Bad to the Bone (Bonnie Parker, PI Book 3)

by Michael Prescott

  But Pavel’s victim was handicapped by lack of air, by liquor, by confusion and panic. In about a minute it was over. Pavel sat astride a cadaver, his hands gripping a pillow that was limp with sweat.

  He felt nothing. No exhilaration, no triumph, not even relief. The job had needed to be done, and he had done it. Now he would get his cigarettes. That was all.

  For some time he sat on the bed, watching the dead man. After a while he shoved the pillow under the corpse’s head and arranged the sheets so there would be no sign of a struggle. The man had died in his sleep, that was all. No one would question it. Stavitsky had been a useless drunkard and a friendless durak, and the village doctor was a drunk also, incompetent and slow-witted. All would be well.

  Pavel left the house and returned home. The whole adventure had taken less than an hour. He replaced the hatchet, climbed under the covers, and slept soundly, without dreams. His last thought before dropping off was that killing a man was not much harder than killing a chicken, and far more remunerative.

  Though he had not known it at the time, on that night the whole course of his life was set.

  * * *

  Gura was on his third vodka when Ilya Kvint took a seat beside him.

  “You would want to meet in a place like this,” Ilya said irritably.

  “Da. I am crude, am I not? The peasant Gura. The rustic, the goatherd.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Gura’s shoulders moved. There was much Ilya did not say.

  One of the women approached the table, her body moving in languid slow motion like something in an aquarium tank. Ilya waved her away.

  Gura was disappointed. He had an ample lap and he enjoyed using it. But he supposed there was business to attend to.

  “The cruiser?” he asked.

  “Tied up at the basin in Miramar. There was no shortage of transient slips.”

  “No, there wouldn’t be. Not in this season.”

  “You met Parker?”

  “I just came from her shabby little office.”

  “And?”

  “Nyet problem,” Gura said, using a hybrid expression that had become part of his lexicon. “She will do as she is told.”

  “She put up no resistance?”

  Gura gave another shrug. “Objections of conscience.”

  “Conscience? Disappointing. I would have hoped she’d discarded that vestigial organ.”

  “It did not override her instinct of self-preservation, at least.”

  “Does it ever?”

  “Not for men like us,” Gura said with a slow sip of vodka.

  He looked at Ilya Kvint. Ilya was blond and sleek, with the bony elegance of a gazelle. Cyrillic letters tattooed on his fingers identified him as a made man. The black-ink dagger on his neck signified that he had killed someone in prison. An Iron Cross stamped onto his neck below his Adam’s apple was the iconographic equivalent of the message: I don’t give a shit about anyone. Gura had no reason to doubt it.

  “Conscience or not,” Ilya said, “you’re sure she’ll go through with it?”

  “It is a certainty. I have put her in a box.”

  Ilya smiled. “Before long, I’ll put her in a different kind of box.”

  “You enjoy your work a little too much, Ilyusha.”

  Ilya’s face turned hard. He hadn’t liked Gura’s use of the diminutive. “And you lack imagination, domovyk.”

  Gura did not object to his nickname when Streinikov used it, but he disliked hearing it from this manicured boy. “Indeed,” he said curtly, “I am a brute, an animal. But an intelligent animal. Always remember this.”

  “I’ve never doubted it. It does take a certain astuteness to enter Streinikov’s inner circle.”

  “And still more to remain there. I have remained longer than you.”

  “Only because you were there at the beginning.”

  “Da. Because of that.”

  Gura was the only one of Streinikov’s men left over from the earliest days, before Streinikov acquired the nightclubs and began his assent. The only one who had known Streinikov even before Smolin had gotten hold of him and made him something less than a man—and at the same time, curiously, something more.

  The thought made Gura touch his crotch self-consciously. He felt his yajtza, his balls, through the fabric of his trousers, reassuring him by their presence. He could not imagine life as a eunuch. The prospect was intolerable. Ilya, though—Ilya might adjust. A cold bastard, that one. A creature of frost and sleet.

  “You seem worried,” Ilya said, cutting into his thoughts.

  “I am always worried.”

  “There’s no need. The woman will play her part as scripted. Everything will go according to plan.”

  The boy was young. He did not know that nothing ever went according to plan.

  “How did Parker react when you told her of Streinikov?” Ilya asked.

  “She had never heard of him.”

  “Ignorant girl.”

  “Americans know nothing of importance. They do not know how life is.”

  Ilya stared into the darkness. He paid no attention to the dancers. His mind was on other things.

  “Describe her,” he said.

  “You have seen her photograph.”

  Ilya shook his head impatiently. “I mean, describe her. Her manner, her psychology.”

  “Psychology.” Gura made a spitting noise. “Everything with you is so complicated, when in fact all is very simple. She is a lost child who has made her way by her wits and ruthlessness. She depends on no one but herself. She keeps many secrets, has catalogued many sins, and she does not expect to live long.”

  “How can you know that? The last part, about her expectations?”

  “She fears shadows, ghosts. Those fears are never groundless. She senses that her time is short.”

  Ilya smiled. A cruel smile, a wolf’s fanged grin. “But she does not know just how short.”

  “She expects to see the sunrise, I am sure. But then, so do we all.”

  The wolfish grin vanished. “What does that mean?”

  “Only that one can take nothing for granted.”

  “You wax philosophical, domovyk. It is not a mood that suits you.”

  “You asked the question,” Gura said in a tone that suggested Ilya had asked too many of them.

  He turned his gaze to the show. At some point the younger man left. Gura did not mark his departure. He was thinking of the village again.

  It was gone now—just gone. The population had dwindled until there was no one left. Buses no longer stopped there.

  He had been back once to see it, driving a borrowed Lanos while on a trip to Donetsk in springtime. Most of the houses still stood, including his own and Stavitsky’s, but there was no human life, and no sounds save the creak of rusted playground equipment in the schoolyard and the dismal laughter of crows.

  On a whim he entered Stavitsky’s house and stood in what had been the bedroom. All the furnishings were gone, and the place had been taken over by mice and black beetles. He planted himself on the very spot where he had stood that night. After a while he felt tension in his arms and realized he was reliving the struggle to hold the pillow over his victim’s face.

  The memory did not trouble him. He was, however, vaguely annoyed with himself for having done the job for only fifty cigarettes. He should have asked for more.

  But, what the hell, he had been only an innocent child.

  9

  The Jeep got Bonnie to Maritime in twenty minutes. Alonzo Duchenne lived in a one-story bungalow at the ass-end of a giant Walgreen’s. A car sat in the driveway, rusting decoratively. Baskets of brown plants, as dry and brittle as old newspaper, hung from hooks on the porch.

  Since she had no intention of actually using her firearm, she was comfortable carrying her licensed piece. She knew about guys like Alonzo. They were all bluster, cowards at heart. She’d encountered plenty of them when she was growing up on the street, after her fo
lks died and she was on her own. They could intimidate the weaker ones, but they’d never scared her.

  Before announcing herself, she prowled around the house, looking in through the windows. The place was sparsely furnished, and the décor consisted mainly of pornographic pinups. Hip-hop played from unseen speakers, loud enough to make the glass panes tremble.

  The rooms were empty except for the bedroom, where Alonzo, half undressed, lay sprawled on an unmade twin bed that was too small for him. The TV was on, blaring in competition with the music. It was tuned to an adult-movie channel. Naturally.

  Probably she could just break in and take the money. He had to have cash somewhere, if he’d done a deal at the Roach House last night. Felix hadn’t said anything about stopping at a bank, so Alonzo hadn’t had a chance to make a deposit.

  But she didn’t want to play it that way. She wanted to teach him a lesson.

  At the front door she leaned on the buzzer and let it drone for a full minute, long enough to rouse the sleeping giant from his coma. Eventually she heard a tramp of feet on the wooden floor. The door was yanked open, and Alonzo stood blinking down at her from a height of six foot something. In a gesture of compliance with society’s norms, his pants were on, but the rest of his clothes weren’t.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Alonzo. You don’t know me. Mind if I come in?”

  He probably did mind, but she’d already scooted under his outstretched arm and slipped into the living room. The air in here carried an ammonia smell she associated with stale cum. There was a coffee table scattered with superhero comic books, and a leather sofa flanked by expensive-looking end tables bearing lava lamps. Actual freaking lava lamps. She wondered if he had a bong and a black light too.

  “Who the fuck are you, Barbie doll?” Alonzo asked, turning. He had a surprisingly high voice for a big man.

  The hip-hop was still throbbing like a migraine. The heat was turned up high. Alonzo’s broad, hairless chest was shiny with sweat.

  “Friend of a friend. Somebody you did business with a few weeks back.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not mentioning any names. He purchased some product from you. Turned out to be mostly baby powder. Very unprofessional, Alonzo. Very bad for your rep.”

  “White girl, what the fuck brand of bullshit you tryin’ to sling?”

  He wasn’t buying her story, but that didn’t matter. She just had to keep Felix safely out of it.

  “My friend says you owe him restitution for the bad shit you palmed off on him. He wanted five bills, but I talked him down to two. You’re welcome. Now pay up.”

  Alonzo looked her up and down. He opened his mouth and emitted a deep belch.

  “Is that a no?” she asked.

  He smiled. “How about you and me talk it over in the bedroom?”

  “That ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Maybe I make it happen,” he said, stepping forward with the beginning of a leer on his fat mouth.

  Smoothly she drew the gun from her purse and pointed it in his direction. She enjoyed his look of stupid surprise.

  “Get the money, honey,” she said. “And don’t shortchange me, or I’ll be back. Next time I won’t be so fuckin’ friendly.”

  “I don’t peddle no inferior, fucked-up shit. Your friend’s lying.”

  “Or you are.”

  “My product is high quality, bitch.”

  “Seriously, Alonzo, I don’t give a flying squirrel about your product. Think of me as your friendly neighborhood collection agency.”

  “Come clean, Britney. Who are you, for real?”

  “A concerned citizen. Get the money.”

  He reached behind him, and she tensed.

  “Hold it.”

  “Chill. It’s just my billfold.”

  “Take it out slow.”

  He obeyed. She watched him peel off four greenbacks. He hesitated, the cash in his hand.

  “Fork it over, big guy.”

  Grudgingly he held out the money. The fingers of her left hand closed over the wad. In that moment he grabbed her right arm, twisting the gun sideways. He pulled her close, her belly jammed up against his.

  “Nice tits.” His leer was back in a big way. “Now let’s see if you’re worth two bills, golden girl.”

  He started to force her backward. If he got her on the floor, bad things would happen. So she wasn’t going on the floor. Period.

  She dipped her head and sprang upward on the balls of her feet, driving the crown of her head into his face.

  She heard a wet crunch of bone. His nose, breaking.

  Pain weakened him. She pulled free, grabbed him by the nuts, and gave them a hard squeeze and a firm twist. Applying torsion, she thought it was called.

  He fell backward onto a sofa and lay there, a rain of bright red blood pouring from both nostrils.

  “Fuck!” he howled. “Fuck!” He had one hand on his nose and the other one on his crotch. She wasn’t sure where she’d done the most damage.

  “Keep calm, Skeezix. No pain, no gain.” Training the gun on him, she picked up the scattered cash. She was pleased to see that the blood hadn’t soiled it. She slipped the folded bills into her purse.

  “Fuck,” he said again, having reached the limit of his eloquence. His nose was a fire hose streaming red. He had grabbed one of the comics and was using it to blot up the blood. It was a sorry fate for the Silver Surfer.

  “You oughtta get somebody to look at that,” she said from the doorway. “Good thing the hospital’s so close.”

  She left, checking her six all the way to the Jeep to be sure he didn’t come charging after her with a gun or something. Anything was possible.

  But it didn’t happen. He stayed inside, nursing his wound, and she got away clean.

  Two hundred bucks. It was probably a dumb move to risk so much for so little. And it wasn’t like Felix had insisted. But sometimes she just got pissed off. At such times, she was a teenager again, squatting below an underpass, cadging dollars from tourists, eating day-old donuts that the bakery put out for the homeless. There was no law on the street, and the only justice was the payback you got with your own hands. Either you scrapped for every morsel that was yours, or you gave up and died. There was no middle way. If you let them get away with filching so much as a nickel out of your pocket, you’d defined yourself as easy prey, and you might as well let them cut your throat.

  It had been nearly fifteen years since she’d lived like that, but the life was etched deep into her bones. She could never escape it, never move past it. She could only keep fighting, making her own law, relying on no one but herself. One day it would get her killed.

  But not today.

  10

  By eleven fifteen Bonnie finally made it to the Main Street Diner, where it was now time for an early lunch. Her skull ached from butting heads with Alonzo, but it wasn’t as bad as some hangovers she’d had. Felix, meeting her outside, had picked up his money. She hadn’t taken a cut. “This one was on the house.”

  “I owe you a favor, bandida.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She would, too. It wasn’t like she was Mother Teresa.

  Now she was chowing down on a lobster roll and scrolling through news articles on her phone. She’d Googled the name Streinikov, finding a composer, a Russian writer from the Soviet era, a dancer, and a reputed mob boss located in north Jersey. The mob boss was Anton Streinikov, and from archived press reports she gathered that he was fifty years old and was active in all the usual things: drug trafficking, sex trafficking, auto theft, protection rackets, and various quasi-legitimate enterprises. He seemed oddly untouchable—a guy who either paid off the authorities on a regular basis, or knew where enough bodies were buried to keep the law at bay.

  There wasn’t much on him, not even a photo. She kept looking and got lucky when she found an e-book titled The New Oligarchs, detailing the rise of Russian organized crime. She didn’t have an e-book reader, but wit
h a little fiddling she was able to download an app to her phone and send the $8.99 purchase there. It was the first e-book she’d ever bought, and the first book of any kind she’d bought in at least a year. She probably ought to feel a little bit bad about that.

  Worse, she wasn’t even going to read very much of it. She used a search feature to find the passages that mentioned Streinikov, about ten pages in all.

  He was raised in Donetsk, an industrial town in eastern Ukraine known for its large population of ex-cons. As a young man he was a petty criminal, nothing more. The turmoil surrounding the fall of the Soviet Union gave him his chance. He bought up three illegal nightclubs—places that offered gambling and prostitution, among other diversions. How he got the money for these purchases was unknown. It was rumored that he acted as a front for a Communist Party member. It was also rumored that this benefactor later disappeared, leaving Streinikov in full control. But lots of folks were disappearing in those days, and nobody could be bothered to look into it.

  Streinikov upgraded the rundown nightspots and made himself a big man. Through the contacts he made among his patrons, he was able to open new businesses. Some were legal, some weren’t, but for practical purposes there was no law in Donetsk in those days.

  A decade later, Streinikov—who was now worth, like, a kajillion dollars—relocated to the US and bought an imposing residence in Edgewater on the bank of the Hudson, where he oversaw a thriving export-import business. He also dabbled in restaurants and bars, gas stations and auto service shops, and convenience stores. His other activities were more conjectural, but he was said to be a rival of the Italian and Albanian syndicates in New York City, and to be unpopular even among his fellow vory. Evidently he did not play well with others. His inner circle was small and loyal. There was no mention of Pavel Gura, but she hadn’t expected one. Gura struck her as a guy who kept a low profile.

  One story stood out among the scattered details of Streinikov’s life. It involved his days as a street criminal in Donetsk. He was probably no more than nineteen. Somehow he had ingratiated himself with the mistress of a local crime lord. The crime lord and his goons waylaid young Streinikov in an alley and dragged him into a cellar. And there, according to rumor, Streinikov received his comeuppance. He got neutered. Ouch.