The Darkness Drops

by Peter Clement

  “I need to reach my usual contact,” Yuri said stiffly. He struggled to his feet, certain that he’d been ambushed, but not at all sure what he could do against this giant. As he strained to stay upright, his head took a few loops around the room.

  The man reached into one of several cupboards mounted on walls that were black with age, and brought out a half-empty bottle of Seagram's. “What you need is something to warm you up.” Unscrewing the cap, he took a small sip, as delicately as if he were tasting it from a snifter, then invited Yuri to help himself.

  Yuri refused with a shake of his head. “I insist on talking with--”

  “Are you the kind of white man who won’t drink with Indians?” his host demanded, setting the bottle aside.

  “No, I mean, yes, I’ll drink with you, but where’s my usual contact--”

  “He took off to some islands east of here after your call, to lure any watchers away. It was Boris’s idea, before he got hit, leaving me free to fetch you. This Asian bunch are a lot more wily than the FBI or the Mounties--”

  “Wait a minute,” Yuri interrupted. He steadied himself, his sense of unease setting off more alarm bells. It sounded all wrong. Boris was old school. He didn’t share information with the help. Just gave orders and expected them to be followed. He might have doubled up the manpower charged with getting him safely into Canada, but he wouldn’t have told them about the Asians. “How do you know so much?”

  “I know all Bori’s business. Hell I’m his fucking UPS when it comes to sneaking packages across the border, cowboy.”

  “What the fuck’s that suppose to mean?”

  “It means a lot’s changed since you last came through here. Bori’s siloviki on both sides of the river were made by the feds years ago. But nobody fucks with Indians, not since we won all those land claims from the old treaties. People are afraid we’ll take back Washington, New York, and Montreal next. Besides, if a cop looks at us funny, we just scream ‘Race!’ Bingo--all’s well. So Bori put me in charge of security for all his Canadian operations.”

  Another thing Yuri had learned from hanging around Boris’s gangsters, they weren’t big on explaining anything. They simply did what had to be done, then kept their mouths shut, again, old-school style. This guy was spilling way too much. And something else didn’t add up. “Put you in charge of security?” Yuri said, interrupting his rambling host. “Boris never delegated anything to do with security in his life--”

  “He changed with the times, cowboy. And maybe if I’d been running things in New York he’d still be alive. Now I suggest you smarten up and use my services, or you’ll end up leaking bits and pieces through a body bag, just like him.”

  Yuri inwardly winced at the image, but tried not to show it. Whoever this man was, better not let him see any signs of weakness. “What’s your name?” Yuri asked. “I like to know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Graham Greene.”

  “Like the actor? The one in Dances With Wolves?”

  “No. The writer. My fans call me Harry Lime. How badly are you hit?” The man’s big brow crinkled in a modest show of concern.

  Yuri unzipped his dry suit. Water tainted with blood sloshed out onto the couch and floor. “My arm hurts like hell,” he said, easing out of the neoprene collar. “But it still moves pretty well, which means no shattered bones, and I haven’t bled out yet, so the bullet missed my major arteries.” He’d reverted to the detached tone most doctors use to address medical matters, even their own, but it was more than a professional reflex. Whether this imposing figure was an enemy or ally, Yuri was at his mercy. A show of bravado was in order, to make it clear that Yuri Raskin was every bit as tough as the next guy, not someone to be messed with. In the gangster-world, nothing got more respect than how you took a few bullets.

  Still standing, he slipped his injured limb free of the sleeve and peeled back his regular clothing. Blood soaked as everything was, he saw only a three-inch gouge in the muscular swell of his forearm. To his trained eye, it was almost not worth being brave for. The maroon-colored ooze among the dried clots he dismissed as venous blood. A few bright crimson spurts from severed arterioles swirled and curled in the midst of the darker pool, but they were nothing a bit of pressure wouldn’t stop. He opened and closed his hand. Everything worked, all the way down to his finger tips, which meant no tendons or nerves had been cut. Still, it must look a bloody mess. Good. Now what would John Wayne do? Yuri grabbed the bottle and poured scotch into the wound, wincing at the sting.

  “Hey,” his host shouted, grabbing it out of his hand.

  “I thought Boris wanted you to help me.”

  “There’s limits. Wasting good whisky’s one of them.” Glowering down at Yuri, he pointedly wiped the neck of the bottle and took another sip, once more demonstrating how a connoisseur of fine drink did things.

  “Have a look at my shoulders,” Yuri said, unbuttoning his shirt.

  The man gave them a cursory glance. “A crease, cowboy. I’ve seen worse. Now stop wasting time and listen up. There’s a lot of Bori’s guys with a lot of firepower who are still alive and want to stay that way. They insist on knowing what the hell’s going on, and, like it or not, Boris declared you the key to finding that out. It makes you someone we’re all interested in, before we end up like poor old Bori. In short, you’re now working for us, and we won’t take no for an answer, understood?” He again held out the bottle.

  Yuri tentatively accepted it. “Cheers,” he said, and swallowed a mouthful of the amber liquid, without wiping the rim. Heaven forbid his surly host see an implied slur against the oral hygiene of his race.

  “Bori also ordered me to help you go wherever you wanted and get you anything you needed. For the travel part, I suggest train. You gotta love the naivete of this country. Half the world’s still in the middle of a fuckin’ war on terror, yet here you can ride the rails in luxury from sea to shining sea and never show picture ID, though we can get you that too. It’ll take a few days.”

  Graham Greene didn’t seem to know about Dr. Ryan Smith and all his credentials that had been kept up to date in case of emergencies. But his comment about trains made sense, and fresh ID would be safer.

  “As for the rest of it, cowboy, that depends what the plan is. Bori said you’d have a strategy worked out to make the Chinese back off. So give. I’m all ears.”

  Some strategy. A half-baked idea that he’d worked out on the drive up while barely awake enough to stay on the road. Yuri took another swallow from the bottle. The drink warmed his throat and burned its way into his stomach with a surprisingly smooth, resuscitative heat. He studied the label’s small print. Fifty Year Old Special Reserve caught his eye. The man had taste.

  More to the point, did he also have credibility?

  The one trait typical of Boris, until yesterday, was cunning. That and the fact he’d do whatever it took to survive. The old bastard could have changed his ways out of necessity and hired Dances With Wolves here. Maybe Yuri had over reacted to the man, been too suspicious. He took another sip of the scotch.

  Or maybe he’s an undercover cop, a more watchful instinct warned. A sneak who penetrated Boris’s network, and now was hanging around for the sole purpose of picking up rats fleeing the sinking ship.

  But then why snatch Yuri from the border police? A cop would have let him be arrested.

  Unless, as a Canadian cop, he wanted the added triumph of catching America’s most wanted.

  The possibilities rolled on and on. Well, one thing was certain. There’d be no confiding his doings to this guy, at least not yet, no matter how much back-up the man offered. “I already told you what I need--bandages and antiseptic,” Yuri said.

  The man scowled at him again. “Look, it’s tragic that Boris is dead. Absolutely tragic.”

  Yuri had heard more remorse in people’s voices when their favorite baseball team lost a game. “Bandages and antiseptics,” he repeated, and, laying the scotch aside, hobbled on still frozen feet o
ver to the cupboards. He pulled one open.

  “What are you looking for?” the man asked.

  “A towel that might be clean enough to serve as a makeshift bandage.” He was also taking inventory of anything he could use as a weapon.

  Nothing on either count.

  Graham Greene, or whoever the hell he was, stretched back in the chair, making it creak again. “I hear you like gangster stories. You know, my grandfather used to smuggle Seagram’s through here for Al Capone. He told me Al could be real sweet just before he bashed your brains out with a baseball bat.”

  Yuri opened another cupboard. “You sure you don’t have bandages?”

  “Let the wounds breathe a minute. I told you, we’ve got other things to talk over.”

  “Like Al Capone?” Yuri turned his attention to a set of drawers below a red linoleum counter top.

  “No. Like about reading men so you know when not to push them too far. Just because I’ve been a real sweetheart this morning doesn’t mean I’ll take it well if you don’t cooperate.”

  “Is that so?” He pulled out the first drawer.

  Still nothing.

  “Boris told me he was worried about Anna, cowboy.”

  Yuri froze midway through pulling out the second drawer. He felt the man’s eyes bore into the nape of his neck. “Anna?”

  “Yeah, your ex-wife. Remember her? This bunch already used the good doctor to get at you once. They might do it again.”

  The guy knew altogether too much about him. “Yes, they might.” Yuri drew the drawer the rest of the way out so he could see its contents. A tray divided into slots for cutlery contained a tangle of silverware, including steak knives. His back still to the man, he reached for them. “But she’s already on the run. I got a chance to warn her before the warrants for our arrest were issued. Nobody will find her.”

  “On the run from cops is one thing, cowboy. From the Asians, that’s another whole league of trouble. I advise you to get her here.”

  “Here?” He palmed the handle of the first knife he touched, holding the blade flat against his wrist and out of sight, the tip pointed up his arm. He also took a second knife, holding that blade pointed toward the floor where the man could see it. “Any bed sheets in the house?” he asked, turning to face him. “I’ll shred them for dressings.”

  The man leaned forward in the chair and eyed the blade that was visible. His hands left the bottle and gripped the corners of the table, finger’s apart, as if he were ready to pick it up and use it as a shield. “Any sheets here are full of cooties. I wouldn’t sleep in them, let alone wrap one around an open wound.”

  Yuri stood very still. “You’re probably right,” he said, and dropped the knife that had attracted the man’s attention back in the drawer, continuing to conceal the other one against his arm.

  “Now, cowboy, to the business of how and where we can meet Anna,” the man continued, removing his hands from the table’s edge. “My people have no end of crossing points. Just give her my number.” He reached into his breast pocket and handed Yuri a folded piece of paper. “If she calls with the same password you use, I’ll personally bring her to you, safe and sound.”

  An icy chill rippled through Yuri. Here was one reason why an undercover cop wouldn’t let the state troopers take him. What better way to grab Anna than to win his confidence, then trick him into coaxing her out of hiding. “Really?” he said, not taking the paper. “But I think she’s safer on her own. Nobody knows where she is, not even me.”

  The man’s dark eyes seemed to swallow up what little light had made it into the room. “Poor Tania,” he said. “Made the same mistake. Convinced herself that she’d be safer on her own.”

  “Tania Yurskovitch?”

  “Of course. Perfectly understandable. She was so distraught over her husband’s murder that she couldn’t think straight. I tried convincing her to use my services, but she didn’t trust me. Caught last night’s late flight to Toronto from New York on her own. By the time one of my drivers tracked her down, she’d left a trail a blindman could follow. Luckily he persuaded her to be reasonable. Now she’s in a beautiful cottage overlooking the river, awaiting new papers, a new identity, and the freedom to travel wherever she wants. You might say, there’s no more Tania. I could do the same for Anna.”

  “Tania’s near here?”

  “Closer than you’d think.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “I don’t think so. Don’t you get it, cowboy? It’s like witness protection. I sever all connections between the people I hide and their former acquaintances. In Tania’s case, it’s for her own protection. For others, it’s so the cops don’t find them. Now how about you call Anna?” He pulled a cell phone out from his pocket, flipped it open, and shoved it across the table. “Or do you want me to go after her myself.”

  Yuri declined the phone. “I told you, she’s best left on her own.”

  “Ah, well, there we have a problem. Bori’s people, the ones who you and I work for, aren’t willing to risk that.” The man slowly smiled, revealing one tooth at a time. “Whoever controls her controls you.”

  Yuri tensed, tightening his grip on the knife. “Well, I’m not willing to risk bringing her here.” He glanced around the room, his every instinct telling him it was time to get out of there. Little details leapt out at him--a gasoline canister in a doorway that led into the rest of the house; an axe near the stove; an open padlock the size of brass knuckles that lay on the floor, the clasp looped through a rusty latch to a trap door. A jumble of moves flashed through his head. Throw gas on him, and threaten him with a match. Clobber him with an ax and lock him in the basement. Clock him one with the padlock.

  Yeah, right. Dances with Wolves would grab him before he could pull any of those stunts.

  As for letting myself be used to lure Anna into a trap, the guy must think I’m an idiot. “Tell your new bosses that I don’t need controlling, that I have to discover what’s going on to clear Anna’s name. What better motivation could I have to get what Boris’s men want--”

  “She’s still safer with us, cowboy. Besides, husbands tell business secrets to their wives, and wives, especially ex-wives, might yak--”

  “Hey! She knows nothing!”

  “Maybe. But the Asians don’t know that. It’s another reason they’ll want her.”

  Yuri shivered yet again. this time because Dances With Wolves had spoken the truth. “Look, your concern is appreciated, but I repeat, they won’t find her.”

  “We’d still feel better if she were here.”

  Yuri continued to stall. “Maybe if you showed me a little good faith. Used that phone of yours to get Tania on the line. She doesn’t say where she is. Simply tells me what a fine, trustworthy, and loyal employee of her late husband you are.”

  The man just shook his head, still grinning. He opened his jacket, and revealed a large hunting knife in a leather sheath slung under his shoulder.

  The atmosphere congealed between them.

  Yuri had outwitted all kinds of dangerous people in his life, a lot of them armed, a lot of them capable of killing. But this one, he sensed, enjoyed the foreplay to blood. “Okay, Chief, what’s really going on here?” he asked, his voice icily calm, the way he would approach a violent psychiatric patient.

  The man tensed. “Don’t call me that.”

  Just keep him talking, Yuri thought, to distract him from using that knife. “Don’t call you Chief? But you called me cowboy.”

  “Cowboys were always the good guys. Chief is what white cops call me before trying to beat my head in. At least at our first meeting. Never at a second.”

  Behind their sparring with words, a sizing up, a circling had begun, like two beasts eyeing each other’s throat.

  “How do I know you’re not a cop, Chief. That you didn’t just pretend to rescue me. A neat play--win my trust so I’d call in Anna, and you could arrest us both.”

  The man chuckled and got up from his chair. “You
want proof I’m not a cop?” He bent over and pulled on the latch of the trap door. It opened up with a loud creak. “Come on over, cowboy, and take a look.”

  Yuri hesitated.

  “What’s the matter, cowboy. Afraid of the truth? You got bigger problems than me to worry about. I suggest you look down here and see what they are.”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll just bend over to take a peek so you can boot my ass into your dungeon.”

  “You really ought to see this, cowboy.”

  “No way.”

  “You know, cowboy, for a guy who’s suppose to have given the Chinese whatever is causing this thing called SHAKES, you’re pretty damn picky about your friends. Who else is going to help you except me? As for a show of good faith, I thought you’d be grateful after what I did back at the rift to keep your ass out of jail, maybe even off death row. But you want another show of good faith, here it is. Come take a look.”

  Yuri drew a deep breath and stepped around the opening as if to peer into it. He kept well back from the edge and stayed at arm’s length from the man. At the same time he vied for a chance to kick the legs out from under him. If anyone toppled into that basement, it would be Dances with Wolves.

  The aroma of feces that he’d thought had been from a plugged toilet grew more pungent and settled at the back of Yuri’s nasal passages. “What am I suppose to see?” he said, trying to sound defiant as he stared into the darkness. His words choked on a swirl of nausea.

  “I don’t like your tone, cowboy. Outright rude after the risks I took for you. Could have gotten myself shot. What you need is a little quiet time to contemplate your total lack of cooperation.” He reached beneath his coat, and slid his blade out of the sheath. “Down!” he snarled, raising the weapon as if for a killing stroke.

  But Yuri was quicker to lunge, and he had a doctor’s eye for anatomy.

  Fifth rib-space, mid-point, left side--in he drove the narrow, six-inch blade right up to the hilt. A finishing twist of the serrated steel to open a hole in the ventricle beneath, and he leapt back out of reach

  The man continued to raise his machete-sized weapon, then paused.