To Kill the Duke (57 page)

“Don’t worry, Mr. Powell… and I won’t faint,” the deputy said as he waved good-bye.

When Powell arrived home he told his wife that he only had one rule for her to obey.

“Not that I will ever obey it honey, but what is it?”

“No more vacations for the Powell’s anywhere near where there is sand,” he said.

“First stop, Paris!” she yelled out.

“Why not?” he said as he gathered her in his arms. “I can get a start on my next masterpiece. A movie that is literally an intelligent take on either Hugo or Dumas or anyone else from that European golden era of fiction.”

“So, Wayne was that good as Genghis?” she asked her husband.

“No. Brando would have been better, but not as much fun. We’ll make a lot of money with the picture and in our business, as you well know, that is all that matters,” he said.

As far as business went in Hollywood — Dick Powell was absolutely right. It was never about how good a movie was. It was about how much money it cost and did the movie recoup a sizeable return on investment for the people who put up the dough.

“ROI,” Powell had told Komara.

“What does that stand for Mr. Powell?”

“The three most important things in capitalism as taught to me by Howard Hughes and now me to you,” Powell said.

“Isn’t that location, location, location?” Komara said.

“No. It’s return on investment.”

And in the arena that Mr. Zavert, Gila, Alexandra and Viznipu were involved with in Communist Russia, ROI meant that the mission had been accomplished no matter what the cost!

“Comrade Gila, you are wanted by Mr. Zavert in his office right away,” Boris’s secretary told him as she flew into his office after receiving the intercom message.

Boris Gila had been waiting for this moment. He had been trained for it for a very long time and knew he would eventually cross this path. He opened up his bottom drawer and looked at the pot that was in the drawer. He took off the pot’s lid and took out the pistol and the pistol’s silencer cap that was lying in it. He cocked the pistol, slid on the silencer, put the lid on the pot and shut the drawer. He concealed the pistol inside his front waistband underneath his tunic. He made his way to his boss’s office.

Boris felt like it took him forever to walk the distance to Mr. Zavert’s office. Mr. Zavert couldn’t believe how quickly Gila appeared.

“Close the door, Boris,” Mr. Zavert said sternly.

I can’t remember him ever using my first name before
Gila thought as he closed the door.

“Lock it,” Mr. Zavert ordered.

Gila complied with his boss’s request.

“Your plan to assassinate John Wayne wasn’t a very good one,” Mr. Zavert stated.

Gila nodded.

“Sit down,” Mr. Zavert said.

Gila did as he was told, noting that from the angle Mr. Zavert was sitting at, along with size of the desk — Mr. Zavert could not possibly see that Boris had a pistol tucked inside his tunic.

“Mistakes have been made,” Mr. Zavert said.

Gila nodded again.

“You’re very quiet,” Mr. Zavert noted.

“You called me into your office,” Boris pointed out.

“Yes, so I did. We can’t allow mistakes of this magnitude to go unpunished. What are you going to do about it Boris?”

Boris took out his pistol and stood up at the same time. He rapidly fired two shots. One each through the sunglass lenses of Mr. Zavert’s dark glasses, killing him instantly.

“Marxed for death,” Gila said as he tucked the pistol back underneath his tunic, inside his waistband. He patted himself on the back for
how quickly, efficiently and quietly he had killed Mr. Zavert. He went to the office door and opened it a crack. He peered out at the workers and no one had heard a thing. He shut and relocked the door. He had really wanted to give Mr. Zavert the ‘maggot treatment’ before shooting him, but orders were orders.

“The biggest mistake was made by you, Mr. Zavert,” Gila said as he made his way to the dead body. Boris looked at Mr. Zavert once and then sat in Mr. Zavert’s chair and started going through the piles of papers and files, looking only for four. Those files were the ones on himself, Alexei, Ivan and the John Wayne assassination plans. As he searched, he thought back to the meeting that he had had with the men who really ran Communist Russia (the Supreme Soviet Circle of Trust) and who gave him the orders to assassinate Mr. Zavert.

“Comrade Gila, you have been summoned here for a very important reason. Do you have any idea what that reason is?” the man sitting directly in front of him had asked.

Gila looked at the nine men sitting behind a large half-moon shaped table made out of stainless steel. He shook his head no. He had no idea, not only about the question just asked of him, but also where he was after being whisked away from his office one day by four very large and well-dressed men who said nothing. He had thought he was going to be killed.

Not only that, who are these men sitting in front of me?
He thought to himself. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer

“We run the country. Not run it, but make the decisions that others carry out to see that the country runs… efficiently,” the man who had asked him the questions said. “Do you believe me… us?” the man asked as he gestured to the other eight men sitting at the table across from Boris Gila.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Why should you?” the man answered back.

“Because if you were not who you said you were… I would be dead,” Boris said.

“You’re not only smart, but you think on your feet and you follow orders very well. I also hear that you can cook as well as you can kill,” the man said.

“I’m a better cook,” Boris said with a smile and that remark made all nine men sitting in front of him laugh. The four men who had hustled him into the room stood in the back and didn’t show any emotion to Gila’s comment. Boris was used to men like that.

“It’s all in your file. We have a very important job for you to do. We also have a report we want you to look at after you leave. It’s not very long, but you will find it relevant,” the man said.

“What is it you want me to do?”

The man who had been doing all the talking got up from his chair and walked over to Boris. He handed him the file and then sat on top of the half-moon shaped desk made out of stainless steel.

“You have to kill Zavert and get his files on this John Wayne nonsense,” the man said. “Can you do that?”

“But of course comrade,” Boris said, as he thought
these guys are powerful they don’t use ‘Mr.’ before Zavert
.

“Someone has to pay for this mistake and we decided it was Zavert,” the man said. “After you kill him you are to get in touch with the four men who brought you here and they will explain to you how to get in touch with them. Read the report after they drop you off. The summary will startle you,” the man said. He then climbed down from the table and patted Boris on his left shoulder. Then he and the other eight men left the room. One of the men who had brought Boris to the room then motioned for Boris to follow him. And Boris did.

Boris not only found Zavert’s file on the John Wayne fiasco, he made sure that he found the files on himself, Alexei and Ivan. Boris Gila was going to do his best to make sure that those nine men had to work really hard to kill Alexei and Ivan if they decided to do it. After all, Alexei was his best friend, and Ivan had saved him from starvation. Boris contacted the four men he was told to, and handed them Zavert’s file on John Wayne.
He then went back to his apartment to cook himself a terrific meal. He started by sautéing onions. Sometimes he wondered what he liked more — the smell of the onions sautéing or the taste. He decided it was both.

While the food was cooking in the oven and simmering over the stove, Boris poured himself a very large glass of vodka. He took out the reports that Zavert had kept on himself, Alexei and Ivan. He went underneath his sink and brought out a glass bottle of highly flammable liquid that he had always kept in case he had to burn some documents. He took a gulp of his vodka and put the glass down. He went to his bathroom and opened up the window. He took out a very large pot from his kitchen cabinet and poured some petro into it and then started to tear the pages from the three reports into small pieces. He threw a match into the pot and watched all of Zavert’s information on the trio go up in smoke, which made him think of something Ivan used to say:

“Toughski shitski,” Gila said as he went and checked on his dinner. It was going to be a few more minutes before it was ready and he went to get his glass of vodka and the report that the man had given him about ‘… this John Wayne nonsense.’