Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

His name was Peter Nimitsov. His nickname, never spoken in his company if one wanted to survive the encounter intact, was

“Baby Face.” He was twenty-seven years old and had been born in the apartment building in which he now sat. He had formed a gang in the complex of crumbling concrete high rises when he was fourteen and the Soviet Union and Communism had begun to die.

When he was seventeen, the gang had taken over these apartment buildings and extended their influence to other complexes, eliminating competition and making deals with other gangs. When he was strong enough, Peter Nimitsov had begun to move his operation inside the Outer Ring Circle. In the course of his rise, Nimitsov had murdered, suffered his white scar, and grown powerful enough to have his Zjuzino Mafia feared or respected by even the largest and most ruthless of the other Mafias of Moscow.

Peter kept a very low profile. His goal was power and wealth, not infamy, but power and wealth were a means to an end. He maintained a large suite at the National Hotel, but he lived in a luxuri-ous apartment adjoining the office in which he now sat. The apartment, like the office, was decorated in antiques of the Russian czars. Some had cost Nimitsov a great deal of money. Others had cost people their health or, in the case of one stubborn thief, a life.

Peter Nimitsov shared his wealth with his mother, father, sister, various relatives, and the initial members of his teenage gang, who formed the inner circle of those loyal to him.

Boris and Illya were front men, inner-circle Muscovites, hired bureaucrats who had held middle-level government jobs and lived on their meager salaries, bribes, and corruption before the fall of the system. The two men had connections, knew where skeletons were buried, and were invaluable to Peter. Both men were old enough to be their boss’s father, though neither had paternal feelings for the young baby-faced man behind the desk. They had seen him suddenly explode because of a lie told, a remark made. They had seen him draw a gun and begin to fire wildly at a member of his gang who had told a minor lie: Peter had begun to shoot, missing the man who had lied but killing another who had gone flat on the floor and taken a ricocheting bullet to the head. Peter had fired till he ran out of bullets. In addition to the dead man on the floor, Peter had shot one of his own cousins in the arm. The man who had lied had stood with his back to the door, hyperventilating, waiting for Peter to reload or order his death.

Instead, Peter Nimitsov had said, “Don’t lie to me again,” and let the man live.

Peter’s mother had told her friends that her son had always been a bit “emotional.” She did not share their belief that her son was quite mad, had inherited some disease of the mind from her father and grandfather, both of whom had died young with “brain ill-ness.” Peter’s mother was very proud of her son. Her father had swept up scraps of imitation leather in a shoe factory. Her grandfather had been a very unsuccessful thief who, till the day he died, bragged about his one supposed triumph, the stealing of a not-very-young horse from the Moscow stable of Czar Nicholas II.

Peter had listened to the conversation with Sasha from the next room. Now he sat thinking about it, running a finger gently over the ridge of his scar and biting his lower lip, deep in thought. “I don’t like him,” Peter finally said to the two men who stood before his desk.

This surprised neither Boris nor Illya, since Peter Nimitsov liked practically no one. Peter was into a wide variety of criminal activity centered mostly within twenty miles of where he now sat. But an increasing portion of his income was now coming from inside the Outer Ring Circle. Gambling, drugs, extortion, car theft were all sources of income-the dogfights were but a small part of Nimitsov’s enterprise. But dogs were Peter’s passion. All the czars had owned dogs, regal dogs, dogs bred especially for the czar. But Peter was interested not in how his dogs looked but how efficiently and with what style they killed.

Now, international expansion was a distinct possibility, and with it might well come the next step in his ambition. He had witnessed the deaths of many dogs, had begun as a boy, while engaging in his other criminal activities, to stage fights between stray dogs, taking bets, making money. But it was the fights themselves that excited the young man with the baby face. Women, drugs, gun battles did not mean anything to Peter, but the sight of two dogs trying to kill each other aroused his passion and even gave him erections that had to be satisfied immediately after the battle, with the closest prostitute in his employ.

“You think he is all right?” asked Peter, looking at the two men.

Peter’s eyes were blue, very blue.

Neither man wanted to commit himself, especially since their leader had expressed a reservation about the cocky young Ukrainian. If Boris or Illya proved to be wrong in their assessment, there was a good chance they would be found with their throats cut in a park or on a dark street, or in this very office. Peter was brilliant.

Peter was bold. Peter was leading them to great wealth, but Peter was clearly growing more mad each day. Neither man wanted to commit himself, but Peter was giving them no choice.

“I think he should be watched carefully,” said Illya.

“Watched carefully,” said Nimitsov, shaking his head. “I have already seen to that, but that wasn’t what I asked you. What did I ask you?”

“If Dmitri Kolk could be trusted,” said Illya, looking for help to Boris, who gave him none. Illya would have dearly loved to say that he did not know if the Ukrainian could be trusted, but Peter definitely did not want evasion. “I don’t trust him,” said Illya.

“Boris?”

“I don’t trust him either.”

“So,” said Peter. “We watch him. We do not let him out of sight.

He could be the police or State Security. He could simply be someone dishonest who plans to betray us. The czars lived on constant alert, except for the last Nicholas. That state of alert kept them alive, and those who would betray them dead. The woman?” Peter asked.

“Morishkov is almost certain that he has seen her before,” said Illya, on safer ground. “He still thinks she may be a police officer.”

“And Kolk doesn’t know it?” asked Peter, looking at Boris.

“I don’t think so,” said Boris. “I think she approached him, that-if she is a police officer-she wanted to get close to him to penetrate his operation.”

Peter thought for a while and then said, “If she is a spy, it troubles me that this Kolk from Kiev doesn’t know it. Follow her. Find what you can about her. Take her picture and show it around. Show it to our people in State Security. Show Kolk’s picture too. Meanwhile, we watch and we see how good a dog his Tchaikovsky is. I want Kolk’s dog to fight Bronson tomorrow if he wins tonight.”

“We won’t get any odds with Bronson fighting an unknown dog,” said Boris.

Bronson, a massive, shaggy, uncontrollable street stray, had killed nine opponents with a mad fury and a bloodthirst. After each battle, Bronson, who Peter had named for the American film star, had to be pulled off the dead dog he continued to bite. On more than one occasion, Bronson had turned on those trying to pull him off. One man had lost a finger. Several others had needed medical attention and numerous stitches.

“If Kolk’s dog wins tonight, I want to see Bronson tear this Kolk’s animal to pieces tomorrow,” said Peter. “I want Kolk humbled and manageable, very manageable.”

“Is your word no good?” came the unmistakable voice of Lydia Tkach over the phone.