Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle (46 page)

Ned couldn't help but agree that Grigori had assessed the Jared-Macnair-posing-as-Eric-Steadman character fairly accurately. But he was presented with a problem. He now had to convince Dave, his FBI caseworker, to allow him to switch jobs. Because he realized that he knew enough that if he backed out now, the Russians would want to get rid of him.

While he was trying to think of a strategy, Grigori snapped his fingers and asked, “There is nothing to think about, you will do this.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course,” Ned stammered. “It's just a lot to take in all of a sudden like this.”

Grigori laughed and said something to Semyon. Semyon giggled and opened a door that Ned took to be a closet. While he was in there, Grigori told Ned that he shouldn't worry, that he would send Semyon with him to make things easy for him. And added that he could use the peace and quiet of having Semyon out of town for a while. In the new job, Ned would be paid a token salary—significantly higher than the mailroom but not high enough to merit suspicion—with benefits, but the real money would come from how much “product” he could supply to Grigori's dealers. Grigori said it would not surprise him if Ned was paid as much as a million dollars in his first year.

Semyon came back out of the adjoining room with a beer for Ned, a bottle of vodka and six small glasses. He distributed the vodka to all the men in the room, although Ned noticed that Vasilly declined his. Grigori then said a few words and raised his glass. Everyone in the room except Vasilly followed suit. Then he and all the others downed their vodka in a single gulp. Ned took a swing of beer. Grigori smiled broadly.

Semyon made a gesture to Ned that indicated it was time to go. The other men in the room had started talking among themselves. When Ned stood up, so did Grigori. The room fell silent. Grigori smiled, his gold teeth briefly flashing a reflection of sunlight. “Go, Macnair, and make us lots of money.” All of the men in the room except Vasilly laughed.

After the meeting, Ned and Semyon got into the Lexus. Semyon looked at Ned and asked, “So what do you think?”

Ned fought for the right words. “I'd say I'm impressed. I'm very impressed.”

“You should be! Grigori has set you up to be very, very rich and all you have to do is shake some hands and open a few packages.”

“Yeah, that's the picture I get too,” Ned replied, unable to suppress a smile. “One thing, though. What was that Grigori said when he toasted?”

Semyon giggled. “I can't remember exactly, but it was something like ‘God guide this stupid American and let him succeed and not ever betray us,' ” he recalled. “And, of course, ‘death to Gypsies.' ”

“What?”

Semyon looked confused for a second. “Oh—the ‘death to Gypsies' thing,” then he giggled. “That's something he must have picked up in Romania. They all say that. So do the Bulgarians and I think also the Slovaks, but I can't be sure, anywhere where there are Gypsies. I don't think they mean anything by it, kind of like if Jew might hit his thumb with a hammer and says ‘Jesus Christ!' Just an expression.”

“But what's so bad about Gypsies?”

“People over there say all kinds of bad things about them,” he said, “but I don't get into it because I am kind of like a Gypsy. I'm an Uzbek who has never seen Uzbekistan, I was born and grew up in Russia but am not Russian and now I live in America but am not American. But Europeans, especially in the East, are not like me or like you. Unless your great-great-great-grandfather fought the Turks a thousand years ago to defend your village, you will always be an outsider who is not to be trusted, even to be hated—and Gypsies, by definition, are always from someplace else.”

Ned was mulling this over when Semyon turned onto a side street, then another. Finally he pulled into a driveway beside a nice low bungalow, which was brightly lit given how late it was. As they got out of the car, Semyon kicked a tricycle that was in his path into the yard and swore in what was probably Russian.

He opened the unlocked door without knocking, entered a small vestibule and was suddenly pounced on by four children ranging in age from toddler to about six. He said something to them in Russian and they all dispersed. As they were detaching themselves from Semyon, Ned noticed a woman appear from inside the house with her hands on her hips. She was short and thick with short black hair that had been artificially curled but poorly maintained. She was dressed in a sleeveless black sweater and patterned pink-and-white Capri pants and topped off her Midwestern retro-chic look with thick, black plastic glasses. She started shouting something in Russian at Semyon.

“English, please, honey, we have a guest,” Semyon said calmly, gesturing at Ned.

The woman put her lips together in an angry pout and forced air through her nose. “Fine!” she said. “Where have you been, don't you know the baby is still asleep and who the fuck is this?”

Semyon laughed. “My beloved wife Ludmilla, this is Macnair. Macnair, this is Ludmilla, my beloved wife.”

Ludmilla softened and smiled at Ned, offering her hand. “Pleased to meet you Macnair, welcome to our home.” Before he could shake her hand, she went back to yelling at Semyon in Russian. But he just shrugged and grabbed Ned by the arm and led him into the living room.

It was a fairly normal living room, but very messy with the kids and their stuff, and Ned noticed that much of the furniture was low and without normal chair backs. Much of the wall space was covered with framed black-and-white photos, which Ned correctly surmised were the result of Ludmilla's hobby.

Semyon shooed a pair of small giggling children off the couch and offered Ned a seat. He sat on the other end of the low sofa and said something in Russian. Ned noticed that all four of the children were staring at him and would not look away no matter what he did. They all looked like Semyon only with rounder faces and bigger eyes and although Ned identified them all as boys, because they all had the same salad-bowl haircut, he couldn't be sure.

Ludmilla returned with a bottle of vodka and three glasses. She explained that she was Russian and met Semyon when her family moved into his neighborhood after her dad was killed. They married young, but didn't have children until they had their future figured out. When Semyon had a chance to move to America, they jumped at the chance.

Ned noticed that the kids were falling asleep around them, and Ludmilla told him that her parents were so strict with her that she no longer believed in artificial constructs like set bedtimes and specific bedrooms.

Either she warmed to Ned or the vodka took effect. Ludmilla—or Millie, as her American friends called her—told Ned that she was a full-time mom, but also had a part-time job teaching photography at a local community college. “I'm a real woman,” she pointed out proudly. “Not one of those skinny, coked-up airheads Semyon's gangster friends always have with them.”

It took Ned some time to work up the courage to ask Ludmilla where he could sleep. She smiled and took him into a room with two empty twin beds. Ned couldn't remember if he'd traveled into another time zone, so just to be safe, he set the alarm on his cell phone for seven o'clock.

Just as he was falling asleep, he saw Semyon—shirtless and drunk—stumble into the room. The first thing Ned noticed was how many tattoos Semyon had and how intricate they were. Semyon fell into the bed beside Ned and put an arm around his neck. “We are friends now,” Semyon said and Ned noticed that his accent was much thicker. “So we keep each other's secrets.”

“Sure, man, sure.”

“And even though Ludmilla calls my friends ‘gangsters,' she does not know,” he said. “She thinks I sell used, maybe stolen, auto parts, but she knows nothing about drugs or guns or women or nothing, you know?”

“I understand.”

Semyon rubbed Ned's hair affectionately. “I know, I know, you are good man, you are not like us, but you are one of us, you are okay, I love you.” And at that, he worked very hard to stand up and stumbled out of the room. Ned could see that he had a large handgun in his right hand. In fact, he accidentally banged it against the door on the way out and giggled his now-familiar giggle.

Ned drifted off to sleep.

Ned felt the vibration before he heard the “peep peep peep” of his cell-phone alarm. He really wanted to shut it off and roll back over and go back to sleep, but he knew how important his next call would be. As he straightened up and rolled over, he accidentally stepped on one of the two young children who had fallen asleep on the floor of his room some time during the night. The kid didn't wake up, just rolled over and let out a long sigh.

Ned headed for the kitchen. The house was quiet. Ned leaned against the fridge and hit the contact for “Shithead.” After a couple of rings, Ned felt relieved when he heard the phone transfer over to voice mail. He waited through Neil's long and overly complicated message, then said, “Neil, it's Eric, I can't come to work today . . . uh . . . I'm really fucked up, terrible headaches and vomiting . . . I really shouldn't come in.”

He hung up, rubbed his eyes and looked for an unoccupied place to go back to sleep, as one of the floor children had since invaded his bed. He curled up on the living-room sofa and fell back asleep. About thirty minutes passed before his phone rang. The display said “Shithead.” Ned hit ignore. Five minutes later, it rang again, flashing “Shithead.” Ned picked up. Before he could say hello, he heard Neil, his boss at the mailroom, screaming. “Eric, you ignorant fuck, get your ass into work today,” he raged. “I don't care how bad your hangover is. I have a department to run and I don't need your laziness to get in the way.”

Ned waited for him to finish. “Neil, I really am sick, there's literally no way I could come in today,” Ned said. “I may have something contagious.”

“Maybe I should be the judge of that,” Neil said. “Why don't you come in, and I'll decide how sick you are . . . send you home if you're telling the goddamned truth.”

“Are you nuts?” Ned was angry now, and his head really was pounding. “What kind of slave-driver are you? It's the law that you gotta allow me a sick day from time to time—and it's not like I've ever asked for one before.”

“Listen, you lying bag of crap, you could be replaced by a fuckin' monkey,” Neil scolded. “And if you don't come in, I'll think about doing that.” He hung up. Ned couldn't help thinking that Neil had enjoyed their little fight. He tried to go back to sleep, but his headache wouldn't let him. Instead, he lay on the living room couch with his eyes closed, rolling and stretching in a fruitless effort to find a comfortable position on the short sofa.

When Ned showed up for work Tuesday morning, Neil Bird, the manager, was there to greet him outside the front door. He was a small man, prone to wearing denim in unconventional ways. He shaved his head to hide his baldness, but had a reddish mustache and wire-framed glasses. He had his arms tightly crossed over his chest and he was pacing.

He gave an angry smile when he saw Ned. “You don't look sick to me, Eric,” he snapped.

“I'm not anymore,” Ned tried to stay upbeat. “Just needed a good day's rest.”

“You're a liar,” Neil said. “I'm keeping my eye on you, and if you slip up . . .”

Ned was exasperated. “What is your fucking problem, man?” he asked, shaking his head. “One sick day and you're making a federal case out of it—and you really shouldn't talk to me that way.”

Neil grinned. “I'll talk to you any way I want. I'm the boss,” he said. “And you have to do everything I say.”

Ned put his face in his hands. “You know what? Fuck you, Neil.”