Vodka

by Boris Starling

  “But you’re outnumbered, little brother, and we can’t have you outside the tent pissing in. By a margin of two to one, the decision is made: we unite.” Lev wagged his finger to emphasize the point. It was tattooed with a symbol: In life, only count on yourself.

  “Over my dead body,” said Banzai.

  On the other side of Moscow, at the foot of the old hilltop royal estate of Kolomenskoe, three Chechen gang lords—Karkadann of the Tsentralnaya, Zhorzh of the Ostankinskaya and Ilmar of the Avtomobilnaya—were meeting in similar circumstances. They were not vory; Chechens never were. Instead, they styled themselves avtoritety, “authorities,” and they saw themselves as harder and more pragmatic than their adversaries.

  The Tsentralnaya gang was the most powerful of the three, and so it was to Karkadann’s house that Zhorzh and Ilmar had come; Zhorzh from his base at the Ostankino Hotel in the northern suburbs, and Ilmar from inspecting some of the South Port car showrooms for which his Avtomobilnaya group provided protection.

  “Be free!” they said as they greeted each other.

  Karkadann’s face was rawhide, a tangle of crevasses and creases: cheekbones like raised daggers, shadowed holes for eyes, a bent nail of a nose. Here was a man who walked down the darkest avenues, wielding his face like a club. He took his visitors outside, despite the weather and his limp; his garden was vast, and he wanted to show it off. They talked while shuffling down pathways lit by undersized streetlights.

  “I’m meeting with Lev tomorrow,” Karkadann said. “He’s seeing his vory now. I speak for us, he speaks for them; that’s what we’ve arranged. He may offer us a deal, he may not. If he doesn’t, it’s war, plain and simple. If he does …” He grinned, as sharp and menacing as a sword unsheathed. “If he does, it’s still war, even plainer and simpler.”

  “You don’t know what he’ll offer,” Ilmar said.

  Karkadann reached down into a bucket, pulled out a raw steak and tossed it at the caged bear he kept to intimidate his debtors. “Whatever it is, it won’t be enough.”

  “It won’t be everything, you mean.”

  “Take it how you like.” Karkadann jabbed at the air with a gloved hand. “Even if we did make an agreement, do you think those bastards would honor it? Not for a moment. Why would they? They’ve hated us for centuries. They hate us, the police hate us, every useless drone in this city hates us. As far as they’re concerned, the only good Chechen is a dead Chechen. The only reason they tolerate us is because they’re scared of us. And if we make a deal with the Slavs, we’ve lost even that. So there it is. All or nothing, a fight to the death. If you have any doubts, speak now.”

  He hobbled toward the walled garden. His right leg was four inches shorter than his left, but no one was certain how this had happened; some said a Mafia attack, some a childhood deformation, some the revenge of a jealous husband. It was typical of Karkadann that no one knew for sure; equally typical that he chose not to enlighten anyone who asked.

  Zhorzh shook his head. The white streak in his hair made him look like a cross between Trotsky and the devil in a medieval icon.

  “The Slavs have got—what? I’m guessing five, six thousand men,” Ilmar said. “We’ve half that at most.”

  “Ha! Then they should be quaking,” Karkadann shouted. “One Chechen is worth ten Russians! Have you gone soft, Ilmar? What’s happened to your mountain pride? What is agreement, if not surrender? And when did you last see a Chechen surrender, eh?”

  Ilmar had softer features and lighter skin than his fellow avtoritety. He rubbed at his chin and said nothing.

  The singing fountain, which in the summer emitted different notes depending on the height of the water, stood in winter stasis. As they walked, Karkadann checked that there were no gaps in the wire or the netting around the perimeter fence. His guards made the rounds every day, but there was nothing like checking for oneself.

  “All right,” Ilmar said eventually, but his unhappiness was plain to see.

  “You’re not serious,” Lev said.

  “Over my dead body,” Banzai repeated, and it was clear that serious was exactly what he was being. He’d made his name in the camps for attacking guards; the other vory had taken bets on when, not if, the authorities would give Banzai the bullet. Now Lev’s slap had marked not just Banzai’s face but also his reputation.

  “I want no part of this. I want simply to be treated as a vor.” Banzai was agitated, speaking fast. “But you refuse to listen to me—you slap me.” He shrugged extravagantly. “What choice do I have? I’m walking out of here, and the only way to stop me is to kill me.”

  “Banzai, you’re being ridiculous,” Testarossa said.

  “Kill me,” Banzai repeated. “And Testarossa, it’s you that’ll have to do it.” Lev could have snapped Banzai’s neck like a bread stick, but vory tradition dictates that the senior man present can’t dirty his hands. “So!” Banzai’s voice was almost jaunty. “Do you dare, Testarossa? Do you dare kill a fellow vor for nothing more than disagreeing with you? Hah! The system’s been dead two days, and already you’re acting like the KGB.” He pushed his chair back and it fell with a crash.

  The bodyguards were outside, facing away from the windows. What went on within the dacha was not their business.

  “This is getting out of hand,” Lev said, realizing too late that he had miscalculated badly in expecting Banzai to understand that his proposals were motivated not by self-interest but the good of the vory. The thieves’ code had much to commend it—indeed, they would never have survived the Soviet system without it—but a creed that dated back to the days of bandits and highwaymen was inadequate to the demands of these changing times. The very inflexibility that had been its greatest strength would doom the vory to destruction if Lev failed in his bid to drag the brotherhood toward the 21st Century. Banzai was willing enough to ignore the ban on drug trafficking, but any alliance with the state—even when the vory had the upper hand in the partnership—was anathema to him. Now he was prepared to challenge Lev and risk death over a mere slap, because the code demanded it. And if Lev’s progressive leadership were to survive the challenge, he must deal with Banzai according to the code.

  “You leave, Banzai, and you’re compromising the very future of the brotherhood,” Lev said.

  Banzai started for the exit as if he hadn’t heard. He walked at normal pace, allowing Testarossa to reach the door and cut him off two paces short. Testarossa was four inches taller and twenty-two pounds heavier than Banzai; it would hardly be a fair fight.

  “You really want me to do this?” Testarossa asked, pushing himself back against the door.

  “Do you dare?”

  Lev was sitting at the head of the table. Testarossa looked to him for guidance, as if seeking the emperor’s verdict on a gladiator.

  “You have your knife with you?” Lev asked.

  Testarossa tapped at his right hip. “Always.”

  Lev’s head rose and fell: a simple movement, a death sentence.

  Testarossa placed his hands on Banzai’s shoulders and began to spin him around, slowly at first, as Banzai resisted, and then with increasing ease. A full circle took away the victim’s soul and supposedly made it easier for him to accept death; it was the point of no return in the vory death ceremony. When he next faced Testarossa, Banzai’s eyes were wide, as though he’d been playing a game and only now saw that his brinkmanship had backfired. Testarossa maneuvered Banzai against the wall; he was firm, but took care not to be rough.

  Lev watched from the table, five paces away and as remote as Vladivostok.

  “Die like a vor,” Testarossa said, only marginally more statement than question.

  Banzai gripped his own collar with sweat-slimed palms, knuckles drained white, and ripped his shirt open. Neither he nor Testarossa was watching Lev; had they been, they’d have seen his face twitch in a momentary wince.

  “Take my soul,” Banzai said, and Testarossa drew the knife from his belt and plunged it into Banzai�
�s throat, right up to the hilt, the way they’d used to kill people in the gulag.

  Ilmar stood by his limousine and indicated his watch. “I’ll miss prayer if I don’t hurry,” he said.

  “Good for you,” replied Karkadann. “I don’t know how you manage it. I can never fit in my three-times-a-day.”

  They hugged sideways, Chechen-style. “It’s five times a day, actually.”

  “Oh well …” Karkadann’s voice was bright. “The more the merrier.”

  The television schedules had been cleared for Gorbachev to announce his resignation—with the union gone, there was nothing for him to be president of anymore—but when the television crews were allowed into his Kremlin office, they were greeted by an empty chair.

  “It’s all come as a bit of a shock to him,” one of the presidential staff explained. “He needs time to get used to it, that’s all.”

  They showed the empty chair on TV until it was time for the next program.

  2

  Tuesday, December 24, 1991

  There is in central Moscow an island shaped like a walrus mustache, bound to the north by the river that shares its name with the city and to the south by the Vodootvodny drainage canal, originally dug to prevent the city center flooding in spring when snowmelt swells the river. The island follows the river’s extravagant sweep past the Kremlin and down to Moscow’s oldest monastery, the Novospasskiy. It’s so narrow that the bridges on the north and south sides almost run into each other.

  The river was frozen, of course; had it not been, Karkadann would have come by speedboat rather than his Mercedes 600, for it was much safer to travel on an empty river than on Moscow’s increasingly congested roads. There was less traffic on the river, less chance of being ambushed by attackers who would pluck a Mafia boss’s car from its escort as easily as one would pick lint from a lapel.

  Karkadann’s Mercedes was book-ended front and rear by Land Cruisers with tinted windows, and it wallowed low under the weight of its armor plating. Mercedes had been happy to carry out the modifications free of charge, recognizing a growing market when it saw one; its 1992 forecast predicted more orders for 600-class limousines in Moscow and St. Petersburg than across a region stretching from Dublin to Berlin.

  Each door of Karkadann’s Mercedes was painted with a wolf’s head, the symbol of Chechnya. Chechens see the wolf as they see themselves: fierce, brave and untameable. No matter how long a wolf is kept penned up, it will always howl at the moon for its freedom.

  When the convoy reached its destination, Karkadann’s bodyguards piled out of the Land Cruisers, scanning rooftops, doorways, windows and traffic. They formed a human wall between the limousine and the restaurant’s front door. The restaurant where Karkadann and Lev were meeting had no street sign, just a bell. When they rang, the owner, an elderly woman, opened the door herself.

  “Good afternoon,” she said, showing neither surprise nor trepidation; the Mafia used her premises for this purpose quite regularly.

  Baltazar Sharmukhamedov, Karkadann’s chief bodyguard, opened the door of the Mercedes, and Karkadann limped out. He was wearing shoes crafted of alligator skin, to emphasize that he didn’t have to step in the filth of Moscow’s streets.

  The old lady led her visitors through a room lit only by candles. After the brightness of the winter sun, it took a few moments before their eyes adjusted. Patterned carpets from the southern republics and oil paintings from St. Petersburg covered the walls. It was late afternoon, and the place was empty; the lunchtime crowd had gone, the evening diners were yet to arrive, and the guitarist who usually strummed Georgian folk songs had been given the day off. It was the kind of place where, when the waiter asks how many bottles of wine you want, he means each. Georgian restaurants are like that. Even the Russians admit—grudgingly, of course—that Georgians know how to drink.

  The dining room gave way to a corridor, and the corridor in turn to a wooden door. For a moment, Karkadann seemed to be scratching himself like a Barbary ape, so fast were his hands moving around his body. He handed his guns to Sharmukhamedov. Karkadann always carried three guns: one in his right trouser pocket, another under his left armpit, and the third in his left outside coat pocket. Only in places like these did he relinquish them.

  “I feel naked without them,” he said, and his guards dutifully laughed, because naked was exactly what he was going to be.

  Karkadann pushed open the door and stepped into a small changing room that smelled of lavender. Lev had already gone in; his clothes lay in a neat pile underneath a sports jacket with shoulders as wide as an albatross’s wings.

  Karkadann undressed without hurry, arranging his clothes with care. Off came the necklace, the rings and the bracelets; the metal would get too hot and the rings too constricting as the skin and capillaries swelled in the steam.

  When he was ready, he hobbled into the banya. Russian steam baths often served as meeting places for rival gang leaders. For a start, it is all but impossible to conceal a weapon on a naked body. Moreover, the feeling of well-being that the banya produces is supposed in turn to promote accord and a willingness to work problems through. The choice of venue said much about the parties’ intentions. Very public or very private places tend not to lead to violence. Everywhere else is suspect.

  Both men had brought bodyguards; neither moved without them. Some gang lords come alone and unarmed, which is very brave or very foolish; it’s also how reputations are made.

  Karkadann could see nothing through the steam but a muscular arm that looked as though it was sheathed in colorful Chinese silk.

  “You’re late,” said Lev in a voice that seemed to start somewhere deep beneath the river. Being late for a meeting was against gangster etiquette; failure to show up at all automatically meant defeat.

  “Traffic,” Karkadann replied, knowing Lev would see the lie; Mafia limousines jumped lights and used forbidden lanes, and there was not a traffic cop in Moscow who dared stop them.

  Karkadann hoisted himself onto a bench and rubbed his palms on his thighs. Unlike a sauna, which slowly bakes the sweat out, the banya is so saturated by moist steam that perspiration blooms in an instant. When the vapors cleared, Karkadann realized that what he’d taken to be Chinese silk was actually a carpet of tattoos, not just on Lev’s arm but rioting over his entire body. Vultures, bleeding wounds, specters and snowscapes crawled over the rib cage. A map of the gulag stretched above Lev’s waist, names distended and elongated by the rise and fall of his chest: Magadan, Tashkent, Vladimir, Kolyma, Vorkutia, Potma, Lefortovo. Just as the vory had refused to recognize the state—declining to carry a residence permit, pay taxes, take up arms on behalf of the state—so the state had returned the compliment. Since organized crime could not logically have existed in a socialist utopia, the vory had been awarded the ultimate accolade of invisibility. There’d been no crime in the Soviet Union, merely asocial behavior, political dissidence and mental illness.

  The only blank space was on Lev’s breastbone, where a white scar shone. The sheer incongruity drew Karkadann’s eye to it; in an extravagance of activity, it was easiest to pick out the void, the paler space where a picture had been taken from the wall.

  Lev pointed to it: “Lenin.” He turned around to show another scar on his back. “Mustaches.” Stalin. The twin heroes of the Soviet Union were common faces on the skin of those who’d rejected their every doctrine; it was thought that a Soviet execution squad would refuse to shoot at either image.

  “The authorities removed them?” Despite himself, Karkadann was curious.

  “No. I did. The day the devil’s spawn came back from the Crimea, I took a soldering iron and burned them off myself.” The devil’s spawn was Gorbachev, because of the mark on his forehead.

  They sat sweating in silence for a few moments, feeling their bodies reacting to the banya. The heat produces an artificial fever, urging every organ of the body into action, furiously cleansing the body from inside out through the largest organ of all
, the skin, and its excretion, sweat.

  “Let’s get straight to it.” Karkadann was impatient.

  “Very well. No one in Moscow wants you here. Go back to Grozny. We’ll pay you more than fairly for your interests.” Turf wars were destructive, cooperation was easier on everybody. It would, Lev reflected, be the perfect Marxist solution: from conflict to synthesis.

  Karkadann snorted. “You must be crazy.”

  No, thought Lev, you must be crazy. He weighed twice as much as Karkadann and could easily have snapped him in two, but the Chechen seemed entirely unintimidated.

  “You must be crazy,” Karkadann repeated. “There’s not enough money in Moscow to make me leave. Not enough just to leave Red October alone.”

  Lev had wondered whether Karkadann was going to mention that. Lev was director of the Red October distillery, a few streets down from where they were sitting. In truth, it was more than a distillery, it was the spiritual home of Russian vodka, the largest and most famous of its kind anywhere in the federation. He who controls vodka controls Russia, goes the old saying, and Lev had a hand in every stage of the vodka process. He provided protection for and shared in the profits of distilleries. He ran underground bottling plants for counterfeiting; for every bottle of vodka produced officially, another was produced on the side. He ran his own trucking firms to take care of distribution. He managed vast warehouses where the vodka was stored. He controlled the shops and kiosks where the vodka was sold. And he imported foreign vodka, which had social cachet and was seen as good value for money. Importing vodka into Russia may have seemed like taking samovars to Tula, but there was still great demand for it.