Darwin's Nightmare (11 page)

The bullet hit him in the shoulder and put him on the ground. The bang was loud, but the offices were empty. No one would complain about the noise. I got out of the chair and moved around the desk. The sound of the shot had woken Gregor. He didn't make a sound when I kicked him in the temple; he just went limp and sagged to the floor again. His partner was still conscious as I picked him up off the floor. I took his fancy nickel-plated gun from his pants and pushed him over the desk so I could empty the rest of his pockets. Gum, cigarettes, a wallet, a knife, and a cell phone hit my desk in succession. I shoved the Russian back in his chair, grabbed a tea towel, and pressed it hard on the wound to get him to wake all the way up. His eyes focused, and we were back where we had started — minus a bit of his shoulder.

I sat back down behind the desk and put the Glock on the blotter. I didn't point it at him; I just let it sit casually.

“Now, what did you and Gregor want?” I asked. The edge in my voice told him I was serious. The hole in his shoulder proved it.

He stared at me, his eyes wide and shifting left to right. He was trying to think up a story.

“You've got thirty seconds to make me interested,
otherwise I'll kill you where you sit. Then I'll start talking with Gregor. Seeing you dead will more than convince him to tell me what I need to know. The way I see it, you have a choice: are you going to be more useful to me dead or alive?”

The eyes shifted wildly again like a person drowning thrashes for air. After twenty seconds, his shoulders relaxed; he was ready to feed me the split. Most people under duress give you a sixty-forty split — sixty percent bullshit, forty percent honesty. People figure it's just enough to save them but not enough to do any real harm. I picked up the gun to speed up the split.

“Okay, okay, shit,” he said in a voice that gained its base speaking an eastern language.

“Name, kid, then your boss.”

“My . . . my name is Igor. I work for Sergei Vidal.”

“Kid, you work for whoever gives you an order. Somebody else might sign the cheques, but your real boss is the one ordering you around. Now give me a local name and stop trying to impress me.”

I could tell that this wasn't where Igor wanted the conversation to go. He wanted me to be terrified of the name of his employer and leave town as fast as possible out of fear and good judgement. He didn't know that I had played the game longer and better than him. A fact that should have been evident, considering he ambushed me and he was the one who got shot.

“I don't know who is in charge, I find out through . . .”

The sentence trailed off as I picked up the gun. I was so tired of amateurs and bullshit. It was getting late in the evening, and I wanted sleep — not more work.

“Consider that strike two. No bullet for that, but strike three gets you ejected from the game. And when that happens Gregor will be the next at bat,” I said in a calm matter-of-fact voice.

Igor slackened in his chair while I waited patiently for the second split, the last split. “My boss . . . his name is Mikhail. He works in a private club on Barton.”

“What kind of club?” I asked.

“It's a social club, for cards and drinking.”

“Name of the bar, Igor. No bullshit this time.”

He looked at his feet then the left wall. He was looking at it hard like it might open up so that he could dash through to safety. His eyes were glistening. The kid was realizing he wasn't going to become a powerful gangster. He now understood that, because of what he had failed to do, he would end up dead, and that it would be his friends and co-workers who were going to kill him. It's a hard realization the first time you feel it.

“It's called the Kremlin,” he said in a low, quiet voice. It was the voice of a traitor.

I had a decision to make about what to do with Igor and Gregor. Killing them would be more trouble than it was worth. Disposing of bodies takes time, and it's hard to do unnoticed when you're in the heart of the city. There are too many people rushing out from each artery. Each person would bring with him complications I didn't need. Letting them go would be much easier; they were in too much trouble to stick around. They both fucked up. They didn't do their job, and they sold out their boss. They had to run far and quick before word was out.

“I'm going to the Kremlin, and I'm keeping your phone. If I find out you lied, I'm calling every number stored in the phone using your name to find out what I need to know.”

Igor's eyes were glistening. He had just grown up in five minutes, and it was taking its toll fast. He already looked older, weaker.

“I'm dead then,” he said.

“You're not dead yet, but you've got a hell of a head start. You better start running. Both of you. When I show up at the club, everyone will be looking for you two. So you better run fast and far.”

I watched Igor and Gregor help each other out of the office. I had their guns and a ruined rug. The blood on the rug was not a huge problem — in my line of work blood is a constant issue. Under the rug was a tarp cut to match its dimensions. I moved the chairs and rolled up the rug, pulling the tarp with it as a barrier. I used some duct tape to secure it and found a trash bag for the guns I took off the morons. Keeping guns is dumber than keeping a bloodstained rug. Guns have history, which can become your future for ten to twenty years if you get caught with one.

I stowed the shotgun in the closet and holstered the Glock behind my back. I also took the time to rifle through my desk for my credit cards. In the back of the drawer, stuck in the right-hand corner with a magnet, was a stack of clean credit cards and the item I was looking for.

Years ago I took a card off a small-time mugger. It looked like a platinum American Express card. In actuality it was a decorated piece of metal with a razored edge. The
mugger I pulled it from used it to stick up guys in the bathrooms of bars. Once, he happened to hustle the wrong guy, and I had to remedy the situation. I took the card and used it to make sure everyone would see his face coming the next time he tried a bathroom stickup.

I pocketed the card, picked up the carpet and the guns, and walked down the darkened stairs to the basement exit. The back doors had no handle on the outside, just a push bar on the inside. I exited, listening to the click behind me as the doors resealed the building. I dragged the rug to the corner of the alley. The uneven concrete had developed craters over the years; the deeper divots in the corner were full of dark filthy water long after the rainstorms ended. I found the largest puddle and rolled the carpet in. The dirt and grime in the water soaked into the shag and added pounds of weight instantly. I towed the carpet to the nearest Dumpster and leaned it up against the side. The rug would dry black, hiding all of the stains inside, and would be on its way to the dump with the building's trash soon after that. The guns in the bag could not be taken care of so easily. I decided to use the alleys to dispose of them one piece at a time. After ten minutes, I had dismantled, wiped, and disposed of the two Russians' pistols in several sewer grates.

I had to make a stop before I visited the Kremlin. My watch read 8:33 p.m. when I opened the door to the variety store I had been in a few hours earlier. The wind chime that served as a warning bell let the clerk know I was there. He was a different man than the one who had shot me dirty looks earlier. This one was a short Middle Eastern man with close-cropped black hair. He wore the hair without gel, and its health was evident in the way it fought gravity above his scalp. His short, neatly trimmed beard framed tight lips below a large pointy nose. I didn't
bother with a greeting. I moved through the aisles past jerky, corn nuts, cereal, and batteries until I finally found what I was looking for: a Trojan Magnum encased in shiny foil. I took the condom to the counter and bought it along with a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a lighter refill.

“Ho, ho. Big night, eh buddy?”

The smiling face across the counter beamed a conspiratorial wicked grin for three seconds, until it recognized that I wouldn't be replying. I gave him two bills and waited for my change. The clerk grumbled to himself about assholes and shitty jobs while he bagged up everything I bought. I took the bag and my change and walked out the door. The wind chime cheerily announced my departure; the angry man behind the register didn't bother with a goodbye.

I walked to the car and got in, leaving the engine off. I took out my groceries and used the plastic bag they came in as a trash bag. I tore the cellophane away from the cigarettes and opened the pack. I put a cigarette behind my ear and dumped the rest in the bag. I leaned across the passenger seat and rifled through the glove box for a Swiss Army knife I kept inside. I used the knife to work a small hole into the face of the empty cigarette pack. I tore the foil away from the Trojan and rolled the condom out. I used my finger to open the prophylactic up and then filled it tight with lighter fluid. I knotted the improvised balloon and then shoved into the cigarette package. The condom bulged at first, but I managed to work it into the confines of the empty package. I leaned across the seat and went into the glove box again. I found an old wet-nap from
KFC
inside, and used it to clean the condom lubrication and lighter fluid off my hands. The lemony smell of the disposable cloth erased some of the scent left by the lighter fluid. I stowed the cigarette pack in my pocket, put the remnants
of what I bought in the plastic bag, and opened the car door. I got out and walked to the nearest garbage can, threw the bag in, and got back into the car. Once my pistol was stowed in the glove box, I drove to the Kremlin.

It took less than ten minutes to drive from the office to the Kremlin. Barton Street was a concrete Rolodex through the city. Every neighbourhood was connected to the street. I followed it through the Italian, Vietnamese, and Polish neighbourhoods until I found the Kremlin. I parked at the curb across the street from the club and scanned the front of the building; it was long and rectangular with a small sign that read “Private” to the left of the entryway. The door was made of heavy metal and looked like it would withstand a police battering ram. The two windows on either side of the entrance were barred with heavy black metal rods. It was clear that I wasn't getting inside the building unless I was allowed through the front door. I got out of the car and crossed the street. As I walked, I took the unlit cigarette from behind my ear and put it in my mouth, then I moved the pack of cigarettes and lighter from my pocket to my right hand. There was no doorman out front, and I expected the door to be locked. I was surprised when I pulled the door and it swung out on well-oiled hinges.

I walked inside and had to blink quickly to adjust to the lack of light. Two men in suits approached; they were similar, almost like siblings, but the resemblance wasn't genetic — it was in the scars they carried. Their noses were flat, their eyes had an abundance of scar tissue, and their ears were cauliflowered. My eyes became used to the dark enough for me to see two bulges under their suits; they had guns — big guns.

The man on the left greeted me coldly with a deep, accented voice. “I'm sorry, sir, this is a private club. You must be leaving.”

His arm laced mine as the other man stepped behind me on my right. I didn't move. “Tell Mikhail there's someone here with business to discuss.”

“You will be leaving now.” The voice didn't rise in volume; it just mechanically repeated its command.

“Listen, I'm not moving. I'm going over to the bar and you're going to let Mikhail know that a friend of Igor's is here to see him. If he still doesn't want to see me, you can throw me out. I won't fight it.”

There was only a fraction-of-a-second pause before the man replied, “You must be checked.”

I sighed and put the cigarette pack and lighter on the nearest table. I held out my arms and waited while he patted me down. The search was thorough except for the fact that he left the cigarettes and lighter alone. The silent doorman never looked at me, nor did he look away; he had a sense of dreamy awareness.

After my search, the bodyguards went to inform Mikhail about my presence. I picked up my things and walked to the bar. I slapped the mahogany surface hard with my palm. “Vodka, comrade. Nothing cheap, either. Mother Russia's finest,” I demanded in a happy tone. I wanted these men to think I was a joke — pushing them with North American ignorance would help.

The bartender killed me twice with his eyes, but he fetched the drink with robotic efficiency. Moments later, I heard the quiet footsteps of the returning doormen and watched them, out of the corner of my eye, take seats at a table ten feet from me. Their distance and looks of disgust meant I was about to meet Mikhail.

After a minute, I was joined at the bar by a sandy-haired man in his early forties. He sat lower than me on the bar stool. I estimated he was about five-eight. He seemed fit, and there was a U-shaped scar under his right
eye. He had been a fighter once. The signs never left.

“Who are you?” Mikhail's voice had no accent but it seemed to command respect.

“You sent two boys to kill me earlier. I want to talk about it.”

If my words hit a nerve or shocked Mikhail, he didn't show it. He turned his head slightly and looked closely at me. I put the cigarette pack on the bar and lit the only remaining cigarette.

“Was it the
boys
who told you to come here?” Mikhail put some edge on the word
boys;
the edge told me they would be dead by morning.

“I want to know why I'm on your radar, and I want to know how to work this problem out,” I said.

“It is very admirable of you to try and parlay peace, but it is in vain. You were stupid to come here. All you have saved is the cost of the gas it would have taken to find you again.”

Mikhail had confirmed I was on his shit list, and that I needed to get higher up the on the food chain before I could bargain. “Call Sergei and ask him what he thinks. See if my being here, and the fact that I'm not dead yet, changes anything. If not, I'll pay up, and we can settle this now.”