Page 3 of Protected By the BRATVA Grump

Headlights flare and dim in the small parking lot, but I pay no attention and keep up my pace.

Jasper

Tolya Semenov has been stealing from the yard since June.

He keeps checking the window that looks down over the loading floor, where my cousins are standing in the middle of the concrete looking up at the window.

"Sit down, Tolya," I say.

He sits.

Eleven pallets have left this yard on paperwork that doesn't match the weight tickets, and none of it would have surfaced for another six months if a driver hadn't mentioned to Mechislav that a load felt light going over the bridge.

"You've got two children," I say. "The younger one is at the school on Fenn Road."

Every bit of color leaves his face at once.

"That isn't a threat. It's an observation. I’m trying to understand why a person, such as yourself, would do something like this." I turn the top manifest around to face him. "You owe eighteen thousand. Can you pay?"

He hesitates long enough to tell me that he considers lying, chooses against it, and tries to figure out how easy he could get his hands on that sort of money. I imagine it’s not a small amount for him.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips. He swallows. "Not immediately, no."

Tolya at least has the decency to look ashamed of himself.

"I’ve worked for your family since I was a boy," he spits, anger trying to mask the shame.

"Yes," I say. "Which is why I haven’t shot you already. But your actions must have consequences."

Dealing with men like Semenov is my job, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Of my cousins, I seem to be the best one at it. Mechislav would immediately go to breaking bones, Natan would just shoot Semenov in the head. Demyan would pull his teeth out with rusty pliers and let him take his chances with infection.

Eduard knows I’m the best negotiator with shit like this. But it costs to keep myself controlled.

Tolya accepts the terms I lay out for him. Three months to pay what is owed in full and a demotion with the opportunity to rise up the ranks once again if he gives me the name of who he was selling to.

He looks at me for a long moment. Then he starts talking. By twenty past six, I have a name and address in the eastern quarter, and a man who'll be more useful frightened and employed than he ever would have been broken or dead.

Natan is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. "He walks out of here?"

"He walks out of here owing us money, which is better than him leaving in a van. Kill him, the whole yard will know in an hour. Then the drivers go looking for other work and we could lose the route." I hand him the folded manifest. "Give that to Eduard. The buyer is one of Marchetti's people. I'll confirm by the weekend."

Natan looks at the paper, then at me. "You're in a hurry…" he says, and lets it sit there.

"I’ve got somewhere to be." I leave him standing there with the manifest and a shit-eating grin on his face.

The drive takes thirty-five minutes over the bridge with the water going flat and gray underneath. The lights come up out of the fog on the other side as I check the clock on the dash. Just after seven. She will be home now, so I head straight to the park.

I pull into the small gravel parking lot at the main entrance to the park and wait.

Last November, I was driving back from the city and saw her cross the road by the bandstand in a yellow reflective jacket. She was alone, the whole park ahead of her, and the last daylight gone off the water. I pulled in to make sure she got to the gate. That was all it was going to be. Then I did it again the following night, and after a week, it stopped being a decision and became my evening routine.

It's good security. Purr and Pour is owned by the wife of the head of this family, and anybody wanting leverage over Eduard Federov would start exactly there.

At just before eight, the gate at the Merrow Street end opens and closes, and she comes down onto the path at that unhurried pace she keeps for the first half mile, headphones in, dark hair up and already coming loose around her face.

I stay where I am. That's how this works. I sit in the dark with the window down, listening to her feet on the wet path, and when she comes back around at the far end and makes her journey home, I leave.

It’s the gray hatchback that stops me.