The Beast (4 page)

“Could you be a dear and go to the store before you go?” Nan asked. “I need a couple lottery tickets. Can you imagine me winning something at my age? At least you’d inherit a lot!”

“Sure thing Nan,” Columbia said and took a twenty from the older woman, “but I think our family was meant to be poor. I don’t think a single one of us has ever been rich.” She would have to skim a bit of the change to pay for a Skytrain ticket, but Nan would understand.

She had an hour before meeting the contact in front of the building she was going to infiltrate. She hopped the Skytrain to Granville Street and took her time walking down to English Bay. She wandered back along the waterfront to the Convention Centre, always feeling comforted and safe near the water. It made her feel like she had a chance to escape given the need.

She sat on a bench and killed a little more time before the big event. She knew Stuart had to work today, so she wouldn’t be able to get her phone until after her meeting with Jarrod Jacobs. She didn’t have her phone to record the encounter as planned, but at least she could tell him how she felt about his company.

She straightened her shoulders and resolved to do this one task for the group, then decided to bow out and never see Stuart or Debbie again. She didn’t know how she could look either one of them in the eye now. She was mortified to imagine Stuart telling Debbie everything that had happened last night.

The clock on the
building behind her read four o’clock, time for her to go meet the guy who was going to sneak her in. She almost looked forward to curling up in the bottom of a food cart for the afternoon, alone in the dark with her thoughts. She needed to sort out what she wanted to do; she needed to talk herself out of the urge that was building.

Jarrod Jacob’s building
was located a short walk along the waterfront. She saw Marco, the cook, waiting for her outside. He was shifting from one foot to the other and looking at his watch in an exaggerated fashion.

“Hey, what’s up?” she said as she approached him.

“Are you the girl?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s me.” she replied.

“What’s the code phrase?” he demanded.

“The Eagle has landed, motherfucker,” she told him and knew as she said it that it wasn’t as funny as they had thought the night before. He’d been texted the phrase and they all had a good laugh about it. Not so much in the light of day.

“Ok, cool. Follow me. We’ll go in around back through the service entrance. They bring carts and shit up and down to this Jacobs dude all the time so they won’t notice a thing,” he said and looked her up and down. “It’s a good thing you’re so tiny, it’s going to be cramped. I’ll do my best to get you out here and there so you can stretch or something, but unless I tell you to, stay hidden, ok?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. They had gone over the plan a hundred times the night before. She was to wait until Marco cleared his throat, said “What a long day that was,” and left the kitchen, locking the door as he left.

“You really sure about this?” Marco asked as they went through an industrial set of steel doors.

“I’m really sure,” she smiled. “If anything this will be a blessing to have a little nap.”

“Ok, it’s your call,” he said and stopped. “Here’s the bathroom, I suggest you go before we head up. It will be your last chance for a couple of hours and we don’t need you pissing yourself when you confront him. We need footage for the news outlets.”

“Oh shit, that’s the thing, right?” she told him. “I left my phone in Stuart’s truck, I don’t know how I’m going to record this.”

“Fuuuuuuck,” Marco said and blew a whistle through his teeth. “That kinda defeats the purpose of this. How about you go take a piss, and I’ll see what I can come up with?”

Columbia agreed and left him in the hall. By the time she got back he was holding an iPhone, similar to her own.

“I’ll give you mine on one condition,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t read any texts, emails or notes I might have in there. Better yet, just use the camera on this thing, nothing else, got it?” he instructed.

“Yeah, I got it. That’s literally the only thing I need it for.”

They continued down a hallway and went through a door at the end. He showed her the food cart and she folded herself up and got in. It was very cramped with less room than she had hoped, but she could sleep for a bit at least.

“Good luck,” Marco said as he crouched down to shut the door on the cart. “Ok, you can use the phone one more time...to text Stu when you’re done and he’s on stand by, ok?
His number’s in there.”

“Will do, and thanks,” she replied as the door swung shut and she was locked in the darkness. She hated the thought of texting Stuart and would have to figure out how to avoid that. She settled into the rhythm as the cart was pushed into the elevator and she started her ride up to the penthouse.

He woke in darkness, he wasn’t sure what time it was or what had woken him. Normally he would hit the bedside buzzer and demand the concierge walk the length of the hallway between Dimitri’s bedroom and the thick security door between him and the rest of the apartment. He couldn’t do so now that his friend was gone. He lay still for a moment and listened, but heard nothing to indicate what had awoken him. Dimitri learned long ago to trust his instincts though, even after a drunken evening of stalking Sergei online and trying desperately to come to bondage videos that crossed the boundary into near snuff. Nothing had worked so he had drunk himself into oblivion.

He switched on the lamp next to the bed and saw blood on the floor. He ran his hands carefully up his body looking for a wound, avoiding his scars as he often did, and found nothing. He looked down and noticed his feet were bloodied. That damn lamp. He’d forgotten about that damn lamp and walked right through the broken glass.

He leaned down and inspected his foot; there was one large shard, over an inch long, left in the fleshy pad below his big toe. He wiggled his foot and grabbed the glass, yanked it out and placed it on the bedside table. His blood had dried around the edges and left a beautiful purple pattern against the light blue glass. He decided he would clean the glass up himself this time, take action to do something in his environment instead of just exist. For now, he needed to find out what was bothering him.

He stood gingerly and walked to the door, opened it and listened again. He heard nothing, just the low humming of the working vents, appliances and electronics scattered about the space. He moved slowly along the hall, the lights coming on one by one as they sensed his movement. He stopped in front of the thick security door and listened. Again, nothing.

He rubbed his head, blinked a couple of times and shook it off as another paranoid dream that dragged him up from the depths of peaceful sleep to remind him that he was a wanted man.

Last night came back to him in bits and pieces. The drinking hadn’t been precipitated so
much by the lack of sexual release as it had by a news piece that had been sent to him through anonymous channels.

Sergei had doubled the number on his
head; Dimitri’s death was now worth twenty million dollars to the person who succeeded. Never one to relax his guard in the first place, this had sent Dimitri’s nerves into overdrive. So horny, frustrated, caged and now hunted by possibly every marksman on the planet, he had turned to vodka to keep him calm.

Whores were most likely no longer on the menu, he would have the concierge replace all the current staff and rotate them every few weeks so none of them could be bought off. “Damn,” Dimitri swore into the silent hallway. This was a bad time for this to happen, with his trusted friend so far away.

He was heading back to his bedroom when something tweaked in the corner of his mind. He just couldn’t quite get back to sleep yet, not without at least checking his security monitors. He went to the security centre of the penthouse, the room where the concierge had installed the monitoring equipment. He sat in one of the comfortable office chairs and watched the screens. He realized it was early morning, the windows in his bedroom had been darkened still which had given the illusion of being night. Just past six, his staff was beginning their day. He saw his personal chef and briefly reconsidered his decision to fire everyone, her cooking was exquisite.

He watched a
deliveryman gain entry; his front door guard thoroughly checked the man’s papers, patted him down and carefully took the package. After it was x-rayed and opened, the deliveryman was allowed to go. This pleased Dimitri, seeing his highly paid staff doing their jobs.

He watched the other screens for a few minutes and stood up. Nothing had shown up and he still needed a few hours of sleep to burn off his potential hangover.

Back in his room he thought about making one more try stroking himself to release. He lay back on the bed, closed his eyes and decided against it. This level of nervous tension was infinitely easier to deal with over the building frustration of being unable to reach an orgasm.

He slid under the covers, forced his breathing to steady and let himself fall into sleep. His last thought before sleep was of his childhood home. A tiny apartment in a low rise building
in Kapotnya, an area just Southeast of Moscow. It had been shabby, nothing spectacular, seven people living in about five hundred square feet. But his mind filled with the scent of his mother’s fresh bread baking in the oven, the sound of her rolling dough on the kitchen table...and he was filled with longing. Darkness was welcome.

*****

Dimitri watched the seagull pick up the piece of bread he had thrown at it. The bird was his sole visitor on the rooftop deck this afternoon. He had slept late, woken famished and ordered his food before he took a long, hot shower. By the time he had finished, he was fully revived and ready to dig into whatever the chef had thrown together for him. Without the concierge, he had no idea what the menu was going to be. He vaguely remembered him leaving instructions before he left, but didn’t recall what they were.

Lunch was delivered by a guard who passed through a
high-level security scanner before entering the smaller dining room Dimitri used. No guns were carried back here, Dimitri was the only one allowed a weapon.

The guard wheeled the service tray to the table, bowed slightly and left the room, back to his post outside the door. Dimitri carefully inspected the food, found it perfect, and took it with him to the roof.

He felt free up here. It was another gorgeous spring day in Vancouver, the blue of the sky only outdone by the blue of the water stretching all the way to Vancouver Island. The North Shore Mountains thrust upwards, their white peaks reminding him that winter’s dull months were not far off…when you were trapped, it seemed the days were long but the years were short.

This would be his third year in Vancouver, the time
truly was passing too quickly and his revenge was getting colder every month that passed without Sergei’s head on a platter.

Dimitri threw another piece of bread towards the bird and
a second, smaller one landed close by. The two of them started to fight over the chunk, and Dimitri was amused by their animal natures. They fought openly over the scrap, without a hint of self-awareness or shame.

He sat back and looked out over the city. It taunted him, called him and frustrated him with the low rush of activity happening 30 stories below him. Distant car horns sounded, and he could hear the hum of an airplane in the distance.

He needed something to change; he knew this in his bones as surely as he knew he would take his next breath.

He ripped the last part
of the sandwich in half and threw a piece to a waiting seagull. The larger one gulped his portion and leapt at the other. Dimitri chuckled as the smaller one beat the other with its wings, stole back its bread and dropped off the side of the building with it.

“What do you expect?” he yelled at the stunned looking bird. “He wanted it more, you ate yours, you greedy bastard...now go!” He stood up and the startled bird took to the skies. Dimitri watched him fly and felt a stab of envy pierce him as the bird hit and updraft and was gone.

He rubbed his head and picked the plates off the table to take them back downstairs. This needed to end; he needed to end it.

He couldn’t take another year here, like this. Sergei would have to pay or Dimitri would lose his mind.

*****

Dimitri read the message again. It had been sent to his email through one of his encrypted channels, so the authenticity wasn’t suspect. He forced himself to follow the words, carefully reading them aloud to comprehend each one.

“They found you.”

Dimitri reached for his phone and checked his texts. There was nothing new from the concierge. This one time his friend was gone, and he was discovered. Had the concierge still been here, this information would have been discovered hours ago. He typed the words “Plan B” and hit send. By the time the concierge was on his way back to Vancouver, he would have everything arranged for Dimitri’s move. There was no way they could stay put if Sergei’s people were coming.

The laptop beeped and Dimitri turned back to it. Another message had come through. It was a repeat of the first one. Dimitri had information networks set up worldwide so repetition of the message wasn’t unusual. It served to twist the knife a little though, to emphasize the fact that Sergei’s people now knew his location. It was only a matter of time before they came for him.

He stood and paced
down the hall to his bedroom, plotting his next move. The concierge was due back in four days; that gave them a week to stay here, tops. This gave them plenty time to make the move to their next stop, another beautiful penthouse, like this one but in Hong Kong. It was trickier territory with Sergei’s ties to Triad, but that was the reason they had plotted this particular move. Sergei would expect him to flee once discovered, not jump into an area he had close ties with. Dimitri still had some friendly faces in Hong Kong he could trust as well. It was the perfect location.

Dimitri would transfer enough money to live comfortably for a year or so, the concierge could arrange for house staff and handle the actual logistics of the move. The problem was that now Sergei found him once, it would take less and less time for him to do so. This was going to lead to an inevitable confrontation between the two men, but Dimitri preferred it to be on his own terms.

Expecting this from the very beginning, the concierge had set up several safe houses worldwide for Dimitri, along with new identities for this exact situation. It just caused a small quake of panic in the core of his belly, he hadn’t left the apartment in so long and now he would be trying to settle into new surroundings in a new country. Change was not as easy for him to handle these days, and yet the predictability of his current life was dragging him into insanity.

He let out a howl of frustration and punched the wall near the bedroom door. The wood was untouched, but he rubbed his knuckles. He was close to reaching his fill of this life on the run, in hiding. He reached down and felt for the knife he kept on his body at all times, strapped to his midsection and
beneath his clothes. It was there, as it always was, a comforting fourteen inches of razor sharp steel. He opened the door and stepped into the hall to begin preparations for the coming days.

Dinner came and went with nothing out of the ordinary. So far it had been a very ordinary day for Dimitri in spite of the shocking email he ha
d received that morning. He ran twenty kilometres on the treadmill, gone a few rounds with the punching bag and sat for an hour in his steam room. Sweating all the vodka from his veins meant he could control his emotions and keep his rising anxiety in check.

He found himself in the security center watching the staff clean up and get ready to leave for the night. It comforted him to be connected to them some way. Dimitri toyed with the possibility that he might be lonely, but dismissed it as a flight of fancy.
He didn’t have the luxury of being lonely; he didn’t have the luxury of feeling anything that deeply. A
Solntsevskaya Bratva
member was trained to have no emotion, now that he was out of the family was no excuse to get soft.

He leaned back in the chair and watched the last person le
ave the kitchen, one of the kitchen staff. The man turned the lights out, locked the door and closed it. Dimitri watched the monitors and saw them all leave the apartment; the night guard shut the door behind them and locked it. His apartment was almost empty and he could feel the weight of their departure on his chest.

“You moody bastard,” he grumbled under his breath. He was a little disgusted at his own train of thought. He stretched his long legs and let his mind wander to the time he would confront Sergei and fucking destroy him. His hands clenched and unclenched as he thought about the feel of a knife going into Sergei’s stomach. The grunt he would make when Dimitri twisted it into his gut and poured all his rage into a single act.

Deep in his fantasy he almost missed the movement on the kitchen monitor. It was just a small flash in the corner of his eye, had he been deeper in the moment of killing Sergei he would have had his eyes closed and missed it.

Luck, or fate, or the slow grinding gear
s of life was on his side. He turned his head and saw something. He stood quickly, leaned in and examined the movement. He thought perhaps he had imagined it and almost turned away when he saw it again. A leg poked out of the bottom of a food cart, one of the same ones he had his meals delivered on three times a day. A woman unfolded from the shelf, rolled over and stood up gracefully. She looked wobbly, like a fawn on uncertain legs. She stretched and turned around, taking in the room. As she moved towards the camera, Dimitri realized he had been holding his breath. He had to see her face.

She was beautiful. Even on the grainy black and white film her beauty radiated. Black hair, white skin, tiny body, large dark eyes. She was perfect. And she was invading his space.

His hand hovered over the handset to call the guard at the front, but he hesitated. He saw her walk towards the locked kitchen door and press her ear to it, listening. He was entranced. She was the first woman in his apartment who wasn’t on the payroll. He hung the handset up and thought about what this meant. Clearly she had been sent to kill him, she was after the bounty.