“You mean when we committed a bunch of felonies and were nearly thrown in front of a firing squad?” Bowen scoffed. “Yeah, I seem to recall something about that.”
A contagious grin crept across Thibodaux’s broad face. “That was some fun, don’t you think?” He gave Bowen a mock punch in the arm. “Anyhow, just for grins, what would you say to a little more of the same? Minus the firing squad part.”
“I’m in the middle of an assignment.”
“Well, cher,” Thibodaux said. “As it happens, my boss is talking to your boss even as we speak.”
“Your boss…”
“Ain’t it convenient?” The big Cajun grinned. “My boss is your boss’s boss’s boss. Looks like you and me gonna be partnered up for a while.”
“Okay, then,” Bowen said. “I’m guessing this has something to do with the poison-gas attacks?”
“It do indeed.” Thibodaux turned his head slightly so he could look Bowen up and down with his good eye. “I hope you got extra clothes, cause right now you look like you were pretending to be James Bond and got your ass kicked for it.”
“Of course I have other clothes but they’re all at the DoubleTree.”
“We’ll swing by your room then.” Thibodaux rubbed his belly with a hand the size of a shovel blade. “The rubber chicken I had on the plane ain’t sittin’ right. You can change your clothes, and I’ll take me a tactical dump.”
Chapter 11
Petyr “The Wolf” Volodin stood naked in front of the grimy bathroom mirror in his filthy apartment and wondered when they would come for him. He was sure it wouldn’t be long. Mr. Anikin was a brutal man who surrounded himself with brutal associates. Their business was pain and they were extremely good at their job.
Petyr flexed his muscles, bouncing the eight pointed star tattoos at the top of each pec. The tats had gotten him into a world of trouble, but they drew attention to his muscular shoulders. Most guys worked too much on their biceps. That was all well and good, but in a fight, strong shoulders were all important. Petyr had heard somewhere that shoulders were the human equivalent of antlers on a bull elk, demonstrating social status and the ability to gather a harem.
“That’s right.” Petyr sneered at his own reflection, trying to psych himself up for what he knew was coming. “I got me some antlers, baby, and I’m gonna kick your ass…”
He stepped back and rubbed a swollen hand over two days of stubble on a blocky jaw. His girl, Nikka, pissed and moaned like he’d shot her whenever he went a day without shaving. She was just too stupid to get his fight philosophy through her dense skull. An opponent could grab a long beard and turn it into a murder-handle, but give ’em a rake with the bristles of an unshaven face and it was instant rug burn. Some fighters called the rake a bitch move, but in Petyr the Wolf’s mind, if it won the fight, there was no such thing. Nine times out of ten, the other guy flinched himself right into an arm bar or rear naked choke. The Wolf shaved his head three days before a fight for the same reason. The tactic wouldn’t go in the big leagues, but in the places he fought, the refs could be persuaded to look the other way at a little stubble.
Even under the looming threat, Petyr took the time to admire his impressive muscles. At six three and a hulked fighting weight of two-forty, his shoulders were massive. A thirty-two inch waist and sculpted obliques made him look even broader than he was. Admiring his muscles he couldn’t keep from thinking about the tattoos — and the world of shit they’d gotten him into. His shoulders sagged and his wide face fell into a dark frown.
He never should have let stupid Nikka talk him into getting the tats. Nikka had some issues — there was no doubt about that — but she was incredibly hot, and life was just easier so long as she wasn’t angry. So, he’d gone to her tattoo guy and got the ink she wanted him to get. It had seemed cool at first. The Wolf was “a tough Russian son of a bitch,” Nikka told him, and tough Russian sons of bitches had tattoos of eight-pointed stars on their shoulders and grinning skulls on their bellies. It was true. She’d seen it on TV.
And everything had been good for a while. The tats actually bought him a little deeper street cred. Then the scary looking dude with a tattoo of a spider crawling up his bony throat had come up ringside two nights earlier and pressed his ugly face against the ropes. The guy proceeded to machine-gun him in Russian with questions that were all but lost in the clamor and shouts of the crowd. It was loud, but Petyr was pretty sure he heard the word Vory—a thief. Still flushed with adrenaline from the beat-down he’d given his opponent, Petyr had waved Spider Neck off, thinking him a crazy Russian alky. There were plenty of those in Brighton Beach.
That had been a big mistake.
Now Petyr leaned in over the sink, closer to the mirror and touched one of the many scabs on his muscular chest. This one was between the fourth and fifth ribs — directly over his heart.
Petyr was big enough to intimidate most who would even try to cross him outside the ring. A simple glare from the dark shadows of his eyes was usually enough to send even the roughest gangbanger running for his mama. For those few who were ignorant enough to face him, Petyr had the youthful strength of his twenty-six years and the skills gained from expending gallons of sweat and blood in the gym — not to mention the potent elixir his chemist father whipped up for him that worked better than any steroids he’d ever tried.
None of that mattered to the Spider Neck. He’d waited in the alley behind the locker room, leaning against the brick wall when Petyr ducked out the back door after the fight.
“Hey!” the man said, not moving from his relaxed position against the wall. Night shadows fell across his face, giving him the appearance of a gargoyle on some creepy building. “You are thief-in-law?”
It was not a question, but a challenge. The eight pointed stars were tattoos of vory v zokone or thieves-in-law. Spider Neck wanted to know if he’d earned them the proper way, by spending time in a Russian prison.
Though Petyr outweighed him by at least eighty pounds, Spider Neck hadn’t been the least bit intimidated. Petyr hadn’t seen him move until it was too late. The man seemed to be everywhere at once, swarming all over the place like an entire hive of wasps. By the time he was still, the skeletal Russian had cut Petyr in at least two dozen places. All the wounds were superficial, slicing only skin and sparing the muscle underneath — but he’d made his point: if Petyr resisted, death was a forgone conclusion.
Spider Neck shoved him against the brick wall and delivered a message from Anatoly Anikin, a local who called himself a Pakhan or captain in the Russian mafia. Mr. Anikin was one of the few former guests of Russia’s infamous Black Dolphin prison who had been released in something other than a pine box. He was the real deal as far as criminal thugs went, but Petyr doubted he had any ties with the mob in Russia. More likely he was one of the many freelancers vying for positions of authority in the underbelly of Brooklyn, which probably made him even more dangerous.
According to Spider Neck, Mr. Anikin had caught a glimpse of Petyr’s tattoos during a recent mixed martial-arts fight that had been streamed online. It didn’t help that Anikin had bet on the other fighter and Petyr had won.
Spider Neck demanded to know how long Petyr had been in prison and where he’d done his time. The dude was scary enough but his face had twisted and darkened even more when Petyr admitted he’d never been in any prison other than the 60th Precinct lockup in Brooklyn due to possession of steroids. Nikka bonded him out after only two hours so he’d never even made it past the holding cells, but he kept that little factoid to himself.