Greg Rucka - Critical Space

The gun in the glove compartment was clean and untraceable, one of the pistols from the cache Alena and I had cleared the previous afternoon. It was a Czech semiauto, the CZ75, and it could be carried cocked and locked.

I took the gun out of the glove compartment. I cocked it, locked it, and then put it in my belt at the small of my back.

Then I got out of the car and headed for the restaurant. Before I'd even opened the door I could smell the grease frying inside, hear the noise of the patrons. There was no liquor license posted anywhere I could see, but that didn't seem to bother anyone within, and there looked to be a bottle of vodka for everyone present. Cigarette smoke choked the air. I moved inside as if I knew exactly where I was going, and it helped that Alena had given me explicit directions, and because I didn't look out of place and I didn't act out of place, no one gave me more than a cursory glance.

I worked my way along the aisle between the counter and the crowded tables, giving an eyefuck to anyone who looked my way too long. Almost everyone present was male but for one very busty brunette working the register, and a couple of older women in a booth near the bathroom doors. At least a hundred horses had gone to their great reward to provide the occupants with leather, from boots to jackets to, in a couple of cases, pants. On a lot of the men I saw tattoos, especially on their hands and fingers, Russian mafia call-signs.

At the back of the room was a door marked with a plastic sign in English, ordering me to keep out. I went on through into the back room, passing a very large teenager who was listening to a Walkman as he sat on a stack of plastic crates. He slipped from his perch as I passed him and asked me something in Russian, and I waved my left hand at him in such a way as to indicate he didn't want to mess with me. I was at the next door and going up a flight of stairs as he settled back down.

I'd half expected another whorehouse, because Alena hadn't been clear on what I would be walking into, but it was merely a furnished room with two men doing paperwork at two wooden desks. As I came in both looked up, and from their expressions I could tell they'd been expecting someone else. The one at the closer desk, bespectacled and chunky, asked me something I didn't understand.

There was a couch and a coffee table, so I sat down like I owned the place. The chunky one repeated what he'd said, this time not so friendly. The other one, who was both older and smaller, rose, suspicion on his face.

"I want to see Danilov Korckeva," I said in the Russian Alena had made me practice over and over again until she was certain I could sound authentic. "Tell him I'm a friend of Natasha's."

Then I waggled my hand at the thin man, indicating that I wanted him to either use the phone, sit down, or possibly do the hokey-pokey.

He decided I meant for him to sit down. As the chunky one got on the phone, the older one studied me curiously, then asked me something in Russian. I gave him a look that said I wasn't in the mood for chatter, he nodded, and went back to his paperwork.

I kept smiling, though it was more honest this time. "Just act as if you own them," Alena had told me. "Say nothing after you ask for Dan. If they try to speak to you, scowl. If they do it a second time, draw the gun, but do not point it at them. Otherwise, look as if you don't have a care in the world. The longer you sit there and wait, the more afraid of you they will become. They can't help it. It's the Russian mentality. The only thing they fear is their own, and they will take you for one of their own, but one who is unknown, and that will truly frighten them."

And damn if she wasn't right, because I sat there for thirty-seven minutes, and each time I caught one of them looking at me I stared right back and scowled, and they lowered their eyes, caught, and hastily resumed their work. They didn't speak to me. They didn't speak to each other. The chunky one got up once and went to the small television that sat on a metal stand against the wall between their desks, and he looked at me before switching it on, the question in his eyes. I shrugged, and he smiled and switched on ESPN, then went back to his work.

A little after noon the door opened and Dan came in, wearing designer jeans and biker boots and the same leather jacket as before, plucking a pair of sunglasses from his face. There was no need for them on a day like today, but they seemed to suit the image. He saw me on the couch and stopped cold, squinting, and I had to remind myself that the last time he'd seen me I'd worn glasses and been clean-shaven. It took him almost three seconds, and then his face cracked into a grin.

"Holy fuck, it's Mr. Atticus!" He loomed in, offering one mammoth hand for a shake, the other going to my shoulder. It didn't rattle me as much as it had when we'd first met. "Natasha sent you? That's for real? You're not giving me the bullshit?"

"She needs a favor."

Dan waved a hand, warning me to say no more. "We don't talk here, not about 'Tasha. You come with me."

He waited until I was up, then held the door open for me, gesturing, and I grinned and didn't go through, and he laughed and nodded and went first. I followed him out into the hall and back down the stairs. When we reached the teenager with the Walkman, Dan cuffed him alongside the head, growling in Russian, and the kid yelped. We went back through the restaurant, then out onto the street, where the Kompressor was parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. The top was down. He climbed over the side and forced himself behind the wheel, and I opened the door and took the passenger seat. The engine came to life and he did a moderately illegal turn, then put us on Coney Island Avenue, heading to the water.

"You're not dead," Dan said. "That's surprising."

"No one's more surprised than me."

He roared with laughter. " 'Tasha sent you, you walk in like an old-time commissar, you have balls. What does she need, anything she needs if I can give it, it's for her."

"She needs a house."

"Big house? Little house? Apartment? Condo?"

"A secure house, somewhere access can be restricted, someplace that she can hole up."

We turned onto Brighton Beach Avenue, Dan nodding. "And she sends you to get this for her? Why does she not come herself?"

"She's finding it difficult to move around right now."

"Police?"

"Almost."

He scratched his chin, sniffing the air. "Okay, I can get a house, a good house. But it's not cheap."

"It needs to be secure."

"Real secure, this house, in Jersey. Comes with alarms, cameras, I can even give her guards, she wants them."

"She may."

"Guards, those will be extra. I will pick them myself. Only the best for 'Tasha." He looked over at me, and his tone changed, and the enthusiasm, the friendliness, disappeared. "You tell her I get her the best, okay?"

"She said you always do."

He put his attention back on the road. "That's right, I always do. You don't fuck with 'Tasha unless you have your will in order."

"How long will it take you?"

"By tonight, I can do this. Where do I contact you?"

"Doesn't work like that, Dan. I'll contact you."

He took a moment, then nodded and rattled off a phone number. I repeated it back, as much to aid my memory as to check that I'd heard him right.

"How much will it cost?" I asked.

"With guards, for 'Tasha – she gets discount – I say five large a day."

"I'll have to check with her about the guards," I said.

"Of course, of course."

"She'll want to see you there when she arrives."

"Yes, of course, okay." He nodded a couple of times, then asked where he could drop me off. I told him back at the restaurant would be fine, and he turned the car around and headed back to where we'd started, driving in silence. Then he asked, "So, you were with her? All this time, you were with her?"