by John Charles
Viktor entered the creaky lift and pressed the fourth floor button. The light had burnt out on it. Two… three… four… Ding. The bulky door slowly revealed an empty hallway. What a piece of shit this building is, he thought.
Viktor made his way down the hallway while he fumbled for the key. He was tired and wanted off of his feet. He slipped the key into the lock and closed the door behind him. The drapes were drawn shut and the apartment was dark and quiet, but Viktor’s senses were already in full alert. He was not alone. Mistake one.
He stood still, his mind working out how many men were in the apartment with him. The average person would just see the outlines of furniture, but Viktor had learned a lot from his brother, including one important rule: never walk blindly into a room. The other rule Sergei had taught him was to always keep your hand on your weapon, especially if you’re injured. His gun was still tucked in the back of his pants. He might as well have left it in the car. Mistake two.
The third rule, and this one was the most important of them all: never ever underestimate your enemy—he is everywhere. Mistake three.
Sergei told him that one mistake was survivable. Two mistakes required that all odds be on your side for survival. With three mistakes, Sergei said, comes trouble. He could not tell Viktor what to do with three mistakes because he himself never ever let it get past two.
A lamp in the living room flickered on. Sitting in a chair next to it was Ivan Renko. There were six other men spread out about the apartment, each with a gun trained on Viktor.
“I sent two men over here to check on Orlov and did not hear back. Now I know why. They are lying in your tub. How long does the lime mask the smell?”
“Three, four days at the most.”
“And then what?”
“Another location must be found.”
“So you found a location for Orlov then?”
“I did.”
Ivan reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“No.”
He lit the cigarette with a match and inhaled deeply, holding it for a beat, and then released it through his mouth and nose. “You know why we are here, yes?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, but I like for people to understand why I am visiting them.” Ivan then pulled out a tranquilizer gun and shot Viktor in the thigh. He was out in seconds.
Viktor awoke sometime later to find himself stripped of all his clothing and tied to a chair in the bedroom. The door was closed and the bed had been overturned and leaned up against the window. In front of him was a metal tray on a stand. On top were various tools and instruments, even a blowtorch.
“You know who you are dealing with, yes?” Viktor said.
“Is that fear I sense in your raised voice?” Ivan responded.
Viktor spat. “Fear? It is you who will experience fear like none other.”
“I highly doubt that, Viktor. Your reign has come to an end.”
One of Ivan’s men walked over to the tray and picked up a small pair of pliers. Another grabbed Viktor’s hand and pinned it against the arm of the chair.
“Oh, and Viktor, feel free to scream as loud as you want. The pain will be unbearable and I don’t want you to hold back. The other apartments around us… The inhabitants have been cleared. Noise will not be an issue.”
“This will not solve your problems. It will only bring on more.”
“Be that as it may, no one comes into my territory unannounced and does what they please—not even you…the notorious Ghostface.”
Ivan and his men laughed. “Who would have thought it would be this easy to take down the feared Ghostface,” he continued. “You are just a man built out of flesh and blood like us.”
You stupid men, if I were the real Ghostface, you would not be laughing.
Then from out of the shadows behind the men, Viktor saw movement. Making her way to the front was the blond woman who helped him. While Elana had wanted to slice his neck, she knew her brother Ivan could do worse, much worse. She had notified him immediately, but Ivan knew Viktor had no place to go but back to Orlov’s apartment. He had figured everything out. He wanted Viktor to be aware of what he would do to him. Though it sickened Elana to continue to care for this bastard, she knew what her brother had in mind would give her the satisfaction she craved, so she nursed and fed him as Ivan instructed.
A smile formed on her face. Finally, justice for Tatiana.
One of the men used the pliers to grip the tip of Viktor’s middle finger.
“Wait,” said the man holding Viktor’s hand. He walked over to a bag and pulled out a large contraption. “Nail gun.” He placed the tip against Viktor’s hand and shot three-inch steel nails through his hand in four places to secure it to the wooden chair. Viktor let out yell each time a nail punctured sinew and bone.
“Okay, now we’re ready.”
A few days later, a tip to the police sent them to apartment 401. The stench from the bathroom overwhelmed the first responders. In the bedroom, they found a lump that at first glance might not have been recognized as being human. A before-and-after photo left next to the chair told the complete story and confirmed the decaying mass of human tissue had been that of Viktor Kazapov.
The team left everything as they had found it until Sokolov could get to the scene. He wanted to be able to see that Viktor was dead with his own eyes.
Sokolov’s initial assessment was that Viktor had been tortured for hours. His death was a painful one. Sokolov knew immediately that the Russians were behind the killing; the torture was typical of what he had seen in the past with enemies, except this was worse.
All he could think was, Which one was dead? Who was sitting in front of him?—Viktor or Ghostface? He had yet to share his twin theory with others, wanting to spend more time with it. Sokolov had a strong hunch though. Either way, it would be upsetting to many to know that there might be two of them.
107
About two months after they found Viktor’s body, things seemed to return back to normal. For a few weeks after Viktor was discovered, I kept in close touch with Detective Sokolov. I called him at least twice a week trying to find out if the twin theory was closer to being proven true and whether any new Ghostface information had surfaced. I was still edgy, considering everything that had happened.
Sokolov said there was no hard evidence to go either way—just a strong suspicion. Even his partner, Kyle Kang, seemed to agree. But there wasn’t much they could do now that Viktor was dead and there were no imminent threats on the horizon.
The head of the Russian Mafiya was still in protective custody and no attempt had been made on his life, so that was a good thing. With Viktor gone, whoever was responsible for the assassinations in Moscow might have either gone underground or stopped completely, especially if Viktor had hired that person. That would completely debunk our twin theory.
Time always helps one forget, and that’s what happened with the Viktor/Ghostface ordeal. I thought less and less about it as the days went by without any mortal danger. I can’t say for sure if Tav had completely gotten over it, though he appeared normal on the outside. But I know he’ll never forget and this will always be a source of contention between us. The good news is Tav and Ralphie are still living with me at The Vic. I never asked them to leave and they never bothered packing. It worked.
I’m still having weekly luncheons with Ivan Renko. It’s unusual; my gig with them should have ended long ago. Three months is always the deal, but Ivan asked that I consult longer since they tended to move slower in the decision making than we all had anticipated. He felt there was more that the gang could learn.
Ivan never discussed Viktor with me. I didn’t know for sure, but I had a feeling he was responsible for what happened to him. The police have come up empty handed in their investigation since then, and the case seemed to be collecting dust. Probably best for everyone involved.
Anyway, thanks to Ivan’s extensi
on, I’m still a heavy-hitter with Teleco. Had he ended my consultation when he should have, I’m not so sure I would still be taking the elevator up to the twelfth floor. Things were so crazy back then; I had no time to look for a new client. It’s not like I could just start cold-calling folks.
“Knock, knock.”
I looked up to see a statuesque blond standing in my doorway. “Are you ready for lunch?”
“Starved,” I said. “I should be ready to go in a few minutes.”
“Okay. I have to use the bathroom anyway. Be right back.”
It’s funny how relationships start. I remember meeting Izzy at a company picnic. She was Tav’s friend at the time and didn’t even know I existed. A “hi” there and a “hi” here led to IMing, and then lunches at work, and then “Swing by! We’re firing up the hot tub.” Of course it helped that Tav was also her friend and he moved in with me.
Izzy and I promised we wouldn’t rush things, even though things were going well between us. I think that might have been the problem with my past relationships. I’m taking this one slow and enjoying the ride.
Just as I grabbed my bag from underneath my desk, I sensed Izzy standing near my door. I began to tell her, “That was fast…”
Only it wasn’t Izzy; it was Harold. This time, there was no crooked smile revealing his stained teeth—just a face filled with years of hate for me.
“What do you want?”
Harold kept staring at me. His eyes never blinked. It was freaking me out. He finally revealed a manila folder and threw it on my desk. “That’s a copy,” he said.
Only then did I see a mischievous smile appear on his face. While I wasn’t exactly sure what was in the folder, I had an idea.
When Harold first showed me the newspaper article with my picture, I was filled with fear that he had figured it all out. But thanks to Izzy, I learned it was all coincidence. He had taken a vacation in Ukraine and stumbled across the paper. He had something, but it was clear he didn’t know what it was he had. It was only a matter of time though before he figured it out.
I picked up the folder. Inside were pictures of me eating lunch with Ivan Renko, of me entering and exiting their headquarters, pictures of Teleco product by the boxes being delivered to the gang by me. He even had surveillance pictures that showed nobody worked at Tsilevich Imports, the business front I had set up for the gang. There was paperwork tracing Teleco orders to this office, as well as the payments from the bank account connected to the business. While Harold hadn’t found everything there was to find, he had figured out what I was doing. I was screwed.
“I win,” he said.
I was in complete shock. I didn’t know what to say. Sure I knew I was taking a risk that his pea brain wasn’t smart enough to figure this out, but man… I didn’t think it would happen this fast if it did at all.
I reached down near my bag and pulled out my lower desk drawer. I threw an envelope on my desk, near Harold. “That’s a copy,” I said.
Thank God for Elana Voronova.
A call to Elana confirmed that Harold had booked a trip with her. She told me she never trusted this man from the moment he set foot inside her travel agency and that she knew he was lying when he said we were friends. What made her even more suspicious of him were his actions at the first social event. The girls swarmed to him like flies to shit. She later found out he told each one of them that he was rich and that he wanted to take care of them and give them an allowance every month. He even went so far to say he would visit every three months. Elana hated when men lied to her girls. She despised men with no integrity.
The next night, she brought in two special girls. Their purpose was to stick with Harold from beginning to end and make sure they both made it up to his room that night—just the three of them, no one else.
Right about now, Harold was looking at ten pictures of him dressed up in women’s lingerie. He also wore make-up and posed for the camera in girly ways. In some pictures, he had a gag ball in his mouth. In others, an aggressive Russian woman wearing a strap-on was clearly taking him from behind. Elana was kind enough to give me copies of what she called “her insurance plan.”
Harold and I stared at each other. I took the folder and tucked it away in my bag; he took the envelope and tucked it away in his jacket. He turned around and walked out just as Izzy was coming back.
“What was Harold doing here?” she asked.
“Same thing he’s been trying to do since my first day on the job.
Darbytastic Extra
Ms. Kaminsky’s Bathroom
At the time, we were both teenage boys. We were in Tav’s room watching a porno he’d gotten from his neighbor, Scotty Hansen. While Christy was busy getting stuffed on the pool table by the mailman, I needed to use the bathroom, legitimately. The hallway toilet was broken, so I had to go use the one in Tav’s mom’s bedroom. I had never been in her bathroom before. It was big and smelled nice. A lot of pink. While I was taking a piss, I noticed something purple hanging from the shower curtain rod: Ms. Kaminsky’s panties. I immediately told myself to just finish up and ignore what was hanging above me. But I couldn’t. I kept looking. How could I not? One would have never found women’s lingerie hanging in the bathroom at my house growing up. I wasn’t even allowed to go into my sister’s room. Thank God for the Sears catalogs showing up at the house. It was my only opportunity to explore in detail what women wore.
When I finished pissing, I reached up and pulled the panties down. They were soft and silky. Lace ran along the edges of the waistband. The panty had a full cut, definitely not like the risqué ones that Sears sold to younger women. I held them up and looked at them from the front and the back. Then I peered inside to check out the cotton crotch. I never really looked at Tav’s mom as anything but Tav’s mom, but that day, she wasn’t his mom and this was about as close as I had ever gotten to a woman’s nether regions.
I brought the panties up to my nose. I just had to know what it smelled like. I took a sniff. Nothing. So I took a deeper one. It smelled like soap. This pair had been washed. But knowing that it had spent the day snuggled between her legs was plenty enough for me.
I sat down on the toilet and wrapped the soft material around myself and got to work. I closed my eyes and imagined myself helping Tav’s mom paint her house.
I would take my shirt off because it was hot. Tav’s mom would change into a white bikini to cool herself down. She would then fix me a glass of iced tea and ask me to take a break. She had a new waterbed she wanted to show me.
Pushing me from behind into her room, she would trip, causing me to spill the iced tea onto my pants. “Oh no, Darby, you must take them off and let me wash them before the stain sets in,” she would say.
Getting down on her knees, her head perfectly aligned with my crotch, she would undo my belt buckle while repeating my name over and over. Until suddenly I realized someone was actually saying “Darby” over and over.
I opened my eyes and looked up to find Ms. Kaminsky leaning against the wall by the bathroom door. There I was, sitting on her toilet with my fist pumping away, destroying her lacy delicates. But that wasn’t the worst part.
The cycle had already begun. My man juice was well on its way and was looking to end in a big finish. I couldn’t stop it. I had no control over stuff like that—I was sixteen. Staring at her, I tried to contain myself as a grunt escaped my mouth. Too late. I sounded like the elephant man cumming, “Arggheewwwhhheshaaa.” I had released the hounds right onto her unmentionables. After I finished, I looked down at the mess and then back up at Ms. Kaminsky and managed a falsetto, “Sorry.”
Tavish’s mom took a breath and then calmly told me to throw the panties into the hamper and put my pants back on. I did exactly what she said and as I walked by her with my head down, she reminded me to lock the door the next time I had to use the bathroom. She never said another word about it, nor did I.
I always thought that was cool of her. I mean, she could have freaked
out and kicked me out of the house, but she didn’t. She knew I was a curious and horny teenager that didn’t know any better—a far cry from what would have taken place at my house had Tav been busted disgracing my mother’s delicates.
With my Catholic upbringing, this would have been considered a mortal sin. Actually, everything was a mortal sin to my mother. As much as I loved my parents, they never got me the way Ms. Kaminsky did. She was open-minded. Maybe she’s where I got my gift for big ideas.
Holiday With A P.I. Excerpt
Rosarito, Mexico
The locals called the area near the foothills “dead land.” I was beginning to understand why. My hands were tied tightly behind my back with the leather strap they had used to beat me. The blood on my face had crusted under the sun and felt like caked theater makeup. I certainly did not recall auditioning for this performance. My legs were numb from the knees down, and the hot sand felt like daggers in my kneecaps. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep myself from falling over. In front of me was a shallow grave that I could make out with my one good eye; the other was swollen shut. I stared at the grave. Was this my home-to-be? Had I, Darby Stansfield, taken my consulting business too far?
I was in deep trouble—in no man’s land, as far as I was concerned. About six miles east of the small resort town of Rosarito was the village of San Patricio. There was never any reason for me to go there. I had no business to conduct, no family to visit, and nothing about the place said “vacation.” It was a town that should have died years ago but clung to life. Even the residents were reluctant to return if they ever left. So to travel farther east was out of the question for anybody, except for me.
Out here, the paved road dies off like the land. Only the skeletons of a few ranches spotted the terrain. Heat waves as far as eyes could stand to watch kept it that way. This was considered unwanted property by government and the people.
