Page 43 of One Minute Out

“What group?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does the pipeline lead?”

Niko just shrugs. “I do not know. The men who run it... they are somewhere else. I do not know. Not mob.” The bag stops moving, and it appears he is thinking for a moment. Then he says, “I don’t think mob. Not Serbian. All I know. It is business. Only business.”

“Only business?” I say with growing rage, and I realize I have to smack this asshole again, but this time, Corbu beats me to the punch. Literally. She appears on my left, charging forward, and she throws a crazy haymaker at Vukovic’s head.

The Romanian woman hits the Serb in the cheekbone, and I can tell by the sound of the impact that Talyssa Corbu is going to feel the strike a lot longer than Niko Vukovic.

She clutches her hand in pain, and I’m certain she’s regretting the first and only punch she’s ever thrown in her life. I pull her back a few feet. “Let me handle the rough stuff.”

Ignoring her injury, she says, “My sister.” She pulls out the photo and gives it to me with her uninjured hand.

I return to the police chief again. “I need you to look at a picture of a girl, and I need you to tell me, truthfully, if you have seen her.”

He snorts a laugh. “One of the whores? That’s what you want? One of the whores?”

“She’s not a whore!” Talyssa shouts, and she rushes forward again, swinging the same fist as before. I catch it before she makes contact, not for the prisoner’s benefit but for hers, and I spin her around and walk her back to the corner.

“Allow me,” I say, and I walk forward now and hammer Vukovic’s face with a left jab.

Speaking to Talyssa, he says, “They are all whores. Like you... whore.”

I slug him harder now, connect with his right cheekbone. His head pops back and I know he’s going to feel that all the way down his spine, because I feel it all the way up to my shoulder.

As his head hangs again I say, “I’m going to show you a picture.”

“Who cares? Who cares about this woman?”

“I do. Which means you’d better care, too.”

I put my balaclava back on and yank off his hood. He looks at the picture without any emotion as blood runs from his nose and mouth. “Never seen her,” he says.

I can’t tell if he’s being truthful, but I push him. “You’re lying again, and you are trying my patience.”

He shakes his head once more. “No. I don’t have time to look at all the property.”

I bet he takes time to do more than that with the prisoners. I ball up a fist but calm myself and hold it back, deciding to try another tactic. Taking the picture from him, I say, “You are worried about what I will do to you now, but maybe you should worry about whoever it was who sent the Hungarians after you.”

He looks at me with confusion, his nose and mouth dripping blood. “Hungarians?”

“Three assassins were outside your building last night. I stopped them before they got to you.” When he says nothing I add, “You’re welcome.”

“Lie,” he says. “I have no problems with Hungarians.”

“I could be wrong,” I say, “but I’m guessing someone high above you in all this wants to send a message to other little people in the pipeline about the price of failure. They brought these guys in from another gang.”

Niko does not respond for a long time. Finally, he whispers, “Pitovci.”

Talyssa leans into my ear and whispers, “Slovakian mafia. From up north in Bratislava.”

“How do you know this?”

“When I worked for the Romanian federal prosecutor’s office we dealt with them. They are active in Bucharest.”

To Vukovic I say, “But the Slovakian mafia didn’t order the hit on you, did they? Somebody else is pulling their strings.”

---