Bob started to make a little speech. About his loyalty to both the company and to Lee personally. About how he was a person who could keep secrets. About how he had been keeping secrets for years. But that he had always thought that knowing where the bodies were buried was a metaphor.
Instead, he just pointed downward.
Hands behind his back, Elkins leaned forward. “Hmmm. Dobbins? Go back to town, I’ll call you when I need you.” He turned his headand looked at Bob.
Bob nodded. But he wasn’t going back to town. He was going back to Saugus. He was changing his name, his wife’s name, and their kids’ names. He was moving to Alaska. He was running and would be happy to keep running because he had a feeling the only reason he wasn’t joining the bodies in that hole in the ground right then was that Elkins wanted to talk to Lee first.
James Elkins took photos of the bodies as a group and then individually, climbing carefully down into the pit to ensure picture quality.After, back out of the hole, he used a very highly placed connection from his days as a fixer for a cartel in Albania cross-referenced with another former coworker in Sydney and was able to identify the two men whose faces were still mostly intact.
All of this happened in less than fifteen minutes. James, despite a lack of ego, did take a certain amount of pride in being the sort of person that no one in their right mind would ever keep waiting. That, in fact, most people would happily move past the speed of light to do whatever he asked so that they could get away from him as quickly as possible.
After confirming his intel with a quick check-in with a reporter who was an expert in Italian crime families, James sent the images and his information to Lee Ville.
Moments later, he received a call back. An excited babble of words, half in a bad version of a Texas accent, the rest in a tense but more natural Boston Brahmin one, fell out of his phone. After he let Mr. Ville wear himself down, he responded.
“Yes, sir.I agree. I think this is just the opportunity we have been hoping for. I am reasonably confident that soon Mr. Davies won’t be our problem any longer.”
After listening to Mr. Ville’s triumph for a few moments more, James prepared to sign off, then added, “Also, I think it would be best if I terminated Mr. Dobbins’ contract… Of course, very quick, sir.”
Fiadh…
Dmytro Kovalenko was one of a type of criminal Ihad dealt with many times and always enjoyed my association with.He was a throwback, a pirate at heart who would rather be raiding forts, firing blunderbusses, and finding secret islands and lost coves, yet had, in a very practical Ukrainian way, accepted his fate of being born into an era of satellite tracking and identity theft. I was certain he knew my friend Viktoria, which I planned on confirming as soon as I could.
He had arrived at the Davies Family Ziggurat somewhere before dawn, with a bottle of cheap, black rum and a worried look on his face, banging on the door and shouting in Ukrainian, a language that I knew all but none of, though I could recognize.
Apparently Alec knew enough and recognised the voice, so rather than pulling a gun and going down to shoot whoever was making the ruckus, he had rubbed his face hard, and told me to stay in bed whilst pulling on the designer jeans and henley (yes, there are such things as designer henleys, costing hundreds of euros, fuck my life) we’d left on the floor earlier.
His revelation, his choice to share with me a thing he didn’t have to, a story that was clearly choking the life out of him, had led us to bed and to an act that was closer to love-making than either of our cold hearts had probably come before.Afterwards we lay in each other’s arms and spoke about inconsequential things. Our favorite books and snacks, what we liked to do on a quiet Sunday morning, the first bands we’d ever followed as if it were religion, ending up falling asleep in a comfortable knot of limbs.
I gave him a minute's lead before ignoring him and getting dressed myself.
From the stairs I could see and hear him speaking Ukrainian, trying to calm down a man who lookedlike he had a bear somewhere in his 23&Me profile.
“What’s the rumpus, then?” I asked, not ashamed to be nosy even if it wasn't always the safest way to live.
“I thought I told you to stay in bed,” Alec frowned at me, even as the other man pulled his features into a charming smile.
“We’ve clearly not met if you think you have a say over anything I do.My name is Fiadh Cassidy,” I said to Alec, putting out my hand to shake.
He ignored it with a scowl, whilst the man I was assuming was a friend or at least a close ally, stepped forward.
“Alec,yakyy u tebe mylyy hist,how lovely you are,”he said over his shoulder, before taking my hand and bowing over it. “Pardon the interruption, Madam Cassidy, I am afraid it couldn’t wait until a more civilized hour.”
Before he could plant a kiss on the back of my hand, Alec busted between the two of us, unlinking our hands in the process, whilst walking towards the kitchen, “I need a cappuccino or five, and you can probably use one, too, Dmytro, if you’ve been drinking that sweetened paint thinner all night. I don’t suppose I can keep you away, short of violence, can I?” he asked me rhetorically so I didn’t bother to respond.
The only thing in the kitchen that Alec knew how to use was the massive, vintage brass espresso machine that had its own counter and a specialist that came over from Milan once a month to give it tune up and cleaning.
God save us from the rich.
It did make a very fine coffee, though.
We sat about the kitchen table, a piece of furniture Alec had never used himself before I came to stay with him, each with a steaming cup. Dmytro doctored his with rum, gesturing to each of us with the bottle.
I took a tot and was a bit surprised when Alec said no, based on the story we’d heard from Kovalenko whilst he had been making his caffeinated magic.It was enough to make an angel do a shot and the good Lord knew that Alec was certainly from the other place.
It was the story of a legitimate businessman - whatever the fuck that might be - who had been trying to make contact with the darkest part of the organized crime world for several weeks but had been having little luck. He wanted to outsource a bit of murder that needed to not look like a murder, since when he’d tried using his own people for the job they had fucked up it good and hard.
Our ol’ friend Leevil stank to high heaven of being chaotic and more trouble than he was worth. Even members of the filthiest, evilest, or most desperate criminal organizations out there would have nothing to do with him. Hell, even the Graham family from Greenock who were properly terrifying and would do just about anything for the price of a case of Irn Bru and a carton of smokes shook him off.
