“You gonna be six beers in when you ‘let them win’ too, kid?” Roy laughs, and Vasily waves him off with a curse in Russian.
“I think we do have something, in fact,” comes Cherry’s voice, to my surprise. I give her my attention with a nod, standing back to let her speak, and after my example, the rest of the bar gathers around to listen up. Cherry looks a little taken aback by the deference, but she clears her throat and continues.
“Right. So Agent Doyle and his lackeys are down at the docks, right now. What’s worse, he’s got what looks like muscle from out of town helping him. They’re working out of an old ship that should have been scrapped years ago, and now we know why — they’re shipping people in that tin can. Packing them in like sardines.”
There’s a grumble throughout the bar, and I can practically hear people gripping their beers tighter. A few of the immigrants among us are first or second-generation Russians like me, and some of them have very personal experiences with the human traffickers in New York.
“Looks like most of them come from south of the border. We saw Doyle coordinating with Marty Chandler down there. The dock owner is in on whatever operation’s going on down there. I don’t think it’s a long shot to guess those victims we found buried in the field are some of the men and women who didn’t survive the journey.”
“Sons of bitches,” I hear Eva hiss in the background.
“And it makes sense now,” Cherry goes on, pacing around the bar. “If Doyle keeps us distracted with him while they push through the sale of that empty lot, the secret gets buried for good the moment a NexaCo gets built on top of those graves.”
It feels like there’s a pall over the whole club. Genn spits on the ground in disgust, and Roy looks about ready to storm out the bar and start raising hell that second. Most of the older members look to be of the same mind.
“I’m tired of these goddamn feds walking all over us with a free pass to do whatever the fuck they want!” Anya shouts, slamming a fist down on the table as she sways in her seat. Vasily nods to her in agreement, cracking his knuckles.
“We can pound our chests all we like,” Genn says glumly, “but it’s the FBI. We can’t lay a finger on Doyle, and the chickenshit knows it. And if we can’t touch Doyle, we can’t touch his buddies, either. As far as they’re concerned, they’re golden.”
“That’s why they’ve been so bold,” Eva adds on. “Marty Chandler’s friends aren’t just taking advantage of the FBI’s presence, they know he’ll save their asses when they start pulling off shit we’d bust their heads open for.”
Cherry crosses her arms and chews on her lip, thinking, but after a few moments, she looks to me, a concerned look on her features. “I don’t know. What’s your take...Prez?”
Hands on my hips, I think for a moment, brow furrowed, but when I open my mouth to speak, someone calls me to the door behind me. When I turn and head out the door to see who’s there, the ghost of Joe Hill himself couldn’t have shocked me more.
“The Lone Wolf,” I say darkly to Mikhail. “You’ve got some fucking nerve coming back into this town.” Of all the people in the world I expected to see in the club’s parking lot, he was right around the bottom of the list.
The man standing by the car is every bit as tall and muscular as I am, with slightly darker hair and a clean-shaven face. A designer jacket hangs on his shoulders, unadorned with any patches or markings of any kind. He’s almost the spitting image of myself, but more clean-cut, his Russian heritage as plain as day. I send a message with my kutte. He sends a message with his eyes.
I raise my fist to him playfully, and he goes for my ribs before we break into laughter.
“Leon! You are quicker than ever,” Mikhail says with a smile.
“Quick enough to put a fright into your Old Woman,” I say, shooting a half-smirk over towards the woman waiting by the car who’d just squeaked like a frightened mouse. Where’d she think he was taking her to that an honest fight would break out right away? “My most sincere apologies, ma’am,” I grin, laying on the charm.
“I was just playing the role of the audience,” the pretty, young woman says back. She’s quick witted at least, even if she does seem shaken up.
“Sorry my timid kotika,” Mikhail says, releasing me and stepping around the car to extend his hand to his woman. “Come meet Leon. Leon, this is Alicia,” he says. He puts his arm around her, laying his claim as clear as day. Never thought I’d see Mikhail of all people takin’ a shine to someone like this.