Londongrad
Page 33
“What about his businesses?”
“I don’t know about business, Artie, I never became a good capitalist.”
“Bullshit.”
“He could have time left. He might get well. His businesses are, well, how shall I say it? His own business.” He smiled at the small joke.
“You’re all bastards,” I said, and finished my Scotch, watching him light up a cigar. It was one of Sverdloff’s Cuban brands. The smoke swirled up around us.
“You really look like your dad,” he said. “So what do you think? Do we have a deal?”
I didn’t want to think. I wanted to go home to my other life. But my other life included Tolya who had done something nobody else would have done for me. I owed him.
From the restaurant’s sound system, a lilting Brazilian tune played, something by Joao Gilberto. I looked across Red Square, the last streak of light in the sky above the red star, above St Basil’s and the Kremlin.
And then I saw the horse. A girl rode the animal bareback, pressing her heels against its side, leaning forward to cling to its neck, stroking its mane, galloping across the square, laughing, hair streaming out behind her, skirt billowing in the evening breeze, as she headed for Resurrection Gate. And people looking began to laugh and cheer and blow her kisses. Somebody started an old Russian song and the others joined in. Even a couple of cops laughed before they chased her away.
Smiling, Bounine tossed his American Express card on the table, to pay for dinner, and the drinks. It was a Platinum card. And it was as if the gesture, the tossing it on the table, included me as if he could charge me on his Amex card.
It occurred to me in the pleasant cafe, surrounded by civilized people, savoring good wine, enjoying dinner, laughing merrily at the girl on the horse, that maybe this was how they did it now, maybe now everything was only about money, even spooks charged their thugs and hands-for-hire to American Express.
Bounine followed my gaze. “You’re not imagining it,” he said kindly. “It really is a horse. You see that at night in Moscow.”
I put my coffee cup down.
He took a little sip of the armagnac, held it to the light with satisfaction and said softly, “You’ll help us, then, won’t you, Artie?”
Reggie Nadelson
***
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