I’m relieved but I give him a shrug like it’s nothing. Just routine. The other men around the table nod. Having his approval for the setting gives me off to a powerful start.
We’re all seated, I thank the men one at a time for attending, in order of their seniority. Carmine, Konstantin, Medved, and Pierce all know each other although it’s impossible for me to know how well or how close they are. Konstantin may be a bigger player than Carmine from the size of his own organization but all of the Italian mobs will more or less answer to Carmine Monreale. Also, we’re pretty much the Russian mafia here, so Carmine is like a guest.
Konstantin thanks me courteously. “I notice that our friend Marco is not here. I’m assuming that’s because he doesn’t command any sizeable force?”
“Partly that, Konstantin.” I start quietly, “Also because he doesn’t have a varied or widespread business interest.”
“You don’t either, Vassily. Your business is pretty much the club.” Medved chips in.
“Sure,” Carmine says, “but Vassily has been at the sharp end of this, whatever it is. It wouldn’t make sense for him not to be here.”
“That’s true,” I say, “But Marco has too.”
“What I was going to say,” Medved says, “There was a grenade attack on his bar.”
“Not a place any of us would want to see grenades rolling around,” Carmine says, looking around the table. “Any one of us could lose our balls.”
When the ripple of amusement subsides, I say, “No. I’m here because I plan to try and do something about this. I don’t believe that Marco will be attempting anything.” The possibility that Marco wasn’t invited for another reason hangs in the air. For the chance that he could be implicated in some way.
There’s a slow intake of breath around the table. After a moment, Carmine says, “So, is this your way to announce that, if you start making moves and it looks like you could be making moves on someone else’s territory, that we’re all supposed to think what you’re doing is just defensive.”
Konstantin chuckled, “So, Vassily comes into my ballroom with a small army or he stops one of my trucks and I should just tell my guys ‘It’s okay, boys. Give Vassily whatever he wants.’ Is that about right?”
These guys are constantly looking over their shoulders for someone sneaking up to kill the king. It’s understandable. That’s how they most often got there themselves.
“I have no interest in taking any of your businesses. I know it may sound weird and perverted to you guys because you’re all kings and emperors. But I’m not interested in any of that. I love knowing you all and working with you and I love having you all come and relax in my club, but you know what, the club is what I love and it’s what I want. I wouldn’t want to take your places because I like the place that I’ve got. Still,” I look around the table. I can’t read their faces. You’d be an idiot to play poker with any of these guys.
I tell them, “I don’t expect you to believe any of that. You’ll wait and see. If you see me trying to make a move or steal something away from you, you’ll move on me. I just have to trust in your judgment and hope you aren’t too trigger-happy.” I look around again. They’re all looking fairly relaxed. However smart they are, powerful men always enjoy being told or reminded of how powerful they are.
I sit back, “So let me tell you something I think you will believe.” I pause. Make sure I have their attention. “Vovo came here from out of nowhere in Russia. Was he from Kaliningrad, or Nizhny Novgorod, or Novosibirsk? I don’t think anyone ever found that out, but I think that he was sent as a forward insurgent. A bridgehead.”
I have their attention. Carmine scowls. “Meaning?”
“I think that a very powerful figure in Russia wants to come here and take over a very large part of the game. I think that a Russian gangster with huge resources wants to mount a takeover bid.”
Medved says, “A Russian you know nothing about. What is this, a hunch, a feeling in your bones? What are you working up to sell us, Vassily?”
“I can’t prove the connections, but we did get a line on some of Vovo’s communications after he got here, and some clues about where Vovo’s money came from. The most striking thing is how much money there was in the pipeline. He could have built this club more than fifty times over. Well, one of the most striking things.”
Mikhail hands me a large tablet screen and I pass it to Carmine. His eyebrows raise, and he hands the tablet on. “This shows money trails as far as we’ve been able to track them through cut-offs in Panama, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and ultimately Marseilles in the south of France. The private bank in Marseilles is only used by a pretty tight group of shadowy oligarchs. One name shows up in all of the paths, though.”
Everyone at the table had gone quiet as they read the screen. When it got to Pierce Agostini, he looked around and said, “Looks like that name means something to everybody here. Who is this guy?”
Konstantin says, “Maleovich?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Katya look up sharply. After that, even though all the important parts of the meeting come up one after another, every moment drags, and I wish the whole thing were over. I’m anxious to get to Katya.
The co-operation agreements I want all go much better than I had hoped. Konstantin and Carmine both offer manpower as well as weapons and some finance. The last part of the conference is the most important as far as I’m concerned.
I asked Pierce to the meeting, partly for his contacts among the Wall Street bankers but mainly for his expertise and understanding with technology. The meeting drags on really slowly for me while Pierce explains everything three different ways and all the gangsters struggle to wrap their heads around it. They’re like a committee of Senators discussing particle physics, all desperate to prove to the others that they understand it. None of them with the first fucking clue.
The meeting ends with many hugs, extravagant kisses, and long, energetic, competitive handshakes.
Medved hangs back and he’s the last to leave. He says, “I always liked you, Vassily and we always got along.” He drags my hand to pull my ear close to his mouth. “Don’t even think about betraying me. If you try anything under-hand on this, I’ll eat your fucking liver.”
After he leaves me with that image, I almost run to the back to find her.
ven in this low light, I can see how drained her face is.
I put a hand on her shoulder. It’s meant to be reassuring but she’s so wound up it makes her jump.
Quiet, I ask her, “You know him?”
“Who?” She doesn’t look up.
“I know you’ve heard of him, everybody has, but I wondered if it was something more. I want to help, you know?”
“Okay.” She reaches up. Touches my hand. But she’s still looking down. “I’ll tell you about it. Give me a little bit of time though, okay?”
I have a fine apartment and I want to take her there but it’s on the New Jersey side of the river and I don’t want to be that far away. Not now. I would stay at the club. We have plenty of great suites. But after the attack, I want to keep her somewhere off the territory. I want her to be safe and I want her to feel safe as well.
First, there’s something I have to do. I call Mikhail over and make arrangements.
We take the freight elevator down to the street and a black van is in the alley waiting for us. One of our security guys steps out for the van and looks around, then he opens the doors. I thank him, and he gives me the keys.
I drive with Mikhail in the front, Katya keeping low behind the black windows in the back. I park down the street from the back entrance to Marco’s bar. I tell her, “Stay in the car with Mikhail, okay? I trust him with my life.” She gives me a hard, narrow look.
I look at Mikhail. He nods.
It’s wet on the street. I wait for a moment at the door, looking up at the camera. The door buzzes and I bound up the four flights of stairs into Marco’s bar.
He’s on the couc
h with three girls. He smiles as he gets up. I’m looking around. “You cleaned the place up pretty good.”
“It’s the business, you know that. You’ll have your place spotless before you open tomorrow evening.”
“You didn’t stay.”
“I had to get back.”
“Without your precious girl.”
“Do you know what’s happened to her?”
“Aww, look at you,” I brush his chin with my knuckle, “Getting all dewy-eyed about your investment.”
Marco spreads his hands, “Look, have a drink, okay. Let me explain.”
“You know what, Marco,” I tell him, “I just need her passport. Get if for me real quick, would you?”
His face breaks in a wide, beaming smile, “You come to your senses, yes?” and his hands clap, “You are going to buy her.”
I lift him by his lapels. Then I hold him in front of me while I run at the wall. The back of his head and shoulders slam into the plaster.
I tell him, “Forgive the lack of formality but I’m in a hurry. Get me her passport now would you, please Marco.” And when I let him slide down to the floor, I pat his chubby cheeks with my palm.
~~
After I send Mikhail back to the club with instructions, I’m left in the van with Katya. I tell her to stay in the back and keep down.
“It’s lonely back here.”
I think about it. Either my senses are hyper-attuned, or her scent is my catnip. Either way, it gets me thinking about what it would take to get us, me and her, to a place where we could reasonably expect to be uninterrupted long enough to fuck. then I’m thinking how long that might be, once we got started.
I tell her, “I should get you installed somewhere safe. There are things that I need to take care of.”
“I’m one of the things you should take care of.”
“Not in the way that you mean.”
“Ooh!” she props her chin on her hands on the seat back. “Tell me some of the ways you have in mind.”
“Stay back in the seat. Get back in the dark.”
“You could come back here with me.”
I’m beginning to wonder if I shouldn’t have kept her tied up. I’m going to have trouble keeping my hands off her and she’s obviously not going to be any help at all.
“So, what’s the idea? We chill over steak and fries and you slip me your tongue first and then your cock?”
“You’re good with the steak and fries part.” I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until she said that. I think of a hotel. It’s downtown, on the edge of the financial district. “I need you to be somewhere safe and this is going to be that. For now, at least. I think you’re a major part of what’s going on here. You could even be at the center of it. I want to know if you’re a victim or if you’re somehow the cause.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that I don’t even know that myself?”
“I would. I do believe that. How do you know Maleovich.”
“Please. Don’t make me talk about the past.”
“I have to know.”
“I’ll tell you what I can. But it hurts. A lot, alright?”
“Alright.”
She takes her time and I start to drive. Eventually, she tells me, “I believe that I’ve seen him twice. Once when I was very little. He’s the man that I think killed my father. Then, I was at the opera in Moscow with my owner at the time. I think he was there and he saw me.”
“You think so?”
“I thought that I recognized him. The next night my owner’s house was firebombed.”
“You weren’t there?”
“I was there. I was locked in the basement.”
~~
On the way to the hotel, I make a call to Pierce. “I could do with your help for some documentation.”
“What kind?”
“Travel documents, paper to establish residence. Passport. That kind of thing.”
“I thought you had a guy for that. I even used him myself.”
“Yeah. I need some things that are more official. And Russian.”
“Oh.” It’s a big ask. I know. He says, “Okay. Let me call you back.”
~~
I take us to a hotel in the Financial District. Bright, shiny. Lots of glass and pointy metal sculpture. Long muslin drapes. Too bright for my taste, but very corporate and anonymous. I book a suite. The pretty desk clerk is very helpful. I tell her to send up some food.
“Steak and fries with a salad okay for you?” I ask Katya.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Send two steaks with fries and salad,” I tell the desk clerk. Then to Katya, “You may change your mind.”
“I want champagne,” Katya says, like it’s a reflex. I shrug.
“Send a bottle of Krug in a bucket of ice with the food.”
Katya says, “Sooner. Send the champagne straight away.”
“Of course,” the clerk gives nice smiles to us both.
Katya drapes herself on my shoulder and lays her cheek against my chest. “Are you going to wear me out and leave me starving?”
The clerk blushes as she looks down.
We take the elevator to the top floor. It’s floor sixty-nine. She says,
“It’s got to mean something, right?”
Damn, and I’m thinking about it.
She leans back against the mirrored back wall of the elevator. What’s so fascinating about her is that look in her eye. The look and what’s behind it. I’m saved by the bell as we reach the floor. Entering the suite — it’s big with a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge and the river one way, Midtown and Upper Manhattan in the other direction — I’m telling her,
“Look, I’m going to keep you safe. I think somebody is out to get you.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“I don’t mean just the two stupid punks who were working for Bruno. Bruno is being played by someone else. I am sure of it.”
“I heard you talking about a passport. But didn’t you already get mine from Marco?”
“It’s good to have a spare, sight?”
“You’ve got something in mind.”
“I have.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“Not yet.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet.” She hangs on my arm as I slide the card in the door. The green light flashes and I swing the door open. Absently I notice that the view over Manhattan is sparkling and fairly breathtaking. If I were with a girl I wanted to impress, this would do the job.
“What’s sweet?” She follows me in. I’d say that she looks impressed, but she isn’t looking at the view.
“You see us having a future.” The door is closing as she lays her hand on my chest. I make an effort to distract myself, not to be excited when she plants a soft kiss on my chest. Then she lays her cheek there. I let her press me against the wall. The race in her pulse, her softly quickening breath, she feels affectionate. And my blood is pumping.
Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance Page 12