Puzzled, I moved the pointer-mouse to the magnifying glass icon, and clicked it. As I’d hoped, the picture zoomed in, but it decreased the quality and I couldn’t really make out the shards anymore. “How would Falkovich get these pictures onto the computer?”
“It’s… oh god… I’m sorry.” Talya gulped back tears, and came up beside me. Her hands were shaking as she navigated out of the folder and back through the hierarchy. “Th-These are p-pictures that this man was sent over Usenet and Telnet. It’s… like a newsletter where you can send letters to a computer over the phone.”
“So other people were sending him these pictures?” Vanya had computers, I knew that much.
“Or he was sending them to other people. They must have scanned them in and shared them. He has logs. I don’t know if I can bear to read them, Rex. I really don’t.”
“Call Ayashe and tell Jenner.” I stood up and back, mind already on the job. “Tell them I have to go pay someone a visit.”
“What? Where?” Talya dashed at her eyes and took a heavy seat.
“Red Hook,” I said. “An office warehouse at the waterfront. Don’t worry about me – I just have to go and have a talk to someone who might know more about this.”
“You really do know some bad people, don’t you?”
I was already halfway to the door. “Not for much longer.”
This time, I was not going to risk being unprepared. I bought eggs from the nearest bodega – a full dozen fertilized eggs – and on a leap of associative intuition, a carton of full-cream milk. Not including Falkovich’s house, the last time I’d been in a major firefight there’d been two Spooks and a demon so toxic that it made the scars on my arm ache to think of it. I could confirm now that DOGs were immune to bullets. Worse than that… they were nourished by them. And it had been hiding in a gun, seeping out like oil when Lev had pointed the weapon at me and fired.
Much as I still didn’t want to rely on guns, lest a DOG emerge from them and kick my ass, this was a job that called for firearms. I had the Wardbreaker, my faithful old Commander, and my larger backup piece, a matte-black Glock 21. The Wardbreaker had never really been intended to be a frequent-fire workhorse: it carried nine .45 full-metal jackets and was meant to work in silence with its fixed magic. The Glock carried fifteen fragmentation rounds. It was noisy, short-range, and it left blow-out wounds that could fit a man’s fist. It was good for stopping people when they tried to run away.
I wrapped the eggs individually in washcloths borrowed from the vanity, and loaded into a backpack and under my suit jacket. It was near midnight by the time I’d fixed myself up with loaded magazines, rope, wire, knives, styptic and bandages.
I filled Binah’s food dish up like a little kibble mountain, and looked down at her with my hands on my hips. “Be good, girl. Don’t eat anything you shouldn’t. And don’t claw the curtains.”
“Mrra-oww.” Binah looked back up at me, tail flicking.
I turned and left her there. As I shut the door, she slipped out behind me, arching against my ankle.
“No. In you go.” I tried to push her in with my shoe. By way of reply, Binah latched onto my leg, clawed her way up my body, and clung to my shoulder with claws. Decision made, I left Talya on the phone and reused the car I’d taken to Moris’s place. The likelihood of being pulled up in this particular old piece of junk was low, and the drive wasn’t really that far.
There were a few places where I could reliably find Vanya, and I decided to go to the one where he spent the most time: the AEROMOR shipping yard. I’d never spent a huge amount of time with him before. Vanya ran his own Cell out of Red Hook and the bulk of my work was based in and around Brighton Beach and Queens. I knew he’d been brought into the Organizatsiya from Russia when I was a young boy. Back then, he’d been a stocky man with a beak nose and thinning brown hair. As an older man, he had morphed into a pasty, obese Jabba the Hutt clone who smacked his lips a lot, smoked imported East German cigarettes, had a thing for Orientalist decor and laughed whenever he spoke. He was a coward and a shrewd recruiter whose best skill was almost certainly his ability to manage people braver and more capable than himself. He’d hooked Vassily on coke and either masterminded or assisted in his physical and mental ruin. And he was a pedophile.
The main entry to the shipping yards was an archway off Van Brunt Street, the run-down road closest to the waterfront. It was also the most obvious, and the most heavily guarded. Van Brunt turned a sharp corner into Degraw Street, an old docklane lined with crumbling Italian, Chinese and Russian sweatshop warehouses. It smelled like old seafood, and it was backed up with cars and small trucks along one side. I parked my little car down near the end of the street, and put Binah down on the passenger side seat. In the dim glare of the streetlights, she looked up at me expectantly.
“We are so not doing this, Binah,” I said. “You’re a cat. I don’t care if you’re a familiar or not.”
The Siamese yawned, stretched, and hopped over my lap to paw at the door.
“No. I have limits.” I set her back on the seat. “You are staying here.
Binah crouched down, growling with her ears pinned back to her skull, backing away from my hand.
“That’s better.” I went to open the door, and stopped as I saw what she had sensed. Lights, a car turning the corner. My gut twisted as a wave of cold washed over me, and the parasite in my gut stirred. Cutting through the stale air of the docks was the whiff of something unpleasantly familiar: a smell like rotting flesh and burnt sugar. A Violet smell. The smell of DOG.
Chapter 28
Binah growled again. I let go of the door and drew my pistol, submerging in the shadows of the dash as headlights bloomed down along the street and glazed the dusty windows. Seconds later, a car rumbled by, pulling in several spaces behind.
Doors opened, then slammed above the buzz of male voices talking. There was a ‘choonk’ sound, the sound of a trunk being popped.
The gnawing in my chest built slowly, creeping up a little more with every sound outside. I rubbed my gloved finger against the grip of the Glock in my hand… and tensed as a metal door banged open, only a few cars up from my position.
“Come on, man. What’s the deal?” A brusque voice with a pronounced Long Island accent could be heard through the door. “You got it?”
“What does it fuckin’ look like?” Someone snapped back, his English heavily accented. “Stop jacking off and come and help me.”
A high, feral, garbling scream of rage burst out into the air. It was the kind of noise I’d always imagined an angry mongoose makes, and it cut suddenly and with a strange finality with the slam of a head against a hard surface.
“What’s the matter? You want some more dick, is that it?” Long Island raised his voice. I heard scuffles, thumps, and then silence. “Slanty-eyed faggot.”
I startled at the use of the slur. An Asian man? Was that Angkor?
“Get it him in trunk already. The Deacon’s waiting.” The Russian-accented man sounded anxious.
“The Deacon will get his,” the other man grouched. “Like I give fuck.”
“You’ll give fuck if we end up under knife, instead of this spooky little cocksucker.”
There is a saying in Ukrainian: Meni tse treba yak zuby v dupi. Roughly translated, it means: “I need this like I need teeth in my ass.”