Blood Hound

Chapter 6

There’s two kinds of car bombs commonly used by professional wetworkers in this city. The first is an explosive device—putty, usually—attached to the engine. They rig a block of plastic explosive near the sump and run wires back into the dash. When you insert the key and turn the engine, the ignition triggers the explosion. The second kind has the explosive device mounted in a casing under the fuel tank. That type of bomb can be set off in a similar way—when you start the car—or from a remote control.

Then there’s the third kind used by spooks: a bomb set up with a triggering sigil, which is activated in any way the creator pleases. Body pressure on the seat, engine ignition, opening the car door. Generally speaking, a professional is going to style it so the car explodes while the intended victim is inside, not outside, and the sigil ward is triggered automatically. The mage triggering the device doesn’t have to hang around, if they’re smart enough to account for all the variables.

I was fairly sure, from the brief look I got before I backpedaled rapidly on foot out of the parking lot, that it was the cheaper and nastier gas tank setup, but I couldn’t rule out the sigil. Given the firepower I’d seen around Semyon and now Nacari, it was entirely possible that it was the latter.

The first thing I felt was anger, anger at having my property violated. Then came the confusion, then the fear. My heart continued to try to dig its way from behind my ribs as I feigned calm and kept myself at a quick walk. Not knowing what else to do, I found a payphone and called Lev’s office number. He didn’t pick up, so I phoned home in the hope that Vassily was still there.

“Mister Sokolsky’s House of Hedonism, how can I help you?”

“Someone rigged my car.” I ran my fingers back through my hair, massaging my scalp. “I’m stuck at Lev’s firm. Can you go get my tools and bring them here?”

There was a long pause. “Wait. Rigged? What do you mean ‘rigged’?”

“A bomb, Vassily. A bomb.” I rolled my eyes.

“Jesus Haploid Christ,” Vassily said. “No, Alexi. No, I’m not bringing you your fucking tools so you can tinker with the bomb in your fucking car.”

“It’s my car.” And it had been my car since I was eighteen. It had my things in it. “I’m not letting them destroy my car.”

“Fuck the car, Lexi. Leave it there and get a cab to Mari’s.” Vassily sounded manic, on edge. “I’ll call Nic or Vanya and get them to send in the pros, man. We have guys who are paid to deal with that shit.”

I had set up rigs in my time and was righteously convinced I could probably defuse this one, but he was right—Nic’s ex-military men had defused so many devices in Afghanistan that they had affectionate nicknames for the different colored wires. Either I did it or they did; there was no calling the cops. “Get a hold of Nic, if you can. It will cost me either way, but I’d rather owe Nicolai an extra couple grand.”

“I’ve got money coming in if you need it. Meet me at Mari’s, okay? Don’t you dare go near that fucking thing.”

I hung up and let myself lean against the side of the phone booth for a few minutes before I dialed the taxi. One did not need precognition to know it was going to be a very, very long day.

Mari’s was an old glass-fronted deli owned and operated by my elder adopted sister. The white-and-blue awning brooded a dense cluster of chipped metal lattice tables outside, set up beside a simple sign in cheap gold paint and chalk with three words on it—Torty ta Chay: ‘Cakes and Tea.’ The deli had no written menu. It had been the cover business for the Lovenko family for two generations, started by Vassily’s adventuring parents before they took their final flight over the Gulf of Mexico. Their will passed it on to Vassily’s grandmother, Lenina, and then when she died, to Mariya.

I pressed a hand to the glass door and let myself in, the cool sanctity of the place settling over me like a waterfall. The bell tinkled over my head, as it always had. Mari’s smelled of sugar, fried butter, old aftershave, and cigarettes. The Ukrainian community news was always playing under the soft music that looped on the overhead speakers, blasting out of an old radio on the menu and cutlery table. The customers, perched around tables with their cake and chessboards, simply picked up their voices to talk over them.

“Alexi!” Mariya’s rich voice punctuated the burbling chatter. She appeared out of the storeroom and came around the counter, her face alight. “Handsome as ever. How are you? You look exhausted!”

Handsome? Me? I smiled, briefly, as she touched my shoulders very lightly and kissed me hardly at all. I returned the gesture on her other cheek, taut with discomfort. “Maritka, I am well enough. Work has run late the last couple of nights.”

Mariya clicked her tongue, examining my shirt. She fussed with my tie, even though it was already straight. “Alexi, I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but you’ll work yourself to death someday.”

“Vassily said men like me kill themselves a lot.” I regarded Mariya levelly in return, looking for signs of ill health. She was in her early fifties, a good twenty years older than her youngest brother. The eldest living Lovenko had the same dark blue eyes and coarse wavy black hair as Vassily, her face strong and weathered from hard work. Mariya was almost six foot in flat shoes but less wiry than Vassily, with carefully curled and teased hair. She still did not speak much English. “You are well?”

“Me?” She smiled widely with a sly, thin mouth. Both siblings were vaguely serpentine in their build and expression, and Mariya’s eyes were only slightly less hard. “Of course I’m well. But you need tea and something to eat.”

“Is Semych here already?” Only in family company did I call Vassily by that name.

“Out back with his deck of cards. I’ll bring you the usual something. Go catch up. Gossip is heavy today.” She waved me off with a little shooing motion.

That reminded me. I moved only a step or two before looking at her over my shoulder. “Before you go, Mari… I was wondering. How do you think he is, now? Really?”

The woman’s expression shifted into something I found nearly unreadable. Sad? Resigned? “He’s thin. Changed, somehow. I don’t know if you were with him before, but he went out last night and got really drunk. Bad drunk.”

That was to be expected. If he’d taken Lev up on his offer and partied with the kind of women he liked to sleep with, he probably had five different kinds of herpes on top of his failing liver. “I wasn’t there. I left early.”

Someone else entered the store, raising a hand and moving to the sandwich counter. With a last reproachful look, Mariya broke from me to serve up. I made my way through the shop, past the display of cakes I had never tried, and through a curtained doorway to the back-of-house. The halls were cramped, stacked with old boxes and sacks of stock used in the restaurant. A door near the rear entry was ajar, and the familiar smooth smell of Chesterfields wafted out from behind it.

Inside, Vassily was engrossed in a hand of Solitaire, his cigarette hanging absentmindedly from his fingers. He jerked his head up as I came in and then sighed, setting down his spares and pushing his hair back from his face. “Jesus Christ, Alexi.”

“They only call me Alexi, these days.” I bowed and spread my hands to the sides, but I don’t think he got the joke.

“Okay, so, I’d just like you to know that I’m really happy you didn’t explode,” he said. “And also, I thought telling Mari that your car is sitting downtown loaded up with C-4 might not be a great idea. So I didn’t.”

“I think that was a very sensible conclusion,” I replied as I took my seat. “Neither did I.”

“Well, you know how it is. Great minds think alike.” Vassily drew hard on his smoke and exhaled with a sound of pleasure and relief. “Come on, sit down. We can get lunch and go home. I called Lev, and he said he’ll send Ivanko and some other guy to fix your car.”

Ivanko was one of Nicolai’s old comrades in the Spetznaz GRU,[16] and he probably knew more about car bombs than I ever would… assuming it was not magically triggered. “Thank you.”

“No problem. You look like fifty kinds of shit.” Vassily stubbed out his cigarette in the tray. He didn’t light another. “Am I gonna have to start going places with you? Make sure you don’t get into trouble?”

That reminded me acutely of the night before, his stepping up to Petro. I scrutinized him as I had Mariya. She was right: he looked dreadful. Thin, eyes sunken, brow sheened with sweat. He smelled of smoke and expired brandy. “We’re not in school anymore, Vasya. Petro was right. I can take shit and solve my own problems.”

“I ain’t questioning that.” He looked away and turned a few cards over, shuffling through the deck. “Not at all. But do you really think that bomb was set up by some other crew?”

I made a tutting sound. “I have no reason to think Lev would send me on a job and then try to kill me the morning after, if that’s what you’re implying.”

Vassily sighed. “Not necessarily Lev, but I wouldn’t be surprised, you know? You did just kill Sem Vochin, and that dead Italian guy turned up yesterday. And I mean… he looked like he was killed with magic, didn’t he?”

I grunted. Now that I was in cool, familiar surroundings, I was really feeling that tiredness. The burn in my muscles, an ache deep in my joints. “I was told not to discuss it with anyone. So was Nic. I don’t know why he didn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“Because Nic doesn’t trust Lev as far as he could kick him, and he wants people to know what’s going on.” Vassily’s voice took on a familiar stubborn tone, one I hadn’t heard in many years. Insistent, distracted. He was a very intelligent man. Cavalier as he was, we both had earned our scholarships, and he’d always been my better at mathematics and chess. “Nic says a lot of guys have been dying since Lev took the throne.”

“Nic was also the one who told me to tell you not to try and take him down.”

“Well, sure. I’d be fucking crazy to. One bad word to my parole officer, and I’m back in the slammer.” Vassily scowled and toyed with the crushed cigarette. His usually restless hands were shaking, trembling as they roamed. “But I’m going to collect the information, and I’m going to hold onto it because damned if I’m gonna let some white-collar desk monkey destroy this place. I’ve got an MBA, Lexi. I know what guys like this do. They come in and clean an organization out, strip it bare, and fuck off to Miami with all the money. The only reasons he’s in the big man’s chair is because he’s got Sergei, Vanya and all of AEROMOR’s union guys backing him, and because of this cocaine gig. He’s got the boats and the goods.”

I exhaled thinly and rubbed my mouth with the palm of my glove. “For now. He… has me on another job already.”

Vassily pursed his lips, cocked an eyebrow enquiringly, and mimed shooting someone with thumb and forefinger. “Another friend of his?”

“No. A contact. He wants him alive.”

“Huh.” Vassily began to layer and sort the spares. His fingers were still shaky, but he played three-card Solitaire with the kind of skill that spoke of long practice. “Well, speaking of business, Nic already set me up with something. I can’t fucking believe it. Same day I get out, and he’s hanging the millstone around my neck. Oy. I have to see my parole officer on Monday.”

“He asked you to work already?” I rested my forehead on my hand, leaning on the tabletop. “That’s… unnecessary.”

“Tell me ’bout it. But it’s good money, and good reputation. It’s pretty easy shit, too: dry cleaning at Atlantic City and a date with George Laguetta. Says that he and Lev need my silver tongue to butter up the Family, so we’ll cycle the cash, wine and dine them. I’ll get enough money to set me up for the year once it’s all said and done.”

Putting Vassily under all those cameras alongside a known Don and in light of Vincent’s disappearance? “No. Vasya, I have a dreadful feeling about this.”

“Why?” He frowned.

“Because the man Lev has asked me to find and return is the man who arranged this whole cocaine business for Laguetta and Lev in the first place,” I said. “He was supposed to be at a meeting last night and never showed. The whole thing—”

“Smells like shit, yeah.” Vassily cut me off, shaking his head. “But I already gave my word. I won’t lose face to Nic by backing out. And honestly, man, I need the money. The government took all my stocks. I have to get a hold of my old broker and hope he’s willing to work my fake ID and build up my portfolio from scratch.”

I ground my teeth until they creaked and crossed my arms. “Well, if you have to go, I go with you. I’m your bodyman for this event. Let the Laguettas wonder how you’re able to field a spook as personal protection.”

“Even if you weren’t a spook, you’re the hardest man in this crew. Of course I want you there.” Vassily smacked another card down. “And you know what? I told Nic I want Yuri on my other side. You know, Yuri Beretzniy? His old war buddy. He’s like a million years old, but I’m pretty sure that guy eats lead and broken glass for breakfast. Figured that’d remind Nic who calls personnel around here.”

“He’s missing.” I rubbed my face again. The fatigue was eating into my ability to focus. “Yuri, that is.”

Vassily looked up sharply. “What?”

“Missing.” I glanced down at the rows of cards. “He didn’t show for work last night.”

“Yuri? Missing? But I mean… how?”

“Probably the way most men go,” I replied. “By surprise.”

“No way. That guy’s a seriously tough motherfucker.”

I looked up at him pensively. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter how tough you are. He’s gone missing with the man I’ve been tasked to find, Vincent.”

“Huh. Maybe Yuri cut some money and ran off with him, then. That happens, even with the old guys.”

Yes, it was possible Vincent was worth enough to the various underworld high rollers that Yuri stood to gain more by handing him over to someone than by protecting him for Lev. But in that case, who? Vincent’s blood family?

“Who is this guy, then? Vincent?”

“One of Manelli’s boys, oddly enough.” I made the decision to talk it out, no matter what Lev thought. If I could trust one person in the Organization, it was the man sitting across from me. “Vincent Manelli.”

“Blood family? Never heard of him. There’s Lou Manelli, Celso Manelli, and his little brother, Joe. They all work out of a big chicken factory over in Jersey. Elite Meats, something like that.”

“Perhaps because he’s the youngest of the sons? He defected to George’s team.”

“No shit? And he went missing on our watch? Well, bad as it sounds, at least Yuri went missing with him. If he fucked up, it’d be more than just his head in line for the guillotine. How much are you getting out of it?”

“Three hundred thousand.”

Vassily’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. “Lexi, that’s a lot of cash for one guy. Too much cash.”

The observation sat with me uncomfortably because it was true. It was a lot of money, though I’d managed to rationalize it somewhat. Vincent made the Organization millions of dollars in trade. The Twins hadn’t run shipments to anyone except Mama Perez in Miami until Vincent talked to them.

Vassily seemed to notice my struggle and shook his head. “Seriously. That’s too much. I don’t mean that in the ‘you suck and you shouldn’t be paid that much’ way. I mean in the ‘that’s a lot of fucking money that’s being used to hide something from you’ way.”

“Not compared to what he’s worth.”

“After your car got rigged this morning? I don’t have to be a wizard to work it out, my friend.” Vassily looked away, his jaw working. He was down to only a few spares now. “There’s something we’re not seeing.”

“You’re right,” I said, after a minute or two. “But I want to do it. Lev will put in a word for me to Sergei.”

“He shouldn’t have to. We’re blatnoi,[17] we were made for this. Sergei should be back here and paying attention to his own men.”

“He will be. Lev thinks he’ll be here by the end of the month.”

“And that just makes me twitch harder over the whole damn thing.” Vassily tch’d and opened his mouth to speak again just as Mariya arrived with tea and plates of food.

“Here we go,” she said cheerfully. She’d brought crepes for Vassily, salad and chicken cutlets for me. “You eat everything, now. The pair of you look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

Vassily changed tack, cheerfully masking his fatigue with a grin and a wave. “Sure thing, Mom.”

Mariya slapped him without force, and he sputtered in protest. “Vassily Simeovich, I spent five damn years worrying about your skinny ass. Don’t you give me cheek. What would your grandmother say?”

“She would have said I needed to lay on the bullshit better.”

I made a motion with my hands, silent agreement. Lenina Lovenko had been a fearsome, pipe-smoking Ruska Roma[18] hellcat with more tattoos than her son and grandsons.

Mariya rolled her eyes. “Impossible. Are you two going boxing this evening?”

“I will be going to bed,” I said, as I took up my knife and fork.

Vassily swatted his sister away from his chair. Mariya shoved her brother’s head forward, and he made a rude gesture back at her. She motioned at him with two fingers. Come get it.

“I will. I feel pretty good, actually. It’ll be good to box around a ring without someone huffing over my shoulder.” Vassily chuckled and started furtively on his early dinner, glancing aside at her. “Sisters, man, I’m telling you. Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them.”

Mariya scowled. “I’ll take that plate back, Vivy.”

“The hell you will. These are amazing. Don’t call me Vivy.”

I watched them both contemplatively, folding salad onto my knife and fork. I often envied Mariya her simplicity and strength. She had lost parents, grandparents, and three brothers over the span of a decade. She took charge of her household when no one else could or would, a self-made and self-taught matriarch. As the years had gone by and more Lovenkos had died, she became increasingly fussy over us. Now that I had the time to look at her under yellow light, I thought her deep-set eyes were a little shadowed.

It was good Vassily hadn’t told her about the explosives. And it was good she and Vassily both didn’t know that tonight, I would not be going to bed. Instead, I would be jacking a car, finding a way into Vincent’s house, and looking for clues to his whereabouts.

It was time to begin the hunt.