Page 67 of Nothing More

Hehadgone into enemy territory to snoop for him, Toly reasoned. He could be cooperative.

Toly licked grease off his fingers. “Misha wasn’t family – Andrei liked him better than family. He was Andrei’s shadow, always by his side unless he’d been sent to handle business that Andrei trusted no one else with. Utterly devoted, never talked back, and, more important, never failed. Not once did he ever come back to Andrei with his hat in his hands and apologize because he’d let a man slip away, or botched a hit, or had only gotten half a payment. If Andrei wasn’t around, he was as good as boss.”

“And he took delivery of the body when you killed Rosovsky?”

“Yeah.”

He’d been replaying that night over and over in his mind while he waited for Kat outside Galina’s. Searching for some sign that things had gone sideways when he wasn’t paying attention.

The hit had been simple. He’d spent a week tailing Rosovsky from a distance, following him from his butcher shop, to his favorite coffeeshop, where he had an espresso and a plate of Italian biscotti every afternoon at four. He’d left an assistant to clean up and close the shop, and he went home early, whistling tunelessly, unhurried. He bought a paper most evenings, and read it standing up against the bridge rail, lifting his head occasionally to gaze out over the water, smiling secretly to himself, so that affable lines bracketed his eyes and mouth. He would trade waves and brief greetings with the people he passed. Had stopped once to buy a single rose from a woman selling them out of a basket; had stuck it in his button hole, and had a spring in his step going up the stairs of his building.

The night of the hit, Rosovsky came back out of his apartment at six-fifteen, in the pink, endless light of a summer evening that would last until the single breath of darkness before the sky bled to blush dawn. No longer whistling, dressed now in dark clothes, a jacket zipped up to his chin, gloves shoved in his back pocket. He walked quickly, head ducked, but turning side to side at regular intervals. Once, Toly stepped on a bit of broken glass, and the crunch of it brought Rosovsky up short so he could listen. He walked on, though, when Toly kept silent, and wound up at a dark, shuttered shop with a boarded door, for which he produced a key. Toly had followed him here once before, and knew what awaited inside: a floor laid with plastic sheeting, more of the same draping the walls. There was a table, and a tall chest freezer, and in the case that Rosovsky had shoved behind a bit of broken wall panel, a selection of very sharp knives of the sort used to break down sides of beef and pork.

There was a man in the chest freezer, Toly knew, because he’d seen him the last time he was here. There would be less of him left tonight.

Rosovsky always locked the door behind him when he was working, but Toly had scoped the place out when it was empty, and he knew about the loose window off the second-floor fire escape; knew which stairs squeaked, and where it was safe to step.

He caught Rosovsky with a blackjack at the back of his neck. The blow sent him to his knees with a punched-out sound of expelled breath, and from there, Toly gripped his hair in the back and slit his throat. The plastic, carefully layered to keep anything untoward from leaking to the floorboards beneath, had both contained the arterial spray that fountained across the room, and served as a shroud in which to wrap the body.

Textbook, all of it.

He’d texted the pickup team when he was done, and when he’d used Rosovsky’s keys to unlock the door, there’d been a van waiting in the alley, engine running, lights off. The back doors had swung open, and Toly had registered a bit of surprise when, in addition to the expressionless faces of the usual disposal crew, he’d spotted Misha’s familiar face in the interior lights, sitting in the jump seat, beanie pulled low over his brow.

“Problem?” Toly had asked, while the grunts loaded the body.

Misha had given him a fast up-down look that might have been nothing more than a blink and a trick of the dim dome lights. “No. We’ll take it from here.”

The van had pulled away, and Toly had walked to his favorite café for a sandwich and a cappuccino.

End of.

Or so he’d thought.

“Misha wasn’t normally part of the pickup team,” he said, frowning out the window. A few scattered snowflakes swirled around the awning of a not-yet-open nightclub, but it was only a fitful burst, and not even a proper flurry. Heavy snow wasn’t predicted until next week. “But he was waiting in the van that night, after I did Rosovsky.”

Kat tilted his head in acknowledgement. “He seem twitchy?”

“Misha doesn’tgettwitchy. But…”

“What?”

“There was this look he gave me. I dunno. Probably nothing.”

“Someone mailed your girlfriend an ear,” Kat said wryly.

“She’s not my girlfriend.” Wow, that was a bit too defensive. He cleared his throat and said, “I think now, looking back, I never really understood Misha. I don’t know what drove him. I thought I did, at the time. But I can’t imagine him being a Pakhan.”

Kat’s silence felt annoyingly like an invitation, so Toly said, “There were guys who didn’t like waiting their turn. The ones who always wanted recognition and praise. But that was never Misha.”

“That’s probably why your Pakhan picked him. Good service,andhe wasn’t trying to dethrone him? That’s someone who can be trusted to run an arm of the operation without trying to take it over totally for himself.”

Toly hummed a half-agreeing noise.

“Anyway,” Kat said, “I think we can put a checkmark beside Galina’s.”

Toly nodded, and chewed at his lip ring in frustration. Forced to rely on the Alpines for both intel, and undercover transportation, all he’d done was sit in the passenger seat and stew while Kat methodically confirmed that each of the suspected bratva-owned locations was indeed in Misha’s pocket. Galina’s was the last confirmation.

“You do realize,” Toly said, “that when they look at the tapes later, and compare notes, Misha’s people will know you stopped by each of their fronts today.”