“Would he have a customer or customers that he would go through that length for?” Vladimir said. “Run the risk of angering us, for only two items? Why not just buy them?”
Sergey smoothed his tie, tugged at the lapel of his Hugo Boss jacket.
“The South African has a reputation,” he said. “He likes to take risks. He has a sense of humor. It might amuse him to steal from us if he thought he could get away with it. Just to have done it.”
“Is he that stupid?” Vladimir said. “He would not be in this business if he were that stupid.”
“It’s not stupidity,” Irina said. “It is being a man. The South Africans are like that.”
Sergey and Vladimir looked at her.
“I will go to him,” she said. “I will get the answer we need.”
“I don’t like that,” Sergey said.
“Business,” she said. “Or ‘bidness’…”
She smiled, and touched the tip of her pink tongue to her crooked incisors. “Remember our promises to each other.”
She and Sergey looked at each other as though they were alone in the room.
“To the death,” she said.
“Yes,” he murmured.
Vladimir looked away. She looked at him and laughed.
“Look, Sergey. We are embarrassing our Vladi. Vladi, have you had a woman yet? I don’t think so. Here.”
She went to the desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a gleaming Browning High Power, set it on the desk top, then pulled out a canvas cash bag. She took out a bundle of bills, all $100s, tossed it to Vladimir who snapped it out of the air, not bothering to hide his resentment.
“Buy yourself a woman, Vladi. But don’t break her. We don’t want the problems. Do you know where to go?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “I know where to go.”
“Then go,” Sergey said. “You’ll think better, after. Then we will discuss what to do if it is the South African. And we will do this soon. Irina?”
“I’ll go tonight,” she said. “He knows of me, though we have never met. I’ll ask him, and I’ll know the truth when I look in his eyes, when I see his face. No man can hide his truth from me.”
Vladimir stood there. His face burned.
“The security man, at the bar…” he said.
“Yes?” Irina said.
“Nothing,” he said. “He may be more than he seems.”
Irina curled her lip. “I do not worry about bouncers in bars.”
Vladimir shrugged. “Can I go now?”
Sergey flipped his hand in dismissal. He and Irina watched him leave the room.
“Is it necessary, the way you work him?” Sergey said, mildly.
“I enjoy it,” she said.
“Yes. I know this. I don’t.”
“He’s not as good as we were told.”
“He is preoccupied with sex. He has not had a woman since he came here.”
“If it affects his thinking and his performance this much, he is a problem.”
“When he is working, he is better than anyone we’ve had. He was very fast getting to the warehouse, and his thinking is good on this problem. He will not be completely useful until is familiar with the area and our network. More so than he is.”
“You could go with him.”
“No. His job is to insulate me from that. We need to remove ourselves, back out. We attract too much attention.”
She shrugged. “I’m telling you know, we will have to kill him. Sooner or later. He is a problem. He has a glaring weakness. We should send for someone else.”
“Listen to me!” he snapped. “We asked for the best and that is what they sent us. We’ll work with him till we see otherwise. Stop toying with him and let him work. We do not have the luxury of waiting around for someone else to come over. We need to protect our next operation more carefully than anything we have ever done before.”
She smiled. “I love it when you raise your voice, Sergey. You need to do that more often.”
He gathered himself, paused.
“Perhaps it’s been too long since you’ve had your woman,” she said. “Should we do something about that?”
She watched the play of micro-expressions on his face, leaned forward and cupped his growing erection beneath his suit pants.
“Only if you’re a good boy,” she whispered. “Will you be my good boy, Sergey?”
His voice was throaty, shook. “Yes. I’ll be your good boy.”
She squeezed his testicles, brought him up on his toes with a gasp. “Then get in the bedroom, boy. Get ready for me. Now!”
His face flamed red.
“Yes,” he said. “Now.”
She watched him hurry away into the back room, heard him unlocking the door that hid their little pleasure room, the one they kept here in their offices, a smaller version of the one at home. He’d be changing out of his clothes, laying out her leather, her whip.
Just like a good boy.
She smiled at the thought, looked at her shoes.
Men.
They were all just little boys.
Interlude
When I was working during the First Gulf War, I spent some time in Brussels, at the NATO European Headquarters. A friend of mine, a Major in Intelligence, took me to an exclusive bordello run by a Dutch woman, who catered only to the elite of the international community -- general rank officers, diplomats, spies.
After sampling some of the pleasures of her house, I had an opportunity, one morning, to sit and take coffee with her, to talk about things, but mostly to listen to what a woman had to say about the foibles of men. She was very discreet -- an essential part of her job description -- but her generalities were gold.
“Men in power,” she said. “They are not so impressed with power in the way that you think. Submission, submission is something they are used to. They get it everyday in their work, their business, whatever that might be. It is those who are without power who are excited by submission, the submission of others. The weak, who are excited by the spectacle, the appearance of weakness. The strong…it is something new, something different, for them not to be in control. To be submissive. That can be…exciting…if it is staged correctly. That is my job, to stage that correctly.”
She giggled, a delightful sound, especially from a beautiful mature woman in her fifties.
“You would not believe how readily the strongest man will submit to a dominant woman for pleasure…it is something that women know, but men will not believe, until they themselves experience it. A guilty pleasure, sometimes shameful, but that is part of the pleasure, is it not?”
I smiled over my coffee cup at her.
I relished my pleasures. Life is too short to feel guilty.
Chapter Fifteen
The Russian was back, and Kai didn’t like it.
The big man with the brushed back hair took a table at the back, ordered Stoli, sipped and sat, sat and sipped, watched the girls. Two of them approached him for a private dance. He waved them away.
He was waiting for someone, and Kai knew who.
“She not dancing tonight,” Kai said. He crossed his arms like a massive Buddha, squat and powerful beside the Russian’s table.
The other man ignored him, sipped his vodka.
“I say she not dancing tonight. I think you find somewhere else to go,” Kai said mildly.
The other man ignored him, sipped his vodka.
Kai allowed himself a small smile.
“Time to go,” he said.
The other man ignored him, sipped his vodka.
Kai reached down for the vodka glass. The Russian shot his free hand and wrapped it round Kai’s like a manacle.
Game on.
Kai pressed his hand forward instead of back, stepping behind the Russian, then snapping his arm back, shooting for the rear naked choke…
…the Russian kicked back from his table, and slammed all 220 pounds of him into Kai -- it felt as though he’d slammed back into a very large and stron
g wall. But it bought him the distance he needed. He darted his hand to the small of his back, pulled out a CZ-75 and twisted to face Kai, the pistol held high and tight against his pectoral muscle.
“Let go of me, motherfucker,” the Russian said.
The expression on Kai’s face never changed. He stepped back, shifted his eyes to the left.
It worked.
When the Russian darted his eyes to the left, Kai hit him with a power slap with his right hand, an open handed blow that took the Russian on the side of the head and snapped him over, brought him to one knee. Kai plucked the pistol from the Russian’s hand.
“Nice pistol,” Kai said. “Thank you very much.”
The last thing the Russian saw was the pistol descending on his head.
***
There’s a science to an educational beating.
Amateurs, high on rage, crack or booze, will beat you till they get tired or somebody comes along or they get scared when they see how much damage they’ve done.
Professionals look at administering the maximum amount of punishment with the least amount of effort and the most amount of gratuitous fun.
Kai didn’t really enjoy beating people the way some of his co-workers did; for him it was a chore, just like taking out the garbage or cleaning a toilet.
For him it was scientific.
The first thing is to get them down and out. Unconsciousness with one shot or less was the goal; hence his practice on one-shot knock outs or the fast “go to sleep, now” choke holds. Once they’re down and out, you can do whatever you want to them. Kai liked to stomp on their ankles -- easy, fast, breaks well, and they can’t run away then. You have to do the face next -- that way, when they come to, they’ll be reminded of their foolishness every time they look in the mirror, and one thing you can definitely count on, is that someone who’s taken a bad beating is going to look in the mirror to assess the damage. This guy was a shooter, right handed, so his trigger finger had to go, actually all his fingers. Kai toyed with the thought of cutting them off with his hand shrub clippers, the size that fit right into the hip pocket of his cargo pants, but decided just to stomp them into mash under his boots, and for good measure break the index finger on the left hand. That left him something to eat with, but would fuck up his ability to shoot if he was one of those ambidextrous types.
The other guys on the security crew wanted some, so Kai let them put the boot in to the ribs, stay away from the spine, we didn’t want to cripple him, but put a few in the kidneys so he’d piss blood for awhile, maybe bust a spleen…
Shred his clothes, already covered with piss and shit, that happened even if they were unconscious if you stomped on their lower belly, so he’d wake up naked, that is if he woke up someplace other than the emergency room.
And you have to take his shoes.
Kai collected those, the left shoes. He had more left shoes than Imelda Marcos in his trophy room in his apartment. This guy had some cheap ass K-Mart specials, strange for a guy who carried a nice pistol. That Kai kept, too, though in a lock box with other goodies he’d taken away during his years on the door.
He waved his guys away, and they drug the unconscious Russian to the end of the alley, threw him half way out. Lenny had an arrangement with the locals -- free drinks, free pussy (but not too much -- that was a prescription for trouble) free buffet and the occasional party -- so when he made a call to complain about trash pick up, his friends knew where to pick up the bodies.
The ones that were still breathing, that is.
Kai went in, surveyed his domain.
His girls were safe tonight.
Especially the quiet, red headed beauty.
He’d have to tell her about this, though.
He hoped she wouldn’t be angry with him. He hated it when she was angry with him.
***
The cops took one look at the bloody heap in the alley and called for the meat wagon.
The paramedics shook their head. They knew how things went down in Lake City.
“Tell those guys to ease up,” the senior paramedic said to the cop. “They’re going to kill one of these guys.”
The younger cop shrugged. “He knows what he’s doing. Guy wants to file a complaint, he can. Wouldn’t be the smartest thing for him to do, but hell, it’s a free country.”
The paramedic shook his head. “Assholes.”
In the ER, the beaten man came to for a short spell.
“Is there someone we can call for you?” the attending nurse said.
He whispered a number.
She hurried off and dialed it.
“Hello?” Sergey Komarov said.
Interlude
People not in the life don’t understand professional violence.
People who hurt people for a living, for money, for a profession, don’t approach it in the same way that the fantasists who think violence is a movie or something they see on TV. Professionals understand that anybody can be hurt, anybody can be got -- so when it comes time to do violence, you do it in a professional fashion -- maximum violence brought against the point of maximum weakness at the time and place of your choosing.
There is no such thing as a fair fight.
Except in the mind of wankers and testosterone drunk and beer addled college boys and twenty-somethings.
I remember a lecture when I was in Ranger School, a long time ago, on ambushes and ambush techniques.
“If you do your job right, do your planning and your set up the way I’m going to show you, then your definition of an ambush is premeditated murder. If you do your job right, as a professional, then the only people who walk away are you and yours. Anything less is unacceptable. Do you understand?”
I understood.
That applies in the jungle, in the desert, and on the asphalt of the urban battleground.
Or in a bar room.
I knew Kai, respected him. He understood that in the world of bar room (or strip club) security, disrespect can never be allowed to go unpunished. Any sign of weakness is blood in the water, and while it takes time to build credibility and a reputation, the wrong decision in the face of a confrontation can cost years of build up…and then you have to start all over again.
Kai taught the Russian a lesson.
But sometimes, there’s blow back…
Chapter Sixteen
I recognized Irina Komarov when she came to the door.
She was close to six feet tall before she put on the spike heels she favored, some expensive designer -- like those Lizzy wore on and off the job. Sprayed on denim jeans, black silk blouse that set off her gleaming platinum hair, pale skin, blue eyes, a leather car coat that probably cost more than Moby’s brought in on a good night.
Her walk set her off.
Some women ooze sexuality in their walk, wield it like a weapon.
Her’s was straight up in your face, nothing subtle about it -- she was a woman and she wanted you to know right up front that she knew how she affected you, there was no hiding it. Strength. And a cruelty that showed in the way her mouth curled when she smiled. There was no girlishness there. Maybe there never had been.
I’d heard she was White Russian, whatever that meant.
I’d also heard that she was a shooter.
Or so rumor control said.
“How you doing?” I said.
She stopped, looked me up and down. “There is a cover? For what?”
“No cover,” I said. “Just being friendly.”
She thought how to play it, and I thought it was interesting that she didn’t bother to hide that from me. The arrogance of the mighty -- or the insane. I’d seen both. Sometimes in the same face.
“Thank you,” she said. Brushed by me.
She went straight to the bar, perched herself with the erect back and long neck of a dancer or a gymnast, took out a cigarette, Sobranie from the box, lit it. Thieu went to her, they spoke, and Theiu brought back a bottle of Premium Stoli, poured it straight into a tu
mbler. Irina held the glass up to the light, set it down, demanded another, got it.
Thieu gave me a look, which Irina pretended to ignore.
Things were heating up.
She sat at the bar, froze any man who got close with a Slavic glare, drank glass after glass of vodka without blinking.
When Deon came in, he paused to say hello.
“Check out who’s at the bar,” I said.
Deon glanced over, appraised her openly. I’d known him for years, seen him under the kind of stress that would break most men, and he rarely, if ever, showed any sign of stress. Instead, he’d often just grin and laugh all the more.
Like now.
He grinned and said, “Fine bit of woman there, oke. Think I’ll buy her a drink.”
Death wish. Women and guns and booze. A bad combination unless you were an addict to the rush.
Like Deon.
He went to her, stayed the careful one stool away for respectful distance. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it made her smile, the first one I’d seen all night.
Deon could do that. He got more ass than a toilet seat when he bothered to.
But somehow, I didn’t think that Irina Komarov was in here to cruise some strange. And from what I’d heard of Sergey Komarov, I wouldn’t want to be the man who took her up on the invite, if invite was what she was up to.
The thought of that probably encouraged Deon, though.
He settled onto the closer stool, straddled it, tipped up a Leinenkugel. His shoulders hunched and shifted like a kid playing pin ball, and Irina leaned forward into him, touched her hair, his forearm, preened…
It was interesting to watch the reversal there…the hunter who thought he was hunting in fact hunted. And this huntress was deadly, deadly indeed.
I thought about going over, joining the conversation, but it was what it was. I thought about what Lizzy told me, in bed, in the dark sometimes, about karma and dharma and the path of the Buddha. The stillness she carried with her, the inner calmness that nothing seemed to touch, that calmness that I bought little pieces of, or that she brought me, she told me that came from her Buddhist studies. Sometimes she would read me little passages from the Dhammapada, The Sayings of the Buddha. I thought of one now: “Never neglect your work for another’s, however great his need.”
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