Don Winslow - California Fire And Life

A hundred strokes, every morning and every night, and that is what will keep it beautiful and full, the way Daziatnik so admires it.

She finishes brushing it and stands back to admire her look in the mirror.

That's when she sees the man behind her.

It must be one of the new guards.

But the nerve, to come into her bedroom "What-" she starts to snap.

Then the man's hand is over her mouth.

A cloth over her nose.

Then blackness.

Nicky lights up a joint.

Savors the sweet musky scent, takes a deep hit, lets it swirl around in his lungs, and then releases it. Feels all the tension go out with the smoke.

All problems dissolving into the night air.

Tratchev dead.

His troops locked up.

Rubinsky and Schaller swept up with their troops.

The late Dr. Benton Howard's reputation as a police informer firmly established.

Paul Gordon fired.

Kazzy Azmekian is flotsam. Or is it jetsam? Nicky can never remember. Doesn't matter.

He takes another toke, slips out of his clothes, and lets himself ease into the Jacuzzi's steaming water.

Fifty million dollars coming his way tomorrow. The turnaround in one generation.

A very good night, and some very good boo.

He feels a small twinge of anxiety. Lev hasn't returned yet, to report that the problem of the sister is no more. Nicky does another hit and lets the problem fly from his mind. What Lev sets out to kill, Lev kills. He'll be back soon.

So Nicky's having a very good night. He has the whole thing working for him, Tratchev dead, a big payday coming up on the morrow and life is way cool. He shuts his eyes and stretches out, and then feels something round against his toes.

He's like annoyed, because he has told Michael not to kick his soccer ball around the pool and the Jacuzzi.

Nicky goes to pick the ball up and screams.

Falls backward against the side of the Jacuzzi and cowers there.

And just stares at Lev's severed head bobbing up and down in the bubbling water.

Nicky's going fetal when Dani gets there.

Dani plucks Lev's head up by the hair and just howls in pain.

There's a ribbon around Lev's neck.

Something written on it, but even if they weren't so freaked, they couldn't read it.

It's written in Vietnamese.

Nicky runs into the house.

To Mother's room.

Her door is ajar and he can see the flickering silver light of the television.

He opens the door without knocking.

"Mother-"

A man sits on the bed watching television. He casually swings his silenced pistol in Nicky's direction.

"Hello, Daz," Karpotsov says. "I'm sorry — it's Nicky now, isn't it?"

"Colonel."

"It's General now," Karpotsov says.

Nicky is like freaking, but Nicky stays cool.

"Congratulations," he says.

"Thanks," Karpotsov says. "Is this HBO?"

"Cinemax."

"I like it."

"I'm glad," Nicky says.

"Well," Karpotsov says, "congratulations, Nicky. I understand that you have quite the deal in the works. Well done, your country is proud. You were going to cut us in, weren't you, Nicky? Or did you think I was dead?"

"I had hopes in that direction," Nicky says. "Where is my mother?"

"She'll be staying with us for a while."

"How long is a while?"

"Well, let me put it this way," Karpotsov says. "We want our fucking money."

Dude.

We want our piece.

Of California Fire and Life.

The sun comes up enough to make out shapes.

That early-morning hour when everything is in shades of gray.

Jack starts up the ravine that cuts into the bluff. He climbs until he comes to the old fence. Ducks under it, just the way he did when he was a kid, and he's in the old trailer park.

Very weird, very strange being here knowing it belongs to Nicky Vale. That Nicky's planning on turning it into a tract of condos and town houses. That he killed his wife by way of raising the capital.

Jack picks his way through the eucalyptus and pine trees. He walks past old trailer pads and then a Dumpster.

He opens the lid of the Dumpster, shines the light in, and jumps back.

Two charred, cracked skulls.

Exploded from the inside out by intense heat.

Tommy Do and Vince Tranh.

Jack closes the lid.

Moves on toward the old, decrepit rec hall he used to run around in. When he was eight it was a fort. When he was ten it was a rock 'n' roll hall. When he was fifteen it was make-out heaven.

The old hall is in bad shape. Some boards ripped out, shingles stripped, but the two wide old doors are still intact.

And there's a shiny new padlock on them.

A combination lock.

Jack finds a rock and smashes the hasp.

The door swings open like it's been an exhausting effort to stay shut.

First thing Jack sees is the bed.

He pulls up a dustcover and there it is.

The Robert Adam four-poster canopied bed with the castle on top. Incredibly beautiful with its silk and fabrics and intricately carved coat of arms. The video didn't do it justice.

The freaking room is filled with furniture. All draped in cloth dust covers, they look like monuments, like ghosts. Jack goes around turning back the covers.

The George III writing desk, the Hepplewhite chair, the Matthias Lock rococo console table.

" It's all here," Jack says to himself.

The mahogany armless chairs, the silent valet, the Kent mirror, the side table, the gilt chairs, the card table — Jack's looking at it but what he sees in his mind is Pamela Vale walking him through. Like she's there in the old rec hall pointing to each piece as Nicky holds the camera.

This is one of our real treasures. A rare bombe-based red-lacquered and japanned bureau-cabinet from about 1730. It has clawed and hairy paw feet. Also, serpentine-shaped corners with attenuated acanthus leaves. A very rare piece.

It's all here.

Nicky's precious furniture. Over half a million dollars' worth.

Times two. Once for the insurance settlement, twice when he sells it again.

It's more than that, though. It's his identity, his ego, his freaking shifting cloud.

What he killed his wife to hold on to.

His wife, the two Vietnamese kids, George Scollins, God only knows who else. For a pile of old wood. For a bunch of fucking things. Even though he stood to make $50 million and it would have been safer to burn this stuff, Nicky couldn't stand to do it.

And now it's going to cost him fifty mil.

And his claim.

And everything else, if Jack has his way.

Dawn at Mother Russia's.

Very happy place.

Nicky pours himself a cup of coffee and sits trembling on a stool at the kitchen counter.

Two million in cash.

And a big piece of Nicky's deal.

Is what Karpotsov wants to release Mother.

"Or we'll start burning her," Karpotsov said. "We'll send you some of the charred pieces. First a finger, then we'll start getting serious. Then it's a hand, then a foot. When we're fresh out of Mother, we'll grab the kids and start on them. You tried to fuck us, Nicky. You owe us money. Serious money that you stole from your country."

"My country doesn't exist anymore."

"Then from us" Karpotsov said.

"KGB doesn't exist anymore, either," Nicky said. "All there is left of my country is a dipso-buffoon and the mob."

"Nicky," Karpotsov said, shaking his head. "Don't you get it? We are the mob. The mob is us. Organizatsiya. One and the same. We've come to an understanding. And the only reason that I don't chop your mother into little pieces and feed them to you before blowing your brains out is that you're a profitable little motherfucker. A thief's thief, and you're going to start stealing for us again, Nicky. Two million dollars in good faith money. Or we start burning her. That's your old technique, isn't it, Nicky? From Afghanistan? Didn't you like to burn people?"