July 17, 1993
Saturday
We had a hearty breakfast. No, wrong word for it. That morning, while I was still dead asleep, Zhorka ran to the store, loaded up on a pile of groceries, and whipped up a lavish breakfast: an omelet, a cheese and ham salad, cherry and strawberry jam, toast, coffee.
Hadn’t feasted like that in quite a while.
In high spirits, we drove off to the office. We didn’t go in through the checkpoint like usual, but through a separate entrance, our own, chiseled out of the wall and dressed up with a glass door. A couple of painters were touching up spots that had dried unevenly. On the whole, no question, it looked beautiful.
Once inside, we found ourselves in a foyer with cubicles. Zhorik sat down on the couch, unfolded an A3 sheet, looked over the contents. Got up and walked over to an enormous desk by the entrance. I followed, glanced at the sheet: the desk was marked «reception*» and below it, «24-hour.»
What was Zhorik cooking up?
He didn’t drag out the explanation.
He ordered me to dust off my night-watchman days and line up four sharp students by Monday. The students would sit at this desk, and instead of being called watchmen, they’d be called receptionists. The job: check the video intercom signal and let in anyone free of aggressive intent. Simple schedule: day, night, day off after, weekend off, twelve-hour shifts. Round-the-clock work. Salary, fifty bucks a month. I pointed out that students wouldn’t stand a chance against actual gangsters. The most they’d manage was calling emergency services.
«Already worked it out with the cops,» Zhorik waved a hand. «Hired the nephew of the local police district chief. There’ll be a cop with a rifle on duty behind that door. Beneath him to hang around the front desk. We’ll put MIFI kids at reception, so they can make smart faces. Not a job for cops.»
Zhorik headed from «reception» over to the door where, by his account, a policeman would be stationed. I remembered a corridor lined with offices behind that door. I’d run its whole length a thousand times the day before, worn myself completely out.
Zhorik and I found ourselves in the corridor, walked to the end, and stopped. Zhorik beamed:
— Ah, great! Not even a month gone by, and we’re already set for the starting blocks. Ready to work. By the way, tomorrow’s a workday too. We’re setting up the office equipment. Now for the main thing. Let’s sort out what’s located where.
Zhorik jiggled the handle of the door leading from the corridor into the institute’s main building, explained:
— There’s two keys, one at the institute’s checkpoint, the other in the safe in my office. Don’t use this passage without good reason. Only in case of fire or some other mess. We’ve got our own entrance. And the locals have no business poking around in here. Understood?
— Yes, sir!
— Now let’s take a look at your office. Open up, — Zhorik walked over to the door across from his own office and held out a ring of keys.
I picked out the right one on the first try, opened the door, and gasped. Yesterday, frazzled by all the hauling and rigging, I hadn’t gotten a proper look. Now I stood there swooning, envious of my own good fortune.
A desk in a solid, capital-letter T-shape. An armchair, four regular chairs, a cabinet, a safe, a nightstand, and two more armchairs by a side table. Turned out great! Just like Anton’s, minus the tricolor flag and the government citation. I sat down in the armchair, let it creak. Important! Dignified! A genuine General Director.
I put on a businesslike expression, glanced at the windows, two of them. Figured out that this office had been made by combining two former rooms. Spacious.
Zhorik tossed a banded stack of rubles onto the desktop: «Your salary,» then a sheet with a column of names:
— List of employees. Should stay with you only, don’t show it to anyone. Lyubka got all her connected friends placed, nobody off the street. Look here. Ksyusha, from the tax inspector, his daughter-in-law, I think. We pay her a grand. From the district administration, Kostik, somebody’s nephew. Twelve hundred…
Having spelled out who’d be shoveling in cash at which position, Zhorik gave the order:
— In an hour we’re setting up the computers. Need to load the programs and get everything running. Find a computer guy. Have him work for three hundred bucks. Don’t need a big name, no point overpaying, we pay just a bit above market.
— How much above?
— Standard’s 30 percent. But we’re not standard. We’re a thriving company. One and a half times market rate, that’s normal for us. So three hundred’s just right.
I agreed that was even better.
— In an hour Yuri Anatolyevich’s son is coming by. Name’s Dima, a green kid just like you. Fourth year at MIREA. But he got lucky with his parent. Opened a company right here, on the third floor. Called «Dimkom,» short for «Dima’s Computers.» He was already selling Ataris five years back, though you wouldn’t know that, being a total novice. Dima’s had a feel for the angle since school, back when he was hustling bubble gum outside the Central House of Tourism. Today he promised to help with computerization and automation. So I’ll wait for Dima, and you head to the dorm. Find a computer specialist.
Once I got to the dorm, I went up to the fourth floor to see Seryoga, a computer genius who’d been picking up side work at a thriving co-op for a hundred fifty dollars a month. Solid money for a student, insane money, but I outbid it within five minutes. Hired Sergei on as a permanent computer technology specialist and hauled him off to VychMekh.
