The Alex King Series A BATEMAN (summer reading list txt) 📖

her husband killed,” King paused. “She’s on the run.”

“And you’re hunting her?”

“Sort of.”

“What the hell does sort of mean?”

“I am hunting her, yes. And I’m going to kill her.”

“Good. She’ll be less trouble that way.”

“To you, maybe.”

“What has she done to you?” Nikolai stared at him, there was a knowing lilt to his chin. A cadence that did not need speaking. “She has done you wrong, hasn’t she?”

King shook his head. “No. This is about you.”

“May I have some coffee?”

King pulled over a chair, placed it around six-feet from the coffee table. The Uzi was resting on the chair. King had earlier checked it over, it held fourteen rounds. He picked up the sheath knife, walked around the table and pulled Nikolai forwards, sliced the man’s bonds, then pushed him back into the chair. When he rounded the other side of the table, he pushed it firmly into the Russian’s legs and sandwiched them to the chair. He pushed the coffee cup closer to the man, then sat back in his own chair. He placed the Uzi on the right arm of the chair and the knife on the other. He sipped his tea, watched the man in front of him drink the coffee. He noticed the man’s hands shake. Nikolai placed the coffee cup back down on the table, rubbed his hands together, rubbed the circulation back into his wrists. He fiddled with his watch strap. King could see it had cut into his wrist. The Russian looked up at King, he was nervous. Understandable. He fiddled again with his watch.

“I will pay you,” he said finally. “Pay for you to release me. Unharmed.”

King sipped his tea, placed the cup back down. “What did you do to Helena?”

The Russian shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it does. You know Pyotr Sergeyev?”

Nikolai stared at King, the fear had left his eyes, replaced by annoyance. “I do.”

“Elaborate.”

“We worked together.”

“And that’s it?” asked King. “I asked you to elaborate.”

Nikolai shrugged.

“That’s not elaborating.” King picked up the Uzi and selected single-fire. He aimed at the man’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

The gunshot in the confines of the villa was deafening. Nikolai yelped, and his feet kicked out, pushing the coffee table away and splashing tea and coffee onto the glass. He had turned pale and the fleshy part on the tip of his shoulder was bright red, blood seeping through his shirt and running down his chest.

“What the...?” he grimaced, then cursed in Russian. He held his left hand on the wound, then looked around and picked up a cushion, pressed it hard against the bullet graze.

King understood the profanity, shrugged it off. He’d heard worse directed at him from his own mother. “Just a flesh wound,” he said. “Bloody painful, though, I’d bet.”

“Okay!” he snapped. “I worked with Pyotr Sergeyev. We were inducted into the same brotherhood as teenagers. We were gofers at first, then hard-men. Enforcers. We dealt out beatings, collected money.” He was sweating, great beads running down his brow and into his eyes.

“But you went separate ways,” King said. “Two rival mafia brotherhoods.”

“Later, yes,” Nikolai nodded. He winced, moved the cushion away and inspected the wound. The bleeding had slowed. It was a nick, a graze, nothing more. It might have needed a couple of stitches, but he wouldn’t be getting them tonight. Too many people asked questions when they suspected a gunshot wound. “He’s dead. I heard he’d been hit. Was that you?”

“Helena wanted Sergeyev killed.”

“And?”

“So, he’s dead.”

“Shit, she must have something you really want back.”

King ignored him. “And she wants you dead.”

“I figured that.”

“So, why?” King asked. “Why does she want the two of you dead?”

Nikolai smiled. “She’s a vengeful bitch, that is why.”

“No shit.” King aimed the Uzi again.

“Wait!” The Russian held his hands up. The cushion dropped onto his lap. He was flinching, his hands in front of him like tiny shields. He winced at the pain. “I’ll tell you!”

King lowered the machine pistol. “Go on then.”

“Okay, jeez. I tell you, you ever need a job after this, you come to me, right? You get the Italians to take down my guys, then you take down the Italians? Shit, man, you got balls this big…” He raised his hands and made a gesture, his fingers and thumbs not touching. The motion hurt his shoulder and he winced again. “Look, we were hot shit. We knew we were untouchable. That bitch Helena worked the casinos and she danced in some places, too. Man, what a body! She would hang on a guy’s arm, lucky charm sort of thing, whisper in his ear, ask for drinks. The guys lapped her up. She made the casino money getting guys to dump all their money on wild bets, and they made money on her drinks. Only French champagne, fifty US dollars a glass! Helena and girls like her, they were like gold mines. She was good too. She knew how to work a man for everything he had.”

“And you had a cut of all this,” King stated matter-of-factly.

“Of course,” he said. “We supplied her, and other girls to the casinos.”

“So, I’m guessing she tried to leave that life behind? Left you with a big hole in your income.”

“Yes,” Nikolai paused. “She did so a few times. Or at least, tried to. We took her back, encouraged her to stay.”

“Encouraged?”

“Yes.”

“You beat her?”

“No. Of course not,” he said emphatically. “She was a pretty woman. No point damaging what makes you money, eh?”

“So, what happened?”

“I need a drink.”

King raised the Uzi. “You’ll get another bullet. Who knows, my aim might be a bit off next time. The bullet may go lower. Take a chunk of bone with it, nick an artery…”

“Okay!” Nikolai shifted