several strewn across the floor beside a clumped and piss-darkened cat tray which lay half-hidden, turds and all, at the base of a table for four.
I was wondering how a dirty cat tray placed where diners were likely to step in it was possibly convenient in terms of food-service logistics (not to mention attractive, or healthful, or even legal) when I realized the talking had stopped and the two of them had turned to Gyuri and me—Victor Cherry, the old tweaker with a wary expectant look, stepping forward, his eyes darting from me to the bag in Gyuri’s hand. Obligingly Gyuri stepped forward, opened it, set it down with a servile bow of his head, and stepped away for the old guy to look at it.
The old guy peered in, nearsightedly; his nose wrinkled. With some peevish exclamation he looked up at Cherry, who remained impassive. Another obscure exchange ensued. The grayhair seemed discontented. Then he closed the bag and stood up and looked at me, eyes darting.
“Farruco,” I said nervously, having forgotten my last name and hoping I would not be required to produce it.
Cherry gave me a look: the papers.
“Right, right,” I said, reaching in the top inside pocket of my jacket for the bank draft and the deposit slip—unfolding them, in what I hoped was a casual way, checking them out before I handed them over—
Frantisek. But just as I was extending my hand—bam, it happened like a gust of wind that blows through the house and slams a door loudly in a direction where you aren’t expecting it—Victor Cherry stepped fast behind the grayhair and whacked him on the back of the head with the pistol butt so hard his cap flew off and his knees buckled and down he went with a grunt. The Indonesian, still in his wall-slouch, seemed as startled by this as I was: he stiffened, our eyes connected in a sharp what the fuck? jolt that was almost like a glance between friends, and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t moving away from the wall until I looked behind me and saw to my horror that Boris and Gyuri both had guns on him: Boris neatly resting the butt of the pistol in the cup of his left palm and Gyuri, one-handed, with the bag of money, backing out the front door.
Disconnected flash, someone flitting from the kitchen in back: youngish Asian woman—no, a boy; white skin, blank frightened eyes sweeping the room, Ikat print scarf, long hair flying, just as quickly gone.
“Someone’s in back,” I said rapidly, looking around, every direction, room wheeling around me like a carnival ride and heart beating so wildly I couldn’t make the words come out quite right, I wasn’t sure if anyone heard me say it—or if Cherry heard, at any rate, since he was hauling the grayhair up by the back of his jeans jacket, catching him in a chokehold, pistol at his temple, screaming at him in whatever Eastern-European tongue and jostling him to the rear as the Indonesian un-slouched himself from the wall, gracefully and carefully, and looked at Boris and me for what seemed like a long time.
“You cunts are going to be sorry for this,” he said quietly.
“Hands, hands,” said Boris cordially. “Where I can see them.”
“I don’t got a weapon.”
“Right there anyway.”
“Right you are,” said the Indonesian, just as cordially. He looked me up and down with his hands in the air—memorizing my face, I realized with a chill, image straight to data file—and then he looked at Boris.
“I know who you are,” he said.
Submarine glow of the fruit juice cooler. I could hear my own breath going in and out, in and out. Clang of metal in the kitchen. Indistinct cries.
“Down, if you please,” said Boris, nodding at the floor.
Obligingly the Indonesian got to his knees and—very slowly—stretched himself full length. But he didn’t seem rattled or afraid.
“I know you,” he said again, voice slightly muffled.
Fast darting movement in the corner of my eye, so fast I started: a cat, devil black, like a living shadow, darkness flying to darkness.
“And who am I then?”
“Borya-from-Antwerp, innit?” It wasn’t true that he didn’t have a weapon; even I could see it bulging at his armpit. “Borya the Polack? Giggleweed Borya? Horst’s mate?”
“And so if I am?” said Boris genially.
The man was silent. Boris, tossing the hair out of his eyes with a flick of his head, made a derisive noise and seemed about to say something sarcastic but just