Overkill

by Dylan Rust

  As long as Sergei stuck to knockoff Nikes, Addidas, and Levis, and kept the drug and human trafficking to a minimum, they didn’t care. He’d be the NYPD’s problem, not theirs.

  After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bear seized the opportunity. By 1993, the Grekovitch Gang was the largest and most feared mob in all of Russia. It was comprised not only of ex-KGB agents, but also former Soviet athletes, who were jacked up on steroids and too old to compete. One of those athletes was Sergei’s right hand man, Aleksander Putzky. He won bronze in weight lifting in the 1980 Summer Olympic games held in Moscow.

  Boris Yeltsin personally requested from then President Bill Clinton weapons and ammunition for the Kremlin to use against the Grekovitch Gang.

  The request was declined.

  The Bear was Moscow’s problem.

  While the Cold War was over, sending weapons to Russia was not something the Secretary of Defense was going to let happen. Even if they were being used against a monster they helped create.

  The world was changing.

  Radical Islamic terrorists were the US government’s concern, not greedy Russian mobsters. And the NYPD seemed to be doing a good job keeping Sergei’s US presence at bay, as The Bear’s New York presence wained significantly in the years following the Berlin Wall’s collapse. The Grekovitch Gang’s presence in the city throughout the nineties and early aughts was nothing more than a few warehouses in South Brooklyn.

  Moscow was incensed by the US governments refusal to help, but they didn’t have much of a choice. They had to tackle Sergei themselves.

  They launched raid after raid on Sergei’s empire, but the Bear couldn’t be stopped.

  By the end of the decade, every drug, prostitute, and knockoff piece of clothing in Russia went through the Grekovitch Gang.

  By 2003, Moscow gave up. They figured if they couldn’t beat them them, they might as well join them. They offered Sergei a formal seat in the parliament’s senate. The Bear was one of the wealthiest oligarch’s in Russia by that point.

  And with his power firmly established, a peace settled over the Russian underworld.

  There weren’t any competitors left to burn alive, chop up, or cut limbs off of. Sure, Sergei would have to teach one of his men a lesson every now and then. But chopping a few heads off insubordinates sends a message pretty quick.

  But if there was one certainty in the Russian underworld, it was that chaos rules.

  In 2005, the Bear became sick. The brain tumor accomplished what legions of assassins could not. Sergei’s own body turned on him and brought his empire to its knees. And as his body lowered into the dirt, his loyal brigadiers, captains to groups of his men, fought for power. His body wasn’t even six feet under when the first bullets were fired. The procession ran in all directions. Sergei’s oldest son dropped into the hole dug for his father, he took six bullets lodged into his chest with him.

  The Grekovitch Gang would have ended that day if not for Aleksander. He grabbed Sergei’s youngest, Igor, and got him out of the funeral alive. The young boy couldn’t stay in Russia. He had to leave. Igor was sixteen years old.

  The remnants of the Grekovitch Gang ripped apart the empire in their fight for power. Car bombings, poisonings, and the odd flayed body were commonplace. The Russian government had learned their lesson the first time they’d tried to interfere with the mob. They stayed out of the war. They waited for the dust to settle. They’d reward the victor.

  Aleksander brought Igor to New York.

  Ten years passed.

  Igor dreamed of avenging his father’s death, but the only way to do that was to build an empire like his father’s.

  But Igor more ambitious than just that. Years of living in America had made him realize that his father had made a few mistakes along the way. He didn’t want to be the Bear. He wanted to be the Eagle.

  Under Aleksander’s tutelage, Igor learned how to operate an underground organization. And when he was twenty-five, he opened up a club, a front to launder money, recruit men and assert influence. The club was called The Dacha House.

  The NYPD knew about Igor’s presence in the city, they knew about The Dacha House, but Igor was good. The Eagle kept his hands clean.

  A few years after it opened, the NYPD raided The Dacha House. They were looking for drugs and evidence of money laundering. They found nothing. Every computer, cell phone, and employee was clean. It was a waste of time. They didn’t really mind finding nothing, though. They figured that the raid would deter Igor from building an empire like his father’s. They wanted him to know that they were watching.

  Igor knew they were watching.

  He wanted them to watch.

  He didn’t give a shit about them.

  Nothing was going to stop him from getting revenge.

  3

  At the corner of Utica and Bergen sat the 77th. It was nestled in the heart of Brooklyn. Just south of gentrified Williamsburg and west of undeveloped Cypress Hills. It was housed inside a two-floored building that needed to be scrubbed daily of the grafitti teenage gangs from Atlantic Beach tagged on its red brick.

  Inside the lobby, one of the fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered. It was distracting, but the woman behind the front desk, Cheryl, learned to ignore it years ago. When she wasn’t busy taking calls or checking people in, she buried herself inside the dirtiest romance novel she could find. She’d been sitting there for thirty-five years.

  She saw New York go from a place with the highest crime per capita to the lowest in the country. She knew the ins-and-outs of the station and never forgot a face. It was one of her quirks and it was why she was good at her job.

  She’d just buried herself in a hot scene when the front doors of the precinct swung open.

  The pages of her book flipped from the breeze brought in from outside.

  Two cops and a man in handcuffs walked into the station. The man looked familiar. She remembered his face. He was tall, had a five-o-clock shadow and dark blue eyes. He was dressed in ripped jeans and wore a leather jacket. He was built like a quarterback. His shoulders were almost double the width of the small cop next to him.

  When the man in handcuffs walked by he winked at her.

  He remembered her, too.

  She looked away and blushed and buried her face back in her novel.

  The cops guiding him didn’t notice the exchange.

  They didn’t have to check him in with Cheryl. He wasn’t brought to the 77th for NYPD business.

  They opened the doors beyond Cheryl’s desk. They brought him to where the precinct’s detectives set up shop.

  The room was stacked full of cubicles. Each one had a small desk, atop of which was an aging computer and a telephone that would sometimes work. The reason the tech was out of date was because of budgetary cuts from the mayor, whose chief aim seemed to be making the lives of the men in blue more difficult than they needed to be. It didn’t help that the mayor and the commissioner were good buddies. There was never any pushback from the commissioner regarding the budgetary cuts. It drove the force nuts.

  Aside from the aging technology, each desk brandished a mug half-empty with cold coffee, a partially eaten, stale donut on a dirty plate, and stacks of white case files.

  Despite the chaos, an order existed.

  Each detective at the 77th took his or her job seriously. They’d worked hard to get to their position. They’d paid their dues. They all knew their mission was to serve and protect. Keeping their desks clean seemed like the last thing they should be worried about.

  While the 77th wasn’t going to set any records or win any awards, it was a well run ship.

  Its captain was John Meyer.

  He was an old vet. He remembered a time when catching crooks was more about the work done on the street and not about the work done behind the desk.

  He watched the rookies bring the man in.

  He looked familiar.

  He turned away before the two cops brought the large man to the hol
ding cells.

  He went back to his desk.

  He had other things to worry about. Some kids had graffitied the north wall of the station last night and he had to go over security footage. He sighed and closed his door and sat back at his desk. He opened up the footage on his computer and took a bite of his donut.

  The rookie cops guided the man to the opposite end of the detectives’s office. The holding cells were on the other side.

  They walked past O’Malley and D’Angelo’s desks.

  Both detectives weighed well over three-hundred pounds and made daily trips to the bathroom to either take their heart medication or spend time sitting on the john reading the sports section.

  O’Malley had a heart attack the previous year and knew another one would be coming soon. His blood pressure was still high and his family had a history of heart disease. He wasn’t the hardest working detective on the force and he didn’t try to hide it. He took a big bite out of his donut as the man walked past. Tiny flakes of sugar fell on his pants.

  D’Angelo hadn’t had a heart attack, but when he saw his partner O’Malley fall to the ground, clutching his chest during the annual golf tournament in Jersey, he thought it best to get his heart checked. And he was lucky he did because he was diagnosed with an arrhythmia. The doctor said if he hadn’t come in, he would’ve been dead by December. Now he popped aspirin like it was going out of style and took the stairs instead of the elevator when he got the chance. He was asleep at his desk.

  Had either detective noticed the man, they would’ve stopped the two cops. They would’ve had questions. They would’ve called for help.

  The man looked at their desks as he walked past. Atop were a series of files labelled: ‘BROOKLYN VIGILANTE.’

  The man smiled.

  The two rookie cops and man made it to the holding cells.

  One of the cops grabbed the man by the arm and pushed him toward the door.

  The man gave the cop a cold stare. He didn’t like being forced to do anything. The cop looked like he was about to pee his pants. He was green. Too green.

  The man shook his head. Cops these days were too soft.

  The other rookie slid his passkey through the reader and opened the door to the holding cell. He motioned to the man to go inside.

  “No funny stuff,” the younger looking of the two said.

  “I’m not much of a comedian,” the man said. He walked inside.

  The door behind him locked.

  He could hear the two cops scurry away like frightened children.

  The man looked around the cell.

  It was dark and one of the lights was out.

  Not much had changed. He sat down on a small wooden bench that lined the wall. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  He was eager to see what this was all about.

  He’d let himself get pulled in.

  He knew someone had been following him for a few weeks.

  He wanted to know who and why.

  The bench that ran along the edge of the wall had claw marks etched in it from some methhead’s fingers and a small swatstika that a skin head had graffitied on the wall with permanent marker. There was a slight breeze coming in through a crack in the stone and a pile of green puke was on the ground in the center of the room.

  Breathing. Heavy breathing.

  The man opened his eyes.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Directly across from him was the silhouette of someone sitting on a bench. The silhouette’s shoulders looked odd. The left clavicle was slightly disfigured and jutted up from the collar toward the neck. A doctor might confuse it for a tumor, but the man knew it wasn’t.

  The silhouette stood up and walked toward the man.

  He was taller than the man by a couple inches.

  “Is that you?” the silhouette said as he stepped into the light.

  He was large, muscular. He was wearing a wife beater shirt. Unlike the man, his hands weren’t cuffed.

  “Fuck,” the muscular man said. “That is you. Isn’t it? Fucking count me lucky. I’m going to enjoy this.”

  The man didn’t respond.

  “Aw, don’t be shy! I was only trying to say a little ‘hello.’ That’s all.”

  He walked closer.

  “Jack Spade.” He spit on the ground between them. “Fuck you!”

  “Nice to see you to, Gunner,” Jack said.

  “Those two virgins didn’t know who you were?”

  “No.”

  Gunner laughed.

  “Jack Spade on my fucking lap.” He limped toward Jack. There was only a couple feet between them.

  “I’m going to fuck you up!” Gunner said.

  He lunged head first toward Jack, who rolled out of the way in the nick of time. Gunner’s head slammed against the brick wall. A plume of dust fell from the ceiling. Jack stood up and backed away. He waited for Gunner to collect himself.

  “You pussy!” Gunner shouted.

  He yanked himself from the wall and charged at Jack once more. Jack ducked out of the way and extended his leg. The beast tripped and tumbled downward. His fall was broken by the cell’s bench, which he hit with his left shoulder. He cried out in pain.

  He kneeled on the ground and shimmied himself away from the bench, wheezing heavily. A drip of blood fell from his mouth and pooled on the cell floor.

  “You…“ he said. “You fucking shit. Fight me like a man. Stop running.”

  “I’m the one in the handcuffs,” Jack said.

  Gunner pushed himself up from the ground and started kicking and swinging wildly. His giant tree trunk legs swung out and shook the floor of the cell as they landed on the ground. Pure testosterone and anger had taken over.

  Jack backed away from Gunner’s kicks and coaxed the giant beast away from the wall and into the center of the room.

  “I should’ve killed you in Rikers! You son of a bitch!” Gunner said.

  He was growing tired.

  The seconds between each kick grew longer.

  Jack took advantage.

  As Gunner extended his left leg, Jack kicked him in his knee. Gunner collapsed. One knee to the head later and he was passed out on the ground, lying face first in the pile of green puke in the center of the cell.

  Jack sat back down.

  The door to the holding cell swung open. Two new cops walked inside. They looked at Gunner and then at Jack and then at Gunner again.

  “He’s not feeling well,” Jack said.

  “Come with us,” one of the cops said. “Two federal agents want to talk to you.”

  4

  Inside the interrogation room was a large one-way mirror.

  Jack was sat on a plastic chair in front of a small table. The federal agents were on the other side, watching him. He gave them a smile. He’d been in interrogation rooms before. He knew the routine.

  After a couple of minutes of waiting, two federal agents walked through the room’s only entrance and sat across from him. They introduced themselves. They were agents Tom Dunce and Claire Osgoode. Each carried a briefcase and looked like they hadn’t seen a day of real action in their life.

  They were rookie agents.

  Jack could tell.

  The streets were gonna eat them alive.

  Tom’s grey jacket was too big and his black shoes had no scuff marks. His teeth were too white.

  Claire was tall, had blonde hair and blue eyes. You could tell she tried to hide her beauty by not wearing makeup. It didn’t work. She was attractive.

  Claire took off Jack’s handcuffs and sat down. “Apologies,” she said. “But we didn’t know how you’d react.”

  “You sent two rookies to pull me in,” Jack said. “I knew you didn’t know much.”

  “We knew you wouldn’t agree to a meeting,” Claire said. “Having two officers pull you in felt like the only way to get you in here.”

  “Of course you did.” Jack paused. He stared at the female agent. She seemed to be the one in char
ge. “Mind getting to the point of this…” He looked around the room. “Interrogation?”

  Claire opened her briefcase and placed a picture on the table. The picture was of Tony ‘The Blade’ Spade.

  “Is this your uncle?”

  Jack nodded and looked at the picture. It was taken in the sixties. His uncle was young. His trademark scar was already on his face. He was holding his pump action shot gun and was wearing a top hat. He liked dressing like an old-timey gangster. It was his thing.

  “He was one of New York’s most notorious hitmen, a gun for hire for every crime family in the city,” Claire said. “He didn’t take sides. He just took jobs. He was killed, what? Thirty years ago? Six bullets to the head?”

  “It was seven.”

  “That’s not the point,” she said. “Your family must’ve had it tough, living in the shadow of his notoriety.”

  Jack didn’t respond.

  He didn’t want to talk about the past. He didn’t want to talk about the regular visits from law enforcement, the FBI, and the mob. He grew up not really knowing the difference between any of them. When he was kid, he saw them all as the same thing. They’d come into house, ask his mother some questions about her brother, threaten her, and leave after they got what they wanted. There was no point reliving painful memories.

  “You didn’t know your father?”

  “My mom said he skipped town when I was boy.”

  “Your mother?”

  “She hung herself when I was nineteen,” Jack said.

  “Any other family?”

  “I don’t know. You have the report. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Hey, bucko,” Tom said. “We’re asking the questions here.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. He stared at the condescending federal agent. Tom tried to match Jack’s intensity, but couldn’t. He turned away.

  Jack could see Tom’s pulse on his neck. The bastard was scared. A bead of sweat dripped from Tom’s forehead and landed on the table. Tom noticed it and wiped it away. He was trying to act tough, to be cool.