I decided to post this based on the interest of Sammi. I really appreciate it. Enjoy.

Baptism in Blood: A Tale of the Russian Mafiya
Rated:R-- eventual graphic violence, Homoeroticism, drug use, slight pedophilia references
Summary: they grew in different worlds and yet became the same evil. Two men rise to prominence within The Vory, each with a past equally as bleak and destructive as their doomed future.
Disclaimer: entirely original. There are no celebrity references contained within. All content, topics, scenarios and opinions are creation of the author. All cultural references have been researched. The intent of this piece is a particular bitter accuracy with regard to certain concept. I lay claim to all that is found here.
<lj-cut text="i" a="A">Baptism in Blood: A Tale of The Russian Mafiya

Prologue:

Rain soaked the cobblestone streets—the scents of piss and sour sewage wafted through the air on the mist of precipitation, making Petrograd reek. It was a stench that seemed less a result of the damp weather, than of the countless heinous crimes committed on the streets, stained forever by blood and oppression. The stain was still spreading, blooming like a red flower, as the downtrodden rose—forcing their collective body up—out from under the iron fist of communism. The West cheered, hailing a democratic triumph—one that destabilized jobs, displaced orphans and destroyed the only security the young knew. A sense of protection—even if viewed with consternation—is preferable to none at all.

Indeed, the young and old—they had waited. The masses waited. Kept watch for the government to unfold; this democracy. It hung a shadow over the truth, this concept with its pomp and circumstance—its transparency, and in the shadow of such lies of a holistic political cure, many gathered—a nation. A region spoken for with a mask hiding its essence. They gathered in back rooms, hotels, and saunas… to save what was theirs.

A pride in preservation, and honor not equated with money and values similar to their "protector”, the defender of freedom. A power, who came, observed and left—having worn out a welcome that never really existed, leaving behind the bitter, the incensed, the tired and the poor, with only the damned to fight.


One
A man known as Kolya Vanska—"Spear Legs” to his enemies—was waiting in the middle of that city, unnoticed but not unseen. He sat on his hands, a habit unbroken from childhood—a time which he recalled only in fragments, as though it were the story of someone else. It may as well have been. He shifted his weight on the beige leather seat, alleviating some of the pressure and pain burning through his sore upper extremities.

Pain, he reminded himself silently, gives way to patience.

He blinked, staring out through the windshield at the abysmal sight that was the rain-soaked city. It all blended together in a wet gray mass; reminding him of a badly painted picture of shacks, soggy cardboard shacks no less—but then this was Russia, he reminded himself. Everything was ugly, unless you were drunk.

“I'm not leaving this car,” he growled, watching the rivulets of rain cascade down the windshield. "Not until the fucking rain lets up. It stinks horribly. I can’t even escape it in here. This place reeks like a dead hooker. You carry out the order… I'm waiting in the car, and then we can get on the road and head back to Moscow.”

His companion—a black haired young man of twenty-seven years, replied by smiling warmly, but not diverting his attention from the crossword puzzle that had occupied him for the greater part of an hour, and prior to this, he had meticulously read through the section announcing deaths for the entire city of Novosibirsk. Although called Lev Iosifovitch, he wasn't also dubbed “The Scholar” for reasons unclear.

“Stop it, Kolya,” he said softly, almost unheard over the scratching of his pencil against the yellowed page. “You'll live. It only smells rotten because it's been rained on—like every other city in the world. You just don't want to get your hair wet. You'll be fine. Besides, you're on harder drugs and I know about if you think I'm going into that hotel alone. “The Sofia Pedagogue…well, let’s see, it screams: ‘priv-yet American-yetz. Fadit-yeh pajousta…’ hi Americans! Please come in. You’ll love this painted tourist trap; police will be every where—with guns. ‘For your safety, of course’.”

When he finally calmed down, and stopped flailing his arms like a lunatic, Kolya allowed his finger tips to brush against Lev’s face.

"You're insane,” Kolya replied, with a smile imperceptible to those who did not keep his company. “Be quiet. Stop acting like a hysterical housewife, or I'll have to slap you."

“Shut up Nordic chauvinist,” Lev mocked, jabbing at the other’s ethnicity; laughter escaping past his lips in a hiss. “I'm no one's jen-ah.”
“No, you got skimmed over during the bride sale, and I found you on the front lawn of your proprietor, selling for half a ruble… I couldn't pass it up.”

“Fuck you. I don't know how the transaction went through,” Lev argued, feeding into the banter. “I told that bastard I wouldn't sell for less than one.”
“Are you nervous?” Kolya questioned seriously, having lost interest in their common marriage joke, which was socially frowned upon this far east, beyond Germany but before Asia, for those both abiding and evading the law. It was not punishable, not at least beyond the cold references to breaking social mores, which for many was punishment enough.

“About the objective? No.”
Lev turned away from his comrade, and gripped the crank above the door handle, forcing it to rotate—a harsh squeaking noise broke the silence as it was turned. The window was at last rolled down two inches, the glass smeared with slimy fingerprints; these typically being the final set of any man whose hands touched the pane, grabbing and fighting against the end in which he had been ensnared.

“You lie. You're nervous,” Kolya objected. “As usual…how many years have you followed the code?”
“Seven," Lev answered the rhetorical question flatly, sighing in relief as the slight breeze caressed his sweat-speckled cheeks. "Only three less than you, ‘Master Gangster’, so shut up."

They grinned at each other, contemplating a quick fuck wishing, there was time for it—legs spread, pants pulled just below their tattooed hips—gray and black ink scratched into their flesh, telling half of each story—the lives they had chosen, not who they had been. Sex to get their blood running, minds flying, a natural substitute for the coke they had gone through in the two days it took to travel from Russia's largest city to its capital.

“Two hundred rubles per bag,” Lev remembered commiserating on their drive through the rural wooded areas between the two cosmopolitan centers. “And all we have to show for it, are red noses and sunken eyes.”

“Shh… no philosophizing while I'm driving,” Kolya had laughed, aqua-colored eyes wild from the high, appearing almost cheerful. “We'll get more in Petrograd. If you want lower grade that's half the price, I'll give the correct people blow jobs, and get you some. Anything for my Jewish Princess.”

Lev snickered faintly at the recollection, his thought pattern broke, as Kolya struck a match, flame hissing as it smoldered on the end of the stick. He lit a cigarette slow precision—the same way he loaded gun with such care, such exactness.

“Seven years in the Vory—the Mafiya,” he mused, speaking through the wisps of smoke streaming past his full lips. “Nearly a decade, and you are still nervous about a run-of-the-mill job.”

“We can't fuck this up, Kolya,” Lev insisted. “Vasily is giving us fourteen days. Ten children in two weeks, if those kids aren't on trains, or in trucks, to the Balkans by Victory Day…”

Lev stopped short, mouth gaping slightly as he noticed the laughter emanating in Kolya’s eyes, as he scrunched his face to keep from blatantly cackling over it like some old headscarf wearing hag.
“You don't fear him at all, do you? You're incredible.”

“I don't even fear God—about what are you even speaking?” He whispered, putting hand to Lev’s face, allowing his fingers gently brush over the other man's cheek. “Let alone some pizda—some cunt of a boss who gets off on killing families as retaliation, and is really just some KGB throwback in an ugly tweed suit. Are you afraid of that?”
“Fucking shitless,” Lev replied nodding, dark eyes wide. “Let's go.”

“Here, at least have a smoke to calm down,” Kolya offered, placing a cigarette between Lev’s lips carefully. “You mustn’t start tweaking in the middle of the hotel.”
Lev stared at Kolya's fingers as he ignited the end, smoldering red—the odor of sulfur hanging in the air. His bony hands an almost ivory white had been inked with swastikas, drawn with thick, forbidding lines, which didn't bother Lev. The symbols did not represent to him the attack upon the people he had been born into and rejected, they reminded him of tiny spiders—crawling with caution down long, cold fingers—the hands of a man with iron will, and ways of pleasure that were no less extreme.

“Of course not,” Lev answered, breathing out the smoke in an effort to keep composure under stress. “Lest we forget what happened in 2004. That had sent a message to all the Vory about wise decision-making.

Both directly understood the reference. Three years ago, a pimp known as “Twelve inch Tommi” had panicked after a few too many ‘shrooms in the middle of a Moscow flea market, where he had been attempting to find recruits—he had grabbed a woman by the hair, switchblade in hand, threatening to cut her throat when the demons from inside his head became a more concrete reality. Five minutes later, he lay dead, thanks to the government’s paid swine. Thirty six AK bullet holes—had left his blood and brains oozing out onto the concrete where he'd been standing.

“Some people just have no idea how to keep a clear head,” Kolya had remarked the frigid November morning when such a story reached the front page of the Moscow Gazette. Biting into a piece of blood sausage he continued casually:
“And look at that fat-ass bastard. A disgrace to Finns everywhere. We don't run in your mob to be represented by that pile of bloody shit who couldn't hold his own. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“Quit bitching,” Lev had replied, sipping his chamomile tea, the taste of which he had neutralized with literally a half cup of milk. “And hand over the gaz-yet-eh. I wish to see how the stocks are doing.”
“Look out the window, if you have questions on the economy. I'm sure the prostitutes that stroll by every day can give you major insight,” Kolya had teased, thrusting the paper into his partner’s rather weak grip. “You think you've never heard of common sense...”

“I didn’t nearly graduate from the Kyiv School of Business to use your lowly ‘average thinking’…ignorant people rely on their own perceptions.”

Kolya was silent, having snatched Lev’s cup of tea with one swift motion of his hand, which Lev pretended not to notice as he thumbed through the paper—but Kolya could tell by the slant of his partner’s eyes that he was pissed like a bitter housewife, and waiting for the proper moment to whine and rebuke.
He had taken a slow exaggerated sip and grimaced.

“This tastes like piss…wait, sorry—that was my common sense distorting your advanced reality. What the fuck did you do to this? Educated people, oh, such as yourself—don’t drink their own urine.”
“I brewed it,” Lev had argued, albeit calmly, crossing his legs demurely. “If you don’t want it, give it here.”

Kolya shook his head decisively.
“What I steal was mine to begin with. I was just slow to claim it.”
“An eye for an eye,” Lev had retorted, flashing a smile and snatching the piece of meat from the green plate on which it rested. He bit down, slowly and deliberately, blood dripping from the center of the sausage.

“Antichrist,” Kolya then whispered, grinning.
“Perkele,” Lev had answered softly, dark eyes burning as he met his lover’s gaze. Kolya took pride in that title, took his strength from all that was demonic—preferring to reign in hell, rather than serve in heaven.

Most Finns would be insulted by that reference, Lev mused with a wry smile.
It was the only Finnish he knew, outside of terms that brought him a leather bag in the face—thrust from the frail hands of old women who ‘cursed’ such a hooligan.

He sighed—smile still creasing his features—noting also from the chart on the printed page before him that Aeroflot—Russia’s premiere airline—had risen two hundred and seventy-six points. He was a business man at heart—he told himself that the Vory had been a natural alternative to usury, merely another type of entrepreneurship.
Having forgotten to care that one of their ‘family’ had been butchered, Kolya and Lev had each redirected his focus to the people on the street, as seen through the window. Men and women in fur coats trudged past, snow pelting their bodies like bullets, the wind howling around them like a woman dying.

+++ +++ +++
As soon as the cigarette had dwindled to a stump of ash, the pair climbed out of the vehicle—a green ’97 Volga—the most common car in the region; Kolya forced the driver-side door shut by pushing his lanky body against it.

“Piece of shit…no one over eight years,” he added, slipping into his sable coat. “I want no screaming, no struggle…”

“We’d have to break a neck if that were the case,” Lev pointed out, squinting upward at the faintest hint of sun streaming out from behind the deep grey clouds. “This weather is shit.”

He stopped, putting on the Gucci sunglasses he’d lifted from a drunken college student at a club the previous week. His eyes still felt like they would burst out his head and he avoided eye contact as a general rule, a habit he’d picked up from his lover.
“I won’t do it,” Kolya insisted, shaking his head for emphasis, feeling serene as he sensed the cold steel of his S4M silenced pistol against his shin—a secret obstructed by his jeans—small, sleek, and accurate. The heirloom of Vasily's predecessor, Miroslav Razanov, who—thanks to expert Russian secret service operation—was now enshrined in a concrete tomb beneath a recently opened aquarium for overrated and endangered sea life.

“I wouldn’t ask you to murder one,” Lev replied casually, buttoning his wool jacket, an imperialist H&M special. “I know you had a daughter…if it comes to that—I’ll do it. It’s like I’m a woman having an abortion…haven’t done it yet…might not trouble me.”

“Shut up, Lev,” he ordered, his features softening. “You’ll turn heads strutting in there. Come on.”
+++ +++ +++
The Sofia Pedagogue had been hailed as a hotel of ‘Western convenience and modernity’ and every WASP from Paris to Portland had raved—gushed in fact, filling pages upon pages in every lifestyle magazine and Hotel Reviewers Guide—with the fantastic news:‘post-modernism’ had at long last reached Russia.

The hotel selection had been the result of Kolya’s persistence, spending ten minutes tapping on the laptop while Lev filled the gas tank sat some shanty of a rest stop a hundred miles back, cold rain gushing down all the while.

Both scowled and deemed the critiques utterly obnoxious. What the fuck was post-modernism anyway—how exactly did this translate? Something that Americans would adore, they reasoned grimly, which was nothing they wanted; beyond the vulnerability of these foreigners, wide-eyed and stepping with careful gait, and their little ones unruly and without structure.

Kolya, having worked for the Finnish Board of Tourism after technical school in Helsinki—for three years before incarceration over the border—had taken from this experience with Socialist bureaucrats’ two skills of immense value: his ability to lie which surpassed Lucifer, Iosif Stalin, and the entire population of the Baltic corridor combined. Secondly and most relevant, he learned Americans—and their love for the word ‘authentic’. Safety didn’t matter to them—with their practiced smiles and screaming children—this he knew, for ignorant people are safe everywhere.
+++ +++ +++
"See, look at this shit,” Kolya exclaimed, although not above his usual monotone. “It's incredibly ostentatious and ridiculous. The Americans love it. I can tell by their faces; they're coming in droves, like packs of lemmings. I couldn't have planned it better myself."

Lev gazed around the lobby of the hotel, eyes dull with acceptance and resignation. The orange floors of the Sofia Pedagogue glistened in a fashion that was almost blinding. Tourists of all shapes and sizes—usually fat asses in this case—milled their way inside, pushing and squeezing through the revolving glass doors—like hysterical teenagers at a Ramstein concert. Some were using their suitcases as buffers, the majority of the luggage that was visible had been tagged with the same obnoxious baggage claim tickets, a screaming bright green. They were like rats, clamoring bloated rodents, all pushing their way towards a poisoned food dish.

And their children, Lev reasoned, could go either way. The majority were red-faced with exhaustion, looking just as tattered and unkempt as any local child, clinging to the parents and whining in a high, piercing monotone. Television, that he understood, but macaroni and cheese? Ramen? Food maybe…for the fat, he figured, judging by the sponginess of ninety percent of these people. A few kids had strayed, squealing in shrill, fast English as they darted around the lobby, jumping on the white, plump-cushioned couches with their mud-caked yet expensive designer shoes, and cheap imitation fur coats—trash, mini human heaps of garbage, fated to expand and be filth just like their parents; the guardians who yelled after their spawn—in tones that suggested no real discipline and eyes revealing deep-seeded indifference.

“I can’t believe that Spiro Kankarades is paying us ten thousand euros a head for these little bastards,” Lev commented in a sour tone of disbelief, punctuating his disgust with a swat of his olive-skinned hand. “The five that he wants to utilize in domestic situations—little house wenches—must be under twelve years, but look at these! Little niggers…. can't even lift a broom, nothing! I hate them; pieces of spoiled shit. I don't believe this!”

“Will you shut up,” Kolya hissed, gripping a fistful of his lover's dark hair. “Get a clue, moy-ah jen-ah ve dom-eh…or English speakers would say…my housewife, yes? He's the best dealer in the Balkans—he's not that stupid. He doesn’t want these. Fuck, even their own parents don’t. They’re useless monsters.”

"Amer-ye-kanyetz. This is what it is," Lev scoffed.
“Don't blame the women. The burden sits with the men,” Kolya declared, squeezing Lev's shoulder, although more for comfort and less to prove a point. “You know how hard it is to get an abortion over there? It's not a medical benefit like it is here and at home—which it should be; it's a shit load of money. Their politics are all fucked. Somehow basic women's rights—like abortion and full military rights, like we're both used to—became ‘family issues’ and got mixed up with religion and poof—you have a lot of backward thinking and provincial roles at the Americans blame on us. Wait, I’m Finnish—they blame you, not me. Go figure. I feel bad for those women. You can tell they don't want to be mothers. They all look too rich to be bothering with children anyway.”

With a grunt and a nod, Lev conceded leaning against his partner casually—grinning at the softness of the sable—and not honestly caring about other people or their politics, but he always found Kolya’s rants to be full of the same pissed off vigor that made him a wonderfully sadistic lover and an even better killer. Not that Lev himself had never murdered, on the contrary, but even as a young member of the order, he was acutely aware that an artistic difference existed between murderers and killers. Anyone could murder, but a killer had vision of their objective and poise in their maneuver. Lev was not skilled enough, not yet, to hold such distinction.

The pair retreated further back, into one inconspicuous corner of the room to avoid mingling with the influx of colorful people, all yapping and smelling of the rain. Their only company was a golden, solid statue of the famously ugly namesake of this shanty—the fat, useless, St. Sofia with her rounded features and traditional head scarf—the bearer of Christendom in Russia.

“God what a hag,” Kolya giggled, kissing Lev lightly on the cheek; “I’m pleased my people invented hot, pagan counterparts… and made sure that and when we took Christianity, none of the pantheon would look ugly. Too bad there's no hole between her legs; as soon as the religious people wanting to see the cathedrals walk in here, I would've started pounding her just to piss them off. Oy vey, no wonder you Russkies are so freaking miserable.”

“I suppose I would make fun of us too,” Lev reasoned, turning his head slightly and casting a wry glance at Kolya. “If my country were the trailer park of Europe.”

“That would be France, Jewish Princess,” was the reply Kolya gave as he coiled an arm loosely around Lev’s neck. “And anyway, isn't your beloved nation structured so that your religion prevents you from being seen as a true Russian?”

“That's technically true.”
Lev recalled the birth documents of the person he once was with a shudder that his partner’s frame absorbed. There was no mistaking—that long-lost person was a Jew.

“I see. We people of the trailer park have kicked your asses yet again—twice in sixty years.”

As for Kolya, even before he was known as by that name, the concept seemed stupid. Who the hell cared about religion anyway? Your identity was a matter of genetics—religion wasn't genetic; wherever your gene pool came out of, that’s who you were. It wasn't hard, not rocket science, and even when his grandfather had served in the Finnish Army on behalf of Hitler—as quite a few countries had done—the issues of religion as it pertained to race had been hush-hush. Two thousand of them, Hitler overlooked that small amount, in favor of ammunition, and the Jews obscured themselves until after the war.

“It's not you,” he whispered vocalizing his opinion in a faint breath. “It’s the Slaves around you who are the problem, Lev. You’re too good to be one of them.”
“For your lip service, spa-ceba,” Lev answered; “be that as it may, which one of these do you want to take? I don't care if it has an inverted asshole, I'm not angering Vasily… you know as well as I do—and more openly you admit it—that he's a cunt. I don't feel like having my balls blown off by his best friend, Mr. Glock, for a late delivery.”

“He's far too large of a cunt to do that,” Kolya assured him, relinquishing his grasp to light a cigarette. “Besides, I'm not taking any of these rabble. I'll know when she gets here. It's just a matter of observation.”

“If you weren't so gifted at what you do, I'd be absolutely sickened,” Lev mocked with a grin. “But that's you… a hardened criminal, yet strangely soft. Glad I never had children.”

“They are too,” Kolya muttered, exhaling smoke into a thick white cloud in the direction of the tourists. “I don't like most of them, but…one or two are special. Besides, kidnapping always goes over so much better when you let me have the first pick... let's get a drink. I need to come down.”

“I told you,” Lev grumbled, shoving his hands into his coat pocket as they strolled towards the bar, a small dimly lit room overlooking the lobby.
“What did I say? You know very well. Don't buy Coke from those insane Afghani bastards that swarm around the city, that's just what I spoke about. And what did you do, Kolya?
What did you do? You threw your famous Nordic chauvinist temper tantrum right in front of the drug dealers. Indeed. I tried to tell you, that what they sell us it just isn't right, but did you listen? No…”

Lev stopped short, wincing as he heard the bottom of Kolya's heels scraping the marble floor. It was absurd and laughable to those outside of the Moscow gang—the ones who hadn't heard of “Spear Legs”—to think of a man, any man peddling anything, in high heels. But he did, and with one this distinct advantage, Lev remembered as his eyes scanned the other man's denim pant leg for a minute and a half, at last reaching Kolya's ebony shoes. Being so tall, the joke went that his legs were the size of the average Italian man—Greeks were simply too short to make an accurate comparison. And on the surface, among rival gangs—mostly those who didn't know of the men in Moscow—it was deemed comical. That is until someone dealt the wrong type of drugs to “Spear Legs” Vanska, attempted to pay him insufficiently for his favors, or tried to settle a dispute by killing him, which usually left them with a punctured kidney, a broken coccyx, or both and then shot.

“If you kick me…”

“Ni-yet …just fucking with you. You react so strongly. You're lucky I watch out for you,” Kolya added, as both assumed their seats on leather covered stools in front of the high marble top bar. “You've got to learn containment, one of these years, or you'll get yourself killed.”

“We're both fucked,” Lev replied sarcastically. "Matters not. Vodka, please.”
The bar maid turned away from the ebony liquor shelf with a swish of her long dark hair, eyeing them both with suspicion. From where she stood—in her required attire of a silky pinstriped halter top, black miniskirt and white go-go boots, she could see the front desk and imagined herself screaming security so loudly they would hear her in the Ukraine. But she didn't, even though she knew, by this delicate ballerina of a man and his mannerisms—obviously tattooed from his throat to his toes. She knew he was of another branch of Vory, and worse, he was dark. Probably some fucking Chechen wanting to make trouble, ready to stab her the minute she turned away from him.

“What you want?” She asked, narrowing her green eyes in suspicion.

“Vodka,” Lev answered quietly, gesturing with his hands as he did when he was nervous.
“Six rubles,” she replied, eyeing up the numbers on his wrist. “In the gulag?”
“No,” he answered unfazed. “I'm only twenty-seven. Butryka in Moscow.”

Her blood nearly stilled in her veins, as she did her best to stifle a gasp. It didn’t matter who you were—not your age, not your ethnicity, not your will. She was acutely aware from her father’s nightmarish tales that men were herded in there and animals came out.

“I know of it…The Guantánamo Bay of Eastern Europe,” she said, wide-eyed. “You must be a tough son of a bitch. And you?”

“The same,” the other answered.
He was blond, white blonde and vain looking through her with frigid eyes; as if he were of the opinion that some secondary school age bitch had no right to speak to him.
“Are you impressed, girl?”
“No,” she answered. “You’re no one I know. I just started this job. It's been a quiet afternoon. It's four o'clock. You see the nice tables and the candle arrangements? Don’t mess things up,” she paused, still maintaining a snotty pout of her pink lips, in order to conceal her trembling nerves. “Nice swastikas. You Finnish?”

“Yes.”
“Think your God?” She went on, pouring the shot that mousy one had requested.
“No. Satan—I’m the devil,” he retorted. “Stop speaking to me.”

“After I take your order,” she said in a snide tone of voice, winking at him. “I don't really care very much for people who speak Fenya… it's just butchering our language for the stupid, if you ask me.”

“And you must be fluent,” he responded in a whisper, willing to let the bitch go all day. She was what—seventeen? He had at least sixteen years on her, and knew she'd get manhandled soon enough with that mouth of hers; it was actually entertaining.

“Citrus Vodka, please.”
“Same price,” she informed him, watching in anticipation as he withdrew a pair of crumpled bills from the pocket of his jeans. “What did you two do?”

Lev smiled, contemplating the correlation between curiosity and dead cats as he downed his shot.
“We knew this girl… a little cute, a bit slutty… she ran her mouth all day long, and we grew really tired of it…”
“So we strangled her… with a wet thong, and shoved her body to one of those yellow plastic tube slides at the McDonald's down the street from the Kremlin,” Kolya added, feeding into the perverse jest. “They caught us, threw us in jail. I was visiting from Helsinki, but my tolerance is low. I was passing by on the scene was heinous. I hate to see a man suffer at the hands of a nag.”

Three tones of harsh laughter lingered over the layered joke.
“What's your name, Nag?” Kolya asked, remembering his manners and offering her a cigarette.

She took it with a naïve smile; her pinkish fingers felt fatty against his own.
“I'm Natalia Antonova Velikya,” she answered, the same coy smile returning to her lips, as turned to rearranging a few of the bottles on the liquor shelf—so much easier when things were alphabetized. “My father is One-Armed Vlad… the new leader of the Tambov…in other words, this is our city.”

Lev nodded in comprehension as she refilled his shot glass, pouring artfully with a flick of her wrist, as it was covered in silver bracelets. Kolya couldn't help but notice the way her milky white little tits nearly pushed up and out of her halter top.
“So what you're saying, Nag… is that we couldn't kill you, even if we wanted to?”
“Fucking right you are,” she answered with a smirk. “At last, other customers… enjoy your drinks, and be well on your stay in Petrograd. Don’t meddle with anything; I’ll send my Papa after you.”

And she laughed, a bubbling sound, and Kolya knew she meant to sound tough, but she didn't. She was an obnoxious little girl, nothing more.

+++ +++ +++

“Don't you remember Petr?” Lev asked, as he constructed a leaning Tower of shot glasses on the round mahogany table to which they had relocated after chatty foreigners and stormed the bar.

“No, I don't,” Kolya said, not bothering to raise his voice over the hum of unintelligible chatter around them. "For whom did he work?”

Without waiting for a reply, he reached over snatching the vodka bottle that had managed to guilt Lev into buying, and refilled—oh who the fuck knew?—there was no counting now.
"Nobody, that was just it,” Lev exclaimed, punching his partner on the arm. “He was that creepy old man… living as a woman and committing tax fraud.”

“Oh yes. I remember that poor bastard…shame that he was caught—everyone commits tax fraud,” Kolya laughed; “how long did he make it before he was strung up?”

“Six months, I think,” Lev stated, raising an eyebrow in an attempt of remembrance. “He shared a cell with Mattvei, but I’m not exactly sure how long. Don't quote me.”
“I couldn't quote you on anything,” Kolya teased, rolling his eyes.
Both had settled in to heavy liquor induced silence, a state often preferable to conversation.

Lev had returned to arranging the shot glasses with absurd precision, as though he intended to construct columns.
The tip of his tongue was sticking out of the corner of his mouth, curling upward as he concentrated, reminding Kolya of some idiot using finger paints, but he smiled, because Lev and his never-ending stupidity filled voids that thrived at the very base of his soul—ones he would never admit to having.

And when he turned around—just a slight adjustment in his chair—there she stood. Barely to her mother's hip as she squeezed her guardian’s hand; her diminutive body appearing swallowed in an oversized ridiculously fluffy red coat. Her giggling was still infantile—more like a screech—and her face pale and puffy was dominated by an angelic smile.
She’s blond, he thought, eyes lighting up the memory of his daughter, whom she was not like, but he would convince himself that she was. Hair like gold… the Greeks pay extra for blondes…

“Lev, there she is,” he whispered, gesturing to his partner. “Item number one. Now this is the deal…”

“Will you snatch her at the door?” Lev asked, staring straight forward and slowing his breathing, so as to clear his swimming head. “Make it easy for our wasted asses?”
“Well, the security guards have ensured that answer is ‘no’—and you’re feeling it, I’m not—so I think this will have to be a two-day process. I want to catch the parents unaware. They seem very sharp,” he explained. “The mother has quite the iron grip on her, and the father—subtly perceptive. He’s smart enough to keep his focus on both.”

“Great, simply phenomenal,” Lev scowled, slumping down into the chair and crossing his arms like a bratty six year old. “You’re making it more difficult than it has to be…when they check out?”

“No, fool! Go talk to them, play nice…tourists love kindness—still laughing at your joke an hour before they realize their wallet is gone. Go make small talk, as they say. I'll book the room. ”

And we don't know each other until our targets are gone, the thought echoed through both minds.

“I can’t believe that you would force me to do this,” Lev growled, rising to his feet. “You know I hate people, almost as much as you do.”

But Kolya knew the motions, knew the methods, and he enlightened Lev with such valuable knowledge. The awareness that people were never very trusting, and yet human beings were forever crippled by manipulation—a skill best utilized when people are unsure, displaced, in search of a friendly face.

+++ +++ +++
The information desk in the lobby was green and a negligible distance to walk, even as Lev pushed his way through the throngs of people, hardly an act considered rude, for standing in lines was an American concept, and the term ‘pardon’ was optional, he believed.

Lev had concentrated his focus, and drowning out all conversation to his left or right and registering only the sound of his shoes thudding on the floor. The mother stood with her back to him, hair black and sweater white. She was slightly hunched as she skimmed through brochures, believing what they said. And they were true, of course, if you knew the right people and had the right name.

Drawing in a breath, he closed his eyes for a split-second imagining his grandfather, Shlomo. Not in any intimate detail, for he had been Lev's greatest betrayal, and consequently the one he thought least of to avoid ulcers and sleepless nights. What he remembered was his grandfather's accent—the man had been a Hasid, and spoke Russian like one: with thick Yiddish inflection, so much so that the old man's friends—fools caught in an ignorant past—had always joked that he was an Israeli at heart, and that not having made it to the land of his people before The Great Patriotic War was simply God's test of his faith. An easy test for a good man, they said. In that, Lev agreed, Shlomo had been the best man he had ever known. He nodded to himself as though he were there as a little boy even in that moment—praised by that man, called by another name—the one before he was Lev.

He thought no more of it, and in an instant was reaching for the same brightly colored brochure as the child's mother. Both reacting with a slight startle as their hands had touched

“Oh excuse me,” he said speaking thickly in English— in a voice reminiscent of his grandfather’s. “You may have it first.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome,” he answered smoothly. “Much to see here, no?”
“Absolutely,” she continued, and when he studied her face he realized she was barely older than he.

“I have never been here before,” he lied fluidly. “There's so much to see.”
“It's our first time too. We’re from Albany, New York,” she confessed, slightly guarded, but maintaining an amicable tone of voice. “My husband's family is Russian… he's out getting the luggage… and we finally saved up enough money to visit this city—where his grandfather was born.”

“That's really nice,” Lev said, feigning interest. “My lover and I are from Israel. We're with a tour group going to the Crimea.”
“Oh really? I've heard good things. Here, you may take this,” she interjected, reaching for second brochure. “We might end up down there, not sure. Patrick only has two weeks of paid vacation, but first we’d like to see the city.”
“Yes, but there are so many sites to choose from,” he agreed with a chuckle. “We may just haggle at a flea market.”

“Sounds nice,” the woman agreed, not seeming enthused. “Jenny, don't try to climb on the counter, honey… I'm sorry; she is just wild! Last year was the terrible twos, and I can even begin tell you…. I mean it, baby, get down.”
“She is… how do you say—active?” Lev questioned, thickening his accent for emphasis.
“Hyper, is more like it,” was the reply. “But actually the main reason we're here is that my husband wants to see the cathedral of St. Sofia, which will include the evening vigil in honor of Victory Day. He's a fairly strong believer.”

I’m sure he is, Lev thought with a widening grin. That fucking place is crawling with tourists this time of year…idiots waving their icons at enormous altars. It's huge—no child will be still… especially not some toddler who barely understands their own language. She'll be easy to catch, providing everything goes according to plan.

"I must say, you have such a beautiful daughter,” Lev commented, smiling at her as her mother scooped her up. “And what's her name?”

“This is Jenny,” her mother answered, unzipping the child's coat as she balanced on her hip. “And I’m Erin… I'm sorry. What did you say your name was?"

" I'm Lev,” he said, loosely shaking her hand.

“Jenny, say hello to the nice gentleman. He's visiting from far away just like us,” she explained, kissing the little girl's face.

“Hi,” Jenny said, completely intrigued by the stranger and leaning toward her mother for support and comfort.
“Good…she used to give hugs to everyone she met,” Erin laughed. “We had to break her of that habit… So nice to have met you.”
“Likewise,” Lev replied, grabbing a few brochures for show as he glanced over and saw Kolya still negotiating with the receptionist—bribery was a way of life.

He also noted the elevator doors slowly parting, and deemed it the opportune time to end of the charade. He recognized the baldheaded man stepping out as Sergei Filatov, a fellow thug from Moscow—more of an unofficial associate than an initiated member.

“I see my lover,” he lied, turning away. “Good Day to you.”
“You too,” Erin answered quickly. “Hopefully we both have an unforgettable time in Russia.”

“Surely you will,” Lev whispered to himself as he strolled toward Sergei. “I don't think that you'll ever forget it, but to be fair neither will we…”
Gazing over at Kolya—who was peering up as he mindlessly signed a room agreement, their gazes again locked. Both nodded subtly that deliverable goods had been located.

Lev opened his mouth to speak, to call out softly, when he was smacked upside the head.
“What the fuck!?” Sergei demanded, leaning heavily to one side; his petite frame nearly weighed down by the giant black briefcase in his gnarled hand. “You two fairies are up here, and didn't tell me you were coming this way… cheeky little bastards! I could've hopped a ride, and saved on a train ticket.”

“Sorry,” Lev said flatly, and then pulled the older man into a hug—under which he squirmed in mock disgust.

“Stop that, boy,” he chided with a snicker, his brow wrinkling with distaste. “Not in public, though like you I do. Are you still with the overgrown elf? You need to get a woman, or at the very least eat a God damn tomato, and imagine how it feels like…”
“I can have a woman whenever I want,” Lev insisted with a shrug, not caring for the graphic visual. “I just don't want one now.”

“Prison always does it,” Sergei sighed, straightening his silver tie. “Your man’s looking maniacal, as usual. What type of dealing brings you queers up here?”

“Illegitimate business of course…kids,” Lev sighed. “We've suddenly become a bus service to Greece.”

"Well I'm getting a promotion,” Sergei huffed with pride. “Remember Pavel…in pieces at the morgue—shot up. I had similar military training, and am set to assume his role. My KGB training has brought me plenty of success.”

"Ugly as always, Sergei, but good to see you still…Who are you after,” Kolya interjected, stepping up casually behind Lev and closing the gap between them.

Sergei grimaced, as Kolya put a hand Lev’s arm, tugging at his sleeve. These fancy bitches; they were misplaced—one stunted, the other tall, both disrespectful and insane—icons of this new generation.

"Some loudmouth Ukrainian businessman who blabbed to a few officials about our dealings with Gazprom, so now he has a meeting with some vodka, barbiturates and piano wire. I warned him. I stated expressly, you fuck with us—fuck with the Soltnsevskya Bratva…”

“And you die at our hands,” the other two finished in unison.

The creed had been spoken. Exchanging customary kisses of goodwill—on each cheek twice—Kolya and Lev parted ways with Sergei—taking the stairs toward their room. Here they plotted, ruthlessly, grandiosely, guiltlessly. Feeling like the gods they had rejected, and their omnipotence enhanced by drugs later snorted up their noses.

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