The Dewey Decimal System (21 page)

“Extreme? He is ordering executions. God knows what else. I’m frightened of Daniel like I am frightened of Yakiv.”

“Who is a killer and a rapist, right?”

“Yes. You don’t believe me about Yakiv. He charmed you, huh? He’s very charming, sure.”

“I don’t believe anybody at the moment,” I say, and I mean it. Though fuck knows, if I want to believe anybody, she’s sitting right in front of me.

Then Iveta does a crazy, reckless thing. Leans forward, softly places her hand over mine. My hand that holds the pistol.

My stomach rises and flips. I stiffen up and immediately am thinking about Purell
^TM
. On instinct. Then I’m thinking about her hand, her skin. Rougher than I expected. That’s not a bad thing.

She holds my gaze. Calm. Says, “Mr. Decimal. Look at me. I’m just a person. You say I saved your life last night. Okay. You maybe save mine over last few days. I need you to at least try and hear me.”

I don’t say anything. I like the fact that Iveta is touching me, holding the hand that holds the gun. I like the idea of it. The idea of her.

“But I won’t be threatened by you anymore,” she says. “I don’t think you want it like this either.”

Right. Cause there’s a piece that doesn’t fit in this configuration, hand on hand on gun. It’s the gun. The gun doesn’t fit.

I lower my hand to the table. Iveta maintains eye contact and doesn’t let go.

Very gently, I remove the Beretta with my other hand and place it on the glass.

Then it’s just us, just the hands.

But it’s too much, so I pull it away, gradually, but I pull away.

I nod at her. Lean back and feel a fuck of a lot better.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

Nod again. Weirdly, I feel myself choking up, but I nip that shit right in the bud. There will be none of that.

“Okay, I tell you,” says Iveta Shapsko.

I
veta saying, “First, I am a survivor.” She’s smoking now. Takes a moment to look at the cigarette. “Always, I survive. I had this big problem in Riga. Joined NATO army, went to Bosnian conflict. Trouble there too. When I met Yakiv in Odessa, he was a powerful man. Had been in Serbia, like me. Over there, everyone needs protection. Especially women. See what I mean?”

I’m with her. Can’t describe the relief, with the gun out of the picture.

“Not great situation, for women. This sex trade, within Ukraine and across borders. All over the world.” She picks up her coffee, puts it back down. “Yakiv will take me to America, easy for him, he has already this, what is it, network. So I come in with other girls. Easy.”

I’m hearing her. I wonder if she was offended when I took my hand away. But I can’t read this woman.

She says, “Then Yakiv and I became close. In the way that you do, the same experience. Like this. It made it easier …” She looks down for a moment, then continues. “It made it easier to look over the things he did, before. In Serbia, in Ukraine. Like a monster. But I need him, so I say past is past.”

I get it. I nod.

“So, time, it moves fast or it moves slow, but it moves. Things become difficult. We are fighting, all the time. At this embassy party, I meet Daniel. Now, I am in situation where I need to get away from Yakiv. Daniel, he is not handsome, he is not funny, but he is powerful in the way that Yakiv was back home. Like I said, I am a survivor. Yakiv went off this night with his friends and probably some whores. So I let Daniel seduce me. Why not? I need American protection in America, not fucking crap machismo Slav protection.”

This is hard to hear. I say, “Rosenblatt is a … Rosenblatt is a bad guy. Orders hits, shakedowns, skims drug profits—whatever smells like money, he’s into it.” I should know, right?

Iveta gives me a look. “You think I’m a teenager? I know this. And you too, you know this, because you’re one of his, how do you say it, one of his tools.”

To which I respond: “That’s not how I’d describe it. I think a better word would be
pawn
. And fuck that. I work for myself. Not anybody else. We have that in common, I am a survivor too—first, foremost, and always.”

“But Daniel, he hired you to … hit Yakiv. Is this not true?”

Since we’re having this little talk, might as well be straight. “Well. Yeah. True.”

“So why is Yakiv not disappearing? Are you not very good at this job?”

Woah now. Feelings and touching and grooving on shit is one dimension, but I don’t like to have my qualifications questioned. “Look here, lady, I told you that I don’t like to harm anyone until I’m clear on the reasons why I’m doing so.”

“I can give you plenty of these reasons for Yakiv.”

“Funny, that’s kind of what he had to say about you.”

“And of course Yakiv is the respectable businessman. Why not accept what he says?”

“I don’t. I’m reserving my conclusions.”

Iveta looks at me hard. “And Daniel, he hired you to kill me as well, do you deny this?”

Okay, I could play this one of two ways. I wrack my brain for a good reason to say yes. I want to say yes. But I say: “No, that’s one thing he did not do. In fact, looking back on it, he went out of his way to keep me away from you. Guess the flame still burns in old Daniel’s black heart. That’s kind of sweet, isn’t it?”

“Oh stop it. Like I say, there was a time when he was very good to me.”

“I don’t doubt it. He’s been good to me too. Always with an agenda. No, in fact, the DA didn’t engage me to kill you. That was your husband.”

She looks confused for a split second, then shrugs. “Yes, that makes sense. Why not? So. Hit man. Tough guy. You are waiting to see who has the best story before you make your moral decisions.”

“Something like that.”

Iveta Shapsko leans forward. No makeup, no nothing, in dirty clothes, and she is distracting in her beauty.

“Well then, I have some fantastic stories about your new best friend Mr. Yakiv.”

T
hrough fucking around, I’m headed north on the 1 train to the Maritime.

In case it all goes to shit, I booked another room back at the Millennium, just adjacent to ours, under the named Donny Smith.

I made damn sure I stuck the briefcase in there, the mummified hand of mystery very much on my mind. And Iveta. Told her to sit tight, lock the door. Just in case.

Made sure I had: key, pills, box cutter, plastic baggie, Purell
^TM
, and a little Maglite. Thought about taking the briefcase with me, decided against it. See, I can demonstrate a little trust every now and then too.

Monday, just past “rush hour” … so there’s two other individuals in the subway car with me, and they’re TA cops. I try not to make eye contact. My guns weigh heavy on me, and I’m relieved as always to get the hell out of their company when I disembark at 14th Street.

It was a cinch to get a new suit and I’m happy about that. Through a broken window at Century 21, straight to the men’s department … I gave myself a max time limit of ten minutes, tough to shop by flashlight but it is what it is. I finally settled on a pinstripe Paul Smith job that I could never have afforded in pre–2/14 conditions. I figure I’m worth it.

My shoes are still holding up.

Collected some extra underwear, socks, a couple shirts, bingo, it’s the new me.

On impulse, I grabbed a lovely Marc Jacobs dress for Iveta. I didn’t analyze this action, I just did it. She took it, and said it was lovely.

So I come up out of the underground with a heart full of thick fucking hate, which is going to be essential to my task ahead.

This is great; usually I don’t have a vibe one way or the other, and this makes me unfocused.

Yakiv is a goddamn animal. No, in fact it’s an affront to animals the world over to call him an animal. There’s no descriptor strong enough for this person. The laundry list of atrocities I got from Iveta challenges human comprehension. There is not a vile action that my pal Yakiv hasn’t engaged in, short of cannibalism. And even there, though … an occasion related to me when he made a Russian mafioso boss, at gunpoint, eat his own daughter’s heart, after she died during a brutal gang rape in which Yakiv participated, which said Russki mobster was forced to witness.

In Serbia he slaughtered entire towns. Everyone dead. But not before they’d been systematically raped (women, men, children) and made to carry out the duty of digging their own graves. It was a highly structured operation, meticulous.

So no more fucking around, Decimal.

What he did to Iveta I hope to never hear about again, and I will never repeat it. Never.

All this propels me west on 14th Street. One block to Ninth Avenue, two blocks to the hotel. I’m so amped, I almost don’t notice the goddamn Stench. Almost.

Dig me now. My approach is System-based and sound in its logic.

I cross over Ninth Avenue, and between 15th and 16th I have a look at the doors to the old Chelsea Market. Locked, but somebody has created an improvised entryway leading into that mediocre Italian place by knocking out all the glass in one of the doors. So it’s accessible.

I ditched the turban of gauze in favor of my hat, and if you don’t look too closely at my face, which is alarmingly re-organized despite Iveta’s makeup treatment, I pass for a freakin class act.

Very pleased with the suit, I’m going to have to remember this Paul Smith fellow for future reference. My key sits well in the deep pants pocket.

Got my vest on, and guns good to go.

First I walk around front and observe that there is a single man stationed at the stairs leading to the restaurant balcony. Just happens that I glance up Ninth Avenue on the west side of the street, and I stop cold.

Hold the phone.

A Lincoln Navigator, black, tinted windows … but surely …

Surely there can’t be just the one Navigator in town? After all, this spot is VIP central. If there’s Navis anywhere, they’d be concentrated here. I can tell myself this, but I slip closer, just outside of the lights of the Maritime.

The Navigator is seemingly unoccupied. Move closer still. Close enough to savvy the red, white, and blue plates that tell me … what? Branko’s here? I’ve still got the tail? This adds up to … ?

I can’t do the math. But it gives me a new idea, a new angle. Might clear out some cobwebs. Proceed. It’s on.

Back around the side entrance of the Maritime, I take the stairs two at a time, past the footmen, projecting
I belong
, visualizing it, owning it.

Nobody says a word despite that fact that I’m a black dude, which is generally grounds enough to get kicked out of anywhere white people want to actually relax. Into the lobby, which is a little more on the muted side tonight, less pumping party action going down on a Monday evening. Couples get intimate across complex-looking frozen drinks.

I note several black-suited hulkers with that telltale coiled gray cord coming out of their collars and into their earpieces. Three guys, positioned near the entrance to the elevator banks, at the neon blue–lit bar, and next to the side stairwell leading to 16th Street.

I picture the pattern I would employ to take them all out, an easy 360-degree swing to the left,
boom, boom, boom.

Approach the desk. An “attractive” blonde surgically altered to the extent that she joins that subspecies of humans that no longer look like anything, except that they’ve had a lot of plastic surgery, and therefore all look strangely like the same person.

“Can I be of service?”

Russian accent, “bee-stung” lips looking painfully swollen to the point of bursting. Skin over skull pulled tight, tight, tight. Poor thing, she was once a beautiful little baby. Her visage is distracting in exactly the opposite way Iveta distracts.

“Yes, Branko Jokanovic here to see Yakiv Shapsko.”

She frowns, which stretches things even tighter. Only her mouth moves. It’s disturbing. “We have no such person here. Perhaps you are mistaken?”

Boring. I lower my voice. “Listen, cupcake, I truly shudder at the thought of the punishment Yakiv would dole out on your silicone if he knew you were holding up our meeting.”

She looks taken aback … I imagine. I’m extrapolating because her face doesn’t move, can’t move.