Thirteen Million Dollar Pop by David Levien Read Free Book Online

receiving the gift—if that’s what it was. The reason for that was it had made him
uncomfortable
. A few thousand bucks’ worth of cabernet—on one hand it was uncalled for. It was more than was necessary. Behr had been doing his job, what he was paid to do, and he’d been protecting his own ass too. On the other hand, what kind of gesture was it from a rich man such as Kolodnik? Did a man like Bernie Cool think the value would be lost on someone like him, or that he’d be overwhelmed by it? It seemed the case of wine and the note was supposed to put final punctuation on the matter. But was it a thank-you or was it grease?
    Behr picked up his kettlebell and retook his starting position on the ground, lifting the weight overhead. He sucked in a deep breath and climbed to his feet. He didn’t know much about the Turks, or what had pissed them off enough to create something as nasty as their get-ups, but by the end of the set there’d be nothing in his head except blinding white pain. He lunged and rolled back to the ground and tried not to extend the pause.
    Get the hell up, Frank
, Behr told himself again, and he did. He kept on getting back to his feet.

12
    Altgeld Gardens—Alligator Garden as the locals called it—was a place that struck fear into the hearts of white Chicagoans. Waddy Dwyer knew that, and it followed naturally that that’s where he was. He needed weaps, and he couldn’t be buying them from the Walmart. That’s why he’d called his contact and had come here. Besides, he’d been outside the Green Zone in Baghdad after dark. He’d walked the streets of Al Mazraa in Beirut. He’d done solo night ops in Grozny, Chechnya, so the pair of blackies in front of him was hardly going to make his knees quake.
    “Have you got H and K? Or SIG?” Dwyer asked.
    “Nah, man,” the kid answered. The kid was lean, maybe eighteen years old, and was named Blaze. That’s whom he was supposed to ask for, anyway, according to his contact. He’d approached the kid in front of the cluster of decrepit government-built row houses.
    “Are you him?” Dwyer had asked.
    “I’m Blaze, as in Johnny Blaze,” the kid had said, whatever the fuck that meant. “You the English guy?”
    “I’m a
Welshman
,” Dwyer corrected pointlessly.
    The kid had shrugged and started walking toward one of the buildings. Dwyer followed and another kid, a big one with a black nylon stocking on his head, had fallen in behind.
    Now they were all crammed into a small, airless storage roomthat smelled of old marijuana and was filled with pressboard desks and other cheap furniture.
    “Look, look, look, we don’t got no high-end SIGs and shit. We got Taurus. We got these Colts …”
    Dwyer shook his head. He didn’t love his choices.
    “We also got this AK …” Blaze pointed to a battered weapon that looked as if it’d been recovered from a cave in Waziristan.
    Dwyer shook his head. Tempting though it was to wrap his hands around the familiar wood grips of a Kalashnikov, he couldn’t see himself waltzing around U.S. cities with an assault rifle.
    “What’s your personal gun, then?” Dwyer wondered.
    “My personal gun?” Blaze asked back.
    “That’s right. You’re armed, aren’t you?”
    “Yeah, I’s motherfucking armed.”
    Blaze lifted the basketball T-shirt that went down to his knees and showed the butt of some kind of chromed-out heavy-caliber automatic. It was exactly the kind of flashy nonsense Dwyer didn’t need. At least now he knew what the kid was holding when it came time for them to try and rob him.
    “Lovely,” he said. “Let me look at the Colt.” Blaze handed it over and Dwyer was pleased to see that it was a .45 ACP, but that the make was actually Česká Zbrojovka. The CZ 97 B was a good gun, not off the Springfield production line, and had a smoother action and better balance than those did. Dwyer didn’t bother asking how they’d come up with a Czech-made gun, as he quickly racked the slide,