Levon Cade Omnibus

by Chuck Dixon

  Dimi wondered at that. Most Vor never married. They would keep a woman, sometimes many women, but few stood before a priest or rabbi to take the vows. Their children were all bastards. They owed an allegiance to each other that was deeper than the bonds of marriage or family. Women and kids could come in the way of that; make a man consider choices that were not in the best interest of the brotherhood. Only one loyalty was tolerated. The Vor was all.

  One of the many reasons Dimi rejected his father's life. It started as a youthful rebellion. Over time, Dimi saw no value in the company of men who shared a union created in prisons and camps in places so far away. He wanted to be free to do what he wanted; to chase pussy and make money in drugs.

  He leapt from the bed and stormed to the room’s only door.

  “Hey! I am going insane here!” he called to the two men seated at a table in the large open warehouse area outside the row of faux hotel rooms, kitchens, bathrooms and even a phony horse stable with real hay on the floor. The two guys, big guys, were playing cards and watching a live stream of a hockey game from Belgrade.

  “Go to sleep. Watch the television,” Tupo, a half-Turk said glancing from his hand to the screen.

  “Fuck that! The room is making me crazy! It smells like shit! There’s probably AIDs everywhere from all the faggots fucking each other in there!”

  “You want to switch rooms?” Yvan, a Khazaki who looked like Charles Bronson’s meaner brother said, laying his hand down to regard Dimi without compassion.

  “They are all the same! Dicks and asses and pussies rubbed everywhere! How long do I have to be here?”

  “As long as Symon wants you to be,” Tupo said.

  “Has anyone hurt you? Do you not understand that we are keeping you safe?” Yvan said.

  They had not hurt him. They had only dragged him from the club in Clearwater and driven him here the day before. He could not leave. They told him someone was looking for him. That someone killed his father. He was safe for now.

  Only Dimi had to ask himself, safe from who?

  “Want us to order some pizza?” Tupo said, taking a real interest in the conversation for the first time.

  "I don't want any fucking pizza. I just don't want to sit in that jizz-painted room anymore!"

  They let him sit with them watching the game — a Serbian team versus Moscow.

  That’s where he was when the garage doors at one end of the building opened and Uncle Symon’s Mercedes pulled in.

  His uncle was out of the rear and walking fast over the warehouse floor. Two of his ‘brothers’ trotted behind to keep up. Symon had Dimi out of the chair and was shaking him. The toes of Dimi’s sneakers were squeaking off the polished concrete as he kicked his legs like a man fighting back to the surface of a lake.

  “Who is this man? What is this man to you?” Symon said. The tough old bastard dropped Dimi on his ass and stood over him, hands fisted, knuckles bleached white.

  “What guy? I don’t know who you’re talking about!” Dimi shouted in English.

  “He knows you. He fucking knows all about you.” Symon breathed in and out through his nose.

  “What’s he done? How’s he connected to me?”

  “You sold drugs to him? Cheated him? Did something to piss him off enough to come here and start killing people?”

  “I take the drugs from the Mexicans then sell them to the guys in Cotton Lake. I don’t cheat anyone. I only take my cut. This guy’s not Mexican, right? Maybe the bikers know.”

  “He killed my boys. Did you know that?” Symon said, shrugging his broad shoulders so his jacket lay better.

  He did not know that. He did not know anything.

  Vanko and Danya.

  Now Dimi was scared. Now he no longer felt safe.

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “I want my soldiers smart. Courage is good in small doses. Smart is better. A man who’s brave all the time isn’t smart. He’s looking to prove something. A man who’s smart knows when to back down, take a loss. A smart man knows it’s better to come back another day and win than lose today just to show off his balls.”

  30

  Merry was surprised to see her dad standing on the front walk of her school.

  “How about a ride home, honey?” he said into her hair after she’d leapt into his arms.

  A teacher was giving Levon the snake eye and was about to step forward through the crowd of kids rushing for the long row of school buses rumbling at the curb.

  “My daddy’s home, Ms. Rodriguez!” Merry announced from his arms.

  “It’s okay if I drive her?” Levon said.

  The teacher nodded before being pulled away by a shoving match between two boys arguing over who would get on board the bus first.

  Levon and Merry were in the Avalanche heading away.

  “What happened to your window?” Merry said.

  “Little accident,” Levon said. The window at his door was gone. The ride back from Tampa had been a noisy one.

  “Did you get hurt?”

  “Nothing seeing you didn’t cure.”

  “Was it your fault?”

  “What if I told you it was? What if I told you that Daddy forgot his car keys and busted out the window himself?”

  Merry laughed.

  “Didn’t know you had a daddy that dumb, huh?”

  She rocked forward against her seat belt giggling.

  “Better hope you take after Mommy, huh?”

  She slapped his arm to make him stop.

  "You're taking me to Grandpa and Grandma's? Because this isn't the way," she said when she'd recovered.

  “Honey. How much do you trust your Daddy?” he said, eyes on the road.

  “About what?”

  “About everything. How much do you trust me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, do you believe me? When I tell you something, you know you can believe me, right?”

  “You’re my Daddy. You’d never lie to me.”

  Levon looked at her sitting by him, regarding him with searching eyes.

  “Look, Daddy made a mistake. And now I have to fix it,” he said.

  “Like the window?” Merry said.

  “Something like that. For now I can’t have you staying with your grandparents. I need you to come with me.”

  “Where to?”

  “To some friends of mine. Very old friends that are like family to me. They’ll be family to you, too.”

  “What about school?” she said.

  “You have your books?” he said.

  She patted the book bag on the seat between them.

  “Then trust me, honey. You’re going to learn a whole lot more than they could ever teach you in school.”

  He pulled up a ramp onto Lee Highway west. They passed under a state highway sign that read: MISSISSIPPI.

  31

  Symon’s lawyer, a smart Jew with political ambitions, secured a copy of the Tampa police file on the sunken van. The evidence found with the three bodies within was detailed in the report. It was worth the thousand dollars Symon paid for it even if the Jew kept half the bribe intended for the evidence clerk at the police center. Billable hours was a lawyer word for theft. Symon, an old thief himself, could respect that.

  The three men all suffered gunshot wounds at close range. Two of the dead, Danya Kharchenko and Vasily Gorky, died of gunshot wounds. Vanko Kharchenko was awaiting further autopsy but notes suggested he may have died of drowning.

  The firearms suspected of causing the fatal wounds as well as a potentially mortal wound to V. Kharchenko’s thigh were both found within the van. Found as well was a handgun registered to V. Gorky in the state of Florida. In addition was a custom-made .45 automatic in stainless finish. The automatic was equipped with an aftermarket slide tooled without a serial number. Numbers were also absent from the parts on the rest of the weapon.

  The nature of the crime scene had a negative effect on the accuracy of any forensic evidence. The v
an was five or more hours in muddy water before being discovered by a carload of German tourists who stopped to pee in the grass along the run-off swale. Time of death was going to be approximate. Even the hoary old crimebusting cliché of the stopped watch was thwarted by each of the three dead men wearing very high-end and very waterproof watches.

  Two solid bits of evidence were not unaffected by being submersed in the brackish swill. A man’s wallet containing over a thousand dollars in cash, a Shell card and a driver’s license and registration from Alabama. There was also a key ring with a remote for a Chevy vehicle. That matched the registration paper. A five-year-old Avalanche.

  The photocopy of the license showed a white man in close-cropped hair looking dead-eyed into the camera.

  “Could be the man I saw on the video at Wolo’s,” Symon said to the gathering of men in the living room of his condo. The room was dense with smoke from cigars and cigarettes.

  They were young and old. Ukrainians, Russians, Armenians and Latvians. All were Vor. All cooperated in a blood brotherhood that went beyond race or language or family, with rules and a code of honor more rigid than any army. They called themselves ‘thieves-in-law’ and answered only to their own set of laws and recognized no other.

  “What is his business with us?” said an Armenian named Yuri.

  “He is nothing to us. He has dealings with Dimi, Wolo’s son,” Symon said.

  One of the men made a spitting sound at the mention of Dimi’s name.

  “Danya and Vanko were looking for Dimi. They must have found the man from the video. Tried to take him captive. Something went wrong,” Symon said.

  “The robbery at Skip’s. Wolo dead. Your sons dead. This is not only about that piece of shit Dimi,” said Oreske, a man older than Symon and underboss to the Vor chief in Miami.

  “Dimi sold the man drugs. The man paid him with money I believe came from the robbery at Skip’s,” Symon said.

  “Who told you this?” Oreske said.

  “Dimi. I have him. He told me what he knows. Or as much as he wants me to know. He says he never met the man. Dimi does not know him except through some gang Dimi has business with,” Symon said.

  “He must know. Dimi must know what this man is about, why he is in Tampa making hell for us,” Soshi, a fat Georgian said.

  "Dimi knows he is the key to all of this. He knows that as long as we have questions, I will allow him to live. I say we ask the man himself," Symon said and held up an enlarged photocopy of the driver's license of Levon Edward Cade of 1001 Willow Run Rd, apartment 3A, Moore's Mill, Alabama.

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “Sometimes you go it alone. Sometimes, for the good of all, you break contact and continue the mission.”

  32

  Joe Bob Wiley's cell twanged two bars of "I Walk The Line." He plucked it off his belt — unknown number.

  “You got Joe Bob. What can I do for you?”

  “Mr. Wiley. Don’t say my name.”

  “Hell, son. I thought you ran off on me. What have you learned? Can you tell me anything?”

  “I’m getting closer, sir. There’s been a snag.”

  “What about Jenna? You find out something?”

  “It’s pretty involved. I know all the players now.”

  "That doesn't help my wife or me. I need you to do what I'm paying you for."

  “I understand that, sir. I just don’t have anything for you right now.”

  “Well, pardon my asking but why the hell’d you call me then?”

  “The players I talked about, sir. They know who I am now.”

  “Shit.”

  “That’s all on me, sir. I’m dealing with it now.”

  “You telling me that if they know you then they know me.”

  “No, sir. There’s no connection between me and you and why I’m here.”

  “Then what do you want me to do?”

  “Just an FYI, sir. Keeping you informed.”

  “Just find Jenna.”

  “I will, sir. You have my word.”

  The line went dead.

  Less than an hour passed and the reception desk called.

  “Outside call for you, Mr. Wiley. Line four.”

  “Who is it, Debbie?”

  “She says she’s from Gulfside Moving and Storage. Question about an employee.”

  He punched line four.

  “You got Joe Bob. What can I do for you?”

  “This is human resources for Gulfside Moving. Is this someone in charge?”

  “Only the goddamned owner, honey. Joseph Wiley of Wiley-Manners.”

  “We wanted to talk to your human resources department but we’re told you don’t have one.” The woman on the other end had an edge of nervousness to it. It sounded like her first day on the job. Or she was lying.

  “I do all the hiring here. Where you calling from?”

  A pause.

  Another voice behind her.

  “We’re in the Tampa Bay area. I’m calling based on a reference on an employment application to be a driver for us.”

  “Who’s applying?”

  “Levon Edward Cade. He works for you in some capacity?”

  Joe Bob covered the phone and took a deep breath.

  “That son of a bitch? I fired his ass a month ago. You mean that dumb bastard had the balls to put me down as a work reference? That boy’s dumber than shit, I tell you. That’s why I fired his ass.”

  Another pause. The rasp of a hand covering the phone on the other end. Muffled voices.

  “Hello? You still there?” Joe Bob said.

  "And do you know his current location, Mr. Wiley?"

  “Why the hell would I know that? Shithead could fall off the planet for all I care. All’s I’m saying is he’s not worth the hire. You hearing me, honey?”

  “Thank you for your assistance. Have a nice day.”

  The line went dead.

  Joe Bob sat back in his chair. The back of his shirt was soaked with sweat. His throat felt dry as paper. He pulled a bottom drawer out of his desk and retrieved a bottle of Maker’s Mark that had been unopened since a vendor gifted it to him last Christmas. He poured a long slug to top off his lukewarm mug of coffee.

  What the hell did you get yourself into, Levon? And what the hell did you get me into?

  Gunny Leffertz said:

  “You can’t always choose your enemies. Some days they choose you.”

  33

  The two men sat side by side in first class on the short leg flight to Huntsville. Their leather coats creaked but they declined the attendant’s offer to put them in the overhead.

  Karp was a big man. He struggled to find a comfortable position even in the wider premium seat. His right arm took up the entire console arm between himself and his traveling partner.

  Nestor shrugged against the window, fiddling with a tablet. His fingers sliding across the screen pecking and swiping. He was slighter than Karp with a boy’s face that made him almost as pretty as a girl if not for a predator look apparent in his ice-grey eyes. His shoulder-length chestnut hair was worn loose to hide those eyes from those he hunted until it was too late.

  They were airborne from Tampa with vodkas between them. Nestor took his with ice. He’d become an American. Karp found that contemptuous but they no longer spoke of it.

  “This Levon. It is as if he did not exist,” Nestor said in Russian, eyes on the screen of his tablet.

  Karp grunted and shrugged.

  “He was born, he went to school, he joined the army, he got married, his wife died. That is all. Years and years of nothing. No jobs? No school reunions? He is invisible to me,” Nestor said.

  “Google him,” Karp said.

  “You think I didn’t Google him? The first thing I did was Google him.”

  “Re-Google him.”

  “There is no such thing as re-Googling. It is not a slot machine, Karp. Same results every time.”

  Karp said nothing. He was eyeing an attendant who was sho
wing off a lot of ass bending over a service cart. I would Google that, he thought to himself. I would Google that until it bleeds. He caught Nestor’s disapproving glance.

  “You should know this stuff, Karp. You should learn this stuff. What if there was a day when I was no longer here?” Nestor said.

  “Then I would no longer be here, dear one. I would be dead as well,” Karp said and squeezed Nestor’s thigh with the same gentle touch that always surprised the younger man.

  “Refresh those drinks?” the big-assed attendant said with a professional smile. His name tag read ANDY.

  The plane arrived on time at Huntsville International. A man they knew from Detroit by way of Kiev joined them in the line for the bus out to the rental services. He had a FedEx package under his arm that he left behind when he got out at the stop for Budget. Karp picked it up off the seat and took it along when he and Nestor got out at Enterprise. The pair rented a car and drove out of the city to the apartment listed for Levon Edward Cade on the driver’s license.

  Karp drove while Nestor prized open the FedEx box. Inside was a pair of Browning automatics fully loaded with a spare magazine for each. There were two knives as well — a curved skinning knife in a leather sheath and a clasp knife with a four-inch blade. There was also a small pry bar that would fit in a pocket and a brand new pay-as-you-go cell phone charged with one thousand minutes.

  Using the mini-pry bar, they were into the apartment within a second. The place showed all the signs of a man who lived alone except for the neatness. The place was dusted — no dishes or glasses in the sink. The bed was made, for God's sake. The bedroom was featureless except for a chest of drawers and a twin mattress on a platform.

  Karp took the closet and Nestor the dresser.

  The closet was all pressed casual or work clothes still in the plastic wrap from a cleaner. Karp sniffed and smelled gun oil. He uncovered a rifle and shotgun cleaning kit tucked behind a pair of Rubbermaid containers of neatly folded army fatigues in desert camo. He pulled the containers from the closet and felt the walls all around for panels — no hiding places for guns.