by W. S. Greer
As I drive down the dark highway, I can’t shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen. I don’t really have a reason to think anything like this, but the feeling is there. It sits inside of me like a cancer, eating away at me from within. It’s right there in my stomach as I drive, realizing that there are no other cars on the road because it’s twelve-thirty at night. I feel like I’m driving into an oncoming storm as I take the exit, yet the sky is clear and the stars are bright above me.
I take the small, poorly lit road, and it looks like I’ll be hitting a dead end any second now, because there are virtually no lights on the road and I have to use my high beams just to be able to see where I’m going. On both sides of the road, there’s nothing. It’s like I’ve left Chicago and am now driving somewhere in New Mexico, surrounded by dry desert and tumbleweeds. It’s almost intimidating, and it’s definitely unnerving. I shake the anxiety off, however, as I continue to drive and see small, white lights out in front of me. At least now I have assurance that I’m not driving off the face of the earth.
I follow the road until I reach the lights, which are illuminating a few small buildings that look like warehouses of some sort. Even with the lights, the entire place is still pretty dark. I follow the road until I reach the warehouses and see cars parked in front of one. I park with the rest of the vehicles, quickly recognizing my father’s Bentley, Uncle Clarence’s Mercedes, and Ilia Baskov’s Mercedes. There’s a few cars that I don’t recognize, but that’s not my concern. My concern is that there are so many high ranking members of this now combined family. Having my father, Uncle Clarence, and Ilia all in the same place is rare these days, because cops automatically become suspicious of them all being together, which makes perfect sense seeing as how they’re the bosses of their respective crime families. So, with that being the case, I find it a bit odd that they’re all here together now. It’s also a little unsettling not knowing exactly where here is.
I step out my car and close the door behind me. I do a brief inspection of the area, looking around, three-hundred-sixty degrees. It’s not a place that I’ve ever been to—in fact, I’m sure it’s not even a place that I’ve even driven past by accident. So, I start towards the warehouse in the hopes that I’ll run into someone I recognize.
As I reach what I believe is the entrance, I reach out to turn the knob, but the door pops open before I touch it. Inside, Uncle Clarence stares back at me with a twisted grin on his face, his black and white t-shirt being stretched to the limit by his massive upper body.
“You made it,” he says calmly. “Good. Let’s go, but leave your phone in the car. No calls while we’re out here. Security.”
I frown at him, baffled, then I turn around and jog back to my car to drop off my phone. I’m not sure what the hell that’s about, but I just roll with it and make my way back to the door. Uncle Clarence nods for me to enter, and closes the door behind me as I walk past him. I pause when I hear the door close and wait for him to lead the way.
He leads me towards the back of the warehouse, but doesn’t turn on any lights. The rooms we hurriedly walk through are dusty and don’t contain much furniture. There’s a desk here and there, and maybe a filing cabinet or two, but nothing that really gives away our location. So, I stop trying to figure it out, and just walk behind my uncle as we reach another door. Uncle Clarence turns the door knob and pushes it open, and I once again feel the night air hit me as we step outside where the rest of the group is waiting for us.
There are still no lights, so it’s a little difficult to make out everyone’s faces, but I immediately see my father, his driver and bodyguard, James, Ilia, the Russian underboss, Yosef, and Uncle Clarence’s driver, Simon.
“Ah,” my father begins with a smile. “Nice of you to join us, Junior. I’m glad you made it.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I respond, still wondering what the hell is about to happen. “What are we doing here… and where is here, exactly?”
Ilia and Yosef giggle to themselves, and I feel a rush of heat flush through me. I know that my father and the Russians have worked things out recently, and they have this little drug business going on, but I can’t help the fact that I still harbor some hard feelings towards the Baskov family. When I look over at Ilia, I remember the moment I saw him driving up the road in front of the Alinea restaurant. I remember how I felt when I thought that they were coming to kill my Uncle Mikey, but instead, gunned down their own brother in front of everybody in the restaurant. I remember Viktor chasing Lilliana and me into the alley after we left the club, and I remember the bullet going through my arm when they shot up my Camaro with Lilliana and me inside trying to shield ourselves from the hail of bullets. That kind of shit doesn’t just go away just because my father is a heartless asshole who only cares about money. To me, it all feels like it just happened yesterday. It feels like Ivan is still in charge of the Baskov family, and like I should still be afraid for my life. It feels like I should be beating the shit out of both of them right now. However, I push those feelings aside and try to ignore them as my father speaks up.
“Here is where deliveries are made,” he says, looking down at his watch.
“Deliveries?” I reply. “What deliveries?”
Right on cue, Uncle Clarence walks back inside, the door closing behind him. I look at my father, waiting for him to answer me, but he doesn’t respond. My patience quickly starts to evaporate, but just before I ask what deliveries again, I hear a loud snapping sound behind me. I jerk my head around and see two sets of white lights running down both sides of a very long, narrow road. Uncle Clarence comes back outside, and realize that he was the one who turned the lights on, then I finally start to comprehend where we are. I turn around and look at the lights again, and it hits me. Deliveries. It’s an airstrip.
I look over at my father and see him looking down at his watch again, and I suddenly feel sick.
“You’re expecting a delivery tonight,” I say matter-of-factly. “You wanted me here for a heroin delivery.”
“That’s right,” my father says. “I just figured that since you’re finally getting on board with how we do things, this is a pretty important part of we do. You’re not just a regular member of The Family. You’re my son. You’re my son who’s trying to earn my hotel. So, this is something that you should be a part of. No more looking in from the outside, right? You’re in the family now.”
I breathe out a sigh of disgust and force myself to shake off how shitty this feels. I don’t want to be here with these fucking people, and I certainly don’t want any part of any drug deliveries, but if I turn around and walk out now, I’ll never get the Red Chip. My father is presenting me with take it or leave it ultimatums. Either I accept the shittiest part of the Carter family, or I don’t, and I get nothing. I can’t have it be that way. So, I think about what it is that I’m doing, and who it is that I’m doing it for. I think about Lilliana sitting at home in our house, waiting for me—worried about me. I can’t let that be for nothing. It has to work out in the end. So, I push aside the bad feeling that I still have in the pit of my stomach, and I keep going.
“That’s right, Dad. I’m in the family now, so let’s do what we’ve gotta do.” I struggle to force myself to smile, but I manage to pull it off. My dad smiles back at me and nods his head in approval, then looks back down at his watch.
“Should be any minute now,” Senior says. “Everything took off on time, right Ilia?”
“Everything was on time. He’ll be here. He said one in the morning,” Ilia answers with his heavy Russian accent.
“Okay,” my father replies. “You see, Junior, this is how we get our supply. Our connection with Ilia and his family give us ties to Russia, where they manufacture the dope themselves. Ilia has his advisor, Nestor, fly back to Saint Petersburg and pick up the amount specified. This way, we can avoid having a middle man. The Baskov family manufactures the dope, we sell it, and we all make five times as much money as we would if we had to
pay a supplier to transport it back to the states. There’s no middle man. It’s a win-win for everybody. Plus, this way we can bypass customs. We don’t have to worry about our cargo coming off some commercial flight at O’Hare, where the police are there inspecting every-fucking-thing. This is untraceable.”
I nod my head as I listen, but I can barely hear my father speaking, because I’m too busy thinking about how I want to leave. That bad feeling is stronger than ever right now, and it’s taking everything in me to hold it together.
“That’s why there’s no lights leading out to this place,” I state aloud, but to myself.
“That’s right. No lights means no attention. We don’t even turn the runway lights on until the plane is five to ten minutes out. We do shit to perfection so that we don’t have to worry about any unwanted company.”
“You mean cops?”
“That’s right,” Uncle Clarence chimes in. “Those fucking idiots have their heads so far up their asses, though. They have no clue how all of this happens, or when it happens. The last thing we’ll ever have to worry about is the cops. We’re light years ahead of them.”
“We’ve got eyes and ears in Chicago PD anyway, so we’d know if there was anything serious taking shape. We’re very much in the clear,” Ilia declares, looking directly at me. “I can see that you’re a little apprehensive, Junior. I assure you, we’re very good at what we do, and we’re good to go. No heat’s on us.”
“Well, that’s great, but I am a little apprehensive. This is some dangerous shit, and I’m not quite used to it, so you’ll have to forgive me. I’ll be fine. I’m still all in.”
“That’s very good to know,” Yosef says quietly. I look over at him, but only for a second, because my desire to punch him in the fucking face is overwhelming.
Suddenly, I hear the faint sound of a plane in the distance. I look up to the sky to try to spot it, but the sky is dark.
“You can look, but you won’t see it until the moment it’s about to land. It flies with no exterior lights,” Ilia says. “I told you, we’re very good at what we do.”
About thirty seconds later, the engine of the plane is even louder, and I can now see it as it approaches the runway. It starts off as a tiny white dot in the distance, but it quickly grows and takes shape, and I can see it’s a fairly decent sized plane—a private jet—and it approaches quickly, and lands almost just as fast.
As the jet slowly makes its way down the taxiway, all of us jump down from the warehouse loading dock and wait for it to reach us. I feel like all of my nerves are vibrating all at once. As the plane full of heroin inches its way closer, I feel myself becoming more and more nervous. In my mind, the plane is full of large, conspicuous boxes with the word heroin spray painted across the sides in bright red letters. They all seem so confident that it makes me feel like something bad is bound to happen. Confidence has a tendency to lead to carelessness and mistakes, and mistakes lead to every single one of us getting arrested for drug trafficking—among other things. So, I just hope that they’re all as good as they say they are.
The plane comes to a stop, and the engines turn off as we all walk towards it. Just as we reach it, the small door opens and the stairs unfold down to the ground. I look up into the plane and see Ilia’s advisor, Nestor, standing in the entrance with a bright smile on his face, and his arms stretched out to his sides, greeting us.
“Dobroye utro, moi druz'ya (Good morning, my friends),” Nestor says excitedly. He has way too much energy seeing as how he just made a ridiculously long trip from somewhere in Russia.
“Dobroye utro, Nestor,” Ilia responds as his friend makes his way down the stairs. The two of them embrace like they haven’t seen each other in years, patting one another on the back and grinning from ear to ear. When Ilia is done with his greeting, Yosef steps in and hugs Nestor with the same enthusiasm. Once all the love is exchanged between the Russians, the three of them turn to us, and I see their smiles fade away in a hurry.
“Good morning, Senior,” Nestor says, rolling all of the R’s in all of the words. “Glad you could join us. I see you brought the prince tonight.”
“Good to see you, Nestor,” my father says, showcasing his best counterfeit smile as he walks towards the three of them with his hand extended. “It was time to bring my son up to speed on everything. He’s a loyal member of The Family now. I’m very proud.”
“As you should be,” Nestor responds. Then, he turns his attention to me. “Glad to see you joining in on the business, Kelvin Junior. I’m glad the feud is over and we can be partners now.”
I cringe at the mention of “the feud.” What they call a feud, I call the constant fear of having my life stolen from me for no fucking reason that makes sense. A feud is two sided. What we had wasn’t a feud. It was just them and their family coming after me and my girlfriend, while my coward father sat back and tried to figure out how he could profit from it. It was bullshit. Bullshit that I have to put aside now. I take another deep breath and walk towards the group of them, extending my hand the same way my father did.
“I’m glad the feud is over also. I’m excited to be a part of the business with my father and all of you. The past is the past.” I know it’s a gigantic hunk of bullshit, but the words flow out of my mouth very easily. I’m almost surprised at how good I am at this little game.
“Great,” my dad jumps in. “What do you say we get started? Let’s make this quick so we can all go home and get some rest.
“Let’s do it,” I utter, just for effect.
Nestor leads the entire group of us to the back of the plane where the luggage would normally go, but I figure there won’t be any suitcases back here. I’m totally expecting to see the boxes labeled heroin. He reaches up and pops open the door, which slides down, revealing about ten large suitcases, to my surprise. Nestor grabs one and pulls it out carefully, making sure it doesn’t slam on the hard pavement. Even though he laid the case down gently, I can still tell that it’s extremely heavy.
Nestor unzips the case, and I’m shocked to see that it looks like it’s full of clothes. The first thing I see is a bunch of red lace lingerie. Next to that is a few pairs of sexy panties and thongs, all in different colors. Nestor moves all of that aside to reveal a variation of bras.
“What the hell is all this?” I question with a chuckle.
Nestor looks up at me like I just asked a dumb question. “Cops don’t like going through a woman’s clothes.” Then, he pulls all of the clothes out of the suitcase and drops them on the ground next to him, revealing what’s left inside the case—really big bricks of heroin.
“There it is,” my father says, with overwhelming excitement. “It’s fucking beautiful.”
“How much is in one case, Nestor?” Uncle Clarence asks, motioning towards the suitcase.
“There are twelve cases in all, twenty kilos in each case. Two-hundred-forty keys in all.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Simon says. “Ya’ll don’t fuck around.”
Ilia looks over at him with a furrow in his brow. “No, we definitely do not.”
“Do you know how much all of that is worth, Junior?” Uncle Clarence says to me.
“Nah, I don’t have a clue,” I admit with a shrug.
“Well, if you’re gonna be down with all of this, this is something you need to be able to figure out. So, just remember, one kilo is just about two-point-two pounds of dope. We usually make about three-hundred grand on one kilo. So, if you do the math, by the time all of this is pushed, we’re looking at about seventy-two million dollars, roughly. This is our big time score, Junior. This is why we wanted you helping to sell this shit, because this right here is gonna change everything. Our Russian partners are gonna help us push half, and we’re gonna push the other half. Our cut is just over thirty million. This can be retirement money right here. For all of us.”
“You want the Red Chip?” my father interrupts.
I take a second to get over the fact that he just put
me on the spot, then I say, “Of course I do.”
“This is the only way you get it, Junior. Help us to put our gangster days behind us by helping us go out with a bang. We sell this, and all of us can retire with a fat bankroll. This is your key into the Red Chip, but it’s also your guarantee to never having to worry about finances. You want to take care of that sexy little Latina you’ve got back at home? This is how you do it.”
“I told you I don’t want to sell anything. And, how do I know that if I sell this shit, that you won’t want to fatten your pockets even more by doing this shit all over again? There’s no guarantees here, Dad.”
My father takes a couple of steps and stops directly in front of me. I can see it in his face that he’s pissed about my arguing with him in front of his business partners. He was obviously hoping that cornering me and putting me on the spot would be enough to make me agree to sell his dope for him.
“Here’s one thing that I know is a guarantee for sure,” he says with a snarl. “I guarantee that if you aren’t down with this, you’ll never own the Red Chip. I guarantee that you’ll have to take your ass back up to the burbs to live with your mom. You and little Lily can go use yours and your brother’s old bunk beds for the rest of your miserable little, poor lives. This is going to happen with or without you, but it only benefits you if you help. If you don’t help, then you won’t get any benefits from me at all. Now, how’s that for a fucking guarantee?”
I feel the heat building up inside of me. My face twists itself into a snarl, and I clench my fists. The urge to explode is becoming too much to hold in, and the harshest words that I can think of have made their way to the edge of my tongue, ready to lash out at any moment now. He’s trying to force my hand, and I won’t fucking let this slide. Fuck this bullshit!
Suddenly, just as I reach the point of no return, I hear the sound of a cellphone ringing. Everything comes to a standstill as we all look around in confusion. It’s not a normal ringtone, but an actual ringing like an old rotary phone.
