Free Levon's Trade (Levon Cade Book 1) by Chuck Dixon Page B

wraps on his wrists. He checked his pockets. Wallet and keys were gone. His long slide was probably in the sunken van as well.
    There were no rooftops or lights in sight. Only a lonely cell tower a few miles west. He started back up the road the way the van had come. His legs felt like he was dragging sacks of sand behind him. It would take a long hot soak and a long deep sleep to shake off the tazering.
    He had a long walk ahead of him before that could happen.

 
    Gunny Leffertz said:
    “Body counts don’t mean shit if they’re not the right bodies.”

28
----
    Two uniformed Tampa cops found Symon Kharchenko in the communal steam room at his bay view condo complex. He was with a pair of men of his approximate age. All three were covered in tattoos. Prominent on Symon’s chest was a snarling tiger. The three men were dressed only in the ropes of gold chains draped about their necks.
    The cops stood sweating in their body armor under their starched uniforms. They politely asked if Symon would get dressed and meet them by the pool. Symon twisted his lips and nodded to his
tovariches
before standing and exiting his naked ass out of the hot box.
    They weren’t arresting him. So it had to be bad news. He showered off, put on a robe and sandals and joined them in the sunshine by the pool.
    The cops told him what they came here to tell him. Symon’s granite façade shifted for only a second before regaining his usual impenetrable expression. He thanked the police officers and promised to cooperate with any further questions they may have in the future. The cops left for their patrol car and Symon took the elevator up to his one-level dacha on the eleventh floor.
    Once inside he fell to his knees in the deep pile carpet and wept into his fists while the sun sank over the golden waters visible through the window wall that overlooked the bay. The sky and water were dark and pearls of light along the shoreline were twinkling to life when he lowered his hands from his face. His eyes were red-rimmed and his lips pale. Though damp with his own tears, his expression had regained the density of a sphinx, unreadable and placid.
    Only now there was a heat in his eyes; a fire that would consume anything his gaze fell upon.
    He would swear to God and Jesus and all the saints that from this day forward his life was divided in two parts. All the days before this day and all the days that would follow. His life with his two boys and his life, from here, without them.
    The days left to him would be solely for finding answers. And once he found them, the rest of his life was God’s.
    But before that, he would get drunk.
    Symon made a single call on a cell phone while pouring his first tumbler of Platinka.
    “Find Dimi. Tonight.”
    He tossed the phone to a chair and took a long, burning pull of vodka.

 
    29
----
    He was hungry, horny and sober. Three conditions he found intolerable.
    Dmitry Kolisnyk tossed the remote across the room.
    Dimi to his family. Dean Collins to his friends.
    There was serious shit coming down and his Uncle Symon wanted to talk to him. They dragged him out of a strip club on 19 in the middle of a private session. All drama, these Old World assholes. Have to make a thing out of what could be accomplished over the phone.
    For now, he waited.
    He threw himself back in the king-sized bed and looked at himself in the mirrored ceiling. He wore Buccaneers warm-up pants and jacket. His gold crucifix glowed on his spray-tanned chest. He ran a hand over his gym-rat abs. No prison muscle for him.
    His father and his ‘uncles’ were proud of their years inside. They wore getting caught like a soldier wears his medals. Their ink told their story in a kind of illustrated code. Something they should all be ashamed of and they turned it into a club. Smart criminals didn’t get caught. Smart criminals skated. The only ink on Dimi was a Bacardi bat on his right forearm and a winged pixie with big tits on the other. Jesus, he was