“I don’t want a fucking parade.”
Beck said, “Then let one of your men ride with him and leave his car here. I’ll ride with you. Two cars. Your man goes with you, I go with my guy. I don’t want to waste time coming back here after I talk to Mr. Kolenka.”
Vassily screwed up his face. He wasn’t pleased.
“You want to explain to Mr. Kolenka why I never showed up?”
Beck waited.
Vassily took time to think it through.
“Okay. But can’t have anybody but you around the boss. One of mine goes with your driver. They park a couple of blocks away. We go see Mr. Kolenka. Takes one minute to get you back to your driver. That’s fair.”
Beck thought about it. There shouldn’t be any reason he would need Demarco. Mostly, he just didn’t want to be bossed around by Kolenka’s man.
“Fine.”
Vassily nodded toward Beck’s car. “Go tell your man.”
Beck stepped back, leaned into the open window on the passenger side and said to Demarco. “Hey driver, you heard?”
“Yes, sir, boss, I hear you.” Then Demarco said quietly, “You need me, hit your speed dial. I’ll get rid of their guy and get to you as fast as I can.”
“Good enough.”
Everybody took their seats. Beck in the Yukon next to the driver. Vassily sitting behind him. The gangster from the Town Car next to Demarco in the Mercury.
Demarco pulled in behind the Yukon and the two cars headed down Coney Island Avenue toward the boardwalk. Vassily’s driver drove nearly fifty miles an hour until Vassily told him to pull over. Demarco, following behind, slid the Mercury to the curb behind the SUV. Vassily turned and saw Demarco stopped where he wanted him, and told his driver to go ahead.
They continued four blocks straight down Coney Island until they came to a five-story apartment building about two hundred yards from the boardwalk.
The driver double-parked the Yukon in front of the building, which surrounded a small courtyard set in about twenty feet from the curb. Beck saw Kolenka in the courtyard, hunched over on a bench, in the bitter winter air, smoking. Kolenka wore no hat or gloves or coat, only a well-worn white cable-knit sweater about two sizes too big for him. The old man seemed impervious to the freezing night air made more penetrating by the damp coming in off the ocean.
Beck turned around and noted that Demarco was still in sight back on Coney Island Avenue.
As he was about to get out of the Yukon, Vassily’s heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. He asked Beck, “You have weapons?”
Beck’s survival instincts kicked in. The dark night. The out-of-the-way location. Strangers all round. There was no way he wanted to be completely defenseless, but he also needed to make the meeting happen.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Can’t have them around the boss.”
“Okay.”
Beck opened his coat and reached around to pull the Browning from under his belt near his right hip. He made sure to pull out the gun very slowly. He leaned forward and placed the Browning on the dashboard.
“That everything?” asked Vassily.
“I have this.” Beck made a show of pulling out a Kershaw folding combat knife and setting it next to the Browning.
But what Beck didn’t show was the gun in a holster strapped to his right ankle: a Smith & Wesson 637 Airweight five-shot revolver with a light aluminum alloy frame and a two-and-a-half-inch barrel. Beck had taken it out of the glovebox of the Mercury and strapped it on his ankle on the way out to Brighten Beach.
“Let’s go,” said Vassily.
Beck slid out the passenger door. Vassily came out from the backseat and gave Beck a perfunctory pat down.
“Okay. Go talk.”
Beck walked into the courtyard, noting that Kolenka had one bodyguard standing in the shadows of the courtyard about six feet left of Kolenka. He never took his eyes off Beck.
Kolenka looked even more wizened and thin than the last time Beck had seen him. He seemed completely disinterested in everything around him, his men, the twenty-degree cold, even Beck.
Beck sat down on the bench next to the old-school Vory. Kolenka nodded, not bothering to turn in Beck’s direction, and said, “Beck,” as if to confirm Beck’s identity to himself.
Beck said, “Good to see you again.”
Kolenka nodded, but said nothing.
“I came to ask for your help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I need information. On two men. Leonid Markov and Gregor Stepanovich. Markov is Russian. Originally from Perm. Stepanovich is Bosnian.” Beck pulled out pictures of them from the inside pocket of his coat that Alex had printed.
Kolenka barely glanced at the pictures. He took a long drag off his cigarette. It had burned down to a nub. He reached into the pockets of his well-worn pants and pulled out a battered pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes. He lit a fresh cigarette from the burning tip of the smoked-out butt.
Beck waited while Kolenka mulled over the request, feeling the cold air, smelling the stale, pungent cigarette smoke. Kolenka stank of it, even in the open air.
Kolenka’s silence worried Beck. If Markov had established himself in Kolenka’s backyard, one way or another whatever Markov did passed through or around Kolenka. It might not be in Kolenka’s interests to help Beck.
Kolenka swallowed, smoked, looked left at his bodyguard, and then out to Vassily standing near the Yukon. Was this a signal of some sort?
Finally, the old gangster spoke. “I have conflict here.”
“All I’m asking for is information.”
Kolenka raised an eyebrow and tipped his head.
Beck waited for Kolenka to decide.
Another puff. More acrid cigarette smoke.
Kolenka stared straight ahead as he talked.
“The man doesn’t use the name Stepanovich. Although you are right. That is his real name. He is scum. A pervert. The other one, Markov, different story.”
“How so?”
“He’s more businessman than criminal.” Kolenka shrugged. “But he is criminal, too. You have to understand that.”