Perfect Strangers

‘What you think? Getting fucked in the ass, getting shanked in the yard. So I told him: it’s an economy inside – supply and demand. Mikey had to give the animals something, so he gave them stories. Shit about all the famous guys he met at parties: all those rappers and TV actors. And he told them all about his houses and cars and jets. Man, they ate that shit up.’ He laughed. ‘They even came to him for advice about making money. I mean, sure, some of them laughed at him, asked him how, if he was such a smart-ass, he’d ended up inside. So he told them he’d beat the system, told them about his little stash of cash.’

‘He boasted about the millions he had hidden?’

Ty’s face twisted into a sneer.

‘He couldn’t keep his dumb-ass mouth shut – that’s what got him killed.’

Sophie opened her eyes a little wider.

‘What do you mean?’

‘There was a guy inside called Uri Kaskov – they call him Uri the Bear. Russian.’ Ty gave a little shiver. ‘Man, those goddamn Russians scare the shit out of me.’

‘Russians,’ repeated Josh quietly to himself, and Sophie imagined he was thinking the same thing as her. Were these the same Russians who had been chasing them halfway across the world?

‘Uri heads up one of the Russian gangs based in Miami,’ continued Ty, clearly enjoying having them hanging on his every word. ‘They run drugs, whores, credit card shit, you name it. He went down a year ago for extortion, a little bit before Mike. Uri moved in on Mikey and offered to protect him.’

‘What did Uri want in return?’ asked Josh.

‘Shee-it, dawg, what you think?’ said Ty. ‘The money, of course. Everyone heard Mikey talking about hidden loot, so Uri would have offered to protect him for a cut of it.’

‘And Asner agreed?’

Ty laughed again. ‘Hey, maybe Mike suggested it. He told me he knew of at least a dozen people who wanted him dead: rich, powerful people, just the sort who could get to you in jail. Protection from someone like Uri was just what he wanted.’

The biker shrugged.

‘Besides, he had no fucking choice. Irony was, Uri was the one who cut his throat in the end.’

Josh and Sophie exchanged a look.

&

nbsp; ‘Why?’

‘Uri started piling on the pressure; he didn’t want to wait no more for the money.’

Sophie frowned.

‘So Asner didn’t have access to any money?’

‘Mikey told me he hid it with a friend, said he’d try to contact him. The morning he died, he was going for a meeting with Uri to stall him. I guess it turned sour – next thing I heard, I was getting a new cellie.’

‘So was Uri punished for it?’

Ty shook his head. ‘Two guys were sent to the hole, but they were Uri’s guys, lifers doin’ like three hundred years back to back. Whatcha gonna do to those guys?’

Sophie felt a curious mix of fear and relief. Fear because Uri the Bear was the kind of man who might cut your throat if he became impatient, but there was also a strange sense of relief that at last she knew who had been chasing her. Somehow it wasn’t so bad if you could put a name to the bogeyman.

‘Do you know who Asner’s friend was?’ asked Josh. ‘The one who was hiding the money?’

Ty shook his head. ‘Never gave me no name.’ He looked directly at Sophie. ‘But maybe he told Uri before he opened his neck.’

That was exactly what Sophie had been thinking. And another terrible thought had just occurred to her. If Asner had indeed given Uri Kaskov her father’s name, perhaps the Russian or his friends on the outside had contacted Peter Ellis – and perhaps that extra stress had contributed to his heart attack.

‘What else can you tell us about Uri?’ she asked.

Ty yawned and scratched his balls. It looked as if his patience was beginning to wear thin.