October 8, 1993
Friday
13:55
In a couple of minutes I’d maneuvered out of the VychMekh lot and maneuvered into the Metallsnab one. Parking a foreign car next to the «Zhiguli» jalopies I considered bad form. Basking in my own importance, I squealed the brakes to a stop opposite the main entrance.
I strode past the doorman, went up to the third floor, looked around, looked around again, froze in delight. Whoa!
The scale was impressive: half a hundred offices along an endless corridor with two lobbies. Impossible to imagine why «Proma Impex» needed so much space. On Kalyazinsky we’d occupied four rooms and never sweated it.
I walked through with my notebook, drew up a plan. Started scribbling who goes where: at the entrance, sales managers on the phones, small-lot wholesale next to them. Booze traded out of the hangar. Wholesalers across the way. Right. Settled.
Next to it, an office for the guy responsible for customs clearance and paperwork. He needed to be on the line with the wholesalers every second. By the hierarchy chart, he reported to Kostik. Right, so the buyers would sit nearby. Across from that, the office for the guy responsible for the warehouse. Further on, the service rooms: cash office, accounting, my office. So a wall with security ought to go here, so outsiders don’t wander in. Specific clientele, anything can happen, but right here…
I nearly swallowed my tongue in surprise. My gaze fixed on two men dressed exactly as required: leather jackets, tracksuit bottoms with stripes, slip-on shoes, white socks. I had seen types like that at Kalyazinsky. Two or three times a week they would drop in posing as customers. They took a place in line and swiveled their forelocks about – sizing up the situation. Then the performance would begin.
The smallest one would start puffing up: «Who’s in charge here? What’s the deal? Cut the bazaar-station chatter! Need to get this sorted out…» The bigger thugs would shove their hands in their pockets and roll their shoulders, pretending to loosen up their muscles before a good scrap. It was frightening, but not hysterics-frightening. Pasha would rise from behind his desk: «One sec, we’ll draw you up the boss» and leave the office.
A minute later, whistling a tune from the repertoire of the band «Modern Talking» about Brother Louie, he would come back with Vadim.
Vadim took the bulls by the horns. He introduced himself as the man in charge of the floor and asked the wearers of sports trousers what their interest was and to what end they were interested. Without hearing out the answer, he suggested going down to the first floor. A team was sitting there, ready to talk. There was an orchestra too, ready to perform Chopin’s opus thirty-five, movement number three. But our business is a small one. We are businessmen by life. We have no time for Chopin. Business must be done. Kindly do not distract us. Forward march to your brothers in reason!
A couple of times Vadim behaved obligingly. With no mention of Chopin or of routes to follow, he asked them to go down to the restaurant and consume any drinks at our expense while waiting for those authorized to conduct conversations on subjects inaccessible to us wretches.
Vadim’s office windows looked out on Kalyazinsky Lane. All he had to do was glance at the cars parked below the window. The lot was rarely empty – a couple of times, no more. Vadim knew the car owners like the back of his hand and built his speeches accordingly.
If the yard was empty, Vadim would suggest going down to the restaurant and living it up on our tab.
If a couple of «eights» were parked under the window, Vadim would put on a haughty mug for the guests and suggest they go downstairs, where everything would be explained.
If Karabas’s Nissan Patrol was parked below, Vadim would talk to the visitors like they were somebody’s little pets: «Coochie-coo, off you trot.» His gaze would float above their close-cropped crowns, and «little sweeties» would slip out every other word.
And if Chicha’s «Cherokee» stood under the windows, it was quite beautiful. Vadim would send the visitors downstairs to «square the talk with a vagabond», having first asked the small, cocky one: «And who are you, in life? Something isn’t clicking for me. Don’t go mixing up your shores here, behave yourself evenly.»
Vadim explained that for reasons unknown, Chicha simply couldn’t stomach visitors of that sort, and at every convenient opportunity was itching to crack both fists across their snub-nosed faces without any preamble. Such opportunities came rarely. Uninvited guests mostly preferred to beat a retreat in good health rather than wait around to make Chicha and company’s acquaintance.
Zhora had once explained that Vadik wasn’t risking anything. Loudmouthed young punks from the far suburbs drifted through commercial offices all the time. Serious people preferred to scout ahead. That’s why they didn’t bother dragging themselves out to Kalyazinsky – it was simpler for them to settle things with Chicha at some khinkali joint on Pyatnitskaya.
Whew…
In one second I remembered Kalyazinsky, and Vadik, and Chicha and his athletes… ah… there it was… I sank into gloom, wondering how best to slip away from the strangers blocking the exit from the floor.
Nothing came to mind except regret that I hadn’t even managed to move in and settle before running into trouble.
I snapped my planner shut. The men, frowning, squinting, jaws working, stood facing me and spat on the floor.
– You the new tenant, or what? – asked the nearer one, small and unremarkable. Textbook courtyard scene: the small one picks the fight, and the big one later explains to the juvenile officer why he had to punish the victim for disrespecting the neighborhood kids.
– Yeah, that’s right, – I answered.
– What’s with the «yeah»? You breathing beer fumes, or what?
– I’m not «yeahing.» And I’m not breathing anything.
– Yeah? Then what’s that over there?
The fellow standing a bit behind, thickset, solid, stepped forward and shoved me toward the door. Nothing to be done. Yielding to the pressure, I stumbled into the room. The men came in after me, shut the door.
I sank into gloom, shifted my gaze to the window, beyond which autumn moped. The Torus, parked opposite, brought no comfort. A flicker of hope stirred when VychMekh came into view. There sat a policeman, watching the television. Maybe I could signal him somehow?
Not a chance.
I turned my gaze back to the men.
One – big, grim, sparing of both words and movement – took up a position by the door. The other – small, loose-limbed, scratching now his neck, now his shoulders, now his cheeks – came closer:
– So why didn’t you drop by, huh? Gotta get registered, get acquainted. As they say, you bring the cookies, we bring the respect. Now we’ll be splitting the take together. Tyukha-matyukha! Who does business like that? What, you’re not a proper businessman, or something? Coulda popped by, shown the boys some respect. You don’t take us for a bunch of nobodies, do you? We coulda sat a while, talked about life. Who are you, anyway, in life? Tell the vagabonds straight, no holding back…
The little guy spat out a string of murkily comprehensible words, mixed in with old-timer sayings and quips, fidgeting and scratching. I sank deeper into gloom. The small one was already demanding papers: we won’t run this empty, we’ll redraw things fair right now, gotta share like brothers, we’ll make their guy the accountant.
I shook my head – nothing to give, no papers, no property. The small one asked why I’d tied on the broom, offended the vagabonds. I understood none of it, even after they’d roughed me up, cracked me across the neck, jabbed a fist under my ribs.
I whimpered that I had nothing against a fair split, brother to brother, but other people made those decisions. We could meet them, it wasn’t far.
The big one advised me not to grow a beard and dodge, but to look hard at the concrete slabs outside the window. The small one added: look with both eyes. Maybe I’d notice those weren’t just slabs, but gravestones. Oh yes. Under each one a clueless businessman was buried, sometimes a pair. He wondered whether I considered myself a clueless one. By the looks of it, seemed like a sharp enough kid.
I nodded in agreement: «Sharp, of course. No doubt about it!» The big one snorted. The small one proposed:
– Well, since you understand everything, there’ll be some sense in you, won’t cost you anything. Let’s go outside. Take a look, blink a bit, count some kopecks…
I gladly left the room that had threatened to become a torture chamber. Single file – the small one, me, the big one – we went down the stairs and past the doorman, who made a show of recognizing us as respectable tenants, and so, s’il vous plaît, wander to your hearts’ content.
Outside, I calculated the quickest way to reach VychMekh and its guard. A hundred meters in a straight line, no more. In principle, I could make a run for it, if I started suddenly. They wouldn’t catch me. Or would they? I found neither the will nor the strength for the sprint.
We approached the Torus, parked by the entrance. Five steps. Why hadn’t I parked in the general lot? Thirty meters off. Distance enough to work up the nerve and bolt full-tilt for the police. Why had I shown off, pulled right up close?
– This your rig? – asked the big one. I nodded.
– Go on, show off your little swallow, – the small one butted in. – Show us the trunk. They say you can stuff an elephant in and pull out a rhino. Eh-heh-heh. My wheels, and not even a prescription for ’em…
Not expecting a trick, I opened the trunk and caught a fist in the gut, an elbow across the neck. Doubled over in pain, I groaned, sagged, and from a light shove tumbled into the trunk. A knife was pressed to my throat.
– Don’t kick up a fuss. Papers for the car, quick. We’re driving to the woods, to talk.
I handed over everything they asked for.
