“My love, get what you wish. Jeweller is friend of family. But for me, be back for dinner, yes?”

Sergei Reznovsky dragged a rough hand through his thinning hair and caught the eye of his driver in the rear view. He covered his cell-phone, leaned his large frame forward and whispered.

“Drop me at door, Boleslav. I check on the girls.”

His driver gave an obedient nod from beneath his cap. He could hear the young Mrs Reznovsky’s distant Slavic screeching but experience and loyalty taught him to keep his mouth shut and do what he was told. He flicked the indicator of the black Jaguar and slowed to weave through the afternoon traffic around Hyde Park.

“My dearest, as many as you desire. Just not so many of the charms, yes? Less is more my love, okay…? Okay.” Sergei hung up and sat back against the air-conditioned leather.

“Your wife back at four o’clock, sir?” Boleslav asked. He swung a wide left and descended into the private underground garage. “Can I assume you want the girls…?”

“Undressed and by the pool,” Sergei said. “Some relaxation before tonight.”

The long car purred in the half-light of the cool garage, as Boleslav pulled it to rest between a vintage Porsche and a ’66 Chevrolet Corvette. Doffing his cap, he swiftly opened the passenger door and his boss strode purposefully to the private lift and up to the cavernous gold and oak of his hallway.

“Mitzy?” Sergei’s voice echoed against the high panelled ceiling. “Claudia? Sorry I leave you…” Squeaking in hand-tooled brogues, Sergei moved past huge paintings and chiselled marble, heaving his powerful frame upstairs towards the bedroom. “Girls…?”

Peering into bedroom after bedroom, calling their names, he made his way down the panelled hall. He came to the cavernous master suite with a coy and heavily accented “peek-a-boo?”

Nothing.

Brow furrowed, he turned to check the garden when he spotted something was wrong. The door of his gleaming en suite bathroom was ajar, most of the pale blue marble floor tiles shining with fresh polish.

But not all.

“Girls…?” he whispered, swallowing, feeling his hands chill. Sergei moved across the tiger-skin rug to the door where a dark stain was spreading its thick fingers between the grouting. He pushed the heavy oak door wide.

Sergei Reznovsky’s face went pale.

The oligarch had seen the mess his wife made in the bathroom many times. Home drunk after a society party, the red of her rouge smudging the dust of bath talc in a sludgy pink mess.

This was similar. But with four key, terrifying differences.

Two of the differences lay dead, their skirts twisted and askew, faces down on the tile with limbs buckled beneath them.

The other two differences?

That red wasn’t rouge.

And that powder wasn’t talc.

“Let me say hello to the birthday boy.”

“Imogen, I got an arm full of your aprons, around two hundred napkins, a week’s worth of tablecloths and I still gotta’ get the balloons,” I said. “See, this is what I meant. If you’d take him to the zoo, you could spend the whole–”

“Not again Frank. Father-son time, you promised.”

“But I got people to see, honey. I love you both but if you’d take–”

“And who’s going to run the cafe if I’ve got him, hmm?”

“Fine, forget it, I know,” I sighed. Hefting the canvas bag of laundry onto one shoulder with my cell phone wedged under my chin, I started backing out of the busy dry cleaners with the stroller. Our son wriggled and squirmed in his new starchy dungarees. “Oh, and he don’t like the new outfit by the way.”

“I’m not having this conversation...”

“A little leather jacket, s’all I’m saying. Bit of suede. He’d look cute.”

“He’d look like his dad, and we’re trying to keep the family traits to a minimum, remember?”

I struggled the stroller out into the afternoon sunshine. Bits of morning cupcake crumbs and party-popper were still stuck to the front wheel. I looked over to where I’d parked the van, hazard lights winking.

A figure leaned its tall wiry frame against the passenger door.

Not someone I wanted to see. I carried on talking into the phone.

“Immy, you know how I hate to say goodbye–”

“Okay, but don’t forget. Balloons, streamers and a tablecloth.”

“I got all the cafe tablecloths here. Can’t we just–”

“He likes tigers. Get something with a tiger. What time will I see you?”

“Zoo for lunch, we’ll be back at four thirty for cake, candles and cuddles. Love ya lots. I gotta go.”

“Just hold the phone up to him one more time.”

The figure by the van waved and smiled.

“We’ll see ya tonight honey,” I said and hung up with a sigh.

See, I hate farewells. Don’t know what it is. Something uneasy about them. Of course, if you knew my past – which right now, unless you’re in the FBI, you don’t – you’d say it’s got something to do with not knowing if the guy I’m bidding adieu to is ever coming back. I’ve ‘sayonara’d’ a lot of folks I never saw around again. Who no-one ever saw around again, beyond some asphalt workers and the fish under the Brooklyn Bridge.

“Once a launderer, always a launderer,” the guy by the van hollered in a voice too loud for a remark like that. I crossed the road and threw the laundry bag into the back of the van.

“Tableware, Paulie,” I said, pushing the stroller into the Hallmark store opposite. “Legitimate cafe. Legitimate chores.” The door gave a ting of a bell. Paulie followed, still talking.  I knew he would.

“Not interested in how I found you? Guys at home–”

“I’m still on the leash Paulie,” I said. The store was quiet. Aisles of balloons and buttons and bunting. Some Disney tune dribbled like syrup from the ceiling tiles. “It’s a long leash, but I’m tied none the less. Now, where the hell are the tigers?”

“S’just a coupl’a things,” Paulie said softly. He followed at my shoulder about the aisles of cards as I searched. “First up. We gotta lose a piece.”

“Jesus. Fuckin’ soccer,” and I gestured like a Jewish mother at the racks of greeting card assholes in shiny shorts. “S’no wonder this fuckin’ country… Call these role models? Rollin’ around like babies. Aww referee, my poor little shin. Free goal please!”

“It’s free kick. You listening to me?”

“Babe Ruth, now that’s a hero. Frankie?” I looked down at my son, all strapped in like a NASCAR driver. “Don’t tell your mom, but we’re gettin’ you a baseball.”

“Frank, listen to me,” and Paulie jerked my sleeve. “The hit’s gone down.”

“File it, wipe it, weight it and stick it in the Thames,” I said. “And stop bringin’ this shit to my door. Family ain’t my problem anymore, Paulie.”

“Right, right. You’re all freelance now, or whatever you call it. What gives with that?”

“Less time with you, Paulie.” I grabbed up a half dozen bags of coloured balloons from a peg. “Streamers? Where would they keep streamers?”

“But see, this is a clean-up. Your speciality. Mikey wants the hit pinned on another family. We thought you–”

“Forget it,” I said, pushing the stroller and filling a basket.

“Want me to tell the bosses at home you said that? You’re still one of us Frank and you know it.” He looked me up and down. “Looks like your tailor knows it too. You ever take off that jacket?”

“Go away Paulie.”

“I can call Mikey in New York? He finds out you said no, he’ll–”

“Mikey and me are square. Two years, I’m out.”

“No-one’s ever out, Frank.”

“Plus, I made a deal,” I said.

“With your wife? C’mon, tell the bitch - ow Jesus Christ!”

Which is the sort of thing Paulie says when you crack him hard across the temple with a tightly wrapped roll of tiger-stripe wrapping paper.

He stepped away, angry at me, angry at himself.

“So much for your deal,” he scowled, rubbing his head.

“The deal is, she don’t ask questions as long as I stay out of the old ways and don’t do anything messy, if you know what I mean,” I whispered. “I’m still allowed to kick your ass, Paulie. That’s personal and got nothin’ to do with my past. But mob days are over. That’s our deal. Mikey knows, I keep your secrets and you keep out of my–”

I stopped. My cell-phone was ringing.

My business phone.

“Look, Frankie, you gonna help us with the thing?” Paulie said, straightening up. I tugged the handset out.

“No,” I said. I flipped open the cell. Not a number I knew. Which meant only one thing.

The zoo was going to have to wait.

“Lombardi Repairs?” I said.

The voice was Russian. The guy sounded all over the place, which they usually are.  Otherwise they wouldn’t be calling me.

“Mr Lombardi, you can help me please?”

 “Maybe, what’s the story?” Today of all days. But hey, business is business.

“The girls, Mr Lombardi, the girls, they are dead, in the bathroom.  And my wife, she is coming home.”

“You the guy I spoke to on the phone?” I asked as we climbed the wide staircase.

“Yes, and this is my driver, Boleslav,” Sergei said. The driver said nothing. “You are not…as expected Mr Lombardi.”

I get this a lot. Could be the jeans, could be the accent. In this case, could have been the stroller I’d left by the door, Frankie Jnr napping, bags of tiger wrapping paper and balloons slung on the handles. Or maybe it’s ‘coz I’m six foot tall and about the same across the shoulders.

But it’s usually the jacket.

“You expected a baseball cap, boiler suit and a business card? Not very discreet.”

“I expected a professional,” he said as we rounded the top of the stairs and moved down the landing to the bedroom.

“Which is what you got. You said there were two?”

I stepped back and let the big Russian lead the way. His driver stood and watched me, muscles in his jaw flexing. We clearly weren’t going to be pals. Chances are, me being here was stepping on his toes. If he’s just Sergei’s driver then I’m the King of England.

The bedroom was about as big as my apartment and whoever had designed it had clearly had a lot of gold and oak they’d needed to get rid of in a hurry.

“In there,” the Russian said.

I took a moment and tugged out my notebook.

“Questions first. What are their names?”

The driver snarled a little. “What difference - ”

“Names, Mr Reznovsky,” I said, ignoring the driver. I hovered my pen over my notebook.

“Mitzy and Claudia,” Sergei said. He was still eyeing my jacket.

“And what time is your wife returning?”

“Four o’clock.”

Hundred minutes, I jotted in my illegible handwriting.

“Right,” I said. I took a breath and moved to the bathroom door. It wasn’t nerves, hell I’ve been doing this too long. Just preparing myself to take it all in. Every detail.

I swung the door open and looked down at the mess on the tiles.

I took in every detail.

“You fuckin’ kidding me?” I said. “Sergei–”

“He is Mr Reznovsky to you,” the driver growled, stepping forward, clearly trying to justify his presence.

“Excuse me, Lada?”

“My name is Boleslav Krestovozdvizhensky.”

“Yeah, I know. Congratulations. Big win at Scrabble. But we got a little over an hour and a half before your employer’s wife shows up. I call you Boleslav Kresto-whateverthefuck-ovich every time I want something, we’re gonna be here till midnight. You’re Russian. You drive a car.  You’re Lada. Now, Lada, wanna explain why no-one thought to mention that Mitzy and Claudia are dogs?”

They lay, top to tail, across the blood soaked tiles, not so much the high-class call girls I was expecting as…well fuckin’ mutts. They were small. Thick, soft fur with teddy bear faces. They’d probably been cute. Once. But uncut coke ain’t really a best of breed diet. And a chin caked with coppery coughed-up, dried blood ain’t a look that Crufts are handin’ out prizes for. The remains of a polythene bag and nuzzled flaky powder still dappled with nose and paw prints lay by the toilet.

Lada was yelling in broken English at his boss. I didn’t get much of it, if I’m honest. Trust, help, something about strangers. Sergei raised a large hand and silenced him. He turned to me.

“Mr Lombardi,” he said. “You have done work for my good friend Yegor. You have a reputation. He says you fix anything.” His lips spat the words out. “Expert in these…situations. Someone he says I can trust.” Again, the word curled in his mouth like three week old milk. “But who do I get at my door? Some squeamish two dollar yank with a pram, dressed like a cowboy.”

I looked at him. I looked at myself.

This was harsh. I’ve lived in England for near enough two years. Put up quietly with the fact you can’t get a meal in a restaurant after ten o’clock. That you gotta queue to get on the Queen’s subway. And no-one here can make coffee for shit. So I choose to wear a little reminder of home on my shoulders?

Sue me.

“I am not so sure,” Sergei went on, folding his wide arms across the great barrel of his chest, “your reputation is not just so much, as you would say, Hollywood hype.”

I faced the Russian, clicking the bones in my neck a little, and stared at him.

He stared back.

Long ago, we in America were the eagles and they – the Russians – were the bears. Don’t know what you Brits were. Sheep? Fuck it, whatever. Now that suited us both. Eagles: sharp eyed, fast and majestic. Bears: slow, lumbering but still capable of taking your head off. Two killer beasts, facing each other down. Of course, after we thawed the cold war out, barbequed communism and put a KFC in St Peter’s Square, the Russians lost some of that fierce, mighty, bearlike poise.

Nobody it seemed, however, had told Sergei Reznovsky.

“Sergei. Listen to me,” I said briskly.

He seemed to growl from within his square jaw. I kept going.

“You called me ‘coz you know what I’ve done and you know what I can do. They said I don’t ask no questions because you’re right, I don’t give four fucks for your business, your billions or how many times your people had to suck Yeltsin’s cock to get either.”

Thunder rolled across Sergei’s face. As I confidently expected it would.

“But I’m guessing these are your wife’s beloved pets, right? And she’ll be home to find them – or what’s left of them - in,” and I checked my watch, “ninety nine minutes. So you have a pretty messy problem cloggin’ up your bathroom that was not in any way the clean-up I was led to expect. And I’m also guessing you love your wife and ain’t in the mood for nineteen divorce lawyers with decrees in their briefcases and overtime on their mind. My reputation, however, is well earned. So listen up.”

Sergei pulled back his wide shoulders and flexed his paws. At his side, Lada squeezed his arm to his side, as if checking something he’d put under his jacket this morning was still there.

And still loaded.

“You will give me a complete top to bottom tour of this house. Every room, every safe, every secret fuckin’ compartment. Understand? For the next hour and a half I am in charge of you, your staff, this building and any other thing I might need. You don’t argue, you don’t hesitate and you don’t ask questions. This is what I do and I’m very fuckin’ good at it. You don’t like that? You want to leave it to Lada here?” and I flicked a look at the driver, “Then I suggest you show him the mop closet and I leave you fellas to it.”

The room fell quiet. Both men stared at me. It was pretty clear neither had been spoken to like this in a very long time and were both wondering whether or not I was full of shit.

Again, I get that a lot.

“Agreed,” Sergei said with a nod, and that seemed to be that.

But of course, it wasn’t.

“But understand this Mr Cowboy,” he said.

Next time I swear I’m gonna wear another jacket.

“My wife is beautiful, but not forgiving. I will not lose her or lose half of all I have just because your plan fails.”

I took a second to muse that half of all the money in the world was still a pretty comfy fuckin’ lifestyle, but I let that go because he was pointing a thick business-like finger in my face.

“You will have what you ask, and in turn, you will fix this. Or I hold you responsible. Do not make me explain what failure will mean to you. Or your family,” and he threw a look out at the hallway.

I followed his look, then stared back at them both. Lada did what I can only imagine he thought was a smile. Charming. But I was in now; the only realistic way forward was to get the job done and not screw up.

“Then let’s take the tour. We got ninety eight minutes.”

The upstairs tour took longer than it should have. Sergei, with Lada walking three steps and four snarls behind, led me from room to room as I asked them irritating questions about valuables, alarm systems, artwork and furniture. See, in my business you’re much better knowing too much than not enough. A lesson learned the hard way. Once you’ve had your head held underwater in a septic tank by two ex-IRA guys because you had a 12 noon return time mixed up with 12 midnight, you learn to focus on the little details.

By two forty, we were back in the bedroom and my notebook was full.

I knelt down beside the messy remains of Mitzy and Claudia.

“What breed are they?”

“Chow Chow Tibetan Mastiff,” Lada said. “Cross.”

“If you dressed me up like that, so would I be. What’s with the outfits?”

“She dress them up. Little jackets and so on she has made. Satin, sequins. Doggy Designs of Belgravia. She take photographs. Send them as Christmas gifts. They are her children.”

This much I knew.

The tour had told me a lot about what I had to work with and what Sergei Reznovsky was worth but it was the artwork that had driven the message home. Pooch portraits, marble mongrels and puppy porcelain hung on every wall and sat squat on every sideboard. I swear to God, If Elvis has been a Dachshund, this is what Graceland would’a looked like. I’d stopped and asked Sergei about the only bit of art I’d seen without a dog in it, a large Monet in the study. He’d explained it was his. And his wife kept telling him it would be nicer with a dog in it.

“And what’s her routine?” I asked quickly, pen scurrying.

“Routine?”

“She comes home at four, right? She takes a bath? She takes them for walks? Watches Jerry Springer?”

“She will show me her necklaces. Diamonds and gold. I will not ask the cost. A wife must have what makes her happy,” and he sighed a heavy sigh. “Then playtime with dogs.”

I timed the walk from the garage to the bedroom in my head. It was a big house. But even in heels and draped in Bond Street bags, she’d be up here at 4.03, 4.04 at the latest. No help there.

“Is that all the coke? Do I have to prepare for thirty pissed off Columbians coming down the chimney?”

“No. I mean yes, that is all.”

“Seems a lot for just you. Party? Or like me, you not gettin’ the morning kick you need from British espresso?”

“Ground floor. I explain.”

“Make it quick, time’s a-tickin’. On which note, Lada? Move the dogs.”

The driver sneered at me. “I am not your servant,” he said and folded his thick arms. The cotton of his white shirt stretched tight across his shoulders, revealing a misty Russian mob tattoo on his upper arm.

“That’s true,” I said. “But your boss has told you to do everything I say. So if it makes you feel better, think of y’self as my assistant. Or my P.A. Or Robin the fuckin Boy Wonder. I don’t care. Move the damned dogs.”

He glared at me. Then looked at his employer.

Sergei gave a nod.

“Get some polythene,” I said briskly. “A bag, a sheet, whatever you got round here. Get a rope too, a good length, you’ll have a tow kit in the trunk of one of those cars I saw downstairs. Wrap up the dogs and take ‘em down to the pool.”

“Pool? How you -?”

“You got a stink of chlorine comin’ through the vents in the garage. Take ‘em down, lay ‘em by the pool. I’ll explain when you’ve done it. Sergei,” I turned to the Russian. “Downstairs. Let’s hear about this coke. Go.”

“This one,” Sergei said three minutes later.

We were on the ground floor in a dark red room the size of an opera house. I was rocking the stroller gently to keep Frankie Jnr dozing, and Sergei was gesturing at a giant panda, still swathed in Seran Wrap, sitting on his ass with a stick of bamboo in his dark paw. Shavings of wood from the packing crate crunched under our feet.

“Illegal import, right?” I said. I’m no friend of wildlife but my wife is something of the Greenpeace type.

“New addition to my collection. But, poachers not interested in Roubles. They want uncut coke.”

I looked about the rest of the room, at the stuffed beasts from the five continents. Bears, lions, tigers and cubs, pumas, snakes – each one deader than Dillinger, staring glass-eyed across the dark carpet.

“So you get ’em a dime bag to test the merch, they deliver ol’ Chi Chi here but while you’re out, the mutts get a little hungry, right?”

“As you say.”

My cell-phone began to chirrup. I yanked it out and checked the number.

“Oh for Chrissakes.” I thumbed it open quickly. “Hey honey,” I said trying to sound as much as possible like a guy busy at the zoo and as little like a guy up to his tasselled jacket in shit.

“Where are you? Did you get the balloons?”

“Yeah, yeah. Me and Frankie are havin’ a great time, ain’t we son, huh?” I trundled little Frankie’s stroller back and forth a little as he dozed. “See the bears there, junior? Huh? Big old pandas.”

“Some guy came into the cafe looking for you.”

“What guy?”

“American. Skinny bloke. Left an envelope. I’ll bring it home.”

“Oh. Right, right,” I bluffed quickly. “It’s…er…it’s nothin’. We gotta go, it’s feedin’ time honey. See ya later.”

“It’s very quiet.”

“Reptile house.”

“With pandas?”

“I know!” I laughed, a little too loudly. “Crazy. Tell y’all about it. Love you,” and thumbed the line closed. “Christ. Every five minutes…”

“Mr Lombardi–”

“Listen to me,” and I began to scroll through my contacts list. He was here somewhere. “We got two dead dogs we gotta explain. You got a bathroom caked in mutt blood and coke that ain’t gonna shift. And you got your wife back in,” I checked my watch, “sixty eight minutes. The sensors,” I said, gesturing with my phone at the plastic boxes in each cornice of the room, red lights blinking. “Where’s the control box?”

“Kitchen.”

I began to type a short text and tried not to think about Paulie’s envelope in my wife’s hands.

“Mr Lombardi. Do you need me to remind you of our arrangement? I would ask you to think of your family’s safety before you spend the rest of the day catching up on your correspondence.”

“I’m aware of the arrangement,” I said, thumbing send. “Which is why I’m getting some help. Kitchen, you said? Lead on.”

Moments later I had sent my message and we were both staring at a large beige metal box on the kitchen wall. It was pretty expensive stuff. ADT. Nine digit access code, motion sensors, CCTV cameras. The whole shebang.

I was busy with my notebook again.

“Who has the code for this?”

“Just myself and Boleslav,” Sergei growled. He was checking his heavy silver watch.

“Where does the alarm trigger?”

“My cell phone, plus private security firm.”

I noted this all, gears in my head clicking and meshing.  

“Other staff?”

“Household. Seven. Three clean, two cook, two for garden.”

“They here now?”

“Away. Just Boleslav.”

I thought for a moment. And then for a slightly longer moment.

“He get on with the dogs?”

“He hates them. They dislike him also.”

“I’m more of a cat guy myself,” I said. “Independent. Resourceful.” I ran my pen down my notebook, checking details. “Plus they bury their own shit. Said your wife’s buying jewellery. She keep it all here?”

“Of course. Safe. In study. Alarm five,” and he pointed up at the box. A bank of glowing green bulbs winked, numbered one to twelve.

“Fine. Now I got a guy coming over, should be here any–”

“Mr Lombardi. Crying out loud–”

“Calm down, Sergei, we’re gonna–”

“No. Crying,” he said, pointing upwards. “Out loud.”

I stopped thinking, the distant keening sound of a small quarter Italian-American 2 year old waking up in front of a large, expertly stuffed panda.

“Shit. Time for his feed. Go check on Lada, make sure he ain’t left a trail of blood all over the house. Tell him to wait by the door for my guy and let him in. Then both of you, back in the bathroom, six minutes. Move.”

“Shit!” Sergei cried.

Below us, the doorbell chimed again.

“Shit, she early.”

“Relax,” I said. I was walking the huge bedroom, checking the windows and doors. Two motion sensors winked red dots from the high cornices. “That’s my guy. Lada will bring him up. You trust him?”

“Boleslav? He with me since ’96. He good man. We have seen many things.”

“That bulge in his jacket?”

“PSS. KGB issue.”

“Naturally,” I said. “Now listen to me. We’re gonna get you outta this. But right now, you gotta be straight with me.”

Sergei stood, flat footed, arms folded like Buddha, but with a very much less serene poise.

“I’ve seen your home. I’ve seen your world. I know what you got to lose here.”

“With respect Mr Lombardi,” Sergei growled, “you know nothing of my world.”

“I do in fact, Sergei yes. I Wikipedia’d your ass an hour ago on my way over. Not a lot to go on. You were pretty much behind the re-election of Yeltsin in 1996, took full advantage of a democratically corrupt government’s move to a market-based economy and you got more money than God.”

There was the sound of two bickering voices on the stairwell, muffled by the absurdly thick carpeting.

I went on, as I tend to.

“’Coz of all that, you got more alarms, lasers, locks and fences in this building than my father-in-law’s got around his wallet, and that’s sayin’ somethin’. What I’m askin’ you is - what are you willing to lose?”

Sergei stared at me.

“Time’s tickin’ Serge’. I can do this, but I need to know what you’ll sacrifice to keep your marriage.” 

“Whatever it takes.”

“Don’t be shittin’ me now.”

“Whatever it takes,” Sergei said.

“Then here’s what you gotta–”

“Frank?”

I turned.

“Hey buddy. Gotcha message. Said you needed help?”

Introductions, it seemed, would have to wait.

“I don’t know that they’re gonna have any toys honey.”

“At the gift shop. They’ll have hundreds. Mum said she wanted to get him a tiger for his birthday, like a soft toy thing, a cute one, but she hasn’t had the chance to get to the shops.”

“Well, I dunno…” I said.

Which, for once today, was the fuckin’ truth. My cell had chirruped once again with my wife’s number and I’d ducked into the quiet study to answer it. I stood, staring at the serene water-lilies of Sergei’s Monet hanging still and calm on the dark wall, mind racing. I lowered the cell a little and listened out for the sound of little Frankie in the downstairs jungle room. Nothing. Which meant he was either asleep, playing contentedly with his pram toys, or had woken up in front of a 9 foot long stuffed African Lion and passed out with shock.

Could have been any of those.

I could only make out the men in the bedroom, bickering.

“…in stock.”

“Sorry honey, what? Lost you there.” 

“I said I’m on the zoo’s website. They’ve got a big one in stock. Ask at the desk.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Promise not to forget?”

Dammit.

“Of course. Gotta go sweetheart. Feeding time.”

“Again?”

“Dessert.”

I hung up, swore colourfully, cursed my wife, felt bad about cursing my wife, reminded myself how much I loved her and jogged back upstairs to the bedroom, three steps at a time.

“And who is this?” Sergei said.

“This is the guy who’s gonna clean us up,” I said. I turned to the new arrival. “Dominic? This is the man.”

Dominic was a short, squat guy with the darkest, thickest hair of any man I ever had the business of losing eight hundred dollars to at Texas Hold ‘Em. I knew him from a card school in New Jersey back in the nineties but he had lived in England for the last decade.

“So what’s the problem?” Dominic said, pushing his misjudged Ray Bans up into his bouffant. He was never without his sunglasses. With those and the hair he carried off an aging Italian John Travolta look, or believed he did. To the rest of us he resembled a lounge crooner recovering from a cataract operation.

“Here,” I said and walked him to the bathroom door, now open wide and wedged with a hand towel. He stared at the dark stains, now drying dark and coppery.

Behind us, Lada was saying in Russian something unpleasant about Americans in a whisper he must have learned in a helicopter.

“Human?” Dominic asked, squatting down, touching the tacky stain.

“Dog. You can clean the tiles?”

“What’s your clock?”

“Fifty minutes. Forty to be safe.”

Dominic tutted and whistled through his false teeth.

“Not easy. This marble?” and he knocked it with a crinkly knuckle. “Untreated. Gonna need gypsum. Maybe some hydrogen peroxide. Gonna damage the colour though. Be easier to replace ‘em.”

“Got a match with you?”

Dominic stood and stretched his back. He fumbled for a soft pack of Camels in his tool belt.

“Let me check the van,” and he ambled out and down the stairs, whistling.

“I’ll give you a hand,” I said as he left. “Sergei,” and I turned to the Russian. He looked tired. “Get the keys to the alarm and you and Lada meet me in the kitchen. Four minutes. Oh and Lada, bring your toothbrush.”

“You heard from back home?” Dominic asked.

“Had Paulie on my ass this morning. Leavin’ envelopes at the cafe. ”

“Some shit goin’ down. Word is Mikey’s gettin’ nervous.”

“Ain’t my problem anymore Dominic. You found a match?”

We were out in the afternoon sunshine. Dominic’s panel van was slung half on and half off the kerb, hazards ticking. Despite the resident’s permit signs nailed up every five yards, he had avoided a ticket. Mainly because Dominic believes strongly in politeness as a virtue, so always leaves a note for the wardens apologising for his parking stuck on his windshield.

And also, and perhaps more importantly, because he also believes in capitalism as an even bigger virtue. The £50 he leaves tucked behind the note seems to put his message across.

Dominic scrabbled out of the cluttered back over boxes and plastic wrap, wiping dust from his dry hands.

“Nothing even close, colour wise,” he said.

“Can you get ‘em?”

“Three hours maybe?”

“No good. You’ll have to swap ‘em,” I said.

“Swap?”

“They got the same tiles in every bathroom and in the pool and gym. Take ‘em up from there, switch ‘em with the bloody ones in the bathroom and put those back by the pool.”

“You’re just movin’ the stain, Frankie. That ain’t–”

“Let me worry about that. How long to switch?”

“Sheesh,” Dominic said. He tugged a buckled Camel from behind his ear and fired it up with an oily Lucky Seven Zippo. “Without crackin’? To dry and set? 2 hours.”

“You got thirty minutes.”

“What if she early?” Sergei said.

“Then you’re fucked,” I said. “Lada? Shut the alarm off.”

We were in the kitchen, gathered again around the complex beige box of winking lights and digital keypads. Little Frankie scuttled about at our feet with a plastic car making brum brum noises.

“Me? Why me? Always me,” the driver asked. “You have the code.”

“I have the code. But you’re going to do it. Shut the fucker down.”

“Mudak,” Lada cursed and, stepping up, punched the nine digit code into the keypad violently.

The lights on the panel went off.

I looked up at the cornices in the kitchen. The sensors were dull and silent.

“Now,” I said, slapping him on his wide back. “Swim?”

We had twenty two minutes.

Enough time for a leisurely backstroke for five or six lengths, a towel down and a steam.

But that wasn’t why we were there.

“Jesus…” Sergei said.

Which, all in all, was understandable. The huge pool rippled and lapped at the filters, the light wobbling on the bright ceiling. Our voices echoed wet and flat against the walls.

Wet and flat, much like the blood stained tiles at our feet. Dominic had worked quickly, now upstairs busy setting the clean tiles in the bathroom.

The ‘Jesus’, however, was more for the dogs. Knowing the mess to come, I had deposited my son back with the stuffed animals to play brum brum up and down the giant jungle. I try and keep him out of the way of my work when I can. Especially when the work is this damned sticky. Lada had rolled the dogs off a torn sheet of polythene which now resembled Norman Bates’s shower curtain. They lay, bloodied and messy, on the edge of the pool. A couple of Dominic’s tools lay to one side along with a length of coiled tow rope.

“Why here?” Sergei said.

“No time to explain that. Lada?” I pointed to the dogs. “Clean ‘em up.”

He looked at me.

“Get your toothbrush and clean ‘em up.”

Lada mumbled something in Russian and knelt down on the stained tiles, tugging his toothbrush from his breast pocket. It was pink. Which, for some reason, I liked. Gingerly, with a look of mild disgust, he grabbed the thick pelt between Mitzy’s ears and lifted her soft head. A thick rope of blood dangled from her snout.

“Just the worst of it,” I said. “Gums and nostrils.”

Sergei and I watched as his beloved driver muttered and gagged, the brush scraping and rasping over the teeth and snout. He stopped every few seconds to sloosh the brush in the pool water, pink billows clouding the blue.

Two minutes and they were both done.

“Good enough, Robin,” I said. “Show me your gun.”

He got up, fingernails and knees stained and caked with gunk. He reached in with fingertips and tugged out his weapon. It was a short, stubby, black and gun-like.

“Perfect. Shoot them. Both. Back of the head.”

“Shoot - ? Here?” and he gestured about the huge echoing room.

“Lada,” I said. “Shoot them. That’s a PSS. KGB issue. Designed for close range assassination. It’s got a 42 millimeter cartridge with an internal piston and a propelling charge. Pretty shit as a weapon. S’only gonna hit at a hundred feet but – and here comes the science –”

Lada scowled.

“The piston seals the cartridge neck, so there ain’t no smoke, no blast,” and I looked at him, “and no noise. Which is I’m guessin’, why you like it.”

“You know your equipment Mr Lombardi,” Sergei said.

“You expected a professional.”

Lada swallowed and lowered the weapon to the dogs.

“Wait!” I said.

The room froze. The water lapped quietly.

“I’m at the zoo. I got enough to explain to my wife as it is, without a jacket covered in bits of Chow Chow Tibetan Mastiff remains. Get it done and meet us in the study. We got eighteen minutes.”

“Quickly,” I said. “Open her up.”

Sergei slipped his thick fingers up the side of the Monet’s ornate gold frame, there was a click, and he stepped back, swinging the water-lilies wide like a cupboard door.

A heavy silver safe sat squat behind it, buried in the thick wall.

Alarm safely off, he yanked the chrome handle down sharply. It gave a satisfying metallic clank inside and swung open on engineered hinges.

“All of it,” I said. “C’mon, she’s on her way.”

I perched myself on the edge of Sergei’s huge desk as he fumbled and fussed with small strong boxes, velvet trays and pouches.

“You know what this is worth,” he spat, stacking them untidily on a blotter.

“Less than a divorce. Plus we’re not taking it all. Just what your staff would know was valuable. You let them into that shit?”

“Only Boleslav. He drive my wife shopping many time. Never leave her side. He will know the big pieces.”

“Then that’s what we’ll have. C’mon.”

Sergei muttered, reaching into pouches, scooping thick ugly trinkets onto the desk with a clatter.

A minute later there was a pile of valuables the size of a half-loaf of bread.

Sergei was sweating.

“That it?” I said.

“It? About three million US dollars worth,” Sergei said and began to pile the unwanted gems back into their trays.

“It won’t hurt for long buddy,” I said. “And hey, might as well salvage something from this. Anything you’d rather not see again? I get the feeling Mrs Sergei’s tastes run a little…gaudy.”

“I tell her, less is more,” he said and dug in again, scooping and scraping. He tugged out a broach the size of my fist. An ugly, gaudy, encrusted monstrosity edged with red and green stones.

In the shape of a dachshund.

“Classy. Bag it up,” I said. “Twelve minutes.”  

It was nine minutes to four when we collided with a blood spattered Lada in the study doorway. His flat pale face was freckled with rusty dots which he wiped into stripy smears with a sweaty hand. He held the tow rope looped in one hand. His black PSS pistol hung in the other. 

“Done,” he said. He didn’t look at us. Just breathed deep and busied himself admiring the Monet. A little beauty among the horrors.

“Nearly home,” I said, trying to calm the tension. “Now, Lada? Hit him.”

This snapped both men from their thoughts.

“Hit -?”

“Smack him in the mouth. Look…if Mrs Reznovsky is gonna forgive Sergei for letting her beloved babies get a head full of 7.62mm Russian made ammunition, he’s gonna have to look like a man who fought for them ‘til the bitter end.”

The men looked at me. And then at each other.

“It’s my family on the line as well as your marriage Serge,” I reminded him. “Whatever it takes.”

The desk clock on the blotter tutted at the procrastination.

Sergei gave a deep breath, a small nod and closed his eyes. Lada took a small step back, closed his fist and swung wide and fast. There was a sickly crack and a sudden spluttering explosion of blood and spit, Sergei yelping, clutching his jaw. Blood dripped onto the expensive rug. Lada stood, shaking his hand, flexing his fingers.

“That’ll do it,” I said. I took a walk over to the desk and heaved back a sturdy heavy Georgian chair. Puffing, I dragged it across the coarse Persian rug to where the men stood.

“Now tie him up. You got eight minutes.”

By the time I got back to the room with a large suitcase two minutes later, the tying up was done. Lada was handy with ropes, probably his time spent in the army. Plus Sergei was still bleeding and in shock and not putting up much resistance.

“Right,” I said and moved to the desk. I picked up the bulky velvet bag of jewellery. I handed it to Lada. “This is where we say our goodbyes.”

“What is this?” he asked, holding the bag like a dead weight.

“Your going away present.”

He stared at me.

“You shut off the alarms to keep the security firm away, staged a break in through the gym, killed his wife’s dogs to stop ‘em yappin’, beat him up, tied him up and took the jewels.” I looked about the room. “That’s what it looks like to me.” I examined the room quickly. “Or near enough.”

“I would never…this could not…”

He was floundering now.

“Four minutes,” I said.

“The police?” he croaked. “Investigation? I…?”

“Hmn,” I said “Actually you’re right. I was thinking that myself. There’s something missing…” and I looked about the room again. I looked at Sergei, trussed up like a massive thanksgiving turkey. Something wasn’t quite right.

We all froze at the sound of a cab coming to a halt outside the house.

“Too easy,” I said. “Room looks too neat. There’s only Sergei’s blood on the carpet. Not enough of a struggle.” I looked at the Russian. “Your wife’s really gotta believe you did everything you could.”

Lada looked at me. His eyes widened.

“A few extra touches,” I said and reached forward quickly, snatching the pistol from his sweaty hand.

“NO–”

I looked at him. Then turned around. Cocked the hammer and squeezed. The silent gun gave a muffled SNAP!

“Chto za huy!” Sergei yelled, plaster splintering in a plume behind him.

SNAP!

He yelled again, ducking in his chair, the second round hitting his bookshelves in a spray of burnt paper and leather trim.

“And the convincer,” I said, turning.

“NO–!”

SNAP!

“You…” Lada began, spluttering.

“S’all right, nearly done,” I said. “One final small detail.” I flipped the pistol in my hand, butt facing outwards and hit Lada as hard as I could in the mouth.

He roared, stumbling backwards, dropping the bag and clutching his face. A single tooth slipped from between his fingers and landed on the carpet.

“Better,” I said.

“I’m done,” a voice said, interrupting the tableau momentarily. “I got a little help.”

Dominic stood in the study doorway, pulling his Ray-Bans from his thatch and slipping them on his face. His bag of tools was slung over a shoulder. Little Frankie was in his stroller at his side, a little dust on his nose. “Who do I bill?” he said, van keys jangling.

I moved quickly over to the desk, grabbed up a large heavy necklace from the pile on the desk and tossed it to him. I looked at Sergei for his consent.

Sergei nodded as much as a man with a rope round his neck, a handkerchief in his mouth and a priceless Monet with a bullet hole in it can be said to nod.

Dominic stuffed the necklace in his overalls, gave a mock GI salute and turned to leave.

“Hey Dominic,” I hollered. He turned. “Wanna give our driver here a trip to the airport?”

“Sure thing. You gonna hang around?”

I checked my watch, just as a screechy, Slavic female voice could be heard calling out two dog’s names in the hall below us.

“Let’s take the back way out.”

“Happy birthday dear Frankieeeee, happy birthday toooo youuuu!”

Imogen and I hugged in our little kitchen, sharing a kiss.

“Blow out the candles,” Imogen said, hunching down to our son in his booster chair. “Go on. Mummy and daddy help?”

We bent forward and sprayed spittle all over the sponge cake.

Grey smoke wafted up in ribbons to the tired balloons and droopy streamers.

It had been a great party.

“This tiger cub is adorable! He loves it! Don’t you Frankie? Don’t you eh? Baby Tiger?” She stroked the tiny cub, curled and still on its wooden base.”

Frankie giggled, little cake-sticky fists grabbing.

“It’s so lifelike. The little paws and everything,” Imogen said, looking deep into its glassy eyes. “Heavy too. It was from an exhibition, you said?”

“They were gonna chuck it out,” I said. “So I told ‘em, I know a little man who’ll give it a good home. Plus I got him this,” and I tugged a square parcel wrapped in tiger paper from beneath the stroller.

“Ooooh, aren’t you a lucky boy?” Imogen said. She began to tear at the sticky tape. “What else did you see?”

“Oh, er…everything. Bears, lions, pumas, snakes. A panda.”

My phone began to buzz. I recognised the number.

“Let me just get this,” I said. “You can finish unwrapping.”

I wandered into the hall, leaving them singing.

“Frank?”

“Paulie,” I said. “Never a pleasure.”

“Thought you should know. We got someone else to handle the piece. You’re off the hook.”

“Was never on the hook, Paulie. How many times you need me to explain this? Your problems are your–”

“Well Mikey don’t think so. Seems he’s had another thought about your…agreement.”

“Is that what the envelope’s about? I ain’t got a deposit box key through the mail for two years Paulie. Tell me why I shouldn’t put it in the trash”

“Mikey wants you to have certain…tools. He’ll explain.”

“Paulie, I want to see my son open his birthday gift.”                                                

“Sure you do, Frank. Family’s important. Kind’a what Mikey’s gettin’ at. He wants to talk. Expect a visit.”

Shit.

“FRANK!” Imogen yelled behind me. “What in god’s name is this?!”

“Gotta go Paulie. See you around,” and I flipped the cell-phone shut with a snap.

I swallowed hard, feeling the silver key in the pocket of my jeans. Mikey? This wasn’t going to be good. I turned and headed back to the kitchen. Imogen held up the little jacket I’d chosen from Reznovsky’s wife’s canine collection.

“He’ll look like a bloody cowboy! And…and what sort of shop is Doggy Designs of Belgravia?”

“Er…any more cake?”