Kovaks smiled. “He is not a homosexual, no. Women are fine in his bed, to do his bidding. But he doesn’t like them. Do you understand?”
Nick forced himself to nod, even though he didn’t understand, not at all. He’d known plenty of men who hated women, had been witness to theircruelty up close and personal, but he would never understand it.
He thought of Alexa, of Julia and Elise, his sister Nora, his dead mother and sister. Examples of courageous, compassionate women shouldn’t be a prerequisite to value them as human beings, but having those examples, being the recipient of their tenderness and kindness, watching them quietly persevere through shit that would break any man, made it even harder for Nick to understand anyone who didn’t revere them.
“I understand,” Nick said.
“So Juska wants to hurt someone close to you, let’s say for argument’s sake it is a woman,” Kovaks said.
“Okay.”
Kovaks took a drink from his glass and drew on his cigarette. “I worked with him in Bosnia, many years ago.”
“Not in the war?” Nick asked. Kovaks looked too young, and Juska too for that matter.
“In the aftermath of the war,” Kovaks said.
Nick understood. There was a vacuum in the immediate aftermath of a war, a time when new laws hadn’t yet been established, when enforcement of the ones that had been established was suspended.The people who took advantage of that vacuum rarely had the country’s best interests in mind. It was a kind of gold rush, an opportunity to make a lot of money in ways that wouldn’t be overlooked once everything was rebuilt.
“You were partners?” Nick asked.
The ghost of a smile touched Kovaks lips. “Of a sort.”
“Look, I don’t need to know anything about your former business dealings. I don’t care how you made money or what rules you broke. I just need to know about Juska, anything you can tell me that will help me cut him down.”
Kovaks laughed, the sound surprisingly robust given the beating he’d taken in the alley. “You will not cut him down.”
“Then what are my options?” Nick would fucking cut Juska down, but he wasn’t going to debate it here in a dive bar in Gibraltar. “What can you tell me?”
“There is not much to know about the man you call Juska. He is a man of self-interest, and that self-interest is varied,” Kovaks said.
“Varied how?” Nick asked.
Kovaks shrugged, stamped out his cigarette and lit another. “His interest may be money. It may beconnections. It may be inflicting pain. It depends on the day, the hour, the minute.”
Great.Nick couldn’t tell if Kovaks was a closet philosopher or if he just wanted to milk a few more free drinks out of the situation.
“What can you tell me about his weaknesses?” Nick asked. Obviously he needed to ask for something more specific, more tangible.
Kovaks took a long drag on his cigarette and stared at Nick through the smoke. “My time working with this man, Juska, in Bosnia, ended abruptly, ended badly.” He hesitated. “Juska began acting under his own orders instead of the orders of the people in charge. It became… personal to him somehow.”
“And was it?” Nick asked. “Personal?”
Kovaks lifted one shoulder. “It should not have been. Juska had no ties to the work we were doing there, no reason for it become personal.” He sighed. “But the one thing I can tell you about this man is that his actions are not rational. He plays at games no one else knows he’s playing, by rules of his own making, regardless of who thinks they’re in charge.”
The words sent a chill of dread down Nick’s spine, but they weren’t what he’d call helpful. “Is there anything specific you can tell me? Does hehave family? A lover no one knows about that might be a source of weakness? A secret he doesn’t want getting out?”
Kovaks barked out a short laugh, his expression growing more serious as he leaned over the table. His eyes were bloodshot but there was no mistaking their intensity.
“I am being specific,” Kovaks said. “There is no family, no lover, no secret that anyone knows. This man is hardly a member of the living, and I’ve already told you the thing that will help you most.”
Nick shook his head and slid out of the booth. “I appreciate your time, but none of this will help me.” Kovaks hand came around his wrist. Nick froze, looked down at it. “You should remove your hand if you want to keep it.”
Kovaks released his wrist and tamped out the remains of his second cigarette. Or was it his third?
“If you want to know what this man will do next, you will have to think like him.” He looked up into Nick’s face. “Imagine all the things you think he will do. Then think of the things you cannot imagine, the things you are afraid to imagine.”
11