California Fire And Life

54

The scene with Mother is pure hell.

Daz finishes his stretch and applies for an exit visa, which Karpotsov shoots through like a bullet. There's no stroll in the park this time – the two men don't meet at all. Those days are over – it just wouldn't do for Daz to be seen with a KGB colonel. Could cause the Two Crosses to have him chopped like a chicken. So Daz gets his instructions through dead drops and the orders are clear: Go forth and prosper, go forth and steal. Here's where and how you send the money.

Now go make.

Mother watches Daz pack his few belongings.

She screams and cries, she wails, she holds him pressed against her, she whimpers, "You said you would take me."

"I can't. Not yet."

"Why not?"

He can't tell her. That he is a sworn member of the Two Crosses. That they would kill him for transgressing the code. Or uncover him as a fraud, and either way he is dead and so is the dream of America.

So he just repeats, "I'm sorry. I can't just now."

"You don't love me."

"I do love you."

She lays her neck against his.

"How can you leave me?"

"I will send for you."

"Liar."

"I will."

"Liar. Ingrate."

She throws herself on the couch and sobs. Refuses to look at him as he tries to say goodbye. The last he remembers of her is her white neck stretched out on a small black pillow.

Then Palm trees.

Daz spots them from the plane as it comes down at LAX and thinks, This is it.

California.

He steps out of the terminal onto the baked concrete of the sidewalk and into a phone booth. He has the number of Tiv Lerner, a "brigadier" in the U.S.A. (West Coast) franchise of the Two Crosses, and he has references, and twenty-five minutes later a taxi drops him off at Lerner's home in L.A.'s Fairfax district.

Lerner sits Daz down in the tacky living room of his tacky house and over shots of vodka explains that the organization is set up just like in the old country: The pakhan rules over four separate subgangs run by brigadiers. The subgangs are broken down into "cells" which operate various scams like loan-sharking, extortion, fraud and just plain theft. Each cell has a number of street operators who do the actual crimes. In addition to the "brigades," the pakhan has an elite group of advisers who help him rule, and a separate "security cell" made up of the heaviest hitters to protect him.

"You'll start at the bottom," Lerner says, "and work your way up. The American way."

"Sure," Daz says.

"I'm your brigadier," Lerner tells him. "You'll go to Tratchev's cell."

"What does it do?"

"Theft," Lerner says. "You steal. Half of what you earn goes to Tratchev. Ten percent goes into the obochek."

The Russians are like Mormons in this sense: they tithe. Ten percent of their earnings goes into the obochek, the fund that every pakhan maintains as a pool for bribes and payouts. Technically it's not his money, it belongs to the gang – it's there for the gang's safety and welfare. It's there to pay off cops, lawyers, judges, politicians – whoever needs to be greased. The obochek is an inviolable fund – the holy of holies – because without the obochek the gang's financial welfare and physical safety can't be maintained. The gang would be left floating without a life raft in a hostile sea.

So Daz doesn't mind kicking in to the obochek, but this 50 percent to Tratchev… well, that ain't gonna last for long. Daz knows that a big chunk of that gets booted up to Lerner and then to the pakhan and that's where the serious money is. Ronald Reagan notwithstanding, the cash doesn't trickle down, it pours up, and that's where Daz intends to be.

"Who's our pakhan?" he asks.

Lerner smiles. "You don't need to know that."

Daz nods, but he's thinking, I do know that, you arrogant cocksucker. Colonel Karpotsov – speaking of arrogant cocksuckers – ran it all down: the pakhan out here is Natan Shakalin, one of the original migrs.

Daz has seen the whole file – Shakalin's photo, criminal record, the whole bit.

Lerner laughs and says, "Maybe when you're a brigadier you'll meet the pakhan. "

Which is going to be sooner than you know, Daz thinks.

Now that he's on the Main Chance.

Next afternoon he starts as a limo driver in Lerner's fleet, making runs back and forth from the airport. Daz says something like, "Hold on, didn't I take an oath not to do legit work?" To which Lerner answers, "Grow up, kid."

The gig is that Daz picks up businessmen at their homes and chats them up on the way to the airport. Finds out if they're single, or living alone, or if they have a family, what the family's schedule is. Then he tries to book a round-trip ("When are you coming back, mister? I can pick you up. Be there when you step off the plane, guaranteed"). Also guaranteed that now he knows the businessman's address and when the house will be empty and he gives that info to one of Lerner's stooges and, go figure, the businessman's house gets robbed.

And they toss Daz a cut of the take.

Daz does this for a couple of months but knows that his cut from some cheap B amp;Es is going to neither destabilize the American economy nor make him rich, so he talks Lerner into letting him go on some car boosts. Daz spends his days driving to and from the airport and his nights boosting Mercedes and Beemers. After a couple of years old Lerner lets him buy in and Daziatnik gets his own chop shop. Cuts up the Mercedes and Beemers and ships the parts back to Russia, where the KGB provides the market outreach and the protection.

Daz is starting to make some good jack doing this, but his real genius shines when he figures out that you can sell the same car twice: once to the parts buyers and once to the insurance company. Just prearrange the theft with an owner who is behind on his payments. The owner parks the car at a ball game, an amusement park, a concert, and when he comes out – surprise – it's gone. The car is chopped up within hours. Shipped abroad within days. The owner gets out from under. Daziatnik takes a commission from the insurance settlement and the price of the parts.

He kicks money to Tratchev, who kicks it to Lerner, who kicks it to Shakalin.

Daz brings in the bucks and gets rewarded with his own unit in Lerner's brigade, which pisses Tratchev off. But Daz isn't through.

Because it's a simple step from car theft fraud to car accident fraud.

Daz nicknames the collective insurance industry "the Big Cow," because you just keep milking it and milking it and milking it…

So many nipples from which to suck.

Daz becomes the impresario of staged accidents.

Learns that soft tissue injuries mean hard cash from phony medical bills and accident settlements. Learns how easy it is to buy a doctor, a chiropractor, a lawyer, a judge. Suck on the Big Cow for workmen's comp, pain and suffering compensation ("I hope you got insurance, man"), and medical bills: tests, physical therapy, consultations, chiropractic visits. The doctors bill the insurance company and then kick a cut back to Daz in cash.

Then Daz takes the next logical step.

He figures out that you can make even more money if the treatments, therapy, and consultations never even happen. You just have the doctor sign the documents. The doctors bill the insurance company and then kick a bigger cut back to Daz.

Daz in turn kicks to Lerner, who kicks to Shakalin. Daz also kicks back to Karpotsov, so the KGB is finally getting a taste from the dairy. All this kicking means that Daz is basically drawing the salary of a KGB major (having been promoted in absentia), but that's okay with him on the short term.

On the longer term he has different plans. See, now that he has two of his own cells – car theft and insurance fraud – he's bringing in serious money. But no matter how much he sends home it isn't enough. Karpotsov is back in the old country, where the economy is going downhill in a barrel, so Karpotsov is always sending messages, the main thrust of which is more more more. It's like Daz has to make more jack so the KGB can afford paper clips, so both he and Karpotsov are sick of having Lerner – never mind Shakalin – as a partner.

Karpotsov is really putting the pressure on him, so Daz comes up with a new plan.

Which he doesn't share with Lerner.

Daz is messing around with serious trouble because what he does is he goes outside the Two Crosses gang and contacts the Armenians. The Armenians are the biggest gang in California. They're all over Hollywood and Glendale, shaking down Armenian merchants, loan-sharking Armenian immigrants, forcing legit Armenians into stealing their own merchandise and turning in insurance claims. Daz has his ear to the ground and knows that you have the same Armenian carpets being "stolen" five, six, seven times all over the west, so he has a sense that the Armenians might be receptive to an insurance scam.

So he sets up a meeting where Daz basically says, Why are we busting our humps with this little shit? A piece here, a piece there? A car, a carpet, a whiplash? If we work together, we can take down the big chunks. We can hit the Main Chance.

He and Kazzy Azmekian sit outside at a restaurant on Sunset, speaking Russian, and Daz has come there alone. If Azmekian would rather whack him than do business there's nothing Daz can do about it and they both know, so the other thing that Azmekian knows is that the young Jew has big league balls. Kaz is drinking his coffee, looking at this newcomer and debating whether to snatch him and sell him back to Lerner, or kill him, or listen to him.

Azmekian says, "What do you have in mind?"

Arson.

Is what Daz has in mind.

Buy a warehouse, fill it with overstock, burn it, collect the insurance money.

Azmekian's response is a bored Been there, done that, and he's seriously rethinking the kidnap option, except he's not sure he wants to start a war with the Jews right now. The problem with this kid's plan is that it's not a big moneymaker, because you only gain on the inventory. The fire insurance just pays the value of the building, so you only break even on that.

So Azmekian gestures the waiter "Check, please" as Daz starts to explain what's nifty about his take on this old scam.

"We set up investment companies," Daz says. "Put them in other people's names so they can't be traced. My company buys a warehouse cheap. You buy it for more. Another one of my companies buys it from you. So on and so forth until the value of the building is inflated. Then you fill it with overstock, there's a fire, and we split the profits on the overstock and the profit on the building."

"More coffee," Azmekian tells the waiter. Then to Daz, "Why come to me? Why not your own people?"

"Too inbred," Daz says. "Too easy to track."

Plus, I don't want to. I want to make the hit and present it as a fait accompli. And we do it outside L.A., Daz says. We break new ground. And we farm the arson out beyond our own organizations. So there are no connections. No traces.

Azmekian's into it.

He and Daz set up their dummy companies and get ready to go.

First building they buy is the Atlas Warehouse.

There are a few bumps in the fast lane: a security guard dies in the fire, and then it turns out that there's a witness, and the fire inspectors call it an arson, and the insurance company denies the claim. But the bumps get smoothed out and Kazzy Azmekian gets an unexpected bonus when he settles his bad faith suit, and now that they know where the potential problems are they won't make those mistakes again.

And Daz, he takes in a cool $200,000.

Which he doesn't share with Lerner.

Lerner gets word of it – Daz makes sure he gets word of it – and Lerner screams, Where is my fucking cut? and Daz pulls the Vorovskoy Zakon on him.

"If you have a grievance," he tells Lerner, "call a convocation. Take it to the pakhan."

Lerner would whack him right there on the spot, except that this Valeshin piece of shit is a brother, so he needs permission. Lerner goes before the pakhan and the other brigadiers.

Whines like a stuck pig to old Natan Shakalin. Valeshin went outside the organization. Valeshin went to the Armenians. Valeshin set up his own operation. Most of all, Valeshin made a bundle and didn't give me any.

Shakalin listens to all this, nods his wrinkled head, then says while Lamer is an honored and valued old member of the organization – blahsky blahsky blahsky – this Valeshin boychick is a producer, a hotshot moneymaker, so lay off and give the kid his shot.

In fact, he's going to make Valeshin a brigadier.

Lerner about shits. It's instantly obvious now that Valeshin has just bypassed him and laid a pile of money directly on Shakalin and bought his promotion. Which is not the way it's supposed to work. It's supposed to work like an Amway distributorship, and you just don't bypass a stone on the pyramid.

Lerner is so pissed he thinks for a second about taking on old Natan himself, except the ancient fuck is sitting there flanked by his two bodyguards straight from the old country and the new talent has a serious reputation as very nasty people.

Handy with the old chicken chop.

So Lerner bides his time, and they bring Daz in and Lerner gives Daz his blessing and they kiss and hug and all that happy crap and make a vodka toast to their eternal friendship and mutual prosperity.

Well, the friendship is total bullshit, but as for the prosperity…

Daz gets his own brigade and the money rolls in.

Like waves on the California shore.

It's not enough.

Daziatnik wants something more.

Wants something different.

He's living in Fairfax, in the middle of thousands of other Russian immigrants, and it might as well be Leningrad with palm trees. He speaks Russian, he works with Russians, he eats with Russians, he sleeps with Russians.

He makes his money and gives most of it to Russians – to Shakalin and Karpotsov – so they're happy, but Daz is wondering when he gets his piece of Paradise.

Daziatnik reads so he knows his history.

The Irish, the Italians, the Jews.

The grandfathers – gangsters. The grandsons – lawyers.

And bankers and politicians and judges.

And businessmen.

It's a three-generation turnaround, but Daziatnik wonders why.

Why not one generation?

Why not?

If a man can go from spy to zek, to driving a limo, to stealing cars, to running a chop shop, to insurance fraud, to brigadier in four short years, why can't he make the leap to legitimate businessman in as short a time?

In this land of opportunity.

In this floating cloud of a land where a man can invent and reinvent himself. Can burn the pages of his history behind him and then his past disappears into the blue California sky like so much smoke.

Daz has a plan to do it.

He knows it's out there, that ineffable thing, the open arms and legs of California, and that's what he wants. He wants freedom, and style, he wants away from his grim migr comrades – the dull, the stupid, the boring, the mind-numbing soul-stunning sameness of it.

He wants to become Nicky.

So he looks for the opportunity. Which isn't hard. The opportunity is so blatant, so transparent, so clear it would take an idiot not to see it.

The sweet, heavy, ripe pear virtually dropping from the tree.

Real estate.

Any fool could see that in California in the mid-'80s real estate is the golden stream. Put money in real estate and watch your investment turn around, sometimes literally overnight. Diversify with longer-term investments: apartment buildings and condo complexes. All the more profitable if you could use your mob outreach to cut a corner here or there – cheaper materials, quicker construction. It was rare they had to twist or even bend an arm: everyone was in a hurry in those days. Get them up, get them sold, get your money into the next one.

His real estate investments make money and that gives him the freedom to stretch the code out even more. He leaves the tight ethnic community in L.A. and moves south to the gold coast. Where he can reinvent himself as Nicky Vale.

Daz changes his name. Daziatnik Valeshin is just too heavy a moniker to carry around. To sign on all the real estate papers. Too hard for customers to remember when they have a good deal and are looking for investors to phone.

Call me, Daz says.

In fact, call me Nicky.

That's his next break with the code, but Nicky says he isn't leaving, he's colonizing. Taking the business down to the lucrative gold coast. Going where the money is. Where there's virgin ground for development. Where, dig this, people enter a lottery to determine who gets a chance to buy a condo in the new complexes.

You couldn't, Nicky recalls, put the things up fast enough.

Nicky keeps buying up land, putting up buildings.

Leveraging it all like hell, but who cares?

The market outgrows the debt.

And Nicky flourishes.

New house, new clothes, new style, new persona.

Nicky Vale: real estate player.

It's Daz's next violation of the code, of the Vorovskoy Zakon, which states in no uncertain terms that making money in legitimate enterprise is like, outsky, right? Strictly nyet. And some of Daz's soldiers do grumble about it. He tells them to shut their mouths, make money and be happy. Lerner sees his shot and gets on the horn to Shakalin to rat Daz out, telling the old boy that Daziatnik has gone American and is pissing all over Vorovskoy Zakon.

Shakalin agrees.

The ties are loosening too much.

Like the Soviet Union, Two Crosses could crumble apart.

It is time to make an example of "Nicky Vale."