CHAPTER 27
Dmitri tried to keep from gunning the gas too hard as he drove to Sultan's Palace. He didn't want another encounter with the cops right then. There was no time to waste. But he couldn't help squeal the tires after a long red light or two. He was fed up with patience.
When he was halfway to the strip club, he realized he should make sure Sonya hadn't just changed her phone number, or blocked his number for being an asshole and disappearing.
He stopped by her apartment complex. He had never been there, and didn't know her unit number. Sonya had only mentioned the name. So he went to the front office and turned on his charm as he approached the receptionist.
"Hi ma'am, how are you today? I'm a friend of a resident here, Sonya Valentina. I forgot her apartment number. Guess I drank too much vodka the first time I came by. Can you help me out?"
"Oh, I'd like to, but we haven't seen Sonya around here for a while now. A couple weeks or so. I heard she got a promotion at work. She's traveling a lot these days, I guess."
Dmitri couldn't even muster a polite thanks or goodbye. If he'd let any sound out of his mouth at that moment, it would've been a howl of pain and rage. He half-staggered, half-stomped out of the office.
Now there was no doubt. Either Halim had Sonya or he'd already killed her, or done something else horrible with her. Dmitri got back in his car and peeled out hard this time, leaving two black streaks of rubber on the pavement.
Fifteen minutes later, he drove just past Sultan's Palace and turned into the parking lot of Crimson, another gentlemen's club, next door to Sultan's. He parked behind the building, took only the sledgehammer out of the trunk, and walked over to the back door of the Palace.
It was locked with a new cast iron deadbolt. Dmitri had learned to pick locks when he was a kid, one of the many tricks of the trade he’d been taught in prison. But he wasn't in the mood for subtlety.
Whack!
Dmitri slammed the hammer against the lock.
Whack! Whack!
He hit it two more times. The sound of metal on metal rang out like gunshots across the parking lot, until it dispersed over the bay. The bones in his meaty hands ached with each blow, as if they might snap.
He took a deep breath, channeled his anger, struck once more, and felt the hammer crack. The iron head had broken free of the wooden shaft and dropped to the asphalt with a thud. Dmitri tossed the handle to the ground.
The deadbolt had also broken.
"Those damn kids are back?" an angry man said from inside, in Arabic.
Dmitri didn't understand the words, but even muffled by the heavy door, he recognized the voice. He raised his foot high and kicked the door with his heel.
It flew open less than a foot before slamming into the big body on the other side. But Dmitri didn't have to barge in. Gilad was eager to open the door himself.
He'd been interrupted from his lunch again and was going to make somebody pay for it this time. He figured it was the teenagers who had broken in and trashed the place a few weeks before.
Gilad knew he shouldn't use the butcher knife he grabbed from the kitchen on his way downstairs, but it'd put a scare into them. And maybe he'd get to put his foot in one of their asses as they turned to run away.
When he saw the giant Russian standing there scowling, he almost had a heart attack, but he knew he couldn't outrun Dmitri, so he raised the butcher knife over his head and charged.
Dmitri had trained in various martial arts, but again he wasn't in the mood to get cute. He whipped the pistol out from his waistband and plugged Gilad in the knee.
Gilad froze. The expression on his face changed from enraged to confused. He tried to swing or throw the butcher knife at Dmitri, but his arm barely moved forward, his wrist went limp as the knife dropped to the floor, and he crumpled down beside it.
His breath was loud and fast now. He raised himself onto his elbows and one knee, letting the injured leg drag behind him, as he crawled down the hallway, away from Dmitri.
Still standing in the doorway, watching, Dmitri shook his head with disgust. He took two long strides inside, then a half-stride more, before stomping his foot straight down onto the back of Gilad's injured knee.
Gilad screamed in agony and collapsed. Dmitri knelt down on top of him, putting most of his weight on Gilad’s good leg.
"Where's Halim?"
Gilad didn't reply.
Dmitri shifted his weight onto the bloody knee. Gilad moaned into the floor.
"Where's Halim?"
"Not here," Gilad said with a whimper.
"Who else is here?"
"Nobody."
"If you're lying, I'll kill you."
"You're gonna do it anyway."
"True. But I'll make it hurt."
"It already does."
"You're a funny guy," Dmitri said, as he grabbed the curly black hair at the back of Gilad's head, stood up, and dragged him down the hall. “Tell me some more jokes.”
Gilad was screaming now, so Dmitri picked up a piece of trash off the floor, a plastic bag, and shoved it into Gilad's mouth.
"I don't see security cameras in this hall, is that right?" Dmitri said when they reached the door at the end of the passage.
Gilad nodded.
"Let's see if there's anybody waiting for us. You'd take a bullet for me, wouldn't you, buddy?" Dmitri said as he tucked his gun back into his waistband and lifted the heavy man by his armpits, as if he were a mere child.
Gilad had nearly passed out from the pain and loss of blood, which left a red trail down the hallway. Dmitri pressed against the door with his foot and held Gilad upright with one hand so he could turn the knob with the other. He shoved Gilad forward as the door opened.
No gunshots. Dmitri smirked with disappointment that his trick had not worked.
"I guess you told me the truth. We are alone. No one shot you coming through the door. I'll have to do it myself."
Dmitri unloaded three rounds into the side of Gilad's head. He knelt down and rummaged through the dead man's pockets until he found a cell phone, which he slid into his own pocket.
He still wasn't sure if somebody was waiting to ambush him, but he was getting bored, so he pulled his gun back out and charged up the stairs, then kicked open the wooden door of Halim's office.
Empty. Dmitri walked over to the desk. He ruffled through a stack of papers, looked through the drawers, but found nothing interesting, nothing that showed where Halim might be.
There was a Rolodex with hundreds of names and numbers inside, some addresses too. Dmitri could start making calls and visits, but it would take days to get through the list. And it was doubtful anyone in there even knew where Halim was right now.
I should've chatted more with Gilad, he thought.
Yet he knew Gilad was a patsy, that Halim would never tell his idiot cousin anything important.
Dmitri slammed the desk forward. As it toppled to the floor, all the paperwork, pens, a coffee mug, and everything else flew across the room. Only one item, a notepad that had been lying at the front edge of the desk, dropped straight down to Dmitri's feet.
It was blank. He knew that because he'd already looked at it. But when he saw it lying there alone on the floor, he thought of the detective movies he'd seen as a boy.
It's a long shot. But I don't know what else to do.
Dmitri picked up the notepad, squinted at it, shook his head. He found a pencil among the mess on the floor, held the pad against the wall, and rubbed the edge of the tip of the pencil lead back and forth over the paper.
Like a person standing in the fog trying to read a sign across the street, he could just barely make out the words that appeared inside of the gray chaos.
301 N. 52 St.
He had an address. Now all he needed to know was which city it was in.
A phone rang. It was the one in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it. Unknown number. But Dmitri had another idea.
He tapped the Off button to reject the incoming call. Then he scrolled through the contact list until he got to H for Halim.
Dmitri pressed Call and held the phone to his ear as it rang. Four times. Five times. Voicemail. He hung up.
He called again. Back to voicemail.
He called again. On the third ring, Halim picked up.
"Gilad...”
Dmitri didn't understand the words that followed, but he could tell Halim was angry, and Gilad wasn't supposed to call. This still didn't tell him much, except that Halim was doing something more secretive than usual.
Dmitri didn't know enough about technology to figure out anything else, but he knew someone who might. He jogged down the stairs.
Just as he got back to where he'd left Gilad's body, he saw a shadow disappear down another hallway. A big shadow.
Dmitri pulled his 9mm back out and ran after it. There was nothing but a storeroom down that hallway. The fleeing man had nowhere to hide.
Dmitri soon found someone trying to squeeze behind a storage shelf. He held the gun to the man's head.
“I didn't see nothing, Dmitri. You know I despised that motherfucker anyway,” Johnny the bouncer said in a low voice.
“What are you doing here?” Dmitri replied, still holding the gun to Johnny's temple.
“I came in early to do some carpentry work, just some repairs upstairs, to make a few bucks. I swear, man, I didn't see nothing. You know I've been around, I can keep quiet.”
Dmitri liked Johnny, and he knew it was true he hated Gilad, just like everyone else at Sultan's did. But with Sonya's life on the line, leaving a witness who might call the police and identify Dmitri was dangerous.
Yet he uncocked the gun and lowered it. Johnny hadn't asked to be a part of this mess.
“Okay, Johnny. Get out of here. Sultan's is about to go out of business. They're having a fire sale. And you might want to think about an alibi. You know the police always blame the black man.”
“You're telling me... All right, brother, good luck in whatever you're up to. I guess I'll be looking for a new job soon, if you need anybody.”
Dmitri winked and ran outside. He jumped in his car, turned on the ignition, pressed in the cigarette lighter, and popped the trunk. Then he got out, took the gas can out of the trunk, went back to the doorway, and walked down the hall again, this time pouring gasoline along the way.
Back outside once more, he pulled out the now smoldering hot cigarette lighter from the console of his Mercedes and tossed it in the door of Sultan's Palace. A reddish blue flame rolled down the hallway like a wave, just as Johnny was hurrying out the front door.