Among Thieves (20 page)

“Where'd you find this stuff?”

“A lot of it in DEA files. They have more foreign bureaus than the CIA. Plus in a bunch of other unknown fucked-up subagencies inside Homeland Security. Anybody supplying arms to anybody gets on their radar.”

“What about the other guy?”

More screens and mouse clicks.

“He's a Bosnian Serb. Gregor Stepanovich. Ex-military, but not from any standard army. Nasty fucker. Twenty counts of crimes against humanity, violations of laws or customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, including leadership responsibility for crimes against Muslims in three locations in Bosnia-Herzegovina, specifically expelling Muslims to various camps, killing, raping, and torture.”

Alex turned away from the computer monitors and looked at Beck.

“Guys like that who come out of places like that, the shit they've done, you realize how bent they are.”

Beck didn't answer.

Alex turned back to his keyboard and brought up a photo. “As for the others, you picked this one out. The one with the knife?”

“Yeah.”

“Krylo Bartosh. Charged with participating in the beating and mass killing of two hundred sixty-one non-Serb men removed by force from Vukovar Hospital. I don't know what his connection to Stepanovich is exactly. Their paths must have crossed somewhere. Your description of the other guy was pretty vague, but I can pull up a bunch of mug shots the United Nations commission pulled together.”

“No. I didn't get a good enough look at him to ID him.”

Alex leaned back. “Okay.”

Beck thought for a moment.

“So you figure Markov and Stepanovich are now based here?”

“Seems that way. But
here
covers a lot of territory. Is it New York? The East Coast? I mean, there's no way these Bosnians got into the United States under their real names. All of 'em are on U.N. lists of war criminals. Plus other lists.”

“So how did they? Can't be that easy.”

Liebowitz shrugged. “If Markov is running weapons for the U.S., maybe we let them in.”

Beck thought for a moment. “Great.”

“It's just a guess.”

“You think the Vory would have anything to do with these guys?”

“Maybe not directly, but if Markov is Russian and he's based here, and he's into this kind of shit, they will definitely know about him.”

Beck nodded. “Okay. Thanks. Good.”

Alex asked, “What's next?”

Beck checked his watch. Nearly four o'clock.

“I think we probably want to start with the money.”

Alex leaned back. “And how do we go about that?”

“Couple ways. If I were you, though, I'd take a nap. You might not be getting too much sleep later.”

*   *   *

Beck headed back to the ground-floor bar.

Demarco and Willie Reese sat at one of the tables in the front, waiting for the plate glass repair to be finished. The temperature in the bar had plunged while the glass frame was empty, but neither Demarco nor Willie seemed to mind.

Beck said to Demarco, “Time to head out.”

He walked behind the bar and took out his gun lockbox. He removed the Browning and pulled out an extra clip. Beck didn't have to ask if Demarco was armed.

Willie Reese watched them leave. Nobody said a word.

Demarco waited until they were in the Mercury before he asked where they were going.

“Brighton Beach,” said Beck.

 

25

Beck had been out to Brighton Beach twice before. Once on an all-night tear with a Russian woman he had become involved with. And prior to that to meet with an old Vory gangster named Ivan Kolenka. He had been summoned to meet with the gangster to receive his personal thanks for protecting an associate while he served time in Sing Sing. There was a long and complicated story behind all that, but the Vory treated the episode with such formality that Beck would have preferred to skip the meeting entirely.

Apparently, Kolenka was one of the few genuine adherents to the “Thieves Code.” A set of rules developed in the Russian gulags. It amounted to rejecting everything that had anything to do with normal society: family, all authority other than the internal authority of the crime group, and all income except that which came through criminal activity.

The life of a true Voy-v-Zakone seemed a bit mythic to Beck, until he met Ivan Kolenka in the private back room of a large restaurant. Kolenka appeared to be a man entirely self-contained. A withered, hunched over, almost emaciated man, dressed in a black suit and white shirt that were both too large for him, chain-smoking nonfiltered cigarettes, surrounded by minions. Big, thick-necked stereotypical Russian wise guys, other men who were either relatives or worked the restaurant, women who seemed to run the gamut from waitresses and fat wives to overdressed mistresses and pampered whores.

Food and drink and people swirled around Kolenka like the cigarette smoke that filled the back room of the private restaurant, but nothing seemed to affect him. He didn't seem to care about, recognize, or interact with anybody. When the emissary who had persuaded Beck to come to Brighton Beach to see Mr. Kolenka escorted Beck into the back room, Kolenka stood to greet him. The moment the old man stood, everyone in the room stopped moving. Apparently, Kolenka stood for very few and certainly bowed to no one.

Beck felt the charisma of the man, but also felt acutely ill at ease. Certainly, there was the assumed power and ruthlessness. But something more sinister or perhaps frightening lurked underneath. Beck sensed it might have been Kolenka's ability to endure pain and loneliness.

Beck instinctively wanted little to do with Kolenka. They sat in a velour-covered booth, an iced bottle of Russian vodka in front of them. They shook hands. He felt the wiry strength of the man's bony grip.

Beck had to lean toward Kolenka to hear his heavily accented English. Beck listened to Kolenka's thanks for taking care of Mister Cherevin, but responded very little. Kolenka said something about if Beck ever needed help, Beck should come to him. But the way he said it felt like an enunciation of policy. It didn't feel personal.

Beck thanked Kolenka back, politely refused the offer of food and drink, remained deferential, mindful not to offend the man. But he felt out of his realm and wanted to be done with the stiff, back-room, Russian ritual.

Kolenka hadn't gotten to where he was by missing the signs and signals around him. He sensed Beck's discomfort. He didn't seem to take offense or require that Beck put it aside. He allowed Beck a graceful exit. Beck nodded once more in Kolenka's direction, turned and walked out to the bar area in front, followed by the dark-suited emissary who had taken him out to Brighton Beach in his limo.

He climbed into the Town Car limousine and rode back in silence to the midtown hotel in Manhattan where he was staying. Back then Red Hook had been in the planning stages, and Beck moved around quite a bit, enjoying his freedom as much as possible after eight long years in prison.

The trip back out to Brighton Beach, this time with Demarco driving, seemed longer. They were caught in the rush hour flow of traffic out to the Island, moving slowly along the BQE to the Belt Parkway. Traffic finally opened up a bit when they made it past the Verrazano Bridge.

Kolenka had no phone, no means of contacting him except via a personal connection. Beck knew this trip might be fruitless, but he was fairly sure that an attempt on his part to contact Kolenka would get a fast response.

The first stop was the well-known Ukrainian Café Glechik.

Coney Island Avenue seemed foreboding. Dark and dingy as the winter night set in. It was nearly six o'clock when they pulled up in front of the café. On the commercial block with most of the storefronts closed for the night, the brightly lit and bustling café seemed like a welcome oasis.

Beck walked into the restaurant, while Demarco sat double-parked in the black Mercury.

The heat, the steamy air filled with the pungent smells of traditional Ukrainian spices and food filled Beck's head the moment he walked in the door. He seemed to remember that this place had gone down in reputation from its heyday, but he couldn't have cared less. Nothing on the menu appealed to him, and wouldn't have when it was more authentic.

He found the manager after questioning a disinterested waiter. When Beck told him his name and leaned in closer to say he needed to see Kolenka, the man's eyes actually opened wide.

“Tell him I'll be parked outside for the next half hour. If he can see me, I'll assume he'll get back to me by then. If he can't, ask him to call me at this number.”

Beck had written his cell phone number on the inside of a matchbook with a plain, white cardboard cover.

Beck didn't wait for any denials or refusals. He stuck the matchbook in the manager's shirt pocket and walked back out to the Mercury.

Eleven minutes later, a black GMC Yukon pulled up close behind them, and a battered Lincoln Town Car veered in front of them and backed up, trapping the Mercury Marauder between the two vehicles.

Demarco Jones already had his Glock resting in his lap. He calmly pointed it toward the driver's side door, keeping it low and out of sight.

“Easy,” said Beck. “Let me talk to them.”

Beck stepped out of the Mercury at the same time a large man in dark clothes came out the front passenger door of the Yukon.

Beck tried to remember the last time he'd seen a normal-size Russian doing crime in the New York area.

He kept his hands where they could be seen and took a couple of slow steps toward Kolenka's man, who held up a hand indicating Beck should stop.

“I'm Beck.”

“Vassily. Okay, you come with me. Tell your friend you be back soon.”

Beck thought about that for a second and said, “No. Let him follow you. He'll stay in the car.”

“I don't want a fucking parade.”

Beck said, “Then let one of your men ride with him and leave his car here. I'll ride with you. Two cars. Your man goes with you, I go with my guy. I don't want to waste time coming back here after I talk to Mr. Kolenka.”

Vassily screwed up his face. He wasn't pleased.

“You want to explain to Mr. Kolenka why I never showed up?”

Beck waited.

Vassily took time to think it through.

“Okay. But can't have anybody but you around the boss. One of mine goes with your driver. They park a couple of blocks away. We go see Mr. Kolenka. Takes one minute to get you back to your driver. That's fair.”

Beck thought about it. There shouldn't be any reason he would need Demarco. Mostly, he just didn't want to be bossed around by Kolenka's man.

“Fine.”

Vassily nodded toward Beck's car. “Go tell your man.”

Beck stepped back, leaned into the open window on the passenger side and said to Demarco. “Hey driver, you heard?”

“Yes, sir, boss, I hear you.” Then Demarco said quietly, “You need me, hit your speed dial. I'll get rid of their guy and get to you as fast as I can.”

“Good enough.”

Everybody took their seats. Beck in the Yukon next to the driver. Vassily sitting behind him. The gangster from the Town Car next to Demarco in the Mercury.

Demarco pulled in behind the Yukon and the two cars headed down Coney Island Avenue toward the boardwalk. Vassily's driver drove nearly fifty miles an hour until Vassily told him to pull over. Demarco, following behind, slid the Mercury to the curb behind the SUV. Vassily turned and saw Demarco stopped where he wanted him, and told his driver to go ahead.

They continued four blocks straight down Coney Island until they came to a five-story apartment building about two hundred yards from the boardwalk.

The driver double-parked the Yukon in front of the building, which surrounded a small courtyard set in about twenty feet from the curb. Beck saw Kolenka in the courtyard, hunched over on a bench, in the bitter winter air, smoking. Kolenka wore no hat or gloves or coat, only a well-worn white cable-knit sweater about two sizes too big for him. The old man seemed impervious to the freezing night air made more penetrating by the damp coming in off the ocean.

Beck turned around and noted that Demarco was still in sight back on Coney Island Avenue.

As he was about to get out of the Yukon, Vassily's heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. He asked Beck, “You have weapons?”

Beck's survival instincts kicked in. The dark night. The out-of-the-way location. Strangers all round. There was no way he wanted to be completely defenseless, but he also needed to make the meeting happen.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Can't have them around the boss.”

“Okay.”

Beck opened his coat and reached around to pull the Browning from under his belt near his right hip. He made sure to pull out the gun very slowly. He leaned forward and placed the Browning on the dashboard.

“That everything?” asked Vassily.

“I have this.” Beck made a show of pulling out a Kershaw folding combat knife and setting it next to the Browning.

But what Beck didn't show was the gun in a holster strapped to his right ankle: a Smith & Wesson 637 Airweight five-shot revolver with a light aluminum alloy frame and a two-and-a-half-inch barrel. Beck had taken it out of the glovebox of the Mercury and strapped it on his ankle on the way out to Brighten Beach.

“Let's go,” said Vassily.

Beck slid out the passenger door. Vassily came out from the backseat and gave Beck a perfunctory pat down.

“Okay. Go talk.”

Beck walked into the courtyard, noting that Kolenka had one bodyguard standing in the shadows of the courtyard about six feet left of Kolenka. He never took his eyes off Beck.

Kolenka looked even more wizened and thin than the last time Beck had seen him. He seemed completely disinterested in everything around him, his men, the twenty-degree cold, even Beck.