Andrew Vachss - Dead and Gone

“I’ll see you soon, girl,” is all I could make myself say to her.

The Mole set up the meet. He’d done it before. It was always the same—I wanted something from them or they wanted something from me. Money never changed hands. What we traded was information. Or work.

“Dmitri is ex-Spetsnaz,” the unremarkable man said. He was a little shorter than me, slim, with dark wiry hair and leathery skin that made him look older than he was … I guessed. He wasn’t one I’d ever seen before, but his eyes had the same look they all have.

“What’s that?” I asked him.

“The elite of the Russian military. Like the Special Forces or the SEALs. But now, in today’s Russia, they are not heroes; they are throwaways. They are paid nothing, they live in squalor, they have no prospects.”

“So they hire out?”

“Some do. Not all. Some are loyalists to the core, waiting for the return of Communist Russia. But most of them could not survive without some other employment.”

“Dmitri?”

“Dmitri is a criminal. He was a criminal in Russia; he is a criminal here. But his group is small. Operatives for hire, not what you Americans like to call ‘organized crime.’ His group has no foothold that would interest the Mafia, so he has no basis for a partnership.”

“What kind of foothold would interest them?”

“Gas stations are one example. The Mafia arranges for all the stations to buy bootleg and avoid the gas tax, which is enormous. Then the profits are divided. Money laundering is another. There are many small businesses in the Russian neighborhoods. All-cash businesses. But Dmitri is no businessman, despite his opinion of himself.”

“So he could have just been hired to do the job?”

“An assassination? Certainly. But it is not likely.”

“Why?”

“It was too elaborate. You have been alone with this man, more than once, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So he had many opportunities. Dmitri has military training, but he is no master tactician. If he had been paid—paid enough —to risk a homicide, he would have acted on it when he had the chance, not given you so much time to ascertain his intent.”

“Is he an enemy of your people?”

“Perhaps once.” The man shrugged. “If he was paid to be so, perhaps again. But all Dmitri wants now is money. A pogrom would not bother him morally, but he would not participate unless he was paid. And now in Russia there is no one to pay him. Afghanistan was their Vietnam. But, unlike America, they never recovered.

“The IMF had to bail the Kremlin out after it defaulted on its own bonds, and devalued the ruble. There is no ‘Russia’ anymore. And what shreds are left would not, could not spend the time or the resources to keep our people imprisoned. A little corruption, a little bribery, yes. After all, Russia was once the ultimate bureaucracy. But there is no government policy preventing our people from coming home.”

“Still, you know a lot about him.…”

“We know a lot about many people. They are not our people, but they could be of use, someday. In our trade, today’s enemy is tomorrow’s asset.”

“Would you know who his second-in-command is?”

“They are no longer military, Mr. Burke. No more chain of command. He has fellow thugs, that is all. He is the boss, not the general.”

“So if he were to step down …?”

“Hah! Dmitri would never step down. Ever. And should he be … removed, there would be the usual scramble for power. An orderly succession is highly unlikely.”

“But, eventually, no matter who took over, you would know, right?”

“Yes. They have no secrets from us. Some we buy, some we … acquire. But all we get, eventually.”

“Thank you. For all this. I know the value of information. If I can ever be of service to you …”

“You are with our brother,” the man said quietly, for the first time including the Mole in his glance. “This is for him, not for you.”

I had to play it as if the Israeli’s info was gospel. And I had to play my lone ace very carefully. You only get one chance to take advantage of someone believing you’re dead.

I took another ten days to set up a meet with Dmitri. The prelims were handled over pay phones. I was a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, voice-filtered. The “buyer” was a crazy old man with maybe six months to live—advanced aplastic anemia. He wanted some surface-to-air missiles so he could bring down one of the camouflaged helicopters ZOG kept sending over his compound. That way, he could show the whole world the kind of covert surveillance the Jewocracy was conducting against patriotic Americans.

Not only that, the old man was psycho enough to pay retail. A sweet score for Dmitri. Ten points to me for the steering, talked down from twenty-five.

But Dmitri wasn’t moving from his restaurant. Dealing with strangers, that was the only place he’d do business, no exceptions. The guy was in a wheelchair, too fucking bad—they could just wheel him in. And no problem about an interpreter—Dmitri was proud of his English.

“No,” I said, flatly.

“They’d never—”

“No,” I told Michelle again. “If this doesn’t work out, it’s going to be messy.”

“And you think I can’t—?”

“It’s not for you,” I said. “That’s the end of it.”

“Because …?” she insisted.

“Because they won’t recognize me . I won’t look like this forever, but, for now, I’ll get right past their screens,” I said, wondering even then if I was being honest with myself. “But anyone would know you again, honey.”

Michelle loved to shop, but she wasn’t buying any of my lame flattery that night. “Who, then? You think Max is going to be able to disguise himself. As what? The Mole? Sure! And don’t even think about the Prof or Clarence; the last time a black man was in that neighborhood was before the Russians took over. They’d get more eyeballing than a porno movie. But a woman in a nurse’s outfit … Just think about it for a minute.”

“I …”

“Oh, wait here. I’ll be back,” she snapped.

We had almost three more hours to keep planning before Michelle returned. Only now she was a blonde, with skin tanned so deeply she looked like a Puerto Rican in a wig. Her heart-shaped face was roundish now, her full lips were much thinner. And her eyes were a bright, fake blue. “Who’s going to recognize me now?” she demanded.

The Prof looked her over appreciatively. “You don’t loosen up on that skirt, they gonna follow you home anyway,” he said.

“Fine!” Michelle snapped back, in no mood to play. “I’ll be in a nurse’s uniform, remember?”

“I know a better way,” I said.

“You are sure of this?” the Israeli asked me.

“Are you asking if I’m guessing, or if I’m lying?”

“If you are guessing, you are a fool. And we will not work with fools. If you are lying …”

“He is not lying,” the Mole said quietly.

The Mossad man turned to face me, his dark eyes trying to hold mine. But his eyes were a normal person’s, working as one. So he had to settle for only one of mine at a time, and it threw him off. “Dmitri is going to sell SAMs to Nazis, that is what you are telling us?”

“Not German Nazis. Not some remnants from World War II. American Nazis. A few assorted freaks with Master Race fantasies.”

“So? Such people are no threat to us.”

“That’s right,” I told him truthfully. “But Dmitri’s a merchant. If he’ll sell to Nazis, he’ll sell to Arabs.”

“All Arabs are not our enemy. That is what you Americans believe, perhaps, but it is wrong. Only a tiny minority thwart the possibility of peace between us.”