by Jared Paul
“Hey you! Hey Jewokov!”
Shirokov grumbled and looked up to find two of the Aryan Brotherhood skinheads approaching. They were carrying baseball gloves and their clothes were sprayed with dirt. A few paces away from the benches they came to a stop.
“Yeah I’m talking to you, Jewy D. Jewokov. Do you know baseball?”
The Russian frowned and looked behind them at the field as if seeing it for the first time.
“What about it?”
“Do you know how to play? One of our guys twisted his ankle and we’re a man short.”
Shirokov could not conceive why this should present a problem and he said as much.
“We need nine to play. We gotta have somebody step up. Can you play?”
“No. I have no wish to play. Also I am sick.”
The skinheads seemed to take great offense to this. They shook their heads as if a great honor was being rejected out of hand.
“I don’t give a shit if you don’t wish to play. We need nine. Somebody’s got to step in and substitute for our man. If you’re sick how about your big ape friend? ”
Askokov made a snorting noise and likely would have swung the dumbbell like a medieval mace into the skinhead’s chest, but Shirokov halted him with a clearing of his throat.
“Anton. Remember what I have told you.”
Askokov dropped the dumbbells and lowered his head reverently. Finding this hysterical, the two skinheads doubled over at the waist. They laughed and howled until they were both wheezing and the veins in their necks bulged.
“Would ya look at that. This skinny little Jewokov’s gone and got himself an ape-sized bitch!”
“Ain’t that just the nuttiest ball of shit? He’s got a hun’erd pounds on him. How’d you do it? Tell us your secret Jewokov.”
The conversation had become dull to him so Shirokov picked his book back up and resumed his reading, hoping that the chattering jackals would grow bored and leave. That proved to be a foolish hope. One of the skinheads slapped Sing Sing’s heavily dog-eared paperback copy of Crime and Punishment to the ground.
“Hey! I axed you a question Jewokov. It’s rude to ignore your betters. How’d ya get this big hairy gorilla bent over? Was it any good?”
“YOU SHOULD NOT speak to avtorityet in that way.”
For a moment Shirokov thought that Askokov had spoken up in his defense but he realized that the voice came from someone else, someone familiar. He twisted his head around and found himself in the shadow of a giant. While Askokov had a stocky, strong six foot build, this man dwarfed him.
Leonid Yenotin’s shoulders were as broad as a bedframe. His forehead had the downhill slope of a Neanderthal. He looked like he could club a fully grown lion to death with a club and then drag the carcass back to a cave.
The skinheads took a step or two back.
“Holy sweet Jesus there’s two of ‘em.”
Shirokov could spend another time processing this new development. For now, he saw an opportunity to turn away a pest. Despite a sharp stabbing pain in his abdomen he mustered up his trademark imperious air.
“You will be leaving us now.”
When the skinheads hesitated, both Leonid and Anton advanced on them. They turned to go swiftly, cursing and jabbering back and forth as they went.
“It’s a god damn infestation.”
The two newly reunited minions guarded his bench from either side for the remainder of the hour. Shirokov sat placidly and read. Occasionally he looked up at the baseball field to see the Aryan Brotherhood team huddled together, no doubt discussing this latest affront to their white dignity and wondering aloud where all the giant Jewokovs were coming from.
Although he cracked a smile at the thought, Shirokov was just as curious.
Chapter Nine
Bollier put off calling Agent Clemons until the last possible minute of the day. It was a call she had been delaying for weeks in truth. Her meeting with Detective Slade had finally convinced her beyond any doubt that the Russians had a mole at the federal level. Possibly working in the bureau, possibly in the capitol, possibly anywhere in the labyrinth of power circles and connections between New York and Washington. Street cops, detectives, elected officials, department heads, union reps, state senators, there was no telling how deep or how wide the rot had gone.
Instead of relating the news to her federal agent friend Bollier cleaned her apartment. Every surface in every room was dusted, wet-mopped, disinfected and shined. She paid her utility bills going back a month and ahead another two, she faced every non-perishable item in her kitchen cabinets, she read every piece of junk mail, recycled every empty whiskey and beer bottle she could find, ironed every suit in her closet, listened to every message on the answering machine, and organized every DVD movie in her collection.
When there was nothing else left to do but confront the awe-inspiring, pervasive corruption of the eastern seaboard Bollier stepped out onto her balcony and finally dialed Agent Clemons.
“Hello?”
“Kyle.”
“Hey Les. It’s late. What’s up?”
“I went to see that detective out in Queens today. The address I asked you for.”
“Oh yeah, what about it?”
Agent Clemons sounded tired. Bollier could hear a Miles Davis record playing in the background. She’d caught him just when he was trying to wind down from the day. He was probably lounging in his suede sofa, sockless, tipping back a cold High Life and thinking nothing of leaving it unfinished on the coffee table and falling asleep. Kyle could have just one. Once Bollier twisted a beer open she drank it to the dregs and then got up for a refill and then probably another. She envied his discipline. She envied his peace of mind. It wasn’t fair of her to spring this apocalyptic news on him and guarantee his insomnia.
“You’re right it is late. I don’t want to bother you with this now.”
Of course Bollier knew that Agent Clemons would never hear of it.
“It must be important or you wouldn’t have called.”
“Yeah.”
“So what is it?”
Bollier wanted to ask her friend about the weather across town. If it was breezy, or stifling. She wanted to ask if he could hear titillated New Yorkers trafficking the streets even now, anxious to keep clandestine appointments with acquaintances promised to someone else. She did not want to drop the bomb. Surely, life would go on just the same if Kyle Clemons never knew the full extent of the criminal depravity seeping through their very pores. But it had to be done.
“He was pulled off a case and it was given to me.”
“Yeah?”
“The case is the college ninja kid that Jordan threw out of his window.”
“Wait what?”
“His name’s Jonathan Slade. 18 year NYPD veteran. They yanked him off the case citing some horse shit reason and then they placed it right in my lap. Kyle…”
“Wait what are you talking about? Who is they?”
“You know what I’m talking about. They is whoever Shirokov or his boss or his boss’ boss has bought off. They know about us. They know about Jordan and they’re throwing it in our face. Either I bring in a case against our own guy or they’re going to shut me down.”
For a second the other end of the line was quiet.
“Did you hear me? They know. They’re coming after us Kyle. What are we going to do?”
The federal agent let out a long gust of breath before he answered.
“I don’t know Les.”
“I KNOW YOU DON’T KNOW. WHAT DO WE DO?!”
Detective Bollier’s roar echoed out from her balcony. It rang off the close confines of 8th avenue’s brick wall canyon. Far below on the street a couple of citizens looked up momentarily to see the source of the clamor, and then went on along their way to keep their appointments.
“We may need to think about an exit strategy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Cut and run.”
“Ky
le. How many of Shirokov’s people has Jordan wiped out? Do you really think they’re going to just let us walk away? We’re past that. You know that... This is…
“Les.”
“Much deeper than we ever imag…”
“Les.”
“What?”
“I know that I was wrong. I know the kind of shit that we’re in. You don’t need to tell me. I did some digging myself.”
Bollier noticed that her hands were clutching the rail of her balcony so tight that her knuckles were turning white. She thought about Akio Montri and the trajectory of his fall from Jordan Ross’ fourth floor condo. Bollier felt a split second of vertigo and backed away from the precipice, then walked back into her apartment.
“Tell me what you found.”
“I was reviewing some options for potential informants. Looked up our friend Leonid Yenotin. The Andre the Giant clone who broke the Prokorov brother’s necks.”
“What about him?”
“Turns out he got transferred to Sing Sing three days ago.”
“But that’s where Shirokov… that’s impossible. He was arrested in Jersey. He was in custody in Jersey. They couldn’t transfer him unless…”
“Unless...”
Bollier was hunched over a stool at her breakfast nook, her toes clenched into balls around the bottom run of the stool. She did not need Agent Clemons to finish the thought, but he did it anyway.
“Only someone intervening at the federal level could have made that happen.”
“That’s almost beyond federal, Kyle. That’s some Oval Office type of pull going on.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do?”
Agent Clemons sighed into the phone. As exhausted as he sounded when she’d first dialed his number, he seemed a thousand times more fatigued now.
“I think the most prudent course of action is to find a good place to hide until we can figure out what to do next.”
“I should say so.”
“We’ll have to get ahold of Jordan and get him out too.”
“Of course.”
“Any ideas as to where we could go?”
There were times when Detective Bollier’s gifted-level IQ was a curse. In the late night or wee morning hours she often found it impossible to quiet the robust humming of the engine between her ears. She lay awake, her mind either working through the angles of an active case or remembering old slights and fond memories. Her mind was a perpetual motor, always revving to go, seemingly never serene. It took its toll on her sleep, which took its toll on her body.
But then there were times when a problem arose and an answer so perfect came to mind that she could not help but wonder at the marvel of her own intellect. The solution came to her like a bolt of lightning. Bollier could not only find an ideal spot for her and Agent Clemons and Jordan Ross to lie low for a while, but she could avenge an old slight at the same time.
“Yeah. I know one.”
...
The incident with the veterinarian mortified Jordan Ross. He hadn’t felt such shame since he was grounded for a month at the age of 11 when he pulled his sister Mary’s pigtail from the backseat. The squeal Mary let out stayed with him for a while, but the spanking from his father that followed burned in his memory for years.
For the first time since he started hunting the Russians he felt rudderless, spinning out of control. He had bristled when his conspirators Agent Clemons and Detective Bollier called him a loose cannon, and now he had proven them right. Jordan felt like a novice chess player sitting down to play his first game against a grandmaster. He didn’t know what game he was playing with the Russians anymore. What was worse he didn’t know the rules. All he knew was that some way he had to find where they were keeping Mary and her family. He alone could save her, and he didn’t even have the first clue how to start. He felt simple.
That was Mary’s favored insult for him whenever their parents weren’t around.
“Simple Simon Ross is what they should have named you,” she teased him. None of her other slings and arrows stung quite like that moniker.
Now that he was responsible for her life being in danger the torment of that memory haunted him. Growing up Jordan Ross could take a beating with the best of any Scotch-Irish boy. He had a thick skin for verbal attacks as well; any fat joke or gay joke or retard joke just bounced off his hide like nothing. Jordan could take any disparagement in stride, except when he was made to feel stupid, or as his sister put it, lacking intelligence.
Intelligence was the key to winning any war, Jordan knew this from his days at West Point. You could outnumber your opponent ten to one, have all the firepower, all the strategic position, all the experienced commanders. If your enemy knew where you were coming and when it was all for not. Jordan’s thesis blamed Vietnam on the arrogance of the American command and the failure of intelligence. Everywhere, Charlie knew what we were doing and when. Unless the White House and the Pentagon had been willing to nuke the whole continent, we never stood a chance. Jordan was glad that they had chosen not to do so. He could think of nothing less honorable in a war than using strategic nuclear bombing; it was the genocidal equivalent of throwing a tantrum and sweeping all of the pieces off the board.
The essay won him derision from several superior officers. That they were the officers he had little to no respect for vindicated his position, in Jordan’s mind. The ones that mattered knew the score. Despite the controversy it earned him the highest marks in his class.
Without Agent Clemons and the FBI to feed him information on the Russians’ movements, Jordan was flying blind and alone with no radar. He was even worse off than the GIs on the ground in ‘Nam because he didn’t even have the benefit of superior arms or air support. Detective Bollier had a network of informants but most of them had dried up. The moment that Shirokov was convicted it was like the whole organization went underground.
For days Jordan slunk around the Old Russian haunts. He sat on Shirokov’s old coffee shop on 14th street. The place was shuttered and nobody came in or out. When he gave up on that, he sat on a dive bar in Brooklyn, supposedly the home base of Shirokov’s bookies according to one of the few CIs left in Bollier’s chamber. The information must have been stale though because none of the men ever showed up.
Jordan had high hopes for XZLENT, the nightclub where he’d kidnapped Petyr Zhadanov the previous year. In the process he’d shot four bodyguards. Jordan reasoned that even after a disaster like that Shirokov would not surrender such a lucrative piece of real estate. The Russians had to be around there at least. But this too turned out to be a dead end. A sign out front read that the place was under new ownership. It appeared to be undergoing extensive renovations. Gone were the long lines of underage girl drinkers and the heavily perfumed predators they attracted. Gone were the velvet ropes and the gaudy neon XZLENT sign. He walked in one afternoon to find a construction crew dismantling the dance floor, one piece at a time. When the foreman asked what he wanted Jordan just left.
Just when he was at his wit’s end he got a solid lead from Bollier. Several of Shirokov’s men had been spotted at the Kiev Sport and Social Club on East 7th Avenue. A man named Luka Gusin was running an escort service out of the joint, this according to a courier who was busted for peddling cocaine in a restricted public school zone. He faced a minimum five year sentence and would likely face a lot more unless he cooperated. Bollier told Jordan that she would not vouch for him 100 percent, but it was the best lead she’d gotten in weeks.
Watching the club from the safety of a rooftop a half block away, Jordan confirmed that Gusin and a number of other Shirokov associates were regulars. Through his binoculars he watched them smoke outside and laugh and glad hand around.
Three security cameras watched the front entrance. There were two more in the back. That kind of presence indicated that there was something on the premises that they didn’t want found, and since the Eastern European girls they peddled seemed to mean so little
to them, Jordan guessed it was something else. Perhaps a huge stash of drugs, perhaps a cache of weapons, perhaps a valuable hostage. The thought that Mary, her husband, and her kids might be tied up in a basement not a hundred feet from where the Russians were standing filled Jordan with an anger of the blistering variety.
Jordan decided to make his move in the early morning hours when the odds would be more even. Most of the Russians weren’t awake before noon and the ones that did were clearly nursing hangovers, moving like snails and wearing sunglasses at all times.
