“I don’t want help, Patrik. I work best alone and they’ll fuck it up for sure. No two men.”
He bangs his fist on the table right out of the blue. Surprises me, but I try not to show it.
“NO! Not this time, my friend. You will have my two best. Very loyal, very professional and they will do exactly what you tell them. This will not be negotiated between you and I. They might very well save your ass. Make no mistake, if necessary, they will die to make sure you accomplish this.”
He unclenches his fist and reaches for the glass in front of him. He takes the last sip and I notice his hand is shaking. I stare at him for a moment longer. “Okay, Patrik. We’ll play it your way. I don’t like it, but okay.”
“Good.” His voice is calmer now, but no less intense. “Now, these two men will meet you at the Marriott Courtyard at West Division and Kedzie. It’s ten minutes from the park. Noon, in the lobby. In their room, you can discuss in more detail how this will go down. They will have a gun that you will use and then discard. They have a map of the park and surrounding streets and alleys, like this one.”
He pulls open a drawer and slides out a folded map, then hands it to me. “They will do exactly what you say, Jerz. Good men. One of them, Andros, he let you in here today. The other, Dobry, almost as good and just as loyal.”
He stands now and walks around to me, then leans against his desk and crosses his arms.
“I’m as tired of talking as you are tired of listening, eh? The plan itself, how you do it, how you kill him, that is your design. I wish you luck, my
przyjaciel
.”
I stand up and we do the hug.
“Patrik, easy. It’ll be a walk in the park.”
This time there is a little smile from him.
“That was a really bad joke, Jerz. Even I think that one was bad.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t help it. Hey, just a couple of quick last questions though.”
“Sure.”
“Nobody is off limits here, right? The old lady, you don’t have a problem, right?”
“There should be no witnesses. No one is off limits. Period.” He’s staring a hole through me as he says it.
“Okay, got it. What about the poor bastard who is going to go down for this in my place? Is he here and will you just give him up to the Russians or what?”
“He is here in Chicago and people know he’s with us, but not exactly what for, of course. He is waiting for what he thinks will take place early next week. After the hit tomorrow evening, the hotel where he is staying will be leaked. He’s dead already. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
“Hopefully he’s not waiting it out at the Marriott Courtyard.”
Patrik liked that one better and I got a laugh out of him. “Ha! Just like you to think of that. No, he is not at that location.”
I decide not to ask about the guy in the hallway, though. It probably was the fall guy but better to just tuck that one away for now.
“All right, well, last thing, I guess. Since you won’t be paying the guy from the west coast, you can pay me. Where and when will that little transaction take place?”
Another soft chuckle from Patrik.
“Ah yes, I almost forgot. My men will have the two hundred thousand dollars for you in the hotel room tomorrow at noon. All in one hundred dollar bills. You can stay in that room for a week afterward if you want to. It will be prepaid and my men will no longer be there.
“Patrik, I think that’s all I need. I’m good to go.”
“One more small drink, Jerz. We will toast our long friendship, partnership, eliminating our enemies and money.”
He gurgles some more Makers into our glasses.
“Oh! And to women, huh? I will let your Ania off earlier than ten tonight but have fun early - you need your rest.”
I laugh and he laughs.
I look at him and drink and he does the same.
This is what I don’t like with the woman thing. I don’t like being predictable and dependant. Having people know everything about what I’m doing.
We laugh one more time.
And once again, I’m thinking that Patrik is one of those guys you just don’t want to be playing with. Playing for or against. But I guess for is better.
SIXTEEN
Mick
Morning light streamed in through the east window and splashed across Connie’s sleeping face. Her hair was snarled up like a dirty bird nest on the pillow and across her eyes. She let out little wheezy snores through her mouth, which hung open like she was surprised at something. She lay on her stomach. The blanket only covered her from the waist down, so I could see the ugly bruises on her kidney. A shadow of another bruise was barely visible on her mashed breast.
I sat in a chair near the bed, looking at her. I tried to conjure up whatever those feelings had been just a few short days ago, before Steve came back. Before the old man died. Before Jerzy and these fucking diamonds came along.
Only I didn’t feel that way about the diamonds.
They
were what I was hungry for, in a way I used to hunger for Connie.
I stared down at her tousled hair and parted lips and felt…nothing.
Almost nothing.
It hadn’t been that way last night. Once I got back to the apartment, she’d blubbered out the tale of Steve getting drunk and gambling away most of his pay. That’d given him a reason to get even more drunk. When she asked him about it, he threw her a beating.
Smart, though. Even for a drunk loser. He hit her where it would hurt, but not show. At least, not in public. And the kind of women Steve chose were the kind who wouldn’t be telling anyone in public about an ass-kicking. Maybe not anyone at all. They were the kind who would wait with bated breath for him to come around with flowers and a sheepish apology. Make them feel special.
After she showed me the bruises and cried some more, things shifted gears. She went from wanting comfort to wanting me. At first, I didn’t have a ton of interest. I figured, why buy into problems I don’t need? Especially now. She’d just go back to him when he decided to apologize. Or when he rolled back into town again with another thick wad of pay in his pocket.
But I let it happen. In fact, I plowed right into it with vigor. That sparked her even more. She was a frantic wildcat and we summarily fucked each other’s lights out.
But it wasn’t her face I saw.
It was Ania’s.
In the dim light of my apartment last night, it had been easy for that fantasy to take hold. Now, in the hard, bright light of morning, I saw Connie for who she was.
Nothing special. Not the someone I thought I might be able to make something with. Just Connie.
And trouble.
If I was Jerzy, I’d probably just shrug it away. Tell Connie to fuck off and solve her own problems. Then go find Ania and get busy in that direction. And I had to admit, that sounded like a great solution, but there was something stopping me.
Call it conscience, call it duty, call it a sense of honor, but I always believed it’s the only thing that separates us from the goddamn animals. If I’d told Connie to get out of my apartment as soon as I walked in last night, I might be able to live with that. But once I bedded her? Well, that was like the consecration of an unspoken promise.
Wasn’t it?
The coffeemaker gurgled across the room in my tiny kitchen. I got up and walked over to get a cup. As I poured, I wished for the thousandth time that I had Jerzy’s sense of the world. He was his father’s son and I was my mother’s son, and that was that. Did it make me weaker than him? Better than him? Or just different?
Without really thinking about it, I reached for a second cup and set it beside the coffee pot. Connie would be awake soon.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
Goddamn it.
I sat down to drink my coffee. After a minute or two, I turned my chair away from the bed and toward the morning light. The bright dawn washed over my face with a brittle warmth. I soaked it in.
I sat there until my cup was almost empty, then heard a rustle behind me. A few moments later, her hand settled on my shoulder. Her cheek pressed against mine from behind. I smelled her sour breath when she spoke.
“Hey, lover,” she rasped.
“There’s coffee,” I said.
She kissed my neck, then sauntered over to the counter. One of my shirts now hung down past her waist and cover the top of her ass.. I watched her pour a cup. I thought I’d never get tired of that body, but the curve of her hip and the way her thighs tapered toward her knees didn’t have the same pull it did just a short time ago. My eyes were drawn up to where my shirt covered the splotched bruising just above her waist.
Connie finished pouring and turned around. She sipped her coffee, giving me a playful look over the brim of the cup. It was part romantic, part lustful and two weeks ago, it would have pulled me in with the gravitational force of a collapsing star.
This morning, though?
It made me sigh.
Connie’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I shook my head. “Don’t call me that.”
She walked purposefully toward me, putting just the slightest sway into each step. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.
I leaned down and set my cup on the floor. Then I looked up at her. “I can’t do this, Connie.”
“Can’t what?”
“Do. This.”
She pressed her lips together, anger and pride flashing across her features. She took a drink of her coffee, then looked down at it like she was considering throwing the entire cup in my face.
“You didn’t seem to have any problem last night,” she said, an edge creeping into her voice.
Yeah,
I thought.
But I wasn’t fucking you. Not really.
“You came here,” I said instead. “You were the one who came here.”
She scowled at me. “It takes two to tango, Mick.”
I nodded. “It does. But somebody has to lead.”
Her expression seemed to hover for a moment between hurt and anger. Hurt won out and tears sprang to her eyes. “I thought we had something. I thought –”
“No, you didn’t,” I interrupted. “I was a play thing while Stevie boy was away. Then I was inconvenient when he came back. That’s how it was for you. And now that he’s graduated to smacking you around, I’m somehow the answer to your problems.”
“Well, what was it for you?” she said, angrily brushing tears aside. “If you’re so goddamn smart, answer that.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter what it was for me before. What it is
now
is what matters.”
She fell silent. I watched while she took a deep, wavering breath and let it out. She wiped her eyes some more, but the tears kept coming.
I wondered why she picked me. She was a nice looking woman. She could’ve picked any number of guys for the absentee boyfriend dance. I was no prize. So why me?
But I knew the answer. She picked me as part of the same fucked up reasons she picked Steve. It was all part of the drama she felt compelled to play out over and over again. Be the victim, be rescued, be reconciled. It was all drama and that was the fuel her engine ran on.
So, did I owe her? Because she came to me and I fucked her? She fucked me, too. Did that mean she owed me?
Connie dumped her coffee down the sink and stalked to the side of the bed. I watched as she gathered up her clothes from where they’d been tossed aside last night.
Did I owe her?
Maybe. But I was tired of that bullshit. Tired of owing. Tired of duty. Tired of living between two worlds.
Time to pick a side.
I stood up. She didn’t notice. I grabbed her by the wrist. She shot me a glare and pulled away. But I didn’t let go. I jerked her toward me, reached out with my other arm and enveloped her. She gave me a moment of token resistance, but when I grabbed her hair and snapped her head back, she stopped.
She stared up at me, her breath coming in short, trembling gasps. Her eyes were full of fear, of hate, of lust, of satisfaction.
“I’ll help you,” I said.
And I would. But not for her. For me. Because maybe Stevie boy needed his ass kicked. More than that, because I needed to win. Even if the big prize wasn’t Connie. Even if the real devil wasn’t Steve. It would work for some batting practice. And it was time to start winning on all fronts.
I kissed her, and goddamned if she didn’t turn into a wildcat again.
SEVENTEEN
Jerzy
The morning is clear and brisk as I come out of the apartment entryway. I walk to my car and my stomach is growling like a bastard. I’m heading to Joe Campo’s, a great little place to get a coffee and a little breakfast.
I didn’t sleep worth a damn, as usual. Dreams of running, can’t get away, that kind of shit. All the rest about last night, though? Oh, that had been just fine.
As I open the car door and start to get in, I happen to look up at her little third floor bay window and Ania is standing there, looking down at me.
She’s holding a blue robe loosely around her and even from this distance, I’m looking to see if I can get a glimpse of pleasant valley. Damn if I don’t think about climbing the steps right back up there. Just for a minute. Or an hour.
I tried to sneak out of her place before she even woke up. No kissy kiss good morning with breakfast on a tray. I mean, that just ain’t happening, not for anybody. Then again, I guess if it was to happen, she’d be the one.
She’s sleepy and has that ‘where the hell am I’ look on her face, but then she waves slowly and gives me a weak grin. Damn.
I wave back and give her a big smile. For a minute I’m just like little Johnny boyfriend saying goodbye until another date tonight. Johnny, who can’t stand to leave his sweet Susie, not even for a second.
But hey, last night had been what I needed to get smoothed out and leveled up. Some athletes say that before the Super Bowl or a big game or whatever, they don’t have sex for two weeks. They say they are hungrier, angrier and meaner that way.
Well, I say bullshit. That may be good for them and all but this isn’t about playing no fucking football game today. I’m killing people today. She was exactly what I needed.