by Andy Maslen
“Come on,” Kasym said. “Let’s get what we came for and get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter 10
Kasym and Elsbeta crossed the street, and Kasym pressed a grimy button next to a steel-shuttered door between a strip club and a check-cashing joint. They waited for half a minute, looking around, before the metallic sound of bolts scraping back focused their attention on the door again. It opened a crack, and a single pale blue eye was visible in the slit of street light.
“Hello, Ferdy,” Kasym said.
“Oh, it’s you,” a gravelly voice said.
The door was pushed to again, then it opened inwards. Kasym and Elsbeta stepped inside the gloomy hallway while the stocky occupant slammed and bolted the door. They followed him down the passageway and out into a concrete yard surrounded on three sides by ramshackle sheds roofed with corrugated iron. Piles of tyres framed a double-width, steel-gated exit like sentries. Taking up most of the space in the yard was a delivery truck, cab for three up front, panelled loadspace behind. It was hard to tell the exact colour in the yellow glow from the sodium street lamp outside the gate, but if pressed, Kasym would have said shit brown.
Kasym pulled a wad of cash from the inside pocket of his jacket, then Elsbeta tugged on his sleeve and pointed at a shadowy recess under the rippled metal roofing. A low, sinuous shape shrouded in thin grey plastic seemed to be hunkering down amongst the welding rigs, tool trolleys and oil cans.
“What’s that?” she asked Ferdy.
“That? Nothing. An old wreck, that’s all. Must send it to the scrap heap one of these days. It’s cluttering up the yard. I need the space.”
Perhaps realising he was saying too much, he zipped his lip.
“Oh, yeah?” she said. “You cover all your wrecks with plastic? Can I have a look?”
Kasym caught the reluctance in the guy’s stance and the way he kept easing over to block Elsbeta’s view.
“Come on, Ferdy,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of time to inspect the truck and give you your money. Why don’t you show us what you’re hiding under the wrapping paper?”
The man sighed, defeated. “OK, OK. We’re taking care of it for a guy who owns a couple of the nightclubs here. Yuri Volkov. Big, big wheel in the Russian Mafia, you know? But just a quick look, OK? This guy? He’s like my best customer. No offence, Kasym, just business, you know?”
“Sure, we know, don’t we Elsbeta? Just business. Everything’s just business nowadays. We understand that.” He gave Ferdy a broad grin, revealing those stained teeth again.
Ferdinand Tarvas was known throughout Tallinn. Anyone who stood close to either side of the line dividing law-abiding Estonians from those who’d relieve them of a portion of their wealth would know him as “Ferdy Motors”. He took hold of the front edge of the shimmering plastic sheet and slowly, reverently, drew it back.
“1974 Porsche 911 2.7 RS,” he said. “Martini Racing colours, all matching numbers. It’s a classic. Only one in the Baltic States. Hell, only one in Europe full stop, as far as I know.”
Elsbeta ran her fingertips along the blue, red and black stripes painted on the car’s silver bonnet and flanks.
“Is it worth much?” she said.
Ferdy became loquacious, always happier talking about metal than people. Never inquiring too deeply into his customers’ sources of finance, just their ability to pay.
“Worth much? Car like this? You’re talking a million euros, easy. See, they make replicas now, just rebody an eighties car, tune up the engine a little, give it the correct paint, but this little beauty’s an original. Story is my client got it from . . .”
The squeal of metal on metal stopped him mid-sentence.
“No, no! What the fuck? Stop doing that! Oh, Jesus and all the saints, you crazy fucking bitch!”
Elsbeta stopped walking midway from the sloped nose of the Porsche to its flaring haunches. The tip of her knife rested on the pristine paintwork, at the end of a gleaming, silver groove she’d just carved into its flank.
She closed the gap between herself and Ferdy in one quick movement, bringing the point of her blade to within a centimetre of his left eye.
“Yes. You are right. I am one crazy fucking bitch. And your Russian,” she spat out this last word, “client just sent six men to kill me and Kasym here. But guess what? I’m breathing. Kasym, he’s breathing. The goons back there? Not breathing. Now, I was in the middle of something. Can I continue?”
“Sure, OK, I mean, whatever, but Yuri, he loves this car, so you know, it’s going to be, I mean, are you sure you want this because he’s done some very bad things to people over the years.”
She pulled back a step, lowered the blade, looked him in the eye.
“Ooh, bad things. I’m scared, OK, I get it. Big, bad Russian gangster. Let him come after us. I would really, really like that.”
She turned away from him and, as Kasym and Ferdy looked on, reared back then kicked out with her right foot. Her heel, reinforced with a steel band around the back, punched into the thin metal of the Porsche’s door, leaving a crumpled depression marked with the boot’s tread pattern. She looked around her, caught a glimpse of something hanging from a hook on the wall of one of the sheds and went over to lift it down.
She swung the length of heavy chain experimentally, then whirled it around her head and brought it down with a scraping clang on the car’s roof.
Ferdy Motors actually cried out at this and started forward, but Kasym laid a restraining hand on his arm. He wished Elsbeta hadn’t started in on the car. It would raise their profile even more than the fight just had. A man like Volkov might be prepared to write off the loss of six goons as a cost of doing business, but those mafia and their status symbols, well, that was a matter of personal pride.
“Better let her finish it,” Kasym said, sighing. “You don’t want to get between Elsbeta and, well, whatever Elsbeta wants, basically.” Because she has some anger issues that I, for one, don’t want go anywhere near.
Round went the chain and down it smacked again, cracking the windscreen, leaving it starred and opaque. She dragged it down the bonnet, scarring it with herringbone furrows of steel and undercoat that showed through the white, red and blue paintjob like hard-frozen soil through winter frost.
Then, as if she’d simply become bored by the vandalism, Elsbeta slung the chain over the roof and walk back over to Kasym and Ferdy, breathing heavily and smiling broadly, her eyes glittering.
“I hope your client has insurance. Or you do,” she said, brushing her hands together.
Ferdy had temporarily lost the power of speech. He was no doubt wondering which option was best – quitting Tallinn immediately with whatever liquid assets he could scrape together into a bag, or toughing it out with Yuri Volkov. Kasym guessed he’d be on a ferry by midnight.
He grabbed the man by the lapels, pushed his face into the other man’s.
“Looks like you’re going to be needing all the cash you can lay your hands on. I’ve got three thousand euros for you right here, for the truck, remember?”
“Oh, Jesus, Kasym, OK, the truck, yeah, three thousand. My God. I’m dead, you know that?”
“I do know that. And if I learn that you've told Yuri I bought the truck, you will wish you were dead.”
Ferdy’s lower jaw was trembling and for a moment, Kasym thought the guy was going to start crying. No spine, these Estonians. Good to go when the sun was shining on them, but you wouldn’t want them at your back when the storm clouds gathered, that’s for sure. He pulled the envelope full of cash and pressed it into Ferdy’s clammy palm, folded his fingers around the packet as if otherwise it might flop out of the man’s limp grip.
“Keys?”
Ferdy looked at him blankly.
“For the truck. Where are they?”
“Oh, OK, yeah. They’re in the ignition.” Ferdy flopped his hand out in a half-hearted salesman’s welcome wave for the new owner of the vehicle he’d just shifted.
> “Good. Thanks, Ferdy. See you around some time. Come on, Elsbeta, you drive.”
They swung themselves up into the cab, which was surprisingly clean for one of Ferdy’s knocked-off rides. Even had a pine air freshener hanging from an air vent control knob on the dashboard.
Elsbeta twisted the key in the ignition, and the truck’s asthmatic diesel motor coughed and wheezed into life, releasing a belch of oily grey smoke from the exhaust pipes. Kasym looked down at Ferdy and then pointed at the yard gates, mouthing the word, “open”. Ferdy slouched over to a control panel set into a wall and listlessly poked a green button. With a rattle and a clank, the doors shuddered then slid back on greased rails. As soon as the gap between them was wide enough, Elsbeta engaged first gear and carefully, as always, manoeuvred the truck out of Ferdy’s yard and onto the back street beyond.
*
The following day, Ferdy stood, trembling, in front of his client. The man facing him was fifty-seven, but through a careful regime of diet and exercise he had maintained the physique of a man thirty years his junior. He was wearing silver satin shorts, supple, white leather boots, their high tops laced tight around his ankles and calves, and blue boxing gloves. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead, and his muscular torso was slick with it. His hair was white and cut short; it stood up in spikes. He had stepped down from the ring to address Ferdy face to face. Behind him, a burly trainer with a towel draped across his massive bull-like shoulders tended to a bleeding boxer, whose nose now pointed in two different directions at once.
“What did you want, Ferdy? You know I don’t like to interrupt my workouts.”
Instead of speaking, Ferdy began to cry. Tears dribbled along the creases etched deep into his cheeks, lined prematurely through years of smoking cheap, high-tar cigarettes. One of the two men flanking him spoke in his place.
“He says he’s got some bad news, Yuri. Wouldn’t tell us. Said he had to deliver it to you in person.”
“So what is it my friend?” Volkov said, laying a gloved hand on the other man’s shoulder. “What was so important that you stopped my exercising and wouldn’t talk to Adnan or Mikhail?” He bopped him lightly on the nose with the other glove. “Come on, man, better spit it out now you’re here.”
“Jesus, Yuri, it’s your Porsche. It wasn’t my fault. I thought they were just going to pay for a truck I found for them and go. But the woman, she’s crazy. I was going to try to stop her but he, he said to let her do it or it’d be the worse for me. Said he’d kill me.”
Yuri Volkov frowned at the mention of his car. One of the perks of his business activities in Tallinn was that he could afford the finer things, from the Patek Philippe watch currently nestling on a folded blue towel on a nearby bench, to the Porsche 2.7 RS he’d taken in payment for a debt from a competitor back in Moscow.
He moved his face closer until he could smell the stink of fear coming off Ferdy Motors in waves.
“What happened to the Porsche? Who was the woman? And who,” he prodded him, harder this time, on the end of his bulbous nose, “was the man with her?”
Ferdy motors drew in a deep ragged breath. “The car is damaged. Badly. Bodywork. Glass. It’s going to take a lot of work. The woman, Jesus, she was strong. Hoisted a length of Grade 40 galvanised steel chain like it was string. She’s called Elsbeta. I don’t know her surname. The man is called . . .”
“Kasym Drezna.”
“Yes, but how did you know?”
Volkov grinned, a mirthless expression that showed neat, even, white teeth. “The woman, blonde, yes? Face her mother wouldn’t kiss?”
Ferdy nodded.
“Her name is Elsbeta Daspireva,” Volkov continued. “We’ve come across her before. She left five of my guys dead in the street right outside your workshop, I’m surprised you didn’t slip in the blood on your way here. She works with Drezna. She’s his Number Two. That Chechen scumbag has been throwing his weight around all over my operating territories these last few years. I never dreamed he’d have the balls to bring it to me in this way.”
“That’s right!” Ferdy said, his hunched shoulders dropping and his face regaining a little colour in the cheeks. “Those Chechens have been muscling in on legitimate businesses in Tallinn big time. They forced me to watch, Yuri. What could I do?”
Volkov sighed. “Take your clothes off.”
“What?” Ferdy’s eyes widened and deep ridges appeared in his forehead as his eyebrows shot up to his hairline.
“I said, take your clothes off. Then put some shorts on,” he gestured with a big bunched leather fist at a rack of spare boxing gear in a corner. “When you’ve done that, join me up there.” This time Volkov pointed to the ring, with its bloodstained canvas floor.
The two minders, Adnan and Mikhail, who’d accompanied Ferdy into the gym looked at each other and grinned.
A few minutes later, a trembling Ferdy Motors climbed awkwardly through the ropes and stood cringing in a pair of borrowed red satin boxing shorts, his gloved hands dangling by his sides. Volkov faced him, light on the balls of his feet, hands punching the flat faces of his gloves together with a smack.
“It wasn’t my fault, Yuri,” Ferdy said. “She’d have knifed me. Or he would. They’re Chechens, you said so yourself. You know what those people are like.”
Volkov looked sad, his mouth turned down and his eyes dull. “I do. And I agree. It wasn’t your fault. But the car was in your care. I trusted you to look after it for me. Now it’s damaged. You see, I have a reputation in Tallinn to maintain. What will everyone think if the word got out? ‘Ferdy Motors let some crazy Chechen bitch smash up Yuri Volkov’s car and all he got was a reprimand.’ That, my friend, would not be good for business. So, we’ll fight, yes? Settle this like men. Three rounds, three minutes each. Adnan can ring the bell. Honour satisfied one way or another.”
The taller of the two minders consulted his watch and rang the bell.
Volkov danced towards Ferdy on the balls of his feet. As if still expecting the bout to be called off, Ferdy just stood there, flat-footed, his hands dangling by his sides, watching as Volkov drew closer. Two quick jabs from Volkov’s left glove snapped Ferdy’s head back on his neck and he staggered to maintain his balance. Volkov came at him again. More jabs. Then, as Ferdy appeared to grasp the situation properly for the first time and raise his gloves, Volkov smashed a hard right into his nose. The snap was audible, and Volkov noted with approval the flinches from Adnan and Mikhail. Blood running freely from the cut on the bridge of his nose, and out of his rapidly clogging nostrils, Ferdy attempted to back away, his eyes wide and pleading, but Volkov was out to make a point, and to work off some of the anger he felt at knowing his prized racing Porsche had been defiled by that Chechen cunt. Time to deal with her later, but for now, Ferdy needed to pay his debt.
“Come on, Ferdy,” he called across the ring. “You’ll never land a blow if you cower on the ropes the whole time.”
Ferdy had clearly given up any thoughts of landing a blow. He stayed back, gloves up and covering his rapidly swelling face. Volkov skipped over to him and began belabouring him in his soft midsection, driving the wind out of him. As the pounding blows stole his breath, Ferdy dropped his guard. Volkov took a half-step back and then launched a vicious, driving uppercut that connected with the point of the younger man’s jaw. Without a gumshield to clamp his jaws on, Ferdy’s mouth was a dangerous place, full of sharp, pointed and grinding surfaces. The blow drove his incisors together through the tip of his tongue; the triangular gobbet of greyish-pink flesh flopped down onto the canvas. Volkov delivered a swinging roundhouse punch catching his opponent as he sagged to his knees; it landed on Ferdy’s left temple, knocking him out.
“Clean that up,” Volkov barked to Adnan and Mikhail, then went off to take a hot shower. The Chechens would pay dearly for messing with Yuri Volkov.
Chapter 11
In a building on a business park near Reading, in England, two days after Ferdy’s bout with Vo
lkov, a man dressed in a handmade suit stood looking out of a full-height plate glass window. As CEO, he had a beautiful office on the top floor. He stared down at the manicured gardens and artfully meandering gravel paths that snaked around a manmade lake. In his hand, he cradled a plain water glass half-full of whisky. His hand was shaking, causing the surface of the brown liquid to ripple and shimmer. He kept running his hand through his prematurely greying hair. He thought back to the call he’d taken two days earlier. How it had started this nightmare.
The trip to Stockholm was supposed to be a bonding trip for mother and daughter while Chloe was deciding which job offer to accept after university. She was beyond bright. A starred double first in computer science and electronic engineering. Recruited while still an undergraduate onto her professor’s post-graduate artificial intelligence research group. A Masters in quantum computing at twenty-five. Now she had management consultancies, foreign universities, government departments and global electronics companies fighting each other to hire her. Then came the phone call at the weekend. He’d been at his tennis club. Knocking up. Made his excuses, ignoring the frowns and eye-rolling of his partners. They knew his job was demanding and made allowances on account of his stunning serve.
A man’s voice had come on the line. Remarkably clear signal, he’d thought at the time. His voice was rough, with an East European accent, or maybe Russian; he spoke English well. The words were still fresh in his mind. He replayed them now.
“Mr Bryant. I admire your wife greatly. She has great courage. And your daughter, too. Such a bright young woman. Such lovely long fingers.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is not important to you. My associates and I have invited your wife and your daughter to stay with us for a while. Under our protection, you might say. A package is on its way to you that will confirm my account.”
