October 8, 1993
Friday
16:45
I stood there a while, thought it over, got into the Torus, drove home.
Once home I collapsed onto the couch, picked up the reflections I’d started in the trunk. Nothing good. Dress up in expensive clothes – you draw police attention. Flash by behind the wheel of a foreign car – hooligans track you down. It followed that there was no point standing out from the crowd. Why bust your ass from morning to night? Made no sense. Zhorik had mentioned two hundred thousand… Could he really have meant two hundred thousand dollars?! Two hundred thousand rubles I was already stuffing in my pocket every week as it was. Monday I’d have to clarify which figure he meant. By the way, there’d been an order: don’t show my face until I’d «blown» what I’d been given. How much had I been given?
In the rubber-banded wad I counted three thousand dollars. Every bill without exception a crumpled, chewed-up twenty. Very convenient for blowing through. The shops in the district sold for hard currency, and at the same time eyed a Franklin with suspicion and refused to give change. The second plus of twenties, as I was told in confidence – counterfeiters don’t print them. The third, the most practical – you can’t blow more than ten at a time. I checked it when I was spending on my birthday. Verochka, seeing ten hundred-dollar bills in my hand, immediately exchanged them for fifty twenties from her handbag. She explained that hundreds are needed for wholesale purchases, while at the markets they pay with twenties. Safer that way. What the safety consisted of I did not understand, but I stocked up on clothes a couple of years ahead. And half the money was left.
Well then.
I pulled a third out of the wad and threw the rest into the nightstand. Changed into what Vera called my «going-out suit»: black slacks, a light-gray turtleneck and a blazer in «navy», as Tamara put it! To me it was an ordinary school jacket.
I wanted life to bubble and boil! To soar to the summit of success… for those who hadn’t believed in me to repent... for life to turn into an optimistic song… music by Pakhmutova, words by Dobronravov… A dashing music rang in my ears.
I dashed outside, jumped into the Torus, headed for the «Arbat» restaurant.
I spotted Regina at once. She stood in the lobby with a cigarette, scanning those coming in. She had a radiantly unattainable air. Beside her hovered a desperately young lad in a little red shirt. With the gait of an overfed cat I approached Regina and tossed off, as if in passing:
– Hi.
The prostitute shifted her gaze from the unpromising red to the promising dark blue and smiled cautiously, four teeth showing:
– Do I know you?
– Forgot already?
– Don’t recall. What’s your name?
– Roma.
– Pleasure, Kristina.
– Weren’t you Regina last time?
Regina-Kristina scanned me again from head to toe and smiled, eight teeth this time:
– So what?
– What do you mean, so what? I’m inviting you over.
– A hundred dollars an hour, four hundred for the night. You got the money?
– What do you think?
Seeing sixteen teeth of Regina’s smile, I pulled out the wad, fanned out twenty bills for show… Regina snatched the money with the words: «Wait here» and dove off into the depths of the restaurant.
Whoa! What was that about?
I began to doubt my own sanity… Regina resurfaced with a question that struck me as vaguely familiar:
– You’re not the stingy type?
– No.
I wanted to add, just for the joke: «It’s just that all my money’s with Zhorik,» but held back. She was unlikely to appreciate the joke, seeing as she didn’t even remember how we’d parted last time.
I walked the prostitute to the car, opened the passenger door. Regina settled in, reached for the radio.
«Doesn’t work,» I muttered, getting behind the wheel.
The whole business of a full-on hundred-percent good time wasn’t going according to script. On the way to the Arbat, I’d flattered myself with the hope that the prostitute would remember me, throw up her little hands: «Ah, it’s you! A thousand pardons for my wretchedness last time! I mistook you, took you for a broke nobody!»
I’d pictured the foreign car making an impression, my refined look cracking that mercenary heart. The plump little fool would gasp, sigh, and start tearing her hair out: what a complete idiot, what a tycoon she’d let slip through her fingers last time!
Nothing of the sort.
Regina drawled, capricious: «Weeell, it’s boring without music!» and declared, cutting the matter dead: «Not taking it up the ass!»
