How they stayed in business was a mystery—unless the nightclub was a front for a much more lucrative business venture, as Svetlana and Vlad both suspected.
Jack regularly tried to upgrade the menu and get the surly cook staff to cooperate. Everyone nodded and smiled and then pretended not to understand English and did whatever they wanted. He was American. So what did they care?
They might be singing a different tune if anyone ever got fired. So far no one had. Most of them weren’t on an official payroll anyway. They were in the country illegally, and Aleksei paid them in cash. Not the waitresses, though.
The gaggle of nubile young women, recently arrived on seasonal visas from Odessa and the former Eastern bloc countries, had all of their paperwork in order. They received official paychecks. Their employment was exceedingly legal, even if their documents were full of lies. They claimed to be in their twenties, but Svetlana guessed Anya and several of the others were closer to seventeen.
Svetlana surveyed the club. She had expected only a few stragglers tonight. Who would want to drink or have dinner downstairs from where a man had been murdered? But tonight, for once, the place was packed.
Murder seemed to stimulate the Brighton Beach economy.
She had caught more than one customer sneaking up the spiral staircase to gawk at the yellow crime tape sectioning off the ballroom. She directed the bouncer to guard the steps. He stood now at the foot of the stairs, arms crossed. He looked formidable, but Svetlana bet he would let anyone pass for a little green. Everyone in Brighton Beach, herself included, was an ambitious entrepreneur.
The patron at the end of the bar tapped his bejeweled fingers on the counter. “Vodka, straight up,” he commanded. His accent sounded English, which likely meant he had come straight from the mother country. Troika was not an international tourist destination, unless said tourists hailed from Russia.
Was he a member of the mafia? She inspected the loose cut of his jacket. He could be packing.
She guessed him to be her age, early forties. He attracted his share of glances from the giggling waitresses. Because of his playboy good looks—broad shoulders, dark blond hair, eyes a Russian blue—or the Rolex gracing his wrist?
Money could make any man attractive, but this one was beautiful to start.
She placed the shot glass in front of him. He cast only the briefest, wordless glance in her direction, as if she were barely human and completely beneath his notice.
His contempt hurt her pride. She realized she was old enough to be the mother of most of the girls working the floor tonight, but she didn’t appreciate the way his eyes slid over her as if her age had left her a wrinkled old hag.
She rocked the damn bootie shorts and stilettos Aleksei forced her to wear, damn it!
But she was no longer seventeen. Or twenty-three. Or even close to thirty.
She expelled her frustration with a harsh breath that blew the wispy hair out of her face. What did she care what the man at the bar thought of her? Her job didn’t depend on his approval—unless Aleksei and Jack suddenly decided the bar would be more profitable with a younger, sexier bartender.
She had already been cast aside once. Nothing to stop the same thing from happening again.
While she didn’t depend on this job for her livelihood, she couldn’t afford to lose it. As it was, she could barely make ends meet, even with her main employment.
She knew whose fault that was. Her ex-husband with his young wifey. The newer, shinier model had been picked from the ranks, just as Svetlana had been, and now enjoyed the executive-level job that should have been hers. Would have been hers if her husband hadn’t cheated on her, abandoned her, and then saddled her with caring for Philip all on her own.
Her ex lived a fancy life—exotic trips and shiny new foreign cars and a housekeeper—while she scraped by with what little she could cobble together after she paid the fees to Philip’s facility. She couldn’t even pay those anymore, not when the costs of care rose faster than her earnings.
Past due. The group home had sent a notice that her payments were past due and issued a warning. If she didn’t settle her account soon, Phillip wouldn’t be allowed to stay.
She plunked the glasses harder on the counter than she should have as she filled drink orders. One day she would have enough money to make sure her son got everything he needed—whether his father wanted to pay or not. One day soon, provided her project with Vlad reaped the promised rewards.
Role-playing at Troika was a means to an end. Vlad had exceeded all expectation and danced them straight to the center of intrigue in Little Odessa. Now she watched and waited like a spider patiently spinning its web.
Anya came up to the bar with the happy couple’s newest request, vodka for the husband and something complicated—hold this, extra that, tell the bartender not to be stingy with the gin, and just a twist of lemon—for the wife.
Anya delivered the order in her quiet voice and with a shrug of apology. She was a good girl, too good for this place. And too young.
Anya with her sparkling eyes reminded Svetlana of the woman she had been—before life had knocked her around.
“Have you seen Mr. Victor?” Anya asked shyly.
“No. Not tonight.”
“Oh.” The disappointment was palpable and distressing.
“Why?” Svetlana asked as she poured the drinks for the couple.
“He said he would come talk to me this weekend. About getting married.”
“Victor can’t marry you. He’s already married,” Svetlana said, but knew the warning was useless.
“Not to him,” Anya giggled. She leaned over the counter and whispered, “To someone else. A citizen. So I can get a green card. And make more money.”
Svetlana nodded. She had expected something like this, but confronted with it, she felt sick to her stomach. Anya couldn’t possibly know what awaited her.
“He told me he found someone. We’re supposed to sign papers.” Anya had a guileless excitement, like a puppy wagging its tail and begging to play, not suspecting she was about to get beaten with a stick. She would never be the same.
“Do you know who this man is? Or what job you’ll get? Victor makes things sound easy, but they’re not. Maybe you should go back to Odessa.” Before the words were out of her mouth, she knew they were a mistake.
The girl’s face hardened with determination. “I can’t go back. I have to make money. For my family. For my son.”
“You have a child?” The information surprised Svetlana, who was so seldom surprised. She should have known little Anya wouldn’t be waiting tables in bootie shorts at Troika if the world had offered her a better option. Neither of them would.
VICTOR
PAUSING AT THE entrance to the nightclub, Victor squared his shoulders and prepared for his next round with Gennady Morozov, the Directorate’s representative. Around him the buzz and hum of the dinner crowd would create an excellent cover to their business. His prospective buyers could inspect the merchandise while Gennady watched the deal go off without a hitch.
This meeting would go differently than their first. There would be no ignominious repeat of the encounter at Secretnaya Banya. Tonight Victor was prepared. Almost.
He checked his watch one last time before entering the bar. He hadn’t received confirmation yet that everything he needed was in place. There was no reason to think his plan had gone awry. It was still early. Possibly, the help he’d hired had forgotten their directive to call him immediately with news.
Gennady spotted Victor and moved from the bar to a table at the back. Victor read the implicit command in his motions and went to join him. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, fit and lean, virile and relatively young, the Directorate’s new representative was a perfect specimen of Russian manhood, something Victor couldn’t help adding to all of the reasons to resent him.
Gennady scowled at him when he pulled the chair out for himself. “Where’s Artur?”
“He’ll be alo
ng shortly,” Victor promised, even though he didn’t have the means in hand to make Artur jump to do his bidding. Not yet. He checked his watch again. Any minute now.
“I trust you’ve gotten him in line.”
“Konechno,” Victor said with borrowed confidence. Soon he would get the notification that the men he’d hired had Inna under lock and key. Then he would have Artur firmly under his thumb, despite all of Artur’s posturing and threats.
After all, Victor had broken Artur before—with Sofia.
Victor didn’t want to hurt Inna, but he would do whatever was necessary to keep Artur under control and prove his worth to the Directorate. This deal with the Georgians would move forward, no matter what twinges of conscience Artur might feel or how badly he opposed working with the Georgians themselves.
“The Georgians are meeting us here tonight. For a private showing. Artur will arrive later to close the deal,” Victor said.
“Ah,” Gennady said. The one syllable contained a world of inscrutable meaning. Gennady fixed his cold gaze on Victor.
Victor found himself struggling not to squirm under the younger man’s icy scrutiny. He was losing his touch. He used to be the one to lift an eyebrow and set others on edge. Indignation with his own lack of self-control made him straighten and return a stare just as hard and cold as the one Gennady leveled at him.
“The showing is for your benefit, too,” Victor said. “So you can run back and make your little report.”
Gennady blinked. For a moment Victor thought his aim had struck true, and he had finally bested this upstart who acted as though he had the mantel of power when in truth he was a mere underling. But no.
“My little report,” Gennady echoed. His lips tipped up at the corners with the hint of a calculated smile. “Is that what they told you? That I’m a messenger? An observer?”
Wasn’t he? What else could Gennady be doing here? Victor schooled his outward expression, mimicking the condescension in Gennady’s eyes. The man was trying to play him, but it wouldn’t work.
Victor outranked him. His connection with Moscow wasn’t what it once was, but Gennady didn’t need to know that. Two could play the intimidation game, and Victor had had far more years of practice.
Gennady was only a lowly, junior member of the Directorate, an errand boy, a messenger, no matter how impressive a picture he might try to paint with his posturing and innuendo. Wasn’t he?
There was nothing else the man could be. Surely, a meteoric rise would have come to his attention, even with the trickle of information he now got from the few informants he had left. Power shifts and threats never went unremarked. Gennady hadn’t been mentioned in connection with any of the big names—the old-timers or the newcomers in power. He was no one’s protégé so far as Victor knew.
“I’m sure they told you otherwise,” Victor said in his most patronizing tone.
“What they told me is irrelevant,” Gennady said, leaving Victor to wonder whether the man across the table from him was secretly empowered or whether he had ambitions to grab for more than what he currently had. “We both have our assignments. The only question tonight is how well you’re doing yours. Frankly, I have my doubts.”
“What doubts?”
“You can’t guess?” Gennady said with something that sounded like pity. “You really are losing your edge.”
Who thought he was losing his edge? Was that the word on him in Moscow? Once, no one would have dared say such a thing.
Maybe no one was saying it now either. He had to credit Gennady. The man excelled at mind games, but Victor had dealt with far more formidable rivals and emerged victorious.
Victor checked his watch again, impatient for the news that would bring Artur to heel.
Every man had his weakness. He already knew Artur’s. Now he only needed to learn Gennady’s.
Anya, Victor’s favorite new waitress, approached their table to take their order. Victor had already imagined every way she might express gratitude when he helped her secure a green card. His body tightened as his favorite fantasy replayed in his mind—the lovely Anya on her knees, her hair in a luscious cascade down her bare back, her breasts pressed against his leg as she coaxed him to ecstasy with her soft lips and pink tongue.
That pink tongue darted out across those pillowy lips now. “Mr. Victor,” she said, “I was hoping you’d be here tonight. Have you found a husband for me?”
She cast a sidelong look at Gennady, as if she hoped he were her candidate. Gennady watched them both with a shuttered look.
“Soon. We’ll talk in a little while. I’m meeting some candidates tonight,” Victor assured her. “In the meantime, I’ll have a vodka straight up.”
“Yes, of course,” she said, an intoxicating combination of demureness and excitement all at once.
“Anything for you?” She glanced sidelong at Gennady. The bright flirtation in her voice rankled. Victor had promised her a future. All Gennady had done was sit in his chair and scowl.
“No.” Gennady’s firmness seemed a rejection of anything Anya might offer him.
She turned back to the bar. Her bootie shorts hugged her pert little bottom. Victor would have given her a slap if Gennady hadn’t been there, sitting in disapproving judgment.
Despite his supposed lack of interest, Gennady followed Anya with his ice-blue eyes and watched her give the order to the bartender. A brief, tense moment between the two women ensued, although Victor could not hear the argument between them.
“Tell me about the bartender,” Gennady said. “She’s been watching us.”
“Svetlana?” Victor harrumphed. “She probably has the hots for you. That’s all.”
“Yes, that’s probably it,” Gennady agreed. He brushed his fingers through his thick blond hair. “She was overly attentive toward me at the bar.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully and watched Svetlana for another few moments as if contemplating his own level of interest.
“You’re doing the showing here?” Gennady asked, finally returning his gaze to Victor. “I’m surprised the Georgians agreed to this venue, given the murder of their man upstairs.”
“Actually, they requested it.” Dato himself had taken Victor’s call and suggested they meet here.
“Curious. Don’t you think?” Gennady said.
Victor almost laughed at this ineffectual attempt to unsettle him. Gennady wasn’t nearly as good as he supposed. “The Georgians know what’s in their best interest. They’re showing that they’re willing to put the feud aside. Business, after all, is business.”
“And Artur?”
Victor checked his watch again. Too much time had passed. The men he’d hired hadn’t checked in. Had they failed?
He didn’t dare consider failure. No, he decided, they had merely forgotten to adhere to the strict schedule Victor had given them. What else could he expect from hiring locals? These weren’t the professionals he would have commanded in Moscow.
Even so, they couldn’t possibly have failed. Inna was such an easy target, anxious and easily cowed.
“Artur understands what needs to be done,” Victor improvised. He would continue on as if he had already attained the winning hand.
He noticed a swarthy man enter the club. The man hadn’t checked his trench coat at the door. He stood at the entrance and surveyed the crowd, and Victor recognized him as one of Dato’s men.
“Ah, there.” Victor waved to him to join them. Here, at last, was some confirmation that his schemes were working. The Georgians had shown tonight, as promised.
Soon, he’d have Inna in his custody, and the deal would move forward as planned, no matter what Artur thought or wanted.
INNA
“NICK!” INNA SCREAMED as he fell to the ground. An angry red splotch started to spread out on his shoulder. He wasn’t moving. Was he dead? Without thinking, she rushed toward him.
The man Inna had shot earlier, Fake Igor, grabbed her arm and stopped her short. He wagged Olga’s gun at her. “Get in truc
k. Now.”
He gave her a shove toward the back of Igor’s delivery truck. The other man, the one Nick had been wrestling, grabbed her gruffly by the arm and dragged her toward the back of their waiting vehicle. Fake Igor rolled up the back door, and his comrade hoisted her by the waist and shoved her inside.
She landed on her hands and knees. Briefly, she saw neat stacks of cardboard boxes and what looked like a man slumped in the corner. Then her captors pulled down the door, shutting out all of the light. She couldn’t see a thing.
“Igor?” she whispered and crawled in what she thought was the man’s direction. “Igor, is that you?”
He didn’t answer.
Her hand brushed something rubbery—the sole of his steel-toed work boot. “Igor, it’s me, Inna,” she said.
He didn’t respond.
Maybe he’d been zapped the way Vlad had. Maybe he couldn’t respond for now. She traced her hand up his leg until she found his hand. His skin was cool to the touch. She clasped his fingers and gave them a squeeze, thinking to reassure him. She was going to get them both out of here, although she hadn’t the faintest idea how.
Igor didn’t make any sound that she could hear over her freight train heartbeat. She pressed her fingers to his wrist.
No pulse.
No, no, no! He couldn’t be dead. She’d find his pulse at his neck. She moved her hand up his arm to his shoulder. He was shirtless. Her hand skimmed over a tuft of soft hair on his shoulder. She pressed her fingers firmly against his neck.
Still, no pulse.
She searched frantically for signs of life—anything. She pressed her ear to his chest. No heartbeat. She put her hand over his mouth. No faint warm breath.
Oh, God. Those men had killed Igor. They’d stripped his shirt and stolen the van. To get to her. They’d planned everything. To get to her. Why?
Please let me be paranoid. Let this all be a horrible hallucination.
Gangsters with Guns Episode #3 Page 5