Going to Find Sergei (500-Monthly-Ticket Bonus Chapter)

Darnell leaned back on a folding stool with one leg crossed over the other, watching Lin An turn the two M9s over and over as he inspected them. Then Lin An pulled the ten grenades wrapped in strips of cloth out of the canvas bag and lined them up on the table, one by one, like a compulsive neat freak arranging them in a perfectly straight line.

He was so bored that he'd started counting the mosquitoes in the room... There were thirteen.

"Bro."

Just as Darnell was about to start naming the mosquitoes, he finally couldn't take it anymore and spoke up.

"When are we going home? My mom made beef stew and put it in the fridge."

Lin An didn't look up. His fingers ran over the safety clips of the M67 fragmentation grenades one by one, checking how tightly the cloth was wrapped.

"We're not going home. We've got something to do tonight."

"Something to do?"

Darnell lowered his leg, and the folding stool let out a sharp metallic scrape.

"What?"

Lin An put the last grenade back in the canvas bag and brushed the dust from his hands.

"Sergei's getting out of the 60th Precinct tonight. It's time we went to Brighton Beach to find him."

Darnell froze for a moment. It took him a little while to remember what this was about.

"We're going to Brighton Beach tonight?"

"Yeah."

"That's Russian territory. They're very, very unfriendly toward Ni Ge."

"Yeah, I know. So, are you going to let Sergei go? The same Sergei who sent people after you?"

"Uh..."

Darnell took a deep breath, then turned it into a long, drawn-out sigh, as if he were trying to breathe out his very soul.

He stood up, turned in a circle, put his hands on his hips, then turned around again.

"No way. No way. As the baddest Ni Ge in New York City... I can't let some Russian think he can send people after me and get away with it.

"This is about my reputation. You understand? My reputation!"

But once he'd said it, Darnell started to regret it. He was already having second thoughts.

"Russians in Brighton Beach don't like Ni Ge very much, and this face of mine... Bro, do you know what Russians think of Black people? They don't think much of them, because they don't even look. They just start swinging."

He walked over to Lin An, talking so fast he sounded like he was doing a stand-up routine.

"I went to Brighton once with Fatty. Just once. I bought a pack of cigarettes and got glared at six times... Three people, two glares each.

"One old guy had to be sixty. He looked at me like I owed him three lifetimes' worth of rent. I thought to myself, I'd never come back here if you paid me. Now you're telling me we're going there tonight to find a Russian gang."

He looked at Lin An, waiting for a response.

Lin An finally looked up at him.

"He's Ukrainian... And are you scared?"

"Scared?"

Darnell's voice rose half an octave, then dropped again as he furtively glanced toward the door.

"I... I, Darnell Washington, the gift Jamaica gave New York, am I supposed to be scared of a few Russians in striped tracksuits? Bro, I'm just assessing the risks. Do you know what risk assessment is? It's... it's thinking through the worst-case scenario before anything happens, and then..."

"And then deciding not to go."

"And then deciding how to go!"

Darnell poked his temple with a finger.

"Strategy, tactics, my mom says..."

"Your mom says God is watching you."

Darnell's mouth hung open, his finger suspended in midair. He froze for a second.

"How'd you know what I was going to say?"

Lin An zipped up the canvas bag, looped its handle around his wrist, and made it disappear.

"Every time you bring up your mom, you're trying to work up your courage... Let's go, brothers. If you can, toss me a few magazines for the Type 56 and Beretta M9s. We'll need them tonight."

Talking to the air, Lin An pushed open the wooden door and went outside.

Darnell stood there with his finger still against his temple, watching Lin An's back disappear behind the curtain. He sighed.

"Brighton Beach, Russians... Fine. What can I do when you're my bro?"

With that, he followed.

On the first floor, Allen sat beside a tent in the rest area, a shotgun resting across his knees as he wiped dust from its wooden fore-end with an old towel.

When Lin An came down the stairs, Allen stopped wiping.

"Allen."

"Reporting in, Boss."

"Stand guard here tonight. Then tell Old Joe that Darnell and I might not come in during the day tomorrow. Have him contact me by phone if anything comes up."

Allen nodded.

Darnell came down the stairs and joined Lin An. He still had his AirPods in. His hat had finally given up and slumped down, his hoodie was zipped all the way up, and he looked like a bear being forced out for a walk... His face practically said, "I don't want to go, but my legs won't listen."

Lin An headed for the furniture factory's concealed exit, with Darnell close behind.

In a narrow alley in the abandoned factory district, the Roadster Bicycle leaned against the wall. Nearby, someone was crouched in a corner, wrapped in a blanket and lying there on watch as a homeless person... Well, it wasn't exactly an act. He was homeless.

Darnell ignored him, walked over, grabbed the handlebars, and swung his leg over the bike as smoothly as a cowboy mounting a horse.

"Hop on."

Lin An turned sideways and sat on the rear rack. Darnell pushed down on the pedals, and the bicycle shot forward as if someone had kicked it.

The straight-line distance from the abandoned factory district to Brighton Beach was about nineteen kilometers. It would take an ordinary person an hour and a half to ride a bike, two subway transfers, or around forty minutes by car via the Beltway.

Darnell's bicycle, on the other hand, would be faster than the subway.

The bicycle burst out of the alley and turned onto Jamaica Avenue, heading north.

Darnell leaned forward, his legs pumping like pistons. The chain rattled away, and the wind poured into his hoodie, turning its hood into a bulging balloon.

His mouth was busy, too.

"Bro, you know, when my stepfather was alive, he used to say something... A Black man who can ride a bicycle will never go hungry. I thought he was full of it back then, but now I get it. When I'm on a bike, I'm faster than the subway."

A car passed them. The driver leaned out the window and stared at the big Black bull pedaling down the road with an Asian guy on the back. His mouth opened, then the bicycle left him behind.

Darnell didn't even look back. He raised his voice to be heard over the wind.

"What're you looking at? Never seen someone work out before?"

Sitting on the back, Lin An held the hem of Darnell's hoodie with one hand and rested the other on his knee, his expression calm.

The night wind swept his hair back, revealing his smooth forehead. He watched the streets of Queens rush past on either side... the old apartment buildings in Jamaica, the row houses in Richmond Hill, the auto repair shops in Woodhaven, one after another, like scenes in a zoetrope.

Somewhere in the distance, gunshots rang out faintly. If Lin An hadn't had business to take care of tonight, he would definitely have gone over to see what was happening.

The bullet screen scrolled by.

[Darnell's legs... Is he even human?]

[Twelve miles with a passenger, and he looks to be going over forty kilometers an hour.]

[Darnell should compete in a triathlon.]

[He's still talking. He's going that fast and still talking.]

[His mouth and legs are each doing their own thing. No interference.]

[Brighton Beach. The streamer's going to mess with the Russians.]

[Hurry up, get on with it!]

The bicycle turned onto Woodhaven Boulevard and entered a quieter residential neighborhood. Darnell slowed down a little. The sidewalk was narrow, there were cars parked everywhere, and visibility was poor.

"Bro."

His voice drifted back from the front, broken up by the wind.

"I've got a question."

"Ask."

"Do you know what Sergei looks like?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where he lives?"

"Yes."

"Do you know he's getting out of the 60th Precinct tonight, and where he's going after that?"

"Yes."

Darnell fell silent for two seconds. The bicycle turned another corner, and the tires crunched over broken glass.

"So how do you know all that? We've been together all day."

He turned his head, confusion written across his profile.

"You know, Darnell, the cops at the 103rd Precinct are my good friends."

As Lin An said this, a large crow circling low overhead gave an involuntary caw and beat its wings hard enough to make the leaves rustle.

"Holy crab... Bro, is that your crow?"

Darnell was startled by the sudden noise overhead. Lin An felt his back straighten as he breathed in, the fabric of his hoodie tightening before relaxing again.

"Yeah."

"Okay, I'm not messing with it."

He pushed down hard on the pedals twice, and the bicycle sped up again.

The bullet screen scrolled by.

[Good Ni Ge, good chauffeur.]

[Chauffeur Darnell, the streamer's loyal steed.]

"No, his loyal brother."

The bicycle soon passed beneath an overpass on the Beltway and entered Brighton Beach. The air took on a hint of the sea.

Jamaica's nights were noisy, with music, arguments, sirens, and gunshots in the distance all boiling together in one big stew.

Brighton Beach's nights were quiet. Now and then, Russian conversation drifted out of a shop by the roadside. Cars passed with their windows halfway down, low electronic music coming from inside, its beats like a heartbeat.

Most of the pedestrians were middle-aged white men. They wore dark jackets, walked at an unhurried pace, and had broad shoulders. Under the streetlights, their shadows stretched long behind them. Now and then, an old man sat on a bench with a Russian newspaper spread across his knees and a brown paper bag beside him.

It didn't feel much like America here. It felt more like a Soviet neighborhood.

Darnell slowed the bicycle to a coast, his neck swiveling tensely as he scanned the area.

"Bro, there's someone in that black Mercedes on the left. Two people outside the convenience store on the right, watching me... No, watching you... No, watching us."

"Normal."

"Normal?"

Darnell's voice nearly cracked, but he forced it back down. "What's normal about it?"

"This is Russian immigrant territory. One of us is Black and one of us is Asian. Of course we stand out."

Lin An's voice was calm. He looked back at them, his gaze sliding past the black Mercedes parked by the roadside before landing on the two people outside the convenience store. Then he smiled at them.

The bullet screen started marking things out.

[Black Mercedes. Two people inside: one in the driver's seat, the passenger seat empty, one in the rear seat on the right, smoking. The engine's running and the taillights are on.]

[Two people outside the convenience store. Dark jackets, hands in their pockets. The left pocket looks weighted down, and the right side sags. Possibly a handgun.]

[Thirty meters ahead, an old man under the streetlight reading a newspaper. The newspaper is from today, but he's been sitting here for at least half an hour; there are seven cigarette butts by his feet.]

[He's not reading the newspaper. He's watching this street.]

[Don't worry about them. Keep riding, don't stop. The Black Sea Seafood Restaurant is close, about a kilometer away. It's not far from the coast.]

[When you get nearby, find somewhere secluded to get off and walk there. The Roadster Bicycle stands out too much here.]

The bicycle continued gliding forward, and Brighton Beach's main street opened up before them.

Six-story brick apartment buildings lined both sides of Brighton Beach Avenue, with storefronts filling the ground floors: Russian bakeries, Eastern European delis, Vodka Specialty Stores, and narrow travel agencies. Cyrillic letters filled the signs, with tiny English text squeezed in below like the unwanted stepchild.

The air was full of the toasty aroma of baked bread, the sour smell of pickles, and a faint trace of sea salt.

"Take that alley and stop."

Lin An looked around. After he and the bullet screen made sure nobody nearby was watching him, he told Darnell to head into a quiet corner.

"Hide the bike."

Darnell got off and scanned the area, then wheeled the bicycle into a narrow alley beside a closed bakery.

The alley was only wide enough for one person. Dry vines climbed the brick walls on both sides, and crushed cardboard boxes and empty vodka bottles littered the ground.

He leaned the bike against the wall, then pulled half a broken-down cardboard box over it.

He took two steps back to look. It didn't seem good enough, so he lifted the box and covered the bike from a different angle, leaving only half the rear wheel exposed.

"Done."

He brushed the dust from his hands and came out of the alley.

"Bro, what do we do now?"

Darnell remembered the last time he and Lin An had gone to Upper Manhattan.

"Do we find somewhere to eat, change clothes, and carry coffee so we look like tourists?"

"No. Not this time."

Lin An shook his head.

"Russians are too insular. Most of the year-round residents here are Russian-speaking immigrants. Tourists would stand out even more."

"What does 'stand out' mean?"

"You're illiterate... Anyway, just stick with me."

Lin An glanced overhead. Two crows perched on the edge of a building tilted their heads, peering down with their little black eyes.

"Go on, little sentries."

Lin An reached into his coat, pulled out a bag of bread, and waved it at the two crows.

"Find me a route to the Black Sea Seafood Restaurant that nobody else can see."

"Caw, caw..."