I recognized them from Scotty’s description, as soon as they got out of the Rover. Big and bigger. Ugly and uglier. Scary.
The guy with blond cornrows was bigger, around six four, around 240 pounds. He wore black cowboy boots, black jeans, and a red tee shirt sprayed onto a chemically enhanced torso. His face was bony and pumpkin-colored under the lights, and when he smiled his teeth looked too large. His eyes were eager and darting, the pupils huge. Speeding. Maybe he thought the anabolic steroids didn’t make him aggressive enough.
The other guy was definitely uglier. The tattoo on his chin was as Scotty had described—a black heart with a dagger through it—but Scotty hadn’t mentioned the ink on his cheeks and neck—stars, elaborate crosses, Cyrillic letters—or the shaved head, or the expression of animal meanness on his meaty face and in his black eyes. He was about five ten and maybe two hundred pounds, and he wore gray pinstriped pants that were too long, and a pink shirt unbuttoned almost to his waist. His torso was like a steamer trunk, and there was thick hair on his chest, and more Russian ink. Wired wrong, I thought. Crazy.
“You the doctor?” Cornrows said. There was the trace of an accent in his voice, and he sounded like he was struggling not to laugh. I didn’t answer, but thought about the scalpels in my bags, and that I’d never get to them in time. “You’re him, right?” He looked at something in his hand. “Dr. Knox. And this is your clinic?”
My pulse spiked, and I tasted the tang of adrenaline on my tongue. I looked at my car, and the Dumpster alongside it. Nothing there.
“Who are you looking for?” I said, and took a step back.
“C’mon, you’re him, right—the doctor?” Cornrows said, and smiled wider. Tats looked up and down the alley, and saw nothing that troubled him. He came toward me. Cornrows chuckled and said something in Russian; Tats stopped, though not happily.
“What do you want?” I asked. “Is somebody sick?”
Cornrows got a kick out of that, and the harder he laughed, the darker his face became. “Yeah—you. You’re coming down with something serious any minute, so better to take care of yourself now.”
I took another step back. I looked around the back door and along the building’s back wall. Not a pipe or scrap of wood. I’d never seen the alley so fucking clean. I fingered my key ring, and slipped the longest and sharpest key between my middle two fingers and made a fist.
“What do you want?” I asked again.
“You know what we want, doc—we want same as you. We want to know where is she.”
“Where who is?”
Tats spit, then muttered what sounded like a curse. Cornrows’ sigh was weary and disappointed. He said something to Tats, who went to the Rover and pulled an aluminum bat from the rear seat. He came toward me.
I took a deep, shaky breath and let it out slowly. I looked at Tats’ neck, at his trachea and suprasternal notch. I tightened my grip on the keys.
Cornrows shook his head. “She something to you, doc, you’re gonna take a beating for her?”
“I don’t know who she is. And, by the way, you’re making no sense. If I’m supposed to be looking for her—whoever she is—then why do you think I know where she is?”
That stopped Cornrows for a moment, but Tats seemed not to hear, or to care. He took another step toward me and slapped the bat head in his palm. “You going to bullshit around, or you going to say why you want her?” His voice was like rocks in a bucket.
I shrugged. “She came in here.”
“And she is what to you, huh? Your bliad?”
Cornrows smirked. “Means ‘whore,’ doc. He wants to know if Elena’s your whore. Which would be a problem, right? Only one boss at a time.”
Elena. I smiled.
Tats didn’t know what to make of this, so he smiled too. It was not a pretty thing. His teeth were gray and oddly shaped, and many were missing. “You are doctor,” he said. “You also woman? In my country, most doctors are woman.”
“And most of the assholes are men,” I said. This he understood. His face darkened and he brought the bat back. “I hear you’re offering money,” I said, and Tats paused again.
Cornrows smiled, like he’d run into an old friend. “Yeah? Well, you heard it right, doc. You got info, we got cash.”
“How much?”
“Depends on what you got. Could be decent, though. Maybe couple of grand.”
“That’s not enough.”
“Could be more—depends.”
“Could be ten?”
Cornrows smiled wider. “Shit, doc, for ten you bring her gift-wrapped to my boss.”
“Tell me who he is and where to find him, and I’ll see what I can do.”
He chuckled. “So ten’s not really your number, yeah? You continue fucking with me.”
I fought to control my breathing, and shrugged. “It’s just how I am.”
“You got balls, doc,” Cornrows said, “for another couple seconds anyway.” Then he nodded at Tats, who came on again.
I pointed up and behind him. “You guys realize you’re on camera, right?”
They both turned and looked at the security camera, mounted high up on the wall and looking down on the back door. Cornrows said something in Russian, and Tats nodded and jumped onto the hood of the Rover, and then to its roof. He was quicker and more agile than I would’ve guessed. He swung the bat one-handed, and there was a loud metallic chime, and the camera and its metal housing came off the building. They bounced off the Dumpster with a hollow clang. Tats leapt from the Rover’s roof and landed in a crouch by the front fender.
“Thanks, doc,” Cornrows said, smiling. “You save us a pain in the ass.” Tats smiled too, and came toward me again.
“Yeah, you saved me some trouble too,” a voice called from behind them. “Now I can shoot you douche bags and not worry about it showing up on YouTube.” Cornrows and Tats whirled as Sutter stepped into the cone of the sodium lights, and they froze when they saw his gun.
He held the Sig in a two-handed grip in front of him, and he sighted down the barrel as it swung in an easy arc between the Russians. Tats said something in Russian, in which mudak and pizda figured prominently. Sutter laughed and said something Russian in response. Cornrows and Tats were surprised and unhappy.
“You want to clear the line of fire, doc?” Sutter said, and jerked his head.
My thighs were like lead, and my chest was tight. “I want to talk to them.”
“You can do that after I shoot ’em. Just in the knees for starters.”
Tats shuffled toward me and adjusted his grip on the bat. There was a flat crack, and Sutter buried a round between his feet. Tats froze. “I like you there, da?” Sutter said. “And roll that bat over to me.”
Tats made a disgusted grunt and flung the bat into the darkness, where it clanged, banged, and rolled to a stop.
“Who’s your boss?” I asked Cornrows.
He shook his head and smiled grimly. “You have your nigger shoot us now? Is that where we’re going?”
Sutter chuckled from across the alley.
“What does your boss want with her?” I said.
“Fuck your cunt,” Cornrows said. “We’re leaving. You want to shoot, shoot. Just remember, he’s not the only guy in town with guns.” Tats glared at Sutter; then he and Cornrows climbed into the Rover and disappeared in a squeal of tires.
“I saw that movie,” Sutter called after them. “Fucking Ivans—never anything original.” He tucked the Sig behind him and crossed the alley. The smell of burnt rubber hung in the air. “I made them when I dropped you off. They were waiting down the block. Then I saw them pull into the alley. They didn’t seem like regulars, so…”
“Thanks.”
“They were looking for your girl?”
“Elena—they called her Elena.”
Sutter nodded. “I hate to say I told you so, but I’m pretty sure I said that marching around with her photo wasn’t the smartest move. How many people you talk to today? Anybody could’ve dimed you.”
I knelt, and lifted a white rectangular scrap from the asphalt. “It wasn’t just anybody,” I said. “They had my card.”
Sutter laughed ruefully. “See what I mean, brother? The opposite of simple.”