Koschecka, the Pussycat, was a club located downtown. With twisted pink and green neon lighting, concrete walls, and a doorman straight out of the gorilla cage at the zoo, it wasn’t a place for tourists or timid locals. “Vas,” I drawled, lightly slapping the hulking shoulder, “how’s it hanging, cherepaxa?”
Sevastian ignored the greeting and opened the door for me. I wasn’t too hurt. Once I’d thought the man had the walking-talking-gum syndrome. With his lowered furry brows, shaved bullet head, and a neck that was long missing in action, it would be easy to peg Sevastian as one neuron-challenged son of a bitch, incapable of wrapping his tiny mind around more than one task at a time. But as I came to know him, I’d realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the case. Sevastian wasn’t stupid; he was a snob. Born and raised in the old country, he had little use for those of us born in the United States. And he had even less love for me and my winning personality. Hard to imagine, but there you have it. The fact I called him turtle didn’t seem to help matters much. But with that round, shiny head and bulked-up body as impervious as any shell, who could blame me? Apparently, a grudge-hungry poster boy for steroid rage, that’s who.
Inside, the bar was wall-to-wall sour sweat and horny, potbellied men. Colored lights blossomed, swam in circles, then slammed into the walls like suicidal fireflies. The stripper on stage, a gorgeous girl named Cleo, seemed to suddenly come down with a bad case of the measles as the cherry red disco ball on the ceiling spun into action. Slightly stomach churning, it didn’t appear to bother the guys next to the stage, who were rubbing greasy dollar bills between their fingers.
At the bar I stopped and caught the attention of the guy pouring the vodka. “The boss here yet?”
Dmitri nodded a hello at me and jerked his chin toward the back. “Yeah, the whole crew’s there. You’re the last.”
Great. That was bound to go over like a Gay Pride parade at the Vatican. Sevastian had been the one to call me, and you could bet your ass he’d put me at the bottom of his to-do list. Swearing under my breath, I motioned to the bottle in his hand. “Have a peace offering I could take back? Something a little better than that piss you’re pouring? What is that anyway, a specimen for your doctor? Damn, Dmitri.”
Dmitri had known me long enough to let that roll off his back, water to a soused duck. “It’s good enough for these jack-offs,” he grumbled, waving a hand at the Thursday-night crowd. It wasn’t a designation he gave frivolously either. There was many a customer who had one hand hidden from sight. Pity the waitress who had to take the tip from that hand later on. “Here.” From beneath the bar, he hoisted up two bottles of Mosko Crystall, one of the best Russian vodkas on the market. “A friend of mine smuggled them from his last trip to Moscow.”
That was the good stuff all right, almost impossible to come by here, and I was going to have to pay through the nose if I wanted it. Pulling out my wallet, I dropped a hundred on the bar’s scarred and sticky surface. Dmitri pursed his lips and looked over my shoulder, bored. Hissing in annoyance, I deposited another hundred on top of the first.
That got his attention, just barely. “I don’t know, Stef,” he said dubiously. “Do you know how hard it is to get this? The bribes, the risk . . . The backache alone is hell. Dragging a suitcase full of bottles can give you a hernia the size of a grapefruit—I shit you not. Not to mention—”
Reaching across the bar, I took the bottles from his hands and fixed him with an unblinkingly patient stare as his mouth finally flapped to a halt. “Dmitri,” I offered amiably, “I’m not in the mood to play bargaining babushka, got it?”
Perhaps not the brightest bulb on Broadway, he still knew enough not to press his luck. “Okay, okay.” Scooping up the money uneasily, he folded it and jammed it into his pocket. “Zhatky.”
Cranky. Shit. Maybe Dmitri hadn’t known me as long as all that then if that was the worst label he could put on me. Carrying one bottle in each hand, I headed toward the back without much enthusiasm. Konstantin Gurov, my boss, wasn’t the most forgiving of men. As the immortal Ricky Ricardo had once said, I was going to have some ’splainin’ to do. It was safe to say, however, that Ricky had probably never rammed a screwdriver in Lucy’s ear for any of her escapades, much less just for being late.
Sevastian hadn’t explained the reason for the unscheduled meet, and as I passed into a dingy hallway, the only thing I could immediately bring to mind was the trouble back in New York. Operations had spread from there to Miami many years ago, but as time went on, relations had begun to fray between the old school and those who’d once been seen as pioneers in a sunnier clime. Since I did mostly bodyguard work for Gurov, it was hard to reason why my cheerful self would be needed. Whatever the reason, I’d find out soon enough. At the end of the hall I nudged the door silently open with my foot and walked in, bearing gifts.