Limitless

I realized from the look on his face that he wasn’t entirely sure what I was talking about. He would probably only have been a kid when the so-called daisy-chain of dummy oil companies had been in full swing in the’80s, trucking gas in from South America and forging tax receipts. And anyway who knew what these younger guys talked about when they got together – probably not the great scams of a previous generation, that was for sure.

‘So … what?’ he said. ‘You a cop?’

‘No.’

When I didn’t add anything, he started to get up to leave.

‘Come on, Gennady,’ I said, ‘lighten up, would you?’

He stepped out of the booth and looked down at me, clearly debating in his head whether or not he should kill me right here, or wait until we got outside. I couldn’t believe how reckless I was being, but I somehow felt I was safe, that nothing could touch me.

‘Actually, I’m researching a book on you guys,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for a focus, though – somebody whose point of view I can use to tell the story …’ I held off for a couple of beats, and then went for it. ‘Somebody like you, Gennady.’

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and I knew I had him.

‘What kind of book?’ he said in a surprisingly small voice.

‘A novel,’ I replied. ‘It’s really just taking shape at the moment, but I see it as a story with an epic dimension to it, triumph over adversity, that kind of thing. From the gulags to the …’ I trailed off here, faltering for a moment, aware that I might be losing him. ‘I mean, if you think about it,’ I went on quickly, ‘the guineas have had it all their own way up to now, but that five-families, men-of-honour, badda-bing badda-boom shit has become clichéd. People want something new.’ As he considered what I was saying, I decided to hammer it home, ‘So my agent thinks the movie rights on this will almost certainly be snapped up as well.’

Gennady hesitated for a moment, and then sat back down into the booth, waiting for more.

On the hoof, I managed to outline a vague plot centring on a young second-generation Russian who finds himself moving up through the Organizatsiya. I threw in references to the Sicilians and the Colombians, but with a repeated wave of the hand I also kept deferring, in anticipation, to Gennady’s superior grasp of the details. Managing to flip the axis, I soon had him doing most of the talking – albeit in his fairly mangled English. He agreed with some suggestions I made and dismissed others, but he’d got the whiff of glamour into his system now and couldn’t be stopped.

I hadn’t planned any of this, of course, and as I was doing it I didn’t really believe I’d get away with it either, but the boldest stroke was yet to come. After he’d agreed to do consultancy on ‘the project’ and we’d established a few ground rules, I managed to edge the conversation back around to the loan. I told him my advance on the book had already been spent and that the 75K was a gambling debt I had to pay off – and had to pay off today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This matter was now a minor distraction to Gennady. He took out his cellphone and had a quick conversation with someone in Russian. Then, still on the phone, he asked me a series of questions. What was my social security number? Driver’s licence number? What were the names of my landlord and my employer? Where did I bank and what credit cards did I hold? I took out my social security card and driver’s licence, and read out the relevant numbers. Then I gave him the names and the other stuff he wanted while he relayed the information in Russian to the person on the other end of the line.

With that taken care of, Gennady put away his phone and got back to talking about the project. Fifteen minutes later his phone rang. As before, he spoke in Russian, at one point covering the mouthpiece with his hand and whispering, ‘That OK, you cleared. So – what? Seventy-five? You sure? You want more? A hundred?’

I paused, and then nodded yes.

When he’d finished on the phone, he said, ‘Will be ready in a half-hour.’

Then he put the phone away and placed his hands down flat on the table.

‘OK,’ he said, ‘so who we going to cast in this thing?’

Half an hour later, on the nose, another young guy arrived. Gennady introduced him as Leo. He was skinny and not unlike Gennady, but he didn’t have Gennady’s eyes, didn’t have what Gennady had – looked, in fact, like he’d had whatever it was Gennady did have surgically removed. Maybe they were brothers, or cousins, and maybe – I started thinking – maybe I could make something out of this. They spoke in Russian for a moment and then Leo pulled a thick brown envelope out of his jacket pocket, put it on the table, slid out of the booth and left without saying a word. Gennady shoved the envelope in my direction.