“White gold,” Rocco said.
“Platinum.”
“I thought white gold and platinum were the same thing, just different colors.” This from KC.
“Different elements,” said Jerry Two. “Platinum is heaver.”
“No it ain't, zipper-head. Gold is.”
“Platinum. That's why it's more, you know, pricier.”
The tallest of the men, the guy who stood in the middle, smiled at me. Dark hair, dark eyes, five o-clock shadow coming in strong even though he smelled like aftershave. He had something on his front tooth. A diamond.
“Mr. Dombrowski,” he said. His accent was Russian. “May we have a word with you?”
“You know how to tell a fake Rolex?” Jerry One. “If it's got a ticking second hand. The real thing sweeps, don't tick.”
“Another dead giveaway is the plastic band with Fred Flintstone on the face,” said Rocko.
Titters from the Foursome. I rubbed the pen drive recorder in my hand, and still couldn't figure out what exactly was going on here. Were these the Chicago cops Kelley mentioned?
“You guys were at the fight,” I said. Seemed like a smart thing to say. “Ringside.”
“Yes. Your performance was…” he smiled, the diamond glinting blue from the neon beer sign, “acceptable. Now can we have a word?” His eyes flitted over to the Foursome, then back to me. “In private?”
In between fights, I made my living as a counselor. Over the years I got pretty good at reading people. These three didn't look like cops, sound like cops, or act like cops. But their expensive suits had bulges under their left armpits, which meant concealed weapons, and Kelley did insist I say yes to them. So I nodded, finished my beer, and stood up.
The trip wasn't a long one. I followed them over to their table.
“Please, Mr. Dombrowski. Sit.”
“I'd rather stand.”
Bling Tooth made a dismissive gesture, but he and his buddies stayed standing too.
“You put on a pretty good show tonight,” he said. His accent seemed to get thicker. “Your opponent, however… the show he put on was much better.”
I waited, not liking where this was going, but not jumping to conclusions.
“We paid him ten thousand dollars to put on that show.”
I felt the burn coming up my neck, to my ears. I'd gone eight rounds with the fat guy, but all of my energy had suddenly returned, tenfold. It all clicked what Kelley wanted from me, but I couldn't hold back the anger and my fists clenched involuntarily, which probably wouldn't be good for the voice recorder in my palm.
“I've heard the rumors,” I said, making sure my rage wasn't in my voice. “New guys in town. Russians. Paying fighters to take falls. But the guy tonight, he hit back. Hard. I know him from the circuit. He's legit. You're telling me you owned him?”
“We can be… persuasive.”
I wondered how much his diamond tooth was worth, and where I could pawn it after I knocked it out of his mouth. But they had guns, and like an idiot I was standing between them and Kelley, my back-up. Plus, Kelley'd told me to say yes. Get it on tape, they go to jail, win-win. All I had to do was swallow my pride and agree to take a dive.
But then Bling Tooth made a big mistake. Two fingers scissored into his vest pocket and removed a photograph.
“We hope you agree to help us, Mr. Dombrowski. Or else we'd be forced to hurt someone you care very much about.”
He flashed the picture at me. It was Al, my basset hound.
These fuckers had my dog.
It didn't sink in right away. It had already been a long night of getting punched in the head. I looked up to see Bling Tooth smile at me.
“You want I send you a floppy ear for proof?” he said. He went to smile but before the corners of his mouth turned something went bad inside me and I hit him with a straight left. It caught part nose and part upper lip. He went down hard, grasping his face. Blood already spurted from between his fingers, and I guessed it was nose blood by the way it shot.
I sat on the bastard's chest and grabbed his thorax with my right. My grip remained sore from the eight rounder, so it wasn't as tight as I would have liked.
“Listen mother—” I didn't get to finish.
I heard a series of clickety-clacks and realized his two buddies held guns pointed at my head.
Then one of them bent down next to me, picking something up off the floor.
I'd dropped the pen drive recorder.
Jack
The trail led us to Crawford, about fifty miles out of New York City. When a murderer crossed state lines, the Feds had jurisdiction. At least, they were supposed to. But neither Herb nor I gave them a call. We didn't even tell our boss, Captain Bains, we were leaving Chicago.
Sometimes being a law enforcement officer meant tip-toeing around the law.
Our suspect, a Russian mobster named Vladimir Polchev, had skipped town before we could haul him in. Polchev had made two big mistakes.
First, he'd murdered a friend of mine. Dirk Wendt, a semi-pro boxer who happened to be my taekwondo instructor for the last six years.
Second, he'd done it on my turf.
The Russians scared the crap out of people, so most weren't willing to talk. But when I've got my mean on, I can be pretty damn persuasive. Herb and I shook down a pimp owned by the mob, got word that Polchev was paying off fighters to throw matches. If they didn't play along, his crew killed them. Wendt was a Chicagoan, but it didn't take much research to find two other murders that matched Polchev's signature.
A tip took us to New York. We called ahead, playing nice with the locals, and were invited to visit as part of a joint task force. It seemed Polchev was a person of interest in several recent murders. The NY fuzz put a tail on him, checked with their informants, and learned Polchev was planning to put the squeeze on a boxer named Dombrowski. We met the lead investigator, Kelley, at a dive bar, to supervise a sting operation. Kelley informed us, in no uncertain terms, that this was not our collar, and we were to maintain a hands-off policy.
Herb and I had no problem with this. I wanted Polchev, bad. It didn't matter to me which city locked him up, as long as someone did.
“This is an excellent burger,” Herb said. There was so much of it on his face, shirt, and tie, I was dubious he'd gotten any of it into his mouth.
“I'll take your word for it.”
“You should eat something, Jack. The food is good.”
My stomach was still a bit queasy from our flight. The pilot called it “a little bit of turbulence,” but it had been enough to knock the ice out of my complimentary cup of water. Besides, I had a rule never to eat in a place where the main source of lighting was neon.
I checked my watch, then glanced over at the bar. In my left side peripheral vision, Polchev and two cronies sat, drinking top shelf vodka. Polchev was the one with the diamond in his front tooth. To my right, four men argued about the merits and detriments of toothpaste.
“You know fluoride is poisonous?”
“Is not.”
“Is so, Jerry. They don't use fluoride toothpaste in space.”
“You can't brush your teeth in space, dumb ass. It's a vacuum.”
“You mean it can clean your rugs?”
“There's no air in space. You tried to brush your teeth, your brain would slurp out your nose.”
“I mean on the space shuttle. No fluoride in the toothpaste, because astronauts have to swallow it.”
“Makes sense. If they spit it out, it would float after them, following them around all mission.”
I tuned them out. Or tried to, at least. I turned back to Herb, took a sip of my club soda and lime, glancing casually at Polchev. He and his men were all armed. Kelley said nothing was going to go down here, and I hoped he was right. The bar was crowded, and shooting would be a catastrophe. I hoped that this Dombrowski guy was good at keeping his cool. Kelley said he was a social worker. Interesting combination, social work and boxing.