by Mike Knowles
As I drove, I breathed deep and counted down from ten until my mind was empty. I turned off Duke Street onto James Street and circled the office a few times. I let my mind take in the area, waiting for recognition of anything that stood out. I didn’t see people loitering in the shadows, and there were no strange parked cars concealing occupants hunched low in their driver seats. To be safe, I went up a block and parked on a side street. I turned off the ignition and checked the Glock. I reloaded the gun so that I had eleven in the clip and one in the chamber. I took off the safety and tucked the gun into the holster at the small of my back. I made sure my shirt was out over the holster, and got out of the car.
I didn’t enter the building at first. I was bait, but I planned on surviving my predators. I wanted the Russians to take a run at me on my terms, in a place where I had control. That meant I had to make it past the front door and anyone waiting. I walked on the opposite side of the street, past the office, into a variety store five doors down from my building. It was the best spot I had to watch the street. I bought a paper and a coffee and walked over to the video wall by the door. I stared over the video rack of soft-and hard-core pornography through the window to the street. I spent twenty minutes sipping my coffee and pretending to split my time between the paper and the porn.
I left after the clerk started to cough a little louder than he needed to over and over again. I hadn’t noticed a thing yet, but it had been less than half an hour — nothing in the grand scheme of things. I walked back up the street and used an alley to cross over James Street, the second-busiest street in the area. I hailed a cab and gave the cabbie a story about a cheating wife. I told the driver to cruise the area so I could catch her in the act. I told him I would pay whatever the fare came to, and settled in to watch the neighbourhood roll by. The cabbie spoke about his own cheating wife and how much he hated the bitch and her kids. I ignored the story, speaking up only to tell him where to turn. I watched the cars and the people as we cruised; I was looking for solitary figures sitting low in car seats, or random pedestrians who strode the sidewalks too long. In the hour I spent in the cab I saw no human forms in the shadows of cars or alleys. I paid up the cabbie when we ended up back on James Street for the twelfth time, and walked the streets again.
I carefully navigated the side streets and narrow alleys. The reek of garbage from the corners accented the putrid fumes being spewed by the sewers. I walked past the convenience store I had been in earlier, then I went past the office. No one looked at me twice, and no one stood out — yet. I knew deep down that Mike had squealed on me back at the office. People were coming.
After a few more strolls around the area, I went up the steps to the building. It was almost six, after office hours; the few other rented office spaces in the building were empty. I had the key ready, and I opened the locked door and entered the building without losing a step. No one shot me in the back; no one was waiting for me inside. I moved down the hall past the elevator and entered the stairwell. I closed the door quietly behind me and waited. I waited for three minutes, listening to the hum of the fluorescent bulbs. I strained to hear any other noises above me, but there were none.
Before I started climbing the stairs, I took off my shoes. I held them in my left hand with my thumb and forefinger; my right was on the butt of my gun. Quietly I climbed the stairs. At first, my damp feet made quiet suction sounds, but the noise faded as my soles absorbed the grime and grease of the stairs. I passed each floor until I ran out of stairs at the sixth floor. No one was waiting for me on the top floor. I leaned over the stairwell and saw nothing below me, so I moved back down one flight to the fifth floor — my floor. Slowly I pressed the thumb latch on the door handle using the hand that was carrying the shoes. The first attempt was a little unsteady, so I put down the shoes and tried again. I opened the stairwell door and spied the dimly lit hallway for two minutes. Every office was dark, including mine. I didn’t hear a single cough or shuffle of feet.
I picked up my shoes and moved down the hallway, making sure to stay low under each door so no one could shoot me in the back from a hiding place in one of the dark offices. I knelt to the right of my door and silently slid my key in. I turned the key, and slowly pushed the door open. I knew the score right away. The door moved too quickly; it moved open on its own and slammed against the door jamb because inside a window was open.
Behind my desk the blinds were up and the window was open. I kept low to the floor as I moved inside. Keeping the desk between me and the window, I pivoted to the blinds and released them. I didn’t think anyone would shoot through the window at me; they would first want to find out what I knew. I was sure I had about two minutes until whoever was watching the window would be at the office door, so I got ready quick. I put my shoes on and went to the closet. The closet had a false back. I pulled out the painted wood piece that sat behind my clothes and took out a modified double-barrelled shotgun that I had sawn down to twelve inches. The shotgun was useless outside of ten feet, but up close it was like the wrath of God — scarring everything in its path. I stood, gun in hand, to the right of the door — out of the line of fire from both the hall and the window.
I was off on the time. The door was kicked open after five minutes. The bull who hit the door was a middle-aged guy with a beard, a beer belly, and scars around his eyes. He used a shoulder to hit the door, leaving his gun pointed at the floor. The grey suit he wore pulled at the buttons under the strain of his gut. He must have weighed two hundred forty pounds; most of it was flab. The crash through the door brought him into the room three feet from the shotgun.
I stayed where I was and waited for the man to catch sight of me out of the corner of his eye. His head turned to mine, and I watched the realization hit his face. I saw it in almost slow motion. Each muscle twitched, turning his face into a look of shock. He didn’t say a word, and he didn’t move; he just stood in front of me. We looked at each other for a quarter of a minute until a voice came from the hall.
“Gregor?”
The Russians had found me. I didn’t speak because I wasn’t sure I would be understood. I motioned down with the shotgun and waited. Gregor put his gun down and lowered himself to his knees. I moved his gun to me with my foot, never letting the shotgun drift from Gregor’s centre. The voice called again, more sternly; it had the severity of a man in charge. I butted Gregor on the side of the face, and he went down the rest of the way to the floor. The noise was a sick wet bump, and the groan from Gregor’s lips brought the hallway man into the room with his gun drawn.
As the welt on Gregor’s temple grew, the second Russian and I waited with guns pointed at each other. I broke the silence. “You want to sit down?”
A heavily accented voice returned my pleasant invitation. “Not with guns drawn.”
I’d had enough shit for one day. “Put yours down and we can talk — if you don’t I’m going to do some terrible things.”
I planted my feet and got ready. I began counting down from ten in my head. At one, I was going to kill him and risk the consequences. I figured the risk to be low: the shotgun blast would push him back and draw his shot wide. That was, of course, unless he was counting in his head too — with a lower number than mine. At four, he agreed to sit. He tucked his shiny gun into his pants and sat in the chair next to Gregor’s body. I sat behind my desk and set the shotgun on the desk, the barrel pointed towards the Russian and Gregor.
“Now what do you and Gregor want?” I asked.
The second Russian was the new face of the mob: in his twenties, fresh-faced, dyed hair, gym membership. The new breed of mobster was unlike any of its predecessors. They were into their work for more than money, they were into it for a sense of identity. The lack of a war to fight in left many kids looking for a cause, and the mob was more than willing to let them enlist. These recruits served with a vicious devotion that would scare Germans from the forties. What these kids lacked in skill they more than made up for with brutality.
&
nbsp; “Uh . . . money.”
“You already snuck in once and left the window open. You went through my shit too. You tried to make it look like you didn’t, but I can see that things are out of place, so don’t bullshit me with some story about a robbery. You were here looking for something and you didn’t find it. You waited for me to come back so you could ask me some hard questions. Once you got your answers, you were going to kill me. I want to know why. Who are you working for? And what do they want with me?”
He took a few seconds before he answered. “I do not know what you are speaking about. Now please, call police.”
He looked unafraid of the prospect of involving the police. Handcuffs were better than death, and he knew deep down that I wasn’t the type of person who would call the cops. He started to smile, probably thinking I would let him go. I felt my face pull to the left and I grinned at his smile. His eyes lost their mirth and his mouth formed a small, confused O. His gaze drifted down to the shotgun on the table, then back to me, and then again to the gun. He sprang from his chair, like he was shot out of a cannon, and grabbed at the barrel of the gun. He was lifting the shotgun off the desk when my hand came out from behind my back with the Glock. My grin didn’t fade when I shot him.
The bullet hit him in the shoulder and put him on the ground. The bang was loud, but the offices were empty. No one would complain about the noise. I got out of the chair and moved around the desk. The sound of the shot had woken Gregor. He didn’t make a sound when I kicked him in the temple; he just went limp and sagged to the floor again. His partner was still conscious as I picked him up off the floor. I took his fancy nickel-plated gun from his pants and pushed him over the desk so I could empty the rest of his pockets. Gum, cigarettes, a wallet, a knife, and a cell phone hit my desk in succession. I shoved the Russian back in his chair, grabbed a tea towel, and pressed it hard on the wound to get him to wake all the way up. His eyes focused, and we were back where we had started — minus a bit of his shoulder.
I sat back down behind the desk and put the Glock on the blotter. I didn’t point it at him; I just let it sit casually.
“Now, what did you and Gregor want?” I asked. The edge in my voice told him I was serious. The hole in his shoulder proved it.
He stared at me, his eyes wide and shifting left to right. He was trying to think up a story.
“You’ve got thirty seconds to make me interested, otherwise I’ll kill you where you sit. Then I’ll start talking with Gregor. Seeing you dead will more than convince him to tell me what I need to know. The way I see it, you have a choice: are you going to be more useful to me dead or alive?”
The eyes shifted wildly again like a person drowning thrashes for air. After twenty seconds, his shoulders relaxed; he was ready to feed me the split. Most people under duress give you a sixty-forty split — sixty percent bullshit, forty percent honesty. People figure it’s just enough to save them but not enough to do any real harm. I picked up the gun to speed up the split.
“Okay, okay, shit,” he said in a voice that gained its base speaking an eastern language.
“Name, kid, then your boss.”
“My . . . my name is Igor. I work for Sergei Vidal.”
“Kid, you work for whoever gives you an order. Somebody else might sign the cheques, but your real boss is the one ordering you around. Now give me a local name and stop trying to impress me.”
I could tell that this wasn’t where Igor wanted the conversation to go. He wanted me to be terrified of the name of his employer and leave town as fast as possible out of fear and good judgement. He didn’t know that I had played the game longer and better than him. A fact that should have been evident, considering he ambushed me and he was the one who got shot.
“I don’t know who is in charge, I find out through . . .”
The sentence trailed off as I picked up the gun. I was so tired of amateurs and bullshit. It was getting late in the evening, and I wanted sleep — not more work.
“Consider that strike two. No bullet for that, but strike three gets you ejected from the game. And when that happens Gregor will be the next at bat,” I said in a calm matter-of-fact voice.
Igor slackened in his chair while I waited patiently for the second split, the last split. “My boss . . . his name is Mikhail. He works in a private club on Barton.”
“What kind of club?” I asked.
“It’s a social club, for cards and drinking.”
“Name of the bar, Igor. No bullshit this time.”
He looked at his feet then the left wall. He was looking at it hard like it might open up so that he could dash through to safety. His eyes were glistening. The kid was realizing he wasn’t going to become a powerful gangster. He now understood that, because of what he had failed to do, he would end up dead, and that it would be his friends and co-workers who were going to kill him. It’s a hard realization the first time you feel it.
“It’s called the Kremlin,” he said in a low, quiet voice. It was the voice of a traitor.
I had a decision to make about what to do with Igor and Gregor. Killing them would be more trouble than it was worth. Disposing of bodies takes time, and it’s hard to do unnoticed when you’re in the heart of the city. There are too many people rushing out from each artery. Each person would bring with him complications I didn’t need. Letting them go would be much easier; they were in too much trouble to stick around. They both fucked up. They didn’t do their job, and they sold out their boss. They had to run far and quick before word was out.
“I’m going to the Kremlin, and I’m keeping your phone. If I find out you lied, I’m calling every number stored in the phone using your name to find out what I need to know.”
Igor’s eyes were glistening. He had just grown up in five minutes, and it was taking its toll fast. He already looked older, weaker.
“I’m dead then,” he said.
“You’re not dead yet, but you’ve got a hell of a head start. You better start running. Both of you. When I show up at the club, everyone will be looking for you two. So you better run fast and far.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I watched Igor and Gregor help each other out of the office. I had their guns and a ruined rug. The blood on the rug was not a huge problem — in my line of work blood is a constant issue. Under the rug was a tarp cut to match its dimensions. I moved the chairs and rolled up the rug, pulling the tarp with it as a barrier. I used some duct tape to secure it and found a trash bag for the guns I took off the morons. Keeping guns is dumber than keeping a bloodstained rug. Guns have history, which can become your future for ten to twenty years if you get caught with one.
I stowed the shotgun in the closet and holstered the Glock behind my back. I also took the time to rifle through my desk for my credit cards. In the back of the drawer, stuck in the right-hand corner with a magnet, was a stack of clean credit cards and the item I was looking for.
Years ago I took a card off a small-time mugger. It looked like a platinum American Express card. In actuality it was a decorated piece of metal with a razored edge. The mugger I pulled it from used it to stick up guys in the bathrooms of bars. Once, he happened to hustle the wrong guy, and I had to remedy the situation. I took the card and used it to make sure everyone would see his face coming the next time he tried a bathroom stickup.
I pocketed the card, picked up the carpet and the guns, and walked down the darkened stairs to the basement exit. The back doors had no handle on the outside, just a push bar on the inside. I exited, listening to the click behind me as the doors resealed the building. I dragged the rug to the corner of the alley. The uneven concrete had developed craters over the years; the deeper divots in the corner were full of dark filthy water long after the rainstorms ended. I found the largest puddle and rolled the carpet in. The dirt and grime in the water soaked into the shag and added pounds of weight instantly. I towed the carpet to the nearest Dumpster and leaned it up against the side. The rug would dry black, hiding all of the sta
ins inside, and would be on its way to the dump with the building’s trash soon after that. The guns in the bag could not be taken care of so easily. I decided to use the alleys to dispose of them one piece at a time. After ten minutes, I had dismantled, wiped, and disposed of the two Russians’ pistols in several sewer grates.
I had to make a stop before I visited the Kremlin. My watch read 8:33 p.m. when I opened the door to the variety store I had been in a few hours earlier. The wind chime that served as a warning bell let the clerk know I was there. He was a different man than the one who had shot me dirty looks earlier. This one was a short Middle Eastern man with close-cropped black hair. He wore the hair without gel, and its health was evident in the way it fought gravity above his scalp. His short, neatly trimmed beard framed tight lips below a large pointy nose. I didn’t bother with a greeting. I moved through the aisles past jerky, corn nuts, cereal, and batteries until I finally found what I was looking for: a Trojan Magnum encased in shiny foil. I took the condom to the counter and bought it along with a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a lighter refill.
“Ho, ho. Big night, eh buddy?”
The smiling face across the counter beamed a conspiratorial wicked grin for three seconds, until it recognized that I wouldn’t be replying. I gave him two bills and waited for my change. The clerk grumbled to himself about assholes and shitty jobs while he bagged up everything I bought. I took the bag and my change and walked out the door. The wind chime cheerily announced my departure; the angry man behind the register didn’t bother with a goodbye.
I walked to the car and got in, leaving the engine off. I took out my groceries and used the plastic bag they came in as a trash bag. I tore the cellophane away from the cigarettes and opened the pack. I put a cigarette behind my ear and dumped the rest in the bag. I leaned across the passenger seat and rifled through the glove box for a Swiss Army knife I kept inside. I used the knife to work a small hole into the face of the empty cigarette pack. I tore the foil away from the Trojan and rolled the condom out. I used my finger to open the prophylactic up and then filled it tight with lighter fluid. I knotted the improvised balloon and then shoved into the cigarette package. The condom bulged at first, but I managed to work it into the confines of the empty package. I leaned across the seat and went into the glove box again. I found an old wet-nap from KFC inside, and used it to clean the condom lubrication and lighter fluid off my hands. The lemony smell of the disposable cloth erased some of the scent left by the lighter fluid. I stowed the cigarette pack in my pocket, put the remnants of what I bought in the plastic bag, and opened the car door. I got out and walked to the nearest garbage can, threw the bag in, and got back into the car. Once my pistol was stowed in the glove box, I drove to the Kremlin.
