July 17, 1995
Monday
11:00 a.m.

I poured the cognac into myself, choked, dipped a lemon slice in the bowl of granulated sugar, chased it... and switched my attention to Zhorka:

– I ask this genius where he stashed the stiff. And he mumbles that there were no instructions about the stiff. Left him right there. Seriously? So I ask – will they find the stiff? And he tells me, don’t worry, he’s lying on a bench in the sauna like he’s alive, dick standing straight up to the ceiling. Crystal clear, this is a shit situation. If the cops get onto us, we buy them off. But what about the bulls? They’re not trained in the art of negotiation! And they don’t know how to sell themselves out either!

– That won’t end well, – Yasha confirmed.

– That’s exactly my point. The main rule – no traces. Am I making myself clear?

– Crystal clear.

– Take the office Seva used to sit in. It’s across the hall, called «VychMekh.» They’ll show you. You’re not officially connected to us – as far as anyone knows, you’re studying nonlinear algebra, writing a dissertation. We’ll go over the rest tomorrow, – Zhorik concluded.

Yakov finished his cognac and walked off with a firm step.

Zhorik summed it up:

– Chicha costs us dear and keeps trying to climb into your share. For that we’d have drowned the blue one in the Nishchenka, but there’s no sense in it. His team is good at feeling out faces. We’ll be hiring them for acts of vandalism. Yasha will handle the rest. He caught on at once how to act. No body – no case. Good lad!

– Is there another way?

– Won’t work. This is a war. Who’s right, who’s wrong – the historians will sort that out once the smoke of battle clears. Our job is to draw first, settle the question, and pay off the historians later. As you understand, the dead don’t pay historians.

– So there are no laws?

– There’s a law, one and the same for everyone. If they grab you by the goods, you buy off the cops, the investigators, the judges, the prosecutors, the security boys. The conclusion follows – commit whatever outrages you like, just earn enough to buy your way out.

– That’s nonsense. If we’re not breaking any laws, why would they grab us by the… goods?

– We’re not breaking any? – Zhorik looked at me the way a teacher looks at a hopeless dunce. – We’ve been plowing through the law like a tractor through a field since day one. We’ve turned over every article except the rape one. Remember those punks who tied you to a tree?

– I remember.

– They’re six feet under. You and I are looking at Articles 103, 104, 105, and 106, take your pick. Eh… we can beat 106. If we draw a stubborn investigator, a thorough prosecutor, and a dim-witted lawyer, we’ll ride it out for fifteen years. What do you say? Feel sorry for those idiots?

– No pity for idiots.

I felt no pity for degenerates who’d decided to play at being mafia, but…

Zhorik, not letting me finish the thought, kept killing me with arguments:

– And what if someone wants to squeeze not a «Ford» out of you, but a whole plant? In that case it won’t be small fry leaning on you. You need to be ready for that kind of pressure. Ever heard of the parabellum?

– Si vis pacem, para bellum, – I sighed, understanding that Zhorik had once again outplayed me on the field of logic.

Stop! I mustn’t multiply the evil I’ll have to answer for later! Cancel everything! No evil at all!

– Too late, – Zhora smirked. – How much money have you earned at Proma?

– I don’t know. Haven’t counted.

– I have. Five million dollars. And every one of them is evil for a man who hasn’t got a fucking thing.

– Why?

– Because the good that was originally spread across five million ended up in your pocket, and the rest are left sucking air. And every dollar taken from them is your own personal evil.

– I didn’t take anything from anyone.

– That’s what you think. Every dollar in your pocket belonged to somebody else. Now it isn’t there any more.

Logical. Still, one question remained:

– Why does it happen this way?

– I don’t know. That’s how the state and society are built. Why and what for – no idea. I’m talking about right now. Privatization and democratization are playing out by the rule of the prison camp, where there’s only one law: «You die today, I die tomorrow.» The suckers have cleared out, leaving the bosses, the drifters, the demons, and the marks. It’s easier for the bosses to hook the demons and the marks and pull their strings. We’re still drifters for now, but don’t…

– Don’t what?

I’d stopped following Zhorka’s muttering. It always went this way: he’d get drunk, start philosophizing, and slide into drunken nonsense.