Binah was meowing at the door as I fumbled with my keys. She leaped into my arms from the floor as I went inside, scrabbling around my face until she hung over my shoulder. I let her stay there while I got the tools I needed. Rope, chloroform, a clean kitchen rag. When it was time to go, I set her down in the kitchen and rubbed her ears. She watched me with her big silver eyes while I filled up two bowls of chow and a big dish of water, and left the window ajar. It wouldn’t be too easy for her to open it up, but if I didn’t come home, she had enough time to figure her way outside. If she had a bit of me in her, she’d do alright out there in the city as long as she could stay ahead of the pound.
I emerged into a brooding summer wind. The change had come and turned the sky dark, and the storm wind whipped the collar of my shirt with gusts of salty, metallic-smelling air. I set my tools down on the passenger seat and made a token effort at concealment with the towel. The trunk of my car was always lined with fresh garden plastic for occasions like this. Kidnappings, body transport, scene cleanup… the hardware store carried all the things any gas man needed for his day-to-day business.
The safe house on 14b Grove Street was deliberately unassuming, indistinguishable from the many small row houses that crowded this part of Brooklyn. I parked outside in the No Standing zone, the closest place to the door. No one was outside. I carried my pistol down low, out of sight, and knocked with the other fist. My hands were sweating in my gloves, but my mind was ticking over like a slick engine while I ran through the many variables this snatch-and-run likely entailed. Vincent would have two guys guarding him here. They usually used a girl to answer the door, but this time, no one answered. I rapped the door again, twitchy, and looked up and down the cracked asphalt of the street. Crows called lustily out towards the rising moon, but there was no warning amongst them, no agitation. No one answered this time, either, so I holstered my gun and tried the door. Naturally, it was unlocked.
Cautiously, I slunk into the entry and down the narrow hall. Two guys I recognized from the AEROMOR Dockers Union were crumpled on the floor of the living room, handcuffed to the radiator. A golf club had been thrown carelessly from them, not far away. I crouched to look at them: they were both breathing, but one guy’s hair was matted with blood. When I pushed it back, I found a lump the size of a tennis ball.
A notebook had been left in the middle of the rumpled sofa bed, a comp book just like the one I’d found at Vincent’s house. I thumbed it open at a dog-eared page and read through it without expression.
“I know he’s coming for me no matter what. I spent too long fighting to become who I am, and I’m not gonna lose it all on my family’s altar. Count me out. I’d rather get fucked in the ass than stay on this sinking ship. Carmine doesn’t have a reason to chase me anymore. Sorry.”
I threw it before I realized I’d done it. The book hit the wall with a sharp bang and bounced to land on one of the muzhiki. He groaned, shifting on the floor as I stalked out, slamming the front door behind me on the way to the car.
There was only one option left to me.
If I added driving time, I had two and a half hours to spare before I needed to be at Woodbridge. At home, I shaved, changed clothes, and added weapons more easily concealed to my outfit. A garrote, knives. I kept the gun—they’d take it off me, and that was fine. I considered Kevlar but decided against it. I ate a bowl of kasha, the universal comfort food of Eastern Europe, and spent half an hour in meditation. And then I left my home again, for the last time, driving towards the ocean with a cold heart and a hot stomach. My mind was buzzing and blank as I passed through the tollway and burst across the bridge towards New Jersey.
When I pulled into the lot where the exchange was meant to take place, I still had forty-five minutes to spare. A single pickup was waiting for me. He flashed his lights, and I flashed mine and then turned the engine off. The pickup door opened, and my chest knotted and braced, muscles armoring with tension. It wasn’t a go-between that stepped out: it was Vassily, clambering down and shuffling out from the side of the car with a grimace of pain. From where I sat, I couldn’t see the driver.
I wasn’t incautious enough to open the door, so instead, I rolled the window halfway as Vassily approached. He looked exhausted, his eyes ringed by huge bruises, his skin clammy and pale. He had a new gunshot injury, a torn sleeve where a bullet had skimmed him. Otherwise, he looked remarkably normal for a man who had been kidnapped after the brutal murder of his sister.
“I knew you’d come.” The relief was plain in his voice. “Where’s Vincent? The driver says I can walk if you send him out across the lot.”
“Vincent ran.” My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. “He’s not a Wise Virgin any more, but you need to tell them that I can do it. I’m what they need. I’ll trade myself if they let you drive away.”
Vassily nodded, as if in a daze. He straightened, swayed, then turned and limped his way back across the lot. I watched his slightly bowlegged swagger from behind, drew my gun under the shelter of the dash, and prayed to God, or GOD, that my aim was true.
Vassily leaned across the seat and spoke to the unseen driver in the cab. He couldn’t be the only one there, watching the trade take place. I looked around through my windshield and windows but couldn’t pick out anything in the gloom. As the conversation dragged on, I found myself wondering: was Vassily complying so readily because he had a backup plan or because deep down, he was as mercenary as every other gangster in New York?
In the distance, he turned and motioned with his hand. I exhaled heavily, undid my seat belt, and stepped out. I left the gun behind. In my mind, the word of power I’d been working to master and its sigil repeated itself over and over again. Chet. Chet. The shield. I could deflect gunfire for the precious seconds it took to throw Vassily down and get cover.
Vassily started towards me as I walked forward. On seeing his expression, my gut froze solid. He was… nonchalant. My intuition picked at me, but it gave no definite answer as we closed the distance and Vassily slowed.
“Vassily… do you know these guys killed Mari?” I said, quietly.
“What?” Up close, I saw his eyes. They were very red-rimmed and very dark, like he’d been snorting coke. “Don’t do anything dumb, okay? Come here for a sec.”
“Vassily?” I swallowed as instinct beat at the walls of my mind like an indigo velvet hammer. I flushed with adrenaline and stopped in place. “Vassily, I don’t—”
He abruptly closed the distance between us, and before I could react, he ducked his face down and kissed me soundly on the mouth. I shoved him away and inhaled sharply with shock—and as I did, a mingled sweet, acrid smell flooded my nose, my sinuses, pushing tentacles up behind my eyes and deep into my brain. I lost control of my limbs, and I barely had a second to register the coldness of Vassily’s lips before my vision darkened and I slumped bonelessly to the ground at his feet.
Chapter 22
I roused into a sleepwalk, the body shambling while the mind was trapped within a tight crystal cage. Disembodied, I watched from a distance behind my eyes as a mustachioed man walked up to the pair of us and ordered us forward.