Red Russia Read online

  Of greater concern are all the tattooed men in the yard wearing wife-beaters.

  A quick count of twelve tells me I don’t have enough sleeping pills to get Peter safely through the weekend.

  There are going to be more cases of vodka than I have zopiclone. And I’m not about to give any of these criminals Ambien because even normal drunks on Ambien become entirely too unpredictably weird. And hell, already, there’s a man with a polar bear on his head.

  He’s just one of the fifteen oddities. James Dean, Elvis, and the blond with cornrows now seem relatively ordinary when compared to the circus-styled strongman, fat man, and too many tattooed men to be considered freaks.

  Peter points for me to stand at his side and instructs, “Stop gawking.”

  I really should, but it’s difficult when they’re all staring back.

  And because they’re Russian, not one of them is smiling, so the welcoming party—if that’s what it is—doesn’t come across as particularly hospitable.

  It occurs to me that maybe I don’t know where I am either.

  It also strikes me that Volikov and Felix are the ones who give and maintain order, and as they’re in no condition to take charge, the group is without direction.

  Their opinion of the two Americans is still unformed. Are we to be accepted or derided?

  It’s a delicate time while they try to make up their minds.

  They’re not speaking, or even really moving, and yet, in their languid interest, I feel aggression.

  I’d like to take Peter’s hand, but he’s playing it cool, wading into their midst, showing no concern whatsoever.

  From his Fifth Avenue-styled hair to his Italian leather shoes, the Bratva are sizing him up, and he’s lazily returning their attention, looking each man in the eye.

  As he makes his slow way through the curious ensemble to the woman at the front door, he’s stopped by an ink-covered hand thrown across his chest. When he looks with warning down the length of the tattooed arm to the face, the hand flips to offer a cigarette.

  Peter accepts and then leans into the flame offered by another heavily inked arm.

  The flame bearer says, “International flight and a nine-hour drive, and you are still hard as my konfetku.” Konfetku = candy = dick, and I’m not translating that to Peter for their amusement.

  And I don’t need to because the accusatory tone has already riled him, so after a confrontational round of alpha male glaring, Peter blows smoke toward the house and asks, “Konstantin?”

  The man who offered the cigarette raises his brows while turning his mouth into an exaggerated frown and suggests, “You would be very brave to interrupt him now,” and a chuckle runs through the yard.

  Because this exchange seems likely to devolve into some sort of chest-beating shit-slinging territorial display of masculinity, I translate verbatim.

  Peter responds, “Nice house. Is it yours?”

  “Nyet.”

  “Konstantin’s?”

  The circus finds this hilariously contemptible.

  The Fat Man explains, “House belongs to translator.”

  Peter says, “I’d like to meet him.”

  Half the men fold with laughter, and the rest shake their heads in dismay.

  Peter holds his ground, staring at the strongman until the strongman says, “Translator will say hello when he wants to speak fat American language.”

  For most Russians, the English language seems unnecessarily full of padding. All those his and hers and a’s and the’s, it’s plump with needless words. I might explain this to Peter but it’s not really the sort of thing that interests him, and whoever is pulling in the drive does.

  He stares at the modest black Volga rolling through the weeds until it stops beside the Unimog.

  The strongman throws his chin toward the new arrival and says, “My favorite gondon.”

  Gondon = condom = sorry excuse for a man.

  True to the picture provided by M&H’s Competitive Intelligence Department, Isaak Madulin steps from the car a cloud of gray. Gray hair, gray pallor, gray suit, and pulling an even grayer expression, I don’t think he wants to be here.

  With his long gangly legs, he could stride from his car to the tension of the big tent in four easy steps, but instead, each forward footfall is small and overly managed and seems in favor of retreat.

  Peter tries to help. Extending his hand, he stalks the short distance, saying, “Mr. Madulin, I can’t tell you how eager I am to sit down with you and have a conversation for possibility.”

  Looking dully over the rabble, Isaak cuts short my translation to say, “Before they start chewing on our bones, we should talk in the house.”

  The Hermit

  Russians don’t decorate like Americans. To start, there is a complete deficit of plush furnishings. Every chair is straight backed hard, and the couch will be designed on nineteenth-century aesthetics, suitable only for women in corsets so tight they’re incapable of considering anything worse. The rooms are often large, but all the furniture will be pushed against opposite walls so there exists in the center a vast area of empty space. Coffee table? Don’t be absurd. But there will always be some sort of monstrous cabinet looming in a corner with at least six drawers and a dozen locked doors. And you will never see anyone use it ever.

  In the winter, the rooms are eighty degrees, but in the summer, you’ll be lucky if the high reaches sixty.

  In the mansion’s front parlor, I’m cold and uncomfortable. Ten feet to my left, I hear the creak of wood as Peter adjusts for comfort in the antique Empire chair, and fifteen feet in front of us, across a wide expanse of elaborate parquet, six-foot Isaak sits in the center of a dainty matching couch, knees nearly level with his chest.

  The only one who looks happy is the cat on top of the cupboard. From far across the room, I can see the single overhead light reflecting orange in the dark circles of his eyes.

  In contrast, Isaak’s pupils are pinpoints of black lost in two globes of ocean blue euphoria. Opiate addiction. I don’t need it explained because I already saw it in his astral chart.

  He’s a Pisces with a Chinese Tiger in the water, and he’s also ruled by the number seven.

  Perhaps it would be fair to warn I’m about to devolve into some serious occult nonsense here, so if you can’t bear the esoteric prattle, feel free to skip down a couple paragraphs.

  For those that remain, let’s have a quick lesson in numerology.

  This is way oversimplified, but the basic goal of numerology is to render from words, dates, and symbols a single meaningful number. In the case of birth, this number is achieved by adding the month, day, and year. Isaak Madulin was born March 13, 1962, which is also 03-13-1962, so we add 0+3+1+3+1+9+6+2 and then take the total of 25 and add 2+5 for 7.

  In the alphabet, A, B, C, D is 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on, until the letter I reaches 9 and then circles back to J to become 1 again.

  Trust me, Isaak Madulin is a seven.

  With both his name and date of birth equaling seven, Isaak couldn’t be more of a seven.

  And seven, because of its offset location on the Tree of Life, is the lowest degradation of the soul. Things shouldn’t get any worse than seven.

  But making things worse, Isaak’s particular 1962 model of Tiger is ruled by Water, as is the astrological sign Pisces.

  In the Tarot, water is represented by the Cups, and the Seven of Cups is the fetid cascading fountain called Debauch.

  I wouldn’t be the first to call the Seven of Cups the most dismal card in the deck, and this is Isaak’s card. Unlike most people, whose name will equal one number and their date of birth another, whose Western astrological element might be Water and their Chinese may be Earth, where these variations would supply four different Tarot cards with a chance for multiple and unique interpretations in the story they told, Isaak has just one: the Seven of Cups. Debauch.

  Humor me while I wrap up my hair in a silk turban and explain the Seven of Cups: It is a chalice of
poison that promises ecstasy but delivers regret. To consume what it offers is to pursue false desires and sink into artificial security. It is pleasure corrupted. It is somnolent addiction in every form, but especially opium. Swilling from this cup will lead to acts of depravity so obscene the conscious mind will reel away in shame, but still the drinker will not stop as the easiest way to soothe the humiliation is to drink again. In this cycle of vice and despair, the only chance of escape may seem suicide, but this is often just the final and ultimate submission to the cup, as death will likely result from overdose.

  Just to be clear, there is absolutely nothing good to be found in the Seven of Cups.

  Now, I don’t honestly and definitively believe anything I just said about numerology and the Tarot, and yet I need no further proof that Isaak is a thoroughly degenerate opiate addict.

  Blame my dual nature as a Gemini: I believe none of it and all of it. Simultaneously. The only sign that has it worse is Libra. Now they’re really hopeless when it comes to picking a side because they see all sides equally. But as we presently don’t have any Libras to deal with, never mind them.

  For now, we have the Seven of Cups and the Prince of Coins, and the conversation is stressed because few cards are more at odds.

  One seeks nearly suicidal pleasure through the psychoactive alterations of his senses, and the other gets his kicks from the acquisition of property.

  One is already bored. “Everything worth doing happened two decades ago.”

  While the other is still trying to get business started. “It’s that kind of forward thinking, with its roots firmly planted in the past, which will allow us to grow to a high altitude view.”

  Isaak stares at me as though I were the mother of that abomination. He allows a few moments of silence to bury my translation firmly in the past and then continues, “The big game was played in the nineties.”

  And Peter has me return, “We’re here to take it to the next level.”

  The cold contempt in Isaak’s eyes crosses the sea of parquet and creates a chill down my spine. He tries again. “The problem with post-Soviet reforms was gangsters were doing business with the nomenklatura, and neither knew the rules by which the other played.”

  And Peter would have me respond, “Sounds like a real circular firing squad.”

  But I’m not inclined to repeatedly test the temperament of an opiate addict, so instead I ask, “Who made you director of the saw mill? The Bratva or the siloviki?”

  “M-dá.” Pff. “Maksim Volikov made that happen. He makes everything happen in my life: director of sawmill, mayor of Bereznik, Chief Operating Officer of Konstantin Imperiya. My wife takes too much pleasure in calling me a krémljad.”

  Krémljad: a conjunction of Kremlin and bljad (whore).

  “Baby”—Peter smiles to appear relaxed—“I can’t say anything to make this man happy, and now he’s sneering. Why is he sneering?”

  I explain, “Volikov installed Isaak as the director of the saw mill, mayor of Bereznik, and COO of KI. Now his wife thinks he’s a silovik vassal.”

  Peter blinks. He stops breathing, stops smiling, and then blinks twice more. He’s ten feet away, but I think he mumbles, “The fuck we get here?”

  Isaak pulls Peter’s attention back by speaking again. “I was a twenty-four-year-old law graduate with plans to rise through the ranks of the Young Reformers in Moscow, but Maksim tells me—” Isaak looks to me and instructs, “You tell Peter what I say.”

  So I do.

  “Maksim says to me, ‘Go to Bereznik and take care of sawmill for me. When this is done, there will be a position waiting for you in Moscow.’”

  He pauses for me to tell Peter.

  “I do for Maksim everything he asks. I take over directorship of the sawmill. I alter the books to show the factory is running at a loss. I bribe government auditors to confirm it is in deficit. And I put it forward to the government that this factory needs to be privatized immediately or it will drain the dwindling resources of the State.”

  Peter nods to show he understands everything I told him.

  “None of this was easy because this sawmill was very productive and everyone wanted a bribe.”

  Peter nods again.

  “I arrange for the sawmill to be sold at auction, but it is meant to be a paper auction. You understand?”

  He doesn’t, but he agrees nonetheless.

  “No one is going to bid because everyone knows Maksim Volikov of the KGB—errr…” Isaak growls and frowns to correct himself. “Not KGB but FSB.” Then he waves away the notion it is anything but, and explains, “KGB, FSB, it is the same.”

  “Right,” Peter confirms.

  “So no one is going to bid because Maksim Volikov of the KGB has approval from the Federal Forestry Agency to buy the Bereznik sawmill.”

  Peter says, “Mmm hmm.”

  “Then he learns Konstantin has offered double his bribes and has already paid to buy all the leases for the land. It is called a lease, but in reality, Konstantin owns the whole of the Bereznik forest.”

  Peter cocks his head, lifts his brows, and half smirks in appreciation.

  “Yes, he is a very shrewd man. Normally, a man such as Maksim and one such as Konstantin would kill each other over something like the sawmill. Because both knew this, both went into hiding.”

  Peter can’t quite get the smile off his face.

  “Many meetings took place between myself, as a representative for Maksim, and Felix, as the advisor to the Zomanov Bratva. In the end, we came to the arrangement you now enter.”

  Peter stops smiling.

  “Konstantin owns the company in name, but Maksim and I own majority control through shares.”

  Peter listens to me translate but stares at Isaak. Peter is unreadable.

  And Isaak is quiet for a long time. He runs his hand repeatedly over the worn velvet of the antique couch as though he were lost entirely to an opiate dream. Finally, the silence is interrupted when the cat jumps from the cabinet to the floor and the thump of impact seems to shake the mansion.

  Jolted back to the moment, Isaak stops caressing the couch to ask, “So, Peter, whose signature do you imagine is most valuable in closing your deal?”

  * * *

  “Baby, I’m not trying to wrong side you, but we need to align on Isaak’s meaning because what you said sounded like some back-of-the-envelope conversion.” Peter seems to doubt my fluency in Russian. “Could you have been directionally accurate but off-road?”

  I’ve answered No to every variation of the same metaphor for fifteen minutes, so I’ve resorted to ignoring Peter in preference to staring at our luggage. There’s no point in unpacking because in the morning we’re off to Konstantin’s country dacha in Bereznik, and besides, the second-floor room we’ve been given contains only a swayback double bed and two eighteenth-century chairs. I’ve put his bag on one chair and mine on the other.

  “I know you mastered a big learn, but even a ten percent delta in error would impact. Were you and Isaak level-set?”

  Nothing in this house is level. The floors warp high over the joists, and the doors hang at a five-degree slant.

  “My sense check tells me you might have gone tangentery.”

  Tangentery. Tangential? Of or relating to a tangent? Perhaps a straight line? No, those don’t exist here either.

  “Not to disenthuse, but you have to cognisize, this is no baked cake.”

  While Peter worries over my Russian, I feel like I’m losing my grasp of English.

  From downstairs, I hear shouted, “Chto iz etogo? Yesli ya umru, ya umru.” I doubt they’re quoting Lermontov, but, in A Hero of Our Time, Pechorin asks the same question, “What of it? If I die, I die." Russian I’ve got.

  English, though…

  “If you’re more than a nine iron off, we’re looking at a two comma punt.”

  No hero of any work has ever uttered that phrase.

  Peter pleads, “Baby, just give me a binary answer.”r />
  So I respond, “One.”

  “One?”

  “Perhaps you’d prefer zero.”

  “No, Sibyl. Binary means yes or no. Just yes or no.”

  “No, then.”

  “Huh?”

  “No, I did not provide a back-of-the-envelope translation. No, I did not go off-road, tangentery, or punt the nine iron through a two comma goal post. Isaak definitely implied the signature you require to close the deal is not Konstantin’s but one of the silovik.” Okhuyét'. Fucking hell.

  The Star

  The driver with the bull tattoo is still seeing red. He stands in the front parlor with his back to the huge cupboard and glares with suspicion and hatred at Peter.

  He, Peter, and the eleven other Bratva in the room are ten shots into the seventh bottle to be opened since we came downstairs, and because Peter arrived sober, he was also obligated to down a full drinking glass of vodka, so add another five shots to his ten.

  Twenty-two ounces of 88 proof is guaranteed to have just about anyone annihilated within an hour, so it’s not surprising Peter is leaning from his chair at a steeper angle than the doors.

  And because the night is always just beginning in the Russian summer, this group has not even started to get staggered. Peter is too far gone to be afraid anymore, but I am worried for him.

  James Dean asks, “Why are we inside while the sun still shines?”

  And the Polar Bear answers, “We finish this case, then we shoot boar.”

  I’m hoping the subsequent fifteen shots of which the Polar Bear speaks will put Peter safely on his face before this crowd arms with rifles. Then again, they’re Russian, so they might just as easily be hunting with derringers or cannons. It matters little which as Peter has fired none.

  To the Fat Man and Elvis, Peter is wagging his finger. “I see your look of anticipointment, but I assure you, my bouncebackability is in recoil.” Gesturing to the empty glasses, he insists, “Rebound shots for a win.”