“Vladislav Gorev.”
“I don’t know him.”
“He killed my mother.”
“Why?”
The boy faltered, seemingly unsure of himself.
“Maybe the man had a reason.”
“He was her … manager.”
“Her manager? What, was she a singer?”
The boy steeled himself. “No, a prostitute. He was her pimp. He abused her, and finally he went too far. That’s why he must die.”
Iosef leaned back, regarding the boy. Then he gave a dark chuckle.
“What is this? You with the police or something? I swear, they get lazier every time.”
“I’m not police. When I went to them, they did this to me,” the boy said, pointing to his bruised and battered face.
“That is a sad story and all, but why should I have him killed? Why not just do it yourself?”
The boy looked down. “I can’t touch him. He’s connected. He’s bratva.”
“Who is he with?”
“Shlomo Shimelivich.”
Iosef whistled through his teeth. “That man carries some weight behind him. It would not be wise to go after such a man. For you or me.”
The boy said nothing. Iosef sipped his vodka, hoping the boy would leave. Instead, after a pause, the boy began to speak again. His voice was even, emotionless.
“I was the one who found her. She was face down on her bed. The bed was soaked in blood. He had slit her throat, left her to bleed out like a pig. I was at the shop when it happened, but the neighbor said he heard shouting, heard them arguing.” Now the boy’s good eye locked onto Iosef and wouldn’t let go. “The neighbor said the man was hounding her for another two thousand rubles. This man killed my mother, for what? Enough for a cheap pair of boots. Or a bottle of vodka. Is that all my mother’s life was worth?”
The boy’s voice was iron, and his good eye burned with a fiery intensity. Suddenly Iosef didn’t think he was sitting across from a young boy, so much as a force of nature. He didn’t have to do this favor. In fact, it would be foolish of him to grant it. But something about the boy made him entertain the idea, a vague notion that refusing would bring its own consequences.
“Very well, boy, you want revenge. I can understand that. But what are you willing to pay for it?”
“Anything,” the boy answered immediately.
“Since I take it you don’t have money, make me another offer.”
“You chop your stolen cars at the auto shop at the corner here, yeah?”
Iosef raised an eyebrow.
“You must, because nobody else would risk operating this close to your base of operations. Most people are afraid of you.”
“You are not?”
“I’m angrier at Vladislav than I am afraid of you.”
“Go on.”
“I see the light on there until four, five in the morning. I can see it from my window. I figure you’re over capacity. I could help. I work at Bugakov’s auto shop, I could—”
“I went to the old man. He turned me down.”
“The old man’s dead drunk by ten most nights. I have the key to lock up.”
“Who would do the work? You?”
“I can do two, maybe three cars a night.”
Iosef scoffed. “My other shop with two guys working all night can only manage two.”
“I guess they don’t work like I do, then.”
“Guess not.” Iosef regarded the boy for a moment, then looked to Sergei. Sergei just shrugged noncommittally, putting the ball back in his hands. Iosef sighed. “Alright. I’ll give you a shot. You manage three cars a night from now until Friday, I’ll consider it. Konstantin will be by the shop by eleven with your first round of cars.”
When the boy opened the garage door to let Iosef and Konstantin in, his face was caked with grime and blood. He waved them inside and returned to the stand where the metal skeleton of a car hung in the dim light. It had been picked clean, as if by scavengers. Two more cars were parked nearby, pointing away from the work area. It was as if they were trying not to look at what was being done to the other one.
“You’ve cut yourself,” Iosef said.
The boy looked at his arms and somehow found the cut under the grime caked up to his elbow. He shrugged. “It’s only a little blood.”
Iosef snorted. He turned to Konstantin.
“Only a little blood, he says.”
The boy just stared at him, making no reply. Iosef’s smile faded.
“Well, I guess we’re here because you want blood.”
“Only a little.”
Iosef nodded. “My mechanic says you work like a man possessed. Three cars a night, by yourself. Outstanding.”
The boy nodded. “So you will do this for me?”
Iosef nodded. “A bargain was made. You have upheld your end of it, I will uphold mine. But I wanted to talk to you first, before it is done.”
The boy said nothing, gave nothing away. Iosef cleared his throat and continued.
“You are coming up to a bridge that you can’t uncross. Once this is done … you will have your revenge. But you will have to live with it. Is this truly what you want?”
“Not revenge. Justice.”
“So you still want to go through with this?”
“I don’t just want to go through with it. I want to pull the trigger myself.”
Iosef shrugged. “Sure. That can be arranged. Of course, you must realize what this means, yes?”
“I work for you now.”
“Damn right. And don’t forget it.”
The boy nodded, the same grim look of determination never leaving his face.
Iosef held out his hand. “Well, then, we have a deal … what is your name, son?”
“Vasili. Vasili Loginovski.”
“We are almost there.”
Konstantin turned the car off the two-lane street and onto a dirt road that cut into the mountains. It was the first words either of them had spoken for miles.
“Why so far?” Vasili said, looking out the passenger window. “We must have passed Kayerkan an hour ago.”
“To get rid of the body, we will take it to the Akademgorodok there. You’ve heard of it?”
“Heard rumors. I don’t know how much to believe.”
The Akademgorodok, Russian for Academic Town, was one of a number of such scientific and academic facilities that had sprung up around Russia. Supposedly patterned after the original one outside of Novosibirsk, the one near them was the focal point of much gossip and rumor in Norilsk. Some said political prisoners were bussed into the facility but were never seen leaving. Others said that even some of the refugees from the fighting were being diverted there. Vasili had heard rumors of people found wandering in the woods with horrible scars, or chemical or radiation burns. But then, in troubled times, rumors traveled farther and faster than the truth.
“Well, I wouldn’t believe all of them,” Konstantin said. “Just half of them.”
Vasili didn’t laugh.
“Anyway, we have a guy there who asked us to bring him bodies. Living, dead, makes no difference. He will dispose of him for us.”
“Is that safe?”
“You ever tried digging a hole in frozen ground? It’s safer than leaving him out. Bodies last forever out in the frigid air.”
“He won’t talk?”
“Iosef never told me what the man does with the bodies. Just that he’s got more reason to be discreet than we do. Here we are.”
He stopped the car and the two got out. Vladislav was dragged from the trunk and thrown down to the cold, hard ground illuminated by the bright lights of the headlamps. His hands were tied behind him, and a hood covered his head. Konstantin handed Vasili a gun and nodded towards the prisoner squirming on the ground. His hand trembled slightly.
Slowly, Vasili walked over and removed the hood. The man looked at him without a glimmer of recognition, just a wary look of fear.
“You killed my m
other,” Vasili said. “And now you’re going to die for it.”
“It’s possible,” the man said. “Who was your mother?”
“Natasha Loginovski.”
“Her? No, I didn’t kill her. I—”
“Liar!” Vasili shouted. “I saw what you did to her! You butchered her!”
“No, it wasn't like that. You don't know the real sto—”
That was as far as he got before the bullet tore through his mouth and out the back of his head, spraying the frost-flecked ground behind him with blood and viscera. Vladislav stayed upright for another moment before keeling over backwards. Vasili walked over and fired several more bullets into his head from point-blank range, the recoil making the gun buck in his hands.
“Alright, alright,” Konstantin said. “Bullets aren’t free, you know.”
Vasili turned around to look at Konstantin. “Thank you.”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
After leaving the body at the Akademgorodok, they drove home mostly in silence. When Norilsk came back into view, Konstantin turned his head towards Vasili and spoke.
“So, now that it is done, did it bring you what you wanted?”
Vasili didn’t answer right away. He honestly didn’t know the answer. Part of him must have really believed it would make the hurt go away. But the pain remained.
Vasili didn’t want to seem ungrateful. So after a long pause, he nodded and said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Konstantin said, eyes still on the dark road ahead. “It never has for me.”
Chapter One
For one brief, weightless, terrifying moment in time, Satoshi was suspended in midair.
Then the immutable force of gravity began pulling him down through the fog to whatever lay below with sickening speed. It was so thick he couldn’t see a thing. He wouldn’t have even known he was falling if it weren’t for the stomach-churning sense of acceleration.
Satoshi heard his body collide with the car before he felt it. There was a crumpling sound from the metal roof as his body slammed into it. This was followed immediately by the sound of the safety glass windshield popping and cracking. It was only as the driver started slamming on the horn that feeling caught up to him and he first felt the bone-jarring impact.
Because he had vaulted head-first over the railing, his body had kept rotating in the air and come down hard on his left shoulder. Lucky for him, the fog had brought the traffic below to a virtual standstill. If it had been moving normally, he probably would have been struck, maybe dragged under a wheel. As it was, he just slid off the hood of the vehicle and slinked away into the fog, leaving a very confused driver yelling after him.
It took him a while to get his bearings. Not only because of the particularly heavy fog shrouding the city, but because of the haze clouding his brain following the impact. Pain radiated throughout his body from his damaged shoulder in waves, making it hard to concentrate. It took him a good deal of limping around to get oriented and retrace his steps back to Ozu’s apartment.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he hoped to find there, or if it was even a wise decision to go back. But this was the closest he had come to catching Masa, and therefore his best hope of finding some clue as to his whereabouts.
Why did Masa want Ozu dead? Ozu had recently been in police custody, so was it revenge for what Ozu might have told them? Or what Masa feared he had told them? Kameko had told him that Masa was already a person of interest, though. The police had even put out an APB on him because of the DNA evidence linking him to Tetsuo’s murder.
Or did Ozu have to die because of what he might tell Satoshi? This was an unsettling thought, but not wholly out of keeping with Masa’s character. If that was the case, Masa’s instincts had been dead-on. Satoshi had only been minutes behind.
Satoshi closed his eyes, a sense of dread throbbing in time to the pain that shot through him with every footstep. He wanted nothing more than to let the past and the ghosts haunting it remain dead and buried. Now he wondered just how many graves he’d have to dig up to find Masa.
With his eyes shut tight, it felt as if he was peering into the past. But there was a giant shadow leaving everything in icy darkness, one that cast by a figure who loomed large over their shared past. Satoshi shook his head, trying to clear away the dread, but it clung to him like smoke.
When he arrived back at Ozu’s apartment, he saw that a police cordon had been set up outside, with a few beat cops milling around taking statements. Damn, the neighbors must have called them after Masa had thrown himself off their balcony. There was no way he could get in there now. If they hadn’t found Ozu’s body already, they would soon enough.
As he was about to leave, he happened to glance around and lock eyes with a man just exiting a car. He couldn’t place him at first, but after a moment he remembered seeing him outside of Kozu’s office the other day. The man seemed to recognize him as well and began walking his way. Before he could get far, Satoshi stepped back into the fog at his back. When he was sure he was obscured, he turned and ran as fast as his throbbing shoulder would allow.
Satoshi needed to go home, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He kept walking through the streets, until he was sure the cops weren’t following him. Then he kept walking. For the longest time he had no idea where he was, but eventually he recognized the area as one he used to frequent with Masa. Of course. He ducked into a bar they used to end up at from time to time.
Satoshi glanced around to find the place was just as he half-remembered it from all those drunken late nights and early mornings. It was a small room with a black-and-white checkered marble floor. There was just enough space for a counter bar and half a dozen stools lined up at it. The walls were covered in mirrors, and a deep reddish glow suffused the room, giving the bar an otherworldly feel.
He ordered a whiskey highball from the bartender, then lowered his head down onto the polished wooden bar. Soon he heard the bartender set down his drink next to him and tap him on the shoulder. He’d get to it in a minute.
He must have passed out at the bar, because when he next raised his head, he saw that the previous patrons were long gone. It looked like someone had also finished his drink, because the highball was gone. It had been replaced by what looked like a straight scotch. Someone had gotten started on this one too, he thought as he swirled the remnants of the amber liquor around in the glass before downing it in one go.
Satoshi turned his head and raised his glass to signal for another, only to see Masa sitting beside him. His quarry was grinning his evil grin as he perched on the stool next to Satoshi’s own. Still groggy, Satoshi raised his head and looked around. They were alone in the small room, save for the bartender washing out glasses at the other end of the bar.
“Buy me a drink?” Masa asked.
Satoshi blinked and looked up at him from his spot at the bar with one eye. There was no way Masa was really here, he must be dreaming this.
“What are you, a ghost?” The words dripped off his tongue like syrup.
“I don’t know, I’d say you’re the one haunting me,” Masa said through a devilish grin. It looked like his teeth had been filed down to points. “Of course, how do you know I’m even here?”
Satoshi picked himself up off the bar and sat upright. “You’re not.”
“Ho-ho! Of course not, of course I’m not here.” As he said this, he felt his own body all over. “Nope! Nothing here! I gotta say, man, I think you’ve been hitting the Dextro-MXE too hard lately. You know that shit fucks with your head, right?”
Satoshi shrugged. “I’ve been okay so far. I don’t see any reason to worry.”
“Yeah, that’s what Tochi used to say too. He loved that shit. Wouldn’t let anyone tell him that it was warping him. Right up until the time he blew his brains out the back of his head. You remember that?”
“I remember. He kept saying there were spiders crawling around behind his eyes.”
“Ye
s!” Masa slapped the bar like he had just heard the world’s best joke. “He did say that, didn’t he?”
“Well, if you want to turn yourself in, that would help me get off the shit faster. I’m only dosing so much because of you.”
“So you can bring me in, you mean? Man, I’d hate to think that hunting me down is keeping you up at night or anything.”
“Just doing the job I’ve been given.”
“Look at you, the good soldier. Always does what he’s told! How commendable.”
Satoshi eyed him without responding.
“Tell me, do you always do what you’re told? You’re not the type to question orders, are you?”
Even Masa’s ghost was fucking with him. Against his better judgment, Satoshi took the bait. “That’s right. You do the job you’ve been given. But you know the drill, you’re a soldier too.”
“Of course!” Masa said with a laugh. “You’re not the type to question orders.” He stopped smiling and adopted an exaggeratedly thoughtful look. “Oh, but what about the time Osammy told you to play ball and you wouldn’t do it? How about that?”
“That’s different,” Satoshi said. “What he was asking was monstrous.”
“Why? Because you didn’t want to do it? Your loyalty is totally incorruptible … when you want it to be.”
“No, what Osammy was asking was beyond the pale.”
“I was there. The point is, you chose not to do it, defied his orders. But then Vasili asks you to bring in your best friend and you just click your heels and salute. But Osammy’s job is ‘beyond the pale.’ For a good soldier, you sure seem to be picky about what jobs you take and what orders you follow.”
“I seem to remember you were only too happy to do Vasili’s dirty work. Hell, he even had you kill your—”
Masa slammed his hand down on the bar, making Satoshi’s glass rattle. “I know what he had me do! And if you had stepped up like I asked you to, I wouldn’t have had to do it!”
“And as much as you didn’t want to, you did it. Because you’re a soldier. Same as me.”
Masa’s chest heaved and his lip quivered. For a moment, Satoshi thought he was going to cry. He looked down at the bar. The gloomy red interior seemed to have darkened into a crimson so deep it was almost black.
Tokyo Noir: The Complete First Season Page 34
