June 26, 1993
Saturday
2:00 PM
A Parabellum is a pistol from the Great Patriotic War, dug up in the Bryansk forests, hauled to Moscow, restored to working order, and now kept in a garage. So said a man of intellectual bearing — glasses, a little beard, thin nervous fingers — dressed in a denim suit, who introduced himself as Timofei.
We met Timofei — or Timokha, as Zhorik called him — halfway down GUM’s second line, by the ice cream stand, having first blown all our cash on two ice creams.
— How much? — Zhorik grabbed the bull by the horns.
— Two hundred.
— Rounds?
— Three.
— Dug up?
— I don’t deal junk. Straight from army stockpiles.
— Caliber?
— Now you’re insulting me. Balls-on accurate!
— Deal. Twenty.
— Done.
— When do we meet?
— In about two hours, not before.
— Hm, half past four at Tretyakovskaya?
— Works.
— At the exit, then. There’s only one, can’t miss it. Just don’t mix it up with Novokuznetskaya, that’s the green line. We’ll be on the yellow one.
Zhorik and Timokha shook on it. I felt a weight settle low in my gut. It got scary and uncomfortable. All we needed to round out Zhorik’s catalog of outrages was a gun — that’s one. Where the money for a gun was going to come from — that’s two. What the gun would actually be used for — that’s three. I felt sick. I gulped at the air, swallowed down a rush of saliva, shifted my weight foot to foot.
Zhorik hocked a juicy loogie at his feet and ground it in with his heel:
— Phew! Got a ton of time. So let’s just wander, no rush.
We came out onto Red Square, took in the postcard views, and passed St. Basil’s Cathedral, crossing the bridge over to Kadashevskaya Embankment. There we turned into a side lane, sat down on a bench, and sighed.
I started peppering Zhora with questions about how his thug worldview squared with my law-abiding one.
Zhorik said that law-abiding was nonsense, dust and ashes, if you’re a nobody. He respected the Code no less than Comrade Bender did — wasn’t going to buy any pistol, especially with no money to spare — but he’d smooth over one particular situation. How, exactly, wasn’t clear, but I’d better not interrupt his thinking.
I stood there, stumped, trying to figure out how you could smooth anything over with a pistol without running afoul of the Criminal Code.
Zhorik said nothing, working through the same dilemma.
