Johnny Wylde

by Wynne, Marcus

  She laughed all the way to her car.

  She turned the radio up while she cruised through town to Moby’s, let the part of her brain that dealt with the calls sort through the radio traffic while she mulled on what was going on in Lake City. Deon and Jimmy. Now there was an interesting combination.

  She parked right in the no-parking zone across the street from Moby’s, crossed the street. It was early, Jimmy wasn’t on the door, he and Deon were sitting in their usual table, empty bottles on the table. She went straight to the bar, sat at a stool.

  “Hello, Sergeant Capushek,” Thieu said.

  She set up a double shot of Cuervo Gold, some fresh limes, the salt shaker.

  “You want a back?” Thieu said.

  “Harp’s,” Nina said. “I’m in the mood for something darker today.”

  Thieu set out an iced bottle of the Irish beer beside the Cuervo. Nina studied the shot glass, held it up and looked through the golden liquor at the lights. And the mirror behind the bar where she saw Jimmy and Deon studying her. Laughed. And tipped up her first shot of the night, burning down with that welcome warmth in her gut. The gold Rush. Everybody needed something, and she needed….

  Well, the Gold Rush would do. For now.

  Thieu refilled the shot glass without being told. “You want food?”

  Nina shook her head no. Took up the icy bottle of Harp’s and let a long draught down her throat, cooling the burn. She liked the rich flavor of the Harp’s, the denser flavors. It tasted of Ireland, or what she imagined Ireland was like, peat and moss and sea air, dark and warm and rich inside. Not like her Coronas that smacked of beach and sun and sand.

  She was feeling darker today, and the beer suited her.

  She saw Jimmy get up and come up behind her. She made sure he saw that she saw him, and he nodded in the mirror, stood beside her at the bar.

  “Want some company?” he said.

  “How you doing, Jimmy?”

  “Not bad,” he said, sliding up onto the stool to her left. Leaving her gun side clear, she noticed. “You?”

  “Busy. Had to talk with your pal today.”

  “I heard. Any problem, you and me talking? Don’t want to put you in a spot…”

  “I’ll let you know when and if there’s a problem. I’m not working now, but I’m not drinking with Deon tonight.”

  Jimmy took that in. “Sure. You okay?”

  “Yeah. How’s Lizzy?”

  She noticed how he took his time answering, didn’t look her in the eye. “She’s good. Went home. She’s working tonight.”

  “Does she know Darko is dead?”

  He was careful answering that. “Deon told me that there were a bunch of people in the shooting. Was Darko one of them?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Yeah. I think he was.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t have to be a detective to see that there had to be some kind of connection between the battle of Viet Town and that shoot out there.”

  “You got anything to do with this, Jimmy?”

  “No,” he said. Looking in her eyes.

  Lying.

  She twisted her mouth. “I think I’ll drink alone tonight, Jimmy. Catch you later.”

  He got the message, went back to the table with Deon.

  Jimmy and Deon.

  Fuck.

  That was going to take some looking into. And she wasn’t going to enjoy that.

  Or maybe she would.

  Nina tilted up her second double shot, took a deep breath. Finished her Harps. Walked out, with everyone watching her go.

  ***

  Irina sat at her broad mahogany desk in the back offices of the farmhouse. Thought. Her soldiers left her alone in silence, one standing outside the office door, the rest deployed around the property. She’d sent a crew to the warehouse to clean it out, move the stock to the secured storage area on the farm, and two Ryder rental trucks had carried over everything.

  All her eggs were in one basket, now.

  One of her men, a diffident Guatemalan who had a long-standing affiliation with MS-13, and had brokered some lucrative deals for them, brought her a message from the South African: How about a meet? There was no admission of guilt, though that was unnecessary, the meaning implicit. She let that turn over in her mind, let her subconscious work on that, thought about how it might play out.

  Kill him?

  Make him a partner?

  She didn’t know.

  She was used to being the power behind, but a power nonetheless. And something about him appealed to her. Irina wondered what it would be like to bring him to his knees; what it would be like if she could break him.

  Or perhaps not.

  Her partnership with Sergey had been one of grudging equality born of his complete and unreserved need for her; she had exploited that all their lives, though what she thought of as love she had reserved for him. Now that he was gone, she recognized the void for what it was: the absence of someone close, to control, to feel in control, to use as a tool in the world. And that brought home to her the need she had: someone to fill that void.

  So she didn’t have to confront the emptiness inside.

  And then there was the business. A merger would make perfect sense for them. They were really the only game in town, and a partnership would be to both their benefits. He had the advantage of the legitimate business front, and a client base with minimal overlap, so in effect it would double both their business base, which meant conservatively doubling the revenues.

  That was something she understood.

  There was something else, though.

  She wanted blood.

  Revenge was something she understood as well.

  She smiled, a curling of her lips that would have frightened, had there been anyone in the room to see it.

  Perhaps, as the Americans say, she could have her cake and eat it, too.

  “Come!” she shouted.

  The door opened and her Guatemalan, Ruiz, stood there, short and squat like a rusty fire hydrant.

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Tell him I’ll meet with him. Here. Make ready for it.”

  His black eyes narrowed, then he nodded. “How do you…”

  “It’s a meet. Peaceful. We’ll see what he has to say.” She touched her finger to her lips, regarded him as she might a day old piece of meat. “Have you found out where he sleeps?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Set it up, then.”

  He closed the door quietly. For now, money kept him in check. But soon she would have to do something to establish her leadership. Dealing with the South African -- however she chose to do that -- would give her the credibility to expand the business. And she needed a man to deal with these others…

  She tapped on the keyboard of her desk top computer, the latest I-Mac with a 27 inch monitor. Pulled up her address book, scrolled through the entries, found a phone number. Picked up the land line, punched in a sequence of numbers, then got a paging service. She entered her land line, then hung up the phone. Busied herself with paperwork -- bills, pending funeral arrangements, insurance, invoices.

  The private line rang.

  “Hello,” Irina said. “I have some work for you. Can you come here?”

  “Sure,” a woman said. “When do you want me there?”

  “Now.”

  Soft laughter. “I’ll be on the next plane. You’ll be paying for First Class, and my minimum consultation fee.”

  “I’ll have cash for you when you arrive.”

  “That’s just fine. That’ll do. See you…probably tomorrow, latest will be day after early, depends on flights out of here. Is this the number you want me to use?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make sure there’s somebody ready to answer it, then.”

  “I will.”

  “Till then.”

  “Yes,” Irina said. “Till then.”

  Hung up the phone, stared into space.


  Thought about death and sex.

  ***

  The Komorov interview had not gone swimmingly. For the last hour, her mouthpiece, a very expensive suit (maybe Armani, maybe Lauren) with a ridiculously overdone haircut had advised her to say nothing, or that she didn’t recall anything, and that she knew nothing of her husband’s dealings with anyone, or why he might be involved in a massive shooting.

  So Nina sat, a small smile etched on her face, directly across from the cool calm and collected, immaculately turned out Irina Komorov, a stone blond ice queen beauty if she’d ever seen one, in an Armani black miniskirt business get up that would be the toast of the execubabes anywhere.

  There was nothing going on in that woman’s face, or her eyes. Deep and soulless. For a moment, Nina thought about a book she’d read a long time ago: People of the Lie, by M. Scott Peck. It was all about evil, and the nature of the possessed. Peck had said that those perfectly possessed by evil had unnaturally flat and smooth faces, as though the lines had been drawn taut out of their skin by that which dwelt beneath it…for some reason she thought of that as she looked at the beautiful woman across from her and felt nothing but a hair tingling malevolence radiating off her.

  This woman was a killer. If she hadn’t already killed, then she had in her mind, and would some day. There was a hint of the sadist about her. Nina had met plenty of sexual sadists in her work, and this woman had the vibe, the cruel laugh lines at the corner of her mouth, a barely contained darkness that pulsed like an open wound.

  “So thank you very much for not a thing,” Nina said.

  “No need for the attitude, Detective,” her mouthpiece, Gantry by name, said.

  “I am sorry I cannot be of more help,” Irina said.

  “I’m sure,” Nina said.

  Irina smiled.

  And Nina knew, just at that moment, that the Russian woman wanted to kill Nina just as badly as Nina wanted to kill Irina.

  Nina smiled back, leaned forward. “Catch you later, Mrs. Komorov. Please don’t be offended when you see me and mine all over your husband’s service; it’s standard procedure in a case like this to hang around, take pictures of everybody coming and going, keep track of the license plates, all that good stuff. It’s not just in the movies. You follow?”

  “Of course you must do your work. Is there anything else?” Irina said, cool as frozen meat.

  Nina waved her hand. The lawyer Gantry took Irina’s chair back, and followed her out of the interview room. Nina watched her go.

  LT Fabruzzi came in. He’d been watching the interview through the one way glass. “Bitch is a tough nut to crack, Nina. Don’t let it get to you.”

  “It’s not getting to me,” Nina said. “I’ll get to her. Eventually. I’m going to my buds at State and see what they dig up on her history over the water. There is something seriously dark and twisted about that woman, and I know there’s something in her history that’s going to tell that story. We got eyes on with her?”

  “Surveillance has a team out in the woods around her farmhouse. Hard to get close. She’s got security all over that place. Think we can gin up some PC for a warrant?”

  “Not yet,” Nina said. “Give her some time to settle in. It looks like they were bringing stuff in, not taking it out. We’ll keep an eye on her.”

  “You’re getting that look, Nina. I recognize that look. Do I got to get somebody to keep an eye on you?”

  “No,” Nina said. “You don’t have to get somebody to keep an eye on me. I do just fine on my own.”

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  Dee Ann Kozak was what it said on her birth certificate, her real one, anyway. She went by Dee, and had a whole series of different paper sets with variations on that: Dee Dee, Deirdre, Diane, Dana, Dina, Desiree, even De Vore, which she’d selected one night while working her way through a bottle of brandy after a long gig in Austria.

  She was tall, almost six feet, lanky with great legs and ass from the hours she spent running, biking, and Nordic tracking when she was home in her Malibu condo. The beach runs were great, and as a short-haired blond in the 30-40 something range, she was in effect invisible in the streets of Malibu. Something to think about, when she took time to think, was how women became invisible in Southern California when they hit their thirties, unless you were a studio exec or some other mover and shaker, but that was only in the office. On the beach, on the street, the young gorgeous models and starlets were so common that a good looking woman in her late thirties or early forties just vanished into the background.

  But Dee liked it like that.

  Besides the sun and the beach and the convenience of a major international airport, she liked the anonymity and the casual and shallow social contrivances that passed for friendship and community in southern California, Malibu especially. If asked, her ex-husband was a studio exec and she’d got the condo and a fat alimony in the settlement, a common story, and she sat in the Jamba Juice or the Starbucks with other women, chatted about nothing, moved on, told her story about how she had a part time job doing public relations for a friend’s company that kept her on the move.

  It was great.

  Her condo was just the way she liked it, comfortable, plain, or as plain as passed as plain in Malibu. She kept one room in the back, a room beside her bedroom, locked all the time, and the few visitors who ever made it further than the living room or the dining room or the bathroom were told it was storage, if they asked. She had a little office nook downstairs with the latest Power Mac and a big monitor, high speed internet, a small safe and a file cabinet, several cell phones and a couple of land lines.

  Just another Malibu divorcee, so common they made TV series about them.

  It made her laugh at least twice a day, something she aspired to. Laughter was good for the soul, her momma used to tell her, and the reading she’d done on long life and health convinced her that laughing out loud was the best medicine ever. So twice a day, whether she needed it or not, a good belly laugh got her going.

  Her latest boyfriend had lasted about a month and a half; she’d met him on a business trip in San Francisco, a smoothly tanned taut faced magazine editor for a golf rag, who spent much of his time on the links and traveling to write up the best golf courses in the world. He was happy not to ask too many questions, as long as he got his dick sucked twice a day, and didn’t have to answer any questions of his own, like about who he called when he was with her, or why he had a pale line on his ring finger.

  Dee didn’t give a damn. It was all cover and training for her anyway.

  It was a game to see how much she could get out of him and how little he could get out of her. She’d taken great pleasure in running a long, extended riff on her ex-husband -- very different from the last man she’d had, a stolid ex-football player running a line of gyms.

  But she was between men right now, and also getting to the point where she needed to make another score. She reveled in the precarious finances of the free lancer, even though she kept a very tidy sum in a retirement account and in a money market fund that had done very well for her through the 80s and 90s and will into the 21st century. But when she started to run low on cash, she looked at answering some of the messages that came in a steady stream to her.

  She was a specialist, with high demand.

  She had learned a long time ago, back in her twenties, when she left her former employers and struck out on her own, that you had to have balance -- too much work made Dee a dull girl, and she couldn’t have that. What was life without some fun in it? So once she had her little nest egg put away, she just lived on what she made, until it got low, or she needed a new toy, like her new BMW convertible, right next to the tricked out Jeep Wrangler Rubicon she liked to tear around in the desert with.

  It was getting to be one of those times.

  This Russian gal, she was a looker. She and her husband had that thing between them, something that hinted at nastiness. Dee had a nose for nastiness, having dealt with that sor
t of thing when she was younger, and just starting out. To be a fresh girl in this business, well, you used the pussy because that was infallible with men. Straight men, anyway. And when she was learning the ropes, she was just the bait and they brought the pros in to do the deed. But she learned that being a technician paid more than being a meat puppet, so she spent the time and money and energy learning the trade, trading sex when necessary, but preferring to use her hard-earned cash. Invest in yourself, as her momma would have said. Get a good education, the best that money can buy.

  So she got herself an education.

  And now she was the best that money could buy.

  With a long waiting list.

  Most of them ended up going someplace else, because the nature of the business was that it was always something that had to be done yesterday. Everybody was in a hurry. Dee didn’t care for that.

  No, she thought, sipping her second cup of fresh ground Sumatran Java (Organic Free Trade) brewed in her Keurig coffee maker, flipping through the pages of the Malibu Daily.

  Life is too sweet to rush.

  She drummed her nails, carefully manicured but short, clear polish, a practical sheen.

  And wondered about who it was she was going to kill for the Russian.

  ***

  Deon came alone. Jimmy and the rest of the crew had argued about providing him cover, but Deon enjoyed working alone…and anyway, he didn’t believe for a second that she meant him harm at this juncture. No, she’d listen to what he had to say. If she was going to come after him, she’d weigh all the pros and cons, make a clear cold decision. She wasn’t the emotional type, this one…no, the only fire that ran in that woman ran in her private parts, and then only when she was in control.

  Deon liked a challenge, though.

  He drove up in his Cherokee, pulled it up to the front after being waved up the driveway by the heavies on the gate, then up a long winding road to the farmhouse. He studied it with the critical eye of a long time infantryman and knew that the entire road was over watched from above; one decent shooter with a rifle would make life a living hell for anybody coming up the road if they took it in their mind to do so. No, if he was going to make the approach, it would be through the woods, though that was no doubt covered electronically, probably with cameras and infra red or thermal imagery. Motion detectors were essentially useless out there, as they’d go off constantly. So somebody was stuck studying the cameras right now.