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your game.
I grab the sleeve of Bert s parka and pull him around.
 Let me tell you something, I say, looking up at him with clenched teeth.
 That piece of shit down there put me in a place where men live like animals.
 And this is what it taught you?
 Yes, I say.  Three rules, and the third was the most important. Without it,
you were done. Exact revenge. Someone does you wrong, you exact revenge. You
make it ten times worse for them. A hundred times. That s what he taught me,
Bert. He and his friends. And now that s what he s getting.
I let him go and I tramp down the path into the bowl. Rangle can barely move,
but when he hears his name, he rolls on his side, rattling the chain that is
attached to a post Alexi has driven six feet down into the ice. Rangle looks
up at me with empty eyes through a slit in the hat he has made out of six
pairs of underwear and three pairs of tennis shorts. His mustache and eyebrows
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and lashes are white with crystals, and when I yank the clothes off his head I
see that the end of his sharp nose, like most of his ears, is black and
frosted with ice.
He makes a pitiful low groaning noise and tries to pick up his makeshift hat
to replace it on his head. But when his hand appears from the folds of his
clothes, I see that its long fingers are also frozen and black. A useless
claw.
 Do you know why you re here? I ask him, checking the bile that has surged up
into the middle of my throat.
He shakes his head.
 Do you know who I am?
He shakes his head no again.
 Look at my eyes, I say, kneeling down and moving close.  It s me, Raymond.
Raymond White.
He groans and his eyes roll away.
 Look at me, I say, grabbing his cheeks.  This is how my father died, you
piece of shit. He froze to death. While you and Frank and Russo were toasting
my life in jail, my father felt what you re feeling now. Do you like it?
He looks away, and I grab his ear and twist it until he shrieks and flops back
and forth.
 Look at me! Do you like it?
 No, he croaks, his eyes glued to me now, welling up.  Please, no.
 I did nothing wrong, I say, standing up and trying not to choke.  My father
did nothing wrong. You killed us both and now that you know how it feels, I m
going to save you. Not because you deserve to live. No, Rangle.
 It s because you don t deserve to die . . .
I walk back up the path. In a ragged choking voice I hear him call the name of
the man I used to be.
Raymond. Raymond White.
Back at the cabin, I sit down with the others around the potbelly stove and
soak the heat out of my coffee cup with two hands. When they re warm, I look
at Alexi and say,  Your American client needs medical care. You have a
hospital in Uelen.
 Ten year was Soviet hospital, he says.  Now maybe ten room. Doctor, yes.
Animal doctor. But have army nurse good . . . medical.
 I d like you to pay them enough for him to live there, I say.  He has no one
to care for him in America, so he will stay here.
 How long he stay? Alexi asks, his eyebrows soaring.
I shrug and say,  I don t know. Ten years? Twenty? As long as he lives.
 He no talk Russian, Alexi says.  Doctor cutting hands and feet and nose.
Ears too. They no speaking him. He no walking. He staying bed.
 Yes, I say, getting up from the table and patting Bert s hunched-over
shoulders.  In America we do things in a big way. Isn t that right, Bert?
 That s what the white men say.
 Come on, chief, I say to him, tugging him toward the door.  We re not done.
63
IT S A CHILLY DAY for August, and outside the van, the late-afternoon rain
hammers down on the metal roof. But I m warm. I want Frank to live in fear and
I know that someone like him fears only one thing.
I listen and watch as the guards frisk Bert outside the Yacht Club, but it
isn t until he walks into the meeting room overlooking the misty gray river
that my heart starts to race. There is Ramo Capozza at the end of the table
with his cappuccino and there in the middle is Frank, leaning back with his
hands folded over his big belly.
Bert sets down a briefcase of documents on the table in front of him and sits.
Frank s eyes never leave him.
 Well, Mr. Washington, Ramo says, setting down his cup on its saucer with a
soft clink,  I trust your group is happy.
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Bert clears his throat and recites his line, saying,  We would like to know if
since we re buying Frank Steffano s piece of the business that we ll get the
same deal with the unreported cash.
Ramo glances at the man with the glasses on his right and smiles. He folds his
hands together and puts his elbows on the table, leaning forward. His pale
green eyes are big behind the thick lenses. Their lids are half closed.
Frank has his jaw set and he glares at Bert.
 Our disbursements, Capozza says,  are all accounted for as payments to the
partners. As you can see, this partnership is very profitable. Everything is
legitimate. That lets me sleep at night. I like thinking that my grandchildren
can go to college without worrying about wiretaps. You understand that, don t
you?
I push the red button on the audio control board in front of me and say,  Pass
him the documents. Tell him that s how you do business too.
Bert shifts and pushes the briefcase away from him. The man on his left passes
it toward Capozza s end of the table.
 That s how we do business too, Bert says stiffly.
 So why do you think there s an issue with some cash? Capozza says, still
smiling, but with his lips at an odd angle across his capped teeth.
 Tell him,  If you look at these papers, you ll see that over the last three
years Frank s taken almost seventy million dollars in cash out of the
casinos,  I say.
Bert repeats the words. The briefcase gets to Frank. Instead of passing it on,
he takes hold of it in both hands and stands up.
 I think before this goes any further, Frank says,  that this partnership
needs to know more about who you are. Don t you think that would be a good
idea?
He is grinning at Bert now, and Bert shifts in his chair and folds his arms
across his chest just below the tiny camera lens.
 Little warm in here, Bert? Frank says, his eyes still glued.  You should be
feeling a little warm,  cause I know this whole thing is a scam. It s a scam [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]