July 4, 1993
Sunday
2:25 PM
«Crime!» — Zhorik bellowed at the top of his lungs. «Crime rules there!» — howled the wind, hurling gusts into the cabin only to get them crumpled and thrown straight back a moment later. «Crime runs the show there, crime!» — droned the engine, making the speedometer needle flutter around the 220 mark.
Pressed flat into my seat, I watched groves and copses, little houses and littler houses, flash past… Crime runs the show there.
We’d just bought a Mercedes 190 off a young guy Zhora introduced as «Fyodor, king of the transmission and genius of the carburetor.»
Fedya, as Zhorik explained, ran a service station for German cars and bought stolen ones for parts. Right in front of me, a brand-new Volkswagen Passat got driven up to the garage. Within thirty-five minutes the car had been stripped bare. Only a lonely frame was left standing in front of the bay, and even that, Zhorik assured me, would be cut up with a gas torch by nightfall. Two guys with a metalhead look about them tore the Passat apart. Cranking a Sharp boombox up to full volume, which screeched out «The Day’s Gone By and You’re Still Alive,» and tucking their long hair behind the collars of their coveralls, Fedya’s helpers, without a word of prompting or instruction, unscrewed everything unscrewable, pulled out everything pullable, removed everything removable, and pried out the rest with hammer and chisel, hauling it all into the garage.
I marveled at how coordinated the guys were. Everybody knows a metalhead’s a rebel who drinks beer instead of water, gropes his girlfriend’s chest, and spits on any kind of labor, mental or physical.
The metalheads from this garage turned out to be regular Stakhanovites of the wrench and screwdriver. Well, would you look at that!
— What do you expect, Roma? — Zhora came over. — They’re not breaking their backs for some stranger, it’s their own pocket. They’ll get a hundred bucks each off this car. Great thing, private initiative and liberated labor! The second capitalism started smelling in the air, people surged out to make money. And what’s the fastest way? Steal and sell. Used to be people stole just to piss it away and drink it up. Now they sell what they steal to invest in business! People steal, the country gets richer.
— Can’t you earn it honestly?
— Sure, but it’ll take a mountain of time. Why wait, what’s there to be afraid of? The law’s far away, and the money’s right here. Reach out your hand and take it. That’s the era we’re in. Crime runs the show here. And there’s our benefactor now.
Fyodor stepped out of the shed, wiped his oil-stained hands with a rag, and immediately dropped a problem on Zhorik:
— Listen, Yegor. Here’s the trouble — no telling when the registration for the 124 will come through. There’s a listing up, but no luck yet. So pick one, the 140 or the 190. Solid cars, clean. You can run a check on ’em.
Zhorik dug at the dirt with the toe of his boot, thinking it over, snorted. Summed up the results of his digging:
— We haven’t wiped the snot off our noses yet to be cruising around in a 140. Let’s do the 190. But keep in mind, we’re first in line on the 124.
— No question! — Fyodor handed over the keys to Zhorik.
Behind the workshop stood a gray Mercedes 190, new, gleaming. We circled the car, inspecting its curves and flat panels. Zhorik kicked all four tires and, with unexpected grandeur, declared: «I name this automobile Bucephalus!»
We got in. I asked, remembering the unfinished ride in the Audi: «Is this Merc stolen too? Just for a joyride till the first checkpoint…»
Zhorik listened to the light hum coming from under the hood, shifted his gaze to me:
— This isn’t a Merc. This is Bucephalus. Stolen in Germany, legalized in Lithuania, arrived here with clean papers. Now we’ll get a Russian registration, with the body and engine numbers stamped in by the Baltic guys. Meanwhile the cars stolen in Moscow are off carting horsemen around Grozny and Makhachkala.
One of Fyodor’s helpers came over and, handing over a packet of papers, apologized: «The plates’ll be Yaroslavl ones.»
Zhora answered: «Don’t care. Bolt ’em on. The Taurus’ll sit here, I’ll pick it up in a week, okay? And no funny business. I know you guys, you’ll strip it for parts and forget it ever happened.»
We were assured nothing of the sort would happen, nobody had any use for a rickety Yankee jalopy.
Zhorik made Bucephalus growl its engine, flex its suspension, screech its wheel hubs, and go tearing off toward Moscow.
We tore off to Zhorik’s stern running commentary: «The car’s a beast, the driver’s a dog!»
We flew to the apartment in fifty-four minutes. «That doesn’t mean Bucephalus is worse than the Taurus. Dacha traffic was clogging things up before Moscow,» Zhorik justified himself. Unloaded me and was gone. Off to take care of business.
I went up to the apartment, examined the stack of video cassettes on the stand — all watched already!
Had to trudge off to the video club and agonize over which genre to pick. Action movies, all rewatched. Left on the list: thrillers, horror, melodramas, and… Exactly what I needed! I grabbed an armful of comedies, enough to watch till nightfall and not run out, as long as I didn’t wet myself laughing!
Fell asleep at three in the morning.
