Every Man a Menace (16 page)

“Give him the money,” said the deep voice.

“Okay,” said Semion. “No problem.”

He walked toward the truck. The window slid down, and Semion ducked his head to look in. He was surprised to see two men wearing beige stockings over their faces. They looked like street robbers. They were big, fat, and appeared to be white. They wore faded T-shirts and had blurred tattoos on their arms. The one in the passenger seat raised his hand and pointed a gun at Semion’s head.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the bag with his other hand. Once he’d brought it inside the truck he lowered the gun, and
Semion stepped back. The truck moved forward, stopped for a moment, and then pulled away.

“I gave him the money,” Semion said, staring after it.

“Good,” said the deep voice. The line went dead. Semion lowered his phone, still watching the truck.

“They took it,” he said, when it had pulled out of sight.

“Good,” said Mr. Hong. “We’ll call you.” Then his line went dead, too.

Two hours later, back in his apartment, Semion felt his phone ring.

“We got them,” said Mr. Hong, when he picked up.

“Who?”

“The people who set you up,” said Mr. Hong. “Meet us at your club. I’ll show you.” He sounded almost jovial.

Semion found them at the back entrance. There was a large black Suburban parked near the door; he parked next to it, and got out. It was 11:42 a.m. Nobody was around.

The passenger door of the SUV opened, and Mr. Hong stepped out with a plastic smile on his face.

“I told you,” he said to Semion.

Four other Chinese men emerged from the car. Semion had never seen them before. He felt a fresh wave of fear. They smiled at Semion, gave little nods. They were dressed casually, in button-up shirts and pants. Semion’s eyes went back to Mr. Hong.

“So,” the man said, pointing his thumb toward the back of the vehicle. “We have something for you.”

He said something in Chinese. One of the men stepped toward the car’s back door. It struck Semion then that he didn’t know what he’d been expecting to see. Had he thought the bag of money would be sitting there? The two men from the pickup truck? The moment unfolded slowly. In the seconds that passed between Mr. Hong speaking and his partner opening the door, Semion managed a quick self-inventory:
body hot, back aching, armpits wet, mouth dry.
He breathed in, then exhaled.
Control,
he told himself.

The man opened the door. On the floor of the car, silver duct tape over her mouth, was Vanya. Next to her was the canvas bag, presumably with Semion’s money in it.

Semion stared. Their eyes locked for a moment. Competing emotions fought in his chest.

“We got her for you,” said Mr. Hong. “You can do whatever you’d like.”

Semion felt a wave of revulsion. He looked at Mr. Hong. The man’s smile faded. He raised his eyebrows and nodded toward the door of the club.

“What about the men in the truck?” asked Semion.

“They tried to put up a fight,” said Mr. Hong.

Semion looked back at Vanya. She blinked her eyes three times, and instantly he understood what she was trying to express:
I love you.
She could explain, he knew. There had to be an explanation. He stepped forward and pulled the tape from her mouth.

“Fuck you,” she said. “What, did you think you were going to save me?” She took a breath, prepared for more. “Did you think I loved you?” she asked, staring into his eyes. “Fucking worm.” The bloody bed came into Semion’s mind.
Her accent was gone; she spoke like an American. She was an American. There was nothing Brazilian about her. He understood, only then, that she hated him. The star-shaped scar on her forehead felt like a reminder of all the ugliness in the world.

“You can’t hurt me,” she said. “You’re too much of a coward.” The words were sharp, but there was a pleading quality to the way she spoke. “You don’t exist,” she said. “You’re nothing.”

Semion forced himself to smile. It was a fake smile, an ugly rictus. His stomach filled with shame. He badly wanted to be done with this business. He wanted to hide in his bed.

“Let her go,” he said.

Mr. Hong put his hand on Semion’s shoulder. “We can take care of her,” he said. “Nobody will ever find her.”

“No,” said Semion. “Let her go.” He felt like the parking lot was spinning.

“It’s not the way we do things,” Mr. Hong said. “Loose ends.”

“I’m telling you to let her go,” Semion said. “If you want us working with you, you’ll do it.”

Without waiting for Mr. Hong’s reply, he leaned into the SUV to pull the tape from Vanya’s arms. His head was near her hair. Involuntarily, he smelled her familiar scent.

“Turn around,” he said. She shifted in her seat, and Semion dug his fingers beneath the silver tape. She scooted away from him when he’d removed it, and rubbed her wrists against each other. She looked like a different person. Her face looked transformed.

“Can I go?” she asked, looking at Mr. Hong.

Mr. Hong—looking tired—held his palm toward Semion.

“Go,” said Semion.

She pushed herself out of the SUV and ran across the parking lot. She didn’t look back.

Mr. Hong appeared to be embarrassed. Semion wanted to say something, but speaking seemed too difficult. He busied himself by scratching at his jaw like something was stuck on it, and squinting at the club like there was work waiting for him there.

“Take your money,” Mr. Hong said.

Semion fell into a depression after that. His days and nights were filled with a panicked feeling. Two days after freeing Vanya, unable to face seeing him in person, he called Isaak on the phone.

“I’ve had a change of heart,” he said. “The deal is off.” He couldn’t allow them to continue to do business with Mr. Hong and his men, he said.

Isaak didn’t argue. All he said was, “Whatever you want.”

Semion’s eyes filled with tears. The gratitude he felt toward his friend was immeasurable. They would make it through this.

He drank screwdrivers and watched TV. He ordered takeout and ate it joylessly. In an effort to curb his anxiety, he masturbated. He considered committing suicide, imagined the gun in his hand, the grip, the weight. He stood on his balcony and looked at the sea. He thought about what he’d tell Mr. Hong.
I’m sorry. It’s time to part ways. Business is business.

At night he dreamed about a jungle. In the dream he watched a skinny Asian man trap a turtle. The man kept
poking at the thing with a stick. After a minute, the turtle snapped at the stick, and the man trapped its head and cut it off. Then he hung the thing upside down from a tree and let it bleed out. Semion kept asking him what he was doing, but the man wouldn’t answer. Semion watched as the man removed the shell, cutting off the bottom plate to reveal the pink insides. He cut off the legs and neck; he removed the skin and yellow fat. He put all the good meat into a pot and set it down on the ground. Semion woke up covered in sweat.

At one point, he drunkenly called Vanya’s old number. A generic message declared that the person he was trying to reach was unavailable. What could he have said?
I’m sorry. I’m ugly inside. I’m depressed. I forgive you.
He didn’t even know who she was.

The next day, as the sun was setting, Semion’s doorbell rang. It took him a second, looking through the peephole, to realize that it wasn’t Isaak—that the man standing there, who looked somewhat like a shaved-headed version of his friend, was in fact Moisey Segal, their man in Bangkok.
What the fuck is Moisey doing here?
Semion thought. He was never supposed to come Miami, never even supposed to communicate with them. He was meant to stay in Bangkok.

Moisey had a suitcase next to him. He smiled, warmly.

Semion opened the door.

At that moment, three thousand miles away, Raymond Gaspar was busy watching a handball game. Hundreds of men milled about in the prison yard.

“Come on, Tully,” yelled the man standing next to him.

Raymond spat on the ground. He looked at his wrist for a moment, at the place where a watch would have been. In his mind, he calculated the days until his release: twenty-three.
Not gonna miss you guys,
he thought.

He thought about the women he’d chase when he got out. It had been a long time since he’d lain down with a soft body. There was a girl named Emily he’d like to talk to.
Get me some Mexican food, pizza, burgers, fuckin’ Chinese.
He imagined driving a car. Looking at the ocean. Then he remembered he had to remind Arthur that his release date was coming up.

Seventy-two miles to the south, in San Francisco, Shadrack Pullman sat at the Bernal Heights public library. He liked to go there and surf the web. His bag, filled with gemstones, rested between his feet. He was reading a libertarian website, something about the United States Postal Service. There were a few different sites he liked to visit. He looked around to see if anybody was watching, then brushed his hair back with both hands and turned his attention back to the computer.

Shadrack’s partner, John Holland, was stopping by a liquor store he owned on Third Street. The clerk saw him come in and asked if he’d seen the 49ers game.

“Yeah, I saw it,” said John, shaking his head. “I saw it.”

In Daly City, Gloria Ocampo was busy changing her grandson’s diaper. She made cooing noises and sang a song into his little face:
You’re my baby, my little baby.

On the other side of the world, in Thailand, Fariq—the Malaysian man who made sure the drugs were placed in bags of squid, frozen, and packed into refrigerated shipping containers—was sleeping in his bed. He was dreaming about
a boyhood friend of his chasing him through some tall grass. It was a happy dream.

In Bangkok, Eugene Nana, suffering from insomnia, sat in his living room and watched the financial news on television. His stocks were performing well, but he wanted them to do better. His wife was snoring quietly.

In Myanmar, a Chinese man named Zhou Qiang was just waking up. He was the chemist who cooked the drugs for the Burmese. He had a busy day ahead, and he liked to walk to the river and back before he started work.

In Cambodia, meanwhile, in Koh Kong City, a man named Sang Munny was trying to drink himself into oblivion. He’d been singing karaoke all night. He sang love songs. He had come to the bar alone, but he sang for his boss. He sang for his mother. He sang for his father and his brother. He sang for the turtles, the chickens, the pigs, and the ants.

Part 3

Five days before he went to Miami, Moisey Segal found himself sitting alone in the living room of his Bangkok apartment, slumped over shirtless on his couch. He was feeling lonely and scanning through a grid of male faces on his iPhone. One face caught his attention: the man’s name was Thong Kon. His picture made him look like a schoolboy. He wore a white button-up shirt with a loose blue plaid tie and a baseball cap. His face, lit by the sun, made it look like he was about to tell a joke. His profile header read: Lump of Gold. The app said he was within a kilometer. Moisey stared at the picture for a few moments, hoping the boy wasn’t a prostitute, then hit the Chat icon.

Mo-Mo33: English?

Lump of Gold: Speak English. Ya!

Mo-Mo33: You 2 handsome for me.

Lump of Gold: Ha ha.

Mo-Mo33: Are you really 24?

Lump of Gold: Plus eight months!! Too old soon!! Ha ha.

Mo-Mo33: I like you just the way you are.

Lump of Gold: How pretty!

Mo-Mo33: Do you want to have a drink?

Lump of Gold: So happy to drink with you!

They decided to meet right then. Moisey lived in an apartment on Pan Road, in the Silom district; Thong Kon suggested they eat before drinking, and told Moisey to meet him at the chicken and rice stand outside Wat Khaek.
I wear a pink T-shirt,
he wrote.

It was a twenty-minute walk from Moisey’s house. He decided not to take a motorcycle taxi, even though a cluster of orange-vested drivers stood gossiping on his corner. Sex addiction notwithstanding, Moisey was a romantic; he wanted to savor the moment. In his mind, he’d already upgraded Thong Kon from casual hookup to boyfriend.

The streets were overloaded with people, as always. The ground itself changed every few steps, from tile to broken concrete and back. Electrical wires crisscrossed above his head, and carts with food sizzling on flat metal grates lined his path. Every inch of every wall seemed covered in airconditioning units, vents, pipes. He bought a pineapple juice from his favorite juice girl and paused to drink the whole thing before returning the bottle to her. She accepted it and stared over his shoulder without ever meeting his eyes. A homeless woman sitting on the ground held her hands cupped together like he might fill them with water. He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

When Moisey arrived at the chicken stand he saw Thong Kon waiting there already. The boy looked poor; he was skinny, almost malnourished. More than that, he seemed dirty. His shirt, though admittedly pink, appeared dusty and brown, as though he’d been working in front of a furnace.
He made a funny face when he saw Moisey, then walked to him and greeted him in the Thai way—palms pressed and head bowed.

“Mazzy?” he said.

“Moisey.”

“Moi-zee,” repeated Thong Kon. The men shook hands—his were clammy, Moisey’s dry—and laughed. Thong Kon guided them to a plastic table.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

“Little bit,” said Moisey.

The younger man called something out in Thai to the cook, a skinny old woman with a grimace on her face. Moisey didn’t speak much Thai, but he understood the words:
two chicken.

They sat across from each other. Thong Kon scratched at the area under his Adam’s apple. “Australian?” he said.

“Israel,” said Moisey. “Israeli.”

“Ahhh, I want to go there. Beautiful, historic land,” said Thong Kon. “I know it.”

Moisey asked him where he’d learned to speak English.