Vodka Read Free Page B

carried three guns: one in his right trouser pocket, another under his left armpit, and the third in his left outside coat pocket. Only in places like these did he relinquish them.
    “I feel naked without them,” he said, and his guards dutifully laughed, because naked was exactly what he was going to be.
    Karkadann pushed open the door and stepped into a small changing room that smelled of lavender. Lev had already gone in; his clothes lay in a neat pile underneath a sports jacket with shoulders as wide as an albatross’s wings.
    Karkadann undressed without hurry, arranging his clothes with care. Off came the necklace, the rings and the bracelets; the metal would get too hot and the rings too constricting as the skin and capillaries swelled in the steam.
    When he was ready, he hobbled into the
banya.
Russian steam baths often served as meeting places for rival gang leaders. For a start, it is all but impossible to conceal a weapon on a naked body. Moreover, the feeling of well-being that the
banya
produces is supposed in turn to promote accord and a willingness to work problems through. The choice of venue said much about the parties’ intentions. Very public or very private places tend not to lead to violence. Everywhere else is suspect.
    Both men had brought bodyguards; neither moved without them. Some gang lords come alone and unarmed,which is very brave or very foolish; it’s also how reputations are made.
    Karkadann could see nothing through the steam but a muscular arm that looked as though it was sheathed in colorful Chinese silk.
    “You’re late,” said Lev in a voice that seemed to start somewhere deep beneath the river. Being late for a meeting was against gangster etiquette; failure to show up at all automatically meant defeat.
    “Traffic,” Karkadann replied, knowing Lev would see the lie; Mafia limousines jumped lights and used forbidden lanes, and there was not a traffic cop in Moscow who dared stop them.
    Karkadann hoisted himself onto a bench and rubbed his palms on his thighs. Unlike a sauna, which slowly bakes the sweat out, the
banya
is so saturated by moist steam that perspiration blooms in an instant. When the vapors cleared, Karkadann realized that what he’d taken to be Chinese silk was actually a carpet of tattoos, not just on Lev’s arm but rioting over his entire body. Vultures, bleeding wounds, specters and snowscapes crawled over the rib cage. A map of the gulag stretched above Lev’s waist, names distended and elongated by the rise and fall of his chest: Magadan, Tashkent, Vladimir, Kolyma, Vorkutia, Potma, Lefortovo. Just as the
vory
had refused to recognize the state—declining to carry a residence permit, pay taxes, take up arms on behalf of the state—so the state had returned the compliment. Since organized crime could not logically have existed in a socialist utopia, the
vory
had been awarded the ultimate accolade of invisibility. There’d been no crime in the Soviet Union, merely asocial behavior, political dissidence and mental illness.
    The only blank space was on Lev’s breastbone, where a white scar shone. The sheer incongruity drew Karkadann’s eye to it; in an extravagance of activity, it was easiest to pick out the void, the paler space where a picture had been taken from the wall.
    Lev pointed to it: “Lenin.” He turned around to show another scar on his back. “Mustaches.” Stalin. The twin heroes of the Soviet Union were common faces on the skin of those who’d rejected their every doctrine; it was thought that a Soviet execution squad would refuse to shoot at either image.
    “The authorities removed them?” Despite himself, Karkadann was curious.
    “No. I did. The day the devil’s spawn came back from the Crimea, I took a soldering iron and burned them off myself.” The devil’s spawn was Gorbachev, because of the mark on his forehead.
    They sat sweating in silence for a few moments, feeling their bodies reacting to the
banya.
The heat produces an