Run! Do Not Look Back!

Chapter 4

Maksim

Tonight, the bar looked like something out of an old film.

The lights hung low and gold, drifting slowly across the ceiling. Jazz came from speakers I had never managed to find. People spoke in murmurs, glasses clinked softly, and for once nobody snapped their fingers at me. Across the room, a woman laughed too loudly at a man's joke. The bar felt almost kind tonight, which made me suspicious.

I was drying a glass when I felt it. That tug behind my ribs, the one I'd been fighting for three weeks.

I didn't need to look up.

He had walked in through the front door, passed my counter without a glance, and gone straight down the hall to the private rooms, where businessmen sign things they don't want anyone to hear. I saw the back of a black coat. A door closing. His assistant, and two other men who looked like they had never laughed.

Good, I told myself. Not my counter. Not my problem.

I dried the same glass until it squeaked.

Zhenya leaned over from the next station. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Breathing like someone's chasing you."

I put the glass down.

Leonid

The man across the table finished his speech. I let him hear how long the silence lasted.

Four months of stalled permits. Prices inflated every three days. He had smiled through all of it and called it patience.

"So we're agreed," he said.

"We're finished," I said.

He offered his hand. The palm was damp. I counted three seconds, then took mine back. He left with his folder pressed against his chest like a shield.

My assistant waited by the door, tablet ready.

"I'll go on alone," I said.

She didn't ask where. She never does. She left, and the door shut behind her.

I stood alone for a minute. Six chairs. A table scarred with old glass rings. Walls thick enough to hold any secret.

I walked out to the bar instead.

The attendant was leaving, his shift over. Another man slid into his place at the counter, sleeves rolled, a white shirt washed thin.

The thin one with the tired face. The one from that night.

I sat down.

Maksim

Zhenya's shift ended at nine. By one minute past, Leonid Belov was sitting at his empty counter, and my feet were already moving without me.

"Good evening," I said.

Nothing. He looked at the shelf of bottles as though I were part of the furniture.

My mouth had gone dry. "What can I get you tonight?"

"Whiskey. Straight."

Of course. I poured it, set it down, and stepped back to give him room, the way I'd been trained. The amber caught the lamplight. He didn't touch it right away. He studied me instead, my collar, my hands, the shirt I'd ironed twice. I felt each thing he noticed like a finger pressed to a bruise.

Then he lifted the glass, and my mouth did something it had never done at work. It kept going.

"Is that going to be your regular order?"

His eyes came up. Slowly. "What?"

My ears burned. I pointed at the glass in his hand. "I asked if that's what you'll order every time you come."

His face didn't move. Not one muscle.

"I only mean, I could recommend something better."

"You think I don't know what I want?"

The question landed like a stone. Behind me, a glass stopped clinking.

"Forgive me, sir. I only wanted you to enjoy what we offer here."

"Who are you?"

"Maksim, sir. Maksim Popov."

"Leonid."

"Leonid?" It came out as a squeak. I coughed.

"Say 'sir' once more," he said, "and I'll buy this bar just to close it."

He said it so flatly I couldn't tell if it was a joke. I could feel my pulse in my throat. I decided not to risk laughing.

He tilted his head, barely. "You talk like you enjoy serving."

I looked at my hands. "It pays fine."

"That isn't what I asked."

The truth sat on my tongue. I swallowed it. "It pays fine."

Something moved at the corner of his eye. Not a smile. Maybe the memory of one.

"Then what would you recommend," he said, "if I'm bored of this?"

I reached for the shelf before I could think. A smoky Islay. An aged rye with a little pepper in it. A Japanese blend that tasted like warm rain on wood. I described each one with my hands, forgetting to make myself small, forgetting to lower my voice.

He listened to all of it, turning his glass slowly on its coaster.

When I ran out of breath, I realized I'd been talking for almost two minutes.

"Hm," he said.

My chest swelled so much I had to look away so he wouldn't see.

"The rye."

I poured it. He drank it in one slow pull and set the empty glass down exactly where it had been, on the ring of water, as if he had measured it. Then he laid his hand flat on the bar.

"I'm holding my next meeting here. Six men. They'll arrive stiff."

"Yes, sir..." I caught it. "Yes."

"You'll look after them. Loosen them up before I arrive. What you did just now," his eyes flicked toward the bottles, "do that. They need help making the right decision."

"I can handle it."

"Tell your manager to call my assistant in the morning."

He put cash on the bar, far too much, and stood. No thank you. No look back.

I stayed frozen, holding a tip bigger than my week's wages, until Zhenya appeared at my elbow.

"What did you do?"

I had no idea. My hands were shaking so badly that I put them under the counter.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in your way home or something?” I asked Zhenya

Leonid

I picked this bar for a reason.

The rooms are thick-walled and swept for listening devices every week. The staff know how to look away, though I still hear them whisper when I walk in. It's better than a hotel, where one wrong word in a corridor lands in a shareholder's inbox by morning.

I brought six men here to be uncomfortable on my terms. Tonight's meeting went nowhere. They stalled. They will stall again.

That wasn't why I walked to the counter.

The boy talked. At first I thought he was selling, and I waited for the number he'd ask for. It never came. He just talked about whiskey with his hands moving and his shoulders loose, as if for two minutes he had forgotten who he was supposed to be afraid of.

Then he remembered, and the shoulders went back up.

He apologized and argued in the same sentence. Nobody on my payroll does that. He never asked what I did, and everyone asks eventually. I gave him my first name. I don't do that.

I've watched men hide the best parts of themselves across boardroom tables for years. I know what it looks like.

He reads rooms. He notices things.

I want to see how far he'll go.

Maksim

Snow had started again. Walking to the metro, I realized I wasn't hunching.

On the train, I counted the tip twice. Then a third time, in case the numbers were lying. Twelve thousand rubles. More than I'd make in a week.

At home, I almost slid the envelope behind the tea tin, where I used to hide my rent. My hand stopped halfway. Volkov had found that spot.

I put the money in my shoe instead.

I lay on my bed with the heater dead and my coat still on, replaying every word. Say "sir" once more. That isn't what I asked. He had asked me a question no customer ever asked. He wanted the truth, and I'd lied, and he'd known.

It pays fine.

It was the first time in years I'd wanted to answer honestly.

In the morning, my manager called me into his office early. He looked gray. His hands shook as he poured himself a glass of water.

"Belov's assistant called at seven," he said. "Seven. She asked for you by name. What did you say to him?"

"I recommended whiskey."

He laughed once, a dry sound with no air in it. "She's booked the private room for Thursday. Don't ruin this, Maksim. Whatever this is."

I wanted to tell him I had no idea what it was.

I kept my mouth shut.

All my life, I had worked at staying small. Now the room was growing bigger around me, and I couldn't tell whether I was being offered a seat or a trap.