Contents (109)
- Contents
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
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- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- 57
- 58
- 59
- 60
- 61
- 62
- 63
- 64
- 65
- 66
- 67
- 68
- 69
- 70
- 71
- 72
- 73
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- 75
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- 77
- 78
- 79
- 80
- 81
- 82
- 83
- 84
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- 86
- 87
- 88
- 89
- 90
- 91
- 92
- 93
- 94
- 95
- 96
- 97
- 98
- 99
- The South of France
- Author’s Note
- Reading Group Guide
- A Conversation with the Author
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
I had done it. Made the calls. It was enough. Smith would be proud of me. Now, I waited to see if they’d produce anything. I doubted they would.
83
The financial district is closed up, everything quiet at 2:00 a.m.
The Russian drags on a cigarette as he heads down Water Street to the arranged meeting.
The middleman has asked to see him. Why, after two jobs where they had never met? A trap? Probably. He had done his job and now they were finished with him. He has dealt with such men before and is ready, but he wants to see what he might get out of the middleman first, like who he is working for, thoughts of vengeance buzzing in his head like a hive of killer bees.
The neighborhood is practically deserted at this time of night, but the Russian’s fine-tuned radar picks up the grinding sound of a garbage truck, a distant siren, a foghorn on the river. He angles furtive looks one way, then the other, his hand toying with the knife in his pocket.
At Broad Street, he turns east toward the river.
A bar, Street Angel, open all night, the only one in the neighborhood, you can’t miss it.
And there it is, the bar’s neon sign blinking like a warning in the dark.
The Russian is less than a half block away when two men come out of nowhere, one in front, one behind, and drag him into an alley. He is prepared for the attack but not for the buzz on his neck and his body going spastic, though he manages to knock the Taser from the guy’s hand, then sees the other guy has a gun. Muscles convulsing, he grabs hold of the silencer’s long barrel, but the man fires, the bullet grazing the fleshy edge of the Russian’s palm, but he doesn’t let go, gets the knife from his pocket, jabs the guy in the gut. But the other one, the one with the Taser, is up again. The Russian punches him, then charges, all two hundred and fifty pounds of him knocking the guy to the ground. Landing on top of his assailant, he gets hold of the gun and presses it to the guy’s temple, says, “So…you…are…the man…I have been…taking orders from.”
The guy beneath him groans, “Nooo…I was hired by him…” He angles his chin toward the other man, the one on the ground who’s been stabbed. “I don’t know shit! I’m no one!”
“Agreed,” the Russian says, shoots him in the head, rolls off, gets to his feet and, despite still-twitching muscles, aims his gun at the man on the ground, the one trying to stanch the knife wound in his gut.
“Who do you work for? Who sent you to kill me?”
“I…just do as I’m told…like you. Follow orders.”
The Russian grins, baring his short, discolored teeth. “You have a choice, my friend. In five seconds, I start shooting off fingers and toes, or you tell me what I want and I walk away.”