by Greg Smith
“No! No! No! No!” the large man shouted. “Fuck no!”
He threw his glass at the rows of bottles lined up like soldiers behind the bar, maiming half a dozen of them. Clasping his hands behind his head, his elbows over his ears, he ran out of Keens onto 36th Street. Aleks stared at his tattoo momentarily, before timidly following the large man out onto the street.
Oak was pacing about frantically, roaring in anguish.
“Hey! What is it, Oak? What’s wrong?”
Aleks went to him, placed a hand on the large man’s massive shoulder. Oak swung a tree limb of an arm at him, brushed him away.
“The fuck off me!” the large man screamed. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?”
“What? What’s wrong?”
Aleks stared incredulously. Oak gaped back at him.
“Everything’s wrong! You’re not Aleks, you motherfucker! Step’s not dead. You’re Step. Which can only mean Aleks is the one whose fucking dead! Alpo is fucking dead!”
Aleks looked at the large man as though he were mad.
“Whuh–what are you talking about?”
Oak grabbed Aleks’s left wrist, pulled his shirt sleeve up again, revealing only bare skin.
“Aleks’s tattoo was on his left fucking forearm,” he shouted. “He was a southpaw. If you were Aleks, you’d have a tattoo right here!” He stabbed at the other man’s left forearm. “You’re Step!”
The large man punched Step in the chest, knocking him down. He pushed his way through the crowd of bystanders that had gathered around, flailed at a couple of guys who unwisely tried to stop him. Step watched in stunned silence as the large man stumbled off down the street.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 56
The stranger sat in the bedroom in Nadia’s apartment, stared at the index cards in his hands. He’d made the most recent edits after returning home from Keens. He tossed the cards onto the nightstand next to the driver’s licenses Griggor had given him. He stared at the tattoo on his right forearm, contemplated why he’d subconsciously chosen to be Aleks instead of himself. What was wrong with being Stepan? How bad could his life have been? Aleks was the one who was laundering money for the Russian mafia. Aleks was Ilya’s Bagman. And Aleks was the one who was fucking his brother’s wife.
Maybe he was hiding Step because Step was a murderer. A double murderer.
Had he killed Connie and Aleks in a jealous rage because they were having an affair? Or had he killed Aleks so he could steal his identity?
Why would I do that? Why would I kill my own brother just to be him? he wondered. What kind of person does something like that?
Not for the first time he wondered if he was insane. If his head injury had caused some kind of permanent damage.
He was suddenly incredibly overwhelmed by it all, slipped into a non-thinking funk, simply sat staring at the telltale tattoo. He just wanted it all to go away. Even falling back into his amnesiatic state had some appeal to it at the moment.
He eventually fell asleep. Slept off and on, waking several times throughout the night. He’d never undressed, slept sitting up with his back against the headboard. He’d doze off, wake up when he began to fall forward or sideways. Then stare at the tattoo until his eyelids drooped and he dozed off again.
He had no dreams that night.
Nadia found him sitting on his bed, fully dressed, the following morning. She asked him what he wanted for breakfast, didn’t immediately realize he was only semi-conscious.
“Aleks? Are you all right? Aleks!”
She rushed to the bed. The stranger stirred, lifted his head, glanced at the Romanian woman with brooding, red-rimmed eyes. His next words sent a shiver down the Romanian woman’s spine.
“Aleks is dead,” he muttered in an eerie whisper, tears streaming down his face. “I’m Stepan.”
Nadia gawked at the stranger.
Griggor! I need to find Griggor! she thought and hurried away.
“Ilya wishes to meet your Albanskiy bliznets (Albanian twin),” Ilya Klymenko told Griggor. “To look him in eye when he tells how he did not take Ilya’s money. How it was…bliznetsy (twin brother).”
The Russian had a tendency to extend the ess sound of the letter “S” when he spoke, so that he sounded like a snake hissing. A habit that only added to the sinister aura he exuded.
The two men were sitting in the steam room of a gym Ilya owned on the Lower East Side. Both wore only towels covering their lower torsos. Ilya looked anything but a butcher. He was a slightly built man with bulging eyes, buckish teeth, long, dark, sparse hair. He was heavily tattooed. Customary among Russian gangsters.
Meeting in a steam room was a common practice for Russian mafia members. It was nearly impossible to hide a weapon when a man wore only a towel. Though Ilya had once concealed a piano wire in the hem of one. Used the fabric to protect his hands as he garroted Six Toes Lenny Borowski. So named for the six digits a birth defect had bequeathed to Lenny’s left foot.
“If he is believable,” the slight man continued, “Ilya may not give him Ukey smile.”
Griggor was familiar with the term, didn’t need the further explanation Ilya was so happy to provide.
“Slice his throat from ear to ear,” Ilya illuminated, running a finger across his own throat. Smiling. Showing bad teeth as he made the gesture.
“He does not take your monies, Ilya,” Griggor stated firmly on Aleks’s behalf. “It is twin brother who steals from you. Even so, this khoroshiy bliznets (good twin), he is willing to make repayment on plokho bliznetsa (bad twin’s) debt. He pays you one half millions of dollars, Ilya. Is much penitence, da?”
“That is not for you to decide, gypsy,” Ilya responded, dismissing the Romanian. “In any event, there must be blood. It is our way. You know this.”
Griggor heard the words he’d been hoping not to hear. And he knew what he must do.
A few hours after meeting with Ilya, Griggor arrived at Nadia’s to find his Romanian friend sitting on her patio sipping tuica. He sensed instantly something was wrong. He knew it must have something to do with Aleks.
“Aleks is dead,” Nadia said without looking at the old man.
Griggor gaped at her in disbelief.
Dead? he thought. It cannot be!
“How? Where? Was it Roo–”
“It’s what the stranger told me,” Nadia continued. “He said, ‘Aleks is dead.’ He then told me his name is Stepan.”
She turned to Griggor for an explanation.
“Do not do that, Nadia! Dumnezeule! Why do you startle me that way, hey? You scare diavol out of me. I think something happens.”
He sat down across from her.
“So, Aleks, he tells you this? He tells you he is Stepan now, da?”
Even as the old man spoke, he immediately reasoned that it all made sense.
This is what he hides, he thought. True identity. He knows all along he is Stepan.
Nadia made a face that displayed her befuddlement. Griggor regarded her with fatherly compassion.
“He pretends, Nadia. This whole time, he pretends. Maybe he does not know he does this, hey? I just cannot say why he deceives us.”
The old man wasn’t sure how much he could explain to Nadia. How much she would even comprehend. He wasn’t certain how much he understood himself.
“Does not change anything, Nadia, hey?” he said by way of comforting the woman. “So he is Stepan. Aleks, he is not so good, believe me. He is thief. Con man.”
Of course, Nadia didn’t know anything about what Griggor was saying. She remained bewildered.
“I go to talk with him, hey?”
Griggor found the stranger still sitting on the edge of his bed, absently rubbing his tattoo. The tall man looked up as the old Romanian entered the room.
“Ilya, he is being…difficult, hey? He wants to meet with you. He wants to look you in eye when you say it is not you who takes his monies. He says, if he be
lieves you, he will not give you Ukey smile.”
Unlike Griggor, the tall man was not familiar with the term. He wondered why Ilya wouldn’t smile if he believed his story.
“Is like Sicilian tie for neck, hey? Ilya, he is Ukrainian. Ukey. Smile, it is slash he makes from slitting of throat. One ear to other ear.”
He used his thumb to make a cutting motion across his own throat, let the description sink in.
“So…Ukey smile, hey? Ilya, he is...how to say? Teatral (theatrical). Like actor on stage.”
The tall man’s eyes grew wide. He was expected to stand face-to-face with this Ilya character, hope the psychopath believed him when he told him he hadn’t stolen his money…and trust that a Russian gangster named “The Butcher” would not then cut his throat? Give him a Ukey smile? He shivered at the thought.
“Should not be problem, hey?” Griggor remarked. “To look Ilya in eye. Tell him with truth you do not take his monies, hey,…Stepan?”
The tall stranger said nothing.
“Why do you become Stepan this day? Why do you stop being Aleks now? Because of Ilya? Because of contract, hey? You do not wish to be Aleks Bag-guh-duh-sarian now? You do not wish to be Ilya’s Bagman?”
Stepan saw that the old man had fallen into his familiar role of suspicious Griggor. Distrustful Griggor. Griggor the interrogator. Griggor the accuser. He scoffed.
“Ilya’s Bagman. The Boar. The Muskrat.” He paused only momentarily before derisively adding, “The Butcher. The Baker. The Candlestick Maker. Do all you Russian gangsters have names like that?” he mocked.
“Do not toss Griggor in with some bastarzi! Asasin for women and children,” the old man seethed. “Griggor is not Roosha! I am Romana!”
The old Romanian continued to glower only a few seconds longer before slowly softening.
“So. how do you know you are Stepan, hey?”
Step recounted his meeting with Oak. Explained how the placement of his tattoo distinguished him from his brother Aleks.
“If you are Stepan now, do you still pay Ilya his monies back? If Aleks, he is dead, contract, it is maybe terminat, hey?”
Step had already thought that through. Nothing had really changed just because he was Stepan and not Aleks. They both had life insurance policies. His notion of collecting the partnership death benefit was still sound. Except he would be Stepan collecting on Aleks’s policy instead of Aleks collecting on his. As Stepan, he could collect on Connie’s policy as well. An additional one million dollars.
He’d also considered another, highly critical, concern.
“Look at me Griggor. How would you know if I’m Stepan or Aleks? Even I didn’t know. I can’t take the chance someone makes that same mistake one day and puts a bullet in my head. I don’t want to live looking over my shoulder. So, yes. I will pay the Russian.”
Griggor understood.
Tying of loose ends.
“Did he confirm the amount?” Step asked.
“Da. Amount is one-half millions of dollars. From mouth of Ilya himself, hey?”
“I’ll pay,” Step said decisively. “Like I said, it’s found money. And I just ‘found’ another million. Connie’s policy. As long as the Russian agrees to forgive the debt and remove the contract on my–…on Aleks’s head…I’ll give him the money.”
“Ah. We can hope Ilya, he keeps word,” Griggor said unconvincingly. “I can arrange meeting then, hey?”
Preoccupied, Step gave his consent. He had one more favor to ask of the old man.
“Once this is over. After Aleks Bagdasarian is buried for good. I can’t go on being Stepan Bagdasarian. Stepan Bagdasarian doesn’t exist without his Binyak. I’ll need new credentials, Griggor.”
“Da. I make that happen easy, hey?”
• • • • •
CHAPTER 57
Step awoke feeling refreshed. For the first time in more than a month, he knew exactly who he was. He had a plan for going forward. A plan for collecting the life insurance, dealing with the Russian, getting on with his life.
He left Nadia’s, went immediately to his apartment in The Schuyler Building. He’d brought along the insurance policies and other documents he’d taken from the safe days earlier. While he could have remained at Nadia’s, reviewed the policies there, made the phone call he was dreading from Nadia’s apartment, he needed time away from his Romanian caretakers.
Once inside the apartment, he headed directly to his office. He plopped the insurance policies on his desk, slid into his high-backed leather chair as though easing back into his old life. He sat a moment to relish the feeling of being back where he belonged. He’d hoped sitting at his desk, in his chair, in his office, in his apartment would feel like putting on a comfortable jacket. It didn’t. He still had no recollection of ever having lived there. Didn’t feel any sense of comfort or familiarity.
He flipped Oak’s business card absently in one hand, reached for the phone to make the call he’d been avoiding. Oak’s booming voice answered.
“Phoenix Mutual. This is Tony. Our insurance is your assurance. How can you help me?”
Step hesitated. He hadn’t expected the large man to actually answer the phone.
“Hallo? This is Oak. Ball’s in your court.”
“Oak, it’s Step. Please don’t hang up.”
Oak was silent. But he remained on the line.
“Listen, I’m…I’m really sorry. About Aleks. About everything. I, uh…I wasn’t trying to dupe you or anything like that. Really. You have to believe me. I actually did have amnesia. I…I actually did think I was Aleks.”
“In your dreams, pal.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s actually not so far from the truth.”
They were both silent a moment before Step continued.
“I really didn’t know I was…that I was me. Until you showed me the tattoo. I swear to god, Oak. That was some sort of a…a psychological trigger. Everything suddenly fell together after that. It all made perfect sense. All the dream-memories I’ve been having. Everything.”
“Okay, Step. For the sake of argument, let’s say I believe you.”
Oak sighed heavily.
“Fuck, man. Aleks is fucking dead? This can’t be real.”
“Look… Whatever feelings you had when you thought I was Aleks and I told you Step was dead. Whatever you felt for Aleks then…I, uh…I hope you can feel some of that for me now.”
Oak was shamed. On the one hand, he knew Step was right. He should be extending the same condolences to this brother as he had to the other. On the other hand, he would never feel the attachment to Step he’d had with Aleks.
“Okay, Step, I hear ya. But you gotta bear with me, man. It’s gonna take time. Alpo and I…we were tight. Like twin brothers but without the twin thing. Y’know what I mean?”
Step didn’t know how to respond. He remained silent.
“So what now? You wanna make a claim on Aleks’s insurance?”
“I can think of two million reasons why I should.”
After a moment’s silence Oak said, “You’ve done your homework. Why don’t you come down to the office?”
“I can be there in an hour. Oh, and Oak. Pull Connie’s policy as well.”
“Huh? Why? Are you telling me...?”
“She was in the Tower with Aleks. Connie’s dead, too.”
“Lucky it was you who took care of paying the annual premiums,” Oak told Step as they sat in the large man’s Midtown office. “Aleks wasn’t so responsible. Easy to see him missing a payment. As it is…”
“As it is the premiums are up to date,” Step finished for him. “Do I understand correctly that both policies have a double indemnity clause?”
Oak sighed long and deeply. He was obviously struggling emotionally with the details of Aleks’s death.
“Uh, yes. That’s correct.”
He cleared his throat.
“Double indemnity on both policies. City coroner is cit
ing cause of death for all 9/11 victims as homicide. Homicide qualifies as an accident. Double indemnity clause applies.”
“I should hope a plane flying into an office building killing tenants qualifies as an accident,” Step sneered cynically.
The large ,,man cleared his throat again.
“So, uh, a million on, uh, on Aleks. Times two is two million. Plus five hundred thousand on Connie. Times two. That’s another million. For, uh, a grand total of three million dollars.”
He looked up, raised his eyebrows.
“Looks like you’re going to be a wealthy man, Step.”
They both knew Step would happily forgo the three million dollars if it would bring Aleks back. The million for Connie was all the windfall he could really accept with little remorse.
He wouldn’t be completely satisfied until the funds had been transferred into his bank account.
“When…?”
This time, it was Oak who cut Step off.
“When will you get your money?” the large man asked. “The good news is, the insurance industry has been very, very considerate with these 9/11 claims. Very obliging. Also, I can pull a few strings. Expedite matters. I should be able to have funds transferred to your bank account in ten to fourteen business days.”
Satisfied with his answer, Oak shuffled some papers into an orderly stack, leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his massive head.
Dissatisfied with his answer, Step said, “That’s not soon enough, Oak. What can you do to accelerate the process?”
Oak couldn’t believe the gall of his best friend’s brother. Step stood to pick up a check for three million dollars. With no income tax liability. He couldn’t wait two weeks?
Step stated his expectation.
“Look, we both know the longer your company can hold onto my money, the longer your company will hold onto my money. Especially a sum like three million dollars. I’d like my funds transferred by end of business this Friday.”
“Impossible, Step. That’s unreasonable. Totally unrealistic.”
Oak unclasped his hands, placed them on the edge of his desk, leaned forward.