then Victor Cherry came out of the back, alone, pulling what looked like a set of flexcuffs out of his pocket—and my heart skipped to see, under his arm, a package of the correct size and thickness, wrapped in white felt and tied with baker’s twine. He dropped a knee in the Indonesian’s back and began to fumble with the cuffs at his wrists.
“Get out,” said Boris to me, and then, again—my muscles had locked up and hardened; he gave me a little push—“Go! get in the car.”
Blankly I looked around—I couldn’t see the door, there wasn’t a door—and then there it was and I scrambled out so fast I slipped and nearly fell on a cat toy, out to the Range Rover puffing at the curb. Gyuri was keeping watch out front, on the street, in the light drizzle which had just begun to fall—“In, in,” he hissed, sliding into the back seat and waving me to come in after him, just as Boris and Victor Cherry burst out of the restaurant and hopped in too and off we drove, at a sedate and anticlimactic speed.
x.
IN THE CAR, OUT on the main road again, all was jubilation: laughter, high fives, while my heart was slamming so hard I could barely breathe. “What’s going on?” I rasped, several times—gulping for breath and looking back and forth between them and then, when they kept ignoring me, babbling in a percussive mix of Russian and Ukrainian, all four of them including Shirley Temple: “Angliyski!”
Boris turned to me, wiping his eyes, and slung his arm around my neck. “Change of plans,” he said. “That was all on the fly—improvised. We could have asked for nothing better. Their third man didn’t show.”
“Catching them short-handed.”
“Flatfooted.”
“Pants down! On the crapper!”
“You”—I had to gasp to get the words out—“you said no guns.”
“Well, no one got hurt, did they? What difference does it make?”
“Why didn’t we just pay?”
“Because we lucked out!” Throwing up his arms. “Once in a lifetime chance! We had the opportunity! What were they going to do? They were two—we were four. If they had any sense, they should never have let us inside. And—yes, I know, only forty thousand, but why should I pay them one cent if I don’t have to? For stealing my own property?” Boris chortled. “Did you see the look on his face? Grateful Dead? When Cherry whipped him back of the dome?”
“You know what he was complaining about, the old goat?” said Victor, turning to me jubilantly. “Wanted it in Euros! ‘What, dollars?’ ” imitating his peevish expression. “ ‘You brought me dollars?’ ”
“Bet he wishes he had those dollars now.”
“I bet he wishes he kept his mouth shut.”
“I’d like to hear that phone call to Sascha.”
“I wish I knew the name of the guy. That stood them up. Because I would like to buy him a drink.”
“Wonder where he is?”
“He is probably at home in the shower.”
“Studying his Bible lesson.”
“Watching ‘Christmas Carol’ on television.”
“Waiting at the wrong place, most like.”
“I—” My throat was so constricted I had to swallow to speak. “What about that kid?”
“Eh?” It was raining, light rain pattering on the windshield. Streets black and glistening.
“What kid?”
“Boy. Girl. Kitchen boy. Whatever.”
“What?” Cherry turned—still winded, breathing hard. “I didn’t see anyone.”
“I didn’t either.”
“Well, I did.”
“What’d she look like?”
“Young.” I could still see the freeze-frame of the young ghostly face, mouth slightly open. “White coat. Japanese-looking.”
“Really?” said Boris curiously. “You can tell apart by looking? Like where they are from? Japan, China, Vietnam?”
“I didn’t get a good look. Asian.”
“He, or she?”
“I think is all girls that work in the kitchen there,” said Gyuri. “Macrobyotik. Brown rice and like that.”
“I—” Now I really wasn’t sure.
“Well—” Cherry ran his hand over the top of his close-cropped hair—“glad she ran, whoever, because you know what else I found back there? Sawed-off Mossberg 500.”
Laughter and whistles at this.
“Shit.”
“Where was it? Grozdan didn’t—?”
“No. In a—” he gestured, to indicate a sling—“what do you call it. Hanging under the table, in some cloth like. Just happened to see it when I was down on the floor. Like—looked up. There it was, right over my head.”
“You didn’t leave it there, did you?”
“No! I wouldn’t have minded to take it except was too big and had my hands full. Unscrewed it and knocked the pin out and threw it in the alley. Also—” he pulled a silver snub-nosed pistol out of his pocket, which he passed over to Boris—“this!”
Boris held it up to the light and