“You missed another day of work,” Dave hissed into the phone.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ned replied. “My first day missed at this job—and the Swede is cool with it.”
“Don’t call your boss ‘the Swede;’ show some respect,” Dave shouted. “And I don’t care if he’s ‘cool,’ I’m some pissed off.”
“Why, man?” Ned almost whined. “I was sick. Nobody cares but you.”
“Really? Is that what you think? If I find out that you are up to something, I’ll hand you over to the Sons myself, just for lying to me.”
“C’mon, Dave.”
“Yeah,” he continued, sputtering with anger. “How’d you like to be Ned Aiken again? Good fuckin’ luck. I’d give you fifteen minutes before I’d start checking the morgue.”
“Relax, Dave. I just had a touch of strep and didn’t want to infect anyone at work,” Ned tried to sound beseeching. “I have a good thing here—why would I do anything to fuck it up?”
“I don’t know why you assholes do anything you do; your logic got you into big trouble didn’t it?”
“And it got me back out,” Ned said. “Look, I learned my lesson. I want to stay at Hawkridge, want to do well. It’s not like any other place where I’ve ever worked. They like me. They listen to me. I could even get promoted.”
Dave laughed, Ned pictured his face softening. “Yeah, just stay outta trouble,” he said. “Or you’ll have even more trouble with me.”
The next day in his office, Ned mused to himself that he wasn’t really lying to Dave. He did enjoy himself there. And people there did like and respect him. He had great relationships with Katie and Juan, the other managers were cool and would sometimes have lunch or even go drinking with him, and even the Swede would pop by every couple of days with a few words of encouragement.
It was a pretty nice setup, and Ned didn’t feel all that bad about not actually contributing to the company because, he rationalized, at least he wasn’t hurting it.
The plan worked very much like he had been told it would. Steve, Hawkridge’s manufacturing manager, would e-mail an order for cooling coils from the factory floor to Ned. He would then place an order for twice as many to Romania. They would arrive two weeks later, Ned would open them, and deliver the white-lettered ones to Steve, then ship the yellow-lettered ones to Detroit. It was all automatic, nobody ever questioned him.
And every two weeks or so, he’d get a visit from some college-aged kid who’d hand him an envelope that was marked “Macnair.” It was small at first, just a couple of hundred bucks, but it began to grow. Ned started treating himself. Life was good. He was dressing better, living better, having a good time and—for the first time in a long time—looking forward to the future. Dave was quiet, the Swede appeared to be happy (as did his Russian friends) and he was making a lot of money. The Russians had even given him the surprise gift of a local “model” dropping by his apartment unannounced once. Ned was thinking strongly about getting a bigger place, definitely near the beach, somewhere where he could continue working on the old Indian.
There were a few snags, though. Chuck and Bob, the guys from the credit-assessment company mailroom, called him up a couple of times and insisted on a cut of his earnings. The first time it happened, he FedExed them four hundred dollars apiece. They called back and said he was insulting them. Ned argued that he hadn’t made very much money yet, and that Grigori’s people told him that he owed them nothing. When they called a third time, demanding payment in a threatening manner, Ned told them to take it up with Vasilly. After a long—and Ned assumed stunned—silence, Chuck began to sputter and swear and let out something in his own language that was both threatening and complicated. It sounded so much like something out of an old horror movie that Ned couldn’t help but laugh. That enraged Chuck, who hung up.
Another thing bothered Ned. A number of the Ocean City Lawbreakers were busted in a drug raid—so many, in fact, that the Lawbreakers were moving members from other chapters to Ocean City to keep the chapter alive. Apparently, one of the Ocean City members or prospects had been working with the ATF. It was certain that he—and perhaps also someone looking to plea bargain—would tell the police that he had seen Jared Macnair, and that he had possible connections to the Russians. While it didn’t weigh on him greatly, he did think about ways to distance himself from the Macnair identity.
He was actually doing that very thing when he received the third thing that bothered him these days—a phone call from a drunken Semyon. Ned honestly liked Semyon, but his calls were the worst. He’d drone on for hours about the most mundane things, complain about slights—many, Ned felt, were more imagined than real—and sometimes completely forget who he was talking to and start rambling on in Russian.
This time, though, Semyon sounded pretty well put together. He had clearly had a couple of sips of vodka, but he was unlikely to go off on one of his long and barely coherent soliloquies. Instead, he went straight to the point, at least by his standards.
“Did you like my present?” he asked.
“Which one?”
“What?” Semyon asked, angrily. “The girl!”
“Was that you?” Ned asked mockingly.
“Who else would buy you a date?” Semyon was beginning to realize he was being made fun of. “You have other such friends?”
“Hundreds,” Ned said, laughing.
“Even I have to admit lots of people like you these days,” Semyon said. “Your ability to do your job and stay quiet has been noticed.”
“Really?”
“Yes, and you are due to get big reward.”
Immediately, images of luxury cars popped into his head. “Oh yeah?” Ned said. “That’s great—what am I getting?”
“An all-expenses-paid trip to Moscow with Grigori and me!”
Ned was shocked. The Cadillacs and BMWs in his head turned into cops and prison guards. “You know I can’t go to Russia,” he spat out. “My ID is good, but it’s not good enough for an international flight. Do you want to see me in a federal penitentiary for fifteen years?” He knew that if he tried to get on an international flight with his Eric Steadman ID, he’d never get on the plane. Security would call Dave, he’d have his protection lifted and the Russians would then be racing with the Sons of Satan to kill him. And if he tried to use the ID the Russians had given him, who knows what would happen? Immediately and without warning, the idea entered his mind that the Russians had somehow found out that he was dealing with the FBI, and just wanted him to get into a car to kill him.
Semyon interrupted that thought with a loud sigh. “All you ever do is worry,” he said. “Don’t you think that we think of these things before we make them happen? Grigori does not want to lose such a valuable asset as you. Rest assured, your ID is good enough for where we are going to take you.”
Their conversation was friendly after that, with Semyon explaining that Ned hadn’t seen anything compared to what awaited him in Russia. Ned said that he was sure of that. After saying good-bye, Ned sat in front of the TV blindly switching channels, drank almost an entire bottle of Jim Beam and smoked two joints before he finally nodded off at just before three a.m.
Chapter Ten
It surprised Ned that they put Pyotr in the car with him rather than Semyon. They were in an old beige Ford Taurus that Grigori had parked in front of his headquarters in Detroit. The plan was that the group would travel over the Ambassador Bridge into Canada in separate cars and then meet at a bar in a little town called Tilbury, about forty-five minutes down Highway 401.
As they approached customs, Ned took out his Jared Macnair passport and Pyotr handed him his. The customs officer—a heavyset woman in her late twenties—looked them over disinterestedly. “Nationality?” she asked.
“Both American,” Ned replied.
“Where do you live?”
“I’m in Grosse Pointe, and he’s from Southfield.”
“What’s the purpose of your visit?”
“Visiting relatives. My sister married a Canadian guy and now they live in Newmarket.”
“Newmarket?” She smiled. “I’m from Aurora.”
“I’m sorry,” Ned replied. “This is my first time in Canada. I only know Newmarket from a map and from my sister’s description.”
“Oh, well, here are your passports, Mr. Macnair and Mr. Taglietti. Have a nice trip.”
“Tal-yetti,” Pyotr corrected her pronunciation. Ned smiled at his pretense.
As they drove out of Windsor and into the countryside, Ned couldn’t put the landscape and his vision of what Canada was like together. All his life, he’d been sold an image of Canada bursting with natural beauty—majestic mountains, rich, endless forests and crystal-clear water teeming with wildlife—but all he saw here were flat, almost uniform farms, clapboard bungalows, gas stations, convenience stores and maybe a muddy stream or two. It looked a lot like places he’d been to. And Pyotr didn’t help break the boredom. Even though he had the best English skills of any of the Russians he had dealt with, he didn’t have much to say. He felt no need to divulge anything about his own life and had made it clear he had no interest in Ned’s. Ned found himself missing Semyon’s nonstop prattle, and all he had were a steady supply of classic rock and country channels on the radio to keep him company.
They arrived at Tilbury and turned off to find the bar. When Ned saw four customized Harley-Davidsons and a pair of pickup trucks parked outside he knew who was waiting for them. He knew this area had been Outlaws territory for a very long time—which made sense because it was so close to the club’s Detroit headquarters—but after some mass arrests, the Bandidos took over. But then they had an internal war with a lot of deaths and basically vanished from the area. And now, Ned was unsurprised to learn, the Hells Angels were in charge.
Even though there was little contact (or love lost) between the Sons of Satan and the Hells Angels, the presence of any bikers made Ned nervous. He and Pyotr were the first of their group to arrive, and Ned suggested they wait outside for the others. Pyotr shot him a dirty look and told him that it was too hot outside and that he was hungry.
Inside the bar, Ned smelled cheap draft beer and stale cooking grease before he saw the group of men gathered around a couple of tables. They had been chatting, but fell silent when Ned and Pyotr walked in. Without a second thought, Ned recognized them as bikers, but not as particularly important ones. All of them were white, some had shaved heads, a couple wore long beards and all of them had lots of tattoos, silver-colored jewelry and Harley-Davidson logos on their clothes.
The bikers scanned Pyotr and examined Ned carefully as they walked in. Bikers from other gangs were never safe in a room full of Hells Angels, especially if it looked like they were trying to make a drug deal in their territory. And considering whom he was traveling with, that could be an easily made assumption.
But then Ned remembered something. Although he had once been a prominent biker (and was passing for yet another), he didn’t look like one anymore. His hair was closely cropped, but far from shaven. He had no facial hair, no visible tattoos and wore no jewelry aside from a modest watch. He was wearing a light-blue and yellow Hawkridge golf shirt and tan canvas pants. If anything, he mused to himself, he looked more like an undercover cop than a biker.
Pyotr was another matter altogether. Although his appearance raised no suspicion with the woman at customs, the trained eyes of the bikers saw more. Massive, he had a shaved head and one of those goatees fat guys grow to make their face look thinner. He was wearing a powder-blue and white track suit with a white t-shirt on underneath. Unzipped, it revealed a wealth of tattoos. And he was dripping in gold, although he had hidden most of it when he went over the border. With the jewelry back on, even a small child could guess he had something to do with the drug trade. He walked by the bikers without so much as a glance their way.
After Ned and Pyotr found a table at the other end of the room, the bikers started talking again, but in hushed tones. Ned couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he knew they were almost certainly talking about them.
A few minutes passed before Grigori and a pair of his associates came in and sat with Ned and Pyotr. Like Ned, they were dressed casually and unremarkably. Grigori yelled something in Russian at Pyotr, and he looked hurt. Grigori ordered chicken wings and sodas for everyone at the table, he made it clear there was to be no drinking. About a half hour later, Semyon came in with two more men and joined them. They were dressed in much the same way as Ned and Grigori.
Semyon made an effort to sit beside Ned, but was rebuffed by Grigori. There was a great deal of discussion in Russian, and Ned waited to find out what was going to happen. Grigori gave Pyotr his car keys and the big man reluctantly went out into the parking lot. Semyon got up and stood beside Ned. He spoke into his ear, sotto voce, that the plan was for them to fly to Russia posing as a mixed government/corporate group heading to a conference about heating and cooling technologies in Moscow. Grigori, as vice-president in charge of technology for Premier Solutions, was leading the group. Vasilly was to be a Russian government advisor and the rest of them were engineers. Except for Ned. He was to pose as a grad student studying the differences between how the Russian and American manufacturing sectors were adapting to challenges from China and other low-wage countries. Grigori had made all the arrangements and had gotten the papers in order. And he was some pissed off with Pyotr for not dressing the way he told him to. He was going to have to go back to Detroit. Pyotr came back in, struggling with a pile of briefcases—all them different brands—and a single backpack, which he gave to Ned.
Semyon then instructed Ned to get in his car with Vasilly and Andrei, because Pyotr was going to take the Taurus back home. Ned hoped he hadn’t seen the flicker of fear dance across his face. All Semyon did was smile.
The bikers, who up until this point had been quiet, approached Semyon as a unit when he went over to the bar to settle up the tab. Ned looked over his shoulder to watch and thought to himself that it was typical of biker behavior to approach the smallest of the group when he was alone. Pissed off, he got up and joined his friend. Just as he arrived, the oldest-looking biker asked Semyon, “What are guys, some kind of terrorist cell or something?”
Semyon smiled. “No, man, we are Russians, your enemy before the Arabs,” he said jocularly. “We are all best friends now.”
“So you’re communists?” the biker snorted, and all his friends laughed in support.
“Trust me,” Ned interjected. “These guys are the opposite of communists.”
“Who asked you?”
At that, Vasilly got out of his seat, approached the group and gently pushed Semyon aside. He looked at the big biker in the eye and sneered. Vasilly came up to his chin. He let out a little chuckle. The biker glared at him. In one move, too quick for Ned’s eyes to follow, he held a pistol to the biker’s testicles and a knife just under his jawbone. Ned stepped back, Semyon just smiled.
“So you think you’re a big man, just because you have a weapon?” the big biker asked Vasilly. As he was finishing his sentence, the whole bar heard one of the younger bikers cock a double-barreled shotgun. The bartender hit the ground instinctively, and the waitress ducked into the ladies’ room.
Semyon laughed. “No, no, no, he is very small man,” he said, clearly enjoying himself. “That is why he would have no problem killing you all—he has, as you say, ‘issues.’ ”
“Shut up, you fuckin’ commies,” the biker with the shotgun said, trying to insult them and pointing the shotgun at Ned. “Back off, or your faggot friend here gets splattered all over the walls.”
Vasilly, for the first time indicating he understood English, let out a derisive laugh.
Just as it looked like things were going to get very ugly, Grigori stood up. He faced the big biker with Vasilly and put his hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry about these boys, Zeke,” he said warmly. “They don’t know who they’re talking to and they get a bit nerv
ous sometimes.” Then he and Zeke laughed.
“I know, I know. Put down the gun, shit-for-brains. These are ‘comrades’ of ours,” Zeke commanded. The young biker did as he was told. Vasilly slowly followed suit. Zeke and Grigori went through a door with a sign that said “employees only” for a private conference. Ned noticed that both of them had briefcases. The bikers and Russians in the room watched each other uneasily.
After twenty minutes or so, the door opened and Grigori and Zeke came out, talking as friends. Grigori motioned for the Russians to leave. They did. Semyon and Andrei escorted Vasilly out first.
In the car—an old Lincoln—Semyon was driving, Ned was in the passenger seat while Vasilly sat in the back, reading beside Andrei. Andrei waited until they were out of town before he said, “Your friends, they are not so tough.” Then he let out a little giggle.
“Those were not my friends,” Ned replied. “If you’ll remember, I was the one with a shotgun pointed at me.”
Vasilly sniggered a bit from the back seat without lifting his eyes from the page he was reading. Semyon let out a genuine belly laugh. “That’s true,” he said. “The Sons of Satan no longer have much use for you.”
“Those were not Sons of Satan.”
“Who were they then?” Andrei asked mockingly. “Lawbreakers? Hells Angels? Outlaws? The Banditos?” His sarcasm escalated with each name he spit out.
“None of the above,” Ned said. “They were a puppet gang, sort of like the minor leagues, for the Hells Angels.”
“Minor leagues?”
“In sports in America, the minor leagues are where players go when they are not yet ready for the big leagues,” Ned explained. “They learn, get better and have a chance to get rich.”
“We have this in Russia too—for hockey and soccer,” Andrei said, then muttered something to Vasilly, who did not acknowledge him, but lazily turned a page in his book. “How could you tell?”
Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle Page 34