by Fante, Dan
I climbed the interior stairs to the roof, then exited on the wide, tar-coated surface.
I crossed to where I saw the top of the fire escape and began to descend on the heavy metal stairs. As I did this, the frame clanged against the building’s brick surface. Too much noise. Way too much.
I soon found that by pushing myself against the exterior wall while holding the metal handrail with the other hand, I was able to prevent the steel-framed railing and stairs from making contact with the brick.
I took my time. I wasn’t worried about the pedestrian traffic below and someone seeing me. New Yorkers seldom look up and if they did they’d see a guy in a white workman’s uniform, then ignore it.
When I got to three, I stopped for a full two minutes, sat down on a metal stair step, and studied my surroundings while waiting for any signs that I’d been discovered.
Now I slowed my descent rate even more, heading toward two, taking a long time between each metal step.
When I was half a dozen steps from the bottom metal platform, I removed my .44 from the pocket beneath my top layer of clothing and tucked it into the wide, chest-high front folding flap pocket of my overalls. I then set my white hard hat on the stair above.
I decided to play it safe and descend the steps upside down, reversing my body, hooking my feet on a step rung several above me and stretching my torso in a downward angle against the metal stairs so that the top of my head would be even with the top of 209’s front window.
There were ancient venetian blinds on the window. They were cracked slightly and I was able to see in.
The room I was looking into was the living room. I could see three one-person cots against one wall. The setup was like a barracks and not like a home.
On the last cot’s sheetless mattress, farthest from the window I was looking through, was a girl. She was naked from the waist down and wearing a sort of pink nightshirt that ended at her midsection; a quiet, unsmiling little girl, no more than ten or eleven years old. She sat without talking, nodding her head while someone, probably Gusarov or his buddy, out of my line of vision, was apparently talking to her.
A couple of minutes later another man came into view. He stood beside the bed, obstructing my view of the girl.
Then another girl entered my line of vision. She was wearing a long, faded blue T-shirt and appeared to be about the same age as the first girl. She was blonde. Both of the kids were blondes.
The second girl sat down on one of the two remaining cots, then drew the blanket up and around her, to above her chest.
Having seen enough, I pulled my body back up the metal stairs, put my hard hat back on, then made my way up the fire escape stairs to three.
I needed a plan. Two-Tone was on his way and his presence would even the odds. But we’d still have to have a plan—a way in. A distraction.
Looking across Third Avenue, past the El, I surveyed the storefronts and spotted one that advertised takeout: FUEGO’S PIZZA. WE DELIVER. The 718 phone number was larger than the painted-on name on the orange banner. The store’s faded fabric sign covered the original store sign and stretched the width of the facade.
I had used food delivery before as a way in. I didn’t like it. One time it had worked and one time it had backfired, and Iggy, my sometimes partner, had narrowly missed being hit by a blast from a sawed-off 12-gauge. The takedown had been set for an absurd drug deal where the buyer and the supplier had both gone to the meet to rip each other off. No one was shot or fatally hurt but the would-be buyer had had his feet crushed when the seller and his boys made their point by dropping a fifty-pound vise on each of the guy’s shoe tops as he sat strapped to a chair. The food-delivery ruse had come too late and only a swing of the metal door Iggy was closing had saved him from a sure trip to the boneyard.
I quietly made my way back up the fire escape to the roof. Once on the flat surface I pulled out my cell and punched in the pizza store’s phone number. I ordered a cheese and pepperoni, gave the address, and asked how long. “Twenty minutes,” the kid on the other end said.
“Make it twenty-five minutes. No sooner,” I said. “I gotta pick up cigarettes at the candy store. Oh, and look, the downstairs buzzers don’t work. Just push the door. It’s open.”
“I know your building. Who’s this? You’re not Vladdy? Two-oh-nine, right?”
“Right, he told me to call,” I said, vamping now but hoping to be read as convincing. “How much?”
“Seventeen-oh-seven, with tax. Vladdy always gives me a twenty.”
“You’ll get your twenty. Just bring the goddam pizza in twenty-five minutes,” I said. “No sooner. Okay?”
“Sure. Okay.” Then there was a pause. “And what about extra napkins for the kids? Vladdy always wants extra napkins.”
“Right,” I said. “I forgot. Extra napkins too.”
Then the kid hung up. So far, so good.
I continued to check my watch, waiting for Two-Tone to pull up in a cab. Below, on the street, I could see a cop walk up to my Dodge rental. He wrote out my second red-zone ticket in three days.
Twenty minutes after I’d placed my pizza order I clicked my cell phone on and pressed redial to get Two-Tone back.
He answered right away.
“Where are you?” I said. “I’ve got a pizza on the way to the apartment. Gusarov’s in there with at least two kids, both girls.”
“I told you to hang back. Step down, JD! Screw the pizza thing. We’ll put something together when I get there.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m on First Avenue heading toward the bridge. The FDR had construction so we got off at Ninety-Sixth Street. My ETA is at least ten to fifteen minutes.”
“I’m going in, Two-Tone! When the pizza gets here, I’m doin’ it! Gusarov has kids in there. He’s our guy and he’s got little girls in there! They’re screwing and pimping out little girls. Fuck it! When you get here, go to apartment two-oh-nine. Second floor. Go heavy.”
Then I clicked off.
Five minutes later, still on the roof, looking through the El’s tracks I saw a kid in street clothes and a leather jacket holding a cardboard pizza box exit the take-out store. He waited for the car traffic to slow, then began crossing the street toward my building.
I moved down the fire-escape stairs as quickly and quietly as possible.
When I got to three, I set my hard hat back down on one of the metal steps, then pulled my .44. I padded quietly the rest of the way down the stairs, then stood to the side of the window, waiting, hoping to time my move to a few seconds after the knock when it came. I’d checked the window before. It had upper and lower panes divided by a wooden cross-member. The thing looked to be as old as the building itself and was thick with layers of decaying paint. I hoped it would cave in on my first kick.
I waited.
Several seconds passed and I didn’t hear the knock, but I did see Gusarov through the crack in the blinds as he became startled, then stood up and headed toward the apartment door. As best as I could see, he wasn’t armed.
With my gun in my hand, I backed myself up on the fire escape platform. I aimed a foot thrust at the cross-member of the window and put all my weight behind it. The glass and frame shattered in all directions.
Gusarov turned from the door. The pizza kid was startled and stepped back into the hallway.
I jumped down to the floor, feeling crushed glass under my feet.
One of the girls was between us on a cot, but the Russian was still unarmed.
Then, to my left, in the bedroom, I heard a sound I knew: someone jacking a round into an automatic.
I turned instinctively and heard the roar of my .44 as it spit two hollow points in the direction of the sound I’d just heard.
Now I saw Russian number two move to his right, out of view, and I assumed I’d missed both times.
A s
econd later, stepping to the bedroom’s doorframe, I cocked the .44. Gusarov was making a move toward the girl on the cot until I waved him back with the barrel of my gun. Crouching low in the doorway near the floor, I stuck my gun hand in the opening and fired blind twice more in the direction of Russian number two.
A second later I heard a groan, and then a body hitting the floor. Number two was down.
Standing quickly, I moved inside the bedroom. The first thing I saw was girl number two. She was on the bed, naked, holding her arms and palms up to shield herself. Terrified.
Russian two was grabbing at the right side of his chest with both hands. He’d taken a second bullet in the upper leg, near his crotch. His automatic, a Glock .40, lay a foot away.
I knew Gusarov was behind me and to my right. I only had one round left in my .44 so I scrambled into the room and snatched up the Glock.
Glancing at the girl on the bed I could see her expression had changed suddenly. I spun right, into the living room, and pointed the Glock.
Gusarov had a knife in his hand. The blade was six inches and thick. A hunting knife. He was ten feet away.
Using the first girl as a shield, he was moving toward me. “Put fucking gon down! I kill girl. She dieee right here.”
He held her in front of his face and head. I decided not to risk the shot and stepped back.
Now Gusarov yelled something in Russian to the girl in the bedroom. Frantic, she came out and started moving toward him. I tried waving her back with my free hand. “No, kid,” I called, “get back inside.”
Now Gusarov had them both. He was grinning. “You like dis game?” he snarled.
Before I could make a move or say anything, his knife had cut the first girl’s throat. He slashed deeply into her neck. The arterial spray sent a three-foot arc on to the wall and the linoleum floor. As the child convulsively turned her body, a gush of her blood covered Gusarov’s face and shirt.
After she’d gone down, still flailing her arms and legs, he moved his grip to the other girl. The fucker looked like some sort of blood-soaked ghoul—the child’s blood was impairing his vision. He wiped it away with his shirtsleeve.
I fired twice, quickly, intentionally wide, not wanting to hit the other kid.
Gusarov didn’t even blink. He was grinning as he forced the second girl down and, with his free hand, slashed her across the belly and chest. Long, diagonal wounds.
He looked at me, leering. “Cut like pig,” he yelled. “Cut like pig!”
Terrified, the second girl grabbed at her body and began screaming and thrashing, rolling from side to side on the cot.
“Now girl die,” he hissed. “You watch! Watch pig die!”
I fired twice more as he plunged the knife into the child’s stomach.
One of my shots was a center mass hit and the force of its impact threw him against the wall.
Gusarov was a big guy and he was strong. He began trying to right himself and even grabbed for the knife.
I was close enough now to deliver a solid left elbow to his face. That spun him away. Then I hit him again.
I stepped back and quickly squeezed off another shot. This one caught him in the shoulder.
His hand was at his chest wound but somehow the crazy smile was back. He pointed a bloody finger at the dead girl beside him on the cot. “You see? You did this. You are a fool.”
I fired again, into Gusarov’s stomach. He grabbed at his wounds, then rolled on his side.
Then, from the bedroom, I heard a noise. Something moving.
I walked the few paces to the doorway, then looked inside.
The second Russian was still alive. He was struggling to get to his feet, his shoes slipping in a wide, dark pool of his own blood.
Moving to him I pointed the Glock, then executed the Kossack prick with one bullet above his ear. His head came apart in the explosion.
When I reentered the living room, Gusarov was barely conscious, clutching his hands to his shirt as deep crimson flowed up between his fingers.
“You ready, asshole?” I said, raising the gun.
He spit blood at me as he spoke. “Fukk you,” was his answer.
I held the Glock between the Russian’s eyes. He looked straight at me as I squeezed the trigger.
Nine days later I was released from jail and the murder and numerous felony charges were all dismissed, thanks to Two-Tone’s client, the Russian Immigrant Coalition. But I was done and I knew it—done with the detective business, done with New York. Done with death. My headaches started that day in the Bronx. The only way to deal with them was to stay drunk enough to kill the pain. So I stayed drunk for a month at the Oasis Motel in Queens, then bought a one-way ticket back to Los Angeles.
TWENTY-TWO
For the next eighteen hours I sat on Swan’s house, hoping to pick up Sydnye’s trail. The place truly was a fortress in every sense of the word. The stone walls were ten feet high and a foot thick, like a prison. They surrounded his fourteen-acre estate. The security system was state of the art and encompassed the property and its perimeter, along with four one-hundred-pound Doberman pinschers. I’d once known a guy in New York who’d been an installer of what looked to be the same kind of security setup. I was pretty sure, with a little time, I could disable it. The problem, of course, would be locating the master unit itself.
The main front brass gates had a guard house with a man inside. Rotating cameras were mounted every thirty feet on the walls, and Swan’s two beefy bodyguard/security men—Mutt and Jeff or Sonny and Cher or whatever grunt they answered to—could alternately be spotted coming and going from six P.M. until three A.M. They each had one assistant.
THAT NIGHT, BANKS of motion-tripped spotlights came on if so much as a stray cat mistakenly climbed a wall.
The one time Swan did go out, he was followed by the black BMW sedan carrying the two bodyguards. There was no trace of Sydnye.
The next morning three groundskeepers in green uniforms and sombreros came and went. Their apparent assignment had been to clear the brush on the outside of the wall, at the periphery of the estate. To do this they used a small tractor. It pulled a corkscrew tiller that turned the dirt into even rows and plowed under all the growth in a twenty-foot border beyond the wall. One guy drove the tractor while the other two walked behind, using rakes and hoes to decapitate the stubborn shrubbery that the tiller missed.
I knew where there was a war surplus store on Venice Boulevard in West L.A. that sold green khakis similar to the ones the groundskeepers wore. I’d shopped there a few times. I made a note to pick up a uniform and some wasp spray in case I had to deal with the guard dogs inside the wall.
For the next hour I watched the clearing guys work from Woody’s Honda on Grasswood Drive, drinking coffee and eating the last of a packaged sandwich from the market on Dume Drive. The night before I’d had to relocate three times when a yellow private neighborhood security 4x4 rolled by. With a BOLO out on Woody’s car, I couldn’t take a chance on being reported to the local sheriffs.
By ten A.M. it was time to pack it in. I’d had no sleep and there’d been no sign of Sydnye.
I decided to drop by my mom’s to take a shower. It had been a foggy and cool morning on Point Dume and when I walked in I found Mom and Coco at the dining-room table drinking breakfast tea and eating toast and jam, instead of sitting outside on their patio. A long-corded phone was resting between them, and the Malibu phone book was on the table. Nearby was Mom’s computer. It was on.
When I kissed her on the cheek I knew something was off. “What’s up, Ma,” I asked.
“Two of our cats are missing. I’m contemplating making a police report.”
I shook my head. “The blues can’t help you,” I said. “Better call someone private. Maybe a neighbor or a local kid. Pay ’em by the hour.”
“I am a taxpayer. Are you implying that th
e Malibu police—the blues—are ineffective?”
“They don’t hunt stray cats, Ma. They have other things to do.”
“You have a point, James. I’ll telephone Chuckie Melber, down the block. He’s a nice boy. He’ll help me.”
“Hey, Ma,” I said, biting into a slice of toast, “mind if I take a shower and get cleaned up? I worked late last night.”
“Of course, dear. Use the spare bathroom. You’re not in any trouble, are you?”
“What trouble would I be in, Ma?”
The new information about Karl Swan and Sydnye that Archer had given me had been churning in my mind for the last twelve hours. I looked down at Mom’s laptop, then realized I could save myself a little grunt work.
“Hey, Ma,” I said, “mind if I do a quick search on your machine? It’ll just take a few minutes.”
“Of course, dear,” she said.
I sat down and Mom asked Coco to make me some real coffee. Then Mom minimized the astrological web page she had on the screen and turned the computer toward me. “Help yourself, James. Just don’t lose the page I’m on.”
I clicked to the search engine, then typed in a name: Karl Swan.
What came up wasn’t a surprise. A color photo of a younger, grinning Swan, then several more photographs of the guy with movie stars and other film-studio bosses at gala events. Then the bio:
Karl Swan, (born Kella Swirsky in Stuttgart, Germany, June 1930) is one of the most successful film producers in Hollywood history. Nine of his twenty-four films have grossed over 100 million dollars. As a boy, young Swirsky survived an Austrian concentration camp in Flossenbürg, during World War ll, where both his parents and his sister perished, to eventually immigrate to England in 1944, where he attended Eton College and Cambridge. Having developed an interest in photography as a teenager, he began a hobby as a still photographer, and soon gravitated to filming documentaries of bombed-out European towns, interviewing dozens of civilian survivors of WW ll. At nineteen he was awarded the Kandinsky Prize for what later became his 1954 film, The Aftermath. International attention followed and Swirsky immigrated to America, where he began his Hollywood career. Good fortune awaited the young man. His first assignment was as an assistant cameraman working for famed producer Harry Goldman in the box-office success The Texan, starring Paul Morrow and Sandra Turner. Goldman saw talent in the young man and Swirsky became his protégé. It was on the screen credits to The Texan that Kella Swirsky’s newly adopted name, Karl Swan, first appeared. What followed was a series of successful assignments where Swan went from cameraman to associate producer and, ultimately, to producer. In 1963 his first box-office triumph (financed by Goldman) came with the film The Great Escapade, about soldiers in a WW ll concentration camp.
