by Jared Paul
The lawyer leaned over and whispered conspiratorially. As he spoke Shirokov sat at attention and listened close.
“Apparently a rogue FBI agent and an NYPD detective grabbed one of your guys and tortured him. Petyr… uh… Zhadanov? He’s missing. We’re working on tracking him down. But the story is they supposedly locked him in a warehouse for a week and beat him until he gave up the scoop on the boat coming in. Now if we can get ahold of him and prove this, then we have a chance of getting the verdict thrown out. A mistrial.”
Shirokov smiled, but he still looked puzzled.
“This is good. This is very good. But tell me, this friend. Your law school friend with the DA. Why would he share information?”
Solomon replied that he did not know for sure, probably that he was angling for a favor down the line. Lawyers did it for each other all the time. A professional courtesy. Shirokov said that he understood, but his expression said otherwise.
During the pause Shirokov’s gaze drifted over to one of the Aryan Brotherhood inmates feeling up his girlfriend. Judging by the coos and moans coming out of her mouth she was not self-conscious about it in the least.
“I have to get out of this place,” Shirokov grumbled.
“We’re working on it.”
“Suppose you find Petyr. Suppose you can prove this. How long before I am out?”
The lawyer apologized again.
“Months. Several months at least. I know it’s not ideal, but cheer up. Look, I’ve got to dangle because I’ve got two more clients to meet with here, but there’s one other thing.”
“Da?”
“I got a weird message the other day. Someone called my cell phone. They said that I should tell you to sit tight and that more help is on the way.”
All of the muscles above Shirokov’s waist constricted. He was as tightly wound as a rattlesnake in a coil, about to strike.
“Who is they?”
Solomon sensed the tension in his client. He hunched over into a crouch.
“They didn’t say. It was very short. Whoever it was said that they were calling long distance so they would be brief. Then all they said was to tell you help is coming. The voice was kind of hollow. Like it was modified with a machine.”
Goosebumps broke out all over Shirokov’s arms. For a minute the phoenix tattoos on his biceps looked like pixelated cartoons. He did not speak. Solomon had to break the quiet.
“Do you know who it was?”
The lawyer had seen a lot of thousand yard stares in his time dealing with incarcerated clients, but never one quite so long as Shirokov’s, who rocked in his seat and remained silent.
“Vladimir? Should I be worried?”
At the sound of his name Shirokov broke out of the trance.
“What?”
“Should I be worried?”
Shirokov stood up, his composure and swagger returned to him as if they’d never left.
“No,” he lied.
…
Detective Bollier felt a lurch in her stomach and she held leaned over the toilet, gasping. Her hair kept falling in front of her face. She had to hold it back with one hand and steady herself with the other on the rim of the bowl. It was not a pretty sight. Bollier was glad to be alone in the women’s room for once.
Another lurch, but nothing came up. The anticipation was much worse than the event. Bollier knew this and she wished that the ordeal could end. Throwing up was no longer a big deal. Waiting to throw up on the other hand…
Bollier lost her balance and lay on her side for a while. She breathed fast like she’d just been through a cardio regimen. In reality she had not been to the gym in weeks. The mere idea of the gym sent unpleasant vibes throughout her system. Her body would reject exercise at this point, it would reject food even. For the better part of a month she had been operating on a strict diet of whiskey and whatever bar food was handy; peanuts, trail mix, the occasional bonanza of sour cream and onion potato chips.
How long had she been in the bathroom like this? It was still morning, she was pretty sure. But it couldn’t be too far off from lunch, judging by the angle of the sunlight slanting in. Maybe she could go one more day hiding in her office with the shades drawn, skipping out for an early cocktail and lunch, coming back two hours later, hiding for another hour or so, and calling it an early day.
The nausea had passed and Bollier had just decided on this course of action when someone came into the lady’s room. She froze, all her weight propped on her elbow. It hurt but she kept still, trying her best not to make a sound, not even to breathe too loudly.
“Leslie?”
Shit. She pantomimed the word but refused to let it out.
It sounded like Sergeant Melanie Cole. She was a good friend, but only a decent cop. Bollier would have preferred an exceptional cop and a shitty friend. She did not say anything and hoped Cole would just go away.
Footsteps came closer, then stopped right outside her stall.
“Leslie is that you in there?”
Bollier gurgled a reply.
“Yeaah it’s me.”
She was horrified at the sound her throat made and held a hand over her lips like she’d just burped at a dinner party.
“It’s Melanie. Are you alright?”
There were times when Bollier could not stand Sergeant Cole. Where did she get off being friendly all the time? Didn’t she know it made other people look bad? Didn’t she know some people did not want to be comforted? Couldn’t she just leave the introverted cretins to their miseries? Bollier was about to say something cross when another lurch shut her up.
At the worst possible time the nausea was returning. It came in waves, sometimes gentle rolling splashes, sometimes in fierce white caps.
Finally she croaked out an I’m fine, then Bollier blinked rapidly and smoothed her hands over her face, imagining that she could somehow rub the aroma of Bushmills out of her skin. Sergeant Cole lingered just outside the stall, shifting her weight from foot to foot. After another minute she spoke.
“Ok. Captain wants to see you.”
“Thanks. Tell him I’ll be there in ten.”
“Captain says he wants to see you now.”
“Five minutes! Can he give me five fucking minutes to get myself together? After everything I’ve done for this precinct. Jesus.”
Sergeant Cole left without another word. Bollier was relieved to think that she had finally shaken that insufferably positive woman.
Three detectives and a useless sack of skin from Human Resources were in Captain Branden’s spacious corner office, shooting the breeze. When Bollier arrived and knocked on the doorframe they hushed. The Captain dismissed the detectives, and one by one they walked past. None of them met her eyes.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“I did. Why don’t you go ahead and have a seat?”
Bollier chose the chair farthest from the HR rep. She met him once at orientation and could not remember his name. Captain Branden took up residence behind his desk. He waved a hand to indicate some kind of connection.
“Leslie. I believe you know Dylan from HR.”
“Of course! How are you Dylan?”
The mock smile that Bollier showed Dylan from HR was so bright it could have blinded a kitten wearing Raybans.
“Great, thank you detective.”
“Well. There’s no easy way to do this. We’re here to talk to you because we’re your friends, and we’re all a little concerned.”
Bollier managed to feign surprise.
“Concerned? Why what’s up?”
She was a million miles from the wretch that left the women’s bathroom only minutes ago. Acting came more and more natural the drunker detective Bollier got. Dylan from HR looked intensely uncomfortable. As he squirmed and stammered she got a thrill from watching him struggle. Only people who weren’t cut out to do anything else on the planet ended up in Human Resources. If you couldn’t hack it there…
“...it’s just that. We�
��ve heard some troubling things…”
“From who?”
“...that’s not important. What matters most is that you take care of yourself so that you can do your job effectively… see the thing is, most alcoholics never take action on their own…”
It was the first time that detective Bollier had heard the word thrown in her direction. Reflecting on it, she was surprised it took so long. But she was not going to go down easy. For the rest of the meeting she never once addressed or even acknowledged the incompetent drone from HR. She spit it back in Captain Branden’s face.
“All due respect sir, if there’s a problem with my work you should just say so. You don’t need to beat around my bush.”
The blush that came over the Captain’s face came as a real treat.
“Hold on detective, I’m not saying there’s a problem with your work, nobody is…”
“Well then for fuck’s sake what am I even doing here? If there’s no problem with my work then this is a complete waste of time and I should get back to it.”
Bollier got up to go when Captain Branden screamed.
“SIT DOWN DETECTIVE.”
The force of it brooked no argument so Bollier obeyed. Dylan from Human Resources scratched at his receding hairline and did his best to correct the Captain for his outburst.
“Now, Captain there’s no need for…”
“YOU. YOU TIRESOME LITTLE SHIT. Get out of my office.”
When he was gone Captain Branden spread his arms out and leaned over her desk. Bollier remembered that it was the same move she used in the interrogation room to intimidate the Prokorov brothers. She felt offended, even a little violated. Never before in her career had she seen the precinct captain so angry. Her instinctive reaction was to go on the offensive.
“You don’t have to shout, Captain. I’m drunk, not deaf.”
“Enough of this act. I’ve had enough. You can’t pull the wall over my eyes detective. Not everyone is as stupid as you think they are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking ab…”
“ENOUGH. You either tell me what’s going on or I’m suspending you indefinitely as of right now.”
Bollier considered stonewalling him for a second but then thought better of it. She lowered her head and tried to think of a tell-all excuse.
“I don’t know what to tell you. I’m a drunk. I said it. Are you happy?”
“I know that you’re a drunk, detective. And quite frankly I could give a flying deep fried fuck. Half of the people working in this precinct are drunks. The difference is they come in every day and do their duty all the same.”
“But you said I’ve been doing my…”
“No. You have not. You have not been doing your job, detective. Ever since that business out on Riis Landing you’ve been phoning it in. I let it slide. No more. What have you been doing the last four months? Huh?”
Detective Bollier thought fast, trying to pull together the threads of her last investigation, but they kept slipping out of her grasp. Her mind was too lubricated for anything to stick.
“The. The Riis Landing dope. I’m still. There’s still somebody out there.”
“Don’t give me that. If you were on a case you wouldn’t be spending half your time in your office and half the time in a bar. It’s time for you to start bringing in cases again. Shirokov is over. Caput. It’s time to move on.”
“Captain. There’s still. There’s someone out there over his head. Someone is pulling the strings. Shirokov is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“I don’t care. Unless this mysterious Godfather you keep going on about is actively dropping bodies in this city, I could care less. Now. As it just so happens I’ve got some work for you.”
After rifling through his desk Captain Branden produced a case file folder. It was nearly two inches thick. He got up, walked over to where the detective was sitting, and dropped it in her lap. It could have made a handy dumb bell.
“What’s this?”
“New case, just last week in the 25th. Thai kid named Akio Montri. Exemplary student, enrolled at NYU, political science major. Internship lined up in Albany when he graduates. Out of nowhere he takes a header off the fourth floor of a condo uptown...”
All of the acting lessons in the world couldn’t have hid the dread on Bollier’s face. Captain Branden kept talking, going over the particulars, and she tried to focus. To listen.
“Covered in blood, not his. Was wearing a pizza outfit for a place he never worked for a day in his life. Boys up there in the 25th haven’t a clue plus they’re already swamped over there. And so the case got shuffled back to us. I need you to close this, detective.”
“But I can’t.”
The red flush of Captain Branden’s rage returned.
“Why not?”
“Because…”
In her head, Bollier tried to answer the question honestly, just to see how thoroughly crazy she would sound if she said it out loud.
Because I know who did this and if Jordan Ross gets arrested then I’ll be joining him in jail very shortly... Because I set up a vigilante with a credit card and an apartment and set him loose on the Russian mob like a mad dog... And the weirdest part is I wouldn’t even care because I have no regrets whatsoever and I want to see them all dead like I want nothing else on this earth...
Captain Branded was standing over her again.
“Detective. Is there any particular reason why you can’t take this case? If so, just tell me.”
And then she took the case.
Chapter Eight
Jordan Ross watched himself applying the ointment to his ear in the mirror. Re-attaching the part that had nearly been torn off had been no problem for the doctors. Yet his ear would never look the same. A jagged, angry looking pink scar crossed from one side of the top lobe to the other. The caustic-smelling ointment would minimize the appearance of it, but only so much.
As for his broken ribs, they were nearly back to normal. Jordan still winced when he made a quick move or anytime he used his obliques, but they would completely heel. The days spent in the boarding house recovering made him restless. When he went out he was leery, believing that every person he passed on the street could be a potentially lethal hire for the Russians.
Even though he had been instructed to do no strenuous activity until he was back to 100 percent, Jordan could not resist going to the YMCA every other day to work on his legs. He was exceedingly careful when he ventured out into the vaporous Manhattan heat. He walked in circles to make sure he was not being tailed. When Jordan needed to buy groceries and other essentials he paid with cash, and he spoke to nobody.
The most frequent excursion he made was to the vitamin ship on 2nd Avenue. This was where he was most paranoid. For one, it seemed that most of Shirokov’s gang that he came across spent a lot of time lifting. The chances or randomly running into one of them was infinitesimal he knew, but he could not shake the suspicion that haunted him every time he shopped there. Jordan mostly bought multivitamins and whey protein in two pound jars. As the cashier rang up his purchases Jordan nervously glanced around the store. He eyed everybody like a tweaking amphetamine addict.
One Saturday morning Jordan’s tweaks caught the attention of another customer. He was a slim, dark-haired man in windbreakers and a white tank top. A silver chain drooped from around his neck. He met Jordan’s gaze, and unlike almost everyone else he held it. And held it. Jordan stared back, feeling a strong urge to reach for the .22 hidden under his shirt, but resisting.
It’s just a guy buying fish oil. It’s just a guy buying fish oil. He doesn’t know you. He’s only staring because you’re staring. Stop it. Stop it Jordan. Just look away.
This runaway train of thought distracted him so that he didn’t hear the cashier not four feet away talking to him.
“Sir?”
“Sir? Your bags are ready.”
Jordan snapped out of it and finally broke eye contact with the mysterious looking
stranger in the tank top.
“Huh?”
“Your bags.”
“Oh right.”
Gathering his items together, Jordan looked up at a reflective surface where the wall met the ceiling. A security camera hung next to it. He saw the stranger strolling through the aisle, picking at different bottles on the shelf. His interest in Jordan seemed to have disappeared.
