Complications // Lacharité

I made it to the appointment on time and walked through the unassuming doors, under the modest sign which read simply ‘Lacharité’ and marveled at the café before me. It was bathed in gold and yellows with rich chocolate undertones; all told it was a very upscale café despite it’s out of the way location. I never got tired of the place.

The seats were comfortable, the food was good and it didn’t have that French disdain for American patronage that a real Paris café had. Then again, this wasn’t Paris.

Viktor and Grigory were already seated by the window nearest to the door; they were nursing drinks and small bowls of onion soup, a personal favorite of mine.

The Korolev brothers were siblings by blood though they didn’t look the part. Both had the same eyes but their faces were entirely different, Viktor had always said he had his father’s features, and Grigory got his mother’s.

Viktor was the taller of the two, thin with pale skin and silvery blue eyes. He rarely shaved and seemed to have a perpetual five o’clock shadow on his narrow face.

Grigory was more my height, perhaps an inch shorter. He had an average build and short brown hair. He was a decent guy that everyone called Greg, which was easier to get by with in America. I always thought it made him sound too… common.

They were under bosses working for Kostya Kovalenko, if I recall, the both of them came from Russia a few months after Kostya got himself started here. They were good guys and well liked in the organization.

The both of them greeted me cautiously and offered me a seat.

“Where’s Jerry?” I asked while sitting.

“He said he was running late, and would arrive shortly.” Viktor said, his English was good, but not perfect, it smacked an almost stereotypical Russian accent. Grigory didn’t waste any time and launched right into the business at hand.

“You have something we want Vic, and we would like to get it without bloodshed. It is very unfortunate that Kostya’s acted so rashly, but in his eyes he has every reason to.” Grigory paused to sip his drink, and then leaned over the table at me, “Tell us where Kostya’s merchandise is. We’ll get it, and if everything is together we can probably calm Kostya down. You’ll be able to put this behind you.”

I knew for certain that their merchandise, namely half a million dollars in smuggled liquor, wine, alcohol and twice that amount in stolen fine art was probably gone. Long gone. “I’m surprised that Kostya sent you guys here to talk to me about this, the both of you should know that the warehouse was cleaned out after the ambush.”

“We know that of course.” Viktor said quite seriously, “Kostya believes that you were responsible for the ambush and the merchandise being taken, if you don’t tell us where it is…” he trailed off.

“You would probably be hunted down,” Grigory picked up where his brother stopped. “As it stands Kostya thinks that you stole his merchandise and are planning to sell it to another party, or sell it yourself. He’s very much out for blood my friend.”

“We of course don’t think you would do such a thing…” Viktor added, and he was right. I’d been working with Kostya for years and I didn’t have it in me to cross him. “Kostya thinks you’re going to give up the organization, go to another syndicate, or something. He says you’re going to join Harkov, or are working with him.”

“Okay, that’s insane,” I looked Viktor dead in the eye, “I wouldn’t be working with Harkov, the man’s a butcher.” And he was, Boris Harkov was a new factor in the city, he was ex-KGB that got tired of the organized crime circuit being so cramped in Russia and headed across the Atlantic to strike out on his own.

Viktor nodded slightly, “Worst of all he thinks you killed his brother.”

“Laura…” I muttered under my breath, everything last night made sense suddenly.

“What?” Grigory asked me, I glanced at the brothers, “Oh,” I paused, “Laura Vega, she must think I was the one that killed Yury, which would explain why she came after me…”

“We heard about the incident at Carlyle Plaza.” Grigory said, I wasn’t surprised, I knew quite a few people saw me with Laura last night. It was a long story though…

“Very lucky to have lived.” Viktor said with a half-grin.

“Listen, if Kostya thinks I was the one that got his brother and set up the ambush he’s wrong.” I waved a waiter away that was coming to the table and as soon as he was out of earshot I leaned towards the Korolevs, “First, I didn’t set him up, and second I didn’t kill his brother. I went with Yury and a few other guys to make the exchange like normal, and the other party was just checking the merchandise when gunfire broke out. By that I mean we started getting shot at from all directions. The buyers panicked, started yelling and soon enough they were shooting at us, and we were shooting at them, and the both of us were still being shot at by someone else.”

The Korolevs looked at each other for a second, and then nodded for me to continue.

“We saw one of our guys get hit, I think it was Jacob, and Yury went to drag him in.” This was all true; of course I didn’t have any more reason to lie to the Korolevs than to Kostya himself.

“That’s when he was shot in the back.” Grigory said, “Presumably by you.”

“Wrong,” I corrected him, “I was firing at the buyers when he ran out, and I only saw him get shot in the back. At some point after that the buyers must’ve been cleaned out because we started getting a lot more attention and lead sent our way after Yury went down. At that point the rest of our guys ran off, I had to follow them or I’d get killed.”

Viktor looked at his watch, “Jerry should have been here by now, da?” He looked at his brother, “Da.” Grigory said, they talked for a second in Russian, it was a bit beyond my ability and I understood very little. They were definitely talking about what I said, and mentioned Jerry too. They nodded and motioned at me a few times, then stopped and looked straight at me.

There was a strange stillness after Viktor stopped speaking, a sudden moment where everything seemed quiet, and wrong, very wrong. Then his neck burst open from a bullet impact. The window we were sitting at shattered in half a dozen places and beyond it, from a black sedan automatic weapons sprayed our booth.

Grigory and I had been quicker than Viktor and were on the floor as soon as the gunfire started, Grigory fished a small pistol from his jacket and fired wildly over the table at the car, it sped away without so much as taking a scratch.

Viktor however, wasn’t so lucky. He was slumped forward over his soup. Dead as one could get. The window was gone, the booth and table were shredded and there was a commotion all around us as the other patrons panicked.

Grigory stood for a second, staring at his brother who was bleeding onto the table,

“Grigory!” I had to yell at him to get a response, “We’ve got to go!”