Andrew Kaplan - Scorpion Winter

“Kto vas poslal?”

“Yob tvoiyu mat’!” the man shouted, telling him to do something obscene with his mother.

Scorpion grabbed another finger and bent it back till he felt the finger crack like a twig. The man screamed again. “Yesche vosem raz?” he shouted. Should I do this eight more times? Kto vas poslal?”

“ Yob! You are making a mistake- Aieee! ” he screamed as Scorpion started bending the next finger. “Syndikat says do this, I do.”

“Kto avtoritet?” Scorpion asked. Who’s the boss? Around him, he could hear the klaxons of militsiyu police vans approaching.

“Everybody knows. Mogilenko is the pakhan, the boss. Sukin sin, you broke my fingers,” the man said.

“Good. Where do I find Mogilenko?”

“Dynamo Club. Mogilenko fix you good, upizdysh,” the man cursed, suggesting Scorpion had sex with his mother.

But Scorpion had already gotten up. He moved fast, working his way through the crowd. People were lying on the ground or stood around holding handkerchiefs to bloody heads. By the time militsiyu police in riot gear moved in, he had already left the square.

T he Dynamo Club was a multistory building, bright with neon and electric lights, near the end of Khreshchatyk Street by the Bessarabsky Market. A half-dozen unsmiling men, all over six feet and bulky in down jackets, acted as security at the door as a line of people waited to get in. Scorpion got out of the taxi, showed three one-hundred hryvnia bills, pronounced “grivna” and worth about forty dollars, to a doorman with longish hair, and then he was inside, raising his hand to his face so the security camera wouldn’t catch his image.

Strobe lights flashed in the otherwise dark club, and speakers blasted Eurotrash rock so loud the room shook. It was packed with good-looking women and older men who looked like they could afford them. On red-lit platforms, naked young women swirled on poles, gyrating to the beat. His hand still covering his face, Scorpion made his way through the crowd to the bar.

He handed another three hundred hryvnia to one of the bartenders, a sexy blonde in a low-cut top that left little doubt about her assets.

“What you want, golubchik, my darling?” the blonde asked in fractured English.

“I’m looking for Mogilenko.”

The blonde recoiled. “You nice-looking guy. Why you want trouble?” she asked, tucking the money in her cleavage.

“How do I find him?”

“Listen, my darling, stay here. Plenty beautiful girls. Have good time. Don’t do this,” she said, her eyes wide, watching him.

“I just need to talk to him,” Scorpion said, handing her one of a number of different business cards he had had made up in Bucharest; this one said his name was Luc Briand from an offshore services company headquartered in Marseilles.

She motioned him to the side of the bar. “Go away. Now,” she whispered.

“What’s the problem?” he said.

“Listen. A year ago, young man come. Same thing. Nice, clean-cut, like you. Ask for Mogilenko. They take to see him. Only Mogilenko thinks this man looks at girlfriend, Valentina. They cut out his eyes, then his khui,” referring to the male organ. “Valentina try to look away. He shoot Valentina in head. Bang! Young guy, bang! Bury them together, man’s khui in her mouth. This is Mogilenko.”

“Why do you work here?”

She looked at him. Around them the music and lights pulsed, making patterns of light and shadows on their faces.

“You new in Ukraine, golubchik. Is not so easy,” she said.

Scorpion touched her arm. “Just tell me.”

“You sure you want?”

Scorpion felt a pang. Forcing the issue with a psycho Ukrainian mafia chief wasn’t the smartest way to go about this. But the clock was ticking. If the assassination was real-and it had to be or Rabinowich wouldn’t have been so desperate-whoever ordered it had two choices: use one of his own or contract the hit with the mafia. He needed to find out which.

He nodded. said, “Yes, it’s what I want.”

“You don’t need look,” she said, tucking his card into her cleavage. “He find you.”

He watched her make a call on a phone by the bar, glancing at his card as she talked. As the strippers wrapped themselves around their poles, he thought about what he was getting into. What was it Shaefer had said? The difference between the SVR, the SBU, and the Ukrainian mafia, that’s a pretty thin line.

He didn’t have time to finish his drink before two men-one small, one very large, at least six-foot-six, both in unzipped military-style parkas-came up on either side of him. The smaller one showed him a Makarov 9mm pistol tucked in his belt.

“You come,” he said.

“We’re going to see Mogilenko?” Scorpion asked.

“You come,” resting his hand on the gun.

“Buvay, rodimy,” Scorpion said to the blonde. So long. He smiled at her, but she looked straight through him as though he were already dead.

Patona Bridge

Kyiv, Ukraine

“He’s un con, an asshole, Cherkesov, but he will win,” Mogilenko said in French. They were in his office on the top floor of the Dynamo Club. The room was ultra modern. Mogilenko wore Prada tortoise-frame glasses, jeans, and a Ralph Lauren blazer, his long graying hair tied back in a ponytail. He looked more like a fashion designer than the head of Syndikat, Ukraine’s most powerful mafia gang. He sat on a sofa, a bottle of Khortytsya horilka between him and Scorpion. In the plate-glass wall behind Mogilenko, Scorpion could see the lights of the city. Through the thick carpet beneath their feet, he could feel the floor vibrate to the beat of the music below.

They were not alone. A tall man with prison crosses tattooed on both sides of his neck lounged against the wall. His eyes, along with a Russian SR-1 Gyurza pistol with a silencer, were fixed on Scorpion. Mogilenko introduced him as Andriy la machine. “Because when he eliminates problems, it’s like a machine.” When Mogilenko said that, Andriy didn’t smile.

“What makes you so sure?” Scorpion replied in French.

“Les Russes want it,” Mogilenko said. “In this country, when the Russians want something, that’s how it works.”

“Where’d you learn French?” Scorpion asked.

“I did my MBA at INSEAD near Paris.”

“Is that a job requirement for a Syndikat pakhan?”

“You’d be surprised. Business, as the Americans say, is business. Budmo,” Mogilenko said, pouring Khortytsya for both of them and then drinking. Scorpion took a sip.

“I was at the Kozhanovskiy rally,” Scorpion said. “Any idea why a bunch of patsani leg-breakers might bring iron bars to a political rally?”

Mogilenko shrugged. “Maybe someone paid them. I heard one of the Kemo got his fingers broken,” he added, looking straight at Scorpion.

“Maybe he stuck it where it didn’t belong.”

“Very likely,” Mogilenko said, nodding.

“So the Syndikat supports Cherkesov? Is that why somebody sent patsani thugs to the rally?”

Mogilenko laughed. “Last week we broke up Cherkesov rallies in Kharkov and Donetsk. This week, a Kozhanovskiy rally. We support whoever pays.” He shrugged. “And don’t get taken in by Iryna Shevchenko because of her pretty face. She’s a douleur cuisante,” meaning sharp as a whip.

“So it’s strictly business. You don’t give a damn who wins?”

“Whoever wins, we do business.” Mogilenko put his glass down. “And now, monsieur, we’ve had our horilka and our little conversation. So before you go baise-toi, why don’t you tell me what the fuck you really want, upizdysh?” His eyes glittered behind his glasses. The blonde was right, Scorpion thought. He was a psychopath.