Black Angel by Thomas Laird

Author:Thomas Laird [Laird, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2019-03-27T22:00:00+00:00

23

His friend’s name is Arkady Kormelov. Jack calls him Kady, but his girlfriends call him Arkasha. He’s originally from Moscow, but he emigrated to the States in 1989, and so he speaks English fluently. Jack says he inherited his sense of Americanization from his paternal grandfather, who emigrated here after World War II. The grandfather actually had to be smuggled out of the Soviet Union because Stalin wasn’t friendly to the notion of Russians going AWOL to America. The old guy got here, though, and his grandson Arkady dreamed of following the old man to the New World, and his dream finally came true in 1989.

The one unfortunate footnote to the whole saga of the Kormelov family was that Arkady was and is a member of the Russian Mafia, here in Chicago. They are not rivals to the Italians yet, but they’re creeping upward because of their ruthlessness and their brutality.

Arkady came to know Jack because of a burglary investigation, back in 1990. Clemons and his partner caught the guy who boosted Arkasha’s 1977 Mustang, and they caught him cold with the Mustang on his hot little hands. Arkady was not the type to allow the cops to do his own legwork, but he appreciated the speed and success of my partner and Jack’s old partner in the apprehension of the booster and the return of the ’77 Pony. They became “friends” as a result of Jack’s busting that car thief, and Arkady is the sort who never forgets a “friend.”

In other words, he became Jack’s informal informer, and when something goes down that doesn’t connect to Arkady and his crew directly, he passes along information to Clemons. He’s helped Jack a few times since the car incident.

We meet at the Denny’s on Broadway at 3:30 A.M. It’s almost empty, here in the restaurant, and that’s why Kormelov agreed to the meet.

He’s a big-boned, muscular man. No waste, no fat. He’s probably 6’ 3” and he’s got a small waistline for a male. Broad shoulders, full head of black, straight hair with a blue sheen to it. I think Jack said he was Cossack. From the Steppes or some damn thing. The horsemen, you know, with the Russian wooly hats.

His eyes are a cornflower-blue. Odd color, but fascinating especially if you’re an admiring woman, I’m guessing. Jack says he does very well with the ladies, and I can see why.

“How you doin’?” Clemons says as he shakes his hand. The three of us sit in a booth in this nearly deserted Denny’s. It’s a twenty-four-hour joint, so it seemed ideal for our meeting here.

“I’m fine, Jack. You?”

No trace of an accent. Perfect English, just as Jack told me it would be.

“You think maybe you can help us, Kady?” Jack asks him as the waitress lays three menus before us. She’s in her forties, a little mileage on her face, but the body looks good. No waste on her either. But the only one of us she eyes is the Russian. Then she walks away with her order pad after we’re done with her.

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