“How’s it gonna help?”
“She wasn’t talking chump change.”
“She’s a gambler sometimes, brother. But she’s a thief all the time.”
“Of course she is. How’s that change anything?”
“The way she’s got it rigged, all the money would go through her. We’d never know how much she really scored, just what she turned over.”
“It’s a mil guaranteed, boss. And half of whatever’s on top. Sure, So Long’s gonna graft off that, but—”
“We don’t hold the trump, Buddha.”
“I’m not following.”
“That ‘my English not so good’ crap’s just a front. So Long’s real smart, Buddha. This wouldn’t be the first time she cheated us. We can’t do what we’d normally do, anyone else did that to us. And she knows it.”
Cross lit another cigarette. By the time he was finished with it, he’d spun the roulette wheel inside his head.
“Rhino?”
“If the houses haven’t been ravaged, it would be because no gang’s claimed that block, but they’re still close enough so squatters couldn’t move in without passing through their turf.”
“Maybe worth it, then?”
“Not worth dying over. But if it’s surrounded and not occupied, it’s not claimed turf, either.”
“I get it. Okay, Buddha, let’s roll by.”
“STREET LOOKS decent. Could use some work, but it’s not all torn up. Hydrants are still in place. Probably some homeless sleeping in that lot, but no point in lighting it up just to see. This late, who cares? But we didn’t spot one whore, one dope slinger … and they work until it gets light, rain or shine. Nobody legit getting up for work this early.”
Cross didn’t mention that they’d only been a few minutes away from the block they were surveying when he’d told Buddha to roll by—they’d been heading in that direction from the moment they’d dropped So Long off.
“We can come back tomorrow night, boss. Better to have some cover if we want to look close, anyway.”
“Tracker could ghost it himself.”
“Probably could. The man don’t even cast a shadow. And he works a strange place better than anyone I’ve ever seen. Those feds who wanted their ‘specimen,’ they may have been off-the-hook loony, but they didn’t have no budget cap. So, hiring him and Tiger, you know they bought the best. But even if Tracker says it’s clean, we’d still need to hang close, just in case.”
“Sure. But … look, Buddha. Bottom line is the Law. We’re not going to be some Neighborhood Watch. If we can send a message that’ll keep the gangs out, that’s one thing. But there’s only way to do that. And if some of them don’t survive the delivery, we can’t leave their bodies in the basement of one of the houses—that’d make them kind of hard to sell.”
“There’s other—”
“Sure. But you know how it works: clearing territory might be hard work, but it’s nothing compared to trying to occupy it.”
“This ain’t Afghanistan, boss.”
“Yeah. But it’s never enough to just kill rats; you have to make sure more don’t come back. And rats don’t get turned off by dead bodies.”
“Didn’t look like anyone’s claiming the block. No tags. Or worse, overtags. No slot doors, either. So any crack dealers working that street in daylight, they’re small-time slingers. They’ll just move on—they’re used to it.”
“Let’s see tomorrow, okay?”
BOTH MEN were silent for the next several minutes—in hostile territory, speech is a luxury no soldier enjoys for long. Once clear, Buddha asked: “The spot?”
Cross glanced at his watch, a rubber-strapped black disk that popped alive only when tapped on its face.
“It’s not even four. Let’s see if Condor has anything for us.”
Buddha leaned the Shark Car gently around a corner and turned toward the Badlands—unoccupied acreage that various developers had tried to purchase over the years, only to learn that it was city-owned. And condemned. Apparently, some obscure ordinance prevented the city of Chicago from selling land once used as a toxic-waste dump unless it was first brought “up to EPA standards.”
Since that last phrase was not defined, every attempt to purchase had gotten lost in the bureaucratic maze. More knowledgeable developers had sought to untangle that snarl with the one lubricant that had never failed them in the past. But, no matter how much money they threw at the machinery, it stayed stuck.
Several years ago, the Russian mob had hired Chicago’s premier fixer to unblock the path. But the Russians’ boss, Viktor, heeded the note attached to a razor-tipped arrow embedded in the back wall of their storefront headquarters. It came right on the heels of the silenced rifle shot which had punched an opening in the black glass.
The note’s message was as clear as its delivery method, each Cyrillic character etched in a harsh calligraphy: “Tomorrow, call your lawyer.”
That lawyer’s unsolved homicide remained a mystery. Still, the Russians had only been deterred, not defeated. They were a tight organization, ruthless and patient. There was no shortage of ways to earn good money in Chicago.
And elsewhere. Some Japanese oyabuns believed that freshly removed bear claws would grant an elongated life span to their possessor, and had the cash to pay what such prizes were worth. Viktor had many contacts on the Kamchatka Peninsula. “Harvesting” bears was not difficult, and smuggling the claws into close-by Japan even easier.
The Japanese underworld’s voracious appetite for animal parts, from powdered rhino horn to intact tiger testicles, was no secret. In Africa, the risk of taking rhino horn was worth the potential profit to some. In China, there was no risk involved—tigers were bred in captivity as a “conservation” project … and some males had to be neutered when judged to be inferior specimens.
The Chinese government had no objection to the sale of tiger parts, as long as the proper “taxes” on such transactions were paid. After all, this was nothing but the sale of a manufactured product. But the Russian government considered bears to be their sacred national symbol, and trafficking in bear parts was a capital offense.
A fatal synergy resulted. First, the controller of all Chinese crime in Chicago, an old man named Chang, accepted a contract from a nonexistent government agency to deliver Cross—dead or alive—to a certain address. Chang asked no questions—it was an unspoken part of the contract that the government would remain uninterested in any of his local operations, and that alone made the reason for the promised COD irrelevant.
A master strategist, Chang used his contacts in Russia to confirm the bounty on Viktor, then immediately hired Cross to put a halt to Viktor’s trade arrangements. The crafty old man envisioned a war by which he would profit regardless of its outcome.
Chang had paid off, in gold, just after learning that Viktor’s entire gang was literally ripped apart by … something not yet known. Within minutes of that exchange, Chang’s own headquarters had been hit by several RPG rounds.
Cross got word to an ancient Cambodian headman that the destruction of his mortal enemy—Chang—was a gift. A gesture of respect, for which no payment was expected.
Later, a gift was delivered to Red 71, the crew’s known headquarters. An elaborately carved ebony stick, whose characters Rhino laboriously translated: “We can redeem this for a body. Payable anytime. And it can be any body we want.”
The failure to deliver Cross caused the disappearance of two members of the “government” team that had reached out for Chang. If a nameless blond man and an Asian cyber-expert called Wanda were still alive, it wasn’t known to the Cross crew. The whereabouts of Percy—a human war machine who returned to an inert state as though someone had thrown a switch in his brain when he was not on combat assignment—were unknown. But he would always be a high-value asset to whatever part of the government had sent Cross after a “specimen” he had never collected.
Two members of the team the blond man and Wanda had assembled ha
d been freelancers: Tracker, a Chickasaw who had no purpose other than to carry on the work of his ancestors, and Tiger, whose own tribe was either mystery or myth.
Neither had disappeared. Tracker signed on after a lengthy prove-in period. He had no interest in money, but considered the Cross crew to be the logical descendants of his own people … people who did not hunt, gather, or farm.
Tiger worked jobs. “I do out-call, you know,” had been her parting words to Cross. But only when the objective suited her. Her loyalty would always be to her sisters.
THE ENTRANCE to the Badlands was clearly marked … to those who knew. Those who didn’t became permanent residents. Land ravaged by toxic waste was always in need of fertilizer.
The Shark Car cut its lights and motored serenely past the rusted-out hulk of a semi-trailer, guided only by the thermal-image screen that had rotated to replace the instrument panel. The screen was bisected: one showing what was ahead, the other a rearview camera.
The city-camo car coasted to a stop parallel to a chain-link fence torn in so many places that even its ceremonial swirl of concertina wire couldn’t actually keep anyone out.
Buddha touched a button hidden under the console. Three parallel laser beams of blue and orange shot from behind the grille. They passed over an abandoned gas station lacking signs, pumps, and windows. All that remained was a squat concrete structure.
Both front windows zipped down. Ten minutes passed. Cross did not smoke. Buddha held his custom 4.5mm semi-auto pistol on his lap, watching the screen.
A figure appeared atop the fence. A teenager with a bright-blue Mohawk, folding his body into the shape that had given him his name, “Condor.”
“Any more surveyors?” Cross called out softly.
“Not since the last one,” the teenager replied.
“You’re doing good,” Cross told him.
“How come you ask?” the teenager said. “You gave us that cell to call you on if—”
“It’s machinery,” Cross said. “You can’t be sure it’s working unless you test it regular, and—”
“You told us never to do that,” Condor finished the sentence. “I get it.”
“Yeah, you do,” Cross said, flicking a thick roll of bills wrapped in rubber bands over the fence.
“VISITORS?”
“Mostly regulars,” Bruno answered Cross on his cell. “But a first-timer’s been sitting at the same table for over an hour. No dances, just buying booze. Asked one of the waitresses for powder. She told me. So I walked over and told him we don’t do that here. And we don’t let no one do that here, neither.”
Cross described the man in the photo the new dancer had shown him hours ago.
“Yep,” Bruno said. “That’s him. And he’s been drawing a bead on the new dancer—Taylor, right?—every time she goes up.”
“He doesn’t leave.”
“Got it.”
“UH, BOSS,” Buddha said, “not for nothing, but Bruno’s not what you’d call a deep thinker.”
“So?”
“So, if this guy tries to leave, Bruno’s likely to make sure he never does.”
“So?”
“So Bruno can’t take another jolt Inside.”
“You think he doesn’t know that?”
“Sure. But if this guy’s carrying …”
“So much the better. Then we can hit 911 ourselves—we’re as entitled to police protection as anyone else paying them off.”
THE SHARK CAR pulled up behind the Double-X, into what appeared to be a stack of double-height Dumpsters sitting in a pool of black ink.
The three men exited the car and approached the extended wall used to allow dancers to park privately. Cross hit a sequence on a tiny keypad and a door popped open.
The man Arabella had called “K-2” responded with a slow shake of his head to Buddha’s shoulder shrug and spread palms. Nobody had left the club … at least not past the exit/entrance the Maori guarded.
Rhino slid off down an unlit corridor. Cross and Buddha entered a narrow tunnel, walked its length, and let themselves into a room built behind the corner where Cross kept his personal table.
As they did so, the lighting in the club shifted subtly. Only a few inside would recognize the signal, but Bruno had been watching for it. Now his face was a synonym for “perplexed.” He knew he shouldn’t leave his post, but he also knew that Cross would be expecting a report. Only Rhino’s cigar-sized finger, further distinguished by its missing tip, pointed him toward the correct move.
Bruno moved to the inset triangle table with confidence—if Rhino said it was okay, any worries he might have harbored about the front door being covered vanished.
“He’s at fifty-four,” Bruno told Cross, proud of his memorization of the seating chart.
“Still acting like he was?”
“No lap dances or anything like that, yeah. But I know he asked Brandi something. I don’t know what, but I could tell she was saying she didn’t know nothing about it.”
“Good. When you get back to the door, tell Brandi to bring us something to drink.”
“Uh, sure, boss. But shouldn’t I tell her what you—?”
“She’ll know.”
BRANDI MOVED to the corner table without a hint of a wiggle. She was balancing herself on four-inch spike heels as smoothly as if she were still in the ballet slippers she had worn for years, before the constant pressure to lose weight had caused her to seek other employment.
Her job interview had been blunt.
“Would I have to—?”
“It’s a waitress job,” Cross told her. “The only difference is that you don’t get to wear much. And the tips are really good.”
“I heard … I mean, I asked around, and …”
“What?”
“In some strip clubs, the waitresses have to work under the tables.”
“Not here. Turn your chair just a little. Watch what happens.”
A few minutes later, Brandi asked, “You weren’t kidding about not wearing much, were you?”
“No,” Cross answered, as if the idea of him “kidding” was absurd.
“I’d get a W-2?”
“A 1099,” Cross told her. “You’re an independent contractor.”
“So no take-out for—”
“No take-out for anything. You get paid by check. A good check.”
“How good?”
“Good enough not to bounce. Pay here is ten bucks an hour. The tips, you keep for yourself.”
“I get it. If I want to make heavy tips, I have to—”
“Don’t act stupid. You don’t get it. None of the waitresses here are allowed to do anything but bring whatever the customer orders. If he wants a dance, you tell whatever dancer he picked—she tips you for that. If he wants the VIP Room, you tell him to just walk right in, make any selection he wants. You’ll get a bigger tip for that.”
“I don’t know.…”
“Okay.”
“What does that mean, ‘Okay’?”
“It means, if you make up your mind to do this, you do it. And if you don’t, you don’t.”
Since then, Brandi had been working anywhere between thirty and fifty hours a week. The tax bite was close to nothing, despite her diligent declaration of her 15-percent tips. The job was a dream, especially because she was the sole provider for her boy, whose father was a lot better at promises than payments.
On a bad week, Brandi would pocket thousands in cash as well as her paycheck. Some weeks were much better. She’d been at the Double-X for almost three years.
“What did he want?” Cross asked.
“Wanted to know when does Taylor—the new girl—when does she get off?”
“And you said …?”
“He’d have to ask the manager.”
“And the manager isn’t around.”
“Yep.”
“Good work,” Cross told her.
The former ballet dancer spun gracefully, leaving a table for the first tim
e that night without some patron’s trying to squeeze one of her muscular cheeks.
“This’ll be easier than I thought,” Cross said, pulling a cell phone out of his jacket in response to Buddha’s raised-eyebrow silent question.
“Get Arabella,” Cross told whoever answered.
The wait was short.
“She know he showed?”
“Yes,” Arabella answered him. “She’s … kind of scared, I guess. But only about leaving. She knows she’s safe here.”
“Skip your next turn. You and her, both. Go out the back way. Drive over to where she lives. There’ll be a truck and a few guys waiting. Tell her this is a one-and-only. Anything she doesn’t take, kiss it goodbye.”
“How much time will we—?”
“All you need. Ring back here when you’re away. That means back in your place, understand?”
“But I’ll never fit all her—”
“Her stuff goes to a storage unit. The guys in the truck will know where to take it.”
“I’m going to miss the rest of the time I paid for. Three more turns.”
“Sell your shifts; there’s plenty of girls who’ll buy them.”
“Sure. But I would’ve made a lot more if I—”
“You brought her here. That’s what it costs.”
“Oh.”
“Storage unit is five a month. You two want to look for a bigger place, we can find one for you. Or, if she wants to go solo, that, too.”
“Really? In this town—”
“I know a real good broker,” Cross said, and pressed the “Off” button on his cell.
“TWO, THREE of K-2’s crew for the move?” Buddha asked.
“Sure.”
“They get paid a lot more than movers.”
“We’ll cover it.”
“All for this new girl?”
“She’ll be good for it.”
“Yeah” was all Buddha said, sliding off into the darkness.
IT WAS getting close to the time the club usually started to empty out when the solitary man who’d asked about the new dancer finally realized she was already done for the night.
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