by Neil Russell
I lay down on the AstroTurf and inched my head around the drapes. There was a man with a gun standing just inside the foyer. Then I heard the whump of a door being kicked open and something hit the glass in the bedroom. Then twice more. Not loud. About like somebody throwing marbles. I leaned back and saw that my landlord had security concerns of his own—either that, or he was worried about wayward pigeons, because the glass in the condo was shatterproof. I’d heard no firearm reports, so whoever was inside was suppressed too, but there was no mistaking the three deformed slugs lodged in the centers of three glass webs.
Voices came through the open door, and it was only a matter of time before someone checked the balcony. I got to my feet, bolted past the living room window and vaulted onto the balcony on the other side. The sliding door in the adjacent condo was open, and I eased inside and stood in the dark, trying to keep the sound of my breathing to a minimum.
The king-sized bed across the room was occupied by a heavyset man on his back, snoring. His wife, however, was sitting straight up, staring at me. She saw the gun, and I thought she might scream, so I put my hands up to show her I wasn’t there to harm them, and she lay back and watched.
I could hear men talking softly on the balcony next door. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I had to assume the lookout had seen me run past the window, and now they were deciding what to do next. When I heard them go back in, I stepped outside.
There were three of them, and they were standing in my living room, arguing. From a crouch I had a clear shot at the left knee of the biggest guy, and as soon as the Sig spit, the man cried out and went down. I leaned back out of sight, and at least a dozen bullets smacked into the wall of glass and stuck there. A few came through the now-open door and kicked up chunks of cement.
I gave myself a 10-count, then reached out and fired through the door again. Two shots, without looking. I heard something crash, then the front door open. I moved to where I could see, and one man was helping his limping partner out the front door. The third intruder lay in the foyer, not moving.
In the bedroom, I grabbed a shirt, jacket and my wallet and slipped into my Top-Siders. The bed was riddled with holes, confirming there wouldn’t have been a Q&A. I dropped an extra clip of ammunition into my pocket.
As I ran through the foyer, I saw some blood and pieces of bone on the slate floor. The dead man’s knees were intact, so somebody out there was in a lot of pain.
I opened the door. The hallway was clear. I skipped the elevator and took the stairs.
The reception desk was empty, so Pradeep was either lying behind it waiting for the coroner, or he’d gotten out. Either way, I probably didn’t have a lot of time before the place would be crawling with cops. The smart move would have been to go back upstairs, collect Archer and run. But I was roaring fucking mad, and I wanted those other two cocksuckers.
I held the gun under my jacket and stepped outside. If somebody was waiting to shoot me, the bright lights on the Watergate portico would have made it easy, but nothing happened. I looked in both directions but saw only empty street. Then, a block away, I heard a car start and tires squeal.
A black Yukon Denali with two men in front headed up New Hampshire and into the city at breakneck speed. As they passed me, the driver reached out and put a red flashing light on his roof.
A lone taxi hunkered in the dark just beyond the portico. It was a lime green Crown Victoria, and the driver, a burly black man, was sitting in his backseat, asleep with the door open.
I slammed his door shut and jumped behind the wheel. The guy came awake in a heartbeat, but I had the Ford started and was after the Yukon before he could react. I looked at the license clipped to the dash. Jengo Mutumbo.
“Jengo, I’m sorry as hell, but I can’t lose that car. I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.”
His accent was African. Nigerian, I thought. “Christ, mon, I the best damn driver in D.C. No shit.”
“No argument here. So once I see where these guys go, you can take over.”
That seemed to satisfy him, and he sat back. By the time we blew past the White House, I was on the Yukon’s ass and could see that it had no plates. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t already attracted a cop.
Then from the backseat. “That embassy car you chasin’, mon.”
“How do you know?”
“Red light. All security guys got dem. Not sposed to, but the cops don’ mind. Make it easy. No stop.”
I’d caught a break. The police would just think we were a procession. Then a bullet hit the windshield, shattered it, and all vision disappeared. I jumped on the brakes and was all over the street, trying to steer while looking out the window. With my free hand, I brought up the Sig and shot the windshield from the inside. It exploded out, and we could see again.
“Shit, mon. You fuckin’ crazy.”
“I think you’re fuckin’ right.”
When we hit Wisconsin Avenue, all I had to do was hang back a couple of blocks and watch which embassy my quarry turned into. Unfortunately, the driver of the Yukon had a different plan. Banging along at sixty miles per hour, he suddenly threw the big SUV into a reverse 180, using the wall-to-wall parked cars like bumpers.
When I saw him accelerating back toward me, I knew it wasn’t a scare tactic. These guys had been sent to kill me, and they must have decided that if they had to die in the process, it was better than reporting home as failures.
There was no place to go, so I did the only thing I could. I threw the taxi into its own skid so that we took the crash from the rear. It was a helluva jolt, but nothing like what it would have been head-on. And I was already pulling away before the whiplash ended.
The Yukon didn’t fall back, however. Denied the semi-honorable end of a kamikaze, the driver stayed against my bumper, literally pushing me faster than I was accelerating. I jammed both feet on the pedal, but the Crown Vic’s brakes weren’t up to the task. They burned out after a block, and the Yukon kept pushing, while we sent up smoke and sparks and a squeal that woke dogs in Philadelphia. Then they started shooting.
Jengo was lying on the backseat, but he seemed remarkably cool. “Jus like downtown Kinshasa.”
So he was Congolese.
We were saved by a garbage truck. It was stopped in the middle of the street while a couple of sanitation guys were rolling a Dumpster out to it. It wasn’t going to move, and we couldn’t stop, so the inevitable happened. Fortunately, the Dumpster the scow was airlifting on its front forks absorbed most of the shock, and the Crown Vic’s air bags hadn’t been ripped off by a crackhead. Jengo ended up on the floor in the back, but undamaged.
Almost before the air bag deflated, I had changed clips in the Sig and was out of the cab, firing. The Yukon’s driver jammed it in reverse and backed away, but not before I got several rounds into his windshield. I saw blood splatter on the passenger side just as the SUV got turned around.
The driver looked out his open window, and we locked eyes. Then he spit, “Yebat!” If I hadn’t already guessed, I no longer needed to know which embassy.
As the Yukon squealed away, I turned and saw the three sanitation workers running in the opposite direction. Jengo was just standing there looking at his wrecked meal ticket.
“I need another favor,” I said to him.
He started to take out his wallet, and I laughed. “No, not that. I want you to give me your cell phone and one of your business cards. Then I want you to handle this mess. A man named Jake Praxis will call you. Tomorrow.”
“He gonna make dis all right?” he asked.
“Trust me,” I answered, “more than all right.”
I had put a block between myself and the crash when I heard the first siren. I dialed my new phone and heard the familiar, “411 Connect. What city, please?”
The Russian embassy answered on the first ring. It was a male voice, and he didn’t sound like a receptionist.
“I know this is being recorded, so I’m only going to s
ay it once. No questions.” I waited for a response.
“Go on.”
“One of your associates had an accident in my living room. Doesn’t seem to be able to get up. I’ll be gone in an hour, but I’m going to pin a note on him who to contact, so I suggest you deal with the problem before my housekeeper shows up in the morning. She’s probably a screamer. I’d leave a key, but you evidently already have one.”
“Is that all?” asked the voice.
“No, tell the two guys who survived the cluster fuck that I’ll see them again.” The voice on the other end started to say something, but I hung up.
My next call was to the apartment. Archer answered. “My God, where are you?”
“On the way back. We’re leaving.”
“Before I get to meet the president?”
“Next time, I promise.”
“Rail, there’s a man in the living room. He’s…”
“I know.”
I tossed Jengo’s phone in a sewer and began looking for a cab.
When I walked into the Watergate, Pradeep was at his post, eating. He gave me a nonchalant wave with a drumstick the color of a fire truck. Maybe the first time a craving for tandoori had saved somebody’s life.
“Can you get me a limo?” I asked.
“How soon?”
“Forty-five minutes. But I’ll meet him at the hotel.”
Pradeep didn’t seem to care one way or the other, which could have been that he was used to odd requests or bored or both.
Fortunately, the guy in my foyer wasn’t a bleeder. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the kneecapping, there would have been very little at all. I went through the corpse’s pockets and found what I expected—nothing. There wasn’t even a label in his suit, and his gun, a German Korth, had the serial number filed off. Not surprisingly, the suppressor was professional grade. I left the weapon on his chest and stuck a note between his teeth.
PROPERTY OF KONSTANTIN SERBIN RETURN POSTAGE GUARANTEED
Archer had already packed her few things, and I did the same. I had two messages on my phone. The first was from Bert to call him.
The second was from Carl Noon. “The name you want is Bastet Nazarak. She was the ramp agent that night. Family runs a commercial nursery outside Alexandria. She was there as of yesterday. Steer clear of chanting pilots, buddy. Cheers.”
I called Eddie and told him to meet me at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport the day after tomorrow. And to be well rested with the fuel tanks topped off.
“Where we goin’, boss?”
“Chart us to Reykjavík, and we’ll take it from there.”
“Ice bunnies, nice.”
Though it probably wasn’t necessary, I wiped my land lord’s gun and suppressor clean of prints and put them back in the safe, taking back my Beretta in the process. The guy was probably going to notice that his gun had been fired and wonder what happened. It would just have to be one of those unsolved mysteries of life.
I pried seventeen slugs out of the windows and six out of the mattress and flushed them down the toilet. I probably missed a couple, but I wasn’t going to take the time to look. Then I fished Wandette Hope Radcliffe’s welcome card out of the kitchen wastebasket. She answered like she was poised over the phone.
“Wandie. Your tenant at the Watergate, Rail Black.”
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked. “The Rail Black. You know I used every trick in the book to drag your name out of Jhanya, but she wouldn’t even give me a hint. Lord, you’re not only rich, you’re like the most handsome man on the planet.”
Who was going to argue with that?
“Look, Wandie…may I call you Wandie?”
“I’d rather you nudged me for breakfast, but absolutely.”
She had a great laugh, but somehow I didn’t think Archer would be impressed. “Wandie, I’m leaving this evening for a couple of weeks, and I’m embarrassed. I had a few drinks too many last night and got carried away.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she purred. “The man who owns that place runs a game reserve in Zimbabwe and almost never comes to Washington. So whatever it is, we’ll handle it, and he’ll never know. Let me guess, you tried to throw that god-awful warthog from the balcony to the pool.”
“I wish I’d thought of that. No, I got out a couple of my guns and kinda shot up the place.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone. But only for a second. And then the question wasn’t what I expected. “Do I need to come bail you out of jail?”
I laughed. “No, nobody heard anything. At least if they did, they didn’t report it. But you’re going to need a good glass guy and a new mattress.”
“Shit, I can do that with my eyes closed.”
“Great. Say, when I get back, how would you feel about dinner?”
“Hell, I’ll pay. Then when I wrestle you in the door later, I’ll feel I’m owed.” She laughed.
I did too. “Good, I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, tell Jhanya to have Jake Praxis call you about getting paid. And don’t cut any corners. I don’t want the Great White Hunter looking to put me next to the warthog.”
When I hung up, I realized what a lame explanation I’d come up with. But she seemed to have bought it. Besides, everybody knows rich people are loons. I left a voice mail for Jake to be ready for Wandie. And to call Jengo Mutumbo. I also made it clear I wanted him to handle the guy like he’d saved my life.
33
Greedy Lobbyists and Dreamy Eyes
The limo took us to Dulles Airport, where we got out, took the escalator downstairs and caught a cab back to Georgetown. It might have been an unnecessary exercise, but there was no way to know, so it’s what you do.
As was to be expected, Archer had a lot of questions, most of which I didn’t know the answers to. All I could offer was a ticket home, where it probably wasn’t any safer. It didn’t matter, she said. She wasn’t going anyway.
Freddie Rochelle’s place was just off M Street in a tree-lined neighborhood where every house was a slice of history. Freddie’s was one of the most lovingly restored, which contrasted nicely with the schmuck who owned it. But like I said before: You need a friend you can buy, find a lobbyist.
I hadn’t called, because there was always somebody there, and they’d know how to reach him. I heard the dogs when I rang the bell. They’re a pissy pair of miniature dachshunds named AK and 47 with no charm. Freddie opened the door himself wearing a pair of white silk pajamas and matching robe, his bald head pink as a flamingo’s ass. He was carrying a large martini glass with something yellow and frothy in it. The dogs made a snarling beeline for me, saw my stare and thought better of it.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, shoot me on sight. If it isn’t the mad Brit himself. My God, Rail, it’s been for fucking ever.” He hugged me, then noticed Archer. “Oh, I’m sooo sorry, miss. My God, Rail, are my eyes playing tricks, or did you bring me Archer Cayne? She’s even more gorgeous than her pictures. Come in, you two maaaaaarvelous people…come right in.”
How the hell he knew who Archer was I couldn’t guess, but then he made his living knowing things. Archer stepped forward and took his hand, and he led her into the house. I followed and heard him call out. “Leon, Leon. Look who’s here. Whip up another batch of Banana Banshees, doll, and don’t skimp on the banshee.” He and Archer both thought that was funny as hell. I was already wishing the Russians had been better shots.
You only have to see Freddie at home to know he’s gay, but in his business life, he plays it straight as a Presbyterian preacher. Office full of cowboy art, antique guns and his real passion, Thoroughbreds. He owns pieces of some of the best bloodlines in the world and is rumored to have made millions advising Saudi royals on racehorses. Knowing Freddie, the information he gets in return retails for more than the nags.
Leon, his longtime companion, is roughly Freddie’s age and a really nice guy. He’s an architect with a platinum client list, and he has the same beef with his housemate that I do. E
verybody in town knows Freddie’s gay, and nobody cares. They afford him his charade like they should. But like everything with Freddie, he’s not happy unless he’s manipulating, and he overdoes the sales job. Cuban-heeled boots with his Savile Row suits. Mirrored aviator sunglasses. Death’s head signet ring. And a flashy Rolex on the same wrist as a thick gold bracelet he calls his Bay of Pigs Memory Band. Nobody gave out bling for fucking up the Bay of Pigs, and even if they had, Freddie was still riding a tricycle when the operation went down.
But he doesn’t stop there. There are constant suggestions about dark ops in deep jungles when the closest he’s ever been to physical danger is getting his jaw broken by a Boston prostitute after refusing to pay the guy. My personal favorite, though, is watching him tongue kiss every woman he meets. Nobody knows why he does it, it’s just part of his MO. The less charitable like to say Freddie’s been slapped more times than Bill Clinton but wouldn’t know what to do with a pair of tits. I wanted to be there if he tried to slip his Gene Simmons between Archer’s lips.
Leon met us in the tastefully decorated living room with a pitcher of something too thick to tempt me, but Archer was game. The dogs took over a sofa, and Freddie didn’t waste any time getting down to business. He suggested I join him in his office.
There are dozens of examples of Freddie’s greed and moral vacancy. One that comes immediately to mind is the married European diplomat who discovered his Chevy Chase girlfriend was seeing somebody else. So naturally, he tied her to a tree and burned down her house. Freddie arranged to get the guy out of the country before the cops could find him. His fee: $2 million. His defense: “Heavens, I haven’t watched TV or read a newspaper for days.”
Freddie skated. The girlfriend wasn’t so lucky. She committed suicide.
I disliked him, but I needed him. We took seats in a small sitting area opposite a rolltop desk Freddie brags belonged to Jesse James. I doubt it. Jesse wasn’t much of a desk-sitter. He grinned at me like a skinner eyeing a plump hide. If there are any disadvantages to being wealthy, this is one. “Whatever can I do for you, Rail?”