June 26, 1995
Monday
10:00 a.m.

On Monday, we held an expanded meeting, discussing the main topic after Kalkin’s neutralization. Oleg Viktorovich had lost the trust of the provincial directors, thanks to the efforts of the recently deceased linguist. Other wolves cut the topic short.

A decision had to be made: shoot the wolves or crawl out past the flags ourselves. Producing semi-finished goods for export might turn out unprofitable in the long run. Attention had to be paid to the domestic market, half-dead as a crucian carp in the aquarium of an «Okean» store.

– We’ll be squeezing out the plants with low processing capacity, – Zhorik commanded, – And you, quit playing parrot, get yourself a suit and tie. You’re turning twenty-five soon, and you look like a Pioneer. Order some glasses with plain lenses for gravitas. You need to look serious to shoot the breeze with directors!

– I’m not planning on shooting the breeze with anyone.

– Won’t work out that way. Read the half-year report?

– Yeah, Proma Chemical has the best results.

– No, Roma. The best results are at the motor oil shop.

– That’s peanuts, forty grand a month.

– Look at the ratio of profit earned to money invested. Put in a chervonets, made half a million. So we’re switching to production. Speculation’s dead.

I dressed up as a paper-carrier and started making frequent trips to Mayakovka. In the ministry across from the Satire Theater sat Gennady Ivanovich, one of Zhorik’s charges, also from the metro.

We’d take a table at a nearby restaurant, either the Peking or the Sofia. There, in exchange for a token of gratitude in an envelope, Ivanych would report which flagship of industry had slipped into a coma after being turned into a worker-owned joint-stock company and was now blowing a hole in the state budget. Demanding subsidies and grants, or else the starving proletarians would head for the barricades. If you took the burden off the state’s neck, the big people would be delighted. They’d let you get away with any outrage short of murder. A green light guaranteed.

I’d relay what I’d heard to Zhorik. Through the guys who’d been buying up vouchers from us six months earlier, we’d acquire shares in the flagged enterprise. Two percent was enough for a takeover, and it always went exactly by the book.