The bouncer bent over, gasping for breath, his hands clasped to his stomach. Standing put the phone in his jacket pocket and walked out. Two men in suits were getting out of a Jaguar and Standing turned his face away as he headed for his Polo.
24
Standing checked in his rear-view mirror as he headed east along Hollywood Boulevard but there was no one following him. He pulled over to the side of the road and took out Volkov’s wallet. It was a brown Louis Vuitton with slots for half a dozen credit cards. Volkov’s driving licence was in one of the slots and Standing tapped the address into the Polo’s SatNav. The house was a twenty-minute drive away in Glendale, according to the SatNav, but traffic was heavy and it took him almost twice as long.
Volkov’s house was a single-storey modern home with a two-car garage to the side and a neatly cut lawn in front. Standing parked a hundred yards away and walked back slowly, looking for any signs that someone was watching the house. When he was sure that the house wasn’t under surveillance he went up to the front door and let himself in with Volkov’s keys.
He pulled out the Smith & Wesson as he closed the door behind him. There was a sitting room to the left and a dining area and kitchen to his right and a hallway that presumably led to the bedrooms. He stood in silence for a full minute, listening intently before moving quickly and efficiently from room to room. There was no one home and no animals. He put the gun away. Standing took out his cellphone and called the number that the bouncer had been talking to. Whoever it was didn’t answer and the call went through to voicemail. Standing left a message. ‘Call me back, suka,’ he said.
He helped himself to a beer from Volkov’s fridge and sat down at the kitchen table. He was halfway through it when his phone rang. ‘Who the fuck is this?’ barked a man with a guttural Russian accent.
‘The man who’s going to kill you if you don’t let the girl go,’ said Standing.
‘You killed Volkov?’
‘Where is the girl?’
‘I don’t have her.’
‘Who does?’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘I’m the guy who’s going to keep making your life a misery until you let her go.’
‘Where is Bobby-Ray?’
‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth. And the girl doesn’t know either. No one knows where the fuck he is, so you’re wasting your time with her. Just let her go.’
‘After what you’ve done?’
‘I didn’t start this. But I will end it, you have my word on that. I will find you and I will kill you and then I’ll ask whoever has the girl to give her to me, and if they don’t I will kill them. Except I think you’re the one who has her.’
There was silence for several seconds. ‘Fine. You can have her.’
Standing frowned. The man had capitulated far too easily.
‘You can come and collect her.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ said Standing.
‘Then choose a neutral place and we will deliver her to you.’
It was an obvious trap, but it was his only chance to get close to the mobsters. ‘The Hollywood Walk Of Fame,’ he said.
‘Are you fucking serious?’
‘In one hour. By Steve McQueen’s star.’
‘Who the fuck is Steve McQueen?’
‘You don’t know Steve McQueen? One of the biggest Hollywood stars ever. Bullitt, The Great Escape, The Getaway, The Magnificent Seven. How can you not know who he is?’
‘He is an actor?’
‘Of course he’s an actor. I’ll see you at his Hollywood star in one hour. If the girl isn’t there you’ll be sorry.’ Standing ended the call. It was definitely a trap. But it wasn’t the first time he’d deliberately put himself in harm’s way to achieve his objective. Hopefully it wouldn’t be his last.
25
Humphrey Bogart walked up to Standing, took a drag on his cigarette and glared at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he asked.
Standing smiled amiably at Bogart. ‘I’d have thought the bowler hat, suit, bow tie, moustache and walking-stick gave it away,’ he said. ‘Charlie Chaplin.’
‘Your real name, asshole,’ said Bogart.
‘What’s the problem?’ asked Standing.
‘The problem is that Eddie McGee is Charlie Chaplin and has been for the last four years, ever since Ronnie Gilchrist died from the cancer.’
An Elvis impersonator in a white suit walked over, holding a rhinestone-encrusted guitar. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Bogart.
‘This guy here’s doing Chaplin and I told him we already have a Chaplin.’
Elvis glared at Standing. ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’
Marilyn Monroe tottered over on high heels. ‘It’s okay,’ she said in a child-like voice at odds with her very impressive cleavage. ‘He spoke to Eddie earlier on. Eddie’s cool.’
‘Eddie’s cool?’ said Bogart. ‘How the fuck can Eddie be cool?’
‘I gave Eddie a couple of hundred bucks to borrow his outfit,’ said Standing. Actually, he paid Eddie McGee five hundred dollars and he had gleefully accepted. McGee was one of the many impersonators who made a living on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame posing for pictures with tourists, there to visit the more than 2,600 terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the pavements along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street.
Eddie was just about Standing’s size and the suit fitted just fine, though Standing was wearing his own training shoes and he’d had to draw on the small moustache.
‘Why would you do that?’ growled Elvis.
‘I’m playing a prank on a pal. He’s coming here today with his wife and I’m going to surprise him.’
‘Okay, that’s all right then,’ said Bogart. ‘We can’t be too careful. We get people all the time trying to break into this business and we have to protect our turf.’
‘I understand,’ said Standing. ‘I won’t be posing for tips, I’ll just surprise my pal and then I’ll go.’
Bogart took a drag on his cigarette then shrugged, turned up the collar of his raincoat and walked away. Elvis strummed a couple of chords and then he, too, went away. Two tourists had already grabbed Marilyn, and the husband was posing next to her as the wife snapped away with her phone.
Steve McQueen’s star was on the south side of the 6800 block of Hollywood Boulevard, in front of the garish façade of the El Capitan movie theatre at the base of a six-storey office building. Standing stood in the shade of a juice bar as he kept an eye on the area around McQueen’s star. He had parked in a side street and assumed that the Russians would do the same.
Most of the people walking up and down the pavements were tourists, many of them holding maps. The Russians were easy enough to spot because of the way they were dressed and the way they strode purposefully towards the McQueen star. The one in the middle was a big man wearing a black leather jacket. He had a goatee beard and wraparound sunglasses. The men either side wore hooded sweatshirts that Standing was pretty sure concealed handguns. They all had thick gold chains around their necks and wrists.
One of the hoodies pointed at McQueen’s star and the three men gathered around it, scoping the area.
Standing called 911. A female operator answered almost immediately. ‘You need to get to Hooters in Hollywood Boulevard, next to the El Capitan,’ said Standing, using an American accent as best he could. ‘There’s four Arab-looking guys in there with backpacks and one of them has a gun. They’re up to something. Jihadists, they look like. They keep talking in Arabic and looking around like they’re going to do something.’
The operator asked Standing for his name but he ended the call and put the phone away.
The man with the goatee took out a mobile phone. As he turned, Standing spotted a large scar that zig-zagged across his right cheek. A few seconds later Standing’s phone rang. He answered. ‘Where the fuck are you?’ asked the man, with a heavy Russian accent.
‘Where’s the girl?’ a
sked Standing.
‘Close by,’ said Goatee. He was looking around but Standing was on the other side of the road, shielded by a UPS delivery truck.
‘That’s not good enough,’ said Standing. ‘I want to see her.’
‘You’ve got nothing to deal with,’ said Goatee.
‘I’m not dealing,’ said Standing. ‘I just want the girl. Give me the girl and I’ll get out of your hair.’
Goatee looked around, then cursed. Standing heard him talk to one of his men in Russian and watched as the hoodie walked down the road and turned into a side street.
‘We’re going to get her,’ said Goatee. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m just a friend of Kaitlyn’s.’
‘And a friend of her fucking brother, no doubt.’
‘We don’t need a formal introduction, I just want the girl.’ Standing knew that the Russians had no intention of letting Bobby-Ray’s sister go. She was the bait. But it made sense for them to show the bait. So far as they were concerned, Standing was just one man and they were the Russian mafia. They believed their own publicity and in their minds it would be no contest.
‘Where the fuck are you?’ growled Goatee.
‘I’m not far away,’ said Standing.
Two elderly tourists, a man in a cream linen suit and his wife with blue-permed hair, waved at Standing and mimed taking a photograph. He shook his head and pointed at his phone. The man took out his wallet and showed Standing a twenty dollar note and again Standing shook his head.
‘Here she is,’ said Goatee. He was looking down the street, where two heavies were now walking back with Kaitlyn. One of the heavies was the guy in the hoodie, the new arrival was a short, squat man with curly hair, wearing an LA Dodgers baseball jacket. He was gripping Kaitlyn by the arm and she looked terrified.
Standing ended the call and put his phone away. The elderly couple started asking him to pose with them but he was already striding across the road towards Kaitlyn, swinging his walking-stick. She saw him when he was halfway across the road and did a double-take as she realised it was him. She tried to pull away from the man holding her, but he gripped her harder and pulled her back.
Standing kept walking. He started twirling his walking-stick.
Goatee frowned, then turned to the man next to him and pointed at Standing. He moved towards the road.
Standing pulled out his phone, tucked his stick under his arm and took several photographs of the man with the goatee as he walked. He put the phone away as he reached the pavement. He stopped about ten feet away from them. ‘Let her go,’ said Standing, the stick at his side.
Goatee grinned. ‘That’s not going to happen. Who the fuck are you supposed to be? Hitler?’
‘Charlie Chaplin,’ said Standing.
‘Who the fuck is Charlie Chaplin?’
‘A comedian from the days of silent movies.’
‘A comedian? Well I’m not laughing, mudak.’
‘You said you’d let her go,’ said Standing.
‘Just how stupid are you?’ asked Goatee.
The two hoodies approached Standing, one either side. They grabbed an arm each. Standing didn’t react. He could have easily disabled both men in seconds, but he stood passively, his eyes fixed on Goatee.
‘Matt …’ pleaded Kaitlyn, not sure what was going on.
Goatee spoke to the heavy in the baseball jacket and he took a firmer hold on Kaitlyn. A middle-aged couple looked up from one of the stars. Goatee glared at them until they walked away, muttering to each other.
‘You’re coming with us,’ said Goatee. He opened his jacket with his left hand to show the butt of a gun nestling in a shoulder holster.
Two police cruisers came down the road and stopped in a squeal of brakes. Four uniformed cops began ushering pedestrians away from the Hooters window. Within seconds a large black van with SWAT signs on the side came roaring down the road. The Russian heavies looked around, wondering what was going on.
The rear doors of the SWAT van flew open and half a dozen armed cops piled out, dressed in black with Kevlar helmets and cradling carbines.
Standing stamped his heel down on the foot of the hoodie to his right. The man yelped and released his grip on Standing’s arm. Standing hit the hoodie on his left with the stick, slashing it across his throat. He let go of Standing’s left arm, gasping for breath. Standing poked him in the stomach with the end of the stick, then walloped him across the knees with it.
The uniformed police were shouting for everyone to move away. Two more cruisers arrived and they pulled across the road, blocking it to traffic.
Standing walked towards Kaitlyn. The heavy holding her was looking at the SWAT team, clearly confused.
‘Matt!’ said Kaitlyn again and the heavy turned to glare at Standing.
‘You did this,’ he growled.
‘Let her go,’ said Standing.
Goatee stood at Standing’s shoulder. His right hand moved towards his gun but the SWAT team were now joining in the shouts for the pedestrians to clear the area and he realised that drawing his weapon wasn’t an option. ‘You bastard,’ spat Goatee.
‘Maybe I’m not that stupid after all,’ said Standing. The heavy’s left hand was still gripping Kaitlyn’s shoulder and Standing smacked it with his stick. ‘Let her go or I’ll break it,’ he said.
Pedestrians were running now and more cruisers were arriving to help block off the road around Hooters.
SWAT officers were taking up positions behind parked cars, bringing their weapons to bear on the Hooters window.
‘Suka!’ hissed Goatee. He said something in Russian to the heavy, who released his grip on Kaitlyn.
‘Good call,’ said Standing.
Goatee pointed his finger at Standing’s face. ‘This isn’t over, mudak,’ he said.
Standing shrugged and put his arm around Kaitlyn. ‘It is for the moment,’ he said.
Standing felt a hand grip his shoulder and he let go of Kaitlyn and whirled around, knocking the hand away and firing off two rapid punches to his attacker’s chest. It was only when the second punch landed that Standing realised he was hitting a police officer, a large black sergeant. His bulletproof vest absorbed a lot of the impact but the punches still sent him sprawling across the pavement.
Standing grabbed Kaitlyn’s hand and ran with her across the road as the Russians hurried away. Uniformed officers were using blue and white police tape to seal off the area.
‘What’s happening?’ asked Kaitlyn.
‘Later,’ said Standing. He hurried down the side road to where he’d parked the Polo. He helped her into the passenger seat before climbing in and driving off.
26
The waitress poured coffee into their mugs and Standing waited until she was out of earshot before speaking to Kaitlyn. They were in a diner a couple of miles from Hollywood Boulevard, sitting in a booth that gave them a view of the parked Polo. Standing had taken off the Charlie Chaplin outfit and was now wearing a denim shirt and black jeans. ‘How did they get you?’ he asked.
‘I was stupid,’ she said. ‘They rang my bell and said it was a DHL delivery. I thought it might be from Bobby-Ray, so I opened the door and they Tasered me. They put a bag over my head and didn’t take it off until I was in a room somewhere. It didn’t have any windows so I don’t know where I was.’
‘Did they hurt you?’
She forced a smile. ‘Not really. But the boss, Oleg, kept saying that if Bobby-Ray didn’t turn himself in they’d kill me.’
‘When they drove you to the house where they kept you, how long was it?’
‘About an hour.’
‘House or flat?’
‘Flat? What’s a flat?’
Standing grinned. ‘Sorry, forgot. We call them flats, you call them condos.’
‘It was a house. They had to let me out of the room to use the toilet and I could see a hallway and stairs.’
‘See anything else that would tell us where you were?’
&n
bsp; She shook her head.
Standing took out his phone. He sent the two clearest photographs of Oleg to the number that Spider Shepherd had given him, along with a message. ‘OLEG WHO?’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Kaitlyn.
‘Using my phone-a-friend,’ said Standing. He put the phone down. ‘Is there anything else you saw or heard while you were their prisoner?’
‘I read Oleg’s lips on the way from the bathroom. He spoke on the phone to someone. I think he was speaking Russian because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. When he finished the call he spoke in English, told his people that someone called Markov was coming around. Then they locked me up again so I never saw him.’
‘Markov? You sure he said Markov?’
‘Pretty sure. He was about twenty feet away but I had a clear view of his lips. Why?’
‘Koshkin had a partner, Erik Markov. He arrived in LA shortly before Koshkin was killed.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘I’m pretty sure that Markov is involved in this. It might even have been him who ordered the hit on Koshkin.’
The waitress returned with their food. A steak for Standing and a cheeseburger for Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn picked up her burger and wolfed it down, slotting in French fries between bites. ‘They didn’t give me much food,’ she said. ‘And I need a shower.’
Standing grinned. ‘No argument here.’
She looked worried. ‘Do I smell?’
He laughed and shook his head. ‘You look and smell fine,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to go back to my condo,’ she said. ‘Not after what happened.’
‘You need to stay well away,’ he said. ‘Oleg is going to be having your place watched, no question. He’s not going to be happy about you getting away. We’ll finish this and then check into a motel.’ He chewed on a piece of steak. ‘I just wish we knew where Bobby-Ray was. Have you checked your email?’
‘Not since they took my phone,’ said Kaitlyn. ‘You think he’ll try to contact me?’
‘He has to eventually,’ said Standing. ‘He can’t hide forever without help.’
Last Man Standing Page 19
