Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

There are a few bumps in the fast lane: a security guard dies in the fire, and then it turns out that there's a witness, and the fire inspectors call it an arson, and the insurance company denies the claim. But the bumps get smoothed out and Kazzy Azmekian gets an unexpected bonus when he settles his bad faith suit, and now that they know where the potential problems are they won't make those mistakes again.

And Daz, he takes in a cool $200,000.

Which he doesn't share with Lerner.

Lerner gets word of it — Daz makes sure he gets word of it — and Lerner screams, Where is my fucking cut? and Daz pulls the Vorovskoy Zakon on him.

"If you have a grievance," he tells Lerner, "call a convocation. Take it to the pakhan."

Lerner would whack him right there on the spot, except that this Valeshin piece of shit is a brother, so he needs permission. Lerner goes before the pakhan and the other brigadiers.

Whines like a stuck pig to old Natan Shakalin. Valeshin went outside the organization. Valeshin went to the Armenians. Valeshin set up his own operation. Most of all, Valeshin made a bundle and didn't give me any.

Shakalin listens to all this, nods his wrinkled head, then says while Lamer is an honored and valued old member of the organization — blahsky blahsky blahsky — this Valeshin boychick is a producer, a hotshot moneymaker, so lay off and give the kid his shot.

In fact, he's going to make Valeshin a brigadier.

Lerner about shits. It's instantly obvious now that Valeshin has just bypassed him and laid a pile of money directly on Shakalin and bought his promotion. Which is not the way it's supposed to work. It's supposed to work like an Amway distributorship, and you just don't bypass a stone on the pyramid.

Lerner is so pissed he thinks for a second about taking on old Natan himself, except the ancient fuck is sitting there flanked by his two bodyguards straight from the old country and the new talent has a serious reputation as very nasty people.

Handy with the old chicken chop.

So Lerner bides his time, and they bring Daz in and Lerner gives Daz his blessing and they kiss and hug and all that happy crap and make a vodka toast to their eternal friendship and mutual prosperity.

Well, the friendship is total bullshit, but as for the prosperity…

Daz gets his own brigade and the money rolls in.

Like waves on the California shore.

It's not enough.

Daziatnik wants something more.

Wants something different.

He's living in Fairfax, in the middle of thousands of other Russian immigrants, and it might as well be Leningrad with palm trees. He speaks Russian, he works with Russians, he eats with Russians, he sleeps with Russians.

He makes his money and gives most of it to Russians — to Shakalin and Karpotsov — so they're happy, but Daz is wondering when he gets his piece of Paradise.

Daziatnik reads so he knows his history.

The Irish, the Italians, the Jews.

The grandfathers — gangsters. The grandsons — lawyers.

And bankers and politicians and judges.

And businessmen.

It's a three-generation turnaround, but Daziatnik wonders why.

Why not one generation?

Why not?

If a man can go from spy to zek, to driving a limo, to stealing cars, to running a chop shop, to insurance fraud, to brigadier in four short years, why can't he make the leap to legitimate businessman in as short a time?

In this land of opportunity.

In this floating cloud of a land where a man can invent and reinvent himself. Can burn the pages of his history behind him and then his past disappears into the blue California sky like so much smoke.

Daz has a plan to do it.

He knows it's out there, that ineffable thing, the open arms and legs of California, and that's what he wants. He wants freedom, and style, he wants away from his grim migr comrades — the dull, the stupid, the boring, the mind-numbing soul-stunning sameness of it.

He wants to become Nicky.

So he looks for the opportunity. Which isn't hard. The opportunity is so blatant, so transparent, so clear it would take an idiot not to see it.

The sweet, heavy, ripe pear virtually dropping from the tree.

Real estate.

Any fool could see that in California in the mid-'80s real estate is the golden stream. Put money in real estate and watch your investment turn around, sometimes literally overnight. Diversify with longer-term investments: apartment buildings and condo complexes. All the more profitable if you could use your mob outreach to cut a corner here or there — cheaper materials, quicker construction. It was rare they had to twist or even bend an arm: everyone was in a hurry in those days. Get them up, get them sold, get your money into the next one.

His real estate investments make money and that gives him the freedom to stretch the code out even more. He leaves the tight ethnic community in L.A. and moves south to the gold coast. Where he can reinvent himself as Nicky Vale.

Daz changes his name. Daziatnik Valeshin is just too heavy a moniker to carry around. To sign on all the real estate papers. Too hard for customers to remember when they have a good deal and are looking for investors to phone.

Call me, Daz says.

In fact, call me Nicky.

That's his next break with the code, but Nicky says he isn't leaving, he's colonizing. Taking the business down to the lucrative gold coast. Going where the money is. Where there's virgin ground for development. Where, dig this, people enter a lottery to determine who gets a chance to buy a condo in the new complexes.

You couldn't, Nicky recalls, put the things up fast enough.

Nicky keeps buying up land, putting up buildings.

Leveraging it all like hell, but who cares?

The market outgrows the debt.

And Nicky flourishes.

New house, new clothes, new style, new persona.

Nicky Vale: real estate player.

It's Daz's next violation of the code, of the Vorovskoy Zakon, which states in no uncertain terms that making money in legitimate enterprise is like, outsky, right? Strictly nyet. And some of Daz's soldiers do grumble about it. He tells them to shut their mouths, make money and be happy. Lerner sees his shot and gets on the horn to Shakalin to rat Daz out, telling the old boy that Daziatnik has gone American and is pissing all over Vorovskoy Zakon.

Shakalin agrees.

The ties are loosening too much.

Like the Soviet Union, Two Crosses could crumble apart.

It is time to make an example of "Nicky Vale."

He's strapped to a wooden chair.

The whole ruling body sits in a semicircle in front of him: the brigadiers, several lieutenants, old Natan Shakalin and his bodyguards, one of whom holds a silenced automatic pistol and the other of whom brandishes a chain saw.

Looking at the saw, Nicky can feel his balls tighten.

Lerner gets up and recites a litany of Nicky's transgressions against the code: Nicky's been doing legitimate business, he's been withholding profits from the organization. In short, "Nicky Vale" has broken faith with his brothers.

He's broken the Vorovskoy Zakon.

Nicky's still not too worried. He points to the corruption in the real estate business — the subpar materials, the payoffs to inspectors, the tax dodges, the occasional arson scheme. His basic response to that is, Legit, hell. As to not paying his share, Nicky offers to make restitution. It is just an accounting problem; as soon as the books are straight, he will pay his due.

"Perhaps," Lerner says, "the reason that you cannot pay the money you owe is that you send so much to your bosses in KGB."

"Excuse me?"

' 'Major Valeshin?"

Oops.

Now Nicky's worried.

He can practically hear the chain saw warming up.