Live to Air

by Jeffrey L Diamond

  Anatoly turned and whispered to Mischa, “You watch Yuri. Say nothing. I do all talking to Nikolai.”

  Mischa nodded impassively and followed Anatoly into the living room. The underboss was sitting on the couch, sipping a glass of vodka and stacking one-hundred-dollar bills on a coffee table. Yuri the bodyguard was leaning over a countertop, smoking a cigarette and cleaning a handgun. They both turned as the hit men entered the room.

  “Nikolai,” Anatoly said with a straight face, “sorry to barge in with no phone call. We need talk.” He was feeling serene, almost dreamlike, the way he always felt when he was out on a job.

  “About what?” Nikolai said, surprise on his face. “I wasn’t expecting you tonight. Do you want a glass of vodka? A coffee? Something to eat?”

  “Nyet, Nikolai, no time for food, drink,” Anatoly said as he reached for a cigarette.

  “Why aren’t you at Benson’s apartment? You should be watching him. I didn’t knock down the surveillance.”

  “I’ve got guys at apartment and at office. We still on his ass. No you worry about that.”

  “So why are you here? I didn’t call and tell you I wanted to meet,” Nikolai said as he continued counting bills.

  “I just talk to Pakhan. He talk to Frankie O’Malley. He big-time angry about interview.”

  Stanislov put down the money. “Why didn’t Alexey call me?” he said, irritated.

  Anatoly inhaled his cigarette before answering. He had a plan. He always had a plan. That’s what made him so good. “He no tell Anatoly. I no ask. But Feodor a problem. Little prick said Pakhan behind heroin deal. Said he no kill girl. Tells big-time anchorman somebody else guilty. Gives names. Says maybe even you murder deputy mayor’s daughter.”

  “That little fuck fingered me?” Stanislov said, his face contorting in a fit of rage as he stood and began pacing around the room.

  “Mr. Kolkov wants to meet at Sasha’s Café,” Anatoly said, his face expressionless. “Tells Anatoly to pick you up and drive back to Brighton Beach.”

  “Now? I’m in the middle of counting the protection money. I’ve got more stops to make tonight. I told Alexey I’d have all the money for him first thing in the morning.”

  “We go now. Mr. Kolkov hates to wait. He wants talk right away. You give him what’s on table. Pick up rest tomorrow. We hurry.”

  “Why the change in plans?” Nikolai said, the first signs of anxiety seeping into his face. “I still don’t get it. Alexey didn’t tell me he’d called a meeting.” He reached for his cell phone. “Maybe I should give him a ring? Find out what he wants?”

  “Nyet,” Anatoly said, sitting down in a chair across from the underboss. “Mr. Kolkov very specific. Wants to make big talk with you about Feodor and the interview with TV show. Meet in person. Not on telephone. Pack up what you need. My car outside. We go.”

  Nikolai put down the telephone. “Okay, give me a minute to get ready.”

  Anatoly shot Mischa a quick glance and gestured at Yuri, who had stopped cleaning his handgun and was listening to the conversation. Then he watched as Nikolai turned off the stereo in the middle of Mick Jagger frantically wailing “Let It Bleed” and followed him down the hall and into his bedroom, never taking his eyes off the underboss as he flipped on the lights, put on a blue blazer, straightened his tie, and tucked his Beretta into a shoulder holster.

  “That everything?” Anatoly said impatiently as he looked at his watch. “We much late.”

  “I’m ready,” Nikolai said, confidence returning to his voice.

  Anatoly trailed the underboss back into the living room, flipping the safety off his handgun as Stanislov scooped up the protection money, put it into his briefcase, and nodded to the door. “Let’s go.”

  Anatoly smiled. “Time to rock and roll, just like Rolling Stones,” he muttered to himself as they hiked single file down to the curb and climbed into the black Navigator.

  • • • • •

  Ten minutes later, they were driving west on Oriental Avenue, heading toward Brighton Beach. It was nearly nine o’clock and the roads were mostly empty, only a handful of cars and a few wayward stragglers trudging their way home. Yuri was sitting in the front passenger seat next to Mischa, his eyes fluttering open and closed, his head lolling against the side window, the motion of the car slowly lulling him to sleep. Nikolai was sitting right behind him next to Anatoly, smoking a cigarette, absentmindedly staring out the window. “I still don’t get why the Pakhan called you and not me. I’m his number two. He should have told me about Pavel’s interview, not you.”

  Anatoly just sat there, smiling to himself, feeling a rush of adrenaline. Then he said, “You wait, Nikolai. Soon enough you know what Mr. Kolkov wants. Soon become clear.”

  “Don’t belittle me, Anatoly,” Stanislov said, raising his voice. “Show me some respect. You work for me, and don’t forget that.”

  Anatoly sat quietly, his eyes fixed on Stanislov, cold and distant.

  When the Navigator reached Coney Island Avenue, the bright lights on the boardwalk shimmering through the dense fog, Mischa spun the wheel and gunned the engine, picking up speed as he climbed the entrance ramp to the Belt Parkway. Yuri was jolted awake as the car weaved in and out of traffic and glared at the hit man. “Where the hell are you going, Mischa? This isn’t the way to Sasha’s Café. You gotta get off the highway and head back to Brighton Beach.”

  There was a flash of movement as Mischa pulled the Sig Sauer out of his shoulder holster and smashed it down on the back of Yuri’s head. Then Mischa hit him again, harder, this time across his face, the gun shattering his nose and crushing his jaw. Blood began pouring down his chin and spraying the dashboard as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Pitching forward, he bounced off the windshield, his mouth open, his tongue limp, before slumping off his seat and onto the floor.

  “What the fuck?” Nikolai screamed, pivoting to face Anatoly and reaching for his handgun. But before he could grab it, the hit man clubbed him with his Ruger, opening a deep gash under his right eye, matching the scar he so proudly wore on his left cheek. Then he struck him again, the Ruger working like a sledgehammer, splitting his upper lip and knocking out his front teeth.

  Nikolai groaned as Anatoly calmly removed the Beretta from his shoulder holster. “Don’t say another word, you piece of shit, or Anatoly beat you to fucking death right here in car, right now.” He tossed him a towel. “Clean up. You bleeding like pig all over fucking place. You ruin nice new Lincoln.” When Stanislov failed to move, Anatoly grabbed him by a shock of hair and shoved the towel into his face. “Now you listen to me, you motherfucker. The Pakhan is more than pissed. He furious. Says he has to shut down business and, how he put it? Oh, yes, ‘leave city and go run and hide like animal,’ until things cool off now that Pavel talk to television show. Then he make me your boss and order me to teach you lesson.” Anatoly grinned and drove his handgun into Stanislov’s chest. “So Nikolai, just sit. Enjoy ride. And keep mouth shut. Make my job more easy.” He laughed—an insane, hysterical laugh—before punching Nikolai in the gut for good measure.

  • • • • •

  They drove for an hour until they reached the south shore of Long Island, crossing the Jones Beach Causeway and heading east onto Ocean Parkway, a two-lane road running along a narrow stretch of land between the Atlantic Ocean and a series of tidal inlets. As they passed through Gilgo Beach in Suffolk County, it began to rain. Anatoly sat quietly, twirling his handgun, never taking his eyes off Stanislov, who lay in a stupor, drifting in and out of consciousness, blood crusting his face and drying in big globs on his sports coat. Soon, my friend, be patient, he thought, glowering. Maybe ten more minutes. Just wait. Then Anatoly finish and you feel nothing.

  They kept driving and entered a remote stretch of scrubland. “Mischa, pull off road. Kill lights. This spot perfect.” Mischa checked his rearview mirror and eased the Lincoln off the road and down a sandy path into the dense forest. “Get out of car, Nikolai.
” Anatoly prodded him with the Ruger, grinning widely as the underboss winced in pain.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Nikolai said. “You’ve been part of my crew for a long time. You know I’ve got money. Lots of money. Take the fifty thousand in my briefcase as a down payment. I’ll pay you more. Anything you want. Then I’ll disappear, and the Pakhan will never know.”

  Desperation filled his voice.

  “Shut up, Nikolai. Keep walking,” Anatoly said, violently kicking Stanislov, knocking him to his knees. “Not there yet, asshole. Get up. Move.” He heaved him off the ground and shoved him through the underbrush, the steady crashing of the waves on the beach muffling the sound of their movement. Then he turned to Mischa. “Wake up Yuri and get him into thicket.”

  Mischa had hoisted the bodyguard onto his broad shoulders and was hauling him through the tightly packed trees like a sack of potatoes. “Too late for that, Anatoly. He’s already dead. I killed him when I bashed him over the head with my gun. Guess I hit him too hard,” he said, laughing like a hyena. “I’ll go dig a grave where we can toss the two of them once you’re finished with Nikolai.” He continued walking deeper into the forest until he all but disappeared into the dense fog.

  “Let’s go, Nikolai. Follow Mischa’s tracks.”

  Nikolai started to weep. “Please, Anatoly, don’t do this. There’s got to be another way.”

  “Shut up. You man, not baby. Take medicine.”

  “Please, let me go,” Nikolai said pleadingly. “I’ve always treated you fairly, like family, like my own brother.”

  “You pitiful,” Anatoly said smirkingly as he placed the nose of the Ruger against the back of Nikolai’s head and pulled the trigger, the gun making a soft pop as the bullet ripped through his brain and blew off his face. The underboss pitched forward in a heap, dead before he hit the ground. “I never like you, Nikolai, with rich clothes and big mouth. You no tough guy. You little fuck face. Mr. Kolkov right. Time for Nikolai to go.” Then Anatoly grabbed his ankles and dragged him through the woods, his head thumping over rocks and tree roots, until he found Mischa putting the finishing touches on a shallow grave near the beach. “Bury the two of them. I call the Pakhan.” Mischa rolled Yuri and then Nikolai into the six-foot-long pit, blood oozing from their corpses, soaking the ground.

  “Mr. Kolkov, it’s me, Anatoly. You no more worry. I take care of problem. I shoot Nikolai and bury in place nobody find.”

  “And his bodyguard.”

  “Yuri dead too. Just like you tell Anatoly.”

  “And you were careful?” the Pakhan said, whispering into the phone.

  “Very careful. Nobody around. We gone in few minutes.”

  “And you’ll cover your tracks?”

  Anatoly looked back at the trail of blood left when he dragged Nikolai to his grave, the dark red stain slowly fading, washing away in the rain. “No problem, Mr. Kolkov. Mother Nature make evidence disappear. And what about reporter? Time to get rid of Ethan Benson too?” the hit man said, relishing the thought of killing somebody else that night.

  There was a long pause, Anatoly waiting for the Pakhan as he weighed his options. “Too late to stop that asshole now,” he said, hatred in his voice. “Pull your men and knock down the surveillance. There’s nothing we can do about his story. But there is one more problem where I need your special skills. Somehow that little weasel, Jimmy Benito, made bail. He gets out tomorrow, and I want you and Mischa to pick him up at the jail and make him disappear. I don’t care how you do it or where you dump the body. Just make him suffer.”

  “And what about public defender? He fuck up like Nikolai. Let prison guard walk. Feodor talk. You want me make go away too?”

  “Not yet. I need that Irish prick for the sentencing,” Kolkov said icily. “And Anatoly, until this blows over, you need to disappear for a little while. Figure out where you and Mischa want to go. Maybe Moscow or St. Petersburg. The Feds won’t find you there. We’ll talk more after you snuff out Benito. And Anatoly, get rid of the burner.”

  The phone went dead.

  The hit man picked up a large rock and smashed the telephone, sweeping the broken pieces under the sand. Now there was no way to trace the call. No way to link the two executions to the Pakhan. Then he hiked over to his partner who was spreading pine needles and tree branches over the grave. “Let’s go, Mischa.”

  “Does Mr. Kolkov want us to kill Benson?”

  “No. He wants us kill prison guard. Then he wants us to disappear.”

  “And what about our friends here? Should we say a little prayer before we leave?” Mischa said, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s the right thing to do now that we’ve sent them off to a better place, don’t you think?”

  Anatoly lit a cigarette, shading the match from the rain with the palm of his hand. “Nyet, Mischa. Assholes got what they deserve. We take orders. Do job. Their time go to hell.” Then he smiled at his partner. “But sure was fun. There’s nothing I like more than killing. It’s better than sex.”

  CHAPTER 31

  IT WAS NINE SUNDAY MORNING, and Ethan was sitting in a yellow taxi attached at the hip to Lloyd Howard. New York City had that shadowy feel of a ghost town—the stores closed, the streets clear of bumper-to-bumper traffic, the weekend warriors shacked up in bed enjoying their one-night stands. Ethan was lost in thought, his mind on a treadmill, convinced the Russian Mob was watching from every corner—even though he hadn’t seen any sign of a black Lincoln Navigator since the morning of Pavel Feodor’s interview.

  • • • • •

  Ethan slipped off the elevator on the tenth floor and heard the sound of videotape being shuttled back and forth in a playback machine. It was a high-pitched whine that stopped and started as specific images were slowed down, cued up, and screened at real time. David Livingston was sitting in front of a large monitor, logging the footage they’d shot in the Meatpacking District after finishing Feodor’s interview. Ethan walked into the makeshift editing room and stared over his shoulder. “How’d the pictures come out?”

  “Unbelievable,” he said, looking up at Ethan. “I just logged everything you shot on Little West Twelfth Street. Herb did an amazing job. How’d he get it to look so spooky?”

  “He used the same Panasonic camera that captured Feodor’s walking sequence before the interview. It picks up a sharp image even in the dark, see?” They watched as Ethan hit play and the camera panned by a row of meatpacking companies, settling on an exterior of Fernelli’s Beef and Poultry. “Every time the camera passes a light source, like this one from the street lamp in front of the building, there’s a quick flare that fills the screen.” He pointed at the shot. “The wide-angle lens also distorts the picture, making it look like we’re shooting through a fishbowl.” A low-angle tracking shot of the alley leading into the parking lot where the shootout took place filled the screen. “Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

  “Definitely,” David said. “I can’t believe how cinematic it feels. It’s as good as any feature film. The audience is going to think they’re watching the shootout through the eyes of the gunmen.”

  “That’s the idea,” Ethan said. “Does the interview look as good?”

  “It couldn’t have been shot any better. Do you want to screen it?” He reached for a stack of disks sitting on the corner of his desk.

  “No. I don’t have time. I spoke to Paul a little while ago. He’s coming into the office with Lenny for a quick update. They should be here soon.”

  “Today?”

  “He said it couldn’t wait until tomorrow. So stop what you’re doing, go find Mindy, then come to my office. Paul wants to meet with all of us—not just me.” After saying good-bye, Ethan walked down the long hallway, past dozens of closed doors, halting abruptly when he reached his office.

  His door was wide open.

  For an instant, he thought it was the hit man, Anatoly Gennadi. How had he gotten past the security guards? How had he found him in the building? Should he run, try
to get away? Then he heard Peter Sampson’s voice booming like a bellow. Nerves.

  Just nerves.

  “Peter, what are you doing here?” he said, waving hello to Paul and Lenny who were sitting on the couch, their feet up on his coffee table.

  “We’re waiting for you,” Peter said, sounding annoyed. “I made the mistake of calling Paul yesterday to tell him about our interview. Didn’t realize it would bring things to a boil. He asked me—no, he told me—to come back into the city for this meeting at this ungodly hour on a Sunday morning. That’s why I’m here and not in East Hampton playing golf.”

  Ethan sat at his desk and looked at Paul. “What’s so important that Peter had to trek all the way into the city?”

  “Where’s everybody else?” Paul said, ignoring his question. “I only want to go through this once,” he continued as Mindy and David hauled into the room. “Ah, we’re all here. Finally. Now we can get started.” He turned back to Ethan. “I did some hard thinking after Peter told me about the bizarre scene at the end of Feodor’s interview. By the way, did you capture the guards dragging him off the set? Peter didn’t know.”

  “I logged it this morning,” David said. “We got it on all four cameras, and you’re right, it’s pretty damn unbelievable.”

  “Good,” Paul said, pleased. “I wanna use it for the on-air promotion. Should help boost the ratings. But that’s not the reason we’re here. Brief me on where you are with the story.”

  Ethan thought a moment, then reached for his iPad and opened a page with his production notes. “We’ve finished shooting most of the outdoor scenes—the exteriors of the prison, the courthouse, the police station, the district attorney’s office, the deputy mayor’s condo on Fifth Avenue, Brighton Beach, and around the Meatpacking District. I’m sure we’ll have some pickup shots, but we won’t know until we write the script.”