by Reid Astor
She raises an eyebrow at that, but remains poised. "By making underhanded deals for contractors with histories of tax fraud?" she gives a small chuckle. "Remind me to never let you go into house-building. You would do terribly."
"Now that just hurts my feelings." The man idly rifles through the papers within the bag, coming across a crowbar and wagging it her way with a noise of appreciation. “Ray, let's just say the place isn't exactly the shining child of legal outfitting."
Niklas jerks his gaze between the two, and settles on Lars. "It's what?"
"You don't know?" he looks up at him innocently, still playing with that damn crowbar. "You realize your place was supposed to be condemned like twenty years ago? Nikky, Lana pulled all kinds of strings to get that place in operation. Lots of tax evasion, lots of safety regulations broken. Which means we have a bit of catching up to do-" he emphasizes his sentence by patting down the backpack, and looks to the woman- Ray?- with a frenetic smile. "Hey, one more thing, honey."
For a moment, Niklas wonders if they are seeing each other, if he should somehow make some kind of signal to her. But some look in her face says no in the next moment. No, indubitably. Ray's arms are crossed and she looks like she was expecting this charade all along and has the pet names listed and checked off. "Shoot," she says.
"Can you get me something on a murder?"
They both look at him with open stares. Niklas in particular feels like he's choking on something in his throat way larger than he ever woke up for today.
"Lars, do I look like CSI meets fraud on two wheels?" Ray speaks blithely, but in a moment the coldness leaves her eyes and she says, tiredly, "Who was it?"
"He'll be a middle-aged Slavic male identified as an 'Alexei'. Try running for 'Alexei Baranov'."
A deep-set silence falls over the three, all for very different reasons. Finally, after a moment's consideration, the woman says, "Your friend over there is going awfully pale."
"...Look, can or can't you?"
Niklas looks up from the spot he's been fixated on at the ground- an oilstain of black on otherwise immaculate gray poured concrete and an indentation of a shoe-print just left of it- and feels the eyes on him. He addresses her. "Can you do it, Detective?"
Ray doesn't even seem perturbed by him figuring her out so quickly. A calm smile pulls on her thin lips. "Yeah. It's easy. Just give me a couple days. I can't snatch too much at a time from the database." She looks at Lars and gives a mysterious nod, before fixing on her helmet again and kicking the bike into gear. The man doesn’t even wave.
For the longest time the roar of the motorbike engine is all the noise that comes between them. Niklas realizes just how tired he feels deep in his eyes and his head. And Lars just makes to light another damned cigarette.
"Like I said, he was robbing them blind," the man says again, the lilt of his New York accent slipping strangely into an undercurrent of something much softer. "You of all people would know how chavs get when they're ripped off." He pauses. "You sure you don't want a cigarette?"
Niklas looks at him wearily. "Yes. I’m sure.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The day hasn't had the mercy to even be half over. When Niklas stumbles in the door at half past noon, hungry to the core and suddenly too conscious of his own lips, there is a healthy line of customers creaking along the wooden floors of the Ishmael Cafe. He makes it a priority to rush past the modest crowd to the back, where he can wash his mouth (finally) and perhaps spray on something lying around to smell more like a barista and less like a smokers' lounge.
Maybe it's the noise from the front or his plain desperation to get to one of the sinks, but it isn't until too late that he's blindsided and crashes into someone. A pan comes down clashing to his feet, he feels several small objects knock against him- and Niklas whips his head to look so quickly he almost gets sore, and stumbles to get a grip on the counter to rebalance.
"Viola," he says, a little numb. "Sorry."
The girl looks down at the dilapidated remains of the muffins first, then at him- and the shadow brings away any doubt of it. Her face is so red the constellations of her freckles have gone practically camouflage. "I- I'm- I-" She stutters so fast that he just knows those muffins were needed by some demanding customer five minutes ago.
He puts a hand on her shoulder, brushing her away from the mess. "There's a stash Tethys made the other day that you can heat up. In the pastry fridge. Don't tell the customers that."
"I-"
"Go get them," he says, dropping to his knees and scraping up the remains onto the pan with his hands.
"Mister B- Baranov, I-"
He pauses mid-sweep and looks up at her. Even from the ground, Viola Faraday looks slight and awkward. "What?"
Quicker than should be naturally human, she scuttles away from him to the storerooms of the far back, disappearing into the shade. Niklas thinks to himself for a moment that he probably just did something to embarrass the living daylights out of her without realizing what (it's happened before, with uniforms and barista etiquette and even foam drawings)- but then she comes right back. Armed with a bright green notebook that looks suspiciously like the guide to The Menu, but not.
He doesn't bother asking what it is when he takes it in his hands. He just flips it open and goes through the extensive and strange array of recipes that lay themselves out before him. "This is a coffee cocktail menu?" he asks, eventually.
Viola is toying with her bright red hair and finding the upper-wall cupboards completely fascinating. "It's the new menu. I-I mean, it's the new menu if you want it to be. The new guy and I... drafted it up."
And Niklas doesn't want to hurt her feelings by saying anything would be better than the older Menu, he honestly doesn't care, so he just says, "It looks good. We'll look over it more later." Then, when Viola seems frozen in some kind of scared-mouse defense reaction, he adds, gently as he can, "Customers."
"Oh. Yes." She squeaks and dashes to the front, but stops just before reaching the threshold, palms slamming on the doorway and gripping tight as she looks at him. "Mister Baranov, if it's okay for me to say, I don't know, I don't want to judge, I- um... Smoking'sbadforyoupleasedon't." And, face red, she tears away from sight.
He has to hold his forehead in his brow for a second afterwards before he rises and dumps out the trashed baking pan's contents. He almost doesn't notice when Etburn rushes through the room from the back, a scurry of color in an apron carrying what looks like a huge pitcher of extremely shady looking tea-punch. When he gives the youth a look, he's given one right back. "Customer goes first, right, boss?"
Niklas doesn't even say anything, doesn't have the energy to, and waves him right on.
He's just about ready to don his own apron and go make sense of whatever the hell is going on out there when Etburn ducks in again, this time smiling. "Hey, um, boss?" His hair is much more tousled than earlier this morning, Niklas remembers, and considers telling him to cut it before deciding he does not care. "Svetlana Morris came in earlier asking for you. She said, um," he dances into the backroom completely, pulling out a small flip-back notebook from his apron as he goes. "Uh, meet her tomorrow night at her favorite place. Okay, that's all." And then he's gone.
Ah. As if he was supposed to expect his day to end quietly. As if he could expect a break. Niklas massages his cold fingers against the soreness in his eye and thinks, Yes, God, let’s just pretend my morning was not enough for today.
* * *
The canopy over their heads soaks up the incandescent candlelight gloriously and even reflects some back, bringing a gentle light over Svetlana Morris' withered features.
A beholder could just tell she had been a beauty in the worlds of decades before, small as she is and draped in a tie-dye shirt and loose-fitting harem pants. It is in her eyes; they are still bright and brilliantly green. Tonight she sits back on the velveteen upholstery and sips on port, talking about a Turkish friend of hers inviting her to stay with him in his mansion on a di
stant coast. Some story about his mistress throwing ether frolic revivals weaves its way in there- Svetlana can tell an extraordinary amount of stories.
Niklas lets her do it for a while, staring into the blackened depths of his own wine glass and letting the meal settle. His stomach is protesting the wholesome foods Madam Morris has been doling out to him so magnanimously all night long. Still, in polite silence, he sits and half-listens.
"...It's a pity my friend is late, but I never expect Lawrence to be early, he has too bad a reputation now for that," she laughs, voice thick and accented. "Oh, but he must have introduced himself to you as Lars, didn't he?"
He sits a little straighter from where he'd been sitting back, eyebrows furling in confusion. "You invited that man?" he says in Russian, suddenly wary of the English tongue. "Svetlana Dobrynina, I..."
"I'm glad you're speaking in Russian. It's been too long since I have had handsome young men to talk with." She's quick on the uptake, keenly leaning forward and putting her glass down. Her wrinkled, desiccated fingers lay flat on the ornate tablecloth, and he focuses on that as she says, "But you don't like him?"
"He seems more like an irritant than any real help. I can't understand why you would send someone like him to do... anything, really." Mirroring her gesture, he puts his own glass down and watches as a waiter swoops in and clears away their dishes. "Madam, please forgive my impudence, but I feel like you've been keeping me blind to many of the matters of my own store."
She smiles slyly. "You two may have more in common than you think. I helped Lawrence many years ago, when he was just a boy, to come to this country. It was a favor to his brother just as much as it was to him."
"What?"
"Oh, don't look so surprised, young man. His New York accent is excellent but not flawless, even I can tell this."
Niklas thumbs the stem of his glass thoughtfully, remembering the slip of Lars' voice when he chose that strange word- chav- of all things to describe a lowlife. "If you forgive me for doubting your judgment, he is still proving to be an ill choice for supervising the renovation. A renovation that I still don't approve of."
"He did tell you the rewards for this, didn't he?"
He looks away from her, unable to meet her gaze. "He said you would help me liquidate my debts."
"Then what is the problem?" she says, smiling as if oblivious.
“It’s in the pr-“
They both start at the noise- the waiters are upset at something, clearly, deep in the better-lit indoors of the store- and he overhears the word 'reservation'. It's only by craning his neck that Niklas catches eye of the swiftly moving dark blur wandering on in.
When Lars walks in, it's with a confident swagger that makes Niklas wonder how he ever forgot the way that man walked. Even his shoes make noise, as if he needs to declare his indomitable presence to the world wherever he wanders. And Svetlana greets him with inordinate warmth and titters about how he missed dinner. Talking quickly and motioning even quicker, she orders up a waiter to get him something anyway, for refills- because she's the last person Niklas could ever describe as tight-pursed.
Formalities over, Lars sits beside him and clears his throat. He looks considerably cleaner and better-rested than Niklas remembers him being last- the frenetic, half-dead half-foaming off-the-edges quality is gone from him and leaves a composed, suited man. "Hey, Lana," he says, and Niklas realizes that through all of Svetlana's warm reception it's taken this long for him to get a word in. It's oddly amusing. "You look good, old lady, you know that?"
"You are looking like a ladykiller, yourself, you devil. It is good to see you look rested, you both look like you can use it," Svetlana says warmly. "How's... oh, what's her name, that girl you were... the one who could cook well. Cara? You know what I mean," she gestures loosely, squinting as if recalling some distant memory.
"Carmella is fine, last I checked," Lars mutters noncommittally, adjusting his seat and- Niklas notices minutely- scooting ever so slightly closer to him. "We're taking a break."
"Ah. Breaks." Svetlana's nose wrinkles a bit at that. "A new generation idea, but who am I to complain? You youths run the world now." And Niklas thinks, Madam Morris, you could not be more wrong. The two men at this table are here at your beck and call. "Now, what's this about my Kolya being unhappy? Were you being rude to him?"
He flushes at the diminutive being used in the man’s presence, but says nothing and folds his hands on his lap.
"Kolya?" Lars starts in confusion, before understanding dawns on his eyes and he cracks into a small laugh. "Oh, I get it. Kolya," he chuckles, glancing Niklas' way. It gives him chills that make his arms want to lurch any which way. "No, Lana, it's honestly all good. Ya know, you should really try a 100% policy with Ni-with Baranov, though, next time. This poor guy had no idea how deeply he was... tangled up."
That’s when Niklas feels it. Under the table, the man's hand brushes against his elbow ever so slightly and innocuously. He moves his arm away, reaches for the wine and takes a long drink, feeling the perspiration gathering on his neck. Svetlana reaches to do the same, not seeming to have noticed a thing.
"I know, Kolya, I have kept much from you. For that I am..." she slips into Russian, "I am very sorry. I admit it was quite a personal matter to me to get that shop set up again, by whatever means... It was your mother's pride and joy, and seeing it waste away... I wanted to keep it there, it was like keeping her alive still."
He replies in the like language, enjoying how it gives him a safety screen from Lars' inquiring, penetrating gaze. "I want to forgive you but you have ensnared me in a trap of crime. After my teenage years..." he sighs, not sure if he wants to tell her this. Finally, he reaches to the buttons of his shirt and pulls it away, exposing his left collarbone to them both. The scorpion is small, the size of a thumb and twining along the bone, and its stinger curls downwards towards his heart and over the burn scars that adorn it. The tissue glistens in the candlelight. "You know what the scorpion means. I resigned from the life of crime," he says, in English so Lars can understand as well. "I take it seriously."
Svetlana nods, doesn't take her eyes off the piece as the waiter swoops in to pour them all more wine. "I'm sorry, Kolya," she says. "But that shop is important to me."
He snaps his shirt back and does himself up again, feeling flushed with Lars' eyes burning into his skin. "Then buy it from me."
He can tell the man by his side is unsettled by that, shifting in his seat from right to back towards him again. He probably wants to pose the question in that goddamned accent of his at any point, Yeah, Lana, why don't you just buy it from him? But he doesn't.
"I cannot," she says, sternly. "At this point in time that store cannot afford to change hands. It needs you. It must be stable, they cannot see my name on it." She frowns, and Niklas feels anxiety prick him with that frown alone. It's unsettling to see Svetlana so serious. "I am watched in all the moves I make when I am here, Kolyenka. I put boy after boy on schedule so you do not stick out. So they do not see you. Old babulya Svetka pays your debts. She takes care of you. She is good friend of Anna Dmitryovna. And now she asks you, let her make your shop nice, let her use it for one operation, maybe two. She lets you meet good friends, the best friends who can help us. And you give her heartache."
He inhales and pushes away his refilled wine glass, watches the black-burgundy liquid swish at the sides. When he puts his arm back down below the tablecloth, he realizes Lars' is still there. Swifter than he can take himself away, there is a firm grip round his wrist, and his eyes flicker down before he looks back at her. "When this is over, Madam Morris, I want nothing to do with either of you."
He jerks his wrist once, twice, but Lars doesn't give- the grip of his hand reaches over his wrist, the heel of his palm, to his fingers. And Niklas can't make any sudden moves for fear of alerting her.
The investigator just sits back casually in his chair, resting his face on his free hand. "You know, sad as that makes me, Baranov, I'm su
re we can arrange that." He feels the pointed use of his last name around Svetlana, the guardedness- but most of all he feels the hand gripping him. A warning? A mark of dominance? He can’t tell, but it’s making his blood pound in his arm with disgust.
When he looks back, the firmness has melted away from Svetlana's green eyes and they’re scrunched up with her tender smile. And there is sadness embedded deep across her lips as she leans forward across that table and touches his face with her withered hands.
She still doesn’t see a thing.
Unlike the hot grip round his hand, printing bruises into his skin, Svetlana's fingers are cold to the touch, but sweet to feel in the muggy candle-heated air. "You are like my child, Kolya," she says in Russian, the slightest edge to his voice, "because I have none. You are my only child. Do not stop me from helping you."
Niklas shuts his eye and thinks, With help like this, I need to help myself. In Russian, he says, “I only hope that’s what you’re doing. Sometimes we don’t know.” Nevertheless he leans into her fingers, feeling his blind side embrace the bony brushes of her. Beneath the table, sweat slips between his skin and Lars’.
