“Nazdaróvy!” they shouted. Then they began to dance around the bride.
Natalia.
“This is the wedding dance you stole from me,” Maxim shouted.
Fluid was seeping out of Nathaniel’s inner ear. The room was spinning, and watching the four men dance in a circle around Natalia made him even dizzier.
Maxim ripped the tape from Natalia’s mouth, and she gasped for air.
“Raise the bride up high,” he bellowed.
The four men each grabbed a leg of the chair and hoisted it almost to the top of the ten-foot ceiling.
Natalia screamed in terror. “Papa!”
And in that moment Nathaniel knew.
“Please,” he begged. “I’ll give you everything I have. Three million dollars. You can have every penny.”
“This will be payment enough,” Maxim said, as the four men danced toward the terrace door.
Leonid kicked it open, and now Natalia, too, realized her fate. “Please,” she screamed. “You can see I’m pregnant.”
“I hope,” Kostya Dmitriov said, “with a son.”
“Death to the whore,” Maxim yelled, and they heaved the chair, the woman, and her unborn child over the balcony rail.
Natalia’s screams were loud and piercing, but Nathaniel couldn’t hear them. He was vomiting. He was still gagging on his own puke when he realized the chair underneath him was being lifted up. He closed his eyes and felt the cool September air as it penetrated his wet jogging suit.
The last thing he heard was the voice of the scar-faced man.
“Feed this incestuous pig to the pigeons.”
Epilogue. Payback
Chapter 103
A FEW WEEKS after our dinner with Newton, Katherine flew back to New York to attend the annual College Art Association conference. I went with her. I had some unfinished business that I couldn’t do by fax, phone, or e-mail.
I met Ty, Zach, and Adam at one of our favorite hangouts — the White Horse Tavern. It’s on Hudson Street at 11th Street, a few blocks from the Fortress, but its reputation has spread across continents.
Urban lore has it that the White Horse is where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. He pounded down eighteen whiskeys, went home to his room at the Chelsea Hotel, and croaked. The restaurant has perpetuated the legend by turning one of their rooms into a shrine for the Welsh writer.
The yuppies and the tourists go there to soak up history and possibly even plop their asses on the very same bar stools that Thomas and other artsy boozers fell off. The guys and I go there because they have excellent burgers at reasonable prices and seven different kinds of beer on tap.
We found a quiet four-top under a red-and-white umbrella on the Hudson Street side. Guys, especially Marines, don’t get all gushy about reunions, but after ten minutes and one beer, we were into that Bro, it’s so good to see you shit you see in lame beer commercials.
But damn, it was so good to see them.
The burgers came, and after a few more minutes of “How’s Paris?” and “What’s up with you?” Adam got down to the nitty-gritty.
“What’s next?” he said.
“Yeah,” Zach said. “We’re just sitting around getting old and fat. We’re itching for a job.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “I’ve got one for you guys. A big one.”
“Lay it on us,” Ty said.
“We have to eliminate someone,” I said.
“Who?” Adam asked.
“First let’s do this,” I said. I had three envelopes and handed one to each of them. “I’m paying you up front.”
They each took an envelope and started to stuff it into a pocket.
“No, you gotta open it,” I said.
“Hey, Matt,” Zach said. “Whatever it is, we’re in.”
“Open it.”
I got a couple of eye rolls, then one by one they opened the envelopes, and one by one they reacted. Ty just sat there with his mouth open. Zach responded with “Holy shit.” Adam looked at me dumbfounded and finally said, “Who do we have to kill? The President?”
“No,” I said. “The Ghost.”
“Matt, you’re not making any sense,” Adam said. “I think somebody slipped something funny in your soufflé while you were in France.”
He passed his check over to Ty and Zach. “Is this what you guys got?”
They nodded.
“A million bucks apiece for what?” he said. “To kill the Ghost?”
“Since I’m the Ghost, I don’t want you to actually kill him. But I’ve decided to eliminate him,” I said. “It’s over, guys. This is the Ghost’s retirement party and all my loyal employees are getting bonus checks.”
“Matt, this is a million bucks,” Ty said. “This is like Wall Street money.”
“Hey, I made a killing in the diamond market. I believe in sharing the wealth.”
“Why?” Zach said. “Why quit?”
“Because I’m happy with the life I’m living now, and I don’t miss the life I had.”
“You’re going to miss us,” Zach said.
“You’re not going anywhere. You’re my buds. We can fish, we can hunt, we can play poker. Shit, now that you got money, I’m gonna take you for every dime.”
“Matt, I understand you want to give up the life. But a hundred percent? Why not just do a few jobs a year?”
“You know me, Zach. Everything I do is whole hog. From now on, my hundred percent is going to go toward building a life with Katherine.”
A busboy came over and cleared our dishes. The four of us just sat there in stony silence. Finally, we were alone again.
Adam raised his beer. “To Matthew and Katherine. A long, happy, and healthy life.”
“And to the Ghost,” I said. “May he rest in peace.”
Chapter 104
After lunch, I walked to Sixth Avenue, caught the uptown F train toward Jamaica, and settled in for the forty-five-minute ride to the Union Turnpike station.
I emerged on Queens Boulevard, one of the busiest roads in the borough. And with twelve lanes of bus, car, and truck traffic, one of the deadliest.
I weaved my way through streets I’d never seen before, but I’d mapped them out and committed them to memory that morning.
I love my Fortress in lower Manhattan, but it was nice to walk the streets of New York and not be surrounded by SoHo-chic models, aging hippies, or Trump wannabes. I walked along Metropolitan Avenue past a United Nations of food options that in one block alone offered up Mexican, Chinese, Korean, Italian, Caribbean, and glatt kosher.
The only thing missing was a sign that said REAL PEOPLE LIVE HERE.
I turned right at the Yeshiva Tifereth Moshe onto 118th Street and saw him. The person I was looking for. He was wearing cutoffs and a Mets T-shirt and raking up the few leaves that had fallen onto his tiny plot of grass.
He saw me and dropped the rake.
“Matthew Bannon,” I said. “Remember me?”
“Until the day I die,” he said, wrapping his brown arms around me. “It’s good to see you vertical. I’m sorry I didn’t visit you in the hospital. I was just too…I don’t know…I was kind of messed up for a while.”
“Hey, Mr. Perez—”
“Manny.”
“Manny, no apologies necessary,” I said. “How are you doing now?”
“I’m on disability. The union said they can’t fire me, but I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to go back to driving a subway. Maybe never.”
“You getting any help?”
“The Transit Gods sent me to a lady shrink. She’s young and cute, and she gave me some antidepression pills for the PTSD, but I never took them. How about you?”
“I decided to take my broken bones and my girlfriend to Paris for a while.”
“Sweet.”
“Manny, do you know anything about the other guy who was on the track that day?”
“‘On the track.’ I like that. You mean the guy I killed? They said he was s
ome kind of a Russian businessman. No family — that was the good part.”
“There are no good parts to that man. He was a murderer, a thief, a smuggler, an arsonist — you name it. Vadim Chukov lived a life of crime, and the only thing you did was help put it to an end.”
“I’ll remember that when I wake in a cold sweat at two in the morning.”
“I was in the Marines,” I said. “Three combat tours, so I know what you’re going through. Middle of the night is when a guy can really get self-destructive.”
He looked away and I knew I’d hit a hot button. The good Catholic had been wrestling with thoughts of suicide.
“But you can get better. It won’t happen overnight. You need a good therapist — one who’s experienced and smart, not young and cute. You need to stop standing on your front lawn in the middle of September waiting for leaves that won’t fall off the tree till October.”
“You sound like my wife. She thinks I’ll feel better if we take a vacation.”
“She’s right,” I said.
“Not so easy when you’re living off disability checks.”
“Then live off this for a while.” I handed him an envelope exactly like the ones I had given Adam, Zach, and Ty.
He opened it, put one hand to his mouth, and lowered himself to the ground. I sat down next to him.
“Is this a joke?” he said.
“No, it’s real.”
“Where does a kid like you get a million dollars?”
“Chukov owed me some money. I settled with his estate. I figured you deserve a piece.”
“A ‘piece’?” He took another look at the check. “Why are you doing this?”
“You got kids?” I asked.
“Two daughters, a son, and four grandkids.”
“I’m doing it because your wife and your family need you. I’m partly responsible for taking you away from them. I want to be responsible for helping you get back.”
He waved the check at me. “If this can’t do it, I don’t know what will.” His brown eyes glistened. “Matthew, you’re changing my life.”
“It’s a two-way street, Manny,” I said, finally standing up.
He stood up next to me. “You tired of French food? Stay for dinner. My wife Nilda makes a mean arroz con pollo.”
“That would be great,” I said.
My cell phone rang.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Probably Katherine. My girlfriend.”
“She’s invited, too,” he said.
I answered the phone.
“Matthew?”
It wasn’t Katherine. It was somebody I didn’t expect.
“This is Newton. Matthew, I’m calling to tell you my employer is very impressed with your work.”
“Your employer? You mean the guy we call Copernicus?”
He laughed. “Yes. Copernicus is a big fan. Actually, he wants to hire you.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “He wants to commission a painting?”
“No,” Newton said. “He has a job for you, though. You and your three Marine buddies, Zach Stevens, Ty Warren, and Adam Benjamin. Are you interested?”
I was standing right there on the lawn, but my legs were feeling unreal. So was the rest of me. Manny Perez had moved away to give me some privacy. He was up on the front steps, waiting for me to come in. His face was radiant. I knew he couldn’t wait to go inside and tell his wife the unbelievable news.
Newton repeated the question. “Are you interested? At least just to talk about it?”
I hesitated a few more seconds. “No,” I said. “Not today.”
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Kill Me if You Can Page 22