Gatac

  There were many things to note about the stranger in the hotel's back room, but to begin with the easiest one, Sean immediately hated the shit out of him and wasn't quite sure why. Sean had a knack for disliking people, to be sure. It was rare he cared enough to hate them, especially given no greater provocation than first sight, but he trusted his gut enough to know it meant something. If nothing else, it meant Sean was looking at somebody important. Another Thief. He had a disarming half-smile Sean couldn't help but contrast with Viktor, the ‘nice guy’ who stood behind him while the stranger and Alexander had what seemed like a very cordial chat across the table, with only two steaming mugs of tea between them. Sean looked to Anne, who looked to him and looked to Viktor, and Viktor in turn shook his head, and that was it. Sean and Anne stood there like a couple of uninvited guests for a moment, the shotgun held by the stock in Sean's left hand feeling heavier by the second. The stranger seemed satisfied with where the conversation had gone, shook Alexander's hand and rose up, walking over to Sean and Anne to shake their hands, too.

  “Good night!” he said, first vigorously gripping Sean's free hand with the right and his wrist with the left hand, then favoring Anne with a curt nod. “Mr. Ignatyev and Mr. Raikov I meet. You are cop Collins and bck Anne, yes?”“That's…one way of putting it,” Sean said, letting the shotgun slip just a little so its muzzle rested on the floor. “And you are?”“Nikoi Dolzhikov,” the stranger said, his smile full of yellow-brown teeth. “I repce my granduncle Boris to resolve problems. You call him.”“Nikoi,” Anne whispered.“Oh,” Sean said. He hadn’t quite realized that efforts to resolve the situation had been going on without his involvement, out of his sight…behind his back, almost. He thought he should have known, should have suspected, should have requested to be involved, maybe, because he felt he now had a pce in all this after a day’s worth of association. But it was said and done and all Sean could do was py along and try not to lean on the shotgun like a cane.“And where is your granduncle now, Mr. Dolzhikov?” Anne asked. Sean didn't like the way Nikoi smiled at her, either.“My granduncle is sick,” Nikoi said. “In lungs.” To illustrate, Nikoi forced a cough into his closed right fist. It sounded wet. Heavy smoker, Sean thought. He also had a puffy face — maybe sick, maybe underfed switching to gorged not long ago? — and didn’t look like he was hiding a lot of muscle under his suit. Might graduate to skinny-fat1Unsurprisingly, there are different shades of body type. It’s all fine and good to call somebody ‘fit’, but that doesn’t mean a lot out of context. Are they wiry and strung together from muscle and sinew, like a long-distance runner? Are they just never out of breath because they have awesome cardio? Are they limber and flexible enough to moonlight as yoga instructor? Do they have the thick neck of a weight lifter, the strong fingers of a solo climber, the superhero workout sixpack? In the same vein, there are different kinds of putting on body fat. You can be strong and hefty — look at your cliché mustachioed circus strongman, those guys had a lot of muscle under their big guts. You can be all muscles and look sick because a certain amount of body fat and water is actually normal and healthy. Or you can have a normal-range BMI and eat decently but not have a lot of muscle tone, in which case you’ll be staring at a gut every morning in the mirror without necessarily looking traditionally ‘fat’. in a few months if he kept up whatever his lifestyle was. Sean also spotted the barbed wire tattoos on his index and middle fingers. “When you are old,” Nikoi continued, “cold is not good for lungs. He goes to sunny pce for old men, called Florida, to get good again.”Sean looked to Anne, not quite saying “Is this guy for real?” but also not quite keeping that expression off his face. Anne’s face made a valiant effort not to turn into a sneer.“I am sorry to hear it,” she said. “How bad is it?”“Oh, in Florida sun, not so bad,” Nikoi said. “He sees many nice things at beach, he feels more young.”

  The joke that made everyone in the room smile politely, except for Sean. But Nikoi didn't seem to mind, or maybe even notice; pusible enough, given that he quickly turned his back on Anne and Sean.

  “Well, enough about this,” Nikoi told Alexander. “As far as I'm concerned, we have a deal. Refrain from further action against Ilya Sidorov. The situation is being handled at the council level. I will try to hear his side of the story, of course, but he is not making himself look very good with his aggressiveness and his refusal to be contacted. Again, my condolences for the loss of your father. Everyone speaks highly of him, as a true brother. His passing is a painful loss for us all.”“Thank you for making the time to see me, Nikoi,” Alexander said, rising from the table and hobbling over to shake the man's hand one more time. “You understand I would not have asked for your help if I did not feel the situation warranted it.”“Do not worry about this now, Alexander,” Nikoi said. “These things are why I am here. I will bring you the news tomorrow in person. Get some sleep and we will speak about the future then, if that is agreeable to you. Perhaps we can meet for breakfast.”Alexander nodded. “My father's restaurant,” he said. “We would be honored to receive you as our guest.”“Perfect,” Nikoi said with a smile. “I will meet you all there at ten.”“Of course,” Alexander said.

  The two shook hands one more time, then leaned in for a quick exchange of kisses just an inch of air away from the other's cheek. Nikoi turned away from Alexander and shoved himself and his smile past Anne and Sean. The door closed behind him. It wasn't until Sean heard the engine of Grandpa's car firing up outside that he felt free to speak.

  “Uh,” Sean said, putting his eloquence on dispy again. The whole room looked at him, and Sean tried to look back. “Did I miss my cue?”“We missed something,” Anne said. “Why was he here?”“He is Boris’s grand nephew,” Alexander said before Viktor had a chance to save him from saying it. “He called me just after you two left. I arranged the meeting here.”“That’s the who and maybe the why, but not the why here,” Sean said. “I mean, what's wrong with a café, some neutral ground, you make sure he doesn't tail you back here? It's not a safehouse if strangers know we're here.” He looked to Anne. “Right?”“Indeed,” Anne said. Sean kept looking at her like that would make more words come out of her mouth, but it didn't.“I appreciate you worrying, Detective,” Alexander said. “But Nikoi is a friend.”“You met him in Leningrad?” Anne asked.Alexander nodded. “He helped me out with a few things there,” he said.“Yeah, but…” Sean piped up. The whole room was looking at him again. “…I never know when to shut up.”“No, please,” Alexander said, waving a hand vaguely in Sean's direction. “Say what you have to say.”“Uh, okay,” Sean said. “It's just the whole…Florida thing? Anybody else think that's very convenient? I mean, none of you knew about that, did you? You've been trying to call Grandpa and all this time he's not even in town?”

  The silence was all the answer he needed. The answer he bwanted was one that would make him feel better about being right, though Sean didn't know what it would be. Being right and not feeling good about it was the far more familiar sensation.

  “We should have Nikoi give us the number of the pce where Boris is staying,” Anne said. “So that we may convey our wishes for a swift recovery.”Alexander nodded. “That sounds good,” he said. “Tomorrow. Right now, we all deserve some rest, I think.”“Uh,” Sean piped up again. “Okay, whatever, you’re free to buy into Nicky’s line, or py-act like you do, just saying he’s 100% lying to you.” He looked around. “I will eat pan-fried badge with parsley sauce if Grandpa is actually in Florida on vacation. That’s how sure I am.”“Sean,” Anne said, “I think we are done here. Time to pack it in for today.”“No,” Sean said. “Actually, we're not done here. I didn’t carry all that shit up the basement stairs to be ‘done’.”Alexander looked at him. "What…’shit’?”“Well, uh,” Sean continued, “we grabbed Sidorov's files, so — ”“…oh,” Alexander said. “You said you were looking for the ledger. I did not expect you to find it this quickly.”“You will require a transtor,” Viktor offered.“Yeah, that,” Sean said. “And somebody to help us carry them inside. There’s, like, 600?” Seeing Viktor's expression, he quickly added “Pounds.”“600 pounds of files,” Viktor said.2Turns out Sean’s pre-clearing analysis overshot the target because he didn’t account for another expnation of three file cabinets: Ilya’s filing system was not optimized for maximum utilization of each drawer.“Oh, right, you guys are metric,” Sean said. “That’d be about 270 kilograms, though I guess 300 kilograms is just as good a guess, we didn’t exactly put it on a scale. It, uh, 300 sounds cleaner, I guess. Just so you can have a rough idea.” Sean thought about it. “Like, three to four dead bodies, how’s that?”“300 kilograms,” Viktor repeated again.“Give or take,” Anne said.“It appears you took rather more than you pnned to,” Viktor said.“Well, yeah,” Sean said. “We took everything. It's not like we had time to go through it all there and only grab the highlights. We figured, well, we could sort it out ter. Now it’s ter and…we could sort it out. Should sort it out. So.”“Nikoi will hear about it, one way or another,” Alexander said. “If he hasn’t by tomorrow, we’ll have to tell him ourselves. And he will have to tell the council.”“They will make us give the files back,” Anne said, then turned to Sean. “I hope you understand, Sean, that this development renders our excursion surplus to requirements. However, the important aspect is Ilya backs down one way or another. We have shown him how assaible he still is despite his physical absence. And we have a Dolzhikov in our corner, it seems. That is a darn sight better than nothing.”“Actually — and this is just my unreflected opinion, take it for what it’s worth — fuck your 'better than nothing',” Sean said. “You know what’s actually better than nothing? The files. Which we have. Which, and I’m not getting tired of pointing this out, we just went through a lot of shit to get. Again, you just wanna throw them all away? As long as we have the files, we have Sidorov by the balls. If there ever was a time to burn the midnight oil, this is it.”“I don’t think —” Anne said, but Alexander raised a hand.“What do you suggest, Detective?” Alexander asked.“I suggest we skip sleep tonight,” Sean said, then looked to Viktor. “You did offer to help, right? Anne, you’re a great Negative Nelly and I wouldn’t want you to ever change, but you know Russian, so we can’t bench you, either. Maybe Mikhail, too? Look, we just have to all sit together to power through it, read as much as we can and hope we find enough dirt to have some leverage by daylight. First things first, I gotta get some of my terror brew going." He didn’t pause for questions. “That’s bck tar thick enough to stand up a spoon in — for the three seconds it takes to dissolve the spoon in it. It’s a caffeine hatefuck served with a side of heart palpitations and a bucket of ice packs we wrap tightly around our heads to keep them from exploding. I'm talking evil belches, I’m talking mouths dry like the Sahara, I’m talking Warp fucking Ten, Mr. Sulu.”

  If the merit of a proposition could be judged by the slowness of its repudiation, Sean’s suggestion was pretty good. Nobody spoke up for a few seconds. Sean silently fpped his mouth a couple of times, though, unsure if he had to continue to make his point or if they were waiting for him to actually positively signal he had stopped talking, so he closed his mouth, kept it shut for a couple of Mississippis and even gave Viktor a generous nod, hoping for a little cross-cultural understanding.

  “…I do not know Mr. Sulu,” Viktor said, thus emboldened.“Star Trek, uncle,” Alexander said. “Mr. Sulu pilots the starship Enterprise.”“That sounds familiar,” Anne said. “Was it from that movie we watched in the summer?”“You…ugh,” Sean said. “Okay, I don't want to get into ‘that movie’ right now. I mean, it was the fifth movie in the series if anyone is counting, but we've got work to do, I can whip up a coffee-esque drink that'll keep us going through the night, that's all I wanted to express. It’s a…colorful metaphor.” He looked around, stopping at Viktor. “Tell me you at least got that. I mean, what I literally meant, not the reference to the fourth movie because obviously you guys don’t even know what I’m talking about.” He looked to Anne. “And, just so you know, that’s exactly how I feel when you talk Russian. Or Latin. Just saying.”

  Anne gred at Sean.

  “But hey,” he said, “you don’t know anything about science fiction, that's cool. Not your thing. I get it. Now, the files —”“I have seen many science fiction movies, Detective,” Viktor said. “Soviet ones3Viktor’s referring to stuff like the works of Pavel Klushantsev, though one supposes he would also have enjoyed miniseries like Guest from the Future if he hadn’t already left the Soviet Union by the time it aired.As for my personal recommendations? Well, I’m not telling you to watch Tarkovsky’s Stalker, because that’s right behind Requiem for a Dream as one of the best movies I never want to go through again, but I’m also not telling you to not watch it, you know? Like, there’s a reason Kubrick was a Tarkovsky fan. (Even I won’t excuse the Tokyo highway driving sequence in Soris, though.) Or if you want to be really creeped out, peep the animated adaption of There Will Come Soft Rains., in my youth. They were cheap, but their stories were about exploration and understanding. About brave and kind people who worked for a better world. Much better than your explosions and war movies where you teach children that killing is entertainment.”“Getting lectured on the dangers of movie violence by a literal career criminal,” Sean muttered to himself. “Scratch that one off my bucket list.”“Yes, uncle, these Soviet movies must be much better,” Alexander said. But he smiled. “Because communism solves everything, right?”“I did not say this!” Viktor said. “I said they celebrated working together, instead of fighting. It is a good message.”“Well, I didn't much care for all those fighting scenes in Star Trek, either,” Anne said.“Look, can we just —“ Sean tried.Alexander looked to Viktor. “It is my fault, uncle,” Alexander said. “I made Annie see the movie with me.”“I came along of my own free will,” Anne said. “I did not set out to dislike the movie, I must say. See, I had read about it in the paper and thought a quest to find God given the means to venture to the Heavens and beyond would make for an interesting conceit.” She snorted. “And it would. But that was not what the movie seemed concerned with. When they blew up what passes in this movie for ‘God’ with a ray gun, it hardly surprised me.”4Oh, uh…spoilers, I guess.“Okay, you’re still talking about this — now, look, nobody likes that part,” Sean said. “That's no basis to judge the rest of the series. You gotta see it in context. I mean, you guys, talking Trek? Forget it. You don’t know shit. That’s like, you know, if I picked up the Odyssey three-fourths of the way through and asked you, hey, what’s the deal with this dude meandering around the Med like he’s never heard of a fucking compass?”5The joke is, of course, that Odysseus is basically a single night’s travel away from Ithaca fairly early in the Odyssey and much of what we hear of his adventures is stuff he’s telling us after we already know he’s made it that far. Plus, you know, Poseidon messing up his pns at several points. To be fair, though, Phaeacian ships can apparently go to the end of the world and back in a single day, so maybe this overstates how early Odysseus gets how close to home. For Sean to know any of that would have required him to have actually read the poem, though.The other joke is that the earliest historical evidence for magnetic compasses of any kind seems to date to Han Dynasty China at about 200 BC. The Odyssey’s exact age is unknown, but it’s older than 800 BC and depicts events even farther in the past. So yeah, in all likelihood, Odysseus had never heard of a compass.Anne raised an eyebrow, which hardly slowed Sean down.“I mean, even if we leave aside the show — technically the shows, right, but if you guys haven't seen the original show I can't expect you to know about the Animated Series6Sean would tell you that his least favorite episode of Star Trek TAS is The Sver Weapon because it’s such a btant transpnt of Larry Niven’s short story from an entirely different sci-fi verse and doesn’t fit into Trek canon at all and the supposedly fearsome Kzinti are in pastel pink spacesuits because the animation supervisor was colorblind and nobody contradicted him when he picked the color. And yes, Sean likes that episode even less than The Infinite Vulcan.That’s what Sean would tell you. — anyway, they had many excellent stories you just can't do on a big screen, you know, heavy stuff7Sean would also tell you that Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is an important treatment of racism., and that aside you're still dismissing four movies you've never seen on the basis of the one you have. I mean, seriously, why did you only watch the worst one? What is wrong with you?” He caught his breath.“The new series is good, too!” Alexander chimed in.

  Sean said nothing, but wiggled his outstretched hand in the universal gesture of “Eh”.8At the time the story takes pce, Star Trek: The Next Generation was airing the first half of its third season and was at a point where many Trek fans would say the series had improved from its rocky start, but there’s a certain amount of retrospective involved. There were certainly plenty of guys like Sean who had yet to be fully convinced of the series’s merits at this point. And if you didn’t get it from this shpiel, Sean has opinions.

  “I think we have said quite enough on this, then,” Anne said.“Thank you,” Sean said. “Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, so gd we had this discussion and figured it all out. So. Coffee. I'm gonna need some whole beans. Robusta all the way. And eggs. We need an egg in there, trust me. You guys better tense your taste buds, this one's not gonna go down without a fight.”“I still think we should all get some rest,” Anne said, making it her turn to have the room stare at her. “Rather than argue about movies and coffee.”“Oh, so when I’m right it’s an argument,” Sean muttered, to be ignored by everyone.“Alexander,” Anne continued, “you have an important meeting with Nikoi and you will need Viktor at his best for it, too. As for us, Sean, we have been running around all day and night. We won't be able to make heads or tails of anything without some sleep.”“We’re all tired, Anne,” Alexander said. “But there must be all kinds of secrets in the files. Detective Collins is not wrong about how useful they could be.”“Only if tomorrow's negotiations fall through,” Anne said.“Yeah, yeah,” Sean cut in, “you’re allergic to change, we get it. But we have the advantage right now, no matter what happens at the meeting. Use it or lose it.”“And help you build your case in the process,” Anne said, sweeping her look from Sean to Alexander. “Your decision, boss.”“You are right, Anne, that there is a good chance we may not have the same problems tomorrow,” Alexander began. “However, I'm with Detective Collins on this. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight anyway, so I will help him. You and Viktor, on the other hand, require rest. I want you by my side in top shape, in case things turn…uncivilized.”

  Sean watched Anne through this, the way the fingertips of her right hand tapped against each other faster and faster, the way her back straightened that st little bit and her feet shifted as if to brace for a brawl. And a gnce at Viktor showed he wasn't the only one noticing this. Sean wanted to do something about it, say something to defuse the energy in the room, support Alexander's way of letting Anne keep face about going to sleep without drawing attention to that, maybe zero in on the core of her objection and actually convince her, yeah, if he could —

  “Yes, boss,” she said. “I will help carry the materials inside, of course, after we secure our weapons.”“Of course,” Alexander said. “If you could give me and Viktor a moment — ”“Sure,” Sean said before Anne could.

  Sean was feeling the burn, the need, the thirst for truth. His heart was revved up but his head seemed to be full of mosses. He needed truth to clear it out, truth to flush the bullshit and let him…know what to say to Anne. When they entered the elevator, he at least knew it was time to speak up, ready or not.

  “Anne,” he tried.“Sean?” Anne said, hands now in the outer pockets of her coat, eyes staring at the elevator’s control panel.“I can't think of a respectful way to say this, but I do mean it in the most respectful way possible,” Sean said. “What the fuck just happened? We went through all that bullshit for the files and you fold instantly as soon as there’s another new face in the mix? Give me a fucking break.”Anne said nothing.“Okay, whatever,” Sean said, turning away. That didn't st, though. He couldn’t punish Anne with his silence, so he turned back to face her again. “Seriously, though,” he continued. “We either go all in now or we write off this whole trip as a waste of our fucking time and trust that Big Nick's gonna make all your boo-boos go away tomorrow. You’re all so eager to suck his dick — uh, figuratively — but I just can't figure out why.” Anne sighed as Sean continued. “I mean, okay, my case is my problem, yes you have been very helpful, yes, thank you, I just said it again, but get real. We just handed you guys a fucking goldmine. So what if you kiss and make up with Sidorov tomorrow? Knowledge is fucking power, better to have it and not need it.”“Having it is the whole problem,” Anne said. “Do you know why I insisted you take Kyrill’s gun, Sean?”“We didn’t know what was waiting outside, so two shooters were better than one shooter and a target,” Sean said. “I mean, the cynical read is you wanted more leverage on me. I’m still not entirely sure that’s not your Pn B insurance policy. But say I give you enough credit to not believe that. Then, the way you phrased it, it’s supposed to be a ‘here, I trust you now’ thing, something about fairness, maybe?”Anne smirked. “Me and fair, that is funny, Sean.”9Colorism is discrimination against people by the color of their skin in particur rather than their ethnic background in general. In general — and in no small part through Eurocentric cultural values being exported in colonial and postcolonial times — lighter skin tones are perceived as more attractive, while darker skin tones are seen as less desirable. Kids as young as three years old pick that up. What was once explicit with stuff like paper bag tests and such spine-crawly literary tropes as “The Tragic Mutto” is now often more subtle, like African-American celebrities being printed on magazine covers with lightened skin, while infamously a Time cover depicted a post-arrest OJ Simpson with notably darkened skin. And that’s not even getting into internalized colorism prevalent around the world, as people with darker skin often themselves believe it is unattractive and turn to dubious methods to lighten their skin.Oh, right, if you didn’t twig to it already: that meaning of “fair” is explicitly tied to light-colored skin as a sign of beauty.“Fuck your funny,” Sean said. “Fuck you. Okay? I want you to understand that right now, I'm not asking you this shit to be funny or nice or because my pants get tight when a pretty woman winds me up, okay? I want to know what's going on and all you're doing is telling me everything except what I fucking need to know! Which, you know, I should’ve seen coming? ‘Cause that’s about 90% of your pybook, it’s getting a little fucking predictable.”

  Anne turned to look at him and for the first time it seemed to register on her face that she might have actually said what she shouldn't have said. The elevator arrived at their floor, the two got out, and just when Sean started counting steps trying to find another natural pce to start talking, she raised her voice again.

  “Now I don't mean to be harsh,” she said, coming to a dead stop in the hallway on the gray part of the ugly carpet. “But you have a way of sounding a little too clever when you act angry with me. See, what you are doing right now could be taken for an attempt at maniputing me. You are making a scene and that pces me on the back foot. The expectation is I apologize and take pains to accommodate you as compensation.” She let that hang for a moment. “Which, to be clear, I won’t. I am not much for expectations.”“Oh, right,” Sean snarled. “We're still in the ‘tricking each other’ phase of the game. So, is there a time limit or do I wait for a sign from the umpire or…”“It is not that,” Anne said, a little too fast. “But it is hard not to think about the possibilities.” She stopped in pce and looked down again. “I hope you understand this is a leap for me.”"How the fuck do you think I feel?” Sean said. He took a few breaths. They didn’t help. “And that’s your default assumption? Anyone who makes you uncomfortable is trying to gaslight you?”10This might come across as Sean sounding too woke for 1989, but I did make him use the term because it’s been around in the literature for a while and Sean’s supposed to be read up on psychology, for all the good it does him.“Growing up a woman will make you consider everything twice,” Anne said.“Okay, great, we’re dragging sexism into it, too,” Sean said. “Now who’s trying to manipute things?”“I don’t consider it sexism to believe you have never been afraid like I have been,” Anne said. She looked at him with narrow eyes. “You have never had cause to doubt your pce at the table, while I haven’t even made it through the front door. For women in my position, the only rational response to the state of this world is honing our fear.”“What?” Sean said. “Anne, I’m twenty rge in the red from student loans and I know you wouldn’t even miss that much. If anyone here is taken care of it’s you. And you said ‘honing our fear’, what the fuck does that even mean? You hone a…what do you even ‘hone’? And why would you want to be afraid? I’ve been afraid. I’ve been fucking terrified, like, just this morning? When you aimed a gun at me? I almost shat a brick and I’m not too proud to admit it.” He paused for a moment. “Fear fucking sucks,” he concluded.“When I speak of fear, I do not speak of embarrassment or even blind panic,” Anne said. “I mean the voice in the moment of crisis that stills your heart and guides your hands. The devil in your ear who says 'Do this now or die'. Have you ever even heard him?”“…no?” Sean admitted.“Because I hear plenty from him,” Anne said. “You can imagine he is not the most genial fellow, but the devil has kept me alive and in one piece so far. He has been telling me, ever since I met you, that you are very bad news for me and that I should take you down before you take me down.”“O-kay,” Sean said. “You’re basing this all on hearing voices. Expins a lot.”“Figuratively,” Anne added. “I am not schizophrenic, Sean.11The term ‘schizophrenic’ is commonly confted with some dramatic ideas that more closely resemble dissociative identity disorder, where one physical ‘person’ appears to experience their actions and thoughts dominated by a changing cast of personalities or ‘alters’; those personalities may be fixed or transient in nature, appear at random or triggered by certain experiences / emotional states / trauma, and may or may not act aware of one another. I’m using a lot of weasel words here because the diagnosis seems very controversial these days and I’m not qualified to assess it in clearer terms.Schizophrenia, then, is characterized by hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking, with Anne commenting on the first of those. Hallucinations are sensory perceptions that are not based on external stimuli. Notably, schizophrenia does not require that the patient be unable to distinguish hallucinations from ‘real’ perceptions — plenty of people suffering from schizophrenia can very well tell that they’re hallucinating, but that doesn’t make it less distressing. Imagine you heard a ghostly voice telling you random words every few minutes — you could keep telling yourself it’s not real, you could intellectually be certain of it, but that doesn’t make the voice stop bothering you. If it serves to crify my point, call it a gut feeling instead. Now, do you understand what my gut tells me about you? Every moment I spend around you, I have to decide all over again if I should be so seduced, draw my pistol and put two above your ear when you aren't looking…or if I should leave you be and give you chance upon chance to injure me. Perhaps, then, you might try to consider my decisions in light of what I am not doing.”“Yeah, I’m so gd to be worthy of your continued inaction,” Sean shot back. “Which, by the way? Nice threat, real subtle. Won’t work on me, but better than that little ‘boo-hoo this is a white man’s world and I’m a bck woman’ shpiel. Also, the whole ‘definition of fear’ thing? Triple A word game, fucking top shelf. What was it you literally just said about sounding too clever?”“The difference between us is that I am not angry with you,” Anne said.“Aren’t you,” Sean prodded.“I try very hard not to be angry with you, or anyone, for that matter,” Anne said. “Ira furor brevis est.”12“Anger is a brief madness” by, you guessed it, Horace.“Trying not to be angry is different from not actually being angry,” Sean said, ignoring the Latin. “Trust me, I know. So, look, if you’re just gonna sublimate13I’ll leave it up to you to decide if Sean’s view of psychology is explicitly Freudian or if he’s throwing this at Anne because he thinks she might have comes across the term and be impressed by him using it. this into some passive-aggressive bullshit —”“I believe I have earned a little more good faith from you and we shall leave aside the issue of whether I agree with you that what you say you need is what you deserve to get,” Anne said, “but if you will indulge me interpreting your dismissal of my answer as a ‘thing’, your true concern appears to be my ultimate agenda. You are justified in doubting me. Absent divine inspiration, you can't be certain. No human could possibly be.” She paused for a moment and slipped into that portentous tone again. “Lupus est homo homini, non homo, quom qualis sit non novit.”14From Putus’s Asinaria, this is the long form of more common ‘Homo homini lupus’. It qualifies the assertion that man is wolf to man, arguing that man is wolf to strangers.

  Sean just stared at her. Anne smiled a little.

  “You have only seen what I have allowed you to see, that is true,” she said. “But you were correct, in a sense. This is fundamentally about trust. Trust we don’t have, trust I am indeed quite reluctant to put in a man trained in getting people to cooperate with him against their better interest. I want to believe you just as I want you to believe me, though, so…I will satisfy your inquiry, after I make a distinction. I will not answer questions to make you happy or to try to stop you from acting in a way that appears calcuted to make me uncomfortable. Most particurly, it has nothing to do with accepting your needs as greater than my own or, indeed, pin good sense. You have not earned such consideration from me. I will tell you what you want to know to deny the devil whispering to me, as a moral choice. A choice made to spite fear. Do you understand?”Sean nodded like he understood.“These files pce power in Alexander's hands,” Anne said. “Whether he chooses to use it or not, Ilya will resent this power and eventually the bance will need to shift again. He will injure us, or someone else, in the pursuit of more power of his own. The wicked thing is it does not matter if we turn over the files to him. Ilya can never be sure of how much we read, how much we copied down, how much we showed others…even how much we kept for ourselves or altered or put in there, or do you think he has a way to account for the authenticity of every word and every number on those pages?”“Yeah, I get it,” Sean said. “Chain of custody's broken.”15Chain of custody is the w enforcement principle that from the moment a piece of evidence is first collected, it must be recorded and stored in a manner suitable to prevent anyone from tampering with it. Being able to establish an unbroken chain of custody from collection to trial is a rge part of the record-keeping requirements for a w enforcement agency.“And he can't trust us, criminals that we are, no matter what the Law says,” Anne said. “Ilya has to take our word for it at first, because Viktor will vouch for the integrity of the files and it would not fit the Law to openly cast the word of another Thief into doubt, but underneath all the ink, they are still human. What we have done has all but guaranteed that even if Ilya was not our true enemy before, he will be going forward. It didn't matter when he was an existential threat, but will matter if firm hands are shook and honeyed words are spoken over breakfast tomorrow.”“So?” Sean said, getting a little antsy standing around. “The damage is already done.”Anne shook her head. “Too many bad things we justify by resigning ourselves to their supposed immutability. I choose to hope that, if we did our best to make pin we have done nothing with those files beyond confiscating them, Ilya would see beyond his own fears and accept our sworn word we did just that and so also accept there is no power we hold over him that he needs to compensate for.”“But he wouldn't believe it,” Sean said. He tried to wave his hand to emphasize his point, realized he was still holding the shotgun, and awkwardly shifted the firearm to the other side, ending up with a gesture five seconds too te to do anything but make Anne look at him side-eyed. “I mean,” Sean continued, “for once I actually 100% agree with you, well, the second-to-st thing you said, anyway, before you got on the hope train. Ilya has every reason not to believe us.”“Just as you wouldn't believe I had no intention of turning a weapon on you,” Anne said. “Therefore, as soon as I understood your position, I had to address the imbance. I didn't want you picking up a spare hidden in your apartment or trying to wrestle for my pistol or putting into motion some other rash pn to counter me. I let you have Kyrill’s pistol and, as circumstances permitted, the opportunity to make sure it was not simply a trick. I banced the situation.”

  Sean weighed the shotgun in his hands, which had the side effect of brushing his arms over the Kevr vest and that damn Beretta tucked into his waistband.

  “And trusted me not to shoot you in the back the first chance I got,” he said.“Not exactly,” Anne said. “I trusted you to understand that a fight between us would leave neither of us better off. Much as I trust Ilya to understand that destroying us will come at the price of destroying himself. Are you following me now?”“No,” Sean said. “If we're gonna try to convince Sidorov we didn't get fresh with his files, what does it matter if we actually did or not? He won't know the difference.”“But we will,” Anne said. “And in so knowing we will surely give it away. Secrets are slippery things, Sean. You may hold onto them as long as you pay attention, but with just a moment's pse, they will escape your grasp. There is not one lie in this world that comes as easy as the truth. Honesty and integrity may gain us more with Ilya than a hundred secrets to bckmail him with. If we show we have acted as honorably as circumstances allowed, Ilya will respect it, I am sure of it. Besides, honesty has always been my preferred policy, for I know no worse insult to a man than to call him liar.”“You're something else, Anne,” Sean said, a smirk pying over his face even if the anger hadn't fled him completely. “I mean, you’re telling me this is all coming from a pce of hope?”“A pce of faith,” Anne countered.Sean nodded. “Well, bra-vo either way. Good speech, a little schmaltzy but I see your heart's in it. Go back down and tell Alexander, I'm sure he'd listen to you.”“It is good you are so certain, but it is not my pce to,” Anne said. “I gave my advice, he made his choice, the discussion is over.”“I see,” Sean said. “How about a non-bullshit reason?”“Listening to such a speech won't change his choice and even if it should, it would be a disservice to sway him from his course,” Anne said. “There is yet more to consider, second-order effects and such.”16The consequence of an action is a first-order effect. The consequence of a consequence, then, is a second-order effect. And so on. Considering that a second-order effect for many crimes is getting arrested, you might reasonably suspect that this concept has not really taken root in the criminal mindset.“Trying to talk me to sleep, huh?” Sean muttered. “Right, go on.”“The true big picture is that reading those files will lead to war, one way or another,” Anne said. “It is a war we could win, knowing all of Ilya's rackets and soldiers, where and when to strike, who will be swayed to our side with what secrets revealed. But when it comes to us, to use your phrasing, the damage is already done. He would have to start from zero tracking us and striking back. The council will have little choice but to bless our operations if Alexander can paint Ilya as a threat to everyone with what we will learn of his secrets. Taking over his operation in the process will leave us powerful enough to rally the remaining Thieves behind us and if it is too big a bite for our stomach, we can always part it out for additional consideration from the other Thieves — none of whom will have much love left for Ilya or Boris, I should add. At least I cannot imagine it, given the recent instability and ck of leadership. From there, Alexander could take over this part of the city and make the rules himself, maybe even ascend to lead the council if he pys his cards right. No more Pax Dolzhikova17The -a ending is used here in reference with the “Pax Romana” (and all subsequent Pax-es named after it). That it also seems to imply that Grandpa’s “peace” makes him a woman by Russian naming convention is an unfortunate confluence of different grammatical approaches, but you’re free to read it as Anne poking some fun at internalized sexism., at least in the conventional sense. For better or worse, Nikoi is not Boris, and no matter how this crisis shakes out, confidence in the Dolzhikov name and the Law will be shattered. There may come a time when the damage is repaired, but it will require someone to put in the work and thereby sit to the right of the Dolzhikovs at the table, if not at the head of the table themselves. Arkady took pains to defer to Boris, due to his own precarious pce on the council, but Alexander is in no position to let such an opportunity pass him by. Not when the very existence of this family depends on him stepping up and demonstrating strength, lest it all be swept up in this bze we have kindled. If he acts honorably and returns the files, the best we can hope for are no further losses — but we have lost so much already, and it it likelier still our weakness will draw the vultures. Honor is of no use to a dead man. To keep the files may call down retaliation on our heads, but is the only way we might come out alive, maybe even ahead, after all.”

  Sean thought for a long moment.

  “Okay,” he said. “Where did that come from? I mean, when did you even have the time to think about all that?”“My advantage is a thorough working knowledge of the dynamics of this milieu, though I do apologize for the extent of my answer,” Anne said. “I merely tried to be as clear as possible.”“I appreciate crity,” Sean said.Anne smiled.“So how does it all square with Alexander’s 'Nikoi's my pal' routine?” Sean asked. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? I mean, you’re obviously pying along with what your boss says, but what’s Alexander’s deal?”“I don't know,” she said.“No, really,” Sean said.“I really don't know,” Anne said.“There's a first,” Sean said.“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye,” Anne said with a smirk, “but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”18Matthew 7:3 and no, I don’t know what the point of using ‘speck’ instead of ‘mote’ is, other than to be different from the KJV.“O-kay,” Sean said. “That's the most sophisticated way I've ever been called a smartass. Kinda makes me want to start taking notes, I bet it'll get me a few ughs when we celebrate my promotion.”“Perhaps it is time to fill the empty spot on your shelf,” Anne suggested. “The good book's wisdom lends itself to many applications.”“So I've seen,” Sean said, then shrugged. “Does it have advice for moving a trunk full of paper? Thou shalt lift with thine legs and keepest thy back straight?”19Sean tries to ape the specific kind of archaic English the King James version of the Bible was written in, because even though he’s never sat and read it, it’s the kind of thing he picked up via cultural osmosis. A curious decision in the face of Anne’s consistent usage of the less archaic-sounding RSV, but probably easier for him to get his point across. Fun fact: while ‘thou’, ‘thy’ and ‘thine’ sound stilted to modern ears, they’re actually the informal second person pronouns. ‘You’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’ are the formal ones. While many nguages that have lost explicit levels of formality standardized on the informal forms, English went the other way.Let’s move on to what he gets wrong, though. First, don’t mix and match ‘thy’ and ‘thine’. Use ‘thy’ when you would write ‘your’ and ‘thine’ when you would write ‘yours’. The exception is using ‘thine’ instead of ‘thy’ in front of vowels or pronouns — ‘thy pear’, but ‘thine apple’. Also, ‘keepest’ is wrong here. Sure, it would be used in second-person singur, but the conjugation has already been applied to the ‘shalt’. Sean does get it right with the infinitive of ‘lift’, but then clearly thinks he has to throw in at least one use of that particur archaic verb ending in there.Not pictured is ‘Ye Olde Englishe’ and other embellishments. (Hint: say it like ‘the old English’. It’s the writing that changed, not the pronunciation.)“No,” Anne said. “Now let’s put my shotgun back in its pce.”

  Then she turned her back to him and started walking down the hallway. Sean followed her.

  A house in Jackson Heights still had lights on in the basement. Kyrill, the assassin, had spent the better part of the day unconscious in bed, with little sign of that changing any time soon. He barely even reacted when Ky peeled off the bandages over his stitches to clean the wound on his abdomen.

  “Sorry, man,” she said, as if he could hear her.

  Washing off the dried blood around the wound itself showed the bruising around it, yellow and blue mixing with a tinge of red. She made a note of it in a little leather-bound notepad in quick, unsteady letters. Dolr would be asking her about Kyrill’s condition soon enough. She swabbed the area around the wound with a fresh yer of antiseptic, then unpacked a new wound dressing, pressed it in pce and taped it down. Kyrill didn’t stir. The ventitor was moving the air in and out of his lungs, its compressor whirring away. Ky's eyes went to the intravenous line in the assassin's chest. The bottle of hypertonic saline20While most IV fluids given as volume repcement for blood try to match the physiologic concentration of salt to minimize side effects, hypertonic (saltier than blood) saline is used here to try to deal with Kyrill’s head injury. The higher salt concentration draws water out of tissue, reducing swelling and edema (pooling of fluids) that can damage tissue and squeeze shut small blood vessels. At the same time, the fluid still serves as a so-called blood expander, also improving perfusion through said small blood vessels, which can help prevent further brain damage from localized oxygen starvation. Plus a whole lot of other effects I am even less qualified to tell you about. was about half empty; she'd have to change it first thing tomorrow morning, but for the moment it looked good enough. So did the bandage wrapped around his head, actually, drains working as pced, no sign of renewed bleeding. The cut from Anne's blow had been shallow enough to superglue21You may have heard about people closing minor cuts with superglue — or even done it yourself. The principle itself is sound, as cyanoacryte-based glues have been used to close wounds on the battlefield since the Vietnam War. As anyone who’s used this stuff can tell, superglue is very good at adhering to skin and quickly forms a watertight, flexible and reasonably strong bond, which can then subsequently be shed by the body’s natural repcement of dead skin cells after the wound is healed. The two main complications that can arise are a) inclusion of foreign material in the wound if it is glued without cleaning it first, increasing infection risk and b) skin irritation.Also, in general, only shallow wounds should be closed at all. Deeper wounds heal better when they’re kept open while being covered by and packed with sterile materials as needed. This is so the wound can be cleaned/debrided of dead tissue while it heals from the bottom up. Sew/glue a deep wound closed, it’s not only very likely to pop open again from the cking tissue support below, but you also risk creating a pocket of infection that can fester and go systemic., a thick pale line with swelling and bruises around it. Ky's eyes fell to the thermometer on her instrument tray, coaxing an eyeroll from her.

  “I'm missing Doc's cauliflower casserole for this, man,” she said to Kyrill. “You better appreciate it.”

  Knock knock knock on the basement door, loud enough that Ky could hear it.

  “Coming!” she called, giving Kyrill one more visual check before she turned away. “Don't freak while I'm gone,” she muttered, then she went to check on the door, or rather the small TV screen set into the reception desk giving a live camera feed from outside the door. With a flick of a switch next to it, the exterior lighting came on, giving her enough of a picture to work with — a stranger in a suit, shielding his eyes from the sudden gre shining down on him. Ky's right hand picked up the receiver from the phone and punched the intercom button while her left felt for the shotgun underneath the desk.

  “This is private property, Sir,” she said into the receiver, hearing the muffled, slightly deyed echo from the loudspeaker outside. “State your name before I call the cops.”“Not police,” the man replied, barely loud enough to make it through the door. “I want bck doctor Dolr.”“Your name, Sir,” Ky said.“Yes,” the man said, looking into the camera after spotting it above him. “My name is Nikoi Dolzhikov. You know my granduncle Boris Dolzhikov.”“Do you have ID?” Ky asked. Noting his non-reaction, she added “Identification?”“Yes identification,” Nikoi said. With some fumbling about, he drew a leather-bound booklet from the inside of his suit jacket, then held it up directly into the camera’s view — a Soviet passport22By which I mean a Soviet passport explicitly issued for travel abroad. The Soviet Union also issued passports for internal travel, but many citizens (especially agricultural workers, ethnic minorities and other quote-unquote undesirables) were deliberately not issued a passport at all, effectively making it impossible for them to relocate within or leave the Soviet Union. This sted until well into the 1970s, but honestly I’m not conversant enough in the details to give a more thorough description here.Officially sanctioned travel abroad would result in that particur comrade turning in their internal passport and being issued a passport for travel with an exit visa matching their pnned trip - a passport that would then be turned in again after the traveler returned. If Dolr or Ky were conversant in this system, they might have been able to draw a few conclusions from a better look at Nikoi’s document.. Which, to be fair, didn't help Ky much except for showing a bleached-looking picture of the man along with a whole mess of Cyrillic she couldn't read, but the battle between being careful and not pissing in Grandpa's cornfkes went to the tter.“One moment, Mr. Dolzhikov,” Ky said. She pressed down on the middle of the phone's cradle, then called up to the apartment. After about five seconds, the line picked up with Dr. George ‘Dolr’ Walker on the other end.“Yeah?” he said.“Hey Doc,” Ky said. “There's this Russian dude outside wants to talk to you, says he's Grandpa's kid.”“He got ID?” Dolr asked.“Like a passport,” Ky said. “Or something. I don't know, Doc.”“Shit,” Dolr said. “Let him in and keep him busy, I'll be down in five.”“Okay,” Ky said.

  Receiver pced back in the cradle, eyes on the steel door, fingertips against the firm wood of the shotgun's stock — Ky had gotten her orders, but they weren't okay, shit was going very sideways here and she was about to be in the middle of it. But then she had gotten up and walked up to the door before finishing her thought, and once she was standing there, she pushed her feelings and thoughts back down. After all, they had plenty of creeps for clients and this was Dolr's call, not hers. So she pulled the door open, just a crack at first. The man still stood outside, turning to face her. The downward angle on the camera had hidden just how much bigger he was than Ky, and in instinctively shrinking back from him, she pulled the door open even further. Not her best idea.

  “Hello, girl,” Nikoi said from behind his smile. “I come in now.”“…yeah,” Ky said, pulling the door all the way open and half-hiding behind its bulk while the man walked in. He went straight to the middle of the waiting area and looked around, seeming to take it all in with the same pleasant smile on his face. She felt the cold air on her fingers, a light breeze carrying it in through the wide-open door, and with a slight flush on her face she pushed it back and closed it again.“Very nice room, I like,” Nikoi said, then made a show of sniffing the air.“Uh, yeah,” Ky said. “Uh, Dolr — uh, Doctor Walker, he's on his, he’s coming down. In a minute. Can I, like, get you a drink? Like a, uh, a cup of coffee?”“Yes,” Nikoi said. “I take cup of coffee.”

  He walked over to the chairs lining the wall of the waiting room, picked out one according to whatever inscrutable criteria a Russian mobster might have for selecting chairs in sawbone waiting rooms, then slowly sat on it like he was leaning back. He made sure to hold his coat with his hands so he wouldn't sit on and wrinkle it. Ky watched that for a moment too long, then took quick steps to get behind the reception desk. The shotgun was still there, of course, still avaible to her, but after only the briefest of reassuring touches, her hand continued to a drawer containing about a half-dozen mugs. She skipped past the ones with more or less offensive mottos printed on their sides and picked a slick bck one. It was promo mug from a medical supplier that Dolr had brought back from some conference or another, with the logo almost completely rubbed off, and over the years it had migrated down from his personal office to his kitchen and through the small b in the back before finding its forever home in the Drawer of Inappropriate Mugs.23If you don’t have a Drawer of Inappropriate Mugs and the mugs to fill it, what are you even doing with your life? In fact, as she poured some hot joe from st half-hour’s batch into it, Ky thought she should put it out of its misery and throw it out. But the coffee was in the cup and it was too te to turn back, so instead she turned around to face Nikoi, who was leafing through a car magazine — the '89 Geneva Motor Show Special Issue, with a big, blocky Mercedes on the cover and a big, blocky article in praise of said car inside.

  “Uh, Mr. Dolzhikov?” she said, waiting for him to look at her — which he did without bothering to put down the magazine. “Sugar, milk…anything? It's, uh, it's…strong.”“I take it strong,” Nikoi said.“And by strong I mean it's pretty bitter,” Ky cautioned. The pot of coffee went back on its hotpte.Nikoi chuckled. “I am in America for three days, young girl,” he said. “Thirteen years before I am in Kresty Prison. Americans do not know bitter. Your strong coffee is fine.”24‘Real’ coffee wasn’t that common in the Soviet Union. Most people — if they drank coffee at all instead of tea — would rely on premade ‘coffee drink’ of dubious provenance or grind their own, usually based on roasted chicory or dried barley. Still too fancy for prison, though: you’d be much more likely to drink pin bck tea with whatever sugar you could get, or chifir' aka Russian prison tea, a hot beverage prepared by taking way too many loose tea leaves and letting them steep in hot water until all the leaves have fallen to the ground - or alternatively a couple of hours because fuck, you’re in prison, you gotta get your money’s worth. The result is said to be quite bitter, but also buzz-inducing.

  Ky didn't know whether to take it as a compliment or a stealthy insult or anything at all. Just walking over and handing him the mug seemed like the safest option, even if it did take her further away from the shotgun, so that’s what she did. He took the mug from her with a nod, but made no attempt to drink it as his eyes fell back to the magazine. He might have had enough time to read an ad or two when Dolr came stomping down the staircase. Ky knew Dolr didn't need to stomp down the staircase. He had snuck up on her plenty of times to check her work, so this was nothing more than a more-or-less subtle way to tell both her and Nikoi that he was in fact on his way to meet them. Nikoi made a dog-ear on the page he was reading and put the magazine aside. He gave the coffee mug one single courtesy slurp before handing it back to Ky and getting up from the chair. When Dolr did enter the room, wearing a fresh bcoat over his shirt and loosened tie, Nikoi was already in the perfect position to shake his hand.

  “Evenin',” Dolr said, taking Nikoi's outstretched hand. “Doctor Walker. What can I do for you, Mr. Dolzhikov?”“Say Nikoi, please,” Nikoi said, withdrawing from a firm handshake. “Call my granduncle Mr. Dolzhikov.”Dolr faked a smile. “What can I do for you, Nikoi?”“You leave message at phone of Ilya Gavriilovic, say his man is here,” Nikoi asked. “I am here to see.”“All due respect, Nikoi,” Dolr said, “but I don't know you and I ain't heard from Ilya that anyone else is coming for a pickup.”“Yes, is bad situation,” Nikoi said. “We cannot find Ilya, we hear nothing. I go look after him, hear your message. I hope his man can tell more.”Dolr looked over to Ky, who met his look before quickly turning to face Nikoi. “Uh, he's still asleep,” Ky said, “Mr. Nikoi. Sir.”“This is not good sleep,” Nikoi said, getting a headshake from Ky. “You tell me more.”“He's stable enough to move,” Dolr said. “I did some ultrasound, bde didn't nick his guts, didn't find any bleeding or fragments, but you’re right, being unconscious for so long ain't good news for him. I can keep him breathing, maybe, but he ain’t getting better here.” Dolr actually sighed. “In fact, I don’t think he’s gonna get better, period.”“I understand this,” Nikoi said. “Tell me price to take with me.”“Your granduncle shoulda told you,” Dolr said. “It’ll be five. Five thousand dolrs. We can settle it after you’ve sat with him. Ain’t gonna rush you.”“I understand this,” Nikoi repeated. “Tell me price to…get rid of body.”“What?” Ky muttered, still quiet enough for Dolr and Nikoi to pretend not to have heard.“He ain’t dead yet and you can't pay me enough to kill people, Nikoi,” Dolr said. “You understand that?”“You not understand it,” Nikoi said, smiling again. “I kill him. You get rid of dead body. Your silence, I must have. This is price I want to know.”“Uh, Doc — ” Ky said.“Thirty,” Dolr said, eyes fixed on Nikoi's. “Thirty thousand. Cash, or you turn around and walk away.”“That is much money,” Nikoi said.“I do it right, not cheap,” Dolr said. “Thirty if you want it done right, five if you figure you can do a better job. Either way, I better see some green soon, Nikoi. Until I do, you’re wasting my time.” He snorted. “Don’t like people wasting my time.”Nikoi met Dolr’s eyes and smiled. “Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourself, you bck-assed idiot,” he said sweetly.25Nikoi’s an asshole. The ethnic slur he uses would normally be targeted at the not-Russians of the southern Soviet republics, but I’m not adding “Russian slurs for people of African descent” to my Google history.“And another thousand on top for insulting me,” Dolr fired back. “What’s it gonna be, Nikoi? We gonna do business, or we gonna have problems?”“…I get money and tools from car,” Nikoi said. “You bring Kyrill outside. I come again in three minutes.”

  It was only when he had left through the steel door that Ky noticed the discomfort from still holding a mug full of hot coffee. The way she noticed it was when her jittering hand spshed some of the hot coffee onto her wrist.

  “Fuck!” she shouted, spilling most of the rest on the floor, though she somehow held on to the mug.“Come on,” Dolr said. With his arm on her shoulder, the two rushed to the sink, where Dolr turned on the cold water at the tap and Ky held her scalded arm under it.26Running water to cool the burned tissue down, thereby limiting ongoing damage, and also to clean the burn — damaged skin is very susceptible to infections. Plus cold reduces swelling and numbs the nerves. It wasn't just her hands jittering. She felt the shiver run all the way through her body. “You shook?”27While Mobb Deep would only go on to popurly define the term in 1994, I’m taking the liberty of tipping my hat toward it, even if anachronistically. Dolr asked, prying the almost empty mug from her grip.“Fuck, man!” she said. “You wanna help this creep? We can't take his fucking money, Doc!”“It's just as green as Ilya's,” Dolr said. “It is what it is and what it is is business.”“It's fucking murder!” Ky said.“What business you think they’re in?” Dolr said. “You better clock his tats. He’s a Captain — not a hired gun, not a gangster28The original word I carelessly threw around here was ‘punk’ until I caught it in editing. Now, to be clear: punk music, punk fashion, punk culture? All cool. Not cool? ‘Punk’ as an insult. Three guesses why.(Homophobia. When it’s not racism, it’s homophobia.) with some ink, he’s a legit upstairs shotcaller. Even on a bad day, he’s just one rung down from the old man himself. If he wants Kyrill dead, he's gonna get it done, right? We're in the way or we're getting paid, that’s the choice we got. And I say we're getting paid.”“…fuck,” Ky said. “Jesus fuck.”“That’s the deal,” Dolr said. “Always was.”“And if he doesn't pay up?” Ky says. “If we let him kill Kyrill, what the fuck's keeping him from killing us, too?”“He needs us,” Dolr said.“He needs you,” Ky said.“He ain’t getting just me,” Dolr said. He pulled his bcoat to the side, showing off his belt holster with a pistol inside. “Take their money, but never turn your back, that’s my policy. We gotta cover each other’s ass, right? He makes a move for you, he’s getting capped. He makes a move for me, you grab the shotgun and you start bsting his commie ass.” He stared, first at her, then past her. “You start bsting and you don't stop until the gauge runs dry. You hear that?”“Yeah,” Ky said.“Then we're cool,” Dolr said. “It's gonna be cool. Nobody fucks with us in my house.”“Right,” Ky said.