October 8, 1993
Friday
10:05 a.m.
My soul was singing like a nightingale and dancing the krakowiak. The business of «Proma Impex» had come to resemble an avalanche. In the first instant – the light whisper of a snowflake about nothing at all, and then – crack! look out, everything that lives! an all-crushing wall snapping trees off at the root, sweeping away and grinding to dust. Switchblade 327, let it all burn!
The booze sold on the wing. The money collected by «Horizon» had paid for itself twice over in forty days. People came flocking with prepayment. A dozen regular clients had paid for spirit that had crossed the Polish-Belarusian border yesterday. They were ready to wait a week if it meant being first in line at the handover. One of the prepayers assured me that if we didn’t shit the bed, he’d bring in some serious people by November, people with money. New Year’s wasn’t far off; they’d pay for three trucks without blinking.
The owners of wholesale depots and the shopkeepers remembered last year’s alcohol shortages and, rather than face empty shelves on New Year’s Eve, were ready to advance money for December deliveries.
We were novices who had accidentally found ourselves at the summit of the mountain. We hadn’t been around last year, so we didn’t bother with advances; we asked the eager ones to wait, there are problems you don’t need to know about. Let’s talk closer to the date. Nobody knew what would become of the country after the parliamentary revolt. We might yet end up trading in «Buratino» and «Kolokolchik» soda.
«Calm, only calm!» we declared, sensing that a crunch was in the making. New Year’s isn’t Student’s Day with a bottle of Moskvoretskoye beer on a park bench. It’s a solemnity and a festival! Every citizen of reproductive age is obliged to consume an assortment of alcoholic beverages out of imported bottles with colored labels. And citizens of reproductive age in Moscow and its suburbs are legion!
Meeting the pre-New-Year’s frenzy with five people was insanity. Lucky Zhorik had hustled up the premises. In his telling, we could move into «Metallsnab» at any time and expand there without limit. He swore the agreement was reinforced concrete! Warned that it would take two or three days to fix the agreement on paper. Just in case…
I didn’t object. Preparing the office could take a week and I didn’t want to drag it out. With the boys I ran a brainstorm: «How do we move?»
We left the business to Oksana, went down to the «Terem,» ordered double espressos with ice cream all round, thought about it… and started throwing out ideas.
Shutting down trade at Kalyazinskaya made no sense. We had to open at «Metallsnab» in parallel and move over gradually. I become the boss in the new office, Yurik stays boss in the old one.
That went well!
We settled the terminology. From now on the Kalyazinskaya office is the «shed,» the office at «Metallsnab» is the «firm.» Then we drew lots on our fingers for who’d go to the firm. It fell to Pashka. Working from that, we laid out the subsequent steps.
Pasha finds a sharp senior student in the dorm, hands over his accumulated knowledge and sends him to the shed to deal with clients. Vovka doesn’t doze either – he finds another senior student in the dorm, physically well developed, shares the sacred knowledge of warehouse accounting and turnover with him, and then sends him to the firm to run the hangar. On that we settled.
I got behind the wheel and set off for VychMekh. I had to report the decisions to Zhorik and negotiate the move with the «Metallsnab» management.
I drove there without a single remark from Vasilich. I’d barely parked the car before he leapt out of the passenger seat. He hurried off to Zhorik with a report that Roman Viktorych was a fine fellow, a regular Nigel Mansell, ready to drive. Vasilich couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel of a serious motor. Zhorik egged the old boy on, saying he’d trade the Bucephalus for a six-hundred, and then it would be «noblesse oblige, chauffeur driving limo et cetera.»
Vasilich, for all that, was a straight man; from the very beginning he’d neither dissembled nor muddied the waters. He warned me and Zhora that he wouldn’t rush it. This was serious business. Whatever else, he was not letting an unprepared Roman Viktorovich onto public roads, noblesse or oblige. He had to satisfy himself what kind of ace driver I was.
Today Vasilich satisfied himself that I steered like a master, undistracted, slotting neatly into gaps. I filled up with confidence myself. Three days had been enough to feel like a seasoned wheelman.
While I parked the Taurus in the VychMekh lot – seven sweats came off me, reversing wouldn’t come – Zhorik, Vasilich and Vadim materialized.
They raised the hood of the Bucephalus, stood there, looked. Vasilich tugged at something. Vadim stood like a graven image. Zhorik turned and headed toward me. I was just climbing out of the car with a feeling of deep satisfaction after a parking maneuver that had ended in success. I hadn’t managed to shut the door before Zhorik dumped a pile of information on me.
Point one – the dividend question is settled. The important shareholders have been fully satisfied, the small ones got the face value of their shares back at the going rate, a hundred rubles a share. Anyone who doesn’t like it can go take a walk in the garden and on down to the sea, and wait there for Lev Moiseich to turn up with the promised equipment. We broke no laws. It’s nobody’s fault that they blew the parliament to pieces, as a consequence of which the investor changed his mind about putting money into Russian industry. Read the force majeure clause more carefully next time, the one set in standard type and not in tiny print up the document’s ass.
Point two – a spare fifty grand has surfaced. Why not puff out our cheeks wider than our shoulders and buy the «ruble forty, brand new» that was lifted in Partenkirchen, so as to drive crosswise down every street. Sub-point one – we have to go down to the traffic cops to register the limousine. Sub-point two – don’t screw it up by handing over the cash before the deal is registered. The motor is being unloaded by Ingush guys who come from Fyodor, a proven fellow… But they’re Ingush… But they come from Fyodor… The wicked Ingush crawls up the bank, honing his dagger… We’ll work out where he’s crawling from and why…
For the Bucephalus, the pop-eyed fellow who came up through cash-conversion will give ten grand sight unseen – that’s point number three.
And the main one, point four – he’d been at «Metallsnab» that morning and agreed on a move for Monday. Coughed through from A to Z. In a couple of hours we’ll be signing the contracts, sealing them with stamps and washing them down. The sauna’s being heated for the afterparty right now!
I agreed with what I’d heard, and then remembered I was dressed like a hardened veteran of the booze trade – cooperative jeans, a Turkish sweater and a Chinese leather jacket. The suit and tie were at home. Change!
Zhorik clapped me on the back: «Don’t sweat it! We’re not going empty-handed, we’re going with banknotes in an envelope! They’ll be delighted with any getup, even an informal one. When you’ve got a thousand bucks in your hand, sweatpants and a wifebeater will pass for white tie! Let’s go, Afonya!»
