I told Wonder to Move It toward cold beer.
“Your every wish is my command, oh great, wise, and all-powerful Dickhead, sir,” he said, spelling it as usual with a c and a u. Happy in his work he steered us around the corner of a narrow, dark street bordered on one side by a small, neglected cemetery and on the other by a well-built nineteenth-century block of apartments, and emerged voilà—onto a wide, brightly lit sidewalk, onto which dozens of Mercedes and BMW sedans had been pulled up and parked. I said voilà because it was like being dropped onto the goddamn Champs-Élysées about a block from Fouquet’s. There were knots of well-dressed people moving up and down the street. Chauffeurs stood at parade rest, awaiting their bosses. A line of taxis, engines chugging, spewed exhaust fumes into the cold night air.
We worked our way between the cars until we came to a low, black painted storefront that was unremarkable except for the nineteen fifty-four Harley Davidson chopper that had been mounted above the industrial-strength metal doorway. The chopper matched in style and color the one on the matchbook in my pocket. This was the front door of Andrei’s hangout.
A door, I should mention, that was vibrating from the sound inside. In front of said door stood an industrial-strength bouncer, dressed entirely in fifties black leather, right down to his square-toed black motorcycle boots with silver studs and spur straps and a Harley emblem between his shoulders. He looked us up and he looked us down. Then he smiled a big, friendly smile and said, in pseudo-English, “Velgum, velgum—Go een, go een.”
Always willing to take “da” for an answer, I pulled on the door handle and een we went.
It was like climbing into a sardine can. A very noisy, hot, smoky, booze-soaked sardine can. Being, however, highly trained and field-tested SpecWarriors (and therefore tactically proficient), we immediately formed ourselves into a human wedge and moved, en masse, toward our right, where I could see the bar. Wonder was on point. From the look on his face, he was enjoying himself, too, as he squeezed past a knot of NYLs—nubile young lovelies—in tank tops, who were gyrating to the music while bouncing tambourines off their remarkable hips.
Have I mentioned the music? Have I mentioned the fact that it was loud? If not, let me tell you—it was loud. Obstreperous. Tumultuous. Rowdy. It matched the crowd. The crowd was dancing on the fucking tables.
Two dozen or so excuse me’s and ooh, that felt goods later we’d managed to get within a thirty-six-inch sleeve’s length of the beer taps. I saw they were serving Dortmunder Union and Russian brewski. I waved a trio of twenty-dollar bills at the sweating, overworked bartender, mimed a big, cold mug of beer, pointed at the Kraut spigot, held up five fingers, and shouted, “Piat pivo—five beers.” He nodded in agreement, reached out, took the money, and disappeared. A short time later, five one-liter mugs were hoisted in my direction. We took possession and worked our way toward the bandstand. You wonder where my change was? Dream on.
I nudged, pushed, and shimmied toward the rear, taking point as my boys dropped back one by one, deserting me to make nonverbal conversation with the knot of NYLs by the bar. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Doc was already in love. Ah, youth is wonderful in its exuberance, ain’t it?
As I proceeded, the place began to take on some proportion for me. It was wider than it was deep, with tables jam-packed jowl to jowl. The tiny bandstand was up against the back wall. As I faced it, I saw a kitchen door to my right, and a long corridor that—judging from the women working their way up and down it—led to the head.
The tables were set up family style—that is to say, there weren’t no deuces in this place. It was what I call grab-ass seating—you grabs your ass and you sits down where you can. The crowd was as raucous as the band—dressed in everything from suits and ties to jeans and sweaters. There were guys on the prowl and single women trolling. Over there, in the far corner, a couple well into their seventies clapped along with the music. Mostly, however, it was groups—four, six, or eight couples, obviously out to have a Good Time—and proving it, too. I will say this for the Russians: they like to party, and they are good at it.
The band was smaller than I’d expected, given the decibel level, which was somewhere just under a Pratt&Whitney F100-PW100 afterburning engine (that’s the one they use in the F-15) in full-throttle climb. There was a Jerry Garcia look-alike with an electric guitar. A second, equally hirsute musician stood in front of the mike with a small, amplified accordion strapped to his chest, and a humongous, computer-driven synthesizer console laid out in front of him. That was it—except they sounded like a whole fucking band.
They were into a rousing version of the theme from Zorba the Greek. Accordion watched as we made our way along the side wall just past the kitchen door. He waved at me. I waved back. He threw something in my direction. I started to duck—then caught the missile, a tambourine, just before it would have smacked a table dancer in the head. I shook it a couple of times, then handed off to a Russian with rhythm.
I drained my beer, set the mug down on the rail to free my left hand, and continued my rearward shimmy. The biggest table in the room—it was right in the center of the place—caught my attention. More than a dozen sweaty goons in shiny, Italian-cut suits, their arms around gold-bedecked women in tight knit dresses, were standing on chairs, whacking themselves with tambourines and gyrating to the music’s infectious beat. The vibrating table itself was too crowded to dance on—it was filled with an assortment of vodka, champagne, wine, Scotch, and brandy bottles, and strewn with dozens of plates, salvers, trays, and bowls all piled high with food. There were probably people sitting there, too—but there were too many frenzied, chaotic things happening to see them right now. Overworked waiters in stained white aprons hovered as best they could, trying to keep out of the way of the flailing knees, elbows, and hips.
One loving couple of standees was simultaneously dirty dancing and drinking huge tumblers of what looked like either brandy or Scotch, their arms interlocked as they drained the glasses and their companions egged them on with shouts and applause.
I watched, transfixed. I’d never seen a woman drink like that before—I mean, we were into real chugalug land here. Finally, the beast with two backs separated. Their arms unlocked and their bodies parted. As they did, her eye caught mine and she leered at me, her tongue moving port to starboard across her lips. He watched her performance—and then his eyes fought for focus and veered vaguely in my direction.
Hey—I knew that big broad sweaty ugly face. It was Vynkenski. He knew me, too. His eyes went wide—then he shouted at an Ivan down the table, who turned, and peered quizzically. I knew him, too. He was the one I’d labeled Blynkenski. I watched a big grin spread over Blynkenski’s fat red face. He jabbered at the rest of the table, gesticulating as he did. Then he clambered down off his rickety chair and staggered in my direction.
Blynkenski was a big man—six three, maybe six four. He weighed in somewhere around an NFL offensive lineman or center’s 275, 280. He was a drunk big man, too. Glassy-eyed, he lumbered directly at me, cutting through the crowd and pushing over everything in his path, his big arms spread wide. He vaulted the rail, grabbed me, and hugged in a more than passable Frankenstein monster mash imitation, kissed me wetly on each cheek, and told me, laughing, in his drunken gravel voice, “Yob tvouy mat Dickie Marchinko—fuck you, Dickie Marcinko! You giving us good run today.”
Now, I found it somewhat (yet not altogether, given the past twenty-four hours) remarkable that he knew my name even though we hadn’t been properly introduced. I was about to ask him his own when he preempted me. “I Volodya,” he explained matter-of-factly, his left forearm slapping his fifty-five-gallon chest, his right arm wrapped securely around my waist, the hand drunkenly but nevertheless expertly checking out the pistol in the small of my back as he nudged me inexorably toward the raucous table. “Come meet Sergei, your other friend from metro.”
It was like being inserted into one of those slo-mo scenes from Clint Eastwood movies. Those
early Spaghetti Westerns he did, in which he played the Man with No Name. As I got closer and closer, I began to see more and more of the gritty detail. The circles of sweat under the women’s arms. The creases and stains on the men’s suit coats. The hand-painted, chipped earthenware plates holding chunks of rough-ground sausage and cracked olives laced with hot red peppers. Bulges in trouser waistbands where pistol butts or the round handles of leather saps protruded. Cracked and cemented white serving platters of meat pies, now cold, lying in congealed puddles of fat. The twelve o’clock shadow on Vynkenski’s broad face as he climbed off his chair to greet me. Huge metal saucers piled with mayonnaise-laced salads made of boiled vegetables. The overwhelming, sweaty odor of unwashed bodies. A tray of sliced, pungent smoked fish. And over there, dead center, hidden by the chair dancers and the piled plates, his back to the bandstand—sat Andrei Yudin. There is a SEAL technical term for times like this when your intel has been good and things work out. It is: Bingo.
He looked so much more like The Accountant than The Godfather that I thought he was going to make me a ledger I couldn’t refuse. He was dapper, delicately boned, and so petite that I wondered whether he was sitting on a telephone book, because the well-trimmed beard on his chinee-chin-chin barely cleared the tablecloth. His minute size was doubly accentuated by the fact that he was utterly dwarfed by the oversized byki who surrounded him. He wore round, wire-rimmed glasses. On his wrist was one of those thin, gold Patek Philippe watches that goes for somewhere between seven and eight grand. His thick salt-and-pepper hair—the one indication that he was probably in his midforties—was cut long and moussed stylishly over his ears and collar. He was dressed in a white-on-white-on-white shirt with its long-pointed collar button undone. The knot on his wide, deep red challis necktie, which was slightly askew, was a triple or quadruple Windsor about the size of a small child’s fist. The tie disappeared into a loud, gray-on-gray checked wool vest that sported notched lapels and was edged in dark suede.
Next to him was Mrs. Yudin. I knew that because of the, oh, 7.5- to 8-carat, marquise-cut diamond engagement ring, the matching gem-encrusted platinum wedding band on her third finger, left hand, and the possessive way he had his arm around her well-turned shoulders. Not to mention the huge IY monogram in cherry red, embroidered on the small but well-shaped, aroused, and obviously braless left tit of her clingy, Oxford gray, turtlenecked cashmere dress.
She wasn’t a day over twenty-five, judging from the kitten face and the artful makeup, and she sported the kind of metallic copper-toned, chemically amplified red hair that is le bec fin—which means the latest craze when you’re in Paris—among French aristobrats, trophy wives, and high-priced tarts. She was probably six or seven inches taller than he. Looking at her, I thought back to the vocabulary lesson Avi had given me earlier in the day. Yeah—she was a real Russian goatfuck.
And next to Mrs. Yudin, a glass bottle of Evian water and a glass sans ice placed directly in front of him, sat Werner Lantos. In the flesh, his skin was tanned perfectly, and even more remarkable, reptilianly wrinkled, the creases on his face and neck as uneven yet symmetrical as the back of a massive croc’s tail. His curly, gray-turning-white hair, accented by his deep skin tone, was slicked back in such tight waves that it looked almost permed. Below a pair of intimidating white eyebrows that would have done Brezhnev proud, his eyes were as soft and gray as Mrs. Yudin’s cashmere dress.
Andrei stopped playing with his wife’s tit long enough to arc his head behind her and whisper something to Werner Lantos. who nodded imperceptibly, sipped his water, and stared up at me. Then Andrei leaned to his right and murmured to a huge Ivan sitting behind a liter bottle of Moskva vodka and a shot glass that looked as if it had been originally made for King Kong.
The tablecloth in front of the Yudins was clean—a pair of napkins had been spread out to hide any blots, blemishes, smudges, or stains. On the creased and starched napery sat two short-stemmed champagne coupes, and an ice bucket containing a half-empty magnum of Dom Perignon. That figured. Dom is what people who don’t know the difference between good and great champagne drink when they want the expensive stuff.
I allowed myself to be guided up to the table and inserted between Blynkenski and Vynkenski. who up close and personal turned out to be another equally humongous byk with equally humongous byk-odor. When the hell did these guys eves take a bath? The rest of Yudin’z boyz had all climbed down from their chairs, now—they were sitting at the table like well-behaved hoods, eyes on their boss, waiting for Andrei and me to get it on.
Doc, Wonder, Rodent, and Duck Foot were nowhere to be seen That was good—I wanted everyone at this table, especially Andrei and his goons, to think I was here on my own.
I stood opposite them. Andrei’s tiny hand gestured, graciously, palm up, for me to sit, which I did. A napkin was unfolded and placed atop the greasy tablecloth to mask the stains. Immediately thereafter, a clean plate was slid in front of me, and utensils rolled in a napkin slapped gently atop it. As I moved the knife and fork to the side, shook the napkin out to place it on my lap, an unopened bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin appeared, along with an old-fashioned glass and a bucket of ice.
I could feel the hair standing up on the back of my neck the same way I did when I led my men into hostile territory. Somebody had done his fucking homework. But that was to be expected: old Andrei had access to good intel.
From whom, you ask? Well, from the Rolex-wearing OMON colonel, for one. And from any cops who’d spoken to Boris and Misha. And then there were all those folks at the embassy, including hundreds of FNs—Foreign Nationals—who understood more English than they let on and kept their Russkie ears open. It’s amazing what money will buy these days.
Andrei put his index finger on the champagne coupe that sat in front of him and nudged it perhaps a quarter of an inch. Instantly, a waiter materialized in the crush, leaned over, and filled the shallow vessel with fresh, chilled champagne.
The Georgian hesitated while I took ice, opened the Bombay, and filled the glass in front of me. Then he picked his champagne glass up by the stem. “Welcome to my city, Richard Marcinko,” he said, leaning forward to speak above the noise, and reaching across the table to touch the rim of my glass with the rim of his. “Budem zdorovy—remain healthy,” he said, draining his glass. I did the same. The glasses were refilled. “Do dna—bottoms up, Dickie Marcinko,” shouted Vynkenski, draining his tumbler of vodka. “A bullet shouldn’t pass between the first and second toasts!”
Andrei gave the huge byk a look that made him cringe. Then he turned toward me, and his head inclined slightly in the direction of the huge, sloppy Ivan next to him. “Here,” he explained, smiling, “is my old friend Viktor Grinkov. He works for the Ministry of the Interior.” A pause. He sipped his champagne delicately. “And here”—he indicated past his wife’s tit—“is another old friend, Werner Lantos, visiting from Paris, looking for new business.”
I saluted them both with my glass. “To the dead—isn’t that the proper third toast here in Moscow?” I paused long enough to get a good look at Viktor Grinkov’s pudgy face, grimy collared shirt and baggy, Khrushchev-style brown suit. The slovenly picture was meant to put people off—disarm them. But Grinkov’s eyes told another story—the guy was sharp. I wasn’t fooled by Andrei Yudin’s understatement, either. “Works for the Ministry of the Interior” indeed. Viktor Grinkov was an old-style hardliner who currently ran the fucking Ministry of the Interior. The goddamn OMON colonel with his new gold Rolex President worked for Viktor Grinkov. Now the empty dacha made perfect sense.
What burned me was that it was all so fucking open and out-front here, and nobody gave a goddamn. None of that behind-the-scenes shit like almost everywhere else in the world. Graft, corruption, murder—here in Russia it was all an ongoing part of everyday life.
Meanwhile, Werner Lantos’s soft gray eyes tried to get past my own—but I wasn’t about to let him do that. With the door shut, he tried his considerable charm.“E
nchanté, Captain Marcinko,” he oozed. “I hope you’ve had a pleasant four days here,” Lantos said, saluting my Bombay with his Evian water.
“They’ve been busy.” I said noncommittally. I sipped my Bombay and returned my attention to Andrei. His English had been remarkably fluent, and I told him so.
“I learned my English—” he began to shout over Zorba. Abruptly, he halted, swiveled in his chair, looked at the two musicians, and drew a finger across his throat. They stopped in mid-crescendo, as abruptly as if they’d been unplugged.
He turned back toward me, his guttural voice cotton-ball soft in the sudden silence. “I learned my English in New York. Two years,” he continued. “I drove cab. Seven days week, fifty-two weeks year. Took orders from rich bitches from Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place. Go here. Go there. Sit. Wait.” He smiled coldly. “Now, I own flats on Fifth Avenue and Sutton Place.” He flicked the nipple of his wife’s aroused tit with the back of a tiny index finger.”I have my own rich bitches.”
He paused to gauge my reaction. When I gave him none he sipped at his champagne and regarded me coolly. “I understand you have been looking for me.”
That was an understatement. “A friend of mine was killed—his whole family murdered.”
He nodded, the smug little face downturning into a Cheshire frown. “Ah, yes—I heard about that,” he said innocently. “From embassy, yes? The military attaché and his wife, yes? I am told reliably they were attacked by brigands.” He translated what he’d just said for the rest of the table’s benefit. He sipped his champagne as they all laughed. “There is a lot of crime in Russia today. Too much crime if you ask me.” He laid the coupe back on the table and called for silence. “It is a great pity what happened.”
I was losing patience with this performance. I once-overed Andrei and his champagne, Werner Lantos, who was sipping his Evian, and Viktor Grinkov slurping from the King Kong shot glass. “It was a pity for whoever did it. The little boy was my godchild—my first godchild. I’m told that you Georgians are very family oriented, so you understand the significance of that.”
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