Anthony Horowitz - Russian Roulette

By the time I had recovered, the man was back in his chair. “Never make assumptions,” he said. “Never assume anything about me. And when you speak to me, call me ‘sir’. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

He nodded. “Do you have parents?”

“No, sir. They’re both dead.”

“And last night, when you broke into my flat, were you alone?”

I had already decided that I wasn’t going to tell him about Dima, Roman and Grigory. If I told him their names, I had no doubt he would send his men round to Tverskaya to kill them. I still thought he was going to kill me. “Yes, sir,” I replied. “I was on my own.”

“How did you come to choose that flat – as opposed to any other?”

“I was walking past. I saw that the window was open and the lights were out. I didn’t even think about it. I just went in.”

The answer seemed to satisfy him. He took out a gold cigarette case. I noticed the initials V.S. on the cover. He removed a cigarette and lit it, then lay the case on the desk, close to the gun. “Vladimir Sharkovsky,” he said. “That is my name.”

I didn’t tell him that I knew. I simply sat there and watched as he smoked in silence. I would have liked a cigarette but I needed the toilet more. My insides were churning.

“You must be wondering why you are still alive,” he continued. “In fact, you should not be. Last night, as I drove over the bridge, I thought of dropping you in the Moscow River. I would have quite enjoyed watching you drown. When I drove you here, my intention was to give you to Josef and Karl to be punished and then killed. Even now, I am undecided if you will live or if you will die.” His eyes rested briefly on the revolver. “The fact that you are sitting in this room, talking to me, is down to one reason only. It is a question of timing. Perhaps you have been lucky. A week ago it would have been different. But right now…”

He trailed off, then took another drag on the cigarette, the blue smoke curling into the air. A log snapped in the fireplace and the dog stirred briefly, then went back to sleep. So far, Vladimir Sharkovsky had shown no emotion whatsoever. His voice was flat, entirely disinterested. If machines had ever learned to speak, they would speak like him.

“I am a careful man,” he went on. “One of the reasons why I have prospered is that I have always used everything that has been given to me. I never miss an opportunity. It may be an investment in a company, the chance to buy my way into a bank, the weakness of a government official who is open to bribery. Or it may be the chance appearance of a worthless thief and guttersnipe like yourself. But if it can be used, then I will use it. That is how I live.

“There is something you need to understand about me. I am extremely successful. Right now, Russia is changing. The old ways are being left behind. For those of us with the vision to see what is possible, the rewards are limitless. You have nothing. You steal because you are hungry and all you think about is your next pathetic meal. I have the world and everything in it. And now, Yassen Gregorovich, I have you.

“A large number of people work for me in this house. Because of the nature of my work and who I am, I have to be careful. Josef and Karl, the two men who brought you here, are my personal bodyguards. They are standing outside and I should perhaps warn you that there is a communication button underneath this desk. If you were to try anything, if you were to threaten me again, they would be in here in an instant. Be glad they were not with me in Moscow. That was the private apartment of a friend of mine. The moment you picked up that knife, your own life would have been over.

“I will not kill you – yet – because I think I can use you. As it happens, a position has arisen here, a vacancy which it would not normally be easy to fill. You are, as I said, very fortunate with the timing. I have no doubt that you are stupid and uneducated. But even so, you might be acceptable.”

He paused and it took me a few seconds to realize that he was waiting for me to reply. I couldn’t believe what he had just told me. He wasn’t going to kill me. He was offering me a job!

“I’d be very happy to work for you, sir,” I said.

His eyes settled on me, full of contempt. “Happy?” He repeated the word with a sneer. “You say stupid things without thinking. It is not my intention to make you happy. Quite the opposite. You broke into my apartment. You attempted to hurt me and in doing so you ruined a perfectly good overcoat, a jacket and a shirt. You even cut my flesh. For this, you must pay. You must be punished. If you decide to accept my proposal, you will spend every hour of the rest of your life wishing that the two of us had never met. I am not offering to pay you. I will own you. I will use you. From this moment on, I will expect your total obedience. You will do whatever I tell you. You will not hesitate.” He gestured at the fireplace. “You see the dog? That is what you are now. That’s all you mean to me.”

He stubbed out the cigarette. I could see that he was bored with the interview, that he wanted it to be over.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. “What sort of work?”

I had no choice. I had to survive. Let him employ me in whatever capacity and somehow I would find a way out of this place. In the back of a car, over the wall… I would escape.

“You will clean. You will carry messages. You will sweep floors. You will help in the garden. But that’s just part of it. The main reason that I need you is something quite different.” He paused. “You will be my food taster.”

“Your…?” I almost laughed out loud and if I had, I am sure he would have shot me there and then. But it was ridiculous. At school, we had been taught about the Roman emperors – Julius Caesar and the others – who had employed slaves to taste everything they ate. But this was Russia in the twentieth century. He couldn’t possibly mean what he had just said.

“It is unfortunately the case that I have many enemies,” Sharkovsky explained. He was completely serious. “Some of them fear me. Some are jealous of me. All of them would benefit if I was no longer here. In the last year, there have been three attempts on my life. That is how things are now. Several of my associates have been less fortunate – which is to say, they have been less careful than me. And they have died.

“Apart from my wife and my children, I can trust no one and even my immediate family might one day be bribed to do me harm. I employ a great many people to protect me and I have to employ more people to watch over them. I trust none of them.” His dark eyes bore into me. “Can I trust you?”

I was trying to make sense of all this. Was that really to be my fate? Sitting at his dining table, digging my fork into his blinis and caviar?

“I’ll do whatever you want,” I said.

“Will you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything?”

“Yes…” This time I was uneasy.

It was what he had been waiting for. It was the very worst thing I could have said.

“We will see.” He reached out and took the gun. He jerked open the cylinder and showed me that it was empty. Then he picked up the bullet – a little cylinder of gleaming silver – and held it between his finger and thumb like a scientist giving a demonstration. I watched silently. I didn’t know what was about to happen but I could feel my heart pounding. He slid the bullet into one of the chambers and snapped the cylinder shut. Then he spun it several times so that the metal became a blur and it was impossible for either of us to tell where the bullet had lodged.

“You say you will do anything for me,” he said. “So do this. The gun has six chambers. As you have seen, one of them now contains a live bullet. You do not know where the bullet is. Nor do I.” He placed the gun back on the desk, right in front of me. “Put the gun into your mouth and pull the trigger.”