“Too bad,” he said. “The trip is not over a Friday—and I drive.”
Semyon laughed. “The Friday thing is fine. I don’t want to ruin a weekend, either,” he said. “But I am not riding in your piece-of-shit car and I don’t want you driving mine.”
“We can rent one. Do you have any cash?”
Semyon shrugged and pulled a roll of twenties as thick around as a coffee mug and showed Ned. “Some, but there are lots of things to do in New York.”
Ned had Semyon pick him up at Hawkridge at eleven o’clock on Monday morning. He did not feel like hearing Semyon drone on about how bad his place was again so he waited outside. Semyon had rented an immense SUV, and looked like he hadn’t quite managed to learn how to navigate it in tight traffic just yet.
Ned took the wheel and told Semyon he was surprised there was no loud music playing. Semyon looked annoyed and muttered something about satellite radio.
By the time they got on I-95, Semyon had already started his now-familiar chattering. He was complaining about Ludmilla’s brother. He was an obese alcoholic who had always given Semyon a hard time for not being Russian, and now he is demanding that they sponsor him for a Green Card. “Fuckin’ Russians,” Semyon muttered in what Ned noticed was for his benefit because it was in English. “Think they know everything.”
Ned snorted. “You work with Russians, your wife is Russian, I sometimes think I’m the only non-Russian you know.”
Semyon smiled and looked bemused. “No, there are a few Uzbeks in Dearborn who get together every once in a while,” he said. “You would like them, much nicer people than Russians.”
“So who’s this guy we’re going to see . . . Roman, is it?” Ned asked even though he knew the man’s name.
“Yeah, Roman,” Semyon said. “He’s not too bad. Likes to show off his money and that’s okay with me because I love it when someone else is paying.”
“Yeah, but who is he? Why do I have to meet him?” Ned asked. “Haven’t you guys checked me out enough already?”
Semyon put on something of a pensive pout. “Roman did not become who he is by trusting people he does not know,” he said. “I know you are trustworthy, Grigori knows you are trustworthy, but Roman, he likes to do things his way. And you had better—as you people say—play ball.”
Ned wanted to ask what Semyon meant by that, but didn’t feel like being threatened again. “But why is Roman so important?”
Semyon sighed. “I am under orders to let you know as little as possible,” he said with what Ned recognized as pretended anger. “Why can’t you just be happy shipping packages and making lots of money?”
“I am,” Ned replied. “But I’m the one who has to meet and impress this guy, so I’d like to know a little about him to prepare.”
Semyon made a big show of knitting his eyebrows and sighed audibly. “Okay, okay, but you tell nobody what I am about to tell you,” he finally said. “Grigori was a good Communist. He worked in the Russian embassy in Romania for years and years, and when things started to change there in the 1980s, he made a lot of money selling exit visas to people who wanted to get out of the country. By the time Ceauşescu and his wife were shot, Grigori was already a rich man.”
“Ceauşescu?”
“Yes, the communist leader of Romania who was shot by his own people in 1989,” Semyon continued. “After he was gone, the whole country went wild.”
“And Grigori left?”
“No way! Grigori was way too smart for that,” Semyon said, as though Ned had said something too ridiculous to even warrant an answer. “He was by that time a very rich man in a very poor and disorganized country, so he could have whatever he wanted. He bought a bunch of factories—but he put them in his brothers’ names because it would look bad for a party member to own so much property and because many questions would be asked back in Moscow.”
“So Russia was still communist at that point?”
“Yeah, for a little while,” Semyon said. “So Grigori had to continue at his job selling visas while his brothers set up the factories.”
“And that’s how he met the Swede?”
“Yeah, even before Ceauşescu was killed, Romania encouraged trade with other countries and the Swedes were the first ones in . . . they usually are,” Semyon said as though that addendum was supposed to be significant to Ned. “Grigori just kept getting richer and richer, and when the communists fell in Russia, he came back to Moscow and made some even richer friends.”
“Richer?”
“Yes, how can I put this? Grigori drives a most expensive Mercedes-Benz, his friends back in Russia have a custom-built Lamborghini for a few weeks until they get bored of it and then get something else,” he said. “You should see their houses, they are palaces. Truly.”
“And Roman is one of them?”
Semyon laughed. “No, no, no, Roman is like Grigori, but the bosses like him better, so he is in Brooklyn, while Grigori is stuck in Detroit. He is also very jealous of Dimitri in Los Angeles.”
Ned smiled. “So if I am Grigori’s employee, why do I have to pass Roman’s inspection?”
“Because Wilmington is officially in Roman’s territory—east coast, you know,” Semyon said, as though explaining the situation to an obstinate five year old. “Grigori is only getting away with it because it was such a smart idea and because Roman is getting a generous allowance. But nothing happens until Roman gets on board—and he won’t be until he meets you.”
They had been driving for hours and had passed by Philadelphia, Camden and Trenton and were traveling at exactly the speed limit through small-town New Jersey when Semyon pulled out his now-familiar bottle of vodka. Ned was so shocked he almost swerved into a car passing him on the left. After recovering with much screaming from his brakes and tires, Ned asked Semyon, “What the fuck are you doing? You can’t just open up a bottle of vodka in the front seat of a moving car! We could both go to jail.”
“What? Really? I knew you couldn’t drink and drive in this country, but I’m not the one driving.” He sounded very sheepish by the end of his statement.
Ned, still shaking his head and unable to blink, took the next exit. They eventually ended up on the outskirts of a nice little town called Lawrenceville where Ned stopped at a gas station that had a convenience store attached. “You fill up the tank,” he told Semyon. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
Ned returned with some snacks and other items and put them in the back seat. He pulled a large bottle of spring water out of the bag, uncapped it and poured it on the ground. Semyon looked at him quizzically. His face changed dramatically when he saw Ned grab his vodka bottle and pour most of it into the water bottle. Semyon smacked him on the back and thanked him, calling him “buddy.”
It was smart, he thought to himself, to reduce the risk of getting caught by the cops, and to keep Semyon happy and talking. Ned had seen him pout and sulk for long periods when deprived of what he wanted (which was usually vodka), and wanted him to provide more information about his new associates.
Back on I-95, Semyon was taking lusty swigs from his water bottle and chewing on some of the beef jerky Ned had bought him. Then he started up the conversation again without being asked. “Ah, Roman’s okay,” he said. “He’s just careful is all.”
Ned just nodded. Then when he realized Semyon would not continue without any prodding, he asked, “So, Roman is like Grigori? He gets his money from his factories?”
Semyon erupted into gales of laughter. “Grigori makes nothing from those factories these days!” he shouted. “Do you think those stupid Romanians and Bulgarians can keep up with millions of Chinese who will do the same work for a few grains of rice or to stay out of a prison camp? No, his factories make tiny amounts of money, but they give Grigori and his brothers legitimate companies—and it keeps the workers happy, so there are no more revolutions.” He started laughing again, and when he stopped he sounded deadly serious. “No, Grigori makes his money other ways,” he said. “Rom
an, too—just much more. It’s all import/ export—import money and export . . . whatever.”
“Whatever?”
Semyon took a very long and serious look at Ned. Then he started laughing again. “Why are you being like this? You already know about the heroin in the coils. You are part of it.”
“I put that together, but it kind of freaks me out a bit. Does anyone even do heroin anymore? Isn’t it, like, something from the sixties or seventies?” Ned sincerely believed that; his experience trafficking drugs with the Sons of Satan had convinced him that pretty well everybody of a certain age smoked marijuana or hashish, but there was little profit in it; the real money was in cocaine and, to a lesser extent, methamphetamine, but the availability of crack had tended to erode those markets.
Semyon looked shocked. “Are you nuts?” he said. “Heroin users are everywhere. Their habit is evil. Always they come back for more, more, more.”
“Really?”
“Yeah!” Semyon was quite adamant. “Hey, how much do you get for gram of coke?”
Ned had to do some quick calculations in his head. He had primarily been a distributer who passed coke from his bosses to dealers as a buffer against prosecution, but he knew Semyon was interested in the retail not wholesale price. Eventually, he said, “It depends on where you are and the purity of the product, but one hundred dollars if the market is good, sometimes less.”
“Ha! Heroin is double that easy—and the market is always good,” he shouted. “And since we get it from our people, we don’t pay what you pay the Colombians and Mexicans for coke. The profit margin is huge—it makes selling coke look like selling goat meat on street corner.” Ned accepted that simile as something of particular meaning to Semyon.
“Well, I like the sound of that,” Ned said. “Is that how Roman got connected?”
Semyon shook his head. “He was not involved in heroin trafficking until the big guys started encouraging him,” he said. “He made his big money in auto parts, but is better known for women.”
“Women?”
“Yeah, women. You know—sell them?”
“Sell women? You mean like prostitution? He was a pimp?” He laughed.
“This is problem with Americans—the way the rest of the world works always has to be explained to them,” said Semyon who was putting on his dopiest-looking face for added effect. “Not a pimp like you have here—some big black man with his stick and his ‘hos.’ No other country is as stupid about prostitution as America is. Even in places where it is officially illegal, it is always tolerated—except, for some reason, here.”
“So if the cops are looking the other way, how does a guy like Roman make any money?” Ned asked with genuine curiosity. “Doesn’t something have to be illegal for you to make any real money off it? I mean, you might pay twenty dollars for that bottle of vodka, but a sixteen-year-old kid would pay a hundred for the same bottle, right? That’s how it works.”
Semyon nodded and laughed. “But Roman is not a pimp, just like his boss is not some guy selling heroin on street corner. He is an exporter.”
“He exports women?”
Semyon made a big deal about pretending to pray for patience with Ned’s stupidity. “Yes, every country wants as many prostitutes as you can supply, but in countries with good economies—America, Germany, Sweden, Israel—only desperate women will do it, and nobody really wants them. And in many other countries—Turkey, Greece, Arab countries—the women are just too ugly, so everyone wants Eastern European girls. They are white, beautiful, poor . . . it’s a perfect combination to make money.”
Ned thought about what Semyon had said and thought back to his old girlfriend Daniela from Moldova. Although she refused to talk about it, Ned had come to believe that she had used prostitution as a way out of her native country. “Like Moldova?” he asked.
“Again with Moldova? What is it with you and that little asscrack of a country?”
Ned shrugged.
“But you are right, Moldova supplies a lot of girls,” Semyon answered, the sheen of surprise still on his face. “Not the prettiest girls around, but they are plenty eager to work. Poorest country in all of Europe, you know, even worse than Albania!”
“I think I’ve heard how this works,” Ned said. “A guy goes to small towns with a big car and fancy clothes and promises all the girls jobs as models and actresses in the West, but instead makes them strippers or prostitutes in America.”
Semyon shook his head. “No, no, no, very few come to America. Someone tries it all the time thinking they get rich, but it doesn’t really work,” he said with a resigned shrug. “The girls learn English, run away, tell on their man. He goes to jail, they get a Green Card, maybe even citizenship through something called the witness detection program.”
“Witness protection program.”
Semyon smiled. “Yeah, in this country, you can tell on someone and the cops can take you away, give you a new name, a house, a job, even a Green Card, everything. It’s crazy.”
“So where do they go?”
“Who?”
“The women—instead of America, I mean.”
“Oh, lots of places. The best method is to sell them to the Arabs who then sell them to Israelis, Turks, even Chinese,” Semyon said. “They actually go to some pretty bad places. But they are always happy to get away from the Arabs. They are some really cruel guys, full of hate.”
Ned changed the subject not just because he was thinking about his old girlfriend Daniela, but because he was approaching New York City. For someone who had never driven in a city with more traffic congestion than Wilmington, Delaware, and was piloting a gigantic SUV, it would take all of his attention just to stay out of serious trouble.
“Hey!” Semyon shouted. “Take the next exit.”
“To the Goethals Bridge? Headed into Staten Island?”
“Yeah, I have someone I have to see,” Semyon told Ned. “Drive to New Dorp. I’ll guide you.”
Within a few minutes, they arrived at a small storefront establishment called The Tube Bar. From the outside, it looked nondescript with just its sign out front and a neon “Budweiser” sign obscuring the only window. Inside, it was little better. Dusty and greasy at the same time, the bar was simple with just a few tables and chairs, a pool table, a jukebox and a waist-high bar. Ned chuckled to himself that it looked like Moe’s from The Simpsons. There were a few haggard-looking customers inside, and an older, very large man behind the bar yelling threats into an old-style wired telephone.
He hung up by forcefully smashing the receiver down. As he turned to Semyon and Ned, Ned was surprised at how big and solid the old man looked. He must have been a former boxer or wrestler, Ned thought to himself. He had a ruddy face twisted by years of anger, closely cropped gray hair with a few red patches and he was covered in Navy-style tattoos.
“I don’t need your bullshit right now, Simon,” the old man shouted in what Ned thought was an almost impossibly scratchy voice. “Don’t need it at all.” There was some murmuring from the bar’s patrons, and a few stabs of laughter.
Semyon approached the old man, who had come out from behind the bar to confront him. Although he was well within the angry old man’s punch radius, he didn’t flinch. In fact, he had that same droopy disinterested face he always had on when he wasn’t giggling. The older man was raging and pacing around in front of Semyon, but all Semyon did was look at him.
“Well then, Red,” he said quietly, “it would appear we have a problem.”
Most of the bar patrons had gotten out of their seats and surrounded the two interlopers by this point. Ned was not smaller than all of them, just most of them. They were muttering.
“Really?” Red said threateningly. “Fuck off.”
Semyon grinned broadly. “Red, my friend, you have me all wrong,” he said with a lightness and confidence that shocked Ned. “Red, Red, Red, you treat me like I’m a bad man, like I am the enemy, but I am actually your best friend in the entire world. And I
can prove it.”
One of Red’s tiny eyes opened wider as he lifted its eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? How?”
Semyon grinned again, then looked Red in the eyes. “Our mutual friend had told Vasilly to come and sort out your little problem,” Semyon said slowly, putting extra emphasis on the name Vasilly. “I decided that since I was in the neighborhood, I could save him a trip. But if we can’t work something out, maybe Vasilly will come and you can deal with him.”
Red’s face drained of color within a second, and Ned actually saw a glaze of perspiration form on his forehead before he could even react. Red stammered a little and then said: “Lemme get you a vodka, Simon, and what’s your friend want? On the house.”
Semyon thanked him, and Ned declined politely. After pouring the vodka, he went into the back room. Semyon sniffed the vodka and poured it on the floor. “Cheap shit,” he said. The bar’s other patrons sullenly returned to their seats.
Red returned with a paper shopping bag that had been rolled up at the top. He handed it to Semyon, who thanked him. “There is a little something extra in there for you too,” said Red.
“So kind,” Semyon said. “But it had better not be more of this shitty vodka or Vasilly can come down here and do his own work.”
Back in the car, Ned asked why Red was so scared of Vasilly.
“You don’t want to know,” Semyon answered with a laugh. Then his face turned serious. “But promise me you will not cross him . . . Promise!”
“Okay, okay,” Ned returned. “I won’t piss off Vasilly.”
“Smartest thing I have ever heard you say.”
Most of Brooklyn looked very much like Ned thought it would. First he saw graffiti-covered factories and warehouses, then a transition into tree-lined streets of closely packed row houses with cafés and trendy shops which, in turn, opened up into neighborhoods full of detached homes with fenced-in yards augmented by low-rise apartment buildings.
But Brighton Beach was something of a shock. Once Ned had passed under the elevated train tracks and into the neighborhood, he was surprised at how densely packed it was. All of the businesses and buildings—especially those under or in the shadow of the tracks—seemed to have been miniaturized. The streets were positively alive with traffic, and Ned had never seen so many people on the streets outside of a movie. The entire place was alive with all kinds of movement, both motorized and human.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 31