Part 4 - Ivan: The Beanstalk

I rubbed my eyes. They were drier than a nun’s twat. Made a mental note to pick up a bottle of drops on the way home. Correction: I made a mental note to get the Giant to pick up a bottle of drops on the way home. I couldn’t be seen doing these things. I was supposed to be invincible, impermeable, imperturbable, well above the use of eyedrops for my eyes. The Beanstalk didn’t allow himself to be afflicted with such trivialities. Let others more unworthy deal with them. I was Ivan — I had other things on my mind.

I watched as the Giant beat a man to death. I could have joined in, but this was why I paid a man (a beast?) such as the Giant. I needed someone to do my dirty work for me, to be the brawn behind the brain, to be the jackboot behind my personal ideology. Anyway, I was too old to be using my fists in such a violent manner. I was хилый стариk: a frail old man. Too tall, too thin to act thus. There were those who say I smiled too kindly to be the vicious thug lord they’d eventually find out I was. It was not for me to discuss how I looked. I was who I was. Vicious when I needed to be;kind too, when the occasion called for it.But the way business had been these last few months, there had been precious few moments of kindness. Gretel had been the only light in these dark days; she’d been very good for business.People like Gretel stayed on my good side, provided they remained good for business.As long as Red kept her head down and did what I told her, then she and I would continue to have had what we called хорошие отношения: good relations. But the sun had gone down on our mutual agreement (not that Red knew what it was she’d agreed to) and now the FBI was involved. Hence the need for the Giant to beat this man to death. He was but the first on this evening’s list.

The reason for festivities was one-fold: I’d sent a boy to do a man’s job.

Actually, I’d sent four boys. Okay, they weren’t boys. Call them my associates if you must. They were too new to my organisation to be classed as anything beyond some rough thugs. The Giant had been with me since he arrived in New York from the Ukraine twelve years ago. It took him that length of time to become my second-in-command. He said little, but then he didn’t need to. The Giant was who he was. I sometimes thought he regretted his failure to conceal his steroid abuse, which led to him being kicked out of professional ice hockey. So now, instead of playing on ice, he put my enemies on ice. Sports loss became my gain. His, too.

Back to the boys. It’s not that I constantly needed cash to keep my operation going; it was more that I liked to keep myself occupied. I’d heard that a deal was going down East Side, so I sent Valery and four of his best new recruits to see what I could make out of it. Valery was — was — my third in charge. My principal source of income was women. If you wanted one or more, and you paid my price, I could get you the very best in whatever helped you to sleep at night. But now and again, I liked to get dirty with a little drug deal. Not only did it keep me occupied during a lull in business, but it allowed my boys to stretch their muscles. I couldn’t afford to have them too complacent.

I don’t know what went wrong, but Valery ended up dead. The four boys came back with their tails between their legs, thinking that they were lucky to get away with their lives. Look where that got them, huh? Right now, they’re wishing they were back on the Lower East Side; wishing they were taking whatever flak they were up against; wishing they were doing anything instead of waiting for the inevitable here in one of my warehouses. They were going to die tonight. Death is the only price I’d ever demanded for incompetency. I’d leave it to the Giant to work out the niceties. I just liked to watch a master at work.

Boy Number One was a crumpled and bloody heap on the floor, his face unrecognisable from thirty minutes earlier. The next on the list had soiled himself not once but twice and was whimpering busily into a dirty rag the Giant obligingly shoved into his mouth. His eyes knew only terror, and he turned to me, pleading for his life, for another chance to put things right, for mercy. I neither smiled nor frowned; my face didn’t make those motions any longer — not for years now. I merely shook my head and looked directly at the Giant, who grabbed hold of his new victim and squeezed him to jelly. I heard bones crack, saw blood seep out of the man’s nose and ears. Number One had gone limp, his screams fading away like ghosts, but the Giant hadn’t finished. He took the man’s skull and pressed, maintaining maintained pressure until boy number two’s eyes came out from their sockets. He died a good two minutes before this happened, though, which is a blessing of sorts, I suppose. For him. For the others, it was nothing but a nightmare.

The Giant let his second victim fall from his grasp. He spat on a man’s body, then took his хуй out and pissed on him. I liked that about the Giant: he knew how to make a point. He always did — even in pro hockey. He shook his hands dry, wiped them on his already blood-stained apron, and moved towards boy number three, a teenager, barely a beard on the boy. Nothing more than cunt hairs on his chin.

“Hold on,” I said, interrupting. The Giant looked at me. I rarely interrupted. No. I never interrupted. He seemed bemused, and dare I say it, annoyed with me having taken him away from his zone. “Let’s see what this one has to say for himself.”

The Giant nodded and removed the man’s boxer shorts from his mouth. Boy number three, sensing a chance for redemption of sorts on offer, began sobbing, muttering thanks between each gasping breath. I walked over to the quivering wreck and thumped him square on the jaw, breaking three or four of his teeth. I may be old, but thanks to the Giant’s ministrations, I can still — how you say? — pack a punch. Number Three drooled blood. I stepped aside, allowing him room to collect his thoughts.

“Whose fault is it that job wasn’t done?” I asked, not a sound in the expanse of the cavernous warehouse except my voice and the mewling of the failures.

Number Three shook his head and said something I couldn’t quite hear. I asked him the same question once more. This time I heard what he said. He blamed Number Two, who, by being dead, couldn’t defend himself. I smiled, more like a show of teeth, like a shark sensing blood and opening for the bite. I looked to Number Four who, luckily for him, had passed out with fear and/or shock. I turned again to Number Three and spit in his face.

“Трус!”

Coward!

I moved my index finger in a circle above my head. It was the signal for the Giant to move things along. He picked up the can of gasoline he’d brought and divided its contents between Number Three and a still comatose Number Four. Three opened his mouth to scream, but the Giant forced the boxer shorts back into the man’s mewling mouth. Once he was done, he nodded to me. I watched the little сука squirming, trying to escape. The chair toppled to more screaming, and I knelt beside him, his bleary eyes burning from the gasoline, took out my Zippo, and lit the boxer shorts.

It wasn’t long before the man was a human torch behind me. Number Four picked the worst time of his life to open his eyes, his last action before the flames engulfed him.

I didn’t bother to lock the door behind us. Two of my guys ducked inside to douse the fire; we couldn’t have all the merch burn.

Away from the stench, from the dirt and grime, the blood and screaming, I stood there, inhaling the night air, the sea and salt of the docks. Overhead, a dull moon gleamed down through lingering clouds.

“I need to see Gretel,” I said. “Something’s not right.”