In a tangle of arms and legs, the two men crashed into the walls of the dark hallway, each seeking leverage. Moments later, Aleks brought a fist to his assailant’s jaw – three powerful blows that took away the fight. The man slumped to the floor.
Bleeding from both the nose and mouth, his hands sore from striking bone, Aleks stood, steadied himself against the rotted plaster wall. He turned the man over, took one of the man’s arms in a scissor lock. When his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he looked at the man’s face.
It was Konstantine. But it was not. The man had Konstantine’s broad forehead, his deep-set eyes, but somehow had not aged a day since he and Aleks had been in the federal army together.
“Who are you?” Aleks asked.
The young man wiped the blood from his nose. “Fuck your mother.”
Aleks almost laughed. If he was in Estonia, and knew that there would be no consequences to his actions, he would have drawn his blade and opened the man’s throat, just for the insult. “I think you are not understanding the question.” He tightened his grip on the young man’s arm, exerted more downward pressure. If he wanted, he could simply apply the leverage of his full body weight, and the arm would snap. Right now, he wanted to. “Who are you?”
The young man screamed once, a sharp growl, the muscles in his neck cording, his skin a bright crimson. “Fuck . . . you.”
And Aleks knew.
This was Konstantine’s son.
THEY SAT IN a back room on the first floor of the tavern. With a nod of his head, the young man who had tried to kill Aleks just moments earlier had cleared the room of card players. They sat among cardboard boxes of alcohol, napkins, bar food. The young man held a bag of ice to his face.
“You look just like him,” Aleks said. It was true. The young man had his father’s thick shoulders, broad chest, low center of gravity. He even had the crooked smile. Although Aleks had not known Konstantine at this young man’s age – perhaps twenty-two or three – the resemblance was nonetheless remarkable, almost unsettling.
“He was my father,” the young man said.
“Was.”
The young man nodded, looked away, perhaps masking his feelings. “He’s dead.”
Konstantine dead, Aleks thought. The man had survived the first wave in Chechnya. It was hard to believe. “How?”
“Wrong place, wrong time. He took twenty bullets from a Colombian’s AK,” he said. “Not for nothin’, but the Colombian joined my father in hell not long after. Believe it.”
Aleks remembered well Konstantine Udenko’s temper. He was not surprised.
“Many times he showed me pictures of his baby son,” Aleks said. “You are Nikolai?”
The kid smiled. He looked even younger, except for the pink sheen of blood coating his teeth. “They call me Kolya.”
Aleks sized up the kid. He had fully expected to see Konstantine again, to depend on his devotion to him, not to mention his animal strength and fox-like cunning. His son would have to do. He hoped the young man had inherited some of his father’s archness and strength.
“My name is Aleks,” he said. He pulled up the sleeves of his coat, revealing his tattoos. Kolya saw the marks and went pale. It was like a cardinal realizing he was standing in front of a pope.
“You are Savisaar! My father talked about you all the time, man. You are vennaskond.”
Aleks said nothing.
Kolya looked a little shaky for a moment, as if he might be ready to kiss Aleks’s ring. Instead he opened a nearby box, and extracted a bottle of vodka.
“We’ll have a drink,” Kolya said. “Then I’ll take you to my shop.”
KOLYA RAN A CHOP SHOP in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. Two garages, side by side, fronting an alley behind a block of stores on North 10th Street. Both had steel corrugated roll doors. Two men stood at the end of the alley, smoking, watching, cellphones in hand. Inside, the smell of motor oil and Bondo permeated the air. Beneath it, the sweet smell of marijuana.
The crew inside the shop was five young men, black and Hispanic. The sound of hip hop droned from a cheap radio. Aleks saw no firearms displayed openly, but he recognized the tell-tale bulges in the waistbands of two of the men.
The garages were cluttered with half-stripped cars, engine blocks, exhaust systems, bumpers and fenders, truck caps. Most seemed to be the low end of the high side – BMW, Lexus, Mercedes.
They gathered in the last bay, one with a broken lift. Aleks, Kolya, and a young black man named Omar. Omar was tall, powerfully built. He wore his hair in short dreads. He also sported green camouflage trousers and shirt. In a city. For Aleks, this defined his dubious worth as a warrior.
“So what do you think?” Kolya asked, offering a proud hand to the space.
Aleks glanced around the garages, giving the question its due. “Not bad,” he replied. As much as he liked fine automobiles, he could never be involved in this end of the trade. Too dirty, too noisy, and the product took far too much space to conceal. “Do you make a living?”
Kolya mugged. “I do all right.”
The words came out a’ight, a pronunciation Aleks was beginning to hear more and more, a rasp on his sensibilities.
“Most of the business out of here is legit,” Kolya added. “Fuck, we even do work for AAA.” Kolya laughed, Omar joined in. They bumped fists. It was nervous laughter. They did not know what was coming, and had to establish the illusion of a united front. Whatever Aleks was bringing them could be good or bad. Kolya decided to jump in the fire. “So, what do you need?”
Aleks glanced once at Omar, back at Kolya. “I need to talk to you alone.”
Kolya nodded at Omar. Omar took a moment, sizing Aleks, as any man’s second would. When Aleks did not say a word, did not avert his gaze, the kid thought better of the challenge. He got up slowly and walked to the door of the office, stepped inside, closed the door. Moments later Aleks saw him watching through the grimy shop window.
Aleks turned back to Kolya, spoke softly, even though the sound of the radio, combined with the sounds of metal cutting metal, was loud. “I need to find someone.”
Kolya nodded, said nothing.
“A man. He has an office in this place called Queens. Do you know it?”
Kolya smirked, hit his cigarette. “Fuck Queens. This is Brooklyn, yo.”
Aleks ignored the territorial hubris. “The man I need to see is a lawyer. His name is Harkov.”
“Harkov,” Kolya said. “A Jew?”
“I don’t know.”
“But he is Russian.”
“Yes.”
“And a fucking lawyer.”
Aleks nodded.
“And from Queens. Whatever you gotta do, I’ll happily do it for you. Three strikes, vend.”
Young men, Aleks thought. He thought for a moment of Villem, the young man from the village back home. At this moment Villem was probably feeding the dogs, cleaning out their cages. If he were American he would be just like Konstantine’s son. Jewelry, brazen tattoos, attitude.
“I just need you to bring me to him,” Aleks replied. “I’ll take it from there.” He took a thick roll out of his pocket. US currency. Kolya’s eyes widened. “I will need a car and a driver. The car should be nothing flashy. Tinted windows.”
Kolya crossed to the window, opened the blinds. He pointed to a midnight blue Ford parked near the street. The car was for sale, and had the price of $2,500 on the darkened windshield.
“This will do,” Aleks said. “Do you have a driver?”
“Omar is the man.”
We’ll see, Aleks thought. “I also need a room at a nearby motel. Something quiet, but near an expressway. Off-brand.”
“I know all the motels, yo. My cousin works at one up the way.”
Aleks peeled off about ten thousand in cash, held it out to Kolya. Kolya went to take the money. Aleks pulled it back.