Damn myself to hell.
I give the kid one last look wondering glee or anger is in those eyes. But surprisingly, I found a sense of shame. As I release the pressure on the edge of knife. The chip pulls, his palms burst a squeak of someone's mouth clicks. Both his hands a bloody mess, the deep cut painted three colors. The finger's relatively pale, and the gush under the inner side of the knuckles is braided deep red closer to black scale for the skin around it started killing itself, the blood sinks under the mess along the lines of his hand towards the wrist in chunks of tenderer color of flesh.
The kid lumps his chin forward as his legs try to give in but he finds support in whatever he reaches back for on the wall and prevents himself from slumping. His gaze sticks to me for a couple more breaths before turning to the driver as well.
Familiar ain't he?
I take a step back, mopping the blood off the blade on black cargo pants before stashing it back as well as raising my hands up. On all accounts, seeing a brigadier with a knife in hand ain't a good idea.
The driver cock the pistol back and pommels two knocks on the door before hinging his arm back, rolling the window up as the barn door on the back opens simultaneously with the rolling wheels squeaking drums. Facing directly to the alley. Igor steps out with a stomp.
***
Igor is an odd one. Not surely a brigadier but holds about equal voice as one. In the already confusing hierarchy and division of responsibility of the Slavic company, almost everyone had once or twice met this sociopathic individual. But no one, for the love of all that is holy, can recognize just what his jurisdictions are.
Recruiting and scouring the street is one, corresponding and planning offenses are somewhere between his orchestra and hobby. There's a shadow of him at all fronts and ends of mob business. 'Igor was here two days ago.' 'The fuckface's up for another racket down south again.' 'Last night? Yeah, he did it.'…. Bullshit like these fly in the open and adds to his mystery. A living, breathing, talking urban myth who shows up at Ice Breaker on Monday nights like clockwork.
That's what he's good at. Everyone knew him, but not a living soul was sure what the fuck is he up to or what the fuck is he suppose to be up to. Each time one asks about his former rank in the army, his last name, his former life before Faust, or if he ever sleeps. The answer's always the same silent smirk along three shots of hot liquor with a palm on your shoulder.
Some see similarities between me and him, as unpleasant as it is I can tell where they get the notions.
Him and I both work under very similar marks, and we both enjoy the most freedom in our respectful fields with the hindrance being having to live with abundance of made stories. Funny enough, to this day the rumor that I'm an outsourced Russian in the open market still exists.
Those were bout as much as the city knew him for. Ex-military, dishonorable discharge, headhunter, very seldom seen in action, he relinquishes on violence but enjoys the execution. Orchestrates bloodshed under the point of whoever's index. Dig and train dumb kids in suburban, trap houses, government housings, backstreet gutters. Give them guns and point them at west today, east tomorrow, your home next week.
I've known him for almost eight years. The bastard taught me some of the most useful things I've relied on throughout my lot, being a freelancer or anything else.
To this day, after years my past with him can be summed up by 3 understandings between us.
First, I know he still holds grudges against me for valid reasons. Second, I'll gladly admit that I still owe him a well-aged favor. Last, we both know damn well. I'd never join his wing.
***
Hard leather boots on the weed sprout in cracks of pavement. Igor stretches his arm back, slothfully keen eyes scouting through the surroundings.
190 centimeters in height give or take, induction cut of gray and black sticks generally at wherever the fuck they please and I've never seen them grow an inch longer or cut an inch shorter in ever.
Nose sharp and upward like a Greek but dented in the middle so severely it's as if the upper bridge and his nostril are not connected features. Eye sockets sucked in like two bloody craters, making his deep taupe color eyes often mistaken as full black. Mouth flat, lips moist, curling on decisiveness and dissatisfied. The man's pushing his fifth decade, but the only signs were the slight wrinkle bout his stifle forehead when in thoughts or anger.
If you take all but bare statue out of account he's not a big guy. Taller than most but not the tallest and sure as hell ain't the fittest, anyone who's ever caught him with his sleeves up would describe him as gray and bony. Gray from the old tattoos without touch-up, bony as in the lines on his bicep is carved deep enough you can see the bones under the stripes.
Beard clean shaven in sage grey running down his cleft chin, thick neck happens to match the olive green rainproof jacket he's on, with an obvious strap of vest underneath. The belt, the waterproof trousers with more pockets, the silver ring on his right middle and pinkie finger, the extra pairs of eyes sticking out from the dark of the backseat behind him and most importantly, how fitting he looks in the whole picture.
Put a soldier in a group of scoundrels, thief-in-laws, gangsters. At first glance he'd look apart, but there are certain nuisances. Like a man in suit amongst priests. His back's too straight, his brow's always knitted, his eyes are too calm and visceral, never wears a Saint Peter's cross, doesn't seem too interested in woman or man (Someone joked about pedophilia since he'd be on the front seat of a van all day scouting young recruits.
It was a good joke, it was a long-lived joke, it was a joke no one remembers who started it.)
He doesn't seem elated for a kitchen table brimmed with freshly delivered loose diamonds either. As if this life is but another choke instead of liberation.
But there are few moments between awful army humor and matters of business. Those instances when his mask and mentality crack. In those blinks of a vision, he's perfectly fine living in this shit hole, playing the character of his birthright. When he could be committed to a single matter of his familiarity, doing what he does best.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
And now, Igor's standing straight as the barrel of a gun never fired, from the ground to the roof in my line of sight, blocking anything outside this alley stinking of iron and whimpering. In form-fitting czar green, hard sole black boots, choleric expression, blazing eyes. Standing as if the only rule between the bleak black veil above and concrete soil under, is written on the end of his tongue.
***
He takes a firm step forward. Between myself and the 10th Street on the wall. He cocks his neck in such a subtle manor it'd look casual.
No need to turn around to see his pupils scrolling across carcass white. The tall one got shanked in the back, and the loudmouth probably got a concussion and lost a tab of his scalp which in my opinion is far better than losing half of your face on a wall and forearm dislocated.
They'll live.
Painfully for a few months, but they'll live.
I presume he came to the same conclusion as I did in context I'm still breathing. Igor doesn't care too much about rookies who failed to mature, but killing his man on their own ground is stepping over. It's a matter of reputation. And so is beating them half dead.
He takes a deep breath and a second of pause before ever so faintly nodding and shaking his head.
Another step, to the 10th Street kid on my left. Igor trails his gaze down to his bloody palms and a splatter of it by his cheek, the former's dripping quietly to the fingertips but the kid remains standing with head held despite his back leaning against the wall's the sole reason he's not on the ground. He looks straight at Igor with small breaths. Igor shakes his head.
"6 minutes later there will be another ride. Load them up, driver will take you to a doc." He speaks slowly in a firmer voice than most I've ever heard, words tag to the next but each being completely lucid and clear. In a tone unquestionable.
"I'm....." The boy reacts with a twitch of his rigid body before he moves his tongue, it's the first time I heard him speak about how I imagined. Youthful loudness, somehow cramped, somewhat taints an accent, cut off by a fist placed on his chest. Igor effortlessly pushes him back against the wall with a stretch of his arm.
The kid leans back and immediately tries to move forward again but Igor takes a step forward Lowering his voice to a whispering gnaw. Slower, quicker, with the fist back on the middle of the kid’s chest.
"You're still nothing." A second longer with his face fixed inches away from the kid, can't see it from here but I'd say it wasn't pretty. "Don't forget to pick the tools off the ground."
And with it done, the man turns to me. His thick brows knit and raise to the middle. Eyes about to jump out of deep sockets as his skin drags them upward while his mouth drops. A step and a half, he towers over me at least half a head. On the left is an alley of his groaning man while on the right, a black van.
"Lee." He utters after a long exhale and a twitch of the nose.
"Igor." He laughs swallowing a breath and turns to the driver and the others waiting in the back seat.
"Этот маленький засранец единственный, кто все еще называет меня так!" Teeth and grin like a bear, eyes blazing a simple glee. "How long has it been?"
"Six months." He nods as if his neck ain't part of his body. Crow's feet cut deep by eyelids through a single instance of exuberance shine three flimsy shades horizontally.
"Personal matter?"
"Busy being dead on eight hundred different versions."
"Why not stay dead?" I chuckle and open my hands of blackened stripes of bruise and spiky debris. Raising them to my shoulder height.
"Living ain't that unbearable. And I'm not done with the city yet." The old soldier smiles and in a slide of motion, pulls the silver rings on his left hand off with his right and slips them in the pocket on his chest and reaches over my shoulder. Gesturing me forward with a fingers digging into the pad of jacket.
"It's good you're back at this hour." In a place I didn't know existed, I let go a breath knowing it won't be tonight. Two steps away from the van he lowers his head down like a chicken, like how he did to the 10th Street kid on the wall, kid’s still standing. Igor's eyes tell a command through a question.
You know what's going to happen.
I hum and muffle a breath inward to press it against my abdomen.
"But nonetheless. You struck my man." Like clockwork ticks by the last syllable. His right palm clutches my shoulder back a little for the momentum, left knee twirls, foot slightly inward, waist, shoulder, gut punch through like a door ram. I didn't have to act for he didn't hold back.
The breath I took got squeezed out as if they didn't exist, the feeling of an inhalation being stuck by the oxygen leaving through the same pipe drives a further pain to your vocal cord while your intestines crawl.
I hunch forward uncontrollably squeezing the muscles together as my body tries to absorb the pain just for Igor to take another step forward, his right hand moves from my shoulder to the back of my jacket collar, left palm gripping my left arm as he throws me off balance and trembles forward into the black van's open door.
***
"Давай быстрее, мы опаздываем!" My back hits the walls of the cargo bay as I hinge my head downward to prevent trauma. Igor jumps in the next second, dragging the sliding door shut and returning my vision to purple blocks of cloud in the dark.
I reach along the suede mat to the aluminum wall till I find a notch on the panels and bring myself to a more comfortable position that wouldn't break my neck. And another shock came as the driver gets a move on this old piece of crap, not shy on the peddle either.
My eyes get more used to the dark of the van. The sporadic street lights on Kirov cast a pathetic illumination through the two tinted windows at the back door.
My senses resurrect despite my best wish is to lay till the next morning, maybe the morning after too. But the smell came.
Stiffed and tainted leather, wool stained with the stink of sweat, iron and a whiff of chlorine hard to pinpoint. Plus the adrenaline that's supposed to be scentless, now resonates through every inch and seam between us all.
Almost forgot about them.
The other three passengers sit still on the makeshift bench on the left. Each of them is in the dim black or deep blue, hands on knees or rubbing each other. Igor sits along them, watching me with those dirtied brown eyes brimming with life captured by the little light at the end of this moving hearse.
"Could have them do me in the alley no?" I lean my head on the inner wall, pointing at those three faceless figures. "Save me the time walking back home." The man shakes his head in slower motions as if bobbing it. A tinge of pain resurfaces on my right palm as I retract it.
"We're already late on schedule. They're not going to waste time on you." I hum as a response and start probing the bottom of my right palm slowly in the dark until I find the source of the sting, a shortcut under the pinkie finger presumably from the kid in the alley. I mop it with a thumb and feel the stiffness of some blood already setting in on my skin. Some still lingering at the opening.
"Where were you heading?" Igor waits a second and runs his gaze across the others next to him. When it rounds back to me, I see the man before was born again.
"Piao Jie. For a neighboring greeting."
A claw scratches my ribs from the inside as I narrow my eyes on him and the other three.
I crawl onto the empty bench on the right to bring me closer to the light of the window and figures in black. I squint my eyes harder to make out the outlines of them. And find them just about the age of those three in the alley, if not as young as the 10th Street.
"It's their night Lee." Igor leans forward to pull out a boxing wrap from the storage box under bench and hands it to me. I stare at it for a second longer than needed before taking it in rigid movements. "And you stripped it from them. Now you're in debt for putting four of my men off commission and jeopardizing my work."
I stare at the white tape in my hand. It must be cleanest I've seen from Igor. The thought runs across my numbing mind, I raise my head to look through their faces once again. Hell one of them even looked familiar, the one from Eugene.....what was his name.....
A clink, a snare, then a flare. Igor holds an old silver zippo against the cig in his mouth. The flame came, ignited the tobacco and immediately cut by the lid. He takes a quick whiff and passes it to the one under Eugene's wing. The kid takes a hard drag, the brimming flicker draws the contour of him more angular than true, making him look older by the long lines of shadow behind each fold. His blonde hair looks brown and stiff.
Blonde kid passes the cig to the next, and he next passes it down again, and back around until Igor takes a second puff, flicking the ashes to the suede mat nowhere visible.
"Let's hear it." He presses the thumb and tilt the filter end to me as he extends it. The scenery at the back window changes like a slide show or a bulky old TV, from the suburban to the rector street with Lesnaya becoming dots in between lanterns. "How do you plan on compensating?"