Some leaned back. Some leaned forward. Some smiled as if I had already done something for them.
The auctioneer stood at a slim black podium. He had silver hair, a narrow face, and a tuxedo that fit too well. His eyes flicked over me once, quick and practiced, then returned to the room.
“Lot Fourteen,” he said. “Opening at ten.”
Ten.
Not dollars. Not anything ordinary enough to count with rent and bills and the cracked mug full of quarters.
A man near the front lifted two fingers.
“Ten,” the auctioneer said. “Do I hear fifteen?”
I forced my eyes past the nearest tables. I needed a stranger. A rich stranger. A man who didn’t smell like Gennady’s cologne, didn’t know Petya’s name, and didn’t think my refusal was a debt he could collect.
Then Gennady Kask leaned back in a chair near the right side of the room and smiled at me.
I stopped breathing for one long, awful second.
He wore a black suit tonight, not gray. A dark red tie cut down the front of his shirt like a wound. His rings flashed when he lifted his glass. The same too-white smile spread across his face.
He had found me.
Gennady raised his hand.
“Twenty,” the auctioneer said.
My knees softened. I locked them.
A man at the rear lifted a card.
“Twenty-five.”
Gennady’s eyes stayed on my face. He lifted two fingers.
“Thirty.”
The auctioneer moved too fast. He barely checked the other side of the room before calling the number. The bids slid by like doors closing.
“Thirty-five at the rear. Forty to Mr. Kask.”
Mr. Kask.
The name reached every table.
My attention snapped to the auctioneer. He knew him. Of course he knew him. He sat too comfortably for a man who had come to a room like this unsure.
A sound rose in my ears. It wasn’t the piano or the voices. Blood rushed hard enough to blur the room while my body tried to warn me after my choices had already run out.
The man at the rear paused.
Gennady set his glass down and lifted his hand again.
“Fifty,” the auctioneer said.
The room murmured.
Gennady smiled wider.
