Didn’t they have a no-snitching policy in the vor?
Me:I’m locked up twenty-four hours a day. What else am I supposed to do?
Vadim:Who said you can’t leave the house? I left your cards beside the bed.
I could leave?
The cards.
Vadim:I have to go. If you need to go out tell Radovan.
Me:Thanks.
I put the phone down and looked toward the doorway where Spartak stood waiting for another peanut.
“Could you please tell Radovan that I need to go out in thirty minutes?”
Radovan was blissfully unaware of what was about to happen to his afternoon.
I was going to drag him all over the city today.
But first, I had some peanuts to sweep up.
??????
I glanced behind me to see both men trailing at a respectful distance, their expressions conveying the specific suffering of people who had dressed for security work and ended up on a four-hour window shopping circuit.
The plan in my head had been solid. High-end shops. Pretty things. Spend his money with the focused enthusiasm of a woman who had been locked in a mansion for weeks and had three credit cards with her name on them.
The reality was that my frugal, miserly soul simply could not part with money — even money that wasn’t mine. Every price tag I turned over made something in me recoil on principle.
So I window shopped. Four hours of it, pressing my nose to glass and admiring things I had no intention of buying, stopping only for food, which I did pay for — on the black card, because that felt like the least I could do.
Radovan looked as though he had lost the will to live. Even Spartak, who had entered the day with considerably more goodwill toward me, was beginning to droop at the edges.
On the way home I asked to stop by the river.
The water was dark and moving fast with the thaw, carrying the last of the winter ice in grey fragments toward wherever the river went from here. The cold air came off it sharp and clean and I stood at the bank for a moment and just breathed.
“Let’s do this again tomorrow,” I told them as we walked the path.
“Please,” Radovan said.“I am begging you. Go back to using me as target practice.”
“Too late, snitch,” I muttered.
The walk back was brisk and the cold worked its way into my lungs in the way that outdoor cold does—not the dead chill of the house but something alive and moving.
The change of scenery had done me a world of good.
More than I had expected, if I was honest.
Chapter 19
Vadim
The drive from Moscow was long, but the commercial building was priced reasonably for its location and funnelling money into legitimate assets always paid off in the long term. Diversity in business was required for stability. Legal and illegal, side by side.
My phone vibrated in my jacket.
