Moscow Noir

I need to stay here, no matter what, I need to be here. I’ll give them all the money. They need money too, right? They’re merciful guys, I’ll give them the whole wad of money. Hey, who in this stinking bus wants a stack of greenbacks for taking me to the hospital?

“I need treatment! I’ll pay—”

“Money?” The young man in the mask frowns, looking at my reeking clothes. “What are you talking about? C’mon, c’mon, get off the bus!” he says, giving me a gentle shove in the back.

I fall forward in the aisle and begin to moan quietly.

“Are you all right?” the boy asks in concern.

“It’s my heart,” I mutter into the floor. “Or blood pressure … I have a problem with my blood pressure.”

I roll my eyes back. I gasp for breath.

I’m staying here. I am not getting out.

“Lean on me,” says the young man in the mask. “It’s just a few steps, there you go. The nurse is in the driver’s cabin. Here, I’ll help you. She’ll check your blood pressure. There you go. Now sit down and roll up your shirt sleeve.”

They check my blood pressure. By some miracle it’s very high. Through the driver’s window I watch the herd of hungry cops. They’re not going to get me.

The nurse and the boy in the mask are whispering to each other.

“Hypertension,” the nurse whispers to him almost inaudibly. “We can’t let him go.”

“… Meanwhile, the Star Oil company will go to the wife of the late Andrei Starkovsky who will inherit, quote, only debts and conflicts with it …”

“An injection,” says the sister of mercy. “A diuretic. And check him into the hospital. That’s the only option.”

He goes outside. She pulls down my shirt sleeve, wipes my arm with an icy, disinfected cotton swab, and injects the needle. I guess I’m just lucky. I never had high blood pressure in my life, and now all of a sudden—there you go, hypertension!

“… ‘My husband neglected to pay his taxes,’ Ms. Starkovsky said in an open statement to members of the press. ‘Just a few days before his death, he transferred all the Star Oil shares to the account of a front organization. I have no intention of suffering for the illegal machinations of a person whom I haven’t lived with for a number of years’ …”

Front organization … front organization. I have hypertension and my head is swimming and everything is going dark. I am shaking my head and pinching my cheeks and my ears, and I want to crawl out of this darkness. I need to get ahold of myself, because I think I have just found the missing piece of the puzzle.

I watch as the transparent liquid leaves the needle.

“… These companies are formally owned by Elizabeth Lesnitskaya. ‘From a legal perspective, this is absolutely above board,’ said Lesnitskaya’s lawyer, Gennady Burkalo. ‘My client is the owner of the aforementioned companies. These companies were formed in accordance with the law. The funds transferred from Star Oil to the accounts of these firms by Mr. Starkovsky, regardless of his motives, now belong to …”

“One hundred million dollars,” says the nurse, and jerks the needle out of my vein.

I feel sick. I can’t breathe. It smells so bad in here I think I’m going to die. The gauze mask distorts her voice, but I recognize it anyway. She takes off her nurse’s cap and her red hair cascades to her shoulders.

“You thought I needed your shitty card? One hundred million, and it’s all mine!”

I feel sick to my stomach. Blood is pulsing in my ears.

My hands are shaking, but still I feel for the gun in my pocket.

“It’s not loaded,” Foxy whispers gently.

“I’ll tell them it was you.”

“You won’t tell them anything,” Foxy says, leaning toward my ear. She smells like perfume and apricot-flavored chewing gum. “You won’t tell them anything at all.”

“What did you give me?” I yell, crazed. “What did you put into me?”

There is no one but us on the bus. The merciful in masks are helping the bums toward the station.

“WHAT DID YOU GIVE ME!” I scream, and one of them turns at the sound of my cry. He leaves the bum he was walking with and runs toward the bus.

“Everything’s fine,” says the masked merciful Foxy Lee. “Don’t worry, we’re all right.”

He looks at me. I’m going to be sick. I fall onto the floor.

“She gave me with something …” I whisper. “Help me …” I can’t scream.

“Don’ be scared, it won’ hurt,” and he pulls his mask off. There he is. The leather guy from yesterday.

“Mercy,” he says with a smile. “We show mercy.”

Another guy in a mask comes up and nods at me. “What happened?”

“Hypertension,” Foxy answers. “We gave him a shot.”

No! I want to scream. But my tongue won’t obey me. I want to scream, Ambulance! But instead I just mumble and drool.

I am lying on the floor of the bus.

I think I am dying.

“The shot didn’t help,” says Foxy Lee sadly.

“Should I call an ambulance?” asks the young man in the mask.

“It’s no use, he’s already dying.”

“Well then, you’ve suffered your last,” says the boy in the mask. “Great is the mercy of God. Blessed are the poor.” He snivels juicily and crosses himself.

They pick me up off the floor and prop me in the driver’s seat.

It’s cold. It’s so cold.