Khoklov gazed at Starlitz in mournful astonishment. “Lekhi, why do you want gulags to be ‘funny’? Gulags aren’t funny. Pogroms aren’t funny. War is not funny. Rape is never funny. Human life is very hard, you see. Men and women truly suffer in this world.”
“I know that, man.”
Khoklov looked him over, then slowly shook his head. “No, Lekhi, you don’t know that. You just don’t know it the way that a Russian knows it.”
Starlitz considered this. It seemed inescapably true. “Did you ask those girls if they were from Bosnia?”
“Why would I ask them that? You know the official Kremlin line on the Yugoslav conflict. Yeltsin says that our fellow Orthodox Slavs are incapable of such crimes. Those rape-camp stories are alarmist libels spread by Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Relax, Lekhi. These women here today, they are all Estonian professionals. You can have my word on that.”
“Raf just gave me his word in a form that was highly otherwise.”
Khoklov looked him in the eye. “Lekhi, who do you believe: some hippie terrorist, or a seasoned KGB officer and member in good standing of the Russian mafia?”
Starlitz gazed down at the flower-strewn Åland turf. “Okay, Pulat Romanevich.… For a moment there, I was actually considering taking some kind of, you know, action.… Well, never mind. Lemme get to the point. Our bank deal is falling apart.”
Khoklov was truly shocked. “What do you mean? You can’t be serious. We’re doing wonderfully. Petersburg loves us.”
“I mean that the old lady can’t be bought. She’s just too far away to touch. The deal is dead meat, ace. I don’t know just how the momentum died, but I can sure smell the decay. This situation is not sustainable, man. I think it’s time you and me got the hell out of here.”
“You couldn’t get your merchandising deal? That’s a pity, Lekhi. But never mind that. I’m sure we can find some other capitalization scheme that’s just as quick and just as cheap. There’s always dope and weapons.”
“No, the whole set-up stinks. It was the video thing that tipped me off. Pulat, did I ever tell you about the fact that I, personally, never show up on video?”
“What’s that, Lekhi?”
“At least, I didn’t used to. Back in the eighties, if you pointed a video camera at me it would crack, or split, or the chip would blow. I just never registered on videotape.”
Slowly, Khoklov removed a silver flask from within his suit jacket. He had a long contemplative glug, then shuddered violently. He focused his eyes on Starlitz with weary deliberation. “I beg your pardon. Would you repeat that, please?”
“It’s that whole video thing, man. That’s why I got into the online business in the first place. Originally, I was a very analog kind of guy. But the video surveillance was seriously getting me down. I couldn’t even walk down to the corner store for a pack of cigs without setting off half a dozen goddamn videos. But then—I discovered online anonymity. Online encryption. Online pseudonymity. That really helped my personal situation. Now I had a way to stay underground, stay totally unknown, even when I was being observed and monitored twenty-four hours a day. I found a way that I could go on being myself.”
“Lekhi, are you drunk?”
“Nyet. Pay attention, ace. I’m leveling with you here.”
“Did Raf give you something to drink?”
“Sure. We had a coffee earlier.”
“Lekhi, you’re on drugs. Do you have a gun? Give it to me now.”
“Raf gave all the guns to the Suomi kids. They’re keeping the guns till the mercs sober up. Simple precaution.”
“Maybe you’re still jetlagged. It’s hard to sleep properly when the sun never sets. You should go lie down.”
“Look, ace, I’m not the kind of fucking wimp who doesn’t know when he’s on acid. Normal people’s rules just don’t apply to me, that’s all. I’m not a normal guy. I’m Leggy Starlitz, I’m a very, very strange guy. That’s why I tend to end up in situations like this.” Starlitz ran his hand over his sweating scalp. “Lemme put it this way. You remember that mafia chick you were banging back in Azerbaijan?”
Khoklov took a moment to access the memory. “You mean the charming and lovely Tamara Akhmedovna?”
“That’s right. The wife of the Party Secretary. I leveled with Tamara in a situation like this. I told her straight-out that her little scene was coming apart. I couldn’t tell her why, but I just knew it. At the time, she didn’t believe me, either. Just like you’re not believing me, now. You know where Tamara Akhmedovna is, right now? She’s selling used cars in Los Angeles.”
Khoklov had gone pale. “All right,” he said. He whipped the cellular from an inner pocket of his jacket. “Don’t tell me any more. I can see you have a bad feeling. Let me make some phone calls.”
“You want Tamara’s phone number?”
“No. Don’t go away. And don’t do anything crazy. All I ask is—just let me make a few contacts.” Khoklov began punching digits.
Starlitz walked by the sauna. Four slobbering, buck-naked drunks dashed out and staggered down the trail in front of him. Their pale sweating hides were covered with crumpled green birch leaves from Finnish sauna whisks. They plunged into the chilly sea with ecstatic grunts of ambiguous pain.
Somewhere inside, the New World Order comrades were singing Auld Lang Syne. The Russians were having a hard time finding the beat.
Raf was enjoying a snooze in the curvilinear Aalto barcalounger when Khoklov and Starlitz woke him.
“We’ve been betrayed,” Khoklov announced.
“Oh?” said Raf. “Where? Who is the traitor?”
“Our superiors, unfortunately.”
Raf considered this, rubbing his eyelids. “Why do you say that?”
“They liked our idea very much,” Khoklov said. “So they stole it from us.”
“Intellectual piracy, man,” Starlitz said. “It’s a bad scene.”
“The Ålands deal is over,” Khoklov said. “The Organizatsiya’s Higher Circles have decided that we have too much initiative. They want much closer institutional control of such a wonderful idea. Our Finnish hacker kids have jumped ship and joined them. They re-routed all the Suns to Kaliningrad.”
“What is Kaliningrad?” Raf said.
“It’s this weird little leftover piece of Russia on the far side of all three independent Baltic nations,” Starlitz said helpfully. “They say they’re going to make Kaliningrad into a new Russian Hong Kong. The old Hong Kong is about to be metabolized by the Chinese, so the mafia figures it’s time for Russia to sprout one. They’ll make this little Kaliningrad outpost into a Baltic duty-free zone cum European micro-buffer state. And they’re paying our Finn hacker kids three times what we pay, plus air fare.”
“The World Bank is helping them with development loans,” Khoklov said. “The World Bank loves their Kaliningrad idea.”
“Plus the European Union, man. Euros love duty-free zones.”
“And the Finns too,” Khoklov said. “That’s the very worst of it. The Finns have bought us out. Russia used to owe every Finn two hundred dollars. Now, Russia owes every Finn one hundred and ninety dollars. In return for a rotten little fifty million dollar write-off, my bosses sold us all to the Finns. They told the Finns about our plans, and they sold us just as if we were some lousy division of leftover tanks. The Finnish Special Weapons and Tactics team is flying over here right now to annihilate us.”
Raf’s round and meaty face grew dark with fury. “So you’ve betrayed us, Khoklov?”
“It’s my bosses who let us down,” Khoklov said sturdily. “Essentially, I’ve been purged. They have cut me out of the Organizatsiya. They liked the idea much more than they like me. So I’m expendable. I’m dead meat.”
Raf turned to Starlitz. “I’ll have to shoot Pulat Romanevich for this. You realize that, I hope.”
Starlitz raised his brows. “You got a gun, man?”
“Aino has the guns.” Raf hopped up from his lounger a
nd left.
Khoklov and Starlitz hastily followed him. “You’re going to let him shoot me?” Khoklov said sidelong.
“Look man, the guy has kept us his end. He always delivered on time and within specs.”
They found Aino alone in the basement. She had her elk rifle.
“Where’s the arsenal?” Raf demanded.
“I had Matti and Jorma take all the weapons from this property. Your mercenaries are terrible beasts, Raf.”
“Of course they’re beasts,” Raf said. “That’s why they follow a Jackal. Lend me your rifle for a moment, my dear. I have to shoot this Russian.”
Aino slammed a thumb-sized cartridge into the breech and stood up. “This is my favorite rifle. I don’t give it to anyone.”
“Shoot him yourself, then,” Raf said, backing up half a step with a deft little hop. “His mafia people have blown the Movement’s program. They’ve betrayed us to the Finnish oppressors.”
“Police are coming from the mainland,” Starlitz told her. “It’s over. Time to split, girl. Let’s get out of here.”
Aino ignored him. “I told you that Russians could never be trusted,” she said to Raf. Her face was pale, but composed. “What did American mercenaries have to do with Finland? We could have done this easily, if you were not so ambitious.”
“A man has to dream,” Raf said. “Everybody needs a big dream.”
Aino centered her rifle on Khoklov’s chest. “Should I shoot you?” she asked him, in halting Russian.
“I’m not a cop,” Khoklov offered hopefully.
Aino thought about it. The rifle did not waver. “What will you do, if I don’t shoot you?”
“I have no idea what I’ll do,” Khoklov said, surprised. “What do you plan to do, Raf?”
“Me?” said Raf. “Why, I could kill you with these hands alone.” He held out his plump, dimpled hands in karate position.
“Lot of good that’ll do you against a chopper full of angry Finnish SWAT team,” Starlitz said.
Raf squared his shoulders. “I’d love to take a final armed stand on this territory! Battle those Finnish oppressors to the death! However, unfortunately, I have no arsenal.”
“Run away, Raf,” Aino said.
“What’s that, my dear?” said Raf.
“Run, Raffi. Run for your life. I’ll stay here with your stupid hookers, and your drunken, naked, mercenary losers, and when the cops come, I’m going to shoot some of them.”
“That’s not a smart survival move,” Starlitz told her.
“Why should I run like you? Should I let my revolution collapse at the first push from the authorities, without even a token resistance? This is my sacred cause!”
“Look, you’re one little girl,” Starlitz said.
“So what? They’re going to catch all your stupid whores, the men and the women, in a drunken stupor. The cops will put them all in handcuffs, just like that. But not me. I’ll be fighting I’ll be shooting. Maybe they’ll kill me. They’re supposed to be good, these SWAT cops. Maybe they’ll capture me alive. Then, I’ll just have to live inside a little stone house. All by myself. For a long, long time. But I’m not afraid of that! I have my cause. I was right! I’m not afraid.”
“You know,” said Khoklov brightly, “if we took that speed launch we could be on the Danish coast in three hours.”
Spray whipped their faces as the Ålands faded in the distance.
“I hope there aren’t too many passport checks in Denmark,” Khoklov said anxiously.
“Passports aren’t a problem,” Raf said. “Not for me. Or for my friends.”
“Where are you going?” Khoklov asked.
“Well,” said Raf, “perhaps the Ålands offshore bank scheme was a little before its time. I’m a visionary, you know. I was always twenty years ahead of my time—but nowadays maybe I’m only twenty minutes.” Raf sighed. “Such a wonderful girl, Aino! She reminded me so much of…well, there have been so many wonderful girls.… But I must sacrifice my habit of poetic dreaming! At this tragic juncture, we must regroup, we must be firmly realistic. Don’t you agree, Khoklov? We should go to the one locale in Europe that guarantees a profit.”
“The former Yugoslavia?” Khoklov said eagerly. “They say you can make a free phone call anywhere in the world from Belgrade. Using a currency that doesn’t even exist any more!”
“Obvious potential there,” said Raf. “Of course, it requires operators who can land on their feet. Men of action. Men on top of their profession.”
“Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Khoklov breathed, turning his reddened face to yet another tirelessly rising sun. “The new frontier! What do you think, Starlitz?”
“I think I’ll just hang out a while,” Starlitz said. He gripped his nose with thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, without another word, Starlitz tumbled backward from the boat into the dark Baltic water. In a few short moments he was lost from sight.
PART IV:
THE CHATTANOOGA STORIES
Deep Eddy
The Continental gentleman in the next beanbag offered “Zigaretten?”
“What’s in it?” Deep Eddy asked. The gray-haired gentleman murmured something: polysyllabic medical German. Eddy’s translation program crashed at once.
Eddy gently declined. The gentleman shook a zigarette from the pack, twisted its tip, and huffed at it. A sharp perfume arose, like coffee struck by lightning.
The elderly European brightened swiftly. He flipped open a newspad, tapped through its menu, and began alertly scanning a German business zine.
Deep Eddy killed his translation program, switched spexware, and scanned the man. The gentleman was broadcasting a business bio. His name was Peter Liebling, he was from Bremen, he was ninety years old, he was an official with a European lumber firm. His hobbies were backgammon and collecting antique phone-cards. He looked pretty young for ninety. He probably had some unusual and interesting medical syndromes.
Herr Liebling glanced up, annoyed at Eddy’s computer-assisted gaze. Eddy dropped his spex back onto their neck chain. A practiced gesture, one Deep Eddy used a lot—hey, didn’t mean to stare, pal. A lot of people were suspicious of spex. Most people had no idea of the profound capacities of spexware. Most people still didn’t use spex. Most people were, in a word, losers.
Eddy lurched up within his baby-blue beanbag and gazed out the aircraft window. Chattanooga, Tennessee. Bright white ceramic air-control towers, distant wine-colored office blocks, and a million dark green trees. Tarmac heated gently in the summer morning. Eddy lifted his spex again to check a silent take-off westward by a white-and-red Asian jet. Infrared turbulence gushed from its distant engines. Deep Eddy loved infrared. That deep silent magical whirl of invisible heat, the breath of industry.
People underestimated Chattanooga, Deep Eddy thought with a local boy’s pride. Chattanooga had a very high per-capita investment in spexware. In fact Chattanooga ranked third-highest in NAFTA. Number One was San Jose, California (naturally), and Number Two was Madison, Wisconsin.
Eddy had already traveled to both those rival cities, in the service of his Chattanooga users group, to swap some spexware, market a little info, and make a careful study of the local scene. To collect some competitive intelligence. To spy around, not to put too fine a point on it.
Eddy’s most recent business trip had been five drunken days at a blowout All-NAFTA spexware conference in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. Eddy had not yet figured out why Ciudad Juárez, a once-dreary maquilladora factory town on the Rio Grande, had gone completely hog-wild for spexing. But even little kids there had spex, brightly speckly throwaway kid-stuff with just a couple dozen meg. There were tottering grannies with spex. Security cops with spex mounted right into their riot helmets. Billboards everywhere that couldn’t be read without spex. And thousands of hustling industry zudes with air-conditioned jackets and forty or fifty terabytes mounted right at the bridge of the nose. Ciudad Juárez was in the grip of rampant spexmania. Maybe it was all the lithium in the
ir water.
Today, duty called Deep Eddy to Düsseldorf in Europe. Duty did not have to call very hard to get Eddy’s attention. The mere whisper of duty was enough to dislodge Deep Eddy, who still lived with his parents, Bob and Lisa.
He’d gotten some spexmail and a package from the president of the local chapter. A network obligation; our group credibility depends on you, Eddy. A delivery job. Don’t let us down; do whatever it takes. And keep your eyes covered—this one could be dangerous. Well, danger and Deep Eddy were fast friends. Throwing up tequila and ephedrine through your nose in an alley in Mexico, while wearing a pair of computer-assisted glasses worth as much as a car—now that was dangerous. Most people would be scared to try something like that. Most people couldn’t master their own insecurities. Most people were too scared to live.
This would be Deep Eddy’s first adult trip to Europe. At the age of nine he’d accompanied Bob and Lisa to Madrid for a Sexual Deliberation conference, but all he remembered from that trip was a boring weekend of bad television and incomprehensible tomato-soaked food. Düsseldorf, however, sounded like real and genuine fun. The trip was probably even worth getting up at 07:15.
Eddy dabbed at his raw eyelids with a saline-soaked wipey. Eddy was getting a first-class case of eyeball-burn off his spex; or maybe it was just sleeplessness. He’d spent a very late and highly frustrating night with his current girlfriend, Djulia. He’d dated her hoping for a hero’s farewell, hinting broadly that he might be beaten or killed by sinister European underground networking-mavens, but his presentation hadn’t washed at all. Instead of some sustained and attentive frolic, he’d gotten only a somber four-hour lecture about the emotional center in Djulia’s life: collecting Japanese glassware.
As his jet gently lifted from the Chattanooga tarmac, Deep Eddy was struck with a sudden, instinctive, gut-level conviction of Djulia’s essential counter-productivity. Djulia was just no good for him. Those clear eyes, the tilted nose, the sexy sprinkle of tattoo across her right cheekbone. Lovely flare of her body-heat in darkness. The lank strands of dark hair that turned crisp and wavy halfway down their length. A girl shouldn’t have such great hair and so many tatts and still be so tightly wrapped. Djulia was no real friend of his at all.
Ascendancies Page 44
