Russia Girl

by Kenneth Rosenberg

  Julia was petite, with wavy dark hair hanging just below her shoulders. She wore a form-fitting cotton shirt that showed off her muscular physique. “What happened, you met a boy?”

  “Why can’t I just be happy?” Natalia complained.

  “Fine. Be happy.” Julia turned back to her computer.

  “I’m going out for a beer. Do you want to come?”

  Glancing back up, Julia made no attempt to hide her skepticism. “With who?”

  “Sasha. My friend from history class.”

  “I knew it.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s bringing a friend…”

  Julia shook her head. “Maybe next time… if his friend is cute.”

  “I’ll try to bring back some photographic evidence. Anyway, I don’t plan to be out long.”

  “That’s what they always say.”

  “What who always says?”

  “Anybody who ever went to a bar for one beer in the history of the world.”

  “Maybe some of them were right.” Natalia dropped her backpack onto her own desk and took a quick look at herself in a full-length mirror. Should she change? Maybe put on a something a little nicer? She shook her head. No, she didn’t need to impress Sasha. From her jacket pocket, she pulled out her phone and looked inside a small sleeve in the cover. Five hundred rubles and her bank card. “Last chance.” She put the phone back in her pocket.

  “Have fun,” Julia answered.

  “I’ll try.” Natalia took one last look into the mirror, brushing a few strands of wayward hair into place before heading out the door.

  The bar itself was one Natalia would have never noticed on her own. From the street, there was merely a door. In lieu of a sign, an empty purple picture frame dangled above the threshold. Indeed, it was more of a private club than a bar, but after a few words through an intercom, she and Sasha were buzzed inside. They descended a stone staircase into a basement and past a burly, tattooed bouncer on a tall stool. He gave them a once over and then a nod as they went on through. This place was underground both literally and figuratively. Techno music reverberated off the stone walls and arched ceiling of a smoky, dimly-lit cellar. Wooden tables and benches lined either side, occupied by a mix of university students and laborers drinking away the remains of their paychecks on a Thursday afternoon. The bar itself stretched along the back wall. Sasha took an empty table not far from the door.

  “What is this place?” Natalia sat across from him.

  “You’ve never been here before?”

  “Of course not, how would I even find it?”

  Sasha shrugged. “If you spend time with me, I can show you lots of places.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “What are you drinking? The first is on me.”

  “All I’m having is a first one.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Sasha took a quick look at his phone. “My friend Aleksy is on his way. I’ll get three beers.” He rose and made his way to the bar as Natalia took in her surroundings. At the next table a group of fellow students smoked cigarettes and chatted happily. They were young and free and happy to be alive. Natalia, too, needed to appreciate life’s simple pleasures, though it was hard to let her guard down. After her experience in Istanbul, she struggled to trust anybody new, and here in Saint Petersburg, everybody was new. She’d hoped that by coming to an entirely new city, she could simply move on. Unfortunately, nothing was so simple. Nightmares often made sleep a dicey proposition. She saw him coming for her, Dusan rising from the dead and out for revenge, carving her open with a hunting knife just as she’d done to him. Even when she was awake, Natalia was prone to breaking out in cold sweats, always with the sense that anybody unfamiliar might be a menace. She knew what darkness lurked in the hearts of men. The past was never altogether finished. She needed a new set of memories, happy ones, to replace the pain. Here she was in Russia, out at a pub on a Thursday afternoon. Sonia would have loved this, drinking beer with two boys. The edges of Natalia’s lips turned upward at the thought. Sonia, who was no doubt watching over Natalia, her presence never far away…

  Sasha cradled three glasses of beer as he returned, placing them carefully on the table. “There he is!” A grin lit up his face as he looked toward the entryway. Natalia followed his gaze to see bulky young man in baggy jeans and worn blue sweater coming down the stairs.

  “Sasha!” The man opened his arms wide as he approached the table and the two embraced.

  “Aleksy!” As they separated, Sasha gestured beside him. “This is my friend Natalia.”

  “Natalia!” Aleksy repeated. “A pleasure to meet you.”

  “The pleasure is all mine.” Natalia rose and offered a hand.

  As he shook it, Aleksy cracked a sly smile. “How could it be that a perfidious rascal like my Alexander finds himself in the company of such a lovely creature as yourself?”

  The question struck Natalia dumb. Who spoke like that? Nobody she’d ever encountered. She turned to Sasha, unsure how to respond.

  “Don’t listen to him. He likes to think of himself as a comedian.”

  “If only I were joking!” Aleksy followed the comment with a hearty belly laugh.

  “Sit down and drink your beer.” Sasha settled beside Natalia while Aleksy eased himself in across the table. All three lifted their glasses.

  “Na Zdorovie!” They looked one another in the eye and then took a drink.

  “Shouldn’t we be having something a little more serious than beer?” said Aleksy. “It is a Thursday, after all.”

  “Oh no, not me. I need to study after this,” Natalia replied.

  “Study?! On a Thursday afternoon? What do you need to study?”

  “Natalia wants to be a lawyer,” Sasha explained.

  “Ah, now I can see it,” said Aleksy.

  “See what?” Natalia asked.

  “Why Sasha conned you into being his friend. He might need you some day.” Again, the smirk crossed Aleksy’s face. “I only wonder how he did it.”

  “Of course, I can understand that you’d be jealous of my social graces,” said Sasha.

  “Social graces?! I doubt you know what the phrase even means.”

  “Are you two always like this?” Natalia asked.

  “Pretty much,” Sasha admitted.

  Natalia turned to Aleksy. “You’re one of his merry band of hackers, I suppose?”

  “A hacker?” Sasha scoffed. “No, Aleksy is not a hacker, he’s more of a slacker.”

  “Sasha is on the technical side. I’m more on the content side,” Aleksy tried to explain.

  Natalia raised her eyebrows. “It sounds to me like you both might need lawyers someday.”

  Sasha shook his head. “Only people working for the wrong side need lawyers.”

  “Which side is that?”

  “The wrong side,” Sasha repeated.

  “Anyway, we don’t work together anymore,” said Aleksy.

  “Thank God.”

  “You know you miss it.”

  “You wish,” Sasha laughed. “Is Xenia still busting your balls down there?”

  “Only if I let her.”

  “Sure, Aleksy. Whatever you say.”

  “Come on, she’s not so bad. You just have to understand how to approach her.”

  “Who’s Xenia?” Natalia asked.

  “She’s his bitch of a supervisor,” said Sasha.

  “She and Alexander never got along so well,” said Aleksy.

  “I’m getting that idea,” said Natalia.

  “Ever since our friend here ran off, I don’t know what he’s up to,” Aleksy added. “He won’t tell me.”

  “You know how it is. My clients demand discretion.” Leaning forward onto the table, Sasha’s expression lit up. “I will tell you this much… By this time next week, I might be a very wealthy man.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Let’s just say I’ve got a little sideline venture
going.”

  A cloud crossed Aleksy’s face. “What kind of sideline venture?”

  “A little bit of trading. That’s all.”

  “With who’s money?”

  Sasha smiled weakly. “A loan of sorts. Don’t worry about it.”

  Aleksy was genuinely concerned. “With you, I always worry.”

  On the table between them, Sasha’s phone lit up, vibrating against the hard wood surface. Incoming Call: Dmitri read the screen. Sasha’s face went slightly pale as he reached for the device. “I better take this.” He glanced anxiously toward his friends before rising to his feet and abruptly leaving the table, moving up the stairs and out toward the street as he answered the call.

  “Someone you know?” Natalia asked.

  “Dmitri?” Aleksy shrugged. “I know lots of Dmitri’s.”

  Natalia sipped her cold beer, a luxury she hadn’t enjoyed in a great while. Despite the hardships of her recent past, moments of brightness still existed in life. The trick was in learning to appreciate them. She ought to get out more, Natalia thought. By the time her drink was halfway finished, she felt the alcohol flowing through her veins. The bar was filling up, with more students trickling in as classes wrapped up for the day.

  “How long have you and Sasha been friends?” Natalia tried to make small talk.

  “Long enough to know better!” Aleksy laughed.

  They chatted about his job, and her school, and when their beers were nearly gone, Sasha still wasn’t back. “Why don’t I get the next round?” Natalia stood. Julia was right, she couldn’t have just one.

  “No, no! The next is on me, I insist!” Aleksy raised one hand in the air.

  “Why, because I’m a girl? My money is as good as yours. Save your rubles.”

  Aleksy threw his hands up in the air. “I’m not going to argue with a lawyer.”

  “Fine, but I’m not a lawyer.”

  “You see? I’m losing this argument already.”

  Natalia made her way her way to the far side of the room where she nestled up along one side of the bar. Waiting her turn, she kept an eye on the scene. At a table nearby sat a man with a near-empty bottle of vodka for company. He was middle-aged, though probably younger than he looked, with graying hair and creases in his face. The man took a drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out in a tray of smoldering butts. He poured the last of his vodka into a glass and threw it back, swallowing it in one go. Placing his glass on the table, the man’s head swayed gently side to side.

  “What will you have?” The bartender startled Natalia.

  “Oh! Three beers.”

  “Large or small?”

  Natalia may have been willing to drink another, but she still had no intention of keeping up with these boys. “Two large and one small.”

  The bartender reached for the glasses. As he filled them, Natalia peered back across the room. She saw Sasha come down the stairs and move toward their table. Something about his demeanor struck her as peculiar. He seemed unsettled. Wide-eyed and unsmiling. He sat without a word and put both hands on the table, pushing his phone to one side. Aleksy asked a question, but Sasha snapped in response.

  The bartender placed one beer on the bar, and then another. When he’d filled the third, he entered the charge. “Seven hundred and fifty.”

  Natalia tapped her card on the reader and out came a receipt. “Thank you.” She tucked the card back into her purse and slid it into her jacket pocket.

  Across the room, Natalia saw another man come down the stairs from outside. He wasn’t a student, nor a middle-aged alcoholic. This man was slick; tall and broad, in a designer suit. His dark hair had a salt and pepper gray at the sides. There was an air of confidence about him… or perhaps arrogance was a better word. His strong jaw tilted slightly upwards as he scanned the room. Natalia had experience with men like this. She knew what they were capable of. A chill took hold of her. She tried to reminded herself that Istanbul was behind her. She was a college student, enjoying a beer with some friends. Nobody was after her anymore. And yet, when the man spotted Sasha, he made his way straight to the table. Something was not right, that much seemed clear. Sasha cowered, his body language giving away his deep unease as he slunk backwards toward the wall. The men exchanged words, the newcomer waving a finger in the air. What were they talking about? Natalia couldn’t tell. From the bar, she arranged her three glasses into a triangle between her fingers and gently lifted them into the air.

  As she moved across the room, Natalia saw Sasha force a smile. He reached into a pocket and pulled out Natalia’s flash drive, pointing to it as he explained something. The man took the drive, nodded, and then slid it into his pocket. What could he possibly want with her class notes? Aleksy turned in Natalia’s direction, a frightened expression on his face, too. He shook his head slowly, left to right, trying to tell her… what? To stay away? She was four meters from the table when the man reached under his suit jacket. Natalia’s world spun in slow motion as he pulled out a gun. She saw the glint of metal, the finger on the trigger. She saw the disbelief in Sasha’s eyes as the man opened fire, pumping four rounds into her young friend’s body. Screams rang out as Sasha collapsed onto the bench. Next it was Aleksy’s turn. Arms raised in the air, he was too terrified to plead for his life. This time the killer pulled the trigger just once, splattering her new friend’s brains against the wall. The three glasses slipped from Natalia’s fingers, floating downwards in free fall until they shattered against the stone floor. The gunman’s head swiveled toward her, gun aimed Natalia’s chest. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She caught a slight upturn in the man’s lips, as though the sight of her amused him. He tucked his gun back underneath his jacket and beat a hasty retreat, past the inert bouncer, up the stairs and out.

  As soon as he was gone, Natalia rushed to Sasha’s side. Blood dripped off the bench, pooling on the floor beneath his body. She felt for a pulse, but it was too late. One glance at Aleksy’s shattered skull and she had to look away. Her two friends were dead.

  Joining a mad rush for the exit, Natalia bumped and pushed her way along with the panicked crowd. Up the stone stairs they went, disgorged onto the street above, a stumbling mass of hysteria. Quickly, Natalia scanned the scene. Halfway up the block she spotted the killer disappearing into the back of a black Maserati. The car sped off down the street. Natalia knew she shouldn’t get any further involved. She shouldn’t compound the situation by putting her own life on the line, and yet… instinct took over. She simply couldn’t help herself. The old Natalia, the Natalia who’d never strayed past the confines of her small rural village, never would have been so bold. That Natalia would have cowered at the prospect of confronting such dangers, but after everything that had happened to her over the past few years, the timid Natalia was long gone. In her place was the new Natalia, who instinctively chased after the Maserati on foot. What would she possibly do if she caught up to it? That thought was only a glimmer. This man killed her friends in cold blood, right in front of her. If Natalia had learned one thing in Istanbul, it was that such incidents could not go unpunished. And so she ran, weaving through startled pedestrians as she raced along the sidewalk, hoping for a miracle. The Maserati turned right and disappeared around a corner, wheels spinning.

  As Natalia approached the intersection, she heard the crash without seeing it; a loud screeching of brakes followed by crunching metal and shattering glass. Arriving at the corner, she spotted a city bus at the end of the block, resting diagonally across the roadway with a gaping hole in the side. Spun around at a 60-degree angle was the Maserati, front end smashed into a heap of twisted metal. A red and white Japanese superbike lay on its side, the stunned rider sprawled on the pavement nearby. Natalia paused to take it all in for a brief moment and then hurried forward. She saw the crumpled door of the Maserati being pushed open from the inside. The driver emerged from under an inflated white airbag. From the back seat, the killer climbed through a smashed window,
blood running down his face, soaking his expensive suit. Passersby stopped to gawk, edging closer to the unfolding drama.

  Slowing her pace, Natalia reached one hand inside her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone. She quickly switched on the video camera, pointing her lens toward the action as she tried to blend in with the gathering crowd. The Maserati driver was a man of Central Asian origin, with dark hair and a round face. He appeared unscathed as he came to the aid of the killer, who hobbled across the pavement on an injured leg.

  From the mangled bus, that driver stumbled down the steps to the street. He peered in confusion at the Maserati, then at his bus, before gesturing toward the two men as they shuffled away. “Hey, where are you going?! Look what you’ve done!”

  Caught up in the chaos, a silver Range Rover attempted to navigate past the scene. The Maserati driver blocked the vehicle’s path, pulling out a gun of his own and pointing it at the windshield. Screams of terror emanated from the crowd. With a quick flick of the wrist, the gunman motioned for the occupants to exit. A well-dressed couple climbed from the car, arms in the air. The gunman helped load the injured hitman into the back seat before taking his place behind the wheel. A moment later, the Range Rover lurched forward, hopping a curb. With a screech of tires, the SUV swerved across the sidewalk, plowing through pedestrians before dropping back onto the street beyond the bus and speeding away.

  Natalia quickly shut off her camera, slid the phone back into her pocket and zipped it closed. She ran across the intersection toward the young motorcyclist, helmet off as passersby attended to him. Hardly slowing, she heaved the motorcycle off the ground and hopped on. The injured rider jumped to his feet, but it was too late to stop her. Natalia hit the ignition, revved twice and popped the bike into gear. Weaving around bags, parcels, and pedestrians sprawled along the ground, she made her way around the bus and flew up the street in pursuit. Natalia didn’t spot the Range Rover right away, though they couldn’t have gotten far. She slowed at the first intersection, looked right and then left before seeing the silver SUV, barreling up another sidewalk. Natalia pulled a hard left and followed after.