Page 81 of Vasily the Nail

It’s nothing special, just a manila envelope stuffed with an inch-thick stack of paper. I watch over his shoulder as Artyom shuffles through it, and just as Hector said, it appears to be deeds to Irish properties. Over a dozen, most with addresses I don’t recognize offhand, but there’s one I catch immediately.

It’s a small apartment complex, only about twenty units, that’s been an issue for us as long as I can remember. It’s technically on our side of the line between us and the IRA, but the IRA have controlled it since before the lines were drawn. It was a negotiation chip of a by-gone era, when our uncle was hammering out a peace agreement. The street was ours, but we let them keep that.

Artyom casts a look at me, but I’m not sure what he’s trying to convey. I just see that, at the bottom, there’s the sloppy signature of the owner signing the property over but no buyer listed.

I don’t get it.

The last page of the stack is a note. It’s typed up and printed, and just like Hector said, it’s in Russian. It’s a short message, I’m guessing copied and pasted from a translation service.

“V obmen na bezopasnyy marshrut cherez Flagstaff,”Artyom reads aloud in Russian.“Ty reshayesh, kak eto razdelit’.”

In exchange for a safe route through Flagstaff. You decide how to divide it.

“Well shit,” I mutter. “I don’t like that at all.”

Artyom shakes his head grimly. “What are these places?” he asks Hector. “Who sent this?”

“They arranged a meeting this afternoon. Allesandro met up with Murphy and was given this.”

Allesandro.I don’t like the guy, but I tell myself it’s just because he ratted me out to my brother about the heroin last week. And the fact that he was breaking the sort of stupid law that brings down an entire syndicate. But I look around and don’t see him, and I really don’t like that.

“I sent him back out to see if he could rustle up some IRA guys,” Hector explains before I have the chance to ask. He points to the stamp that’s under one of the signatures on each document. “They’re all notarized. He witnessed it. These deeds are legit, but I still didn’t like this.”

“Agreed,” Artyom says with a rigid nod, his lips tight. Everyone’s nervous. I stuff my hands in my pockets to keep from fidgeting, which has one of Hector’s guys easing a hand toward his gun.

I can’t fucking wait to be done with this shit.

Maybe I’ll hear the voices less in Denver.

Maybe I won’t need to balance coke out with Xanax in order to keep myself from exploding.

Maybe I won’t get an ulcer from the stress by 30.

Maybe worrying about bills and school districts and which cardboard can be recycled will be easier.

Maybe I can give Ana the life she deserves.

“What’s that note say?”

Artyom translates it for Hector, and he doesn’t feel any better about it than we do.

“I hate this,” one of Hector’s men grumbles, and it’s enough for us to all take a deep breath and relax enough to think. We all bust out our phones and sit down, five big guys squeezing into a booth for four, but we’re driven now, checking out what all these addresses are.

In addition to the apartment complex, there are a few warehouses in nice locations, a beauty salon, a café, and an actual laundromat, which are all used for money laundering, and a truck stop they can’t operate if they can’t traffic, anyway.

The rest is residences. We’re holding the deeds to roughly twenty-five families’ homes, and I don’t like that. One thing that everyone in Flagstaff seems to agree on is leaving the private lives of civilians alone.

“We need to check these places out,” Artyom says.

“Now,” Hector agrees.

We don’t usually work this closely with the Calaveras, but there’s no discussion, no argument. Everyone takes a stack and makes some calls, hunting down people to drive by the addresses and figure out what’s going on. I take the opportunity to call home, just to soothe my nerves some. Dima answers immediately, and even that stresses me some.

“You home, brother? You okay? Is Ana okay?”

“Uhh, yeah, she’s sitting right next to me. Braiding my hair.” Dima has a buzz cut, so that’s a joke, but I’m pretty sure the rest of it was serious. He switches to Russian for, “Why are you asking, though?”

Good man, there. Doesn’t want to alarm Ana. He respects her. I appreciate that. “Shit’s happening. I don’t know what. Just stay there, okay? I have a fucked feeling about tonight.”

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