The Equalizer

by Michael Sloan

  Cocktail waitresses in silver silk shirts and tailored slacks carried trays through the small tables with practiced ease. Near them, lounging just above the tables, or sitting at four back tables off to one side, were twelve very beautiful young women. They were all in their twenties, elegantly dressed, the dresses cut down low enough to show ample cleavage, some wearing miniskirts flashing gorgeous legs. These weren’t stripper’s outfits. They were classy. Their makeup looked professional enough to have been put on by a Hollywood makeup artist. They drank champagne out of fluted silver glasses. One of the young stockbrokers or attorneys from the bar walked up to a blond dancer and spoke to her. He had a folded hundred-dollar bill in his hand. He moved it through his fingers like a magician doing a coin trick. She smiled and nodded, took the bill and they walked out onto the dance floor.

  McCall glanced at a silver staircase on his left, which had small neon lights pulsating on each step, leading up to a second floor. That’s where the small bedrooms would be. A narrow bed in each, a chair to dump the clothes, a hanger on the back of the door to hang up the suit coats. A silver lamp on a narrow bedside table. That would be it. Probably each one had a tiny bathroom.

  McCall looked at the cocktail waitresses moving through the tables and going back and forth to the bar where a couple of young bartenders were mixing drinks as fast as humanly possible. McCall remembered Katia had said something to him once about serving drinks, that they were in the same business. He didn’t see her.

  His gaze shifted back to the dancers whom, he suspected, were at times required to perform services that had little to do with dancing, except in the metaphorical sense. And then he saw her, leaning on the silver railing that separated the raised space near the bar from the cocktail tables. She was wearing a beautiful black dress, showing more of her breasts than she would probably have liked; he remembered her dressing conservatively when she’d been at Bentleys. In fact, he’d never seen her out of jeans, dark pullovers of various colors, and a Windbreaker at the restaurant. This was a different Katia altogether, also perfectly made up, sophisticated and alluring, but aloof. Her body language said don’t come anywhere near me. The dress fell just above her knees, showing off very good legs, but not exploiting them. She held a glass of champagne, but sipped at it. It was a prop. There might not have been champagne in it—ginger ale, more likely.

  She looked trapped.

  McCall edged through the crowd, taking a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket. She didn’t see him until he was almost beside her. When she did, she took a step back, totally disoriented.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He could barely hear her over Pink who was demanding to get this party started.

  “Let’s dance,” McCall said.

  “I don’t dance.”

  “I don’t see you serving cocktails and you’re not dressed like that to watch.”

  “I’m here with my boyfriend. He’s up at the bar.”

  “You don’t have a boyfriend. Natalya told me.”

  “Natalya didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Not in words. You’re paid to dance. I’m guessing this is something new. Here’s my hundred dollars. How many dances do I get for that?”

  “One.” Now she stepped closer to him, lowering her voice, although she could have shouted and no one would have overheard. “Look, Bobby, I don’t know how you found out I worked here.”

  “You were turning a matchbook of Dolls over in your hand when you came to pick up Natalya.”

  “That’s right. Okay, so you noticed that. I like you. I’m glad you thought it might be fun to come here and find me. I’ve been to your place of work, now you’ve been to mine. Let’s leave it at that.”

  “Let’s dance,” McCall said again, and pressed the hundred-dollar bill into her hand.

  Her eyes flicked past him. He turned, noting Kuzbec, in the same three-piece suit with the gold watch chain, watching them intently from across the dance floor. He was also drinking champagne and his eyes would have chilled a polar bear.

  “You’re going to get me in trouble,” she hissed, and her Chechen accent had thickened with anxiety.

  “Not if you dance with me,” McCall said. “Is this your first night here as a dancer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Am I your first dance?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s quite an honor. Better me than one of those jaded stockbrokers up at the bar. Come on, you lead, I’ll follow. I’m not exactly Michael Jackson on a dance floor.”

  That made her smile. She slipped the hundred-dollar bill into her cleavage and took his hand, leading him through the cocktail tables onto the crowded dance floor.

  “I can’t think of anyone better to be my first dance partner,” she said, almost in a whisper.

  “Wait until I step on your feet a couple of times before you make that judgment.”

  He took her in his arms and they danced, just moving gently, not in time to the pounding music, but to a rhythm that was slower in their heads.

  “What’s your full name?” McCall asked. “Since we’re dancing partners, I should know that.”

  “Katia Rossovkaya.”

  “Not Russian.”

  “Chechen.”

  “A hundred dollars a dance. What was that old song? Ten cents a dance? Inflation is running pretty high at Dolls.”

  “It buys you three dances. I was trying to discourage you.”

  “What else does it buy?”

  She stiffened in his arms and did not respond. McCall nodded at some of the more experienced dancers on the floor, working their magic on their new partners.

  “How many of them are expected to go upstairs?”

  “What do you know of this?”

  Now she sounded alarmed, and her eyes flicked across the dance floor to where Kuzbec was still watching them.

  “I don’t know anything. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to get a sense of their operation. Some of the dancers look like they’ve been doing this for a while. Others aren’t sure of themselves yet, but they’re getting there. They probably don’t have a choice.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Sure, you do. You tell them you’ll dance and that’s all.”

  “You don’t know them.”

  “Actually, I do.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder. “Forget about the chauffeur. He won’t hurt you. He wouldn’t dare.” McCall danced her away from that side of the dance floor and the young Chechen. Pink was replaced by Beyoncé telling her man if he wants it to put a ring on it. Diva night at Dolls. “Who was waiting for you in the back of that Lexus?”

  She gripped his arms a little more tightly. “Bobby, look…”

  “Call me Robert,” he said quietly. “No one who really knows me calls me Bobby.”

  “Robert, I appreciate that you’re trying to help me. But I told you, there’s nothing you can do. These people can be monsters. They’ll hurt you. I know what I’m dealing with. I’ll be fine. You need to go now.”

  “I haven’t had my three dances.”

  McCall looked out across the dance floor again, searching the crowd for the well-dressed killer he’d seen at Moses’s antiques store and for just a moment in the back of the Lexus. Didn’t see him.

  “What’s the man’s name?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “In my former life, I got tired of people telling me that. Okay, different question. Who runs this place?”

  “His name is Borislav Kirov.”

  “And how long before you step up from dancer to hooker?”

  She bit her lip, shaking her head, as if the situation was completely hopeless.

  “What is it they want? It can’t just be sexual. What do they want you to do?”

  She shook her head again.

  “Maybe some pillow talk? Listen to secrets no one is supposed to hear, but it’s you, it’s a beautiful Chechen girl who speaks very good English, an angel, she’s not going to tel
l anyone. Except her boss. Who then uses the information at his discretion.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Blackmail.”

  “I can’t be sent home,” she whispered. “I can’t allow that to happen to Natalya.”

  McCall nodded. That was the threat they held over her.

  “Did you tell them no? That you would dance and nothing more? Just nod and smile and then laugh.”

  She nodded, then smiled. He whispered something to her and she laughed. McCall caught sight of the chauffeur in one of the many silver mirrors on the walls around the dance floor. He’d relaxed. Katia was loosening up, getting into it. That was good.

  “How long have they given you?”

  “There is a man at the bar. He is waiting for his dance. I am to do whatever he asks. He will take me upstairs.”

  “Nod at him as we make the next turn.”

  McCall turned her around as they passed closer to the bar. He didn’t need her to nod. He’d already picked him out. He was nicely dressed in a charcoal suit with faint red lines, a red-and-white tie with small spinning tops on it. He was drinking a bourbon. In his thirties. McCall thought he looked familiar. Maybe he’d seen him on some local news show, even on CNN. An attorney who worked for one of the networks, commenting on the power brokers in D.C. and what it all meant. He watched the dancers like a predator. McCall knew the look.

  “What can I do, Robert?”

  This time all pretense and toughness had fled from her voice. She was frightened and lost. He swung her away from the bar. Felt the attorney’s eyes watching them intently.

  “You tell them again. You’ll only dance with the customers. They won’t push it. You’re one girl. They’ve got eleven others who aren’t going to give them trouble. You’re not special to them.”

  She started to say something, thought better of it. She turned her head and looked back toward the man at the silver bar.

  “You know his name?” McCall asked.

  “Mr. Frank Gardiner.”

  McCall placed him. Fox News expert on the White House. Relaxed, cynical, and oily.

  “He’s not going to be dancing with you tonight.”

  “But I was told…”

  “He’s going to change his mind.”

  The third song started up, the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive.” But McCall moved Katia off the dance floor to a vacant table. He sat her down.

  “They’re right about one thing. You dance like an angel.”

  “Once you’ve gone, he’ll just walk over and hand me a hundred-dollar bill.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m going to ask him not to.”

  McCall picked up one of the Dolls matchbooks on the table. No one was allowed to smoke in the nightclub, but they were decorative and customers were encouraged to take them home. He wrote a number on the back of the matchbook and handed it to her.

  “That’s my cell number. Call it, anytime, day or night. If you need me, I’ll be there.”

  She took the matchbook, looking up at him.

  “You’re not a bartender, are you?”

  “Sure, I am.”

  “But you haven’t always been one?”

  “No.”

  He gave her a little courtly bow, for the sake of the chauffeur, as if thanking her for the three dances. Then he made his way to the silver bar. Frank Gardiner threw back his last burning swallow of bourbon.

  His turn.

  He slid off his bar stool. McCall took his right hand at the wrist, steering him away from the cocktail tables.

  “Just what the hell do you…”

  That’s as far as Gardiner got. McCall kept his voice soft, but somehow the Washington correspondent heard every word as if they were suddenly cocooned.

  “If I move my hand an inch, your wrist breaks. If you move your other hand one inch, that one breaks.”

  Gardiner reflexively tried to wrench his arm away, but McCall held him in a viselike grip.

  “Okay, I’ll let that go,” McCall said. “This time. You’re not going to ask that young lady for a dance. You’re not going to dance with anyone. This club is too crowded and noisy tonight. That’s what you’ll tell anyone who asks. You’ve had a migraine all day. This was a bad idea. You’re going home. Maybe you’ve got a wife waiting for you, a couple of kids. Maybe a girlfriend. Maybe you’re just very alone. That happens in the big city. You’re not going to come back to Dolls. Not tonight. Not any other night.”

  Gardiner’s voice was shaky. There was no aggression in it.

  “Who the hell are you? Her boyfriend?”

  “Just a friend. I’ll walk you out. If you go back in, I’ll know about it. I’ll find you. Doesn’t matter where you live. Doesn’t matter who you know. I’ll hurt you very badly. Are we clear?”

  McCall hoped he wouldn’t say “Crystal.” No one ever really said that. Gardiner looked at Robert McCall and it was the club bouncer at the door all over again. He saw something in the sudden cold, alligator eyes. Nothing in them but death.

  Gardiner nodded. McCall let go of his wrist and stopped. Did nothing. Gardiner walked toward the front of the nightclub. McCall waited, then followed, not closely. He turned once and looked for Katia. She was up on the dance floor, dancing with a young guy who looked like he should be on Vampire Diaries. McCall assessed the threat. None. He looked across the dance floor, but Kuzbec had gone. He didn’t see anyone else he recognized. He thought that Borislav Kirov was probably watching everything on a monitor in an office somewhere. There were small, silver cameras on all of the walls, blending in with the decor.

  McCall thought of giving a jaunty wave, but decided against it. He walked to the front of the nightclub.

  Outside, the crowd had grown bigger and more vocal. The bouncer was arguing with a young couple, doing some shoving. No one was getting past him. McCall walked out, touched the bouncer’s shoulder, nodded at the young couple he’d just shoved away. They can go in. The bouncer stepped aside and the couple entered the nightclub. The bouncer stepped up in front of the next couple, glancing nervously toward McCall. Are we cool now? McCall nodded. Fun to play God. He looked around. There was no sign of Gardiner. No one came out of the club after him. The night was cold, but he decided to walk home.

  He climbed the stairs up to his apartment.

  Big Gertie hit him with the baseball bat as soon as he walked through his front door.

  CHAPTER 11

  The blow brought McCall to his knees. A wave of nausea shuddered through his body. He hadn’t heard a thing inside the apartment. In his mind he’d been back at Dolls nightclub, seeing Katia standing frightened and skittish in her revealing black dress, wondering which of the customers with their hundred-dollar dance tickets was going to be the one to whisper in her ear that he’d been promised something more than a twirl around the dance floor. That there’d be a lot more money in it for her. That she’d enjoy herself. He was a really nice guy; never did this kind of thing, but she was so beautiful and …

  The pain almost took his breath away. He felt blood spill hot down the side of his face, closing his left eye. He cursed himself. When had he ever let himself be taken by surprise like this? He waited for the second blow that would crush his skull like an eggshell, but it didn’t come. He tried to push himself up from his knees, but a boot smashed down hard in the middle of his back. He managed to stay on his knees. He knew if he was sprawled on his stomach it would all be over.

  “Let him get up,” a voice said.

  It was thin and reedy and seemed to be coming from a long way away. It sounded amused. McCall blinked the blood out of his left eye and looked up. The room was blurred. Two men were in front of him, one straight ahead, one on his right. Slowly he pushed up on his hands and got to his feet. His vision began to clear. His breathing was coming out in short gasps. He regulated it. Calmed his heart rate. He figured it was at least 180 with the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
He needed it to drop down to 140, that would be good enough. He swayed a little, but stayed on his feet. That was for their benefit. He wanted them to think he was more disoriented than he was.

  Big Gertie had stepped back from him. His considerable bulk was between McCall and the front door, which he kicked shut with his foot. The Tiffany lamp on the bookcase provided the only light in the room. A second brother stood just outside the archway into the kitchenette on McCall’s right. He was small with ferret eyes, shifting nervously from foot to foot, eyes darting around the living room, as if expecting McCall’s cavalry to leap out from the shadows somewhere. He looked as if he needed a fix in the next few seconds or he’d puke. McCall could sympathize. The man was holding a length of heavy-duty chain in his trembling hands.

  J.T. was standing at the bookshelves at the far end of the living room, the bracelets on both wrists sparkling in the soft light. He had a Colt Python .357 Magnum in his right hand, aimed straight at McCall. He held it awkwardly, his unbroken index finger coiled around the trigger. Then, almost contemptuously, the pimp put the gun into the waistband of his jeans.

  “Won’t be needin’ this right away. Gonna watch my brother go to work on you again with that Louisville Slugger. Seein’ as you put my hands out of commission.”

  McCall wasn’t listening. He was looking at the leather couch in the middle of the room where Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds lay. She was naked, her arms duct-taped behind her back, her ankles taped tight together. There was gray duct tape across her mouth. Her eyes were wide with terror. Her face was bruised. Her ribs were discolored where they’d beaten her. McCall noted red, angry cigarette burns across her breasts. The cigarette end had to have been applied to her white skin very recently. Probably within the last few minutes, while they were waiting for him. As if to make a point, J.T. carefully lit a cigarette with his injured hands and dropped the match into the glass bowl on the coffee table with the M&M’s in it. There were more burns down the girl’s legs, traveling parallel with the track marks. There was a tight cluster of burns above the dark tangle of her pubic hair. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face was stained with tears. She was trembling violently. She stared at McCall without hope, but her eyes were still pleading.