by Dylan Rust
“If you put a piece of gum in your mouth, I’ll shoot you,” Claire said.
“Holy shit,” Tom said. “You need to chillax.”
The waiter showed up holding two more old fashioned drinks. Claire grabbed hers and downed it and got up from her seat. Her mind was racing.
She needed to get home, fall asleep, and collect herself. The more her mind questioned the events of the last twenty-four hours, the more unsure she was about everything.
“Where are you going?” Tom asked.
“Home.”
“But I just ordered nachos, wings, and two beers.”
“I’m not hungry and I’m already tipsy.” Claire left a fifty dollar bill on the table. “For your troubles.”
Tom was stunned. He’d never seen Claire like this. He was worried about her. Still, he wasn’t drunk, and he wanted to be drunk. If she wanted to leave, then so be it. He grabbed the fifty from the table.
Claire made her way out of the Dillinger and down the streets of the city toward her apartment.
She passed smiling, happy people, tourists with ‘I Love New York’ shirts on and street performers wearing only their underwear.
New York didn’t make sense to her.
Did these people not see the danger? Not see the threat? She tried to control herself. She tried not to burst out and grab one of the hapless tourists and tell them to leave this place before it crushes them.
She was scared. She was paranoid.
She was three blocks from her front door.
She just wanted to wrap herself up in her blanket and have a good nights sleep. She wanted answers to her questions. She wanted to know the truth.
A cab stopped in front of her. The driver yelled at a courier who’d just cut him off.
In the passenger seat window, Claire saw a reflection of a man, thirty feet behind her with his hands in his pockets. He was staring at her.
His hoodie was up over his head. She couldn’t make out his face.
She walked one more block, and, in her slightly drunken state, made a few wrong turns to her apartment. She wanted to confirm that he was following her.
After one block, he was still there, thirty feet behind her.
She turned down the street to her apartment.
So did he.
Claire’s heart pounded in her chest. She cursed herself. She shouldn’t have let herself get drunk. She should have been more careful. She put her hand on the holster of her gun and picked up her pace.
The man following her picked up his pace.
The gap was twenty feet.
Fuck it, she thought. She turned around and pulled her gun.
The man stopped in his tracks and held up his hands.
“Who the fuck are you?”
The man didn’t respond.
He walked toward her slowly.
“Stay there,” she said. “I won’t hesitate to shoot.”
The man stopped. “Look out,” he said.
Look out?
Claire felt two hands wrap themselves around her neck. She tried to turn around, but whoever was behind her had kicked her legs out.
Her hands flew up.
The person behind her grabbed her gun. She fell to her knees and gasped for air.
The attacker fired two shots at the man who’d been following her. He ducked behind a trash can and avoided the shots. He moved with a limp. He seemed injured.
Claire punched her attacker in the crotch.
She hit a pair of balls.
Her attacker coupled over, her gun still in his hands.
She got up and ran down the alleyway beside her apartment building. There was a small fence behind her building that maybe she could hop over. Maybe all those years on the hurdling team would finally pay off?
Her attacker regained his composure and fired two shots at her. He missed. Frustrated, he ran after her.
Thankfully, he was slow.
He couldn’t catch up. He fired two more shots. She was clean in his sights.
Claire dove behind a dumpster. She knew her luck was about to run out.
Twing.
Twang.
Three rats scurried out of the dumpster and climbed onto Claire’s shoulder. She brushed them off and they ran down the alley.
Claire peaked around the corner of the bin.
He was making his way toward her. She didn’t have many options. She could either go for the fence and risk getting shot or stay hidden and hope for a miracle.
The attacker felt her trepidation.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” he said. He had a thick Russian accent. One of Igor’s men? “Don’t be scared, little girl. This won’t hurt.”
He walked up to the dumpster. His gun drawn. He wanted her to freeze. He wanted her to remain exactly where she was.
Claire could hear him breathe.
She had to run.
She was about to go for it, when the man in the hoodie, the man who’d been following her for three blocks appeared at the opposite end of the alley. He ran up to her.
He pulled down his hoodie.
It was Jack.
“What the hell!?” she said.
“Looks like you’ve got a target on your back,” he said.
“What is going on?”
“Stay here.”
Jack waited for the man to get close. When the man was three feet away, he charged.
Jack didn’t have a gun. He didn’t need one.
The man fired two shots. Both missed.
Jack swatted the gun out of his hands and kicked him in the balls. He then tackled him, grabbing hold of his neck as they fell to the ground.
The Russian gangster tried to break free, tried to elbow Jack in the gut, but Jack was merciless.
He tightened his grip around the gangster’s throat and squeezed until he was sure he was dead, until his body had stopped wiggling, twitching.
Claire waited until she was sure it was all over.
Jack was back on his feet. He was rummaging through the pockets of the would-be assassin.
Claire got up and walked to Jack. She picked up her gun and aimed it at him.
“You’re under arrest!”
Jack looked at Claire.
“Are you fucking serious?” he said.
“The dead cop,” she said. “You killed a cop in the club.”
“Calm down,” he said. “I didn’t kill a damn cop.”
“You killed him. The NYPD have proof.”
“You know what they don’t have?” he said. “Those missing women. They’re in cellar in the basement of the club. To get to it, you have to go through a secret entrance in a janitor’s closet in the bathhouse.You walk down a long tunnel. They’re under the church. You want the missing women. That’s where they are.”
“The women? How can I trust you?”
“You’ll just have to believe me. What does your gut tell you?”
Claire lowered her weapon. She put it in its holster.
“What do we do with him?” she said, pointing to the dead man.
“Leave him for the rats.”
“The rats?”
“Yeah,” he said. “The NYPD.”
36
Claire liked jazz.
Old jazz.
She prided herself in her collection. Front and center were the classics: Miles Davis’s ‘Kind of Blue, John Coltran’s ‘A love supreme,’ and Oscar Peterson’s ‘The sound of the Trio.’
She liked their early stuff, before the drugs took hold and diminished their talent, before their art was appropriated by cheap artists trying to make a buck creating soundtracks for elevators in shopping malls and dentist offices.
Her collection of records was on top of her dead father’s liquor cabinet.
She inherited the cabinet a long time ago. It was the only personal beloning she’d been able to keep. The bank repossessed almost everything.
He was a gambler. He had a lot of debt.
Claire wasn’t like
her father.
The only thing she’d ever gambled on was Jack.
And he’d just saved her life.
Still, she wasn’t sure it was a good bet.
She was hesitant around him. She watched his every movement and kept a distance.
Her apartment was on the eighth floor and had a view of the Empire State Building. Although, to see it you had to bend your body out the window awkwardly.
It had four rooms; a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom.
It was small, sparse. Practical. It was the typical Manhattan apartment for a single professional who was never home.
There were empty boxes of Chinese takeout stacked on her kitchen counter and clothes on the floor. Jack counted fifteen of them.
She liked her hot and sour soup.
He walked up to the liquor cabinet.
He needed a drink. His shoulder was swelling and his chest was red. His ribs were either fractured or broken.
“Do you have any bourbon?”
“No.”
He examined the record collection. He pulled out ‘Kind of Blue.’
“You like this crap?”
“It’s not crap,” she said. “Davis was an innovator. He changed music.”
“Sure he did,” Jack said.
“I have vodka,” she said. “ It’s on top of the fridge.”
She went to the kitchen and poured him a drink. She watched him from the corner of her eye. She poured Jack a big glass. Not because she felt he needed it, but because she wasn’t paying attention.
She walked back into her living room and handed it to him.
He handed her ‘Kind of Blue.’
She put it back in its place. The records were alphabetically organized.
He sat down on her sofa. The booze felt nice. He closed his eyes.
He’d been dodging cops since the morning. He’d been dodging everyone else in the city since the media released an image of his mugshot in the early afternoon. He wanted to sleep, but that would have to wait.
“Was that one of Igor’s men?” she said.
“What do you think?”
“Christ,” she said. “How did you know they were following me?”
“I didn’t. I was following you. I saw him just in the nick of time.”
“And why were you following me?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you got me into this mess. I’d figure you’d help get me out of it.”
Claire rubbed her temple. “How can I trust you?”
“You trusted me before,” he said. “What’s changed? A story in the papers about how I killed a cop? Do you believe that shit?”
“No.”
“Good. Igor killed the cop. Not me.”
“What?”
“After they confiscated my phone, I met with Igor in his office. Things were going exactly as planned. He told me there was a reward for winning the poker tournament. I told him I wanted a job. He said he’d consider it, but first I would have to take my reward for a joyride.”
“Joyride?”
“The reward…” Jack’s muscles tensed. He gritted his teeth. He drank more vodka. “The reward was my sister. She was mostly unconscious. They’d drugged her.”
Claire’s mouth dropped.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
“I couldn’t let him get away with it,” he said. “Something in me snapped. Had she not said my name, I might have killed them all. I took down four of them, but Igor’s office filled with a gas. I lost consciousness. I couldn’t feel or control a thing. His men stuffed me in a case and when they opened it I was in a room with a bunch of cages.”
“That’s where the women are?”
“Yes.”
Claire smiled.
“But that’s also where the missing cop was held,” he said. “Igor killed him with my gun and stuffed me in the cage with the body.”
“How did you get out?”
“Igor wanted to torture me when my body was awake, when I would feel the pain. He sent someone down, a doctor or something, to see if I had come to. I killed him and two other men and escaped.”
“Where are the cages? I should call the assistant director right away. We need to raid the club now.”
Claire got up and walked to her cell.
Jack grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t.”
“What? Why?”
“If you move in, Igor will kill Elaine. I can’t have that. I won’t have that.”
Claire reluctantly nodded. She sat down. “So what do we do?”
“He has her at his penthouse,” he said.
“His penthouse?” she said.
“Yes” Jack said. “Where is it?”
“We don’t know where,” Claire said. “We’ve picked up some chatter about Igor owning a penthouse but we don’t have an address.”
“I know where I can find the address,” Jack said.
“How?”
“I need to know where Lyle Cunningworth lives,” he said. “During the poker game he said he was going to drop off some documents at Igor’s. I’ll have a little talk with Lyle. He’ll tell me.”
“Lyle Cunningworth? The Wallstreet broker? He was at the club?”
“The mayor and NYPD commissioner were there, too.”
“What?”
“As I was escaping, I found commissioner Green in the bathhouse. I saw the mayor in a room with some girls in one the rooms. My bet is, Igor has dirt on the mayor, commissioner and Lyle and who knows who else. His club is littered with security cameras.”
“So you’re thinking that he gets public officials, high profile people in compromising positions and blackmails them,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That’s kompromat.”
“What?”
“It’s a Russian term.” Claire rubbed her brow. “It all makes so much sense. Igor is protected. He’s protected by the men he’s compromised. That’s how he’s expanded his control. That’s how he’s been smuggling women into the city so easily. This is so much bigger than the missing women.”
“I’m not following,” Jack said.
“The Russian KGB coined the term,” she said. “It’s from the Stalin era. Stalin’s KGB collected, stored and traded compromising material that showed his enemies, friends, comrades in disparaging positions. He did this to get them under his control. The men that Stalin had compromising info on wouldn’t dare do anything that would piss him off. If they did, Stalin would release what he had. Igor must have a server in the club where he’s backed up all that security footage. Every one of the men and women who’ve engaged in disparaging acts inside his club.”
“I saw the servers,” Jack said. “They were close to the women.”
“That’s why the NYPD found nothing during their raids,” she said. “There’s nothing in the club to find.”
“That and he probably has a good portion of the NYPD in his back pocket. They were after me and only me when they came into the club. They ignored Igor’s men and the underage girls walking around. We have to assume that we can’t trust most the NYPD.”
Claire’s finished her vodka. She needed another.
“Do you want another drink?”
“Yes.”
She poured two more glasses.
Jack shot his back fast. He winced.
“You’re in pain,” she said.
“I fell thirty feet getting out of the club,” Jack said. “I’ve fractured my collarbone and might have a couple broken ribs.”
“I’ll get some ice.”
She got up and walked to her freezer.
She looked back at Jack. She still felt nervous. Could she trust him? What he said to her made more sense than the reports from the media, even if it what he said was extreme. She thought about calling the assistant director and Tom. She thought about turning Jack in. But if what he said was true and Igor had kompromat on a variety of politicians, public offi
cials, and high-profile people in the city, than could she really trust anyone?
She closed her eyes.
Her father had always told her that when in doubt it was best to trust your gut.
She trusted her gut.
She trusted Jack.
She walked up to Jack and handed him the ice.
“Thanks,” he said.
He placed the ice on his shoulder.
“I’ll help you,” she said. “I have access to the bureau’s case files on my computer. You should be able to look up Lyle Cunningworth’s address from there.”
“Good,” he said. “But you should also contact the other federal agents who were involved on this mission. Igor knew where you lived. The other agents are at risk. You should call them ASAP.”
Claire nodded.
“And I need to get some sleep,” Jack said. “Is it alright if I crash on your couch?”
Claire walked up to Jack and sat next to him. She looked into his eyes.
“Of course,” she said.
37
Claire was organized.
She’d broken down Igor’s operation as well as anyone could have.
Jack scanned every detail in the case files. He absorbed everything.
She had financials, affiliations, properties in his name, even his favourite sushi; California Rolls.
No stone had been left unturned.
All she didn’t have was the smoking gun, the finger prints, the evidence.
In fact, she didn’t even have the gun. Just outlines, shapes of where the gun could be. She was close, but still so far away.
“Lyle’s details aren’t in any of The Dacha Files,” she said, pointing to her computer screen. “You’ll find them there.”
Jack opened the file she was pointing to.
The two them were in her bedroom. Her computer desk was crammed beside her bed. There wasn’t a lot of room. She stood behind Jack. Her hands were on his shoulders.
Jack opened the file.
He scrolled until he saw Lyle’s name.
He memorized the address.
“Are you going to hurt him?” she said. “The body count of this investigation is already too high.”
“Do you want to save those women or not?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then we will do what we have to do.”
