Enforcer (21 page)

“I would prefer that you gentlemen conclude your business outside of my office,” Ojacarcu said. “I have work to do.”

Petre and Vadim dragged Connor backwards to the office door, Petre reaching behind him to work the doorknob. Once out in the hall, they forced Connor down the hall to the service elevator, one that required an electronic key to access. They took the elevator down to the restricted sub-basement parking level, where the Lincolns and two limos were kept.

Petre and Vadim pulled him along for a few feet before stopping. Dracul stepped up, smiled, and began to drive his fists into Connor’s midsection repeatedly. To Connor, it seemed to go on forever. Eventually he realized that he was lying on the pavement, the side of his face lodged in a pile of bloody vomit. Every breath he took in felt like someone had used a hacksaw to cut through his abdominal muscles.

After Dracul stopped beating Connor and walked back to the elevator, Petre knelt down next to his friend. Vadim stood between Connor and the elevator, unsure of what to do. He liked the kid, and he knew Petre did as well, but no one said
no
to the boss. Not unless they wanted to end up where Connor was.

“I am sorry, Connor,” Petre said to him. “I do not like this, but you have brought this on yourself. I warned you.”

“Fuck you,” Connor spit at him.

“I told you she was trouble. She is now trouble. For you.” Petre shook his head. “Now trouble for me and for Vadim. We do not enjoy this, but we must do it. For your sake.”

“Fuck you,” Connor croaked again. “She’s not property.” He coughed and gagged, lifting his face just enough to throw up again.

“It is not for us to say. It is for Mr. Ojacarcu to say.”

“Bullshit.”

No one said anything for a few minutes while Connor tried to get the pain under control enough to stand. Dracul’s fists had damaged him more than any hockey fight he’d ever been in. He wondered if he needed to go to the hospital. Petre and Vadim helped him up when he was finally able to stand. He could barely stumble to the elevator, and had to be helped into the bathroom when they reached the lobby level.

Vadim stood next to him while he tried to clean his face off in the sink. The man said nothing, but glanced at Connor every few seconds. Connor wasn’t sure if Vadim was feeling guilty, or watching him carefully in case he tried to attack. He cleaned himself up as much as he could then washed his mouth out, only partially getting rid of the taste of stomach acid and blood.

When he came out of the bathroom, Vadim behind him, Petre was still standing guard at the door. He motioned Connor to follow him. Connor almost bolted in the other direction, but in his condition, he wouldn’t have made it ten steps before either of the Romanians caught him. If he was being taken somewhere to be beaten again, he didn’t want to get any extra added on for trying to escape.

Petre led him back to the elevator, and the three of them rode it down to the sub-basement in silence. As the door opened, Connor braced himself to be dragged back along the concrete wall and attacked again. Petre exited the elevator and walked to one of the Lincolns. He opened the passenger door and looked back at Connor. Connor finally got his feet moving, now dreading being taken to the landfill instead of just getting another beating.

“I will take you home,” Petre said.

Connor looked back at Vadim. Vadim stared at him with a blank face. He sighed and decided if he was going to die, he would try to take one of them with him instead of being strangled like a dog and thrown into an incinerator. He walked to the Lincoln and got in. When Vadim didn’t follow, he felt a little better. It always took two of them to kill someone, just in case anything went wrong.

*****

“Connor,” Petre said as they pulled up to his apartment. “She is not here.”

“What do you mean she isn’t here?” Connor asked.

“When I come for you earlier, Pavel and Ovidiu comes for her after,” Petre said.

“I’m not even going to correct you, asshole. She better be in there is all I will say.”

“Please, Connor. You are my friend. Do not say this. Forget it. This is more trouble.”

“Man, fuck you once and for all,” Connor said, turning toward Petre. “How can you be my friend? You fucking held me down while that motherfucker hit me enough to make me puke blood. And now you tell me that you guys kidnapped her from my apartment while I was getting my guts pulverized?”

“Listen to me. I am your friend. Dracul, he wants to hurt you. More than he has tonight. Mr. Ojacarcu, he does not want this. You are too valuable playing hockey and collecting payments. I do what I have to tonight to not end up in trouble. It is different for me if I disobey. Mr. Ojacarcu knows about Ilinca. My disobey of Mr. Rohozeanu follows me.

“This woman, you must listen. She is trouble. You have found out now how much trouble. Mr. Ojacarcu, he will remember this disrespect from you, but he will forgive it for you. But if you make more trouble, he will remove his forgiveness. This woman is not worth it. You are young, smart, you are good at hockey. You are good with sexing ladies. This woman will steal all of it from you. Mr. Ojacarcu cannot be threatened. Cannot be crossed again.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Just let Jera be taken and put into service as a whore for Ojacarcu now? And I’m supposed to be happy for her now that she won’t get beaten up by the men she has to fuck?”

“Why do you care so much?” Petre yelled at him. “Why? What is this woman? Does she have pizda made of gold?”

“A what?” Connor asked.

“A pizda! A pussy! Is lined with diamonds? Why will you not forget her?”

“I haven’t slept with her, and I don’t want to. But I can’t let go that she’s a human being, not someone’s slave. I get it that you sick bastards like to entice young Russian and Eastern European girls here with promises of acting or modeling jobs, only to lock them into prostitution until they are dead of a drug overdose. But not this one. She’s not yours. You can’t have her.”

Petre shook his head. “But Mr. Ojacarcu already has her. You can do nothing for her except hurt her. Dracul will hurt her to hurt you. He is sure you are fucking her. I am sure. Everyone is. Why would you take her from this junkie?”

“I’m not fucking her!” Connor shouted. “And why did you help me at the Gas-Mart when I paid off the manager?”

“Because I help my friend. I see you are not going to give up, so I help out. You are my friend. I know you are asking for trouble, but it is your trouble. Now you see. Now I feel bad for helping you find trouble.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Connor said, disgusted with everything.

“I am sorry.”

“Stop saying you’re sorry. I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

“Then go find a good woman. Forget this Jera. She belongs to Mr. Ojacarcu. I cannot help you anymore if you do not stop with her.”

“Whatever, man,” Connor said. He opened the door and stepped out into the frigid night.

He didn’t look back as he walked to his apartment door. The key clicked in the lock and he held his breath as he opened the door, part of him afraid Dracul would be waiting in the dark to hurt him again, part of him hopeful that Jera would still be waiting inside. Neither happened. He sat down in his recliner to zone out on the late game going on in San Jose, trying to figure out why he couldn’t forget about Jera.

*****

Connor walked into the coffee shop, stopping for a moment just inside the door. Dana looked up at him before quickly turning away to make another drink. He walked to the counter, where Alice rang him up without saying a word. She looked unhappy, shifting from her cheery smile for customers to a dark glare for Connor. He said nothing, but left her a twenty dollar tip in the jar.

He stood at the serving counter, silently watching Dana in her efficient routine of handling five or six drink orders at once. He’d spent plenty of time on previous visits holding a conversation with her while she worked, but today she refused to talk to him. When she placed his coffee on the counter, he reached up before she could remove her hand and put his over the top of hers.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“I get off at one,” she said, turning to continue her tasks.

He wasn’t sure what he would do all morning until then. His apartment felt empty and full of gloom. No Jera, no Dana. Again with Jera, he thought. He was still pissed that Ojacarcu had ordered his boys to grab her and put her to work for him. Petre had told him that a lot of times the girls would be sent to large cities like Seattle or Dallas, places that were much larger than Boise and had demand for working girls. The Treasure Valley area was just under a million people, and it had minuscule amounts of the crime and vice compared to larger cities.

Connor wandered around the shopping center for a while, then headed across the street to another strip mall that had a bookstore in it. He lounged around for a while, reading a new Stephen King novel, his mind barely able to concentrate on the printed words. All he seemed to be able to think about was Dana. And Jera.

Dana, because he wanted to patch things up with her. Jera, because he was sure she was already pressed down into a mattress by some sweaty, pious, church-going bigot, the kind who railed against homosexuality or prostitution while spending his free time engaging in one or the other. Petre was right, she was nothing but trouble. He’d had blood in his urine this morning, and he was sure as soon as he had a bowel movement, it would contain an unhealthy amount of blood as well.

At ten minutes to one, he wandered back across the street and sat down inside the coffee shop. Dana came out of the back room a few minutes after one, pausing long enough near Connor to hint to him that she was ready to leave. Alice gave him a small wave with a half-smile as he turned to follow Dana out. They walked to her car and got in without saying anything.

“What?” Dana finally asked as they waited for the car’s heater to do more than blow freezing air around.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

“Talk. Unless it’s going to get me killed.”

“Okay, I deserve that,” he said. “She’s gone.”

“Just like that? What did you do with her?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“This is the part where I’m supposed to say no,” she said, sounding miserable. “But instead, of course I’m going to say yes, I want to know.”

“Ojacarcu now owns her,” Connor said, trying to look her in the eye but failing.

“Oh my God. Owns, as in she’s his property? She now whores for your boss?”

“Yeah,” was all he could say.

“How the hell does this shit happen? Someone really needs to go to the police.”

“She called her dirtbag boyfriend from the neighbor’s apartment. Dirtbag called Ojacarcu and claimed I stole her, kidnapped her from him. Ojacarcu figures since this loser still owes him money, and this piece of shit is already pimping Jera out to everyone and anyone, she now has to work for the boss.”

“And so,” Dana asked, “just like that, she changes hands and doesn’t have a say?”

“Pretty much.”

“And what happened to you?”

“Well, whenever I piss, it’s red, and whenever I take a shit, I think it is going to be full of blood.” He raised his coat and shirt to let her see the mass of purple and yellow bruises on his stomach.

“Oh my God, Connor,” Dana said, trying to hold back tears. “You have to get away from these people! They’re going to kill you.”

“I can’t. I’m stuck for now.” He shook his head, knowing he’d made his own bed.

“What do you want from me then? I don’t want to get involved in any of this. I’m sorry. I really like you, but this is insane. I don’t need this kind of drama or excitement in my life.”

“I don’t want you to do anything except just be my girlfriend. That way you have every right to snoop around, get in my business, ask questions, and get pissed when I do dumb shit. But I’m going to try and do as little as I can for Ojacarcu. I won’t be able to get out of it completely, not unless I get injured badly again. I’m not really looking for that to happen though.”

“I… I want to. But this is too messed up. I don’t want to end up with a gangster kicking down my door and slitting my throat, or forcing me to be a prostitute,” Dana said, shaking her head.

“That won’t happen. I promise. You’ll be as far away from all of that as possible. We don’t have to go anywhere near the arena together, downtown, even my apartment. We won’t be seen together by anyone who matters.”

“The problem with that is I’ll be as close to it as ever, since you are right in the middle of it,” she countered.

Connor reached out, grabbing her hand, expecting her to jerk it back. When she didn’t, he held it with both of his hands. “We’ll be okay. The hockey season is almost over, especially if we don’t make the playoffs. I get some vacation time in the summer. I have some money saved up. We can go somewhere else for a while, if you can get time off. If you want to go.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, squeezing his hand. “But no promises. I’m worried to death for you already. I want to be with you. But not to get into your business or snoop around. I don’t even want to ask questions anymore. I want to be able to get pissed when you do dumb shit, though.”