Читать книгу Everything to Lose - Andrew Gross, Andrew Gross - Страница 12

That same day two men stood near a construction site on West Forty-fourth Street in New York City, just off Times Square.

One was large, with bushy dark hair in a black leather jacket that he wore open, as if he didn’t feel the February chill. He was devouring a sausage in a bun from a nearby food cart.

The other was in a blue-and-orange New York Knicks jacket, his baseball cap turned backward.

“Seventy thousand dollars is quite a sum,” the large one, whose name was Yuri, said in a heavy Russian accent. “I tell you that Sergei Lukov is patient man. He shows you restraint, out of respect for your circumstances. I think you know what I’m saying, right? But even a starving whore stays at home when her putchko is aching …”

“Meaning what …?” The man in the Knicks jacket put his back against the scaffolding.

“Meaning everyone has their limits,” the burly Russian replied. Then he shrugged. “Maybe the saying was not so good.”

The other man took a sip of coffee. “I think I get the routine.”

“’Course you get routine. Your people invented routine, right? You probably seen this movie a thousand times. Hey—you sure you don’t want one of these?” The Russian showed him the half-eaten sausage that looked small in his meaty palms. “I come all the way from Brooklyn just for these. You’re missing something good.”

“Thanks, but I never eat anything that would have killed me if it was alive.”

Yuri furrowed his brow. “Pig are so vicious over here?”

“Boar,” the man in the Knicks jacket said. “Cinghiale means wild boar. It’s Italian.”

“Oh.” The Russian looked askance at what was left of his sausage and chomped another large bite off nonetheless. “Boar, huh? Anyway, you know it goes up, Thursday. Three days. Eighty thousand then. Pig or boar.”

“Like the national debt.” The man in the cap pointed to the digital sign on a building high above them, the numbers racing. “Except with a Russian accent.”

“Ha! Good one! Except is Ukraine …” Yuri elbowed him good-naturedly. “Back home, you could get knife in skull for that. Or radiation bath. Chernobyl cocktail, we call it. Very popular at home today. Here, Ukraine, Russian … Like pig and boar, no one knows difference. No harm, no worry, right?”

“No harm, no foul,” the man in the Knicks jacket corrected him.

“Yes. Sorry my English is, how you say, work in progress.” Yuri shrugged. “But my math is still good. And real meaning is, what you don’t want is for this loan to become even more expensive. By that I mean you have no way to pay, so we need to collect, how you call it … in trade. Maybe at your job. I think you have strong idea what I mean by this.”

The man looked at him. Neither of them were laughing now. He nodded. “I have a strong idea.”

“Good. So then you know how life gets truly fucked up for a good guy like you. Where loan gets really expensive. Then it’s not just money—money you can always find. It’s kind of life loan, if you get what I’m saying? And you keep paying and paying. Clock never stops. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick …”

“I get it,” the man in the Knicks cap said.

“I know. Because people like us, once we get in your life, we don’t leave so easy. We like cousin from Tbilis who stays on your couch. Your wife cooks for him, mends socks, washes clothes. Then one day you come home and catch him fucking your wife on your couch. And he looks at you with pants down and says, ‘Fuck are you doing here …?’ You see my point? Like that, but whole lot worse. Anyway, I’m trying to do you good turn here. Even though I offer to buy you lunch and you turn me down. I still try to give you good advice.”

“You seem to have a lot of sayings, Yuri.” The man in the Knicks cap crumpled his Styrofoam cup and tossed it in a bin.

“Is true. And I have one more … You don’t need beard to be philosopher. And I’m glad you appreciate”—Yuri chortled and elbowed the man— “because Thursday, seventy thousand becomes eighty. Then goes to ninety. Then …” He wiped his chin with his napkin. “Don’t keep Sergei Lukov waiting too much longer.” He backed away, winking, but a wink that no longer had mirth in it. More like a warning. “Because next time, pig or boar, won’t make one piece of difference, understand what I mean, Lieutenant?”