Page 42 of Into the Fire

They logjammed at the rear entrance, the bouncer types eyeing everyone and shooing them all quickly inside toward the cafeteria. The young men around Evan held up their cell phones with e-mailed invitations, but the bouncers barely checked them.

Evan brought up the photo of Ida’s necklace and waved it past the nose of the nearest bouncer, timing it when the man’s attention was split between two other gamblers.

He was ushered through.

As he passed, he brushed up against the bouncer, bump-frisking him. No gun, which confirmed Evan’s suspicion that they were low-level rented muscle.

A few more bouncers were positioned along the walkway, herding people toward the cafeteria. Evan could hear a buzz of voices inside, the crowd preparing for the fight.

He walked past the open doors, catching a glimpse of the space. Stacked bleachers framed what looked to be a sunken court in the center. The flooring had been torn up, an arena dug into the earth itself, a street-fighting competition that was literally underground. From the doorway Evan couldn’t see the bottom of the pit. The bleachers were about a third filled. The rest of the attendants mobbed a betting station formed of folding tables.

Evan kept on past the open door, turning the corner sharply and backing to the wall when he heard someone approaching. One of the bouncers swept past, carrying a shrink-wrapped block of hundred-dollar bills. That helped fill in the picture of how Terzian generated the huge amounts of cash he’d been laundering.

Once the bouncer’s footsteps faded, Evan stole to the front office building, where Terzian and his three lieutenants had holed up, conveniently segregated from the others.

There was no guard out front. The door was unlocked. Here in his domain, Terzian the Terror was confident.

As Evan eased inside, he heard voices in the back. He breezed through the lobby.

In a glass-walled conference room, the four men sat in a row behind a table. An expansive one-way mirror of a window overlooked a concrete path and the cafeteria beyond. Before each man was an old-fashioned phone and an open ledger. They were all on calls, receivers pressed to their faces, scribbling notes, their sleeves cuffed up to display the patterned scars beneath.

The big bets, coming in telephonically.

Before the men, steam misted from comically delicate espresso demitasses. The man on the right end, Raffi, sipped beer from a green bottle.

As Evan strode through the door, none of them looked up.

Terzian called out, “Are my fighters ready?”

Evan said, “I’m not sure.”

In concert the four men lifted their heads. In another context the coordinated reaction might have been funny, a disruption at ye olde-fashioned switchboard. Terzian moved the phone slowly away from his face, the person on the other end squawking until he cradled the receiver.

The others followed suit.

Terzian crossed his arms, the cuffed sleeves bulging over his ribboned forearms. “I thought you were my boy Big Papa.”

Evan said, “He couldn’t make it.”

The phones started up again, ringing at uneven intervals.

Raffi took a slug of Stella Artois. He was the largest of the men, barrel-chested and tall. “Ah. He’s somewhere having his fun? Big Papa’s a dirty dog. Out there humping legs.”

To his left, Serj said, “Or women.”

Yeznig chimed in, “Same difference.”

They chuckled.

But Terzian did not smile. His mouth pouched, wrinkling his lips.

The phones kept on, an unnerving cacophony. In the background a faint rumble came on, the roar of the crowd warming up.

Terzian said, “You here for the fight?”

Evan said, “Not that fight.”

Terzian’s hand moved beneath the table. The Kydex holster felt cool pressing against Evan’s appendix through his gray undershirt. His Woolrich button-up hung just loosely enough that no one would be able to tell if he was carrying.