Among Thieves (8 page)

Walter nodded, wincing against the pain.

“I'm going to let you stand up now. Don't do anything stupid.”

Beck dropped the arm. Walter grabbed his shoulder, remaining down on one knee, not moving, waiting for the pain to subside.

Beck straightened up and turned to Milstein, who hadn't moved from the wall. “Take care of your man here. Next time I see you, I suggest you talk to me.”

Beck had kept his voice down. A small crowd had gathered around Beck and Walter, but nobody seemed to know what to do, if anything. Whatever happened seemed to be over. The big man was slowly rising to his feet, holding his shoulder.

Beck drifted away to his right, stepping to the ramp that slanted down onto Lexington Avenue.

He blended in with the sidewalk pedestrians and disappeared, heading uptown, out of sight to anyone in front of the building.

Demarco had watched carefully from his parking spot across the street, never for a moment worried that Beck would need his help with the bodyguard. As soon as Beck headed uptown on foot, he pulled out onto Fifty-seventh, immediately turning right, heading downtown with the one-way traffic on Lexington. He took the first right going west and accelerated toward Park Avenue. By the time he had gone one block on Park, he spotted Beck coming his way. Beck slipped into the Mercury.

“That was fun.”

“Big bastard, wasn't he?” said Demarco.

“Yeah. It helps when you surprise them. Of course, I knew if it went wrong you'd be right there to jump in.”

“'Cept I don't like leaving the car in a no-standing spot, so, you know.”

“In other words, the car is more important.”

Demarco tipped his head, shrugged, and asked, “Now what?”

“Now we escalate. That little cocksucker Milstein is an asshole.”

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“What? That he's an asshole, or that we have to take this to the next step?”

“Just a figure of speech.”

“Uh-huh. You hungry?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. We seem to have skipped lunch.”

“Let's see, where's a decent place to eat in this shit neighborhood? Hey, there's a burger place over on Sixtieth or somewhere. You want a burger?”

Demarco made a face.

“Come on.”

“If you insist, James.”

“See if you can find a parking spot somewhere.”

As Demarco began his search in the crowded neighborhood, Beck pulled out his cell phone and punched a speed-dial number. When the phone answered, he said, “Ciro. It's me.”

Demarco listened to Beck's side of the conversation, which ended with Beck giving Ciro Baldassare instructions on where to meet them.

“Ciro?”

Beck turned to Demarco. “Hey, man, I don't want to wrestle with that big son of a bitch again.”

Demarco pursed his lips. “Pulling out the heavy artillery already?”

“He's actually in the city. One of his customers is in over his head on his football bets.”

“God help him.”

“I don't think it'll be too bad. It's a young guy. His father owns a restaurant downtown. Ciro just had a talk with Daddy about his boy's gambling debt.”

“Does Daddy still have a restaurant?”

Beck smiled. “You know what Ciro once told me is the hardest part of running his gambling operation?”

“What?”

“Moving all the money around. All that cash. Picking up the cash from the losers and bringing it to the winners. It's mostly a messenger service with guys tough enough to walk around with thousands and thousands in green.”

“With Ciro behind it all so nobody gets any ideas about who that cash belongs to.”

“Exactly.”

Just then Demarco spotted a space in front of a Park Avenue apartment building as a cab pulled away. Demarco deftly parallel parked the Mercury in one move, despite the fact that there was a brass plaque atop a stanchion set in front of the building entrance announcing
NO PARKING
.

Beck reached out his window and moved the stanchion out of the way so he could open his door. A doorman was already rushing out to tell Demarco Jones and James Beck they couldn't park there. Every spot on the block was filled except for the space in front of the white-glove Park Avenue building.

Beck stood waiting for the doorman. Demarco walked around the front of the Mercury and leaned back on its shiny front fender. The doorman started to say something, saw who he was talking to, stopped, then said, “There's elderly people in this building. In wheelchairs. You're blocking the entrance.”

Beck reached out and lifted the lapel of the man's uniform coat so he could see the name sewn onto the pocket.

“Is that right, Peter?”

“Yes.”

“Who made that nice sign for you?”

“I don't know.”

“Is that real brass?”

“Yes. I think so. Listen, you can't…”

“You think having a brass sign makes it true?”

“You can't park there.”

“Yes I can. Peter.”

“You're blocking the entrance.”

Beck raised a hand. “Take your bullshit and your little sign and go back in your building. You get an old rich person in a wheelchair wants to come in, you hustle your ass out here and roll 'em to the corner, where there's no curb; roll 'em up nice and easy, and haul them in. And make goddamn sure nobody bumps into my car getting in or out of a cab. Or a fucking limo. Or a delivery truck. Or anything. You got it? Peter.”

The doorman didn't say anything.

“When's your shift over?”

“Midnight.”

“Good. I'll be back before then. Keep an eye on things.”

As they walked away Beck said to Demarco, “More assholes.”

 

6

Instead of letting Walter Pearce drop him off at the front entrance to his building, Frederick Milstein rode with him into the underground garage where they kept the car.

Even though he couldn't have cared less, Milstein asked, “You sure you're okay, Walter?”

“I'm all right. My arm and shoulder will be sore in the morning, but only because that guy held back. He knew what he was doing. Never been hit like that on the back of my arm. Still stings. What's somebody like that doing around you Mr. Milstein? Who the hell was he?”

Milstein lied without hesitation. “I have no idea, but I intend to find out.”

They stepped out of the car. Walter handed the key to the parking attendant and they walked through the garage to the building's service entrance.

“You need to know who he is. And we need to be prepared.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means at least me and another man, both of us armed. I wouldn't take any chances, Mr. Milstein. I heard him say he was intending to talk to you.”

“All right, all right, I'll look into it. Are you okay for the walk tonight?”

“Yes, sir. I'm going to get some dinner. I'll meet you in the lobby at the usual time.”

Walter turned and headed back out to the long driveway that opened onto Eightieth Street. Milstein walked through the storage and laundry areas to the building's lobby and waited for the elevator, his mouth moving involuntarily, propelled by anger and confusion and a fear he didn't want to admit feeling. Whoever that man was, Milstein was shocked at how easily he'd handled Walter.

The elevator door opened. One of the amiable doormen greeted Milstein with a respectful “Good evening, sir.”

Milstein stepped onto the elevator, grimacing, shoving his gloves into his pockets. When the elevator man saw Milstein's face he pressed fourteen, looked forward, and didn't say another word.

Milstein's wife had gone out to dinner with a friend. The housekeeper appeared from out of the kitchen the moment she heard Milstein enter the apartment.

She already had her coat on. Her way of telling Milstein he was later than usual and she wasn't going to spend one more second on the job.

“Your dinner is in the microwave, Mr. M. Just turn it on for two minutes and you're all set. Mrs. Milstein said she'd be home around ten. I left a red wine out for you.”

Milstein hated that “Mr. M” title. Where the fuck did she get the idea she could call him that? He didn't bother to look at her or answer her as he dropped his coat on the chair in the foyer and walked into the living room.

He headed straight for the phone on the ornate, leather-covered desk that occupied the corner of the room. The only light in the room was from the streetlights outside, another annoyance. Lazy bitch couldn't even turn on a fucking light for him.

He snapped on the desk lamp, revealing overstuffed couches in a gold brocade fabric, oil paintings of Hudson Valley landscapes, plush carpeting, and porcelain figurines resting on every end table, on bookshelves, as well as on the fireplace mantel.

It was his wife's idea of sophisticated Upper East Side decorating. Milstein never really noticed it much one way or the other, but tonight the room felt stifling, almost claustrophobic. He had to stop and catch his breath. He realized how much being roughed up had shaken him. No one had ever done anything like that to him. And that useless goddamn Walter. A big fucking waste of money, and now he wanted to bring in another bodyguard. Perfect. Can't do the job I'm paying you for so now I have to pay for another asshole, while I'm still paying you.

He picked up his home phone and dialed Alan Crane's number. Crane hadn't appeared in the office for two days. Not surprising with all the mess he'd created. The phone rang until the outgoing voice mail message came on.

“Call me,” said Milstein as he hung up with a curse. Goddamn Crane never answered his phone.

He stood for a moment in his opulent Park Avenue living room, trying to decide something. Finally, he reached into his desk and fished around for a cheap cell phone he kept there for just an occasion like this. There were three like it in the drawer. His instructions were to use the phones once and throw them away.

He checked the battery. Half full. That would be enough. He pushed the speed dial for a preprogrammed number and waited until the call connected and started to ring. Milstein listened to the phone ring at the other end. And continue to ring.

“Fuck.”

 

7

Leonid Markov heard his phone vibrating on the side table.

About two hours earlier, he had carefully ingested a combination of Adderall, Viagra, GBH (Gamma-Hydroxybutyric), and DOB (4-bromo-2,5-dimethoxyamphetamine) along with slightly less than a half-pint of Stolichnaya vodka.

A precise amount of each ingredient had been consumed in a precise sequence in preparation for the sex session Markov had planned, ending with the Adderall crushed into a fine powder, placed in a small piece of toilet paper, and swallowed with water.

He knew it was impossible to achieve the exact effect he wanted, but Markov nearly always succeeded in bringing himself to a point where he was teetering between sensory overload and mental chaos.

Leonid Markov simply and always wanted more. Drugs were part of getting more. More sensations, more intensity, more phantasmagoria.

It also made him feel superior to be able to maintain control over the overwhelming sensations brought on by the dangerous combination of chemicals that coursed through his system.

When his phone began vibrating, Markov was naked, on his back, his flabby, 255-pound body splayed on top of a sturdy masseuse table, knees bent, his thick legs tented wide, his heels on the edge of the table while a black transsexual stood at the foot of the table, penetrating him anally with long steady strokes as she squeezed and stroked his erect penis.

For a moment, Markov thought the buzzing sound of the cell phone had something to do with his own moaning and grinding of teeth under the Adderall rush.

But he rallied enough to focus and realized the electronic noise came from the cell phone skittering around on the glass-topped side table next to the king-size bed.

Markov was working on the second orgasm of three he had planned, so he held up one hand, indicating that the prostitute should stop. Calls to his cell phone could not be ignored. They invariably involved money, and of all the things Leonid Markov wanted more of, money was at the very top of his list.

He reached over, picked up the phone. “Who?”

“Milstein.”

Markov grunted, “Call me in five hours.”

Without waiting for a response, he pushed the
END
button and dropped the phone on the hotel room carpet, turning his attention back to the transsexual.

Markov focused on the black she-male who called herself Natalie. She was beginning to look more masculine, but at the same time less human, more animatronic. Her abdominal muscles flexed and pulsed, looking like a set of dark, three-dimensional metallic plates. The shaved stubble of her pubic hair seemed to flex on the surface of her smooth abdominal skin, reminding Markov of tiny nail heads or rivets. The black wig she wore swayed as if it were made of plastic strands that had been covered in a resin that made each strand heavy and somehow dangerous. Markov suddenly felt that if she bent over and any part of the wig touched him, it would slice through him, cutting back and forth through layers of skin and yellow fat and making him bleed.

Markov avoided looking at her face, which had twisted into something like a mask made of twitching, flat, shining pieces of dark stone. He wanted to focus on her breasts, to turn his attention to something erotic, but he couldn't stop his eyes from blinking and suddenly watering. Everything began to turn blurry. Her breathing sounded like the hissing spurts that would come out of a steam radiator. Or maybe it was his breathing. Or was it really the hissing of the radiator in the hotel room he had rented in midtown Manhattan?

*   *   *

Milstein checked his watch. He knew calling Markov back and venting his anger in a voice mail would be stupid and dangerous. Five hours. That would mean at about eleven-thirty.