The Insider (17 page)

“You know, maybe that's a good idea.”

Claire was a little wobbly as they crossed to the door, so Will offered his arm and she took it.

After hailing a cab outside the bar, Will climbed in behind Claire. “I'm just going to see you home. It's on my way, anyway.”

The taxi stopped at a new, redbrick apartment building in Jackson Square. Will asked the cabbie to wait and walked Claire to her doorstep.

When they reached the front door, Claire leaned against him as she searched her purse for the cardkey to the lobby. When she found the key, she slipped it into the front pocket of her jeans and turned her face up to his.

“Thanks for bringing me home,” she said. Claire leaned up to give him what he expected to be a chaste kiss on the cheek.

Claire's aim changed, however, and she kissed Will full on the mouth, lips apart. He'd had just enough to drink to drop his workplace inhibitions. They were finally interrupted when the lobby door swung open as a pizza delivery boy with an acne-scarred complexion left the building, pizza box warmer folded under his armpit.

“Was that okay?” Claire asked. “Because there were times when we were working together on the Jupiter deal that I thought maybe you wanted to kiss me. Maybe that was just me.”

“No. It wasn't just you.” Will knew the firm's general counsel would have hated to hear him say this.

“Would you like to come upstairs?”

“I can't. I'm sorry, Claire.”

She pulled back from the embrace. “That's okay. Really. I guess now my day is finally complete.”

“There are several reasons why I can't come up, and none of them have anything to do with you. I was your supervisor at the firm. I just can't do this, especially on the day that you were fired . . .”

Claire slid her cardkey through the slot, and the lobby door emitted a metallic click. “Just my luck,” she said. “A gentleman.”

“Call me if there's anything you need, or if you just want to talk.”

“So you don't want to come upstairs, but you're willing to go out of your way to help me. Are you the last nice guy or what?”

“Don't give me too much credit. I never said I didn't
want
to come up.”

“See, now
that's
helping.” Claire closed the lobby door, and Will watched her until she disappeared into the elevator.

When he turned around, the taxi was gone. He checked his watch—two ten A.M. Tomorrow was going to be a long day, and it was bearing down on him fast.

As Will approached the front steps of his condo, his cell phone rang and he flipped it open.

“Hello, asshole.” It was Yuri.

“What do you want?”

“Out a little late, aren't you? And is that what you wear out on a date?”

“Where are you?”

“Turn around and take a look. I was wondering how long it was going to take you to notice me. You must have a lot on your mind.”

Will turned around to see Yuri walking ten yards back. He looked like an extra from
The Sopranos
, wearing black pants, a leather jacket, and a silvery silk shirt open at the neck to reveal a thick, gold chain.

“Nice, clear signal, isn't it?” Yuri snapped his cell phone closed and approached.

“Can't you just leave me alone?”

“No can do, Will. No can do. You heard what Valter said. I'm supposed to keep a close eye on you. If I have to babysit your ass, at least I will get some work done in the process.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you're coming with me.”

“It's two thirty in the morning. I have to work tomorrow.”

“You're not bitching out on me,” Yuri said. “Now, we have one rule for tonight. You follow it and we'll be fine. No matter what happens, just keep your shit together and keep your mouth shut.”

“Isn't that two rules?”

Yuri gave him an appraising look. “Are you being a wiseass? What, you are not scared of me anymore, Will?” Yuri gave Will a quick, hard punch in the shoulder. “I don't want you getting too relaxed. That's when accidents happen.”

Will rubbed his bicep.

“C'mon. I'm parked over here,” Yuri said, pointing at a pearl-gray Lexus parked on the street. Will noted that every time he saw Yuri or Nikolai, they were driving a different car. As they climbed into the car, Yuri added, “If you're still a wiseass at the end of the night, I just might be impressed.”

As the Lexus effortlessly climbed California Street to the top of Nob Hill, Yuri was in a chatty mood. He popped a CD into the player, and the Cult's “Love Removal Machine” blasted from the speakers. Will told himself, hopefully, that whatever happened tonight could not be any worse than what he had already been through.

“I think we had a good meeting with Valter,” Yuri said as he turned left onto Stockton Street. “If he and Boka make money on this deal, then Nikolai and I will be
mafiya
. Then no more of this petty shit.”

“What's happening tonight?”

“Valter is letting Nikolai and me do some of their collections. Nikolai's out covering another route.”

“Where are we going right now?”

“We'll be making a couple of stops.”

The Lexus pulled into a no-parking zone in front of a large pawnshop on the west end of Market Street, the seedy no-man's-land between Union Square and the Castro. The interior of the pawnshop was as aggressively illuminated as an insect lantern, casting a pool of light on the sidewalk.

Yuri opened the car door. “You stay here. I'll be back in a minute.”

In front of the store, a man with stringy, blond shoulder-length hair wearing an Oakland Raiders jacket was standing around with the studied nonchalance of a drug dealer. He interrupted his shoe-gazing every few minutes to cast darting, furtive glances up and down the block. Will tried not to stare at the man who approached. He was wiry and muscular, with greased-back black hair and a sleeveless T-shirt that showed off an arm covered from wrist to shoulder with red and orange tattooed flames; he could have been the bass player in a rockabilly band. The pair glanced at Will sitting in the seat of the nearby car and apparently decided that he was not a cop. Then they shook hands, concealing the palmed exchange of money for product.

Yuri emerged from the pawnshop and returned to the car carrying a fat manila envelope. As he got behind the wheel, he tossed the envelope at Will.

“Put that in the glove compartment.”

Will opened up the compartment and saw that there was a pistol inside. He carefully placed the envelope on top of the gun.

“Why would you bring me along tonight? You're basically making me a witness to what you're doing.”

“A witness to what? You saw me pick up an envelope. You think the guy who owns that pawnshop is going to say anything? Do you think
you're
going to say anything? You need to relax, Will. It's the only thing you can do when you're getting fucked up the ass.”

Will fell into a glum silence as the Lexus made its way through the traffic of Market Street.

“If I'd known you were going to sit there and pout, I would have let you ride with Nikolai tonight.”

Will maintained his silence, hoping that Yuri might get bored and let him go.

But nothing seemed to dampen Yuri's spirits. It occurred to Will that he might be coked up. “You know, I've worked a long time for this, becoming a
patsani
in the
mafiya
. For you, it was probably like when you became a partner in your firm.”

“I doubt that.”

“How much do you make right now? If things go well in the next few months, I bet I'll be making more money than you.”

“That's none of your business.”

“Oh, I see,” Yuri said. “So you can tell me about the merger of a publicly traded company, but you can't tell me how much money you make.”

“You cut me with a razor blade to get me to tell you about Jupiter.”

“And I'll do it again if that's what it takes to have a fucking conversation with you.” Yuri was beginning to sound genuinely angry. “Okay, I'll start. I'll probably clear a half million a year to start if I get accepted into
mafiya
. That's more than you make, right?”

Yuri was stopped at a light and turned to stare at him, still gripping the steering wheel hard with both hands. His pupils appeared dilated, and his eyes were pinballing. Will looked in those eyes and recognized that Yuri was capable of just about anything. Then he remembered that Yuri was waiting for an answer.

“Yes, that's more than I make.”

“See?
And
you pay taxes!” Yuri stepped hard on the gas as the light changed, sending a pedestrian leaping for the median. “I'll bet you probably have to work pretty hard for it, too, don't you?”

“Sure, I put in a lot of hours. I guess the difference is that you're likely to end up in prison. Now that would put a dent in your earning potential, wouldn't it?”

“
Mafiya
don't go to jail. No one fucks with them. You know what the FBI heard John Gotti say on a wiretap? He said, ‘The Russians are crazy. We'll kill a guy, but the Russians will kill his whole family.'”

“How do you know so much about the Russian mob if you've never been one of them?”

“Back in Moscow, my father used to tell me stories. He worked as a low-level bureaucrat in the city government. Toward the end of communism, it was hard to tell the difference between his bosses and the
mafiya
, they were so closely connected.”

“Did your father have any dealings with the
mafiya
?”

“No, he was too far down the chain, but he saw what was happening. Anyone who had any real power got rich. They'd just take what they wanted and sell it on the black market . . . grain, gasoline reserves, even tanks.”

“So that was your dream? Becoming a gangster?”

“Sure, why not? I wanted money, respect. I wanted to be better than my father. Don't tell me this does not sound familiar.”

Will wasn't going to argue that point with Yuri. He hadn't entered law school to become a legal aid attorney. He wouldn't have accepted a job at Reynolds Fincher if that had been his intention. Observing his father's frantic efforts to meet sales quotas on copiers and fax machines had left him with a powerful desire to make money. It was a way to carve out a secure place in the world for himself and Anne. Only later had he grown to enjoy the work for its own sake, earning the trust of clients and solving their problems.

Yuri drove down Columbus Avenue to North Beach, the land of Italian restaurants, Beat landmarks, and strip clubs. He parked illegally on a side street above Columbus, blocking someone's driveway. Will remained in his seat until Yuri rapped on the passenger window. “You're coming with me this time.”

“Why bring me along?” Will asked.

“Do you know who Enzo the Baker is?”

“
The Godfather
, right?”

“For once, you impress me. You just make like Enzo—follow me and try to look tough. You do not say shit.”

Will knew the scene well. Enzo arrives at the hospital with flowers to pay his respects to the bullet-riddled Don Corleone. Sollozzo, a rival mobster, sends his men to the hospital to kill the don, believing that he's unguarded. Michael asks Enzo to stand with him outside the hospital, posing as a tough to convince them that the hospital was still protected. After a car full of Sollozzo's men passes by and the threat is averted, Enzo's hands tremble with fear as he tries to light a cigarette. Michael helps him, lighting the cigarette with perfectly steady hands. Will loved the way Coppola lingered on that moment as Michael recognizes that he is capable of doing things that most people can't do.

Yuri and Will approached a club at the corner of Columbus and Broadway. A bronze placard proclaimed that in 1968, the club had been the first in the United States with dancers who went bottomless as well as topless, and thus “all-nude.” The current establishment seemed to be carrying on the same proud tradition because the neon sign overhead read simply, XXX ALL NUDE GIRLS. The club's marquee urged, LIVE THE FANTASY! TOUCH THE MAGIC!

The doorman, a muscular young man with short blond hair who looked like a cross between a bodybuilder and a surfer, looked them over with contempt. “There's a ten-dollar cover charge, gents,” he said in a surprisingly high, reedy voice.

Gents. What an asshole
, Will thought.

“We're here to see Ray,” Yuri said.

“Okay. Down that hall. First door on the left.”

The walls of the club were painted black, which made the brightly lit stage the focus of attention. On the stage, a topless woman with small breasts and a platinum dye job with black roots shimmied around a chrome pole. Madonna's “Secret” played on the sound system. Four or five men watched her dance, one per table, formless shapes in the darkness just beyond the stage lights.

They proceeded down a dim corridor, each step producing a smacking sound on the sticky floor. Yuri rapped sharply on the door and entered.

Behind a desk facing the door was a man who had to be Ray. He had thinning, light brown hair and was wearing a blue V-neck sweater with no shirt underneath, a few graying chest hairs sprouting over the V. Ray's face was ill-shaven and deeply lined from sun damage.

“And who the fuck are you?” Ray said, putting down the sports section of the
Chronicle
and standing up.

Ray's desk was occupied by a Forty-Niners mug filled with pens, a photo of his girlfriend or wife, and a desktop computer. It looked similar to Will's own desk at Reynolds Fincher. Will could only guess that Ray used the computer to store mission-critical data such as the number of lap dances performed and the astronomical profit margins on cheap champagne.