Sierra picked up the urn that housed the ashes of her dead brother. Ass wagging, enraged, she marched to a section in the rear of the G650.
I was right.
One war had ended; another had started.
But that war wasn’t my war. I still had my own.
Chapter 31
Gotham
Wearing jeans and a T-shirt, I moved through summer heat and battled traffic on I-95, crossed the Hudson River, and made my way to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It was almost ninety degrees and muggy, each inhale disgusting, like sucking on the exhaust of a car, but being in motion felt good. I rocked a Ducati Streetfighter; being on two wheels kept me from feeling trapped. I threaded the needle, dodged cars, pedestrians, buses, and a sea of yellow cabs. An hour ago, with a handshake good-bye, Arizona had left me on the tarmac in New Jersey at Teterboro, just across the George Washington Bridge, a short distance from the Lincoln Tunnel, in a city that had as much traffic on its streets as it did on the sidewalks, a Gotham that was always in a hurry.
I sped and threaded the needle through traffic until I was near Central Park, not far from the Met Breuer museum. I found a space to park in front of my destination, then reached into my backpack and pulled out a New York Yankees baseball cap, eased on dark Wayfarers. While he was distracted, I slipped past the Upper East Side doorman, didn’t look back toward Park Avenue and Seventy-Fifth Street. I hesitated before I stepped on the elevator, then backed away and found the stairs. Cameras were in the stairwell, so I kept my head down, climbed to the twentieth floor. I eased down the hallway and tapped on the door for unit B.
A woman opened the door. She was in her twenties, slender, dressed in black. Her hair cascaded over her shoulders. Like I had done on the plane, I noticed her perfume. Gucci. She told me her name was Yana.
In Russian I said, “My name is Gideon.”
“Do you have a weapon, Gideon?”
“Several. In my backpack.”
“I will need your backpack.”
I handed it to her. She handed me a claim tag.
She asked, “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead.”
She searched me. Found nothing.
She said, “Remove your baseball cap and sunglasses, please.”
She stepped aside and I entered the gracious entry gallery. It felt like the home of a diplomat. Yana led me into an elegant living room. Russian Mafia music played and could be heard in the seven rooms, was piped into the five bathrooms of this fourteen-million-dollar property. Many Russians were in the apartment, all dressed in suits and ties. Food and drinks were being served by Russian waiters and waitresses. There was an open bar. People chatted and some danced their Russian dances.
The Man in the White Shoes entered the room to loud applause. He was holding hands with his smiling wife. He looked like Cary Grant and she looked like the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida.
Konstantin had finished his chemotherapy. This was his celebration.
He came to me, shook my hand, then pulled me to him, and we hugged like family. He sighed, looked relieved.
In Russian he said, “Son, you vanished and had me worried. I thought they had you.”
“I know, Konstantin. I know.”
“You didn’t follow my orders.”
“I had to go. They would have found us all, one by one.”
“Not for the cancer, I would have been at your side.”
“I couldn’t let you go back.”
“Now sit. Drink. Tell us how you killed those motherfuckers.”
I was in a room filled with people in the same business. Husbands and wives. Most were over sixty. Their days doing wetworks were behind them. I was the youngest face in the place. First we damned cancer and toasted to Konstantin’s kicking its ass. Then gangsters and their lovers heard my tale of David fighting many Goliaths. They toasted me with drinks raised high. They chanted my name. They said my name like I was the Gideon from the Bible, the military man, a leader who, despite having the numerical disadvantage, had defeated the Midianite army. I drank with them like they were family, and celebrated Konstantin being better.
He treated me like I was his son.
I respected him like he was my father.
• • •
Then I needed to see my brothers. And confront my mother.
Days later I went back to Atlanta. I went to visit Alvin White’s gravesite. I went to Atlanta Memorial Depot and paid for a marble headstone. Then on an overcast day, I sat there with my friend’s spirit for a while. I assured him that his children would be taken care of, but money was no substitute for a father like him. Money would never fix his wife’s devastated heart or lessen her unmeasurable grief. Then I had gone to see Catherine and the boys. I upgraded the panic room with reinforced walls. I installed a vault door that led to that space. The door was hidden behind a mirror. I put televisions and a MacBook Pro in the panic room. It was stocked with food, guns, ammo. The boys helped me. I took the boys to skate, took them bowling, took them rock climbing, and then I drove them and Catherine out to Woodstock. I took them to the field we used to go to with Shotgun for target practice. We set up bottles and cans to gun down. There wasn’t a house for at least a mile in any direction. Out where conservatives and the NRA roamed, I showed my mother how to load and use a gun. First I let her try popping off with a .22, then switched to a .380. She killed a few bottles, but missed four out of five shots. My brothers were hitting seven out of ten. They were becoming little marksmen. Catherine didn’t like guns.