Isaak looked embarrassed.
“So,” said Semion. “I will tell him no. No deal.”
“And then what?” Isaak said. “We lose our connection? Or worse? Brother, please, think about it. We don’t even know he had anything to do with this.”
“We’ll find a new way,” said Semion. “We’ll get it from somewhere else. It’s a big world. The lady will still buy from us.”
Isaak looked away. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think we want to piss these guys off. This is not a group of hippies from Belgium, Semion. These Burmese, they’re military, you know?”
“So are we.”
Isaak winced. “Shit.”
“Listen to me,” Semion said, forcing himself to sound calm. “We need to know if he did this one way or another, right?”
Isaak raised both palms. “You have to be smarter than them, Semion. You know? The girl might not even be dead.”
“So they carried her away in a bag. Okay? Fine. Tell me, in what world would you
not
want to know if Mr. Hong set that up?”
“I would not want to know—” Isaak paused, and took a breath. “If knowing meant we lose our connection, and start some kind of war with people we know nothing about, then no, I wouldn’t want to know. Look.” He pointed at another tower across the street from their own. “They could be in there, Semion. They could be anywhere. Right now, they could be watching us.”
Semion stared at the building Isaak had indicated. Maybe it was time to quit.
“It’s a shitty situation,” Isaak said. “I’m sorry, brother. I’m sorry this is happening. Whatever you want to do, we’ll do that, okay?”
“I want to know if Mr. Hong did it,” Semion said.
Isaak said nothing.
That night Semion dreamed he had a loose tooth. He could feel a molar hanging in the back of his mouth from a thin piece of flesh. He found Isaak on the beach and asked for help. His friend tried to set it back in place, but it wouldn’t fit. Semion couldn’t close his mouth. Other teeth came loose. His mouth filled with chips of bone, with actual teeth, drool, blood. He woke up at dawn feeling panicked and trapped.
The next night, with Mr. Hong’s deadline approaching, Semion spent four nervous hours in the office at Ground Zero, clicking through real estate listings, refreshing his Facebook feed, reading Israeli football news, and suffering from indigestion. He drank club sodas mixed with cranberry juice. He’d be sober when Mr. Hong came tonight.
Finally, a few minutes before 1:00 a.m., a tired-looking Isaak opened the door and whispered that the man had arrived. He glanced at the safe in the corner. They had put a quarter of a million dollars in cash in it that afternoon.
Semion walked out to the main floor and found Mr. Hong standing near the entrance. The place was full, and he looked strange there, under the lights, people dancing in groups all around him. He looked angry, Semion realized; it was an emotion he had never seen on the man’s face before. The dread in his stomach doubled as he guided his visitor to a back table.
“Drink?” he said, when they’d sat down.
“No, thank you,” said Mr. Hong. For a moment, the two men regarded each other without speaking. And then, skipping the formalities, Mr. Hong asked, “Did you have a chance to consider our offer?”
An interesting way to phrase it,
thought Semion. “I did,” he said. “And the answer is no.”
The look on Mr. Hong’s face surprised Semion. He looked sad, suddenly: his eyes dampened, and he looked around the club as though searching for help. It was not what Semion had expected.
Mr. Hong scratched his chin, looked back at Semion, and then, over the music, said, “We work together, me and you. Everything has been good?”
“Absolutely,” said Semion.
“But now you have all these problems.”
Semion leaned back in his seat. He felt anger well up in his chest. “What problems do I have?” he asked.
Mr. Hong pointed at Semion. His eyes became black and still. “You depressed,” he said. “Always depressed. You have an ugly thing inside you. Need help.”
The music pounded steadily. Semion felt sweat on his forehead; he was thankful the lights would disguise his face reddening. The air smelled stale.
“Anything else?” Semion finally asked.
“Maybe you not cut out for this business,” Mr. Hong said.
“Fine,” Semion said. “Maybe so. The answer is still no.”
“Listen,” said Mr. Hong, changing tack. “I like you. Now I’m pleading with you as a friend, all right? If—listen to me. If you tell me no, I can’t promise you any—” He dropped his voice lower. “When my friends ask me to do something, I always try and make it happen. You understand? My friends need you. I’m asking you as a friend to do this.” His face looked affronted.
Semion probed his teeth with his tongue. The music in the club boomed on and on, the same bass note.
“Let me guess what you’re going to say,” he said. “Something about how maybe I can beat the case, but do I really want to risk that? Something about American news media loving stories about club owners who kill girls? Is that it? Is that what you’ve come to me with? Show me the pictures, then. Call the police. Lock me up.”
“I’m sorry?” said Mr. Hong. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Semion looked at him. “The girl?” he said.
Mr. Hong shook his head. He looked confused.
Semion’s mouth became dry. He felt a new kind of fear sliding in.
“It’s not you?” he asked. “You didn’t do this?”
Mr. Hong reached over the table and grabbed Semion’s hand. “Semion,” he said. “It’s not me.” He squeezed the hand he held in his own. “Now tell me what is happening.”
Semion had one short moment to decide whether to trust him. He took a deep breath. Then he told Mr. Hong what had happened with Vanya.
The Chinese man bent his head forward and listened. Semion, every few words, would glance at his eyes to reassure himself that the man had told him the truth. When he got to the part about the blood on the bed, Mr. Hong’s eyes narrowed. At the end of the story he shook his head and said the whole thing was horrible.
“These kind of problems don’t simply go away,” Mr. Hong said. “They become worse and worse. If you pay, they will come back and demand more. If you don’t pay, who knows what happens. I beg you, as friend, as partner—let us help you with this. We are equipped to deal with this kind of thing.” He stared at Semion in such a sympathetic way that Semion was forced to nod his head. “But if we help you with this, you take the ten times more, right?” Mr. Hong asked.
Semion felt defeated. “Sure,” he said. “Yes.” He sighed.
Mr. Hong reached across the table again. The men shook hands.
Later, Semion found Isaak—looking sober and serious—in the corner of the club.
“And?” his friend asked.
“It wasn’t him,” said Semion.
“I told you!”
“I agreed to the ten times.”
Isaak appeared to whistle, silently. “Whatever you want,” he said.
Semion woke the next morning to the buzzing growl of his cell phone. He looked at the screen:
Unknown Caller.
The sun had only just risen.
“Hello?” he said, sitting up in his bed.
“Mr. Gurevich,” said the deep voice on the other end.
“Yes?”
“I own you,” said the voice.
“I’m sorry?”
“You murdered her.”
“I don’t—” said Semion.
“I won’t talk to you on the phone.”
“You called me,” said Semion.
“Listen close. There is a fish stand located at 7900 Northwest Twenty-Seventh Avenue, in West Little River. Do you hear me? It’s called Pike’s. I need you to bring the money there in one hour. A quarter million, two fifty, all of it. There’s a table near the corner. You sit there and wait for me to call. No jokes, Mr. Gurevich. Come alone. You don’t want to make me mad. Now repeat the name of the place.”
“Pike’s,” said Semion.
“Where?”
“West Little River.”
“How much?”
“Two fifty.”
“Good.”
The line went dead.
Semion checked the time on his phone: 7:12 a.m. He walked to the kitchen and wrote:
Pike’s, 7900 27 Ave, WLR.
He called Isaak. No answer. Then he called Mr. Hong.
“They’ve contacted me,” he said, when the man picked up.
“And what did they say?”
Semion told him everything.
“He gave you an hour?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You have the money?”
“At the club.”
“Hold please,” said Mr. Hong. Semion heard typing. He pictured Mr. Hong peering at Google Maps.
“Wait to leave your apartment for half an hour,” Mr. Hong said. “I’ll need time to get my men.”
Semion stayed silent.
“You hear me?” asked Mr. Hong. “You don’t want to arrive early.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Semion.
“After thirty minutes, leave your apartment, drive to the club, get the money, put it in a bag, and drive to the location. We’ll be there. Don’t look for us. You won’t see us, but we’ll be there.”
“And then?” asked Semion.
“Give them the money. You’ll get it back.”
Mr. Hong said he would call back in twenty minutes to confirm everything. Semion sat down in his kitchen, fully awake now.
So, an end,
he thought. He took a quick shower, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and went down and banged on Isaak’s door until it opened. Isaak listened and nodded as Semion filled him in. It had been twenty-two minutes since the first call.
A few minutes later, his phone rang again. It was Mr. Hong.
“Where are you?” the man asked.
“I’m in Isaak’s apartment.”
“Do you trust me?” asked Mr. Hong.
The question made Semion feel nervous. He looked at Isaak, who was staring back at him.
“Yes,” he said.
Mr. Hong instructed Semion to take Isaak’s phone with him.
“Use the Bluetooth,” he said. “Call me from it when you get to West Little River.” This way, he said, they could remain in contact throughout the exchange. Then he told Semion to make sure Isaak stayed away. “We will handle this,” he said.
“A bump in the road,” said Isaak, when Semion had hung up again. “That’s all. Mr. Hong will fix it.”
Mr. Hong will fix it. Mr. Hong will fix it. Mr. Hong will fix it.
Semion couldn’t help repeating the phrase in his head as he drove. It was bright and sunny outside—a perfect Miami day. He turned his radio on, and then switched it off.
Ground Zero was empty, dark, and stale smelling. After turning off the alarm and flipping on the lights, Semion
hurried back to the office, unlocked the door, walked to the safe, and punched in the code. He took out the money they’d moved there the other day—twenty-five stacks, two hundred fifty thousand dollars. He counted it three times, to make sure. He’d had weekends that had cost more than this, he thought. So why get Mr. Hong involved? For the first time that morning, he felt genuine panic in his bones. Why hadn’t he taken care of this on his own?
He rubbed his face with his hands and felt a keen desire to cry.
He took I-95 north toward the meeting place. It would take him eleven minutes according to his phone. He checked his speed, checked his rearview mirror.
Breathe,
he told himself.
Breathe and be centered. You’re in control.
The address ended up being a strip mall. At one end, in its own little island, was a McDonald’s. Beside it was a horseshoe of unhealthy palm trees. A row of depressing stores stood on the other side of the lot.
Here?
Semion thought. A wave of distaste billowed in his core. He rolled slowly through the lot until he saw Pike’s Fish Stand, a small restaurant at the southern end of the mall.
He’d forgotten to call Mr. Hong, he realized. Before he shut his car off, he dug Isaak’s phone out of his pocket, synced up the Bluetooth, fit the piece in his ear, and dialed the man’s number. Mr. Hong picked up and, without waiting for Semion to speak, said that his men were in place. Semion scanned the area as best he could with his eyes, keeping his head still.
“What will they want me to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Hong. “Just wait for their call. Leave me on. I’ll listen to your end. Try to repeat what they say.”
Semion shut the car off, grabbed the bag of money, and opened his door. It felt like an industrial heater was blowing at him from outside. He walked to the fish stand, carrying the bag in his right hand. There were four tables outside, all unoccupied. He figured that’s where they wanted him to sit. He headed inside first, and ordered a soda from an acne-faced Latino teenager. Then he sat down at one of the outside tables, looked at the lot, and waited.
He wanted, suddenly, more than anything else, to sleep. He watched an SUV drive toward him, his heart beginning to pound in his chest. The SUV drove past and continued out of the lot.
“I don’t see anything,” he said, trying not to move his lips as he spoke.
“Just wait,” said Mr. Hong. “They want to see that you’re alone.”
Semion waited. He watched a seagull fly over the parking lot, watched a man struggle to light a cigarette. The boy in the fish stand was staring at a television, his mouth hung slightly open. Semion’s phone shook in his pocket. He pulled it out.
Unknown Caller.
Sweat pushed out from every pore.
“Yes?” said Semion.
“The money is in your hand?” asked the deep voice.
“Yes,” said Semion. And then, for Mr. Hong’s benefit, he added, “The money’s in my hand.”
“Good,” said the voice.
Semion’s mouth went dry. He sipped from his soda. He wasn’t a gangster, he realized. This wasn’t his role. He was a middleman. “Hello?” he said.
“Wait,” said the deep voice.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
The seconds ticked by. Semion watched an overweight woman emerge from one of the neighboring stores. He continued to watch as she made her way to her car, fastened her seat belt, and pulled away from her spot.
“When the truck comes, walk to the passenger window and hand over the money,” said the deep voice.
Semion, confused, watched the woman’s car as it exited the lot. He scanned the rest of the area. There was a truck rolling toward him now. It had been parked since he’d gotten there, he realized. It accelerated and pulled right in front of the fish stand, so that the passenger-side door was facing him. It was a new white pickup truck, raised up high in the American fashion. Semion rose from his seat and stared at it. The windows were tinted, but he could see the shape of two bodies inside.