But what really got to Ned were the signs. He’d seen some stores with Spanish signs in Wilmington, but every store here had its signs in Russian, complete with 3s and backwards Rs.
Semyon managed to stay sound asleep until Ned took a particularly sharp turn off Brighton Beach Avenue, jarring him. When they reached Brightwater Cresent, they came upon a huge public parking lot. Ned could see the ocean through his windshield.
“Park here!” Semyon barked.
“What?” Ned answered. “The GPS says it’s three blocks from here.”
“Yeah, but you could spend your whole life looking for parking in this neighborhood,” Semyon said. “And it is tiny little New York blocks, not like what you have in Texas.”
“Arizona,” Ned said, lying.
“Same thing.”
When they got out of the SUV, Ned felt the refreshing salt breeze. The beach looked a lot like the ones he knew from Delaware and Maryland, but the waves were much smaller and the water had a darker, greener color, unlike the steel-blue Atlantic he knew from farther south.
To Ned’s surprise, Semyon walked towards the beach. “I thought it was on Brightwater,” Ned said, running to catch up with him.
“That’s just the mailing address, the front door is on the boardwalk.”
The boardwalk was nice and breezy and, as they walked down it just a short way, Ned could see a transition between a heavily Hispanic east side to an almost uniformly white west side. They passed some nice little restaurants with names like Tatiana’s and New Odessa and Ned was surprised to see most of them advertising fresh sushi. They kept walking until they got to a patio for a restaurant called Café Whatever. It had a hand painted sign and a busy patio.
As soon as he showed up, about half the crowd (Ned identified them as likely to be the bar’s “regulars”) greeted Semyon like an old friend. It took a few moments for Ned to recognize that they were all men. They all had dark hair and skin tones ranging from that of a blank page of photocopy paper to moderately tanned. They were all very hairy with thick eyebrows, and a few of the shirtless ones could be seen to be covered in tattoos. All were bedecked in far more gold than even the most vainglorious hip-hop artist would find tasteful.
They were all patting Semyon on the back or shaking his hand or at least waving. There was much conversation, and then someone in the crowd pointed to a table in the corner. Alone at it was a fat, red-faced man of about fifty. He was wearing nothing but swim trunks and a thick gold chain, and his upper body was covered in a series of intricate, but crudely drawn tattoos. He was passed out in his chair, with his chin buried in his fat neck. One of Semyon’s friends—a big man who looked to be some sort of a leader or at least a favorite—said something in Russian to a pretty, thin waitress. Without any obvious acknowledgment of what the man said, the waitress picked up a can of Sprite from the outdoor section of the bar, brought it over to the sleeping man, opened it and rather dramatically poured it all over him. He sputtered for a moment, punched feebly into the air a couple of times, but never really woke up and, in fact, started snoring the moment he regained his comfort zone. The crowd started laughing uproariously.
As the laughter died down, the man who seemed to be in charge smiled at Ned and offered his beefy hand to him. “You must be our new friend, McGyver.”
Ned chuckled. “It’s Macnair,” he said, shaking the man’s hand firmly. “And you must be Roman.”
The man looked shocked. His eyes widened so much that his entire irises were visible. “No, no, no,” he said. “I am not Roman, I am his friend, Aleksei.” Then he said something to the crowd in Russian—although Ned could make out the word “Roman,” and everybody laughed. Aleksei then looked back at Ned smiling and invited him and Semyon inside. “First we eat, have a little relax,” he said. “Then we do business.”
It was darker inside and it took a moment for Ned’s eyes to adjust. The bar had the same furniture inside as out and the walls were adorned with posters for all kinds of events Ned could not figure out. There was a small stage beside the bar, and a teenaged boy with a sloppy haircut and droopy wire-framed glasses was playing Lady Gaga songs on a Yamaha keyboard. He was dressed in a black suit with a pizza-patterned tie. Ned noticed that he had a cigarette in his mouth and beside him was a very full ashtray.
They got to a centrally located table that had two tough-looking guys at it. When Semyon got to them, he tilted his head quickly and made a clicking noise with his mouth. The two guys shot Aleksei a quick look. He did not acknowledge them and they grabbed their drinks and a half-eaten bowl of soup and left for the patio.
Since it was Ned’s first time in a Russian place, Semyon ordered for him. Before long, he was given a bowl of red soup with a big dollop of sour cream in the middle, a plate of boiled dumplings with some kind of ground meat in them smothered in fried onions and a beer. Semyon and Aleksei both had big plates of what Ned guessed was sushi even though it looked more like simple chunks of raw fish than the intricate, rice-filled rolls he associated with the word. They both had large tumblers of what Ned guessed was vodka, although Aleksei’s was red, almost like wine.
Ned complimented the meal, which he genuinely enjoyed. He asked Semyon what it was called and he told him something that sounded like “ber-nyeh-nyeh.” Ned repeated it, as best he could. Semyon smiled and corrected him, but this time the word sounded more like “bru-nummy.” Ned tried that. Frustrated, Semyon pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote “pelmeni” on a napkin. Ned laughed.
They were talking and laughing about Semyon’s annoying habits when Aleksei shouted: “Enough! Time to relax!” He stood up. As though signaled, so did about a half-dozen other men, including Semyon. Those who had shirts on took them off. A different (older and heavier) waitress walked up to all of them with a basket into which the men put their cell phones, watches and wallets. Semyon signaled for Ned to follow suit. Some of the men finished their vodka before stepping outside. They all followed Aleksei off the patio, across the boardwalk and into the Atlantic Ocean. It was cold at first, but Ned didn’t dare hesitate, although he did keep his pants on.
Chest deep in the water, surrounded by big, tattooed Russians, Ned felt like an idiot. Then Aleksei turned around, looked at him, took the cigar out of his mouth, smiled and said, “This is good, Macnair. We don’t have to bother Roman.”
Chapter Eight
Ned had never been in such a fancy restaurant in all his life. Everything was red velvet, dark mahogany, crystal, silver or gold. The waiters wore uniforms with cropped red jackets and black bow ties. Aleksei had led his group to a big round table that already had four women at it. They were all tall and rail thin with hair dyed a dirty blond and all in their early twenties. They stood when Aleksei and his group arrived and then arranged themselves in a boy-girl, boy-girl mode with Aleksei, Ned and two others. The remaining men went to another nearby table.
Aleksei beamed at Ned. “I will order for the table,” he announced pompously then said something brief to the waiter in Russian, who nodded and hurried away.
The girl to Ned’s left leaned in and whispered breathily into his ear. “I am Petra, I am a model.” Ned noticed that her accent was probably the thickest of all the people he had met so far. He took out his hand to shake hers, and withdrew it when he saw the look on her face.
“I’m . . .” he began, but she put her long-nailed fingers over his lips.
“We all know who you are. You are motorcycle man from America,” and she imitated turning the accelerator on a huge pair of imaginary handlebars and made vroom-vroom noises with her mouth. The other girls laughed. “But you do not look like motorcycle man. Where is your beard, your long hair and your big belly?” She sounded almost disappointed that Ned looked like any mundane young American.
Ned couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. “Yeah, some of the old guys look like that,” he said. “But most of them look like me now . . . good for business.”
Petra smiled and winked. “After dinner you must co
me to the Frying Pan with us,” she said.
“What’s the Frying Pan?”
“A nightclub with dancing on a boat,” Petra smiled. “You will love it.” She had a hard, cynical look about her and, though Ned was convinced that her only interest in him was professional, he couldn’t help liking her anyway. Good looks aside, she also looked like she liked to have fun.
Aleksei interrupted. “Tonight, Macnair, you will have real Russian food,” he said boastfully. “Not the goats’ heads and dog meat that idiot Uzbek has most likely been giving you.” He motioned to Semyon who was happily telling stories at the secondary table full of men. Ned couldn’t help but think that they had been separated on purpose.
Although most of the night’s conversation was in Russian—or whispered between the girls—Ned had a good time. He learned that Roman lived in a big house on Long Island near the beach and only came into the city when it was absolutely necessary. Aleksei said it was because he had everything he wanted out there, but Ned suspected there also might be dangers lurking in the city for such a man. Roman trusted Aleksei to handle things in his absence and his word was as good as truth to him.
Unlike many of the Russians—and Semyon—Ned had been careful not to drink too much. He was looking forward to going to the Frying Pan with Petra and her friends and told Aleksei as much.
Aleksei smiled widely, revealing a gold tooth. “I thought you would say that—she is very sexy,” he said. “But there is one little, tiny roadblock in that plan.” He saw the expression on Ned’s face drop. “Aw, don’t worry, you can go see Petra on that leaky old tub,” he said. “But you just have to do one little tiny job first—Maxim and Artur will go with you—and then you have plenty of time to dance with Petra.”
Maxim and Artur, the two other men at the table, laughed. Maxim was short and stout and had that round-faced Russian look Ned was becoming used to, while Artur was maybe six-foot-four with high cheekbones, blond hair and blue eyes. They laughed at what Aleksei said and nodded almost in unison at Ned. “Don’t worry, they know what to do,” Aleksei said. “They will help you, make sure you do the right thing.”
Artur and Maxim escorted Ned outside where there was a black Lincoln and driver waiting for them out in front of the restaurant. They drove out of Manhattan over a bridge. On the ride, he learned that Maxim was from Rostov-on-Don, a big city in Southern Russia he said was warmer in the winter than New York. He had worked in a fish cannery until it closed down, so he moved to Moscow to earn his fortune. One thing led to another and now he was living, as he called it, “a nice life” in Queens. Artur said that he was from Estonia—which he pointed out in a boastful voice was closer to Sweden than it was to Moscow. His dad had been a police lieutenant before Estonian independence from the Soviet Union, and was considered by many of their neighbors a collaborator and an enemy of the new state. They emigrated to Moscow where his father struggled to find a decent job, and worked at a supermarket delicatessen until he died of a stroke. Artur, it seemed, had done no work other than being a gangster. Ned told them the story he knew they expected to hear.
They had driven out of New York City for quite some distance and Ned saw exit signs for suburbs with names like New Rochelle, Mount Vernon and White Plains. They finally turned into a nice-looking little town called Cortlandt Manor. The driver pulled up in front of a gated entrance and spoke to the men in the backseat in Russian.
They thanked him and exited the vehicle. Ned noticed that Artur had brought a large bag, suitable for hockey equipment perhaps, along with him. He looked at the intercom system on the gate and sneered. “Cheap piece of shit,” he told Ned as he tore the cover off. He took some snippers out of his bag, cut a couple of wires and reconnected them. A section of the wrought-iron gate swung inwards under its own weight. Its creaking sounded very loud in the otherwise quiet night. “Come on,” Artur said.
They stayed low as they approached the house. Ned could see flickers in the front window that indicated someone was watching television. He was surprised when he saw Artur and Maxim avoid the house entirely and run around the back. Maxim motioned to a smaller building at the back of the property. In the moonlight, Ned thought it looked like a garage or maybe a stable, but he could not be sure.
At the front of the small brick building were two big swinging doors meant for something large like a car, or a boat or horses. Off to one side was a smaller door, typical of a house, but wooden and windowless. Much to Ned’s surprise, Maxim pounded on it. There was no response. He pounded again. From inside, Ned could hear an annoyed “yeah, yeah, yeah.” About a minute or so later a boy of about eighteen, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and briefs, answered the door. He looked stoned and sleepy and took a moment to realize the men at the door were not the people whom he expected them to be. He let out a tiny squeak of a scream before Artur held a gun to his throat. Artur said something to Maxim who was searching in his bag. First he handcuffed the boy and then he put a big piece of duct tape over his mouth. He grabbed the boy by the back of his t-shirt and then frog-marched him to the big house’s back door.
“Get us in,” Artur demanded, his gun now at the boy’s temple.
The boy cried and moaned, shaking his head. Maxim took a small, folding knife out of his jacket pocket. The boy’s eyes got very large and Ned could hear his muffled screams from under the duct tape. He struggled and managed to break free from Artur’s grasp, but skidded in the wet grass and fell down. As he was unsuccessfully trying to get up without the use of his arms, Artur turned to Ned. “Bring him back,” he ordered. Ned could see that Artur’s gun had swung around in such a way that it was pointed at him. Artur hadn’t done it in a threatening manner, but a shot would have hit Ned if he had squeezed the trigger.
Ned approached the boy, trying not to look in his desperate eyes, and lifted him by the handcuffs. Apparently resigned to his fate, the boy stopped struggling. They rejoined the other two. Artur repeated his order to get them in the house. The kid nodded. Artur took the duct tape off. The boy approached a window that had been open just a slit and yelled into it. “Ma, Sarah, it’s me. Lemme in . . . please!” The boy obediently tried not to sound desperate.
Before long, Ned could see a small figure appear behind the stained-glass window. Then he heard a couple of locks disengage. The door swung open inwards and a tiny, dark-haired perhaps Japanese woman started yelling. “Jake, I told you not to . . .”
She was interrupted by Maxim and Artur who bull-rushed her out of the way and onto the floor. She was screaming and kicking until she saw Ned bring Jake inside and shut the door behind him. There was a look of wide-eyed horror on her face. “Jake, I told you getting mixed up with the drugs was a dangerous thing,” she said while looking down and shaking her head. “So, do you think they’re your buddies now? Are they great guys? Huh?”
Artur said something in Russian to Maxim and he laughed. “We are not drug buddies,” Maxim told the sobbing woman. “We are business associates of your husband. Where is he, may I ask?”
The woman composed herself. “He’s out, he’s at the . . .”
At that moment a balding man with glasses entered the room. “Jesus Christ! What’s all the . . . ” He fell silent when he saw what was going on. He gathered up his wife and held onto her. “I don’t know what you people want, but . . .”
“Yes you do, Mr. Weathers,” said Artur.
“What my friend means to say is that we’d like to know if you have reconsidered Roman’s business opportunity,” Maxim said.
“What? No, I told your boss, I couldn’t. It’s totally illegal. In the wrongs hands, it could . . . and the feds would have my ass in a minute.”
“That’s too bad,” Maxim shrugged, looked over at Artur and nodded. Artur handed his gun to Maxim. Then he approached Jake—who was standing in the middle of the massive kitchen, still held by Ned. Artur steadied the boy with his left hand, and fished something from his jacket pocket. Ned saw a flash and then a spout of blood cascading from the b
oy’s head. He immediately fell to the ground and turned involuntarily in pain. He was screaming and bleeding.
His mother rushed to his aid, screaming even louder.
The boy’s father looked horrified, and said, “You cut his fucking ear off! You cut my boy’s ear off!”
Artur grinned and held up a chunk of grayish-white skin. “Not all of it,” he said. The father lunged at him, but stopped when he saw Maxim aim Artur’s gun at his wife’s head. Instead the man grabbed a towel and held it against his boy’s head. He held his screaming family in his arms as the stream of blood from his son’s mutilated ear finally began to ebb under the pressure of the towel. He swallowed. “Okay, okay,” he said without looking up. “I’ll see what we can do.”
“There!” Maxim said, as though they were old friends talking about a fishing trip. “Was that so hard? Why do Americans always complicate everything?”
The woman stopped screaming and held her boy. The father stood up and looked at Maxim with utter contempt.
Maxim, whose facial expression did not change at all during the entire incident, looked at the man with an otherworldly calm. “You’ll do more than ‘see what you can do,’ ” he said. “You will get Roman what he needs. Because we also know that you have a young daughter—hiding in the house right now, I think—who you like enough not to banish to . . . how do you say it in English again? . . . horse house.”
“Stable,” Artur offered.
“Yes, she lives in here with people,” Maxim said. “And I hate to sound like movie gangster here, but it would be a terrible shame if something were to happen to her.” He said the last bit while rolling his hands dramatically and delivering the line as though he was embarrassed to even say it. “Besides, we are nice people. This one here is even American.” Maxim gestured at Ned. “You don’t want me to have to turn this matter over to Vasilly, do you?”
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 32