Josh Bazell - Beat the Reaper - A Novel

“When did you become interested in Romanians?” Magdalena’s father said shortly after we started eating. He had a mustache and was wearing a tie and what looked like a detachable collar, but couldn’t have been.

“When I met Magdalena,” I said.

I was trying to play it harmless and respectful, but I had too little experience and wasn’t doing very well. Plus Magdalena kept sliding over practically into my lap to prove to her parents how serious she and I were.

“Which was how, exactly?” her father said.

“At a wedding,” I said.

“I didn’t know the quartet was so sociable.”

I didn’t tell him it had been a sextet that night. I didn’t want to correct him, and I didn’t want to say “sextet” in front of him, either.

“It was a sextet,” Magdalena said.

“I see.”

Magdalena’s mother smiled and looked pained. Rovo rolled his eyes. He was slumped so low in his chair that it looked like he was about to slide off.

“Do you speak any Romanian?” Magdalena’s father said.

“No,” I said.

“Do you even know who the president of Romania is?”

“Ceauşescu?” I was pretty sure I was right.

“I sincerely hope you’re kidding,” he said.

I couldn’t help myself. I said, “I am. Comedy about Romania’s a sideline of mine.”

“So is sarcasm, evidently. You know, our Magdoll is not some American girl who will have sex with you in your car.”

Rovo said, “Jesus, Dad. Gross.”

I said, “I know that.”

“You appear to have nothing in common with my daughter at all.”

“Nobody has anything in common with her,” I said. “I wish they did.”

“That’s right,” her mother said, approvingly. Magdalena’s father glared at her.

Magdalena herself just got to her feet and went and kissed her father’s forehead. “Papa, you’re being ridiculous,” she said to him. “I’m going home with Pietro now. I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day.”

It stunned all three of them.

It stunned me too, but not so much that I didn’t let her grab me and get me the hell out of there.

Around that time, David Locano asked me to meet him at the Russian Baths again. I still had athlete’s foot from the last time, but I went.

“Thanks for telling Skinflick I killed Kurt Limme,” I said as soon as I sat down next to him.

“I didn’t. I just said it wasn’t me.”

“Was it?”

“No. Word is it was some dipshit he was blocking on a relay tower deal.”

I wondered why I’d bothered to ask. If Locano had killed Limme, or hired someone else to do it, why would he tell me? And what did I care anyway? Just because I had refused to murder Limme didn’t mean I had to mourn him.

“So what’s up?” I said.

“I’ve got a job for you.”

“Yeah?”

I had decided in advance that if he offered me a job I would say no. And that I would continue saying no until he understood that I was leaving the business behind.

Magdalena had changed the way I thought about it. Not that she knew I killed people. She didn’t. She knew I worked with scumbags, though, and she was afraid to know the details, which was bad enough.

“You won’t be able to turn it down,” Locano said. “You’ll be doing the world a lot of good.”

“Well—”

“I mean, these guys are foul.”

“Right. But—”

“And it’d be the perfect job for you to do with Adam.”

I stared at him. “Are you kidding?” I said.

“He wants to join. He’s got to pay the price.”

“I thought the idea was to keep Adam out of the mafia,” I said.

At the word “mafia,” Locano looked around. “Don’t be a Chatty Cathy,” he said. “Even in here.”

“Mafia mafia mafia,” I said.

“Enough! Jesus.”

“I’m not interested,” I said. “Not even in doing it alone. I’m done.”

“You’re quitting?”

“Yes.”

It was a huge relief to say it. I had thought it would be much harder. But I was still unsure how Locano would react.

He stared into space for a moment. Then he sighed. “It’ll hurt to lose you, Pietro.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re not going to ditch me and Adam entirely, are you?”

“Socially, you mean? No.”

“Good.”

For a while we just sat. Then he said, “Tell you what. Just let me pitch this to you.”

“I’m really not interested.”

“I hear you. But I’ve got to do my best. Will you let me just tell you about it?”

“Why?”

“Because I think you’ll feel differently once you’ve heard about it. I’m not saying you have to change your mind. I’m just saying I think you will.”

“I doubt it.”

“That’s fine. Just let me tell you. This one’s like the Virzi Brothers all over again, but a hundred times worse.”

Right then I knew I really didn’t want to hear about it.

“Okay,” I said. “As long as you don’t mind if I say no.”

“You know how prostitutes get turned out?” Locano asked me.

“I’ve read Daddy Cool. ”

“ Daddy Cool is sixties bullshit. Nowadays they get them en masse from the Ukraine. Hold a modeling audition then ship them to Mexico, where they beat them and rape them conveyor-belt style. A lot of the time there’s heroin involved too, so the girls won’t run away. We’re talking fourteen-year-old girls here.”

“And you’re involved in this business?” I said.

“No fucking way,” he said. “That’s the point. Nobody I work with can stand that shit, but there’s not a lot we can do about it when it’s out of the country.”

That seemed like bullshit already, but I just said, “Okay.”

“But now there’s a guy doing it stateside. In New Jersey . You know where Mercer County is?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get you a map anyway.”

The door to the steam room opened, and a pulse of cold air entered. Then a guy holding a towel around his waist.

“Excuse us for a minute,” Locano said to him.

“What you mean?” the man said. He had a Russian accent.

“I mean, please leave for ten minutes. We’ll be done then.”

“Is public steam room,” the man said. But he left.

“Where was I?” Locano said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Mercer County. There’s three guys out there: a father and two sons. They call it the Farm. They still fly the girls into Mexico and smuggle them up in NAFTA trucks, but they do the beating and raping right here. That way more of the girls survive the trip. But with what these guys end up doing to them, not as many more as you would think.”

“Is this about production quotas, David?” I said.

He looked at me. “No,” he said. “Not even slightly. This is about it being part of my job to look shit in the face before anybody else has to. As soon as I found out about this, I decided to stop it. And as soon as I told the people I work with about it, they said ‘Go ahead.’” He paused. “It pays a hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“I know. I’m just trying to show you how seriously everyone is taking this. It’s a hundred and twenty thousand dollars, and that’s for you. Adam I’ll cover myself.”

I’d almost managed to forget that detail. “Why would you send Adam into a situation like that?” I said.

“Because I’ve got the Farm rigged,” Locano said.

What he meant by “rigged” was this:

A couple of months earlier, the owner of the Farm, Karcher the Elder, first name Les, had called some plumbing contractors out to extend the water pipes from the kitchen out to a shack he and his sons had built alongside the house. The plumbers thought the shack might be for a meth lab, so they looked around for anything they could steal, paying particular attention to smells. This led them to another outbuilding, farther off in the back yard, which turned out to have what seemed to be a naked, decomposing teenage girl in it, though the flies on the body were too thick for them to really tell.