Gregg Hurwitz - The Survivor

Naked, Pavlo ran his fingers along the glass, staring down at Hollywood below. Notes from a rock concert at the Roxy climbed the hill, the thrumming of a bass guitar. He counted his steps. Two hundred eighty-three around the bedroom’s perimeter. Just like last night. Just like the night before.

Pulling on a silk bathrobe, he walked up the floating staircase and emerged onto the concrete plain of the roof. Drew the nighttime air into his lungs. Free to walk, free to breathe. He was indestructible, as resilient as a cockroach. When the apocalypse came and the bombs fell, he would scuttle up from ground zero and turn his antennae to the toxic winds. He spread his arms in the darkness, reaching as far as his body allowed and touching only air.

After a six-year stint in Corrective Labor Colony No. 6, Pavlo had been released into a new age-post-Soviet Russia in the early nineties. The next generation of thieves didn’t tattoo the markings of their trade on their flesh, but they respected and feared Pavlo and were savvy about the new system. A leader in the powerful syndicate, he was now a businessman, dealing in bank schemes, Japanese electronics, stolen Volvos and BMWs from Europe. The spoils of a nation were there for the taking. He bought factories, razed them to the ground, and exported the scrap metal. Aluminum to Estonia, nickel to Latvia, titanium to Lithuania. He whored and gambled and ordered the deaths of judges who opposed his will. The time and his reach were bespredel -without limits.

He arrived at the edge of the roof, a sheer drop several hundred feet to the rocks of the canyon. The boulevard showed its full nighttime colors-the glitz of Ripley’s Museum, the bronze pagoda and copper-topped turrets of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, the tall-wall billboard of the latest HBO star glowering over a Boeing-size pair of Ray-Bans. Commerce. Free trade. In the thawing of one empire, he had learned the rules and reaped the rewards of capitalism. He had come here, to the source, to enjoy them.

He walked the roof’s edge, paying no mind to the harrowing drop inches away. His steps were sure and steady, his muscles taut. The fall was nothing compared to the beauty of all that space around him. He stopped and leaned over, his bare toes gripping the edge. Shout and there would be no echo. Drop a stone and he would hear no impact. Space. He turned and kept on. One hundred twenty steps. His to take whenever he liked.

The house was built into the hill, so the roof came level with the sloped street. A neighbor passing on a late-night walk lifted a hand in greeting. Pavlo stared until the man lowered his arm and hurried on. Pavlo walked along the property line as he did most nights, picking through the large, fine-grained granite rocks he had imported from the Urals. Sixty-eight steps, measuring the expanse of what was his. He reached the thick double front doors and tapped. Yuri opened and stepped aside, replacing his pistol at the small of his back. Pavlo entered, moving past the neat line of flannel slippers for guests; shoes were forbidden inside.

The downstairs furnishings were decadent. Cabinets of rift-sawn oak with ebony finish. Marble countertops with quartz for the glint. Dripping chandeliers, imported gold-leafed fixtures, patterned parquet flooring. A different life.

He pattered down the brief hall and turned into the girl’s bedroom, opening the door quietly. The curtains were drawn, and it smelled of cigarettes and stale perfume. Nastya lay on her stomach across her bed, facing away, painting her nails, headphones on so loud he could hear the tinny echo of rock music. Tall and reed-thin, she wore a sleeveless T-shirt and jean shorts slightly bigger than bikini bottoms. Her legs were so smooth that it looked as though her skin had been spray-painted on. She was striking as only a Ukrainian girl could be. Expansive cheeks, pouting mouth, neck like a swan.

He remembered the first time he had seen her, a bundle of pink blanket delivered to his doorstep by a familiar whore, a girl herself. The infant’s sapphire eyes, the shape of them, too-there could be no question that she was his. He’d taken her in his arms, and by the time he’d looked up, the whore had vanished.

As a vor, he could hold allegiance only to the brotherhood of thieves. He had turned his back on his birth family and sworn to have no family of his own save the vory v zakonye.

And yet.

Anastasia. Nastya for short. A daughter. Arriving like Moses in the reeds. And him a weathered criminal aged by decades of crime and life in the Zone. When he’d held this infant, some part of him he’d long thought extinguished had flared to life inside his chest. She was pure. She was good. She was his last chance to be human.

He was revered enough that the brotherhood would honor this choice, but he could not be seen raising a girl in plain sight. To have her he’d have to leave the nation. Leave his life behind. And so he had, riding the wave of emigrants allowed out by Yeltsin in the late nineties. A stop in New York’s Brighton Beach to organize his money through wires and offshore accounts, then on to Los Angeles, where anyone could be reinvented as anything. For her. All for her.

She was seventeen now.

He stood in the doorway and watched her. Long honey hair that reached the small of her back. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, one foot bobbing to the music. Fluorescent bands from various dance clubs encircled her wrists, each day of the week marked by a different stripe. He had spoiled her. He knew this and yet could not help himself.

He knocked gently on the open door. She turned, flinging the headphones down around her neck, her smile lighting the room. “Papa.”

“Open these curtains,” he said. “The view, it is free.”

He could barely make out the faint etchings of the scars, a spiderweb just past her cheek. The imperfection only highlighted her beauty. He watched her in the liquid glow of the lava lamp.

“I like it dark. All holed up safe, ya know?”

She knew little of his past.

“Very well, Nastya.” He discerned the faintest whiff of schnapps, that American syrup. “Have you been drinking?”

“Course not.” She stretched, curling her back, her face screwed to one side, childlike. “What’s with the new guy? Misha? He creeps me out.”

“He is friend from the old country.” The fan turned lazily overhead. “He makes you uncomfortable?”

“Yeah. He’s always fucking staring at me. Why can’t we just keep Valerik, Yuri, and Dima like we always have?”

“Misha, he does other things.”

“Fine.” She turned away and flicked her hair like a horse’s tail. “I’m thinking of getting a tattoo. A little butterfly. Right here.” She poked a finger at the base of her neck.

“We have discussed. You will not ever have your skin marked.”

His tone, harsher than he’d intended. He remembered the time one of his brodyagi had brought him a monogrammed shirt, how it had reminded him of the ID tag sewn onto his prison uniforms. He’d excused himself and burned it in the bathroom sink.

Nastya looked at him, a touch of fear showing in her eyes. But he didn’t mind if the fear kept her from marring her smooth skin. She covered with a pout and stretched languidly, rolling her shoulders, a great cat. “Okay, fine. But Jesus H. I mean, you’re a fine one to talk. Head to toe.”

“You are not me. And thank God you will never have to be.”

“You’re not so bad, old man.” That smile. “Can I have some money? It’s Tuesday night.”

“The club again?”

“Yeah. It’s Julie’s birthday and the girls want to-”

Already he was peeling hundreds from the wad he kept shoved in the pocket of his bathrobe. “You know I cannot say no to you.”