Jerry Langton Three-Book Biker Bundle (52 page)

“And then he joined the army?”

“No, they came and got him,” Semyon said. “Finished with the
tiep
, he was traveling to Moscow and was arrested on the train with illegal weapon.”

“A gun?”

“No, a grenade launcher.”

Ned's eyes widened. “So then he went into the penal battalion?”

“Nope, infantry.”

“So how did he get put in the penal battalion?”

“At the cannery,” Semyon said. “We had this small hole in the concrete fence through which we would trade with the Chechens.”

“Really? You would actually trade with the enemy?”

“Yeah, of course,” Semyon said. “But only with the kids, you know—five, six, seven, eight, nine—but once they got to ten years old, all they wanted to do was kill you.”

“What did you trade?”

“We had things they wanted: bullets, grenades, flares, even generators,” Semyon continued. “And they had things we wanted, like weed, butter, meat—you know.”

“You would give the enemy ammunition to kill you?” Ned said, having a hard time wrapping his head around the concept.

“Sure, of course, it's what we had—and we were starving,” he said vehemently. “They were starving too, but they would rather kill us than eat.”

“So you and Vasilly got caught trading?”

“No, I got caught with a matchbox full of weed,” Semyon said with a resigned tone, “but with Vasilly it was more complicated.”

“How?”

“One night, he followed the kids back to their hideout, an old farm building about two kilometers from the cannery,” Semyon continued. “He killed the boys and filled his pack and his pockets with all their stores—meat, canned fish, weed, pounds and pounds of it—then he took the boys and nailed them upside down by their feet to the outside of the house, took all the weapons and explosives out of the house and set them on fire.”

“Why?”

“It made the Chechens think we were attacking,” Semyon said, as though Ned was stupid for asking. “They came from miles and miles and miles to see their children hanging upside down, dead with their throats cut.”

“What happened to Vasilly?”

“Oh, he went to the gate on the other side and gave each of the guards a can of condensed milk to get back inside. That shit is like gold over there,” Semyon said. “Then he set up a store and started selling the stuff from the house back to us for rubles—real money.”

“And he got in trouble for killing the kids?”

“No, some sergeant was trying to hit him in the jaw with the butt of his rifle.”

“Why? Deal gone wrong?”

“How should I know? They don't need a reason. They beat us all the time. I once got a punctured lung because some captain didn't like my ‘stupid Uzbek face.'” Semyon was angry now. “Anyway, Vasilly kicked him in the ribs and was taken away—ended up in my penal battalion.”

Ned laughed. “Schlepping coffins?”

“Yeah,” Semyon smiled again. “The Russian army always puts remains of the dead in coffins made out of zinc, then welds them shut. The official reason is that government thinks nobody should look inside. It's too sad, you know.”

“It seems odd, with such a brutal war.”

“It was, but none of us realized it,” Semyon said with his index finger in the air, “until Pavel, Vasilly and I tried to move this one coffin—must have been six hundred pounds. Pavel figured that, since we are all starving, there was more than just a body inside. So we stole it, said it never arrived and took it to an old shed not far from the barracks. It took two weeks to open it, and inside we found . . .”

“Heroin.”

“ Yeah , that's right, ” Semyon smiled slyly. “Someone, someone high up, was smuggling heroin from Chechnya to Moscow in the coffins, getting rich while we starved and froze and broke our backs.”

“And got shot at by Chechens,” Ned added. “So what happened?”

“Pavel was killed. He was transferred out of penal battalion and back into a mortar crew. He was later found castrated with his fingers gone and his throat cut.” Semyon sighed. “Vasilly was sent back to Moscow after the cease fire. He tried to sell the heroin himself, wound up with Mafia and was hired on as contract killer. He told them about me and when I returned to Moscow, I was given a job as a messenger and delivery boy. I owe Vasilly a great deal.”

“Yeah, sounds like a great guy.”

“He is, in his own way,” Semyon said. “Just promise me you will never, ever do anything to make him mad at you.”

Before Ned could answer, Semyon was snoring.

“You missed another day of work,” Dave hissed into the phone.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ned replied. “My
first
day missed at this job—and the Swede is cool with it.”

“Don't call your boss ‘the Swede;' show some respect,” Dave shouted. “And I don't care if he's ‘cool,' I'm some pissed off.”

“Why, man?” Ned almost whined. “I was sick. Nobody cares but you.”

“Really? Is that what you think? If I find out that you are up to something, I'll hand you over to the Sons myself, just for lying to me.”

“C'mon, Dave.”

“Yeah,” he continued, sputtering with anger. “How'd you like to be Ned Aiken again? Good fuckin' luck. I'd give you fifteen minutes before I'd start checking the morgue.”

“Relax, Dave. I just had a touch of strep and didn't want to infect anyone at work,” Ned tried to sound beseeching. “I have a good thing here—why would I do anything to fuck it up?”

“I don't know why you assholes do anything you do; your logic got you into big trouble didn't it?”

“And it got me back out,” Ned said. “Look, I learned my lesson. I want to stay at Hawkridge, want to do well. It's not like any other place where I've ever worked. They like me. They listen to me. I could even get promoted.”

Dave laughed, Ned pictured his face softening. “Yeah, just stay outta trouble,” he said. “Or you'll have even more trouble with me.”

The next day in his office, Ned mused to himself that he wasn't really lying to Dave. He did enjoy himself there. And people there did like and respect him. He had great relationships with Katie and Juan, the other managers were cool and would sometimes have lunch or even go drinking with him, and even the Swede would pop by every couple of days with a few words of encouragement.

It was a pretty nice setup, and Ned didn't feel all that bad about not actually contributing to the company because, he rationalized, at least he wasn't hurting it.

The plan worked very much like he had been told it would. Steve, Hawkridge's manufacturing manager, would e-mail an order for cooling coils from the factory floor to Ned. He would then place an order for twice as many to Romania. They would arrive two weeks later, Ned would open them, and deliver the white-lettered ones to Steve, then ship the yellow-lettered ones to Detroit. It was all automatic, nobody ever questioned him.

And every two weeks or so, he'd get a visit from some college-aged kid who'd hand him an envelope that was marked “Macnair.” It was small at first, just a couple of hundred bucks, but it began to grow. Ned started treating himself. Life was good. He was dressing better, living better, having a good time and—for the first time in a long time—looking forward to the future. Dave was quiet, the Swede appeared to be happy (as did his Russian friends) and he was making a lot of money. The Russians had even given him the surprise gift of a local “model” dropping by his apartment unannounced once. Ned was thinking strongly about getting a bigger place, definitely near the beach, somewhere where he could continue working on the old Indian.

There were a few snags, though. Chuck and Bob, the guys from the credit-assessment company mailroom, called him up a couple of times and insisted on a cut of his earnings. The first time it happened, he FedExed them four hundred dollars apiece. They called back and said he was insulting them. Ned argued that he hadn't made very much money yet, and that Grigori's people told him that he owed them nothing. When they called a third time, demanding payment in a threatening manner, Ned told them to take it up with Vasilly. After a long—and Ned assumed stunned—silence, Chuck began to sputter and swear and let out something in his own language that was both threatening and complicated. It sounded so much like something out of an old horror movie that Ned couldn't help but laugh. That enraged Chuck, who hung up.

Another thing bothered Ned. A number of the Ocean City Lawbreakers were busted in a drug raid—so many, in fact, that the Lawbreakers were moving members from other chapters to Ocean City to keep the chapter alive. Apparently, one of the Ocean City members or prospects had been working with the ATF. It was certain that he—and perhaps also someone looking to plea bargain—would tell the police that he had seen Jared Macnair, and that he had possible connections to the Russians. While it didn't weigh on him greatly, he did think about ways to distance himself from the Macnair identity.

He was actually doing that very thing when he received the third thing that bothered him these days—a phone call from a drunken Semyon. Ned honestly liked Semyon, but his calls were the worst. He'd drone on for hours about the most mundane things, complain about slights—many, Ned felt, were more imagined than real—and sometimes completely forget who he was talking to and start rambling on in Russian.

This time, though, Semyon sounded pretty well put together. He had clearly had a couple of sips of vodka, but he was unlikely to go off on one of his long and barely coherent soliloquies. Instead, he went straight to the point, at least by his standards.

“Did you like my present?” he asked.

“Which one?”

“What?” Semyon asked, angrily. “The girl!”

“Was that you?” Ned asked mockingly.

“Who else would buy you a date?” Semyon was beginning to realize he was being made fun of. “You have other such friends?”

“Hundreds,” Ned said, laughing.

“Even I have to admit lots of people like you these days,” Semyon said. “Your ability to do your job and stay quiet has been noticed.”

“Really?”

“Yes, and you are due to get big reward.”

Immediately, images of luxury cars popped into his head. “Oh yeah?” Ned said. “That's great—what am I getting?”

“An all-expenses-paid trip to Moscow with Grigori and me!”

Ned was shocked. The Cadillacs and BMWs in his head turned into cops and prison guards. “You know I can't go to Russia,” he spat out. “My ID is good, but it's not good enough for an international flight. Do you want to see me in a federal penitentiary for fifteen years?” He knew that if he tried to get on an international flight with his Eric Steadman ID, he'd never get on the plane. Security would call Dave, he'd have his protection lifted and the Russians would then be racing with the Sons of Satan to kill him. And if he tried to use the ID the Russians had given him, who knows what would happen? Immediately and without warning, the idea entered his mind that the Russians had somehow found out that he was dealing with the FBI, and just wanted him to get into a car to kill him.

Semyon interrupted that thought with a loud sigh. “All you ever do is worry,” he said. “Don't you think that we think of these things before we make them happen? Grigori does not want to lose such a valuable asset as you. Rest assured, your ID is good enough for where we are going to take you.”

Their conversation was friendly after that, with Semyon explaining that Ned hadn't seen anything compared to what awaited him in Russia. Ned said that he was sure of that. After saying good-bye, Ned sat in front of the TV blindly switching channels, drank almost an entire bottle of Jim Beam and smoked two joints before he finally nodded off at just before three a.m.