David Duffy - In for a Ruble

He was crying. I ignored that and pushed. “You did. You hit him up. You used him every time you needed money. Now the tall man wants to know what you had on Walter. So do I. That’s where we are today. You can deal with him or you can deal with me.”

“That’s not fair. You’re a bastard. I didn’t.”

“Him or me, Thomas. I’m hanging up. I can call back or not. Tell me which way you want this to go.”

Tears, choking, sniveling. Maybe I should have felt sorry, but Thomas Leitz was a user whose string of using had run out. No remorse on my part.

“Good-bye, Thomas.”

“WAIT!”

“Wait for what?”

“I’ll do what you say.”

“What I say is this: When I call you back, you are going to tell me what you had on Walter Coryell. That’s the deal.”

“But…”

“No but.”

A long wait. Longer than it should have been. Thomas Leitz was terrified, but not terrified enough.

I broke the connection and started to count. I got to seven when the phone buzzed in my hand.

“Next time I turn it off,” I said.

“You’re a bastard.”

“Tell it to the tall man. If he lets you. He likes breaking necks. He’ll break yours in a second.”

I cut the connection again. This time I got to four.

“OKAY! Whatever you say.”

“What did you have on Walter?”

“Make him go away first.”

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll make him come back. And I’ll be right behind in case he fucks up.”

“Make him go away. PLEASE!”

“Watch your window.”

I walked down the block until I found a pay phone. I punched in the number the Basilisk had identified calling Coryell’s office last week.

A Belarusian voice said, “What?”

“You and I have a lot to discuss, Karp.” I spoke Belarusian.

“Who the fuck is this?”

“Someone who knows who you are. Someone who knows where you are. Someone who has what you want.”

I could almost hear him spit in the snow.

“Fucking zek. I know you, asshole.”

“Fuck your mother. You want to do business or trade insults?”

“I don’t trade with zeks .”

“Kiss the computers good-bye then. I’ve got other buyers.”

I hung up and started counting again. When I reached twenty-five, I called Thomas on my cell phone.

“What’s he doing?”

“Throwing a total hissy fit. He just punched the wall, I think.”

“Good. I’ll call you back.”

“Wait…”

I called Nosferatu on the pay phone.

“Reconsider?”

“You’re a dead man.”

“We all are. Are we dealing before we die?”

“What do you want?”

“Leave the fairy alone. He has nothing you need. Get out of his neighborhood and we’ll talk. That’s the deal for now.”

I felt mildly guilty about the “fairy” part. But us tough guys have to bond like everyone else.

“Maybe I’ll just kill him now.”

“Then you won’t hear from me again. And I’ll let your boss know how you fucked up.”

I hung up before he could respond.

Thomas Leitz said, “He’s leaving! He’s walking down the block and… he’s gone! How…?”

“I called in some debts. Your turn now. What about Coryell?”

“It’s not… I didn’t…”

“If I don’t make a call, he’s back in five minutes.”

Another long wait. It was taking time for Thomas Leitz to realize his luck had run out.

“Good-bye, Thomas. What time does the doorman get off?”

“WAIT! Okay. Go to the school, my locker. I’ll give you the combination. You’ll find what you want taped under the top shelf. No fucking good to me anymore.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked, although I knew the answer.

“You haven’t heard, smart guy? Walter’s dead. They found his body yesterday. You and Sebastian and Julia can all have a great time remembering what a wonderful human being that shit was. You can read the note at his funeral. I won’t be there.”

Never underestimate the impact of boredom on a teenager. I didn’t experience any. My daily concern was getting through the day. The cold, the work, the guards, the whole system, even many of my fellow zeks —they all had it in for me. I wasn’t unique, they had it in for everybody. That was life, if you can call it that, in the camps. Whatever energy you managed was focused on making it to tomorrow. Looking back, I’ve often wondered why we bothered—tomorrow would only replay today.

Andras Leitz could not have come from a more different time and place, and holed up, as I came to find out, in a suite at the Regency Hotel, with only a TV for company—no one to talk to, no one to friend or tweet or text—he was bored. So, only somewhat to my surprise when I called him from the lobby, he told me to come up to his room. Of course, the news that Irina was on the run might have had something to do with it too.

I got lucky at Thomas Leitz’s school. A construction crew was collecting weekend overtime while they drank coffee and laid a new floor in the main hallway. They didn’t give me a second look when I told them I’d forgotten some lesson plans. I went from the school to the office and made a copy of the note Thomas had hidden for the last four years. It answered one set of questions and opened another. I put the copy in my wallet and the original in the safe. I walked home hoping I wouldn’t encounter the emptiness that was there. No more empty than I was used to, but all the more so because of what I’d hoped to find.

I could have called her. What would I say? I’m still working for your man, Batkin, because he has a hold on me I can’t explain? Ever hear of Beria? My father, Beria? She probably blamed me for Irina being on the loose as well.

I got the vodka from the freezer and spent a lonely evening thinking about Leitz and his family. I’d wandered into the middle of it, eyes wide shut, and had them opened to the horrors of the kind that can only be delivered by those closest to us. I’d grown up with a different set of horrors until I got the opportunity to join the enemy I couldn’t beat. But even today, I was still victimized—by my past and by Taras Batkin because he knew how much he could hurt. Stop, I told myself. You’re still a victim only because you allow Batkin to make you one. I could have called his bluff this morning. I still could. But I didn’t—and wouldn’t. I was afraid. I had the chance to right a thirty-year wrong, but not if Batkin blew it up before I even got started. Maybe Aleksei wouldn’t care. Hard to know, but I was scared to take that bet. So I’d sold a piece of my soul to Batkin—at least for the time being. I had the sense that the Leitzes had made a similar deal some years ago.

Beria put in a brief appearance, across the room, chuckling.

I know all about selling souls. You’ll get used to it after a while. We all do.

He didn’t leave when I told him to go away, but he didn’t say any more either.

As I sipped my vodka, I kept thinking that some event had set off the horrors of the Leitz family. The obvious candidate was the suicide of Sebastian’s daughter, Daria. Everything from Pauline’s breakdown to Marianna’s drinking to Thomas’s blackmail dated to four years ago. But I was guessing there was something else, something earlier, something that had been, in Thomas Leitz’s words, swept under the rug—an open wound growing more infected with each passing year. At some point, nothing short of amputation would cure it. Perhaps Sebastian and his siblings believed that the early death of their parents was sufficient tragedy for one lifetime, that they were entitled to bury any others. They were justified in doing whatever was necessary to avoid the heartbreaks that inevitably came later, as they do to all families.