But Minchev held his empty hand out, indicating he had other plans.
In English, the young Bulgarian mob boss spoke to the kneeling man. “You fucked up, Mr. Humphries. And for that you’re gonna have to pay a little price.”
The man kneeling there said nothing. He did not move; his face remained out of Coyle’s view, his head down as if in defeat.
The boss said something in Bulgarian, and then Komitov stepped forward and rifled through the American’s jacket, removing a wallet and a phone. He pocketed the wallet, then held the phone up in front of the American’s face, thereby unlocking the screen.
Then he handed it to his boss.
Minchev looked over the phone now. In English, he said, “Only two contacts.” He grinned at his prisoner. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”
Minchev tapped the phone for several seconds, held it back to the man’s face, then tapped it again. Charlie knew this move; his boss was changing the password so that he could unlock it any time he wanted.
When he finished, he said, “I’ll keep this.”
The boss held the phone up to the American a third time, took a picture. “And I’ll send this to everybody I know, tell them to be looking out for you.
“And this,” Minchev said, “this is for Bogdan.” He punched the American in the jaw, a glancing blow, unimpressively executed, though it still managed to echo in the alleyway.
Minchev shoved his pistol into his belt, then began heading towards the door back into the building.
Coyle had no idea who Bogdan was or what the American had done to him to earn the punch to the gob.
As Minchev passed by Videv, he spoke to the team leader of the security detail in Bulgarian; Videv nodded curtly, and Minchev grinned as he climbed the steps and reached Charlie’s position.
Coyle wanted to knock the smile off his employer’s face with a right cross. He didn’t know who the American was. Some thug from a rival concern, no doubt. But it didn’t matter.
Minchev himself was a piece of shit.
Everybody around here was a piece of shit.
And all Charlie Coyle wanted to do was go home.
As the capo passed him for the door, Coyle turned and followed him back inside, staying just behind and to his right.
As they moved through the building, Coyle’s training took over. A four-month course in executive protection in London just two years earlier, a course he barely passed because he’d spent his evenings in his hotel room downing bottles of cheap Monkey Shoulder blended scotch when he should have been resting up and preparing for the next day’s challenges.
But now he was all business. Clocking corners, registering dark spaces, examining the hands and the eyes of the hotel employees, seeking information about any potential threat. His right hand hovered near his weapon, but he affected a guise of calm as he directed Minchev through an employee-only access door.
As they passed through the busy kitchen, Coyle and his protectee walking at a steady pace, Minchev turned to him. The Northern Irishman kept his focus on the path ahead and not the agitated Bulgarian’s face. “This asshole shows up,” Minchev said, “tells me he knows who I am, what I do. Says he needs to go to Russia, asks me to smuggle him in. I ask him what skills he has to repay me; he tells me about a job he did here in Bulgaria five years ago.”
Coyle didn’t care. He just took the man by the arm and directed him through a doorway that led to an old utility elevator that would take them right up to the top floor.
Minchev laughed a little now. “He tells me about a Russian spy who turned up floating in the Dambovita River in Bucharest, stabbed in theribs and the neck. The American says he did it. Asks me if I know about what happened.”
As they reached the service elevator, Minchev continued talking, his hyperagitation just getting on Coyle’s nerves now. “Yeah, I know about it. Police arrested the wrong man. A friend of mine went to prison for it, for what that American did.”
They stepped into the elevator now, and Charlie pulled the door closed, then hit the button for the top floor. The gears began grinding, the doors rattled back and forth in front of them as the pair traveled up a moment, and then Minchev spoke over the noise. “I told Videv to break both his legs and his jaw, then dump him in Priroden Park. Let that fuck crawl out of Bulgaria with his mouth wired shut.”
The young mafia man laughed at this, but Charlie did not; then they stood in silence.
To hell with all these assholes,Charlie thought, but he also thought of why he was here.
Three months. Pay bills. Get gone.
Sweat dripped from the Bulgarian’s face, and Charlie watched it splatter on the dusty wooden floor of the elevator car.
Finally, the doors rattled open.
