BAD TO THE BONE
Michael Prescott
www.michaelprescott.net
Contents
Prologue
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3
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45 Author’s Note Books by Michael Prescott
Some day they’ll go down together;
And they’ll bury them side by side;
To few it’ll be grief
To the law a relief
But it’s death for Bonnie and Clyde.
—Bonnie Parker, “The Trail’s End,” 1933
Prologue
The latest two were waiting for him in the greenhouse, among the orchids and the bromeliads. They lay on the floor, hands bound behind them, faces pressed to the brick pavers, necks seamed with sweat. Gregor and Ilya stood by, wearing long overcoats and dark suits, their 9mm Makarovs pointed casually downward. Somewhere, water dripped.
“What are their names?” Streinikov asked, striding through the leafy foliage and the heavy tropical air.
“Wong and Yao,” Ilya said.
“They have the insignias?”
Gregor stooped. With the Makarov’s barrel he nosed up the nearest boy’s T-shirt, exposing a Chinese dragon rampant on his lower back.
Streinikov nodded. He sank into a crouch, arms resting lightly on his knees, and addressed the pair in his clear unaccented English. “So. You two are LFB?”
The one whose shirt had been lifted said nothing. His companion was a bit more talkative. “Not no more,” he muttered.
“What is that? Speak up.” Streinikov had heard him well enough, but he disliked mumblers.
The boy dared to raise his head. “We ain’t part of ’em no more,” he said slowly and distinctly.
He glared up at Streinikov with a fixed gaze. Trying to mad-dog him—to stare him down.
Streinikov studied the boy. A single Chinese character was tattooed on his neck. He had pale acne-scarred skin and long earlobes, a feature known to the Chinese as Buddhist ears. They were said to predict a long life. In this case the prediction would prove inaccurate.
“Which one are you?” Streinikov asked almost kindly. “Wong or Yao?”
“Yao.”
“Well, Mr. Yao, you are quite correct. In point of fact, no one is part of the Long Fong Boyz any longer. Your former organization has ceased to exist, its membership scattered like so many autumn leaves.”
“Scattered, fuck.” The boy’s eyes burned bright with hate. “Most of us is dead—thanks to you, you bitch-ass psycho.”
“You flatter me. But I can’t take all the credit. The Italians have done their part in thinning your ranks.”
“You done more.”
“I should like to think so. But my work is not yet finished.” Streinikov fingered a gold cuff link. He wore only French cuffs with his suits, and he wore only suits—always. “Do you know why I’m going to kill you, Mr. Yao?”
To his credit, the boy didn’t flinch at the question. He shook his head once.
“It is because you’ve cost me money. A good deal of money, as it happens. I don’t like to lose money. I’ve already lost too many other things.”
“Like your balls?”
The boy meant it to be a wounding thrust, but Streinikov was unfazed. “Da. Those. And other, more valuable items. You should not have killed Lazzaro. It was a reckless act, and it set in motion a chain of events that benefitted no one.”
“We didn’t have nothing to do with it.”
“But your playmates did, and so you must pay.” His gaze returned to the character printed on the boy’s neck. It intrigued him. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked, pointing.
“My gang name.”
“Which is?”
“Stupid.”
“What?”
“That’s my nick. They call me Stupid.”
Streinikov nodded, digesting this. “It suits you.” He snapped his fingers, and Ilya flipped his Makarov a few inches to the left and shot Yao in the head.
The red splash of brains doused his companion, spattering the dragon on his back.
“No, wait a minute, man, wait a minute.” That was Wong. Suddenly he was interested in conversation. “He was right. It wasn’t us.”
“Guilt by association,” Streinikov said complacently. “You wear your coat of arms on your back.”
“You don’t get it, man. It wasn’t the LFB. We didn’t ace Frank Lazzaro.”
“Ne svisti.” Don’t lie. “You’re a sad little coward. Your friend, at least, died with a modicum of dignity.”
Streinikov almost gave Gregor the nod, but Wong’s next words stopped him.
“It was the huang tou fa. The woman. She’s the one.”
Streinikov’s eyes narrowed. He leaned closer, drawing down on his haunches. “Just what are you talking about, dragon boy?”
“We wasn’t after Lazzaro. We was goin’ after the woman. I heard Chiu tell it to his guys, the ones he took with him—Kicker and Monkey, Mouse and Fire Ant and Bucket Head. He said they stuck a GPS thing on her ride. They was gonna track her that way and blip her when they got the chance.”
“But they killed Lazzaro.”
“Or she did. She’s a stone killer, said Chiu. He told his guys about her. Said she pulled hits for money.”
“A woman?”
“Yeah. A huang tou fa, Chiu called her.” He saw Streinikov’s nonplussed expression. “It means yellow hair,” he added as if it were common knowledge. “You know, blonde.”
“She’s not Chinese, then?”
“Nah, she’s a lo faan. A white girl.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dunno. Chiu didn’t say.”
“What more do you know about her?”
“She operates somewhere south of here. I remember the dai lo saying she’d be off her turf this far north.”
Streinikov considered the story. “The police say the Long Fong Boyz killed Frank Lazzaro.”
“Since when do cops know shit?”
This was a fair point.
“Cops don’t know about the woman at all.” Wong was talking faster. “Anyway, even if our guys did nail Lazzaro, it’s only ’cause she brought ’em there. She set it all up. Bitch played us—played everybody. And she’s the only one who walked away.”
“If this is true, why haven’t I heard about it before?”
“The ones who knew are dead, ’cept for me. They was the ones who went into the warehouse with Chiu. I just—well, I kinda got a line on what they was planning.”
“You eavesdropped.”
“I heard, is all. The walls in our crib was fuckin’ cardboard.”
“And you stayed quiet afterward?”
“I was on the run, like everybody. I’m speaking true,” he added with a thin piping note of desperation.
“Perhaps. What’s your gang name?”
“Ha Gwei. Black Ghost.”
“And why did they call you that?”
“’Cause I’m stealthy. I blend into shadows.”
“A useful skill. So tell me, Black Ghost—what else did your dai lo say?”
“Not much. He was pretty psyched, I remember. Kept calling her the bitch. The huang tou fa bitch. He was jonesing real bad for her scalp. She’d, like, got under his skin, you know?”
Streinikov thought it was a weakness to be thrown emotionally off-balance by an adversary, any adversary, and least of all a woman.
“And in the past two years,” Streinikov said, “you never tried to hunt her down?”
“Why would I?”
“To avenge your comrades.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Man, she took out the whole fuckin’ crew.”
“You were scared of her. Is that it?”
“Yeah, motherfucker. I was scared.”
Streinikov was convinced. A boy like Wong might lie about many things, but he would never feign fear of a woman.
“Well, then,” Streinikov said, “it appears that all this time I have been hunting the wrong quarry. You have my apology.”
Wong blinked. “So ... you cuttin’ me loose?”
“You may go. But”—Streinikov held up his hand—“there is one small matter. Your late friend made an unkind remark about my medical condition.”
“He wasn’t my friend,” Wong said thickly.
“Even so, his rudeness requires redress. Besides, I am lonely in my infirmity. I’m sure you understand.”
Wong shook his head, bewildered.
Streinikov simplified it for him. “This is a greenhouse. We will do some pruning.”
* * *
Wong was screaming as Streinikov emerged into the January night. He crossed the wide lawn at the rear of his estate. His property was large, his house the last one on a dead-end street. Beyond it, there were only the wooded uplands of Palisades Interstate Park. He had few neighbors, and it was doubtful they could hear the cries. Even if they did, they knew better than to call the police.
Standing at the top of the hillside, Streinikov looked across the river at the lights of New York City and the distant span of the George Washington Bridge. He thought about what the boy called Black Ghost had told him.
A crazy story, yet somehow he was certain it was true.
So a woman was behind it. A lone woman.
In the greenhouse the screams went on, muffled by the panes of tempered glass. Streinikov did not enjoy hearing them. He was not a sadist. He did not personally employ the methods of torture. Such chores he left to others—Ilya, in particular. He understood that men like Ilya Kvint took a sexual thrill in inflicting pain. Streinikov was beyond such things.
He found himself touching the smooth and hairless place below his phallus. The incision had long since healed, barely leaving a scar. Why, then, could he still feel the bite of it? Why did the sensation come to him, sharp as a blade, at random moments? The human body was said to have no mechanism for remembering pain. And yet he did feel it, and often. Strange.
He had been the boy’s age when he suffered his mutilation. That was in Donetsk, in a basement below a whorehouse. Three of the bastards pinned him down—it had taken three men to hold him—while Smolin applied the knife. Later they thrust him up the stairs and into the night, bandaged and weeping. He shouted at them, promised he would return and kill them all, and before he let them die, he would clip their balls—and their pricks, too. They laughed. He was only a kid. They knew he could do nothing.
They had been wrong.
In the years since, testosterone injections had allowed him to regain his virility. He was capable of orgasmic release. But oddly, he felt nothing. His doctors said there was no medical reason for it. It was as if the capacity for physical pleasure had been cut out of him by the same blade that had cut his body.
Still, there were advantages. A man devoid of sexual feeling or romantic attachments was little different from a machine; and like a machine he was tireless and implacable. He had no human weaknesses to exploit, no frailties to hamstring his remorseless pursuit of the things he wanted. No love and no joy, but wealth and power. A fair trade-off, he believed.
The cries from the greenhouse had died down by now. After a few minutes Gregor joined him. Ilya, he said, was cleaning up.
“How’d the boy like it?” Streinikov asked in Russian. When alone with his men he nearly always reverted to his native tongue.
Gregor lit a cigarette. “Not much.”
“He’ll adjust.” Streinikov released a sigh. A low, bitter sound. “One can always adjust.”
“You think he was telling the truth?”
“I do.”
“Then ... what’s our next move?”
Streinikov studied the black water, the unforgiving stars. “Without a name, we have little to go on. A blonde Caucasian female operating somewhere south of here, known for doing hits. That is all. I’ll put the domovyk on the job.”
“Okay,” Gregor said, using the English word. He glanced at Streinikov. “Why are you smiling?”
“This new development—it pleases me. Do you know the story of the Zhar-ptica?” He used the term from his native Ukraine, the word his mother had used when she told him the story at bedtime.
Gregor did not answer. The question was purely rhetorical. Of course he knew the tale. Everybody knew it.
Streinikov told it, anyway. He enjoyed telling tales. “There was a czar whose orchard of golden apples was raided nightly. At last his youngest son spied the culprit, the Zhar-ptica, the Firebird, with its plumage of red and gold. He plucked a single luminous feather before the Firebird made its escape. When the czar saw this feather, he entrusted his son with a quest to capture the bird and bring it back alive.”
“Yes,” Gregor said, shifting his weight. Streinikov knew he cared nothing for myths and fables. An unimaginative man. A man who could not understand his master’s moods.
“Tonight I am the czar of the story, and this woman of the yellow hair is the golden Firebird who has raided my orchard. I have caught one of her feathers. Now I will have her brought to me, as the Firebird was brought in captivity to the czar.”
Gregor blew out a jet of smoke. “The stories say the Zhar-ptica is both a blessing and a curse. To capture it is to risk misfortune.”
“Very good, Gregor. An intelligent objection. But I defy augury. I shall have my golden bird in my cage of glass.” Streinikov breathed deep, inhaling the dark night air. “And I shall make her sing.”
1
Gil Krauss was flat on his back on the creeper, shining his headlamp at the chassis of a Porsche Boxster as he tracked down a leak, when he heard the clack of hard-soled shoes on the concrete floor.
Shit. He’d been robbed twice already. By now he should have learned to carry a gun.
Outside, night had fallen, a cold, wet night in February. He’d closed up shop an hour ago. The only light in the shop was the headlamp on his forehead. He detached it, thinking vaguely that a spotlight on his noggin would make him a better target.
With the headlamp in his hand, he decided he’d better get this over with. He rolled the creeper out from under the Porsche and sat up, aiming the light across the garage. The beam picked out a slim figure near the doorway.
Gil relaxed a little. His visitor was a woman, and she didn’t look like any burglar. Maybe he’d forgotten to lock up, and she’d wandered in to talk about car trouble.
“Can I help you?” he asked, making his voice big in the stillness.
She took a few steps forward, her hands in the pockets of her jeans, a handbag slung over her shoulder. She wore a snazzy little beret, an unzipped nylon jacket, and a shirt that read, I’m Not Always A Bitch, and underneath, in smaller letters: Just Kidding. She was blonde and young. A pretty face, but hard.
“I’m thinking maybe I can help you,” she said. Unlike him, she didn’t raise her v
oice.
He wasn’t too happy with that answer. It pretty much blew his car-trouble theory away. “How’d you get in here?”
“Your office wasn’t locked in any serious way.”
He didn’t like that answer, either.
Carefully he balanced the headlamp on the floor, then stood up. The upward glare threw long shadows on the ceiling. Rain pattered on the roof.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I understand you’re looking for a professional.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A hired gun.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
She tipped the beret farther back on her head. “Heard it through the grapevine.”
He wasn’t so sure he liked that. He might not know this lady, but she seemed to know a hell of a lot about him.
Because she was right. He had been trolling for a hit man. Dropping casual hints in the company of certain acquaintances who, he thought, were in a position to help. Guys who weren’t made men themselves, but who bragged often enough about the mobsters they knew. One of them had even supplied a phone number, which Gil had called, hoping to set up a meet.
The guy hadn’t called back. Maybe he’d sent this girl instead.
“You with Marco?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Another theory shot to shit. “So who sent you?”
“I sent myself.”
“Sure. Or maybe the Maritime PD did. Can I see your badge, Officer?”
She looked bored. “Cut the crap, Gil. I’m not a cop. You’re shopping for a triggerman. Here I am.”
It all came together for him then, the way it did when he worked out a tricky diagnosis on a malfunctioning engine. “Hey. You’re the woman.”
“Real perceptive.”
“I mean the PI. The one who moonlights as a hitter. Bonnie Parker.”
“Like the outlaw,” she agreed. “Bonnie and Clyde.”
“I heard about you. Just rumors, you know?”
“The grapevine works both ways.”
“You got an office in Brighton Cove, name of Last Chance or something like that.”
“Last Resort. That’s me.”
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “Okay. I made some inquiries about you.”
Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3) Page 1