“Like glass,” Gagarin responded as he stared at that Glock.
“Why?” Mick asked him.
“Money.”
“Why would a Russian Oligarch need money that badly?”
“I fell out of the good graces of Moscow years ago. That ship sailed long ago. I do odd jobs for a living now. They pay me millions, but they’re still odd jobs.”
“Such as?”
“Oh, let me see: Such as hiring that flash mob of young people to disrupt your wife’s opening night so that those hired gunmen could kidnap the son and/or wife of a legendary mob boss.”
Mick’s jaw tightened, but he kept his rage in check. “Why?”
“Because the man that hired me wants it all. And that meant toppling the top four. First, Monk Paletti, number three, had to be dealt with. Then number two Sal Gabrini. And then Teddy Sinatra. And then you.”
“Dealt with how?”
“That’s his business. I only do what my business requires.”
“What all have you done?” Mick asked him.
“I hired a gentleman to try and take out Teddy.”
They were all surprised. Teddy turned around and looked at Gagarin. Nikki looked through the rearview as she drove. “That car crash wasn’t an accident?” Teddy asked.
“Not in the least.”
“But that driver was so scared,” Nikki said.
“All an act,” said Gagarin.
Teddy and Nikki were floored.
“Go on,” said Mick.
“I had that beam fall from that scaffold at that construction site in Las Vegas. It was supposed to be all of the beams falling. At least the men I hired were supposed to rig itthat way. But only one beam fell. It was supposed to take out Sal Gabrini and his queer underboss Robby Yale. But that didn’t work either.”
“Go on.”
“And the kidnapping of course. That was the extent of my odd job thus far.”
Now the most important question. “Who hired you?” Mick asked him.
“Now you know, as a boss yourself,” Gagarin said, “that such is privileged information.”
Mick didn’t hesitate. He shot Gagarin in the balls.
Everybody in that car was shocked. But none as much as Gagarin himself. “You shot me!” he kept crying out as he held his balls with blood gushing out. “You shot me in the balls. You shot me!” Then he started yelling in Russian.
“Shut up,” Mick said. Then Mick angrily put the barrel of his Glock up against Gagarin’s temple. “Shut the fuck up!”
Gagarin was in so much pain that he had beads of sweat all over his forehead. But he fully understood who he was dealing with now. He managed to shut up.
“I am going to ask you one more time. Just one more. Who hired you? The Russian Mafia?”
“No.”
