Among Thieves (31 page)

“You up?”

“I am now.”

“Your boy just walked out of his place. Front door. Got into a Town Car driven by a big guy.”

“Milstein?”

“Yeah, you told us to look out for him.”

“What time is it?”

“Little before seven.”

“Okay,” said Beck, sitting up. The pain immediately sent him back down on his bed. “Okay, good. But right now I'm more interested in his driver. I expect them to go into that building on the corner of Fifty-seventh and Lex. The one with that plaza outside.”

“You want I should go in and see where he ends up?”

“No. I already know. Where's Jonas?”

“With me. He's driving the Bolo-mobile.”

“You still using that same piece of crap van?”

“Hey, it blends in anywhere. It's practically invisible.”

“What'd you guys do all night after you left Tribeca?”

“Had some fun. Grabbed a couple of hours sleep. Then came over here to check up on your guy.”

“Okay. Follow him and verify he's going to work. Then stay with his driver.”

“Will do. Kisses.”

Beck set down his cell phone and remained flat on his back.

Kisses indeed, he thought. Images of Olivia Sanchez filled his mind. He wondered if he'd ever get out from under what was beginning to feel like an obsession.

He checked the time on his clock radio. Ten minutes to seven. He rolled onto his side, gritting his teeth against the pain and stiffness. He sat upright slowly, wincing as his weight pressed down on the stitches in his left thigh. Everything hurt. The room was cold. Dark. It all reminded him of prison.

Prison. Trapped by endless restrictions and circled by enemies. Much of the time you lived within the bubble of a tense truce. But if the truce broke down, and you knew you were a target, the key to survival was knowing who would be coming for you, and striking first. And you couldn't make a mistake or you'd create another set of enemies.

Beck had survived by quickly learning the process. Build an alliance with people who could supply you with intelligence, arms, and backup. Strike first and hard, but always make sure you had a way to end the feud. Ending it was the difficult part. It had to be in everyone's interest that you survived. There were two ways to make that happen. Make it too costly for your enemies to kill you by proving to them you would kill or maim as many as it took to survive, and if you didn't survive, your allies would avenge you. Or, make sure your enemies would profit if you were alive and well. Generally, that meant sharing whatever drugs or money or power you had. And that, of course, meant you had to maintain your efforts in another whole realm.

It was exhausting, and you had to work at it continually.

He might be outside, be free to move, have access to more, but the rules were essentially the same. The big difference was that inside prison the population was limited and the geography tightly defined. Outside there were way too many people you didn't know about who could be set against you. Worse, they could come at you from anywhere.

There was a soft knock on his bedroom door.

Beck knew by the sound that it was Manny.

“Yeah.”

The door opened. Manny stood at the threshold, making sure not to encroach on Beck's personal space, an old habit from prison where you never stepped into a man's cell without being invited.

Beck sat in his underwear on the edge of his bed, feeling the cold air around him, gently rolling his head, flexing his hands.

“You okay, James?”

“Okay enough.”

“I hear you had trouble at the hotel. I'm sorry, man. I should have made it clear to her.”

“You did. Some friend of hers at that place screwed it up for her. Good thing you picked the right person to bodyguard her. That Nydia saved us. She spotted the bad guys in the lobby when she came back from eating. It was close, but she gave us just enough warning. And she took down one of the fuckers in the lobby. Without her, we were dead.”

“Good. She's a tough kid. Good in the pocket, as they say.”

“She is.”

Manny smiled.

“What?”

“You can't have no shoot-up in a fancy hotel like that, man. It's all over the news.”

“What's the big deal? Nobody died. I'll bet there were gunshots all over the city last night. Nobody gave a shit.”

“I hear you. So what's the next move?” asked Manny.

“I fucking shower to get myself loosened up enough so I can move, and we start in on everything. Is Olivia still sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Where's Alex?”

“Downstairs. He's sleeping on the floor by the computers. He gets a signal when Crane gets on his computer. He was at it until a little while after you all got back. Nothing since then.”

“What about you?”

“I'm just waiting,
jefe.
Not sure I want to wait much longer.”

Beck stood up and moved stiffly toward his bathroom. “Don't worry. You won't have to.”

“By the way…”

Beck stopped.

“What?”

“You got a message from Phineas.”

“Oh?”

“Said a guy named Walter Pearce tried an old scam to find out our location.”

“Christ, that guy?” Beck stood for a moment shaking his head.

“You know him?”

“Works for Milstein. Where's D?”

“He just got up. He's in the bar. Like usual.”

“Ciro and Joey still here?”

“Watching in shifts. Except for Joey B. Seems like he don't sleep. I never seen a guy that size so buggy. You know what kinda drugs he's on?”

“The kind that make you big and buggy, I guess.”

“Everybody is restless.”

“Good.”

Beck was thinking about what to do with Manny. When to tell him about Olivia. The trouble was, he wasn't sure how or when would be best. Or, what Manny's reaction would be. Instead, he decided to give Manny something to do.

“Hey, about that guy Pearce.”

“Yeah.”

“Check with Phineas. See if he can find out where he lives.”

“Okay.”

“You got coffee going?”

“Sure.”

“I'll meet you and D in the bar in a few.”

 

45

Olivia lay wide awake.

By the time they got back to Red Hook, the adrenaline and fear had washed through her and she'd fallen asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She'd slept soundly. But she had awakened at her usual six o'clock and remained in the strange bed in the small room at the east end of the third floor.

She listened to sounds from the house. The steam hissing and softly banging through the old pipes. Muffled male voices from the floors below her. An occasional sharp sound coming from the big kitchen on the second floor.

She felt trapped and surrounded. She didn't want to be in this house with all these men. Beck made her uneasy. She hadn't thought about him nearly enough before this had started. How could she? She knew so little about him. She had mostly thought about Manny.

Beck was the only man she had ever met that made her unsure of herself. On one level, he was doing exactly what she wanted him to do. But there was too much that he wouldn't reveal to her.

She was as sure about Manny Guzman as she had ever been. He hadn't taken all that much effort. Mostly just time and persistence. Something she was very good at. It had been easy. She had played the role of his one, loyal relative perfectly. It was kind of like training an attack dog. Feed it. Be the only one kind to it. Let the dog feel loved.

Manny loved her. He'd let her know it the only way he could. By telling her if she ever needed him, just reach out.

She had never asked him for anything. Ever. But she had kept careful track of him. The days and years left in his prison sentence. The dates of his parole hearings. The likely time of his release.

When she offered to help him get settled outside of prison, he'd gently refused her. That was when she'd found out about Beck and the place in Red Hook.

And now she was inside the Red Hook headquarters, most likely for the duration. Right where she wanted to be. So why didn't it feel better?

She stared up at the plaster ceiling. What was it that made her feel uneasy? On one level it seemed obvious. She was surrounded by killers. Maybe not the computer guy, but all the others. She'd manipulated men all her life, but never men like these. Never men who could or would kill. And never a man like James Beck.

Manny would never let anything happen to her. Never. And Beck had made it clear that he needed her. He would protect her. So why was she worried? Because the violence had spun out to terrifying levels. Olivia winced when she thought about that fight in the elevator. She touched her cheek where the blood had spattered. She remembered the sound of Beck's gun butt smashing into that man's body.

Beck was unbelievable. To be so close to somebody doing what he did to those men. The power excited her. The strength. She'd been attracted to Beck almost from the moment she first saw him. It was easy to come on to him in the hotel room. But he was too smart, too disciplined. Now she wanted him even more, but she crushed the idea. Not now.

This was going as planned. She was exactly where she needed to be to push everything along in the right direction.

The predawn gray slowly crept into the small room.

The room reminded her of her small bedroom back in the projects. She had lived with her mother and her
abuela
. The household was all women. Her father disappeared when she was two. Her grandfather had died of alcoholism when she was eight. Her mother and grandmother raised her, scraping by on food stamps, dependent-child payments. And the numbers.

Her
abuela
was a tough old bird. She'd run the numbers in their Mott Haven neighborhood for years.

Olivia shook her head and blinked away thoughts of the past.

She felt tired. More weary than tired. But she couldn't afford to be slow or lacking now. She had to keep up. Right now, most of what was going to happen depended on Crane. And on how well Beck could hold off whatever Markov would be sending at him.

They'd almost had her at the hotel. That fucking idiot manager Raymond. Well, she told herself, it's my fault. I never stopped him from giving me discounts before. He was one of those stupid grinning men waiting to be smiled at and patted on the head for his favors.

Markov clearly had connections to powerful resources. How much time would it be before they found this place? How long before they stormed in here?

Surely Beck had a plan for that. Beck was the key. Thinking of Beck again sent another pulse of desire through Olivia. This time she didn't push it away. She let the feeling blossom. Something she hadn't felt about a man in a long, long time.

She felt the ripple of desire just in the pit of her stomach, pulsing down between her legs. She let her right hand slide under the flimsy black triangle of her thong. Her middle finger slipping into the warm space between her labia. She moved her finger further so that the heel of her hand pressed into her clitoris, sending a pulse of erotic sensation flooding through her.

She grabbed herself and squeezed, pulled her hand away, and moved it upward to cup her left breast and pinch her hardening nipple between her forefinger and middle finger.

She wondered what kind of lover Beck would be. On the couple of occasions when she'd touched him or bumped into him, she could tell he was solid. No fat on him. And God, he moved fast and with such sureness. Again she thought about the elevator. Those two he went after—it was like they'd found themselves in a cage with a wild animal. They never had a chance.

When the first one turned to look at her, she'd been sure he was going to kill her. Just pull out a gun and shoot her. But Beck got them both. He didn't hesitate. If he ever made a move for her, she imagined it would be fast and hard and without any bother to seduce.

The thought excited her. He'd resisted her, but it only showed her how much she would have to do. Olivia Sanchez had never met a man she couldn't seduce, and James Beck wasn't going to be the first.

 

46

Leonid Markov sat with Ivan Kolenka in a dirty kitchen in the building on Coney Island Avenue where Kolenka had met Beck. Kolenka chain-smoked his unfiltered cigarettes, which made the small, overheated space almost unbearable for Markov. Even if Kolenka had noticed, he wouldn't have cared. All he cared about was killing James Beck.

His calculations had been swift. His conclusion immutable.

Two of his men out of action, who would have to be killed because he couldn't take any chances that the police would use them to penetrate his operation.

There was clearly a serious ongoing threat to Markov, a man who was a source of significant sums of money to him.

But above all else, Kolenka was certain that Beck realized he had aligned with Markov, and would therefore try to kill him.

Conclusion: Beck had to be eliminated. And all his men, whoever they were. Anything and everything that had to do with James Beck had to be eliminated from the face of the earth. Executed, burned down. Buried and salt poured in the hole.

Along with Kolenka and Markov sitting in the kitchen were three of Kolenka's men plus Gregor Stepanovich, who had come with Markov.

Finally, Kolenka spoke.

“We must eliminate Beck.”

“Agreed.”

“You understand he's not alone.”

“How many men does he have?”

“I don't know. I expect he's gathered his men at his headquarters in Brooklyn. I have made inquiries, and now I have the exact location.”

There was a street map of Brooklyn laid flat on the kitchen table. Kolenka pointed a bony finger at a spot on Conover Street. He had studied the streets around Beck's building, which was located right near the water at the far western edge of Red Hook. Kolenka believed they could trap him in that location by blocking only two streets: Van Brunt on the south side and Van Dyke on the east side. Once trapped, they would kill everything that moved in that building. But Kolenka had to be sure Beck was in the building and find out how many men were with him.