Among Thieves (39 page)

“I don't know. The ones close to him have to be real Russian old-time thieves before he has anything to do with them.”

“What do you know about Kolenka?”

“Vory-v-Zakone. There's a lot of bullshit built up about them, but Kolenka is real. You know about how it all started in the gulags.”

“Pretty much.”

“Well there aren't many of the old ones left. But even without all the old stories, Ivan Kolenka is the real thing. He's ruthless. He does crime up and down the East Coast. Lots of money from Ukraine. Some say even Chechen money. He has gambling money. Prostitution. He runs gasoline scams. Cigarettes. Extortion. He has construction companies. Restaurants. Crime and money. Crime and money. Anything. Robberies, insurance scams, murder, anything you can think of Kolenka will do it.”

“And Stepanovich? How many men does he control?”

“It goes up and down. He likes the ones out of his Serbian brigade. From the old times. But they come and go. Lot of them end up with immigration trouble. Maybe Stepanovich can call on six good ones. Maybe ten. Kolenka, maybe the same. Do they know how to find you?”

“Yes.”

Ahmet paused. “Then you had better run. They have many more men than you, I think.”

“Run where?”

Ahmet shrugged. “That's for you to decide. Run far.”

“How will they come at us?”

“You think Kolenka will help Markov?”

“Yes.”

“Kolenka's men will run the show. They don't fuck around. They will surround you, burn your place down, shoot anybody who comes out. They will massacre you.

“If you don't die and Stepanovich takes you, he will hurt you for days. Maybe weeks. Trust me. Better you take the bullet or burn to death. Better you run now. But maybe there's no place they don't find you.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“No. Not really. Are you going to fight them?”

“I'm not going to run.”

“Then do me one favor.”

“What?”

“Give somebody the key to this cell who can come let me out if you die.”

“Sure. One last question.”

“What?”

“Where can I find Kolenka?”

“I don't know. I never have anything to do with him. I know he owns buildings in Little Russia. I don't know where he sleeps.”

Beck slowly got to his feet.

“You want the lights down here on or off?”

Sukol answered quickly.

“On.”

Beck headed back toward the entrance to the basement.

“I'll send some food down. Enough for a couple of days. One way or another, it should be all over by then.”

“And will you tell somebody about me?”

“Yes.”

As Beck approached the light switches, he heard Sukol yell out. “Whatever happens, make sure you kill Stepanovich.”

Beck answered by flipping on the overhead fluorescent lights as he ducked back into the tunnel between the two buildings. He checked his watch. Maybe he could get two hours of sleep. He needed ten.

 

59

When she entered his room, he was on his back, fully clothed except for his shoes, completely motionless, having fallen into a deep exhausted sleep.

Olivia sat on the bed next to him and laid her left hand on his chest, the one with the cast. The weight of it made Beck open his eyes.

She didn't say a word. She waited, hovering over him until he focused on her face. Then she slowly leaned down and kissed him, taking her time, exploring his lips, her soft, full breasts just barely touching his chest.

She sat up and stared down at Beck.

The only light in the room came from a small lamp on Beck's night table, turned half on. He checked the clock next to the lamp. 9:30.

Beck looked back at her.

Perhaps she'd come in to wake him before ten o'clock, when she was supposed to leave.

But this was not just a wake up. They both knew what this was.

What Beck didn't know, was what he wanted to do about it. Reject her? Why? Just to show her that he was one man she couldn't control?

Still, neither one of them spoke.

Beck could have reached up and gently pushed her aside so he could sit up. Or he could have reached up and touched her face, but he did neither.

Doing nothing ensured that something would happen.

She began to unbutton Beck's shirt with her good right hand. Her encased left hand resting on his shoulder.

Before she reached the third button, Beck got up and started undressing himself.

Olivia stood up with him. She had changed from the white shirt into a black, long-sleeved knit top. She lifted it up and over her head, taking it off and letting it fall to the floor. She slid down her jeans and stepped out of them.

As he watched her, Beck unbuckled his belt and slipped off his black jeans.

Olivia waited, letting him see her in the flimsy underwear he'd seen hanging on the shower curtain rod at the Four Seasons. She looked even better than he'd imagined she would.

Beck stood wearing only his briefs. They looked at each other's bodies, taking in the sight, both of them now seeing what they had pictured in their minds' eyes.

He knew she was going to stand there until he moved for her. It would be the first time he reached for her. And she was going to wait, standing tall, unmoving, unflinching in her sheer black bra and black lace thong.

Beck smiled. The fucking bra and panties had to be black, didn't they? He could see her nipples, dark areoles and a strip of pubic hair through the sheer material. There was no goddamn way this wasn't going to happen.

Beck stepped forward, slowly put his arm around Olivia, and pulled her to him. Her skin, unimaginably soft and smooth, felt like a balm to him. Her lush body glowed with an inner heat. She put her long arms around him, held him, and kissed him again.

Beck didn't want even the thin lacy fabric of her bra and panties between them. He unclipped her bra. It fell to the floor. He let go of her and sat back on the bed, reaching up to slide the thin straps of her thong down over her hips.

Olivia let the panties fall. She stepped out of her last bit of clothing and knelt in front of Beck to take off his shorts.

Beck lay back on the bed and lifted his hips so Olivia could strip him.

She spread his legs, and hands on his thighs, bent forward taking him in her mouth. Her thick dark hair fell over his lap as she moved. He could have let her do that for a long time, but he took her arms and pulled her up so he could see her face. Her skin glowed in the faint light from the lamp next to his bed.

For a fleeting moment, he thought about the fact that depending on what happened in the next hours, this very well might be the last woman he would ever make love to. And then he realized, no, there's no love here. This is just sex. Just excruciating lust and sex. Without apologies.

He stopped thinking about what might happen to him. He refused to think about what might happen to Olivia.

Beck moved back onto his bed, Olivia following, swinging her long leg over him, gently coming to rest on top of him, straddling his hips, her soft backside against the rigidity of his almost painfully hard erection.

There was no pretense, no guile, no preening. Just the clear naked fact of it happening, now. Finally.

She placed both hands on his chest to steady herself as she rose up.

The cast on her left hand felt rough on Beck's skin, reminding him of how unlike any other situation this was.

She maneuvered Beck inside her with her right hand, and he heard Olivia hiss with pleasure, a sound unlike any he had ever heard from any other woman.

She straightened up, then settled down even farther on him, pressing down and moving him all the way inside her as deep as possible. She pivoted her hips gently so as to completely engulf him. Beck felt her squeeze his cock, almost grabbing it, almost as if to say “this is mine. I have you now.”

Beck watched her. He put his hands on her thighs, feeling the taut muscles of her legs, sliding his hands up to her hips, seeing the muscles in her stomach flex, watching the sway of her amazing breasts. He smiled at how absurdly perfect she was. Elegantly long and thin, and at the same time so full and feminine and sensuous. Her saw her eyes, her face, her thick gleaming hair.

She kept working him now. Pleasuring herself, pleased at knowing whatever she did, Beck would be swept up in it.

Beck let himself give in to her rhythm, timing soft thrusts into her, just to communicate that he was with her. She was clearly fucking him, clearly in charge, intent on gleaning every ounce of pleasure she could.

Olivia's taking charge, being in control, made something deep in Beck give way. After the constant tension, maneuvering, calculating, he found himself immersed in mindless moments that left him with nothing to do but go along with her. Enjoy her.

She began to grunt softly. Her eyes closed, allowing Beck to watch her in his own private way. Beck felt captured. He had never felt that with a woman, ever. The freedom of it, the pleasure of it, the erotic force made his jaws clench. She was taking him away with her.

Suddenly, Olivia reached up with her right hand and caressed her breast, squeezing the nipple. And then she grabbed Beck's right hand and forced him to do the same to her other breast and nipple.

Now she maneuvered herself so that she could stimulate her clitoris more. She held herself in position by placing both hands on his shoulders, one rough and chafing in the cast, the other soft and insistent, gripping his shoulder.

A light sheen of perspiration appeared on her chest. She was breathing harder now, giving out louder grunting sounds of pleasure. Beck squeezed her nipple, grabbed her ass.

“Harder,” she hissed. “Harder.”

He did. Doing whatever she told him. She slowed down, somehow grinding down even more on him, burying Beck as deep and as far as she could inside her.

And now she started to climax. In waves. Suddenly sitting up straight, grabbing her vagina with Beck inside. Forming a V around his cock between her middle and ring finger, stimulating herself and him, rocking now, finishing her orgasm, pulling every ounce of erotic pleasure out of her orgasm and pushing him to come. Beck thrust up into her and released. She reached around behind her and cupped his balls, helping him with quick caresses, draining him, finishing him.

Beck muttered a curse.

Olivia smiled. Accepting it as a sound of admiration.

She had captured him. Truly. Rightfully. Inevitably.

Beck knew that she knew it, and he didn't care. Judgment and worry had already passed.

She slowly lifted off him, and lay down alongside him, rolling sideways to lie against him, now erotic in another way, giving off a palpable heat. Beck felt the fullness and length of her alongside him, felt her gently rise and fall as her breathing subsided.

Her left hand was back on his chest where it had started. The feel of the rough cast against his skin bringing him back to reality.

Beck tried to capture all the sensations, tried to inventory the whole experience, to store it away somewhere it wouldn't be sullied or destroyed by what was to come next. But he only tried for a moment. What would happen this night, would happen.

 

60

Beck made it down to the ground floor bar at 10:30 p.m. Ricky and Jonas Bolo were sitting at the table nearest the front door.

Beck had showered, dressed his knife wound, taken more ibuprofen, drunk more coffee, and changed into fresh clothes. He entered the bar stuffing weapons and ammunition into various pockets. His Browning Hi-Power was fully loaded with thirteen rounds in the double-column magazine and in its usual place, shoved under his belt just over his right hip.

He had two more magazines in his right back pocket. He had a Gerber guardian boot knife strapped around his right ankle and a compact Glock 26 in a holster strapped to his left ankle, so he could draw it with his right hand. The Glock 26 held ten rounds of 9-mm ammunition in the magazine, plus one in the chamber. Finally, he'd replaced the Bucheimer sap with a midget sap nestled in his front left pocket.

He went behind the bar and took out ten thousand dollars from the safe under the cash register and stuffed it into the inside pocket of his shearling coat.

“Jeezus Christ,” said Ricky Bolo, “looks like this is going to be some night.”

Just then, Olivia Sanchez appeared in the bar. She stood with her coat open, holding her small overnight bag and purse, looking exactly like what she was—a beautiful woman who'd just had an intense orgasm, every pore of her pulsing with sexual energy.

For the first time since Beck had known Ricky Bolo, Ricky had nothing to say.

“Olivia, this is Ricky and Jonas. They're going to give us a ride.”

“Us? You're coming with me?”

“Partway. Let's go. We don't have much time.”

The four of them left and settled into the Bolo brothers' nondescript white van.

Beck sat next to Ricky in the front passenger seat. Jonas sat quietly all the way in the back of the van on a bench seat next to Olivia. The middle of the van was filled with racks and shelves and storage area, holding cases, cords, tools, and miscellaneous electronic equipment.

Nobody said much of anything on the ride into Manhattan and up the west side.

Ricky pulled off the West Side Highway at Fiftieth Street and drove to a five-story tenement building between Tenth and Eleventh avenues. He pulled over opposite the building.

“This is where he ended up,” he told Beck. “Matches the address you gave us. His name is on one of the outside doorbells.”

Beck turned to Olivia and said, “I'm getting out here. Ricky and Jonas will take you up to Nydia's. She has a room ready for you.”

Olivia answered, “Okay. I'll be fine. I have one more set of clean clothes.”

“Good. That should get you through what's left. Grab some sleep. I'll be in touch in the morning. If we're right about things, and if Alex has it figured out, tomorrow shouldn't be too hard. Keep your cell phone on.”