I wasn't. I liked the flowers. They distracted me and somehow transformed the room.
"You aren't lying to me, are you, Leonid?"
"About what, Katrina?"
"Dimitri."
"No. He's a young man lost in his first love. He doesn't want to come down, and wouldn't be able to if he tried."
"He's safe?"
"No man is safe when he's in love, Katrina, you know that. But I can promise you this-nothing will happen to our sons, either one of them, not as long as there's breath in my body."
My wife's bosom rose, hearing that truth and vow from me.
She stood up. Clad in her coral robe and nothing else, she gave me a look that was unmistakable.
"Are you coming to bed?"
My heart actually skipped. The shock of this feeling pushed the thugs and their threats almost out of mind.
"I can't, babe."
"Why not?"
"There's a job I got and it's really very serious."
Again Katrina studied me.
"Did you mean what you said before?" she asked.
"About what?"
"About shooting a man in the head."
"No," I said and then I told her about coming upon Wanda Soa's apartment without mentioning any names.
"I didn't do anything, but there it was," I said. "That's the kind of weight I have on my mind sometimes."
Without a word Katrina approached me, planted a wet kiss on my cheek, and then caressed my neck with her left hand.
I watched her walk away, thinking that I had missed an entire life somehow and wondering was it my fault or just fate.
30
When I was nine years old my father started taking me to firing ranges. We practiced with pistols and rifles on legal ranges, semiautomatics and explosives down on secret Appalachian retreats in the summer. We hunted bear and deer with bow and rifle and I learned how to set traps for beasts and men.
"There's a war coming, boys," he'd tell me and my younger brother, Nikita. "It's being fought right now in South America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Most Americans don't think that the battle will ever make it to these shores, but they're wrong. Keeping the struggle away from our cities and our borders is like trying to make sure your kids never get sick-if you spend all your time isolating them, then later, when they grow up and go out in the world, the infections'll kill 'em."
I felt about my father the way a spider feels about the dark corner where she is drawn to build her web: he was fundamental and gave me no choice.
By the time I was twelve my father was gone for good. At the age of thirty-seven Nikita was sent to prison for an armored- car robbery and multiple murders in Michigan. At that time we hadn't spoken to each other for over a decade.
I was sitting at my desk, considering what weapons I had to bring to Shandley's in order to assure my own sons' survival.
Tolstoy, my self-named father, was right about the war. When I look at the newspapers today I wonder why the pundits don't acknowledge that we're in the middle of World War III. I'm sure that some future historians will say so.
My father was a brilliant man, but what good was it to spend a life questioning false happiness and peace?
I don't know.
I can't know.
All I could do was strap a slender dagger to my left ankle and practice using the release on the wrist holster that held my custom-made four-shot.38.
I didn't sleep that night. There was too much chatter in my head. Twill was giving his innocent brother criminal advice in one corner while Angelique was sobbing behind the closet door. Gordo was somewhere making plans that would prepare me for a big fight-a fight I was bound to lose. Ron Sharkey was knocking on the ceiling below, asking for twenty bucks for his fix. And I was that spider, suspended in her dark corner-waiting.
WHEN THE SUN CAME up, at 6:37, I donned a blue suit that had finally made it home from the cleaner's. Then I walked down to my office, hoping not to see Aura swabbing George Toller's molars with her tongue.
I made it to my desk without heartbreak.
There was a job to do and a life to live and even though that was more than I could handle, there was nothing I could accomplish at 8:39 that morning.
So I logged on and started reading about the world war my father predicted.
It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking toward depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world talking about how to keep to a budget.
The buzzer of my front door sounded a few minutes shy of nine o'clock. I saw Aura on the screen of the four monitors in my desk drawer, her African and European heritage from the front, back, and both sides. The dress suit she wore was off-white working overtime to complement her ecru skin. Her big eyes looked up into the camera she knew was there.
She pressed the button again but I could see no benefit in answering.
She had the keys to my door, the combination to my inner locks, but she wouldn't use them.
I closed the drawer and picked up the office phone.
After seventeen rings he answered.
"Who the fuck is this?" Luke Nye bellowed into my ear.
"I wake you up, Luke?"
"Oh, hey, LT. What's up, man?"
The pool hustler wasn't intimidated. We just had an understanding like fellow soldiers from the same regiment fighting the good fight on foreign soil. Day or night, we were on call, and there was no use making any kind of big deal out of it.
That's the career criminal way of life-you're always behind enemy lines, you're always at war. And even though I was trying my best to go straight, I couldn't erase years of training.
"A guy named Gustav who works out of a pool hall down on Houston-"
"Shandley's," Luke said before I could get the word out. "Pretends like he's a Russian gangster but he's from Rumania. Got some Russians workin' for him, though. They say he's got the biggest dick in the tristate area. I don't know for a fact, I'm just sayin'."
"What about him?"
"He runs the pool hall as a kind of office. Asian kids come there to sharpen up their skills, but the real action is a few blocks east, where he's got a warehouse filled with foreign ladies just waiting to please."
"Pimp?"
"Sex-slaver. Brings 'em in from all over the world promising freedom, a hundred thousand dollars, and papers if they make a million on their backs-or thereabouts. Some of them make it but he has a lending policy for clothes and drugs; charges interest. Most of the ladies work until he sells them to less reputable thugs."
"Dangerous?"
"Smart. He knows that there's no more cowboys. He tries to keep it steady and nonviolent as long as no one messes with his product. But he's willing to go as far as necessary to protect his offshore accounts… You got a problem with Gutsy?"
"You could say that."
There was a short silence on the line. I could hear faint, indefinable music in the background.
"You don't need Hush or anything like that," Luke said at last. "I mean, Gutsy knows a player when he sees one."
"Thanks, Luke. I'll pay you when I see you."
"Soon?"
"Day or two."
I TOOK A TAXI down to Shandley's. It was on Houston, a few blocks east of Elizabeth, on the north side of the street.
It was a clean place with a few youngsters shooting pool, trying their best to look cool without the benefit of cigarettes dangling from their lips. Most were Asian, none were black. I wondered what that meant.
It was a long, shallow, and dark space with sixteen tables, two deep.
At the back of the room was a set of double doors guarded by the big guy that I'd wailed on the night before. I didn't recognize his face but the bruised cheekbone, swollen nose, and bandages on his left wrist were definite clues.
The tough guy bristled when I approached. He made a forward move with his shoulder and I held up a finger.