, was a brochure with a picture of Bob Richards climbing aboard a helicopter much like the one Joe had shot down. He was giving the camera a thumbs-up, his coiffure suspiciously blond and still in the wind. It also contained a bio—Harvard business school, investment banks and hedge funds, then NSA for fifteen years—before he branched out into the war-biz to build an empire of his own. The following pages showed Wildwater’s vast operations around the world, though the office in Kandahar was overlooked. Then music played over the loudspeakers, a screen lowered over the back of the stage, and they ran a short movie that showed everything Joe had just read in the brochure. Next the host was introduced, a shill who would ply Richards with planned questions, and Joe didn’t bother to catch his name. He introduced Richards, giving a more personal, warm version of the same bio yet again. By the time the great man stepped on stage, Joe was ready to nod off from boredom. It was about five minutes into the “conversation” that his ears finally perked up.

  “Look, government has its function but that is being redefined in our time. You want a package to get there quick? Do you mail it? No way. You send it via FedEx or UPS. Funny things is, in their own way, these are paramilitary-style operations, with their attitude toward logistics and chain-of-command. They learned from the military. If you want technological innovation, do you go to the government or to Apple? If you want to buy something and get it on time at the best price? Amazon. Again and again, in every sector, we’ve proven that professionals are the way to go. Medicine. Communications. Even space exploration. Everything except the most important thing. Security.”

  “Well that’s an interesting point, Bob,” the interviewer opined, lamely trying to come off as if he hadn’t heard it yet. “But can you explain just what you mean?”

  “It’s simple, Jim. Today we have a vast, bloated, inefficient military, with politicians at the top, who are amateurs after all, career bureaucrats in the middle management, and volunteer soldiers on the front lines. Now, no one honors those troops more than I do.”