So, Oleg is in the city? But why?
“What about that man over there?” I ask, pointing at Arkady.
“Belov?” the club manager says. “Is the old fool involved in this mess too?”
I give him a look. The manager sighs. “I never saw them interacting. Belov is mostly caught up in poker and girls. He likes them young.”
I wince in disgust. Didn’t expect any better from him.
“Okay what else?”
“He was spooked,” the manager says. “Not drunk-spooked. Real spooked. Kept asking if anyone had seen him come in. Kept saying he should’ve left the city when he had the chance.”
That sounds like Oleg.
A man who spent his whole life confusing cowardice with timing.
I ask a few more questions, get a street in Red Hook, a warehouse that used to belong to one of Oleg’s shipping fronts, and a marina name I haven’t heard in years.
Once we finish up, I wait.
Mikhail is at the bar. Two of my men are near the stairs. I wait until Arkady excuses himself and heads for the private corridor before I follow.
He hears me before he sees me, spinning around to meet my gaze. “Roman.”
“Arkady.”
He smiles, and the smile is a mistake. “Enjoying yourself?”
“No.”
That wipes it away.
We’re alone in the corridor except for the bass thudding through the wall and one girl at the far end fixing her lipstick in a mirror and pretending she can’t see us.
Arkady clears his throat. “If this is about lunch, I assure you, Sergei arranged that, not me.”
“I know.”
His brows lift.
That’s the truth. He’s too stupid and too eager to be the architect of anything. He may know things. He may carry messages. But he’s not the center of this. He’s one more greasy little satellite.
I step closer. “So let’s make this simple.”
Arkady swallows. “All right.”
“Stay away from Katerina.”
The relief on his face is almost insulting. “That’s all?”
“For now.”
He laughs a little, the kind weak men do when they think danger has turned into vanity and they understand vanity.
“I had no idea she’d made such an impression.”
I grab him by the front of his jacket and slam him lightly but firmly into the wall. Not enough to injure him, but enough to remind him what kind of conversation this actually is.
