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    Sputnik Baby: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Sputnik Baby: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Sputnik Baby: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Ebook101 pages1 hour

    Sputnik Baby: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller

    By James Dargan

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    About this ebook

    SPUTNIK BABY, A NEO-NOIR CRIME THRILLER

    One stupid mistake can cost you dearly, Oxsana Nikitina, a high-class Russian hooker working in Metropolisville, is only just finding that out now.

    A Russian mafia boss lies dead next to her. Oxsana flees the crime scene. The only person who can help her is her ex-boyfriend and unofficial pimp, Johan Kruger. Kruger, a South African and former Special Forces operative, heads to his buddy, another South African ex-soldier, in rural Indiana. There they decide to make a stand against the inevitable - a showdown with some of the meanest gangsters on the planet when the time comes.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames Dargan
    Release dateMar 16, 2017
    ISBN9781386764458
    Sputnik Baby: A Neo-Noir Crime Thriller
    Author

    James Dargan

    James Dargan was born in Birmingham, England, in 1974. Coming from an Irish background, he frequently writes about that experience. As well as England, he has also lived in the United States, Ireland, and - for the best part of fifteen years - in Warsaw, Poland, his home from home from home.

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      Book preview

      Sputnik Baby - James Dargan

      THE GIRL FROM CHELYABINSK

      Oxsana Nikitina, an escort if you want to be polite or high-class hooker otherwise, is standing on the corner of Miller and Third in downtown Metropolisville, puffing on a cigarette. She's in a red hot Christian Dior party dress and black high heels by Izabella Rue – all in all she's wearing more than a few grand on her person. It's after ten in the evening.

      How you doing, girl? Beyonce, a black prostitute who resembles Beyonce Knowles only in name, says to her.

      "Fine... And you?" the Russian beauty replies, a native of Chelyabinsk, who came to America five years before as an au pair for nine months and never went back.

      This area of Metropolisville is known for call girls who cost a pretty penny.

      I just had this client, a fucking weirdo. He wanted me to shave his balls and spit into his mouth all the time. He told me he had a thing for black chicks... I got a $500 tip off the motherfucker, though.

      Let's hope I get the same, Oxsana says with a sigh, realising this game's not what it's cut out to be. She knows there's money to be made but there are too many sickos who have slapped her around and enough is enough. Suddenly Oxsana sees a car spinning round the street corner. "Shit!" she says as the Red Porsche Boxster pulls up where she is.

      A tall, dark-haired, athletic man with tattoos on his arms gets out:

      How you doing, sweety? he says to her.

      His name is Johan Kruger, Oxsana's South African ex-boyfriend and now pimp of sorts. When she broke up with him he promised to get her deported as she's never had a Green Card. He keeps threatening her that if she doesn't cooperate, he'll inform his friends in the Metropolisville Police Department and the  Citizenship and Immigration Services.  By day Kruger is a 'businessman', importing diamonds into the country as an agent for a South African precious metals consortium called Smuts Diamond. He was a member of Recces – or the South African Special Forces Brigade in his younger days – before he left his native country a decade ago.

      What are you doing here, Kruger? Oxsana asks, throwing down her cigarette in disgust.

      Howzit. I gotta talk to you, he says, getting out of the car.

      I'll see you later, girl, Beyonce says as she walks away.

      Can't you see I'm working, Oxsana then says to him.

      Ya, I know, but I gotta favour I want you to do for me, something which I'm gonna appreciate.

      Go and ask one of your other stupid bitches to help you out, she says as Kruger puts his arm around her. She throws it off.

      C'mon, don't start with the fucking attitude... You wanna earn, don't you?

      Yeah, dickface, of course I do.

      Listen, I got these two Russians down from Brooklyn after a deal. The one guy, Maxim, is after a good time.. He told me he wants a nice girl from back home. I talked to him about you. I showed him your photo and he said he'd pay ten big ones for a night with you.

      "Ten thousand?" Oxsana says, unable to hide her emotions.

      Ya, and I'm willing to give you seventy percent of it.

      And this Maxim guy – is he 'connected' in some way? Because I'm not fucking with any of them guys. Dangerous men, dangerous men, Kruger.

      Nah, they're legit. Business associates of that Russian dude who owns the Brooklyn Nets... Now, will you do me this favour?

      "I've done you too many favours in my life. It's time for you to do me a favour – when are you going to let me go? This is twenty-first century Serfdom. Jesus, Kruger, we Russians put that fiasco to bed in 1861. I want out."

      And soon you will be free... Are you gonna do it? The money you'll earn will be great for that nest egg of yours.

      Let's go, Oxsana says as she opens the passenger side door to Kruger's ride.

      WALKING WITH ELEPHANTS

      Whatever Kruger told Oxsana about the Russian he's bringing her to, only some of it is true: Maxim Puzakov, a forty-three-year-old working out of Little Odessa, Brighton Beach, is in fact  employed indirectly by the owner of the Brooklyn Nets NBA basketball team, Mikhail Prokhorov, oligarch and one of the richest men in Russia. Puzakov is a member of the Russian Mafia. And dangerous.

      Listen, Kruger says as he's driving over the speed limit to the address Puzakov told him to deliver Oxsana to, a few miles out of town, "I don't want you playing up. I heard this guy is a bit fucked up, but the money's there, so no complaining, you hear?"

      So, what, he's into anal?

      I dunno, honey... Listen, a lot's riding on this, so don't fuck up.

      Kruger turns right sharply down a driveway. Within seconds a palatial home appears in front of their eyes.

      Is that his house? Oxsana says.

      No, he's just borrowed it.

      "Johnny!" Puzakov says, opening the door.

      Howzit, Kruger answers with a nervous smile.

      Puzakov looks at Oxsana next to his South African buddy, says something in Russian to her, then says to Kruger:

      Come in, come in, guys.

      The house belongs to a Puzakov associate, Chris Collins, a Metropolisville native who works in New York City as a Wall Street trader.

      Puzakov leads them into the spacious living room. A party's already going on, it seems, with the two dozen or so people in the room drinking cocktails and dancing to Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes.

      A dark-haired man, wearing a green silk shirt and a pair of gym pants, gets up from the couch next to a sexy-looking woman at the far side of the room.

      Oh, here he is, Puzakov says to Oxsana

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