Moscow Noir

When the slow dance was announced, Death approached me slowly. She invited me without a word, motioning with her hand. She was not ugly. She was just your average old lady with a scythe, a skull mask, thick white hair, and a mantle that reached down to the floor; but I had no desire to dance with her. Nonetheless, I nodded politely and stepped toward her. The hand that beckoned me was wrapped in a white leather glove covered in little diamond studs. I took one look at that glove and I knew it would be better not to refuse her request. God knows whose spoiled little bitch I might offend in the process. It would be so stupid to get a bullet in the head, not because of my new credit card, shiny and golden like life itself, but because of somebody’s bitch dressed up like Death.

I took her by the waist, which was surprisingly slim beneath the shapeless clothing, with a slight feeling of disgust. We began to dance and she leaned close to me with her bony face. The synthetic locks of gray hair tickled my nose, and I prepared myself for the smell of rot, the smell of decomposition and mold, but I sensed none of this. There was only the smell of expensive perfume. Only when she laughed, only when she spoke quietly, only then did I notice the thick red locks peering out from beneath her wig.

“But you weren’t wearing a disguise …”

“I put one on so Stary wouldn’t recognize me.”

“Why do you want to hide from him?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?” asked Foxy. “So that I can dance with you.”

“You took that costume with you just so you could dance with me?”

“Yes,” said Foxy. “Yes, yes!”

And then she lifted her mask up, just a little, and she kissed me. Very gently. She tasted of cheap apricot-flavored chewing gum. She made my head spin. I lost my voice.

Stary’s guys were nearby. Some of them were even looking at us funny.

“They see us!” I gasped, leading her to the center of the hall.

“Not us. They saw you,” said Foxy calmly. “You, dancing with Death. They couldn’t have recognized me.”

And she kissed me again, and I thought it was a good thing I was wearing loose trousers. At first I was thinking of wearing those tight black ones …

Then she asked me: “How are you going to spend your five hundred grand?”

And at that moment the size of my pants didn’t matter, because all of that blood poured right back to my brain and temples. My head stopped spinning, and for a moment I let go of Foxy, but then hugged her and pulled her toward me again. I shook her to the music and asked her the stupidest question that I could, given the situation. “How do you know? How?”

And Foxy Lee said it was hidden mics. She said there were tapes. She said that Stary recorded all my telephone conversations. “Don’t be afraid, no one heard them but me. I took them with me, and Stary doesn’t know … I was the only one who heard them, only me, only me …”

Listening to her hot apricot whisper I understood for the first time in my life that it was possible to kill for money.

But maybe killing her wouldn’t be necessary. After all, she is very beautiful, and I’m no stranger to mercy. Besides, killing her wouldn’t be that easy, the little snake!

“Is 50 percent enough for you?” I asked, feeling like a gentleman.

She suddenly pulled her hand out of my grasp. She pulled her hand away and shook it as though it had been burned.

“You want more?” I asked, dumbstruck.

She stepped back. Then again. Then she removed her mask.

Her face was pale, so pale that her golden freckles seemed brown. There were tears in her eyes, though maybe they were just shining with anger. Her lips were trembling like a child moments away from wailing out loud.

“I don’t need your money,” said Foxy Lee. “I just wanted to give you all the tapes. Just in case.”

She pulled out a parcel from underneath her gown and handed it to me.

If only I hadn’t hurt Foxy Lee’s feelings. If only she hadn’t taken off that mask.

The merciful in masks are giving the bums grub—instant ramen noodles. I also grab the noodles, so as not to stick out from the rest of them, but I can’t eat the stuff. I can’t get it down my throat.

Don’t ever trying eating ramen noodles in a bus packed full of bums, even if you’re really hungry.

To be clear, I hadn’t eaten in more than a day. But I gave away my portion to the guys at the back of the bus (incidentally, no one sat down next to me, which is typical—as though I was the one reeking like a thousand dead rats, not them). Then I went back to my seat.

At Paveletskaya station we pick up three more bums. They stink worse than the seven from Savelovskaya. They are seated in the only remaining free seats, right next to me.