Chapter 2 - Novak-1
1333 Words
Chapter 2 - Novak
...TWO MONTHS EARLIER...
I had little left of my Russian accent, though I clung lightly to what remained of my heritage. Mostly it was a name, a love of vodka, and ties to the family business here in the USA. I was good at my job, though it was hard to say whether or not being good at it counted as enjoyment. It wasn’t the sort of thing one was supposed to enjoy.
But still.
Most of the time people thought of mobsters as old school gangsters, complete with Tommy guns and pinstriped suits. That was mostly old hat at this juncture, but some things lingered with the times. Useful things. Like contract killers, men hired to take out “problems.” Men like me.
We met at an Italian bistro—not that it mattered since the food was all Americanized in the end, and no one cooked like my mother did anyway—Bella, Bella, and made it through the entire meal without talking a bit about business. Pasta, tossed salad, dinner rolls, and some sort of soup that was probably the closest thing to homemade cooking in the entire place. It was the only thing I finished, though I insisted on a to-go container just to make sure Mickey, who I thought was Italian until I learned that Mickey was actually just a nickname for Mikhail so as not to invoke any negative connotations to his name, didn’t get insulted by my lack of appetite. He’d have told me he wasn’t offended, but he would have been a liar, so I was going to take home two containers of processed crap just to make sure our business affairs stayed smooth.
When Mickey was finally finished, he dabbed at his double chin. There were three wise guys in town who were of any note. Mickey here, with his round frame and mushy gray beard that couldn’t decide if it was trying for salt and pepper or just going that dirty gray color. His eyes were a watery blue color that reminded me more of home than anything else, but were always shrewd, even when the rest of him was trying to be jovial and kind. Then there was Grigory, who was tall and thin and liked to fight with Mickey over having such a ridiculous nickname, even though they grew up together and it didn’t really bother him anymore. He’d say, “It’s not traditional, Denis, not even a little.” And finally, there was Zackary, who sounded like he should have been a huge, giggling fat man, but was actually just shaped like a box. A box with sparkling gray eyes and the promise that things would go badly if you pushed him into a corner.
All three of these men were the kind of people you wanted as friends, not enemies, but usually it was just better not to know them altogether. At least, it was better if you didn’t want to walk a fine line that was usually on the wrong side of the law.
As it stood, I did know them and the three of them always had some sort of job for me. Tonight, it just happened to be Mickey, and I wasn’t complaining. Mickey was a practical man, despite his show of excess and luxury. He understood the price of a thing and was willing to pay that price if it meant a good job done in the end.
That was what people were paying me for in the end: a good job. I was the best in the business and that came with a rather impressive price tag.
“He’s some kid,” Mickey finally began to explain to me, getting into the meat of the job. “Some kid who was just supposed to be a contractor. Good, wholesome kid. From some farm in the middle of fly-over-America, the places no one cares about. A corn-fed boy, you know?”
I nodded. These were the sorts of people you always had to be on the lookout for, though I didn’t bother pointing that out to Mickey. He hired this kid because he was cheap and seemed so honest, but in my experience, it was always the innocent, small town farm kids who moved to the big bad city you had to be wary of. They never understood what it took to make it in the city and it made them do funny, unpredictable things.
Like this homegrown kid had apparently done.
“So, we hired him to do a little work for us, right? Good, paying work. Just needed someone to come in a put up some new framework. Some structure. That old hovel isn’t working anymore. We need better. So, we hire him to put up a new business home for us and you know what he does?”
I knew for a fact that he was talking about a sort of unofficial headquarters for the mob, a place where they could hold meetings and discuss “delicate things” amongst themselves without any prying ears. And I also knew no one would call it a hovel except for Mickey. It was bigger than the library in New York City and it was just as beautiful. But they had a rat problem recently, and I wasn’t talking about small rodents.
“He steals from us.”
And there it was. Why I was here.
There were three things you didn’t do where the mob was concerned. Go to the cops was number one, which I was pretty certain applied to any sort of criminal organization, period. Go to other mobs—the Italians or the Irish, for example—and give them your business. That was pretty straightforward, too. The mob was all about loyalty, and going against your own people didn’t get you in good with the other people anyway, so no one f****d with that one much either. But the last one was the one people had a hard time with. It was also the one that very quickly got you killed, regardless of who you knew.
Number three was stealing, and you never got away with it.
“Do you have a name for me?” I asked, my accent slightly thicker since I’d been spending the evening with Mickey, who took pride in sounding as Russian as possible. Mostly a show since I knew his English was near perfect, but he was from the Motherland, so it wasn’t exactly fake either.
He slid a piece of paper across the table. Before I even opened it up I knew it would have two things on it: a name and a number. The number was the price Mickey was willing to pay and the name would be the homegrown corn fed Iowa or wherever middle state he was from boy I was to kill.
I opened the paper and saw it: Logan King. One hundred thousand. Not a bad price in the slightest. The kid must have taken a lot of money from Mickey for him to be willing to pay that much for his head. I noticed that beside the number there was a little plus sign and an additional number, fifty thousand. My eyebrows rose slightly in surprise. This was clearly a bonus; it must have been for doing it in a timely manner.
“You have a date for me?”
Mickey nodded. “Three months. Anything longer and the deal is off. Anything sooner and you get the fifty.”
“All right.” I agreed to the deal because I didn’t like to go too long without working and the money was good for a relatively easy kill. Mickey wasn’t paying for difficulty; he was paying for time and for his own money. I could appreciate that.
“There’s been a sighting of him,” Mickey continued, leaning back in his chair as I held the note between my fore and middle finger and placed it over the lit candle. It burned, ashes falling to the deep red tablecloth as Mickey spoke. “A bar, local. Shadow.”
“How much money was it?” I asked before I get up to leave. I knew where Shadow was; I’d been a time or two.
Mickey studied me for a long moment, as though debating just how much he should tell me. Finally, he said, “Six and a half five million. And I want it back.”
I nodded once and then I was gone.
***
- Writer
