The Devil

by Erik Henry Vick

  I shrugged. Staying out on the street alone wasn’t the smart thing to do, but I’d learned that once Lily made up her mind, it was easiest to just go along with it, whatever it was.

  “Do you remember the first time we made love, kisa?”

  “I’ll never forget it.” I looked her in the eye without reservation.

  She smiled and patted my cheek like she always did when she was amused or pleased by something I did. “And how could you? Do you remember what we talked about after?”

  “Yes, of course. The guy who started all this by being an asshole.” I waved my hand around, indicating the gang, the war, Brighton Beach, all of it.

  “It’s Mikhail.”

  “What?” I laughed. “My friend Mikhail? Is this some kind of joke?”

  “I only wish it was, Boo.” She sighed. “But it isn’t. Mikhail used me.”

  I stared into the night sky.

  “When I met him, he was at the bottom of the food chain. A bratok. During the time we…during the time we were associated, he rose to pakhan. With my help. If not for me, he’d still be running errands instead of running the whole cabal.”

  “Mikhail runs Brighton Beach?”

  She gave me the patented smile and pat treatment. “How do you think he could afford all the coke he let you steal?”

  “But—”

  “No, kisa, it’s him. Mikhail is the reason for this war. I will have my revenge.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just stood there like she’d hit me with an idiot stick.

  “You promised.” She said it in a quiet little girl's voice that sounded as natural coming from her as gangster rap from a seventy-five-year-old white woman.

  “I did, and I meant it. I still mean it. It’s just a shock, that’s all.”

  “He broke his promises.”

  I shook my head.

  “He rejected me, Bobs.”

  “Then let’s go get him, Lil.” It surprised me how calm I sounded talking about killing one of my friends, but I meant every fucking syllable. I kept hearing that discordant, eerie shit Lily hummed over and over in my head.

  She flashed a smile at me that almost made me forget my name. “I knew I could count on you, Robert. I knew you were the one. After so long…after so many betrayals, I knew you were the one.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, and I was scared to ask her about her past anyway. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers.

  We walked over to Oceana Drive and strode into Mikhail’s apartment building like we owned the place. Vory were everywhere—guns concealed but meant to be seen. They were on high alert. There’s nothing like a lobby full of big, stony-eyed Russians with guns to make a fellow’s knees go weak, but I stood tall and looked at them like I owned them. Some of them knew me, knew I partied with Mikhail at any rate, even if I hadn’t been around for a while. When I met their gazes like I had every right to be there, they nodded. I was worried they would recognize Lily and start blasting, but like everyone, their gazes drifted toward her and right on past like they didn’t even see her

  One of them, a big guy with a scar across his cheek and up through his eyebrow, jerked his chin up in what I assumed was a nod. “Not a good time to party with Mikhail,” he rumbled.

  “I know. I’m not here to party. Mikhail asked me to come over. He wanted to meet my friend Stevie.” I hooked my thumb at Lily. It was a dumb alias, but at that moment, the only woman other than Lily that I could think of was Stevie Nicks. Weird, right?

  Once again, his gaze drifted toward her face without seeming to lock on and see her. He shrugged. “Okay, but I gotta call up, first.”

  “Look at me, Dima,” Lily said with an icy kind of serenity as if she didn’t even care if he did it or not.

  “Your friend’s pushy,” he said, his eyes tracking over to hers. When he made eye contact, he gasped like he was seeing a lover he hadn’t seen for ages.

  They stayed like that for a long breath—Lily standing there, one hand on her hip, the other hanging by her side, while Dima’s body got more and more relaxed. No, relaxed is not quite the right word. It was like he was held together with twine, and the twine was starting to unravel. Like he was getting loose.

  “Yeah,” said Dima, although no one had spoken to him. “Sure.”

  She turned her gaze away. She stared out the glass doors of the building like she was looking out at the ocean—only it was way too dark to see anything. I glanced over to see if a strange light or something was holding her attention, but there was nothing out there but a moonless night.

  Dima stood looking at her, his mouth hanging half open and a dazed look in his eyes.

  “So…are you going to call up?”

  “What?” Dima shook his head. “Oh, that. No, that was just silly. You can go on up.”

  I glanced at Lily and found her looking at me in a detached, indifferent way. “Well, okay then. Thanks, Dima.”

  “Yeah, no problem, Bobbicito,” he said.

  I stood there, staring at him open mouthed until Lily tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the elevator.

  “Let’s go, vozlyublenny. Dima needs to rest a bit.” I am sure her voice was too quiet for anyone but me to hear, but Dima’s lids grew heavy as soon as she finished the sentence, and he sagged into the closest chair.

  We rode the elevator to the top floor in silence. I kept stealing what I thought were surreptitious little glances at her. “You can stop peeking at me, kisa,” she said. “I’m still me.” Her tone was light, almost cajoling.

  “Yeah.” I cleared my throat. “What happened back there?”

  “With Dima?” she asked as if there were some other freaked-out voodoo bullshit happenings going on that night.

  “Yeah. He was dead set on calling Mikhail to see if we were allowed up. Then he looked at you and turned into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”

  She laughed and patted my cheek. “You are so funny, Bobo.”

  I guessed that was the end of that conversation, so I smiled. “Glad you are on my side, Lily.”

  “Oh, kisa, you are on my side.”

  “Yes, love, I am.” For some reason, I remembered Lily humming that reedy, clashing tune in my head and my pulse quickened.

  The doors opened onto the lavish penthouse foyer that I recalled from a thousand nights of vacant coke bliss. It was wrapped in fancy stone and stainless steel. Lily walked right over to the double doors that closed the foyer off from the rest of the penthouse. She didn’t knock, she didn’t try the knobs to see if they were locked, and I swear on my brother’s grave, she didn’t kick, shoulder, or otherwise touch the doors. They just blew open like someone had set off a grenade.

  She walked into Mikhail’s apartment as if she was vengeance itself.

  A single vor was lounging at the bar separating the living room from the swanky kitchen. He started to come up off the bar stool, his hand grasping for the pistol butt in his waistband.

  She raised her hand and pointed at him. Her movement was as slow, cold, and relentless as winter. “No, zelyony. You don’t want to do that.” Her voice was like a strange mixture of white-hot steel and glacial ice.

  The man stiffened like she’d insulted him, but he sank back down to the stool and kept his hand far away from the gun.

  “Get his peashooter, Bobo.” She scanned the rooms she could see and then turned her gaze back to the gangster at the bar. She didn’t say anything—she just stared.

  I walked over to him and hooked his little pistol out of his belt. He was whimpering like a small child, and I smelled piss. I stepped away from the puddle of urine forming at his feet, wrinkling my nose.

  Lily was just standing there, staring at him with no expression on her face. It was like her body was there, but whatever essential part made that flesh hers was missing. Then, as if she was shaking herself out of a daydream, she looked at me with a sheepish grin. “That’s that, then.”

  Behind me, the vor toppled to the ground.

  �
��Call Mikhail.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. The man slumped over his knees, forehead resting in the puddle of his piss. I guessed he wasn’t going to be getting up again. Fear coursed through my veins, and I looked at her. She met my gaze and flashed a small smile at me like she knew what I was thinking. She hummed a few bars of that creepy little song. Somehow, I felt comforted. After all, why should I be scared? Killing was what we had come to do. And like she said, I was on her side.

  “Call him, papi. He has to come to me.”

  “Mikhail, it’s Rob. You here, man?”

  The apartment was as quiet as a tomb. There wasn’t even the sound of a dripping faucet, just a dead silence.

  Lily was hyper alert, standing there like a sprinter waiting for the starter’s gun. She whipped her hand toward me. “Again,” she hissed.

  “Mikhail? It’s Rob. I was wondering if you had any coke?”

  I heard it then. It was just a small sound, like mice inside the walls, and it was coming from Mikhail’s bedroom suite.

  Lily hissed and twirled her hand for me to go on.

  “I’m kind of…well, you know, man. I never can keep hold of any money or anything. Worthless that way. Mikhail?”

  “Rob?” His voice was muffled like he was hiding under something.

  “Yeah. It’s me. Rob. Just wondered if you wanted to party or something.”

  “How’d you get up here, Rob?” His voice was laced with suspicion and doubt.

  “Dima said I could just come up. Hey, your buddy out here has had some kind of attack.”

  “What?” His voice was louder and full of strain.

  “Yeah. He’s out here on his knees, man. I don’t think he’s breathing.”

  “What?”

  His voice was getting louder. I glanced at Lily, and she smiled in a vicious way that made me wish I’d been born blind. She looked sort of like a cat that’s playing with a baby bunny, only malevolent instead of just mean. She winked at me and made that twirling gesture again.

  “Oh, man, get out here,” I said, still looking at her. “The guy’s definitely… Oh man, he’s resting his face in a puddle of piss, man. You gotta—”

  “Kirill? Are you okay, Kirill?” Mikhail’s voice was full of panic and something else I didn’t recognize. Horror, maybe.

  “He’s not going to answer you, Mikhail. I think he’s dead.”

  “Rob! Does he have a pulse?”

  “I don’t know, man, I don’t want to—”

  “I’ll give you a kilo of great coke, Rob. Two kilos. Just see if you can help him!”

  I made those pretend “here-I-go” walking sounds. “Mikhail…he’s…oh, man.”

  Mikhail burst through the door to his suite, hair mussed, shirttails untucked. He slid across the floor in his socks, not even glancing at Lily. “Kirill! Say something, Kirill!”

  “Hi, Mikhail,” said Lily in a bright tone. “I’m so glad to see you again. Aren’t reunions fun?” Like there wasn’t a dead body lying a few feet from her.

  Mikhail glanced at her, then at me, and I saw his eyes track down to Kirill’s gun in my hand. “Rob? Who is this woman?”

  My face twisted into an angry rictus. “Don’t pretend, Mikhail.”

  He gave me that funny looking eye-pop thing people do when they are caught by surprise. “Rob? What are you…” His gaze drifted down to the man on the floor, and his shoulders tensed. “What did you do? Did you shoot him?” His eyes twitched to the handle of the big Bowie knife I always wore. “Did you stab him? Rob, you don’t know who I am—”

  “Save it, pakhan. No greeting for Lily? I think you owe her that much, don’t you?” I was almost surprised by the fury in my voice, and by the way I was pointing Kirill’s gun at Mikhail’s right eye without having consciously decided to do so.

  “Rob,” he said, nonplussed. “What are you doing?”

  I couldn’t get that dirge out of my head. “Whatever she asks me to, Mikhail. Unlike you, I love her and do what she needs me to do.”

  Mikhail’s gaze flitted between my face and Lily’s. Back and forth. Back and forth. “Who is this bitch, Rob? I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  Lily scoffed.

  “It’s not going to work, Mikhail. I know the whole story.” Of course, I didn’t know the whole story. I knew the barest outline of the story, but he didn’t know that. The story made no difference to me, anyway—not really.

  He looked at me, and his mouth opened and closed without making any sound. He brought his hands up between us, palms toward me as if warding me away. “Rob, listen to me. I don’t know what this woman has told you. I don’t need to. What I need you to hear is that she’s lying to you. I don’t know her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her before.”

  I glanced at Lily. It was just a glance, but one glimpse of the fury on her face washed away Mikhail’s arguments like sand in the tide. Without meaning to, I took a savage step forward, and my hand tightened on the grip of the gun. “Not going to work, Mikhail. You want to say anything, Lily?”

  “Put him in one of those chairs, vozlyublenny.” She lifted one graceful arm to point at a squat chrome armchair with leather stretched over the frame.

  I shrugged and waved the little compact pistol at Mikhail. “You heard her, Mikhail.”

  “Rob, you’re my friend. You’ve been here many times as a guest. Have I ever treated you badly?”

  “The chair, Mikhail.”

  “I shared my coke, my house, my food, my drink with you, Rob. Is this how you intend to repay my kindness? Really?”

  In a flash, I was boiling over furious. “Don’t you even say that to me. Don’t you talk to me about repaying the kindness. Get in that fucking chair, Mikhail, or I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you over there.”

  He looked at me without saying a word. His shoulders slumped, and he went over to the chair and sat in it.

  “I’ve never met this woman, Rob. I swear to you on my mother’s grave, and you know what that means to me. I have never seen this lady before.”

  “You were in a relationship with her, Mikhail. You fucked her, you used her to advance in the Bratva, and then you fucked her over.”

  His face had gone over white. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. “I promise you, Rob. She’s not my type.”

  I glanced at Lily and grinned. “Come on, man. She’s everyone’s type. Body that won’t quit, legs like sculpture, face that could start a thousand wars. Are you trying to tell me she doesn’t turn you on?”

  “That’s sweet, bébé,” said Lily, but the way she said it sounded automatic.

  “Oh, drop the act, lady!” said Mikhail. “You aren’t Latina. You aren’t Russian, either. My guess is that you are some tired-ass white bitch from the suburbs. Act like it!”

  “‘Tired-ass white bitch from the suburbs?’ I’ll have to remember that phrase,” she said. “But you are wrong, suka. I am every fucking color, Mikimouse. I’m every-fucking-where and every-fucking-thing, kozyol. I was with Joseph in Yekaterinburg in 1918. I was in Bad Tölz during the late thirties and early forties. I was in the Kashmir in the late forties. I’ve spent ages in Persia and what you call the Middle East. Everywhere there is strife, war, murder, violence, and hatred, suka, you find me. Everything that makes you want to commit murder, rape, arson—everything—flows from me!”

  “You are crazy, bitch. Suka,” Mikhail said.

  I hit him then. It wasn’t so much what he said—I’d thought she was crazy from time to time, too. It was more the way he said it. Devoid of emotion, matter of fact, cold.

  Mikhail didn’t react, other than to look at me without hope as the blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

  “Find some duct tape, habibi. Secure his ankles and wrists. We can’t mess around all night, we’ve got work to do.”

  “Don’t do this, Rob. I swear to you, I’ve never seen this woman before. I wouldn’t…I’m…”

  I was curious. Mikhail was always so self-assured, so confid
ent. He always knew what to say. “You’re what?”

  “I’m gay, Rob.”

  “Oh, come off it, Mikhail. I’ve seen you down on the boardwalk in your fancy clothes. I’ve seen you with a ten wrapped in a flashy dress on each arm. You expect me to believe you are gay, now? That’s weak, man.”

  “Rob,” he said with sincerity. “I am a gay man. I love men. Not women. Kirill was my—” His voice broke, and he had to swallow hard.

  I scoffed and looked at Lily. Her face was cold and empty.

  “Rob. Think about it. I’m in the Bratva. Do you think being open about my sexual identity is an option?”

  “It’s not going to work, Mikhail,” I said as I walked toward the shiny kitchen.

  I rummaged through his kitchen drawers and then went into his laundry room. Lily said something—something too low for me to make out—and Mikhail gasped. “Need me, Lil?” I called.

  “Just getting reacquainted, Bobo. Just get the tape.”

  I found a roll of silver duct tape in a tool box next to the dryer. When I came back to the living room, Mikhail was staring at Lily with his mouth hanging open. She had a funny, savage little smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye.

  “I found some tape, Lily.”

  “Kruto,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Ankles and wrists, kisa.”

  “It…it means cool, Rob,” said Mikhail. His voice was strange—weak and thready. “But she says it wrong.”

  I handed the gun to Lily, and she looked at it for a minute as if she had no idea what it was. I bent and started wrapping tape around Mikhail’s left ankle.

  “You’ve got to listen to me, Rob,” whispered Mikhail. “That thing over there isn’t a woman.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and chuckled. “If that isn’t a woman, Mikhail, then I’ve never seen one before.”

  “No, listen, Rob. Really listen. You’ve got to get out of here. Get away from that thing.”

  “Enough talk, Mikhail,” said Lily. Her tone left no doubt as to what she thought about his little pleas.

  “Rob, you have to believe me. You have to—”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake! Enough of this shit, Mikhail!” Lily took two steps forward, looking like she was going to steamroll right over me. “Look at me, Mikhail. Look me in the eye.”