Chapter 53
The back room of Bolshoi has the fetid smell of yesterday’s alcohol, stale cigar smoke, and other men’s cum. I don’t like to look at the black sofas, and I make a point of not resting my hand on the leather as I sit down and lean back.
The door creaks open and Oksana, my old lover from Moscow, walks in. She manages the strippers and the dancers and the girls behind the bar with an iron hand. Never one for subtlety, her hair is dyed fire-engine red this week.
“What have the girls been up to?” I ask.
“The usual.” She smiles at me, holding the eye contact a beat too long. “The same round of rivalries, catfights, and drug problems.” She shrugs. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Did you find an aspiring singer to lure Jimmy in?” I pull a cigarette from the pack and slide it between my lips as I search my pocket for a lighter, but she moves faster, leaning across with a lit flame. Finding an excuse to touch me.
I wave the packet at her, and she shakes her head. “I’m going to need fillers to deal with my pout if I keep it up,” she says.
She sits down next to me and lays her hand on my thigh, but I give her a squeeze and return her hand to her lap.
“So, it’s like that, then? It’s serious?” She gives me a pensive smile.
“Yeah. Serious as a heart attack. Or a kidnapping. Or disposing of a body.” I slant my eyes across to her.
“I found someone, but you’re not going to like it. I had a look at the girls, but he wants someone fresh and talented and young. Really young, but not desperate. I think he likes to break them.”
“Okay.” I’m curious. “Who did you pick?”
“Julia.” She gives me a hard stare.
“Christ, Oksana. Your own daughter?”
“Well, you’re serious about getting rid of him, aren’t you?” Oksana shakes her head. “After all the damn money I spent on her education, Julia wants to follow in my footsteps and try to be a singer. We all know how that ended up.” She gives a harsh bark of laughter. “I want the girl to be a surgeon or a dermatologist. Make a mint. Be respectable. She’s got the grades. I don’t want her in this world, and this will be a lesson to her.”
“Sasha and I will be taking him for a little walk.” I nod at her.
“Off a long pier, I hope.”
“The less you know, my dear,” I say, grinning at her as I bump her shoulder.
She smiles at me with a hint of her old warmth. She’s been a good friend. “I want that fucker out of here. He’s been wining and dining Julia. Telling her she can make it. I want her to understand what’s at stake in this world, and I want him to pay. I don’t know what your woman went through, but I can imagine.”
I nod but say nothing else. As I said, the less she knows.
By the timeSasha arrives in the evening, I have a headache. The back rooms of Bolshoi echo with the sound of groaning men, and the thud-thud-thud of an Usher song comes over the speakers from the room next door.
God, the sound of other men getting off turns my stomach.
Sasha and I watch the cameras in room seven. Julia is there, giggling as Jimmy pushes her long blond hair behind her ear. He looks even sleazier than he did a decade earlier—the chin a little weaker and softer, the waistband of his jeans a little snugger.
We’ll pull the footage later and replace it with footage of Sasha getting a lap dance from Oksana. The alibi will be watertight once Marat, our tech guy, splices the video.
Jimmy moves a little closer and shoves his hand up her shirt. Here it is. The moment he lives for. The power move where a woman gets scared.
Julia shakes her head and puts her hand on his arm, as if to reassure him and push him away at the same time.
“Do we go in now?” Sasha asks.
I see the moment I met Kesera. Him on top of her. Her eyes begging me for help in the back room of a seedy club in Moscow.
“Get him,” I say, walking to the door. “Don’t give that slimy little shit a moment longer.”
We walk from the control room at the same time as Oksana.
“No, please don’t,” a girlish voice says as we push open the door.
“Mama,” Julia says when she sees Oksana.
Jimmy leaps back. “It’s not what it looks like.” He stands, wiping his palms on his jeans as he looks at Oksana bristling like a lion going in for the kill. Behind her, Sasha looks threatening.
But he can’t see me.
“We were just having a little fun,” he says, as I step into the room.
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” I say with a tight smile. “I believe I warned you what would happen if you didn’t leave my woman alone.”
When he sees me, he pales.
“You!” he exclaims, stepping back toward the wall and shaking his head. “What are you doing here?”
“Dealing with unfinished business. I told you not to touch her again.”
He puffs out his chest. “I didn’t fucking touch her. I’m suing her.”
“You aren’t fit to look at her, to breathe the same air, whether it’s in a courtroom or anywhere else. I warned you.”
He turns on me, going on the attack as if that will help. “She had a contract. You can’t just ignore contracts. Business would fall apart. She owes me.”
I sit down across from him. I think he knows that judges don’t rule my world, but it’s worth reminding him. “I’m not sure how you got the impression I’m a man who cares about the law. You didn’t take the hint last time I paid you a visit, so now I’m going to have to deal with you the hard way.”
“You can’t do anything about the lawsuit,” he says through a sneer.
“I beg to differ.” I shrug as if it’s a shame. I’m enjoying toying with him. “Dead men can’t sue people.”
Sasha walks over to him and pushes a rag against his mouth. Jimmy struggles against him, arms flailing, muffled screams blunted by the rag, before slumping as the chloroform works its magic. Julia is crying now. Soft sobs shake her shoulders.
“Next time, you’ll listen to your mother,” I tell her. I lift Jimmy’s limp body and throw it over my shoulder.
“Where to?” Sasha says. “Do you need help?”
“It’s a one-man job. I’ll take him down to the docks,” I say.
Sasha fishes in the man’s pocket for a phone. Finding one, he unlocks it with a press of Jimmy’s limp thumb. “I’ll deal with the phone. Marat can make it look like he hasn’t been here. He’ll keep the text messages for a day or two. That guy can hack anything.” Sasha walks to the door. “You timed it just right. We’ve got a shipment heading to China. Just stick the body in an empty crate, and we’ll push it off the ship once we get out to sea.”
I grin at him. “That’s right, my friend. No body. No crime.”