Enforcer (46 page)

“Are you sober?”

“Am I awake?”

“Yes.”

“Then I hope not. Go get me a beer.”

“Listen to me, Connor.”

Connor groaned. “God, not this shit. I’m tired of listening to you. I don’t remember half of the shit you said in the last couple of days, and I don’t care. Go lecture someone else.”

“Listen to me, Connor,” Petre repeated, squatting down in front of him. “You must go back to work for Mr. Ojacarcu. You cannot continue to insult him.”

“Hey,” Connor said as if changing the subject. “Didn’t I tell you to go fuck yourself? Because if I didn’t, go fuck yourself. Split it with Ojacarcu.”

“Every day you do this, she suffers. You must stop feeling sorry for yourself and think of her.”

“Fuck you!” Connor screamed, leaning forward until he was a foot from Petre’s face. “You don’t get to tell me shit!
He
doesn’t get to tell me shit anymore! I’m through with you people. I don’t give a flying fuck what you do to the whore either. All of you can kiss my ass. I’m done. Now kindly get the fuck out of here unless you are going to clean up all of this puke.”

“Mr. Ojacarcu says if you do not return to work tonight, Dracul will begin to make her suffer. He will rape her as he tortures her. You will be forced to watch if you still refuse. You do not want to watch.”

“What is it with you people? Why can’t you just leave me alone? Why are you doing this?”

“This is how it is.”

Petre stood up when Connor began to cry. The Romanian was uncomfortable, unable to say or do anything for his friend. He knew anything he said would likely cause Connor to become violent in his drunken state. He didn’t want to hurt his friend, but he had his orders, though he had secured the pistol in the Lincoln after Connor passed out. Just in case he wasn’t as successful next time should his friend try for it.

“How long?” Connor asked after a few minutes, his face flushed and wet.

“How long for what?”

“How long do we have to go through this?”

“Until you go back to work.”

“No, I don’t mean today or right now. I mean
this
. This ‘life.’ How long before we’re killed? Because I see now that no one gets out. It’s like a bad mob movie, except instead of Italian gentlemen, I ended up with you people.”

“Sicilian mafia is no different,” Petre said, leaning against the sink. “They kill. We kill. It is same.”

“It isn’t the same! You people are animals. Lower than animals. Animals at least only kill for food. You people are sick and twisted.”

“You have watched too many movies. People like us are same, no matter where they are from. It is how it is. The Russians, they are ruthless. Italians and Sicilians are heartless. Yakuza are emotionless. Triads and your black gangbangers and Mexicans, all of us are cut out of the same pattern.”

“‘Cut from the same cloth,’ you fucking inbred,” Connor growled.

“That is what I said. It is always same no matter where it happens. It is spider web, yes? Once you are caught, there is no escape. Struggling only brings the spider faster.”

“Not everything that gets caught in a web gets eaten,” Connor said to his legs, the bright bathroom lights making it hard to look up at Petre.

“This is true. But only a spider can freely travel another’s web. A spider is happy to devour another spider.”

“Is this some Romanian ‘zen’ bullshit?”

“I am not a Buddhist.”

“No, you’re a fucking killer of men.”

“Yes, and I will be yours if Mr. Ojacarcu orders it. He will order it eventually, if he decides you will not be reasonable.”

“Bullshit. He’ll send Dracul.”

“
Da
. And you know there has to be two to do the job in case something goes wrong. I will be the second. Do not make me watch you die, Connor. I am your friend.”

“If you say that one more time,” Connor said as he struggled to stand up, “I’ll rip your throat out with my bare hands.”

*****

Connor watched the two agents make their way down the aisle toward him. He paused in front of the beer cooler, deciding that he should listen to what the men were going to say so he would know the appropriate amount of alcohol to purchase. Unless they were there to arrest him. That thought made him wonder if he should grab a beer and chug it down before they were close enough to put handcuffs on him.

“Hello, Connor,” Agent Gauthier said as the two suits came to a stop in front of him.

“Agent Gauthier, Agent Kline,” Connor greeted them.

“Heard about your suspension. Rest of the season is pretty harsh,” Gauthier said with a frown and a shake of his head.

“Had a bit of a meltdown?” Kline asked, a hint of mockery in his voice.

“Something like that,” Connor mumbled.

“We aren’t here to piss on your back while you’re down, Connor,” Gauthier said.

“Then what do you want?” Connor asked more harshly than he intended. His head was pounding from either lack of alcohol or too much of it over the last week.

“Do you know Darius Munteanu?” Kline asked.

“No.”

Gauthier reached into his jacket and pulled out a tablet. He slid his fingers across the screen a few times before turning it toward Connor.

“Recognize this guy?” Gauthier asked him.

“No, who is he?”

“Darius Munteanu. He’s a captain in the Savu crime family.”

“And…?” Connor’s legs began to feel weak. He had almost collapsed when Gauthier turned the tablet toward him, expecting Larry’s or Travis’ picture to be on the screen.

“The Savu clan runs a pretty big heroin operation out of Seattle. A major shipping port is a good place to get drugs into the country,” Kline said.

Connor looked from one agent to the other. “Right. And…?”

“Connor, this man Darius came to see your boss three days ago. Are you sure you didn’t see him?” Gauthier asked.

“Honestly, I’ve been shitfaced for the last week or so since I got suspended. I’ve left my apartment long enough to get coffee and more booze. Besides, do you really think I’d be introduced to a heroin kingpin? Like I’d just show up to Ojacarcu’s office and he’d be like, ‘Oh hey, Connor, meet Darius Montezuma, or whatever the hell his name was. He used to be some bigshot heroin smuggler from Seattle. How about getting me a coffee and a bagel while I dispose of his body?’ What’s with you guys?”

Kline’s suspicious stare seemed to pierce through his throbbing skull. The two agents looked at one another.

“If you know something, Connor, just tell us,’” Gauthier said.

“What?” Connor asked back, confused.

Kline’s cold eyes made Connor shiver. “You said something about disposing of a body.”

“So?” Connor asked, wishing he’d kept his mouth shut.

“Darius Munteanu hasn’t been heard from in three days. We tailed him right up to the arena, and he never came out,” Kline replied.

Connor laughed. “And you think Ojacarcu had him killed and then buried him in the parking garage?”

“So you didn’t see him at all?” Kline pushed.

“I said no, damn it. Why the hell are you bringing this shit to me anyway?”

“It’s okay, Connor,” Gauthier said, turning on his
good cop
persona. “How about this guy?”

He showed Connor another picture on the tablet. Connor shook his head. Gauthier showed him a few more pictures, all men. He hadn’t been given any names, but Connor guessed that all were Romanian. He didn’t recognize any of them.

“No worries,” Gauthier said, flipping the cover of the tablet over the screen. He paused for a moment, then flipped the cover back off and showed Connor another picture. “How about this guy?”

Connor prayed that his face or body language didn’t betray the icy fear that flowed through him. Travis Benkula stared back at him from the tablet’s screen. He gave it a glance, with what he hoped was the same indifference he’d displayed for the other pictures, before looking up from the screen.

“No. Who are all these people?” he asked, his voice somehow steady.

“Just a bunch of Romanians and a Croatian. This last guy was a local,” Gauthier said, flipping the cover again and putting the tablet back into his jacket.

“There seem to be a lot of Romanians and Croatians in Boise,” Connor said.

“More than you’d expect, don’t you think?” Agent Kline asked him.

“I don’t know,” Connor answered. “I’m just a dumb hockey player from Canada, remember?”

“You aren’t dumb,” Gauthier said. “Unless you keep hitting the bottle hard like you have been.”

Connor wasn’t sure if the agent was referring to his earlier remark of being shitfaced all week, or if he was being watched. He shook hands with both of them, hoping they didn’t notice how cold and sweaty his hand was. He hoped they’d think it was because the beer aisle was twenty degrees colder than the rest of the store.

CHAPTER 38

The knock came at ten in the morning. Connor was still drunk as he stumbled to the living room to answer the door, ready to punch whoever it was. It took him a few seconds to figure out the locks, but he finally managed to open the door. Jera stared at him, barely recognizing him. Connor gave a half-grunt, half-laugh, and walked to the kitchen. He heard the door close behind him. He jumped a little when she came up behind him silently as he rooted through the fridge, trying to grab a stray beer that had hidden itself between an old jar of grape jelly and a pizza box that had been there for a week.

Jera wrapped her arms around his middle, the cold of her hands seeping through his thin cotton shirt. She pressed her face into his back, her hot tears and cold cheeks creating an odd sensation. They remained that way for more than a minute, Connor half in and half out of the fridge, Jera holding on from behind as if he might get sucked into it. He finally stepped back, her feet matching his movements, until he could close the door of the fridge and turn around to face her.

They stared at each other for a long time, Jera’s face smeared with mascara and tears, his a mask of sorrow. Jera began to sob, her shoulders hitching up and down as she sniffled and hiccuped. He pulled her close, feeling her tears soak through the front of his shirt. He finally broke, his own tears mixing with hers in a silent chorus of fear and futility.

*****

“When is your first client?” Connor asked as they lay facing each other on opposite sides of his bed.

“Nothing until Friday,” Jera replied.

“He gave you two days off?”

“He’s so sure we’re fucking that he said I could have two days to convince you that coming back to work is in your best interest.”

“No,” Connor said as he shook his head, “he’s sure we are in love.”

“Are we?”

She reached her hand out to the halfway point between them. Connor stared at it, wanting nothing more than to make the connection with his own hand, his mind furiously willing him to do absolutely nothing. When she turned her hand palm-up, her eyes pleading with him, he was barely able to resist. He turned on his back, head rolling to look away so he wouldn’t have to see how deep the wound in her would be.

“Connor…” Jera whispered.

“I… I can’t,” he said, his words rebounding from the nightstand, still unable to look at her.

Jera slid across the bed, wrapping herself around his rigid, trembling body.

“It’s okay,” she said softly into his ear. “I understand.”

“No, you don’t. You don’t understand what is happening at all.”

“Sure I do,” she said, lifting her head up to look down into his face. “He’s using me to punish you. He’s using you to punish me. We’re locked into his web. It’s how he keeps everyone in line.”

Connor jerked at hearing her say the same thing that Petre had about webs.

“It’s that, somewhat,” he said. “But it’s beyond that now. Now it’s about extracting every ounce of our… life force or something. That’s what these people do. Once you’re in their web, they wrap you up and keep you alive, to feed on you until there’s nothing left. Then they cut you loose from the web like they did Larry, shriveled and dead.”

She began to cry after hearing his name. Connor had no love for the man, but he tried to imagine the sick kind of love Jera must have felt for him, tried to imagine how hard it would be to deal with the emotional trauma of knowing that he’d been killed. Tried to imagine what it must be like to be curled up next to the man that had killed him. He’d been unable to tell her that Petre was the one who had finished the job. He knew anything he said would be hollow and worthless.

“I didn’t love him,” Jera said after they lay silent for a while.

“Ever?” he asked.

“Not at the end. Not after being handed off to your boss like property, like livestock.”

“But you loved him before that?”

“It’s sick, I know. But I did. I still loved him so much that I thought by leaving he’d see things differently, that we’d work our way out of the hole we were digging. Stupid college-girl dreams. He was funny, charming even, when I first met him. I thought he might be the one. Even after we gave up smoking weed and dealing meth so we could smoke meth and deal weed.”