Hound of Eden Omnibus

by James Osiris Baldwin

  Four hours later, my sinuses were gummy with perfume and cigarette smoke, but I was up ten thousand and was playing at Laguetta’s table, with Lev on my left and the hawkeyed Laguetta bodyguard on my right. His name had turned out to be Lazarus, and he was wholly relatable—quiet, serious, and cunning, if not book-smart. Everyone else but the two of us was heading towards being cheerfully drunk by the time I called my last bet. Nursing a cup of coffee and a stack of chips, I found that for once in my life, I didn’t feel like a complete pariah as the dealer shuffled and then laid out his own hand face-down on the table. “Place your bets, gentlemen.”

  Vassily came up behind me, and I caught the faint smell of whiskey and lime from over my shoulder. Lev was leading the bet, and regarded the others demurely as he pushed forward two five-thousand-dollar chips. My mouth twitched to one side, and I counted three of the heavy chips from my own stack, nudging them across. Vassily whistled.

  “Bozhe mir. They don’t call you Molotchik for nothing, do they?” Lev remarked.

  “Haha, I’ll match it.” Vanya, sweating profusely, slapped down the same amount at the other end of the table. “Bring it on.”

  If I could appreciate any game in the world, it was the elegant simplicity and nearly-even odds of baccarat. If you had an eye for patterns and could card count, it was a little more than even odds. The dealer dealt us our cards while the others watched and then turned out his own onto the table. A two and a five.

  “Oh, here we go.” Vassily took a drink. “Did you just throw fifteen grand in the hole, Lexi?”

  “Did we?” Crina leaned in over my shoulder as I thumbed back the very corners of my hand. When she saw the same thing I did, she put her hand to her mouth and then waved it like she was fanning herself and had a draft of champagne from her flute as laughter bubbled up around her.

  Lev won with his hand, to the cheers of the table. I was next and turned both cards over neatly, pushing them toward the dealer. “Three and seven. Perfect hand.”

  George thumped the table, and Vassily whooped behind me, cheering as I collected my new chips and sat back in my chair. It put me sixteen grand up from the starting bet. Lazarus laughed unhappily when he flipped his cards and turned up six, while Vanya pushed his losing hand—double twos—towards the dealer and left in disgust as he scraped the lost chips into the dealer’s stack.

  “With that streak, you should consider going all in.” Lev looked at me sidelong, heavy-lidded and sly.

  “Really, Avtoritet. We have all night to lose,” I replied.

  “You some kind of pussy, Jew boy?” Lazarus said on the other side.

  Like smoke, my tentative regard for him vanished. I felt my face drain of all expression and saw the light fade in the other man’s black eyes, an echo of my own deepening disregard. Neither of us were drunk. Both of us were proud, blooded predators.

  “Now now,” Lev chided. “No hard feelings, Mr. Valenti.”

  Something ghosted past me, creeping through my suit to the skin, but the wisp of energy bypassed me and engulfed Lazarus in a gentle, suggestive embrace. He blinked.

  “Yeah, no hard feelings. I always was a shitty loser.” He barked a laugh and extended a hand.

  I uncomfortably accepted, and we shook, glove to glove. Lev had a sip of his Cognac like nothing had happened, and I remembered Jana’s fear, her furtiveness. She had a right to be scared. Lev’s magic terrified me in a way Carmine’s could not. Carmine was fire and brimstone: Lev was poison gas crawling through cracks in the wall. A man with sufficient will and ambition could hold the world to ransom with that power. Maybe he was already planning for it. The back of my neck crawled.

  “…this stuff’s so pure you won’t even know it topped you...” The snatch of conversation drifted through the room as the lull fell. I stiffened and broke off the handshake, turning while the dealer called for the next round. Mikhail was chopping lines of coke on the low drinks table in front of him.

  “I believe you, seriously, but I’m done for the weekend,” Vassily protested, but he was not moving away. “Not in front of the Mob guys, Misha.”

  I could hear the strain in Vassily’s voice. He looked over at me with feverish blue eyes.

  Across from him, Mikhail shrugged and snorted the first line with a thick sound of satisfaction.

  Lazarus shook his head. “Crazy Russkies.”

  Beefbrick with the curly hair was far more interested. I watched him silently ask for clearance with arched eyebrows and a cock of his head towards toward the table. George Laguetta shook his head, a small grimace playing over his mouth and brow.

  “You know, I need some fresh air.” I lifted my voice enough to be heard and stood, knees cracking, and smoothed my hands over my hair. “Vassily?”

  Mikhail shot me a dark look, glancing between the pair of us as Vassily wavered. Crina had frozen awkwardly, her glass held in both hands like a shield between her and the room.

  “Give my lines to someone else,” Vassily said. He moved towards me.

  “That’s awfully generous. Ain’t like you, Zmechik.” Vanya waved a fat ringed hand.

  Vassily canted his chin as he turned on the other man, and for a moment, his face was a long, hard, lean thing of pointed lines and arrogant authority. “Sure it is. I’m cutting down,” he said, in English. “So give them to someone else.”

  “Hey, lighten up. Take one and leave the rest.” Vanya was nervous under Vassily’s eye, but his grin was still wet and toothy. The expression made me look at him in a different way. Pinpoint pupils, shrunk from anxiety. Fingers, fidgeting nervously in his lap. He was worried about something—and suddenly, the pieces clicked.

  Those sons of bitches.

  “The balcony, Vassily?” I shoved my chips towards Lev, who took them without question. He was watching the exchange with a pleasant blank face.

  “Sure.” Vassily mimed a cigarette, but he was perspiring heavily.

  I could see the sweat on his lip as I drew in against his side and linked an arm through his elbow. Up close, he smelled of barely suppressed desperation. As we withdrew, I looked back over my shoulder at Vanya and Mikhail, who were trying to pretend they hadn’t noticed the intervention.

  Vassily heaved a huge sigh outside, drawing deeply of the sweaty sea air and shuddering on the exhalation. I reached up, rubbing briefly between his shoulder blades with awkward sympathy.

  “Fuck,” Vassily said. He shook his head. “I feel like a french-fried asshole, Lexi.”

  “You did the right thing.” I let my hand fall away. “They’re setting you up to fall.”

  “Vanya? Nah, man... nah. It’s not like they shoved this shit up my nose. It’s my problem.” Vassily looked up from the railing, facing the shimmering boardwalk and the sea beyond. “This…coke thing started about eight, nine months ago. That’s how I got by in there. I dealt.”

  “And used.” The realization weighed on me, and heavily. How had I not seen it? “And that is a setup, Vassily. They knew you’d use. They know what prison’s like. You should have told me.”

  “How could I tell you?” Vassily threw a hand up, his speech harsh with frustration. “I knew what the fuck you’d say.”

  That stung. I frowned. “What I’d say? I’d have told you the truth, but I’d have been there for you during the recovery. I—”

  “No. I knew you’d chew my ass out like you did this morning.”

  “You’re putting words in my mouth again. Am I wrong?”

  “No. Fuck. No. You’re not, because you’re never fucking wrong. That’s the fucking problem, Alexi.” Vassily turned on me. In the nighttime heat, he was sweating even more than he had been inside. Forehead, cheeks, throat. His hair was stuck flat to his scalp. “You always have to be right.”

  His words dried me out, making me brittle and sharp. His change in demeanor was disorienting, and my fists clenched by my thighs. “What do you expect me to do? Lie? Encourage you? Watch you destroy yourself without trying to help?”

  �
��Listen. You never just listen to me.” Vassily’s brow furrowed. “I was wrong, man. You have changed. You don’t fucking listen to a word I say anymore.”

  For a second, I honestly didn’t know what to say to him in reply. He’d slammed the door in my face, cut off my ability to respond with anything believable. He knew as well as I did that it was impossible to deny a negative. “That’s ridiculous. Vassily, you’ve hardly been home. You haven’t told me anything. You didn’t talk to me about any of this while you were in, and you’ve hardly spoken to me since you were released, and I…”

  I had been fighting. Fighting and fighting to fulfill the contract our Avtoritet had assigned me. “You haven’t been there. There hasn’t been time to tell you, and you haven’t asked, while I’ve been out on the streets getting injured, getting shot at. Working my ass off. I had another guy try to kill me today and I had one in my home yesterday. You didn't even bother to find out why.”

  Vassily turned back to glare at the ocean and fumbled at his pocket for his cigarettes. He said nothing.

  “Vanya supplied you in prison, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” Vassily grunted. He lit his smoke with a gold Zippo, breathing a cloud of green-smelling smoke into the dirty breeze. I adroitly sidestepped as it gusted towards me. “Him and Mikhail. They supplied for me and the boys inside.”

  “They want you to have this habit. It serves their interests to have you hooked.” Beyond telling him the truth, I had no idea what to say to him. The truth was real, and he had a real problem.

  “You don’t understand,” Vassily replied.

  “So help me understand,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t even know what’s wrong with you.”

  “No shit.” He turned on me, eyes blazing. “All you’re thinking about is the fucking coke.”

  “No. I’m not thinking about the coke, Vassily. I’m thinking about you.” My face flushed hot. My temper has never been the best, and it was rising quickly. “You accused me of not listening. So I’m listening. Now talk.”

  He paused for several long seconds, lips twitching, and then turned back towards the railing. “I can’t. Not ’til I know if what the guys are saying about you is true. About your dad.”

  My gut chilled. “What part of it?”

  “All of it.” His eyes flicked across, then back. “I know you hated his guts, Lexi, but Misha says you took him down in front of everyone. Drilled his knees out and killed him with a hammer. Is that true?”

  “Not in front of everyone.” My eyes narrowed. What was he getting at? “In private. The others heard secondhand about it.”

  “What about the drill and hammer part?”

  I couldn’t lie to him. “That was true.”

  “That’s a real shitty way to kill someone, Lexi.” Vassily’s tone turned accusatory. “There ain’t nothing bad enough for someone to need to die like that. Even your dad.”

  “Yes. There is.” I leaned in to him. Something savage and hot wound every muscle in my face until they sang. “There are things that are that bad. He made his choices, and they led him to that point.”

  “No.” He chuffed, almost laughing, but it was bitter. “There ain’t no justifying that kind of bullshit. You hated him, but he was still your dad.”

  “He was never my father,” I replied, coldly. “And just because yours was a decent man and you lost him doesn’t give you the right to judge how I dealt with mine.”

  “Choices, huh? Well, you fucking chose to get wrapped up in Lev’s bullshit. You don’t know what that’s like, to not have a choice.”

  “You shut the hell up,” I said. “Now. You’re the one that said no one crammed that first hit up your nose.”

  “See? I told you that’s all you were thinking about.” His jaw set, and he sniffed, cocking his head. Just like he’d done to Vanya.

  Before I could stop myself, my hands snapped out, and I shoved him along the balcony. He stumbled, mouth agape, and I rippled through with a twitch that turned into an explosive roundhouse punch and a sharp, wordless shout.

  My fist hit the railing. The whole thing rattled under the impact.

  “Jesus, Alexi—”

  “You want to lie? You want to accuse me of lying about what I think?!” I roared, frustration and rage and insult curdling every word with a real force, anger red enough that it made Vassily take another step back from me. “You want to know what I’m like when I don’t give a fuck? Fine! You can get the fuck out of my house!”

  “Woah, hey-” Vassily’s face turned the color of milk.

  “Did I stutter?” I shouted back, lips peeled back from my teeth. “You think I’m gonna let you bring this shit into my life? You think I’m going to stand by and, and watch you lie to me? About me? I have dedicated my life to pursuing truth, Vassily, in all of its morbid, abject mortality, and if you are going to bring the lie back into my life, you can get the fuck away from me!”

  Vassily took another step back. Whatever he saw in my face must have frightened him. “Lexi, I—”

  “I nearly died three times this week, and do you give a fuck?” I advanced as he retreated and shoved him bonelessly into the railing. Vassily hit it without protest and bounced, too startled to do anything except gape.

  His fingers twitched up, and for a moment, I thought he was going to draw on me. Instead, the nervous energy in his limbs drained out, and he turned back to the balcony door. “You get one good fuck, and this is what happens?” He sneered. “I don’t need you.”

  I was horrified, and horrified by the feeling that welled up helplessly in my stomach and throat. Disgust. I wasn’t supposed to be disgusted by Vassily. “Is that what this is about?”

  He whirled, eyes blazing, and jerked his head at the doorway. “Is what about? It’s not my business who you screw. I’m going inside.”

  My disgust intensified. Vassily was wrong: I hadn’t changed, but he had. I looked at him, and I couldn’t see anything other than the lie. A void, a shell that covered a sucking black thing of need and fear. “Crina’s a beard, Vassily. She’s in it for her own reasons.”

  “She’s a hooker. And what does she do? Heroin?”

  “Books,” I replied stiffly. “She’s a literature PhD.”

  “Her and every other crab-riddled bitch from the Balkans. They all say the same thing. They’re here to study, get work.... whatever. It’s all bullshit. She got brought over here to make money. You want to lay shit on me for a couple lines of coke—”

  “Bags, Vassily. Bags of coke.”

  “Then you better fucking lay it on her junk-shooting cunt, too.” Vassily glared at me with feverish eyes and stalked off back into the casino.

  Lying. He would make up whatever stories made him feel better, and this time, it was me who backed away. I was certain the tight ringing in my gut was from panic, but I couldn’t find a way to explain the subtle terror Vassily’s denial of reality caused me. It felt sick, the way that Yuri and Nacari and the hit man that looked like him felt sick.

  I turned to the Atlantic, to the curve of the seashore reaching back up along the coast to home. Miserable, polluted water.

  “Alexi?” It was Crina, speaking from the entry to the balcony.

  I grunted back wordlessly in reply.

  “Is something the matter? Vassily just pushed on by. He looked pretty pissed off.”

  “He is.” And so was I.

  “He seems a bit prickly, doesn’t he?” She tapped her way across to me and leaned beside my shoulder.

  “Long story,” I replied. “Let’s… talk about something else for now. Like The Red Book. Have you seen it yet?”

  Crina’s face suffused, lips curling, eyes lighting up. “Yes. I saw it this morning, while I was in class. It’s… it’s more than anything I ever dreamed. You’re going to love it.”

  That made me smile, however briefly. “Translated?”

  “No, it’s still in German. But I can read that just fine.” She looked down. “Are we still on for tomorrow?”


  “Absolutely,” I said. “At my house. I insist.”

  Crina didn’t really laugh so much as catch a single heated sound of pleasure behind her teeth as she grinned, her eyes half-closed. She pushed back. “Then it’s a deal. But not a date. Come on… Mr. Mollusk was asking about you.”

  “My goodness. You didn’t really just call him that, did you?” Amused and dismayed, I followed her back inside.

  “I absolutely just did. But you won’t tell him I said that, will you?” Crina glanced back over her shoulder. She was trying to cheer me up, and it was an earnest effort. Not misplaced, either. There was no place for showing weakness here.

  We walked back into the hot parlor, and I caught Crina’s arm, halting her in the doorway. I saw Vassily, Mikhail, Mikhail’s girl, and Vanya bent over the coke table, while the Laguetta meathead cheered them on. George was deep in quiet, drunken conversation with Lev. The other goons were clustered around the poker table.

  I paused there, watching them as a stranger might. Something in my heart sealed over, hard and bleak and lonely. Very lonely.

  "Alexi?" Crina turned back to me. "Come on... we should go back inside."

  I nodded, but I had to pause to take a deep breath before we did... and that moment of hesitation was the only reason I didn’t catch a bullet as the parlor door burst in in a spray of machine gun fire and broken glass.

  Chapter 18

  Split seconds. It was Crina who dragged me to the ground as the room turned into a haze of blood mist and shattered furniture and glass. The guys at the roulette table weren’t fast enough: three of George’s men and the dealer went down like ragdolls. I heard Vassily drop with a scream of pain to my right, and my blood turned to ice.

  I flung myself against the nearest baccarat table, dragging Crina behind the cover as the dealer, screaming and panicked, ran out into the room and bolted for the balcony entry. I didn’t see what happened to her: I drew my non-enchanted pistol, and Crina motioned at me with a grabby hands gesture, wide-eyed. She wanted a gun. I gave her mine and drew the silenced Wardbreaker instead.