February 4, 1994
16:00
Zhorik came back gloomy as Doctor Kashpirovsky, and gave his directive:
Hm. Back when we sat on Kalyazinsky, Chicha would vouch for «Proma Impex» like family. Angled to be friends with Anastasia Igorevna, swore up and down he’d keep order in the premises. Whenever we ran into troublesome visitors, our job was simple: rat them out to Chicha.
Chicha never took us for serious businessmen, called us little devils and twisted the newcomers’ faces around on a charitable basis.
Plenty of water had flowed under the bridge in three months…
Zhorik pulled out a notebook, started writing with a ballpoint pen:
– First. We’re getting rid of the factory guards. We’ll put our own security in. Seva won’t drag himself out to the boonies, too much hassle and waste of time. But the Putschist’s got connections. Set up the bank’s security through the MVD. Second: fencing. That’s on you. Send a sharper manager over to Khryakino. Have him walk the whole perimeter, note and measure everything, then find an outfit to sort out the fencing. Third. We’ll replace the deceased with two warehousemen, not one. Safer for the boys in a pair. Look around, find the sharpest guy in the warehouse, promote him, name him warehouse manager. Have him head over to accounting, latch onto Sergei, and take receipt of the Khryakino goods. I’ll arrange it with Marina. Find the second warehouseman through Seva. Needs to be a vetted man, not a student, not one of ours, not some pensioner with connections and a paper trail nobody knows. Clear?
The list of planned measures wrapped up with a budget tally. Turned out monthly expenses had gone up three thousand dollars. Losses were snowballing. Zhorik scratched his chin, delivered:
– Playtime’s over. Reality’s begun, and there’s no «save and quit» option here.
He continued:
– Get the list of what got stolen from Marina. Pay attention to a couple of items. If Grzegorz isn’t lying, «Soveretto» and «Morgan Sapphire» are bootleg junk out of his garage. He whipped up a thousand bottles as a test batch and dumped them on Proma. Passed off as some kind of exclusive. So, here’s the thing. Set Yurik on it, have him put the kid on calling around small retail points. Maybe the bootleg stuff will surface. We’re going to punish someone. For Gena, for the losses we took, and for the profit we missed. Without me.
I didn’t understand.
Punish how? Punish whom? Why without Zhora?
Zhorik, looking somewhere past me, said that the trick with «Popov» vodka had stirred up the public that trades in booze. Like the children of Hamelin they went off to Kiryukha for advertising, paid an advance and started waiting for a boom. The boom did not happen, an oops happened. Discovering five zeros on his dollar account, Kiryukha sobered up on the spot, got a US visa and cleared off after his dream to Los Angeles together with the zeros. We must catch up and punish!
Zhorik slapped his fist into his palm and left the office. I stayed behind.
The shock I’d been in for the past twenty-four hours faded away. An understanding was ripening in my head that the game of «war games» was over. Up until today, running the business had felt like some kind of contest – «who solves the tricky puzzle better and faster.» Turned out business wasn’t child’s play, but a war… a war of blood, hard labor, tears and sweat… a war you could die in. Framing it that way frightened me, but there was no turning back.
And Kiryukha – good for him! He got out!
I called in Pavel and Alexei. Ordered them to hire assistants urgently and train them in the finer points. Then I issued an order appointing Alexei warehouse manager in Khryakino. He’d take over from Sergei in accounting, who’d check and double-check everything. I reassured Lyosha: armed security of our own would be posted around the perimeter, not just guards at a turnstile like before.
The guys went off to carry out their assignments. Yurik popped into the office with a question about deliveries. Then Marina with payments… By seven in the evening I’d sunk into calculations, tallies, orders…
At eight Zhorik showed up with a proposal to sort out what had happened with Genka. Let’s go see Chicha!
