“Oh, Oleg, baby…why don't you come back to bed?” she asked me.
“Go back to sleep, get some breakfast…I don't care…I'm going for some smokes.”
I laced up my boots and fumbled for my watch – 9:37am.
Karel and I were staying in a suite at the Holiday Inn on the upper west side of
Manhattan. We had no idea when we would return to New Jersey. I believed we made our point
to the doctor on Wednesday night, though; Karel believed that killing the dog was too over the
top. I asked him if he learned anything from the Philadelphia job because taking out a trained
security guy was something I didn't want to have to do again. And Karel's shoulder wound was
still pretty sore.
Harold Linder had started off on the right foot with us, telling us that he would do as we
asked. He would give us the information about the drug trial's decision and the date when the
decision would go public.
The Linders were our first job shaking down drug trial doctors. Maybe it showed. Julio
Viola told us one day to head up to Philadelphia and hook up with this guy named Fred. Once we
got there, Fred said that he had spent months finding the right doctor to threaten, and all we had
to do was to put some heat on Harold Linder of Philadelphia, PA. If we scared him enough, the
plan would work.
All was going as planned until Harold told us a month out from the expected trial result
announcement date that he didn't know anything anymore, suddenly claiming to have been
removed from the drug trial committee. We hadn't been watching the Linder house around the
clock, but we quickly started. Fred told us to pick a night for a home invasion. A few days later, a Timothy Gilbert
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large male began going in and out of the house. It sure looked like good „ole Harold had hired a
security guy.
On the night of the attack, we pulled up to a dark house. We cut out a window in the
family room, and walked right into the Linder home. I thought we were quiet but we were
surprised by a spray of bullets from the mud room off of the kitchen. This dude had an Uzi with a
silencer and he was making mincemeat of the kitchen door frame and the walls. All we could do
under that spray of bullets was to reach around, then fire blindly into the kitchen. Karel and I
knew this guy was inside, but the Uzi surprised us. Though this wasn't out of our league, we
didn't expect an Uzi from a person that we pegged to be an off-duty cop.
We heard the Linders slam into our truck that was parked against the garage door, so I
told Karel to go through the garage and take out the security guy hiding out in the mud room. I
kept Mr. Uzi busy by firing back until Karel could go around the house. He barged into the mud
room from the garage and tackled Mr. Uzi. His gun went flying onto the kitchen floor. Karel
pinned Mr. Uzi to the floor until I could run up and shoot Mr. Uzi twice in the head. Somehow
during the tackling, a bullet nicked Karel's shoulder. It could have been real nasty.
The Linders were locked inside their car and Dr. Linder kept ramming his sedan into our
truck, hoping to work their way free. And, given another two minutes, they would have done it. I
smashed the driver window, yanking Dr. Linder and his wife out of the car. They were screaming
and I was surprised that we didn't wake the neighbors. We grabbed Dr. Linder out first and got
duct tape on him quickly; he didn't put up much of a fight after that, but did ask us to be gentle
with his wife.
His wife was a total bitch. She had stopped yelling once we pulled out her husband. I
calmly went around to her side and got her out of the car. Mrs. Linder was real quiet until I tried
to get the duct tape on her mouth, when, suddenly, she sprang to life, managing to knee me in the
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balls and scratch the hell out of my neck. I bowled over in pain, so Karel left Dr. Linder to help
me out by driving his fist into Mrs. Linder's right eye which sent her crashing to the floor with a
thud. Duct taping her mouth and wrists wasn't a problem after that.
I had a clump of her hair in my hand as I held Mrs. Linder down on the floor while Karel
got Dr. Linder set up in the house. When I picked Mrs. Linder up, the bitch tried to head butt me
but I was ready for her and slammed her head against the garage refrigerator. This knocked her
out cold which sent her slumping back to the floor. I was really pissed by now, my neck was
bleeding and it felt like my balls had shot into my stomach, so I dragged her body into the house
by her feet, doing a number on the back of her head.
This gal was in solid shape, probably from aerobics or running. Mrs. Linder was our first
female target and, though she wasn't the primary target, dealing with her surprised the hell out of
me. I definitely let my guard down while getting her under control with the duct tape, and she
made me pay for that mistake. That bitch did a real sneaky job playing possum until she kicked
me in the balls.
When Dr. Linder saw me dragging his wife into the kitchen, he thought that we had killed
her. I wished I could have killed the bitch. But we needed to keep her alive to entice Dr. Linder
into telling us the information we came for. Dr. Linder didn't believe that his wife was alive until his wife came to. Once we doused her with gasoline, Dr. Linder sang like a canary.
Mrs. Linder woke up really pissed and began thrashing about in her chair, knocking
herself over in the chair several times. She wouldn't stop. The doctor's wife had an attitude all
night, even with the duct tape on her mouth. Her eyes were telling us how thrilling it was to
inflict pain on one of her attackers. Mrs. Linder was mocking us, and I didn't know if Karel
picked up on it, but I certainly did.
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It was real sweet to slit her throat. I yanked her head back by her hair and sliced slow and
deep while whispering in her ear,
“This is for the fight, you bitch.”
It took over two weeks for the scratches on my neck to heal. I thought the area was
getting infected, but a lot of Neosporin eventually cleared everything up. My balls were sore for a
month.
The video tape was set up like Fred had told us to and we kept both Linders alive before
Harold confessed the result of the drug trial. He told us that the press announcement was
scheduled for the following week. We called Fred on the spot and he told us to kill both Linders.
Karel's bullet wound proved to be trickier than we had thought. We needed to see
Martin's guy twice to deal with it right - guys like this weren't exactly in the yellow pages - and
he didn't appreciate my frustration with having to see him a second time.
Karel was one tough sucker who didn't notice his wound that night of the Linder home
invasion until hours later at the motel. Luckily, there was a Wal-Mart down the street that was
open at 4am for all the peroxide and bandaging we wanted.
“Hey bring back some breakfast, we can have it in bed!” my lady friend yelled at me as I
walked out of the bedroom.
Karel and his lady friend were asleep on the couch pullout. The nasty blend of cheap
perfume, sex, and sleep odor invaded my sinuses, making any thought of snorting the small line
of coke on the coffee table obscenely repulsive at that moment.
I reached for my back pocket to find my wallet and make sure I had enough cash to make
these girls happy. They didn't seem too interested in the nose candy last night, so plenty of cash
would have to spin their wheels. I kind of liked them…the one with Karel was quite funny.
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A family of four was already on the lift. Two little ones were arguing over something,
but, after the father grabbed a lock of hair from the older one and gave a good glaring, the arguing stopped.
I stepped out into the lobby. The gift shop sold smokes but I felt like going for a walk
toward 9th avenue. It was a nice fall day.
My cell phone vibrated.
“Hello.”
“Did it work?”
“Of course it worked. The poison kicked in three hours later like we planned. How much
do we owe you?”
“A thousand…where are you guys right now?”
“In the city for a few days. We're not thinking about going back to New Jersey until the
middle of next week.”
“Well my boss says that I can't get you anything more until we get paid for the first job.”
“Gotcha…we'll get you your money.”
“Alright, don't do anything in the city I wouldn't do…we'll talk later.”
“Okay.”
I hung up the cell phone.
“What a loser,” I muttered to myself. I was tired of hanging around losers but the money
was too good to pass up.
I planned on grabbing four breakfast platters at that busy diner on 9th avenue we all ate at
nine hours earlier. There was nobody on the sidewalk - not a cab in sight this Saturday morning –
and I was kinda enjoying how the city was showing a different side of itself.
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Saturday, November 9th