March 14, 1995
Tuesday
11:00 a.m.
«Cheese!» Zhorik commanded, bursting into the ward. A man with a camera and a reflector trailed behind him.
They sat me up against a pillow, draped a jacket over my pajamas:
«Watch the birdie!»
«What birdie?» I mumbled.
Damn it! I was sliced up, wrapped in bandages, could barely move my tongue. Yurik, who’d visited an hour earlier, had described how the Merc had exploded outside the kiosk and I’d gone flying through the kiosk window in a wall of fire. Turned out someone had stuffed not ordinary TNT into the trunk, but a genuine incendiary bomb, to be absolutely sure...
Lucky break. I crashed into the soft drinks, which doused me while I burned like a sparkler. Two meters to the left — shashlik skewers! The left display case was stocked with hard liquor.
With my face all cut up and burned, I needed plastic surgery. Zhorik explained:
«Army doctors don’t fix scarred mugs. We’re looking abroad, at Hollywood, and taking your passport photo there.»
Whew! The past year I’d had exactly two hobbies: paid sex and watching movies. Sex, sure, biology explains that. But the movies got me thinking. Vague, optimistic thoughts. The Hollywood gurus preached: this is how you’re supposed to live your life! Strive and act, and if you can’t — drop dead! Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross was a motivational icon.
At night I dreamed of convertibles and villas with pools by the ocean. No girls in the dreams. Kim Bessinger and Marisa Tomei flickered in the corner and vanished. I accepted the loss: «Goodbye! I’ll find one younger and bustier!»
I startled: was that a dream?
No. In the morning, Zhorik laid out the purpose of the trip: «gonna go make Kiryukha answer for the stolen goods! We’re not flying to Los Angeles for nothing!»
My passport got issued through the Ministry of Culture. Zhorik personally trekked to the American embassy for the visa, waving around notarized powers of attorney and invoices. According to him, the embassy staff were impressed by the number of zeros on the prepaid medical-treatment invoice.
On the day of the flight, Zhorik showed up drunk. Dropped the bomb that trouble was brewing. Kalkin couldn’t wait to fry me a second time. His hired sappers were fussing over a thermobaric charge. Reliable sources. Good thing I was clearing out of Moscow...
There was an open hunting season on Roma Peskov, bounty included!
He mentioned the costume jewelry Chicha had brought in six months back. Proma had unloaded the off-brand goods at a loss, but the trinkets’ original owners had identified the thieves and gone to war. Now I had to deal with a bunch of daredevil jewelry dealers hired by Kalkin, armed and motivated by the same man.
Could there possibly be any connection between a Dutch multimillionaire, an Estonian Jew and Russian linguist rolled into one, and costume-jewelry traders from Mazutka? Turns out, yes. In Russia, anything’s possible. Society had gotten so tangled up it had turned into a knot of overlapping interests, touching anyone who’d ever turned down a guaranteed advance and paycheck.
Zhorik promised Kalkin wouldn’t be smoking for long. Sevan had brought in state security. They were tearing apart every outfit connected to our public enemy number one, recently declared a spy. Too much on his plate — he could barely keep up bribing investigators. That’s why he couldn’t fly out to L.A. with me. My escort would be a medical worker, visa in hand, sitting outside the door. Two cops were hanging around there too, who’d drive me to Sheremetyevo right now, in an actual police van.
Anyway, safe travels, break a leg! You’ll come home once the smoke from the battles clears.
«Can we skip the smoke part?» I clarified.
«No!» Zhora said, flat and final. «If you decided to go into business, you’d better be ready to handle problems and answer for it, top marks, no excuses! Business is, first and foremost, about protecting your own interests. And second, about poking your nose into somebody else’s interests a little.»
