Arriving at the twelfth floor, there is alarm when they see that there is a hole punched into the door of Room 1247. JJ’s complexion darkens when he takes a closer look. There are not the random fissures emanating out from the hole characteristic of your ordinary random punch. Rather, the breaks are neat, almost as if cut by a saw. Whoever punched the door had a pinpoint accuracy aim and knowledge of the right angle and pressure to ensure a clean break - someone like a martial arts master.
There’s no one from housekeeping on the floor right now, so it’s odd that the laundry cart is by the freight elevator. Hardly professional for a five-star hotel like the 7th.
JJ goes to take a look and discovers the dead Eva. The bruise marks are around the neck are precise - again not the work of a roughhouser.
He heads back to the guest room and tells Abby to bring the girls back to the bus. His eyes tell her not to ask any questions.
“Hey, girls. Olga’s not around right now, so why don’t we just head back to the bus,” says Abby.
“But that’s her cart. She’s got to be around,” says Larissa. “C’mon, Ling Ling. I’ll show you.” The two girls start running up to the cart.
No time to think. JJ bounds like a kangaroo and then does a double aerial handspring. He lands right in front of the two girls.
“Bet you can’t do that.”
“We can try.”
For the next two minutes, the two girls get an acrobatics tutorial from JJ while Abby hides the laundry cart. The sight of the dead Eva impresses upon Abby that they gotta get out of there.
“I’m hungry. Let’s go eat. Do you feel like pizza?”
“What’s a pizza, Abby?” asks Ling Ling.
“Let’s go and find out.”
All get onto the elevator. JJ smiles at the girls, but his thoughts are far away. Why are the Shaolin involved?
JJ whispers to Abby. “Take the girls somewhere. There is a problem here that I need to check out.”
Abby nods. She announces, “Let’s not have JJ and make a girl thing.”
Ling Ling and Larissa high-five her.
***
At the front desk, Abby speaks with the concierge. “I’ve got a busload of kids that I’m touring New York with. Mainly young Russian girls who I think are dying for some decent Russian food.”
“You cannot beat Petrushka’s in our own hotel.”
“Um... there are twenty of us, and, uh, Petrushka’s is a little pricey.”
“Oh, yes. Does have it have to be in Manhattan?”
“No, I think we’re going to meet our friends in Brighton Beach this afternoon.”
“In that case, I suggest Kandinsky’s. It’s big, fun, good for all ages.”
“Thanks. We’ll go there.”
The concierge gives Abby a ten percent-off coupon. “Tell them Mikhail from 7th sent you, and they’ll treat you right.”
Thanks, Mikhail.”
The concierge winks at her as she, Ling Ling and Larissa leave.
What Abby didn’t know that before Igor left, he stopped at the concierge’s desk, gave him a boxful of coupons and told him to direct any possible recommendations about Russian restaurants to Kandinsky’s.
When the concierge put up an argument, Igor discreetly showed him his Smith and Wesson Model 10, and the protest suddenly vanished.
***
Works every time. A couple of rocks of crack and the highest grade medicinal marijuana, and Tanya is putty in Prince’s arms. In the back of the car, she’s crawling all over him, but Prince, playing Mr. Cool, ignores her entreaties.
He offers her to a couple of his henchman who are only too glad to take advantage of a stoned teenager. While Alexei would go ballistic if he found out what Tanya had done with Prince’s men, Prince has had enough experience to know that Tanya has no idea what she is doing and will have no memory of it either in half an hour.
Speaking of which, it’s time to go see the mangy Russian. Prince is trying to decide whether to give her to Alexei now or save her for a bit. He doesn’t trust Alexei one bit and wouldn’t put past him to renege on the whole deal if he gave Tanya up right away.
She lies half conscious on the seat beside Prince. Prince rubs her thigh. “Baby, where are your friends?” He waves a little plastic bag in front of her. “You know, Prince wants to share the love.”
“I got sister. I got friends,” says the incoherent teen.
“Ooh, friends. I got friends too, and we gotta a lot of love to share. Let’s go get them.”
“Not easy. I told you already. I left them Empire State Building. They’re with the losers.” She giggles. “White ninja. Chinese ninja. JJ and Noah. And their two girlfriends. Abby and Olivia.”
She sneers. “What I can do make their boyfriends leave them in an hour, they’re so lame.”
“And your Russian friends?”
“Chinese ones too. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. No boobs. No figure.”
Prince’s ears pick up. “Where did the Chinese girls come from?”
“Chinatown of course. Where else do Chinese girls come from? JJ and Noah found them in Chinatown.”
“Do you know their names?”
“Didn’t pay attention. Wait. One of them is Ling Ling. My sister likes her.”
Prince smiles. Things are looking up. And of course the other two girls have to be Lydia and Mei. He doesn’t really have his heart into doing the big massive match with the leopards that he was talking with Alexei about. Yeah, he could make a lot of dough, but it is so damned risky.
When he collects the one million for icing JJ and Noah, he can use it to replenish his drug supply and be back full bore in that business again. Plus he gets half the Russian girls and his own three Chinese girls back... On the other hand, if he went ahead with Alexei, he could step on his dad like the cockroach he is.
Good thing he doesn’t have to make the decision right now.
“Where you think we can find them, baby?”
“Big brown bus. Yeah. Big brown bus. We only people. My girlfriends like you... I love you, Prince. You way better than Alexei.”
“Hey baby, he took care of you real good.”
“He’s big, ugly, hairy Russian. One eye made of glass. He want me all the time. But he stink. No bath. Smelly breath. I hate it.” She laughs. “If it’s up to him, I never leave bedroom.”
Prince stays silent. He has had a revolving stable of girls too. None of them last that long. They’re all young, all easy to fool, all happy to give their bodies up for a momentary rush. They never last that long before they’re so strung out that nobody wants to pay for them. He just gives them back to the street.
CHAPTER 15
“Come on, Sergei. Are you sure that you don’t know Alexei Gudonov? According to police records, you and he were arrested for smuggling cigarettes into New York three times in the last seven years.”
Noah is talking to the operator of a convenience store in Brighton Beach. It’s a scenario that’s been repeated over and over. Deny. Deny. Deny.
“Arrested but not convicted. Where did you get that information anyway?” There is more than a touch of fear in Sergei’s voice.
“I am connected with the NYPD, and we are doing follow-up investigations on tobacco smuggling.” It’s a pretty good lie, given the nature and profits available to tobacco smuggling.
“You’ve got the wrong man. Sorry. Now, please leave. You are scaring my customers.”
“One last time. Where is Alexei Gudonov?”
Sergei pulls a George Bush Sr. “Read my lips. No Alexei Gudonov.”
“That’s not true, Baba. You go see Alexei every Wednesday afternoon at Kandinsky’s,” says Sergei’s daughter. “You complain every time you go. How did you forget?”
Sergei’s face drains of color. He pleads with Noah. “Please do not tell where you got this information... Bad things will happen.”
“I was never here.”
Noah leaves the store. The fear from the store owner was so rea
l that it was almost tangible. How much protection money was Sergei paying? Who knows, but it’s enough.
Noah gets back in the cab. “Olivia, is Kandinsky’s restaurant on the list?”
Olivia scans her phone looking for a name. “No mention of it at all.”
The cabby speaks. “Don’t worry. I know where it is. Everybody in Little Odessa eats there.”
For someone who has not tried very hard to hide his whereabouts, the absence of the mention of Kandinsky’s makes it particularly suspicious.
***
Kandinsky’s Russian Restaurant’s reputation Brighton Beach community is definitely well deserved. The front part of the restaurant is always full of expatriate Russians and Ukrainian men and women of all ages. The latest Russian music videos are always showing on the several big screens, and the bar features more than a hundred different kinds of vodka. The home-cooked food is a real draw, and on any given day, the two-hundred-seat restaurant serves at least six hundred meals.
There is another part to the restaurant that is not open to the general public. As good as the business is in the front, it pales in comparison to the deals that go on in Alexei Gudonov’s private sanctuary. People smuggling, drugs, tobacco smuggling, prostitution, gambling, payment by local businesses of protection money... these are a sampling of the items on the menu here.
Everyone of these areas is very profitable, but despite this, Alexei has not been able to rise out of the mid-level gangster range. It’s because too much of decision making is done below the belt - specifically the organ that is at the top of his legs and a few inches below his belly button, which tends to preoccupy and distort his judgment. He has an unquenchable sexual appetite for the exotic, kinky and different. It’s why he found Prince’s sister, Queenie, irresistible. With her Eurasian features and red patch on her head, her looks were like honey to him. Or the superstar singer Lena. Not that he expected for her to croon to him in bed, but there was the chance to do it with her mother at the same time.
But his latest obsession in the seventeen-year-old Tanya. He brought her over to America with the other girls, planning to make a lot of money with them through men even more depraved than himself, but there is something about her frailty, her luscious eyes and perky, taut breasts that makes him want to keep her for himself. He just wanted her to have a little bit more meat on her frail frame. Scrawny chickens don’t taste as good as full-bodied ones, so he might as well make a few bucks until she fattens up.
There are a million things on Alexei’s mind as he reflects on this deal with Prince. For one thing, it completely changes any possible relationship that he might have with the Chin family. While for years Alexei has been rebuffed at his every attempt to do business with Chin, Prince’s proposal makes any past effort with the senior Chin look like chump change.
However, the Russian’s nervous. He’s not superstitious, but there was one hell of a lot of bad luck when he dealt with Queenie. Bad luck or misinformation. Definitely not the piece of cake he was led to believe. JJ and Noah were the two most formidable opponents he had ever faced, and they had cost him more than he had ever had to pay. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry to free the child hostages that Queenie had taken, Alexei might not be around anymore either.
Alexei is also concerned about how caught up in his own image Prince is. This guy thinks he’s Dirty Harry, Steven Segal, Arnold Schwarznegger and Darth Vader rolled up in one.
Maybe he should just kill Prince after he has got his girls back and gotten rid of Noah and JJ.
***
Noah gets a text from Abby saying they are going to Kandinsky’s for lunch. No! No! No!
“What’s the matter, Noah?” asks Olivia.
“Abby’s coming here with the kids. You can’t come in with me. Make sure they don’t enter no matter what.”
Olivia reluctantly agrees as the cab pulls up in front of the Russian restaurant. She and Noah had been calling and texting for the last five minutes but got no response.
“Keep trying,” says Noah as he exits the cab.
“If you’re not out in twenty minutes, I’m coming in whether or not the bus is here yet.”
Noah exhales sharply as he enters the restaurant. The lunch crowd is just starting to form, and the affable maître d’ asks, “How many, sir?”
“Not eating. I’m here to see Alexei Gudonov.”
The puzzled restaurant host frowns as he looks at the reservation book. “There’s no one here by that name with a lunch... ”
Before he can finish, Noah launches a chop to his throat. When the host buckles, Noah follows through with an elbow to the head, sending him to his knees. “Take me to him. Now. Or next time I will make it hurt.”
***
Two minutes later, Noah is standing inside Alexei’s expansive and impressive office. There are the requisite bottles of high-end vodkas, several maytryoshkas - the Russian nesting dolls, beautifully painted Easter eggs, but what is most prominent are the dozen large pictures of Alexei himself. They are all photos from his time as a soldier in Afghanistan. Photos in the mountains, photos brandishing weapons, photos riding on top of a tank, photos of him as commander of men - he was a powerful soldier.
“We meet again,” says Alexei.
“I could have killed you last time, and I could kill you now, but your existence is not my concern,” says Noah. “Where is Tanya?”
“I thought you and Chinaman have him,” says Alexei coldly.
“I would not be here if we did... She’s a child, Alexei, and you took her away her youth.”
“What’s she to you anyway?”
“We have an organization that helps out young people. Keeps them off the streets. That was the reason we came here. Queenie said she was going to use the recording studio to change kids’ lives.”
“You were going to give that crazy girl money?”
Alexei and Noah glare at each other. They both know that Noah has made a mistake. Telling Alexei that Noah has access to money. No doubt the Russian is going to try and exploit this.
“My group found Tanya and her sister. They had nothing in Russia. I took them and give them a better life here.”
Alexei spits on the floor. “And you think you are the great man to save her. Well, if she thought things were so great, why did she leave you?”
“Stockholm Syndrome. Capture-bonding. Hostage victims falling for their captors.”
“No psychological problems. She loves me because of me.”
“She doesn’t love you. You turned her into a junkie, and she wants a fix.”
Alexei spits again. “She was a junkie when I took her. You know what? I saved her. At least what I give her is clean, safe. No poisons. And she is not a child. She is a woman, and she is my woman.”
During their conversation, Alexei has quietly opened the drawer to his desk. He suddenly and quickly pulls out his Russian military pistol and fires at Noah.
Noah immediately ducks.
Alexei fires again and again. Noah zigs, dodging one missile, then zags, dodging another.
The onslaught of bullets continues.
Noah hits the floor and rolls to the side, dodging another.
Bullets spent, Alexei pulls out another gun - there’s a ton of them in his office.
He fires. As one of the speeding missiles passes over top of him, Noah grabs it from midair, leaps up and throws it at Alexei’s head, shattering his glass eye.
Shards of glass fall to the ground. It looks horrifying but in fact does not affect Alexei at all.
Even worse for Noah was that to throw the bullet he had to balance himself and stay stationary for a moment. This was a tactical error as Alexei doesn’t miss a beat. The Russian just kept firing and like a sitting duck, Noah can’t escape the entire barrage of bullets. Noah is able to catch one of them but another lodges into his arm.
The young martial artist screams in pain as blood begins to flow out of the wound. He grips the bullet tightly.
Sensing vic
tory, the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound Afghan war veteran barrels at the weakened Noah, knocking him to the floor.
Pulling a syringe out of his pocket, Alexei jumps on top of him of Noah and injects its full contents into the battling foundation president. Noah tries to resist, but Alexei is just too damned strong.
Alexei directs a ham hock-sized fist at Noah’s face - that Noah can deal with. He swivels his head, and the fist lands hard against the floor.
Noah leans back and propels his head against Alexei’s. Alexei jerks his head.
Noah’s forehead misses breaking Alexei’s nose, but the nose was not Noah’s target.
With a slight upward tilt, Noah’s forehead smashes against the eye socket, pushing the remaining glass fragments deep into Alexei’s head. Noah then shoves the bullet he’s holding into the eye socket.
The Russian reels back in excruciating pain. With his one good arm, Noah stretches back and launches a hammer fist at Alexei’s windpipe.
Fist hits larynx with speed of over twenty-five miles per hour. With some men, this would be enough to kill them. Not so the thick-necked Alexei. Those pictures on the wall of Alexei as one tough soldier are not fake - he’s the real deal, and he’s used to fighting no matter how much physical agony he’s suffering.
Noah’s hand bounces off Alexei’s throat, and Alexei grabs it. The big man applies rapid force to break Noah’s arm, but Noah’s knee shoots up and hits Alexei in the groin.
Alexei buckles over and like a Thai kick boxer, Noah’s knee attacks again, this time to the head.
However, whatever drugs were in the syringe are kicking in, and Noah’s reflexes are degenerating.
SLAVERY UNBOUND: Cruelty & Lust with the Emerging Eastern Mafia (Noah Reid Action Thriller series Book 4) Page 10
