Chimera

Chapter 4

Konstantin had many favorite restaurants, but not a single one of them was Russian. Too much borscht and cabbage as a child had humbled better men. I’d seen the sight of a beet cause Gurov’s left eye to twitch uncontrollably. Embracing the favored local cuisine wholeheartedly, he ate more Cuban food than Castro himself. Payasada was his most frequent choice, and I was more than familiar with the setup there. The front door, the fire exits, the back door through the kitchen; I’d checked them all out on more than one occasion.

“You look like dermo,” Konstantin observed coolly after sipping Cuban coffee from a tiny cup cradled in his palm. As strong as the drink was, I was surprised it didn’t dissolve the china between itself and freedom.

I was working. The glass of iced tea before me was for appearance only. I kept my hands below the level of the bright red and yellow tablecloth and my eyes scanning the lunch crowd. “Noisy neighbors,” I replied blandly, shrugging my shoulders lightly under my jacket. Lukas was my business and mine alone. Anatoly had made that clear.

A razor-thin white eyebrow arched skeptically, but he returned to his coffee without comment. The source of my sleeplessness didn’t interest Gurov. His only concern was that I performed my duty and kept him alive. Anything else was simply an empty distraction between him and his paper. Normally lunch duty was no real hardship. Despite what the movies said, it was a rare occasion indeed that a hit went down in a perfectly well lit and respectable restaurant.

The line of my back was as tense as the rest of me. Shifting minutely, I rolled my shoulders in a futile effort to relax. There were a hundred things I wanted—needed—to do. Lukas could be out there, and here I sat, watching my boss suck down gallons of coffee. Time was moving so slowly that I could actually feel my arteries harden from the cold pizza I’d had for breakfast. I wanted to go stake out the “compound,” as Saul had labeled it. I couldn’t make a move until that was done.

But more than that, I wanted to see him. I wanted at least a glimpse of the boy who could be my brother. Hell, who was I trying to kid? He was my brother. He was Lukas. . . .

He had to be.

For a few hours, however, I was stuck. And while I had plans to make before I could hit that place even for simple observation, the sooner I could do something concrete, the less likely I was to put my fist through the nearest wall—or the nearest waiter. This had not been my week for those in the challenging field of food service. I raised a hand to catch the attention of our server as the level of dark coffee in Konstantin’s cup dropped. The waiter was lounging against one wall with arms folded and one foot lazily tapping along to the overhead samba beat. If there was a hurry to be found, he didn’t seem to be in it. He was probably a model/musician loathing his day job.

Gurov didn’t enjoy waiting for his coffee . . . or anything for that matter. And I didn’t enjoy what he might have me do if his needs didn’t get immediate attention. As I added a laser-sharp glare to my gesturing hand, the waiter pushed away from the wall and headed our way. His bored look was now mingled with a slight hint of unease. It seemed he wasn’t quite as thickheaded as I’d thought.

“Never mind, Stefan. I must cut this lunch short.” Konstantin was folding the newspaper with quick, precise movements. “Perhaps you’ll have an opportunity for a little education with our preyatel upon our next visit. I have an appointment to attend to.”

Taking care of the bill, I rather hoped the next time we came back, the rock star wannabe would have gotten a new job. For his sake. Gurov didn’t hold grudges; he’d invented them. Kicking the shit out of some waiter, I didn’t need a fortune-teller to read that in my future.

I led the way out of the restaurant, pausing in the doorway to check the sidewalk and street. Clear. Konstantin tapped a finger against his watch impatiently. A glittering gold and diamond piece, it cost more than my condo. My priorities in life would be viewed as askew by some, I knew. I was more than a little fucked up and there was no denying it. But when it came to material things, I’d learned the hard way. Money couldn’t buy the things that mattered. If I spent that much on a watch, it shouldn’t just keep time; it had better let me travel through it too.

Moving down the sidewalk, I fished in my jacket pocket for the remote to Gurov’s car and started it while we were still half a block away. Our guys weren’t much on bombs, but the Colombians lived and breathed explosives. Fortunately for the fire hydrant we were parked next to so blatantly, the car started without incident. Opening the door for the older man, I scooped the ticket off the windshield and stuffed it in my pocket. As I headed around the front of the shiny black hood, I spotted them. There were two big guys wearing similar Windbreakers. I was sure Saul would’ve said it was a fashion disaster, but even in the winter Miami’s warm weather made you work to cover up your gun.

Rocking back casually on my heels, I did another quick visual check. Yeah, just the two, and amateurs to boot. Not Mafiya ; I could tell that at a glance. They were most likely punks out to jack a car. About eighteen or nineteen, one white, one black, they had identical empty eyes. I saw a blade flick to life in one tattooed hand held close to a leg. Someone hadn’t listened to their guidance counselor any more than I had.

I didn’t bother with planning or subtlety. That sort of thing would be wasted with these guys. Within seconds they were in front of me, faces as predatory as the vulpine face of any wolf. I hit the one without the knife first. His empty hands were even more threatening. A knife I could deal with; a gun out of nowhere would be a little trickier. Flashing a cheerful grin, I leaned against the closed driver’s door. “Nice jackets. Can I help you guys? You lost? Out to spread the word of God maybe?” I couldn’t look innocent. Life had made damn sure that was something my face would never be able to wear. But I gave it my best shot only to see it reflected back at me in a sudden uneasiness in the face of the man with the switchblade. Wolves recognized their own. On the other hand, the one I kicked in the stomach didn’t look uneasy. In fact, he didn’t look anything but nauseated.

One hand on the car supporting me, I twisted sideways and planted a foot in the abdomen of the one whose empty hand had suddenly darted toward his jacket. Before he hit the asphalt, I gave him another on the point of his chin, taking him out of the game then and there. No flies on him when it came to self-interest, his buddy had already lunged at me. With sharp silver metal and teeth bared in a twisted face, he slashed at me while hissing curses like a foul-mouthed pit viper.

Kids.

I blocked his arm with my left one, my hand fisted. My other hand was wrapped snugly around the grip of a Steyr 9mm. Yeah, flies weren’t exactly roosting on me either. I planted the end of the four-inch barrel firmly in the center of his pimply forehead. Could be he’d planned on stripping the car and trading the parts for zit cream. He froze, the shiny black eyes no longer empty. Fear, pure and simple, shone clearly, along with a desire to be anywhere but here. Tough love worked wonders.

“Go home, Junior,” I said flatly. “You’re not ready to play with the big boys yet.” Only five or six years separated me from this piece of shit barely out of diapers—half a decade, but it may as well have been a lifetime.

The knife clattered on the asphalt, shortly followed by his ass. Scrambling backward for several feet, he then flipped over to a crawl before lunging to his feet and running down the street. Half in front of the car, his friend still lay unconscious and obviously forgotten. There’s no honor among thieves and apparently no loyalty either. Sighing, I holstered the semiautomatic and bent down to slide my hands under the slack shoulders to drag him to the sidewalk. He was lucky. Some guys I knew would’ve driven over him and raided his wallet for the car wash money.

It had all taken less than thirty seconds, but as I slid behind the steering wheel, Konstantin still pinned me with an expression of sharp annoyance. “ Tat? ” he demanded, fingers drumming on his suit-clad knee.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. Tat referred to common thieves, unworthy of the respect given to their more murderously organized brethren . . . us. “And pretty shitty ones at that.” Pulling away from the curb, I raised a hand in a casual wave to the small knot of tourists gaping from the curb. This had been more fun in the sun than they’d bargained for, I was thinking.

“Pity.” Gurov leaned back against the butter-soft leather of the seats. Closing his eyes, he linked fingers across a stomach amazingly lean for a sixty-year-old man.

Raising my eyebrows, I repeated the word, curious.

Face serene, he said, “Pity. If your heart was with your family, your work could be truly phenomenal.”

Being phenomenal in a career of brutality; I wasn’t sure the two belonged in the same sentence . . . or in the same man. As for family, I knew who it was, and who it wasn’t.

Gurov and the others didn’t even come close.