"I notice your height, lankiness, and complexion," Frantisek said, unhurriedly sipping his beer. "I deduce from these attributes that your ancestry is of this part of the world. Not exactly Stolovan, but are you, by chance, Moravian?"

"Partly, I believe," Plank said. "I like to think of myself as more of a Bohemian."

This joke went unappreciated. Frantisek continued: "So I think of parts of the States with big concentrations of Eastern Europeans and immediately I think of big Midwestern cities, but, for some reason, not Chicago when I look at you. So . . . Detroit."

"Very good," Vladimir said, already trying to draw a map of their new acquaintance's social complexion to better account for his remarkable sagacity. "But, in my case, as you can plainly see," Vladimir said, "my ancestry is not of this part of the world, and hence, it is unlikely that I am from Detroit."

"Yes, perhaps you are not from Detroit," Frantisek said, keeping his good form. "But, unless I am a complete fool, which is surely possible, I do believe that your ancestry is from this part of the world, because you look to me a Jew!"

Cohen bristled at the use of the last word, but Frantisek continued: "And furthermore, your accent says to me that it was you and not your ancestors that left this part of the world or, to be more precise, Russia or the Ukraine, for sadly we don't have any Jews left here except in the cemeteries where they're stacked ten to a grave. So, then, New York is where you resettled, and your father's either a doctor or an engineer; and by the looks of your goatee and long hair you are an artist or, more likely, a writer; and your parents are aghast, because they do not consider it a profession; and university is so expensive in the States, but still it is doubtful they would have settled for anything but the most expensive college, since you are likely the only child; obviously so, since most cosmopolitan Muscovites or Petersburgers (is that where you're from?) have one child, at most, two, in an effort to concentrate meager resources."

"You are a professor," said Vladimir, "or else a traveler and voracious reader of periodicals." He was not surprised to find himself easily replicating the voice and tone of the Stolovan. He was that infectious.

"Well," said Frantisek. "I am not a professor. No."

"Fine then," said Cohen, seemingly satisfied that the man was not an anti-Semite. "I'll get the next beers if you entertain us with the story of your life."

"You get the beers and I will buy shots of vodka," recommended Frantisek. "They complement each other perfectly. You will see."

So it was done this way, and while the vodka did not go down smoothly at first, the gentle American palate soon adapted, or rather, was bypassed, as inebriation set in. Meanwhile, the Stolovan gentleman related his story with great cheer--it was obvious he relished the opportunity to tell it to young, devil-may-care Americans; older Americans, particularly those not schooled in modern irony, might have been less amused.

As a youth, the handsome Frantisek studied at the faculty of linguistics and was a star pupil, as could be expected. This was almost half a decade after the Soviet invasion of 1969, when so-called normalization had set in nicely and Brezhnev was still waving at tractors from atop the mausoleum.

Frantisek's father was big at the Interior Ministry, the kind of chipper place where faceless and hairless bureaucrats sent helicopters to hover meters over the open graves of dissidents during their funerals. Frantisek's father was particularly fond of that maneuver. His son, however, had picked up some sense of moral disquietude here or there, most likely at the university, where such things generally lurk. But it was a quiet sense of disquietude, in that while Frantisek refused a fast-track career at the Interior Ministry, he nonetheless could not bring himself to sneak around with samizdat pamphlets, attend clandestine meetings in sulfur-smelling basements, or to be reduced to a job as, say, an attendant at a municipal water-closet--the basics of dissident activity.

Instead, he got himself a job as assistant deputy editor of the regime's favorite newspaper, the appropriately named Red Justice. There were quite a few assistant deputies, but no matter. Frantisek with his talent, towering good looks, and a father in the Interior Ministry soon wangled for himself the enviable position of covering "culture," which meant traveling abroad on the heels of the Stolovan Philharmonic, the opera, the ballet, and any art exhibits that made it out of Mayakovsky Airport.

Abroad! "My life revolved around the export calendars of Prava's better institutions," Frantisek said, turning to stare wistfully in the direction of what used to be the free world, or so one would imagine. "And sometimes even the provinces coughed up something worth sending to London, although [sigh] more often to Moscow or, God forbid, Bucharest."

Frantisek loved the West like the mistress one gets to see only after her mindful husband gets sent to balance the books in the Milwaukee office. He loved Paris especially, a not-uncommon love affair for Stolovans, whose early-twentieth-century artists had consistently looked to Gaul for inspiration. Once free of the silly commitments at the local embassy and the actual performances, he would roam freely without particular destination in mind, exchanging taxis for the metro, aimless rambles along the Seine for getting totaled in the Montparnasse, all while avoiding the significant Stolovan expatriate community that would likely roast him up along with their carp and dumplings.

But with actual Westerners he was a big success. After the Soviet invasion there was no shortage of sympathy for "a young, oppressed Stolovan, let out for just a glimpse of freedom, only to be corralled back into his Stalinist pen." And when the lithe French women begged, and indignant British chaps demanded that he defect, he would wipe his tears and tell them about his mama and papa, the hard-pressed, sooted chimney cleaners, who would surely spend their remaining years in the gulag if he missed his two o'clock flight.

"If you read writers like Hrabal or Kundera," Frantisek said, while toasting wordlessly in conjunction with a newly arrived round of Polish Wybornaya, "you will see that sex is not unimportant for the East European man." And then he went into some of this sex that took place in Hempstead Tudors and TriBeCa lofts; and just looking at this healthy, wide-faced buck one could picture him, without too many acrobatics of the imagination, with almost any woman and in nearly any position, but always sporting the same enthralled and determined expression, his body properly soaked and bruised.

Here Plank and Cohen descended into reverie, staring happily into the depths of their shot glasses as Frantisek enumerated his assignations. Vladimir was pleased that they took all this in with a sense of healthy wonderment. Perhaps they weren't imposing the Alexandra template--the way they had done with the ludicrous German pornography--on Cherice the political activist and Marta the performance artist who had both shared a room in Amsterdam's Jordaan district only to share Frantisek during the world tour of the Prava Children's Puppet Theater. Who knew what accounted for their budding interest: perhaps Vladimir's earlier pep talk, or the beer mixed with vodka, or the charm of the former apparatchik gushing over his international delights with, still, a sense of boundless possibility?

But, of course, the cultural beat wasn't all Dutch tulips and Godiva. There was also the domestic front, and they watched Frantisek take an extended swill of beer in preparation for this portion. "Oh, how they would come," he said. "From every region of every district of every goddamn Slavic country . . . 'Citizens, now we are pleased to present the Stavropol Krai Peasant Chorus!' All the bloody peasant choruses! All those fucking balalaikas! And always singing about some Katyusha picking boysenberries on the river bank and then the local boys spot her and make her blush. I mean, really! Try writing a review of that minus the cynicism. 'At the Palace of Culture last night, our socialist brethren from Minsk demonstrated once again the progressive peasant culture that has kept local ethnographers enthralled since the heady days of the Revolution.' "

He reached into his shot glass and sprinkled some vodka in his face. "What can I tell you," he said, squinting. "That was the hell of it, but then it all fell apart anyway . . ."

"No more Red Justice?" Vladimir asked.

"Oh, no, it's still there," Frantisek said. "Some of the older people still read it. The ones on a fixed income who can't afford sausages and are getting really pissed on that score, the so-called Guardians of the Foot, you might have heard them wailing by the Big Toe. Yes, they pay me to write something now and then. Or I give a speech on the cultural-glory days of Brezhnev and our first working-class president Jan Zhopka for the geezers at the Great Hall of People's Friendship. You know, that huge place with the old socialist flag hanging out the window like somebody's dirty laundry."

"Where is that again?" Vladimir asked. "It sounds familiar."

"It's on the embankment facing the castle, right by the most expensive restaurant in Prava."

"Yes, I've been to that restaurant," Vladimir said, coloring at the thought of his Cole Porter revue with the Groundhog.

"But it's not fair," Plank said. "You're so bright and well-traveled. You should write for one of the new papers."

"I'm afraid that's impossible. After our most recent revolution they published a lengthy directory of who did what during the lost years, and it would seem that my family has a whole chapter devoted to it."

"Maybe you could write for the Prava-dence," suggested Cohen.

"Oh, but it's such crap," Frantisek said. (Thankfully Cohen was too pickled to take umbrage.) "What I really want to do is open a nightclub," he said.

"That's a wonderful idea," cried Plank. "Sometimes the night life here really rubs me the wrong way." He stopped. "Excuse me," he said. "I don't feel good."

They let him pass by without much concern. "Yes," Frantisek said. "Your weak-stomached friend is right. Right now there's only ABBA here. ABBA and some very poor attempts at modernity. When I was . . ." Again he looked wistfully in some unspecified direction, perhaps this time of the airport. "When I was traveling around, you know, I always got taken to the latest discos with the most attractive men and women, such as yourselves, of course. Now my mouth waters for a good, what is it now? . . ."

"Rave," Cohen said helpfully.

"A good rave. Ah, I even know a terrific Finnish disk jockey. MC Paavo. Have you heard of him? No? He's successful in Helsinki, but not very happy there. Too clean, he says, although I don't know, I've never been."

"He should come here!" Cohen said, smashing his shot glass against the bar. Vladimir quickly dropped a hundred-crown note for the damage.

"I think he'd like to, but he needs a sure thing, a contract. He's got the needy former wives and then also the little MCs running around in the Laplands. The Finns are very familial, which is why perhaps they enjoy the world's highest rate of suicide." He chuckled and signaled for another round, pointing to Plank's empty stool and shaking his finger as if to say, "minus one."

"Well, did you know that Vladimir is the vice president of PravaInvest?"

"Um," Vladimir said.

"There's actually something called PravaInvest?" The Stolovan contained his mischievous smile, but clearly with effort and a lot of blinking. "Do post me a prospectus immediately, gentlemen."

"Oh yes!" Cohen said, oblivious to the apparatchik's sarcastic tone. "PravaInvest is gargantuan. I understand it's capitalized with over 35 billion dollars."

Frantisek looked at Vladimir long and straight as if to say, "One of those, eh?"

"Um," Vladimir said again. "It's no big deal, really."

"Well, don't you see?" Cohen was exasperated. "He'll fund your nightclub! Just bring over the Finn and we're set."

Vladimir sighed at the rashness of his young associate. "Of course, nothing's that easy," he said. "In the real world there are impediments. The skyrocketing price of real estate in central Prava, for example."

"That I wouldn't count as a problem," Frantisek said. "See, if you opened it up in the town center you would get basically the rich German tourists. But if you operate on the city outskirts and at the same time you're convenient to public transportation or a short taxi ride from the center, then you get a more exclusive, sophisticated clientele. I mean, how many truly trendy clubs are there on the Champs-Elysees? Or on Fifth Avenue in Midtown? It's just not done."

"He's right! He's right!" said the irrepressible Cohen. "Why don't you just invest in this thing, hmm? Come on, do us all a favor. You know there's no fun left at the Nouveau or the Joy on a Saturday with all those fucking papa's girls and mama's boys and that shit they play . . . That shit! How can they play that shit and still charge you fifteen crowns for admission?"

"That's fifty cents," Vladimir reminded him.

"Well, be that as it may," Cohen said, now talking almost exclusively to Frantisek, the way a child turns to one parent after being refused by the other, "but that's still no reason not to start this thing, especially with MC Pavel on board."

Vladimir lifted his beer up to his twitching face. "Yes, but you see, Mr. Frantisek, PravaInvest is a very concerned, socially aware multinational. Its philosophy is to concentrate on essential needs based on a country's conditions on the ground, in a Cartesian sense, of course, at what we call 'point of entry.' And, believe me, this country needs a good locally produced fax modem more than it needs another dance club or casino."

"I don't know about that," Frantisek said. "Maybe not casinos, which are, on the whole, quite desperate places, but a nice, new dance club could be, how is it they say in America . . . A 'morale booster'?"

Perhaps it was Frantisek's accent returning after so much alcohol, the way Vladimir's was prone to do, but when their new Stolovan friend said "casino," Vladimir could picture it only with a K, which led him naturally to the Kasino in his panelak, and, by extension, to the friendly Russian women who entertained there, and by the furthest of extensions, to the tremendous waste of potential space therein. A nightclub.

He accepted yet another shot from the barmaid who, in the poor light and the long-settled darkness, wore an expression that couldn't be gauged; it could only be surmised that she spoke with expressiveness about something. "This round is free," Frantisek translated, smiling with pride at the generosity of his countrywoman.

"Morale booster," Vladimir said after the vodka had gone down and burned his insides with the compressed fury of the thousand Polish potato fields that had been depotatoed to produce this vintage. "So how good is this MC Paavo when compared to what they have in London and New York?"

"He's better than Tokyo," Frantisek said with the surety of a connoisseur and tipped his bar stool toward Vladimir so that their eyes, red and moist from the festivities, were as close as etiquette allowed. "I like the way you talk, Mr. Conditions-on-the-Ground," he said. "And I know about your little business with Harry Green. Perhaps we should meet and discuss further possibilities."

Meanwhile, the stereo was running out of Michael Jackson. Outside, in the frigid air and by the light of the moon, the soldiers were singing some sort of a local song with an oom-pah-pah beat that clearly could have benefited from the deployment of an actual band. Plank could be heard producing unsettling sounds in the bathroom. "Ah," Frantisek said, moving away from Vladimir slightly, as he knew that Westerners did not like to share breath. "Speaking of peasant choruses, there's one. It's about a little mare who is very upset at her master because he sent her to the smith to get cobbled. And now she refuses to give him a kiss."

Cohen nodded to Vladimir, his eyes narrow with understanding, as if there was a lesson in there for everyone. They heard Plank struggling with the lock of the bathroom and cursing himself, but they sat drunk and motionless, until the barmaid came to his rescue.

30. A LITTLE.

NIGHT MUSIC.

HOW IT HAPPENED that they missesd Jan and the car was for Vladimir a bitter lesson in the downside of alcoholism. Apparently he and Cohen had stumbled into the beer garden and there took the wrong pathway out; that is, instead of walking into Jan and the car they walked into a silent, charcoal-stained street whose silence was broken by the jangle of a tram bell and the screech of rails. "Ah!" they cried, mistaking the passing tram for some kind of heavenly sign, and they staggered after it, waving their arms as if they were bidding adieu to an ocean liner. Soon enough, the yellow-lighted warmth drew closer, and they climbed aboard on all fours, shouting "Dobry den'!" to the dusty factory workers snoozing in the back.

It was only after they had gone several neighborhoods down toward somewhere or other that Vladimir remembered Jan and the BMW. "Oh," he said, butting Cohen in the side, in response to which Cohen took out a sparkling bottle of vodka. This was a gift Frantisek had given them along with his phone and fax numbers before he departed the beer garden, dragging the incapacitated Plank along to a nearby pad for a refresher course in sobriety. Vladimir had been unsure about the last part. He held a tainted view of visiting older men and their sleeping quarters, especially when the whole scene had been stirred with alcohol. But what to do?

"Ve drink," Cohen said, failing at a Russian accent.

"We're drunk," Vladimir said, uncapping the bottle nonetheless. "Where are we?" he said, pressing his nose to the cool window pane, watching the drooping lindens, the small apartment houses peeking out from behind manicured hedges. "What the hell are we doing here?"

They turned to look at one another. It was a serious question at three in the morning and they tussled for the bottle in exasperation, a struggle which, for the sake of clarification, was not conducted with the energy of, say, two farm boys just coming into their pubescent strength.

The tram had crossed the river and had started mountain-climbing. They had barely reached the middle plateau of Repin Hill, where the Austrians were building a family entertainment complex around a cartoon character named Gunter Goose, when the tram suddenly shuddered to a halt.

Outside the tram window, two heads bobbed in the night, their scalps as white as the moon, the few randomly sprouting hairs passable for the outlines of craters and other such lunar geography. Two skinheads, their relative height and size forming approximately the ratio between Abbott and Costello, got on board, their many chains jangling against their belt buckles, which were replicas of Confederate flags. They were laughing and pretending to punch each other, managing in the interim of their playfulness to swig from bottles of Becherovka liquor, so that Vladimir first assumed they were Stolovan gays who had mistaken the Confederate flag for just another symbol of Americana. After all, the bald look had long become de rigueur on Christopher Street.

But when they saw Vladimir and then turned to Cohen, the laughter stopped. Two pairs of fists appeared, and in the overabundant light of the tram their naked scalps, acne, battle scars, and twitching sneers formed a distinct roadmap of adolescent hatred.

There was a crash against the window to Vladimir's right and immediately there was alcohol in his eyes, shards of glass stinging against his skin like so many little shaving accidents, and the unmistakable smell of the pumpkin liquor; the short, fat one must have thrown his bottle. Vladimir couldn't open his eyes. When he tried, there was only the muddled indistinction of eyedrops just applied and, anyway, he really didn't want to see. In the darkness, an amorphous series of thoughts were coalescing around the concepts of pain, injustice, and revenge but what it all came down to was the therapeutic qualities of his grandmother's coarse, old Russian pillow--hard, but yielding--on which he had first practiced his amorous ways. That was the thought of the moment. With the instinctual, life-affirming panic submerged in vodka and Unesko beer, only the sadness concerning the impending loss of life and limb--this sadness that should have emerged only as an afterthought--rose to the surface. It had to have been so, because Vladimir said only one word in response to the bottle attack. "Morgan," he said, and he said it too quietly for anyone to hear. He could see her, for some reason, carrying her fugitive cat across the courtyard, cradling the rebellious animal like a mother all too ready to forgive.

"Auslander raus!" screamed the short one. "Raus! Raus!"

Cohen had Vladimir by the hand, his own palm cold and wet. Vladimir was dragged up to his feet and then he hit what must have been the sharp edge of a tram seat, but he tried hard not to lose his balance, for, at that moment, the reality that he was his parents' only child, and that his mother and father could not possibly go on with him dead dawned on Vladimir. And so, finally, he panicked--an eye-opening panic that showed him quite clearly the tram steps, the still-open door, and the black asphalt beyond.

"Foreigner out!" shouted the other skinhead in English; between them they had clearly mastered the right words in the right European languages. "Back to Turk-land!"

The wind gusting off the river slammed into their backs like a concerned friend leading the way. Behind them they could hear the laughter of their assailants as well as that of the newly awakened factory workers, and the fading, patient voice of the tram recording: "Please desist entering and exiting, the doors are about to close."

They ran broken-field past the parked Fiats and randomly lit street lamps, toward the familiar darkened hulk of the castle in the far distance. They ran without looking at one another. Several blocks later, Vladimir's sense of panic gave out, and the sadness returned and physically manifested itself in the shape of a giant ball of mucus rising up through his stomach and lungs, past his racing heart. His feet folded beneath him, rather gracefully, and he wound up first on his knees, then on his palms, and then twisted over on his back.

VLADIMIR RECOVERED TO the sound of a great automotive roar. Two police cars beaming electric-blue and red against the valley of pink Baroque where Cohen and Vladimir had come to rest had pulled up to within inches of Vladimir's snout, and the boys were immediately surrounded by sweaty giants. They could see the outlines of night sticks bouncing against trousers, smell the beer and pork-loin breath overpowering the street's coal-and-diesel reek, and hear the laughter, the great rumbling free-for-all of the Slav policeman at three in the morning.

Yes, they were a merry lot, prancing atop of our fallen heroes while the strobe lights of their cars reinforced the carnivalesque atmosphere--it seemed as if a rave, the very one Frantisek had been hoping to conjure up a few hours earlier, was really underfoot.

Vladimir lay crumpled in a nest he had instinctively made out of his parka and heavy sweater. "Budu Jasem Americanko," he halfheartedly pleaded in the only Stolovan he knew. "I am an American."

This only contributed to the general merriment. An additional squadron of police Trabants pulled out from the converging side streets and a dozen more officers joined the ranks. In no time at all, the latecomers were chanting the expatriate mantra: "Budu Jasem Americanko! Budu Jasem Americanko!"

A few had taken off their caps and had started humming the opening bars of "The Star-Spangled Banner," picked up from years of watching the Olympics.

"American businessman," Vladimir clarified, but even that did not raise his estimation in the eyes of the law. The policemen's ball continued with reinforcements arriving by the minute until it appeared that every member of the municipal forces assigned to night duty was involved. Some even brought cameras and Vladimir and Cohen soon found themselves under a barrage of photo flashes; a bottle of Stoli was thrust into Cohen's limp hands and he modeled it half-consciously while muttering all the Stolovan he had ever learned: "I'm an American . . . I write poetry . . . I like it here . . . Two beers, please, and we'll split the trout . . ."

And then very quickly there was the screech of walkie-talkies, superiors shouting orders, and car doors being slammed. Something was happening somewhere else and the boulevard began to clear. The last to go, a young recruit in an oversized red-and-gold cap initialed with the fearsome Stolovan lion, came by to ruffle Cohen's hair and yanked the bottle out of his arms. "Sorry, American friend," he said. "Stoli cost money." He also did something nice: he picked up the boys, one in each arm, and moved them off the tram rails (ah, so that had been the sharp pain in Vladimir's back) and onto the sidewalk. "Bye, businessman," he said to Vladimir, his sincere little mustache twitching as he spoke, then got into his Trabant and took off, siren blaring into the terminally disturbed night.

IF THE NIGHT had ended right there, that would have been one thing. But no sooner had the Politzia left and Vladimir and Cohen started breathing again than an additional convoy of automobiles appeared to take their space, this time a trail of BMWs flanked on both ends by American Jeeps.

Gusev.

He scrambled out from the flagship car, overbundled for the weather in his shiny full-length nutria coat, looking like a deposed king fleeing an onrush of peasants with guns, or like a bald disco promoter past his prime. "Disgrace!" he shouted.

Behind him were several men, all former Interior Ministry troops, dressed the part in fatigues and night goggles. It must have been that kind of night for them.

"Psh, psh," the soldiers were saying in the background, their heads raised to the sky, as if they were too embarrassed to look down at Vladimir and Cohen, the latter with his head folded fetally into his stomach, looking like a half-rolled sleeping bag.

"We heard it!" Gusev shouted. "The talk on the radio scanner! Two Americans crawling across Ujezd Street, one of them dark-haired and hook-nosed . . . We knew immediately who it was!"

"Look at them . . . How drunk!" one of the soldiers said, shaking his head as if it was something fantastic to behold.

Vladimir, a young gentleman in many ways, and one raised to appreciate proper bearing and the importance of seeming sober, genuinely considered becoming embarrassed. His associate Cohen, in particular, cut a pretty poor figure at this point, all balled up and moaning something about "hating it, absolutely hating it." But then for Gusev and his men to castigate Vladimir after they probably just got back from neutering some Bulgarians or the like struck Vladimir as something of an injustice. "Gusev!" he said, struggling to achieve in his voice both control and condescension. "Enough of this. Get me a taxi immediately!"

"You're in no position to dictate orders," Gusev said. He flicked his wrist dismissively; it would seem his advance staff had never informed him that this particular expression of absolute power had become passe about a century ago. "Get inside my car immediately, Girshkin," he said, shaking the collars of his coat so that the indistinguishable remains of dead nutrias shimmered in the street light. It was clear that in a different world, under a different regime but with the same armed men at his disposal, Mikhail Gusev would have been a very important man.

"My American associate and I refuse!" Vladimir said in Russian. He felt a swirl in his stomach, the undulation of his daily intake of gulash, potato dumplings, and booze, and hoped to God that he wouldn't throw up right then and there, for that would certainly mean losing the argument. "You have embarrassed me enough. My American associate and I were on our way to a late-night meeting. Who knows what he thinks of us Russians now."

"It is you, Girshkin, who have made us into the laughingstock of Prava. And just when we have cemented our understanding with this city's police. Oh, no, no, friend. Tonight, you ride home with me. And then we'll see who whips the Groundhog in the banya . . ."

Cohen must have sensed the malice in his voice, for despite his utter incomprehension of Russian, he made a mooing sound from within his fetal ball. "No!" Vladimir translated Cohen's mooing into Russian for Gusev's benefit. He was becoming all the more frightened himself. Just what was Gusev planning to do with him? "Your insubordination is noted, Gusev. If you refuse to call for a taxi, give me the mobile and I will do so myself."

Gusev turned back to his men who were as yet unsure whether they should laugh or take this small drunkard seriously, but after Gusev gave them the nod the laughter began in earnest. Smiling solicitously, Gusev began his approach.

"Do you know what I am going to do to you, my goose?" Gusev whispered to Vladimir, although his thick Russian sibilants were loud enough for the entire block to hear. "Do you know how long it takes to solve a crime in this city when you have friends at Municipal House? Remember that leg they found in the sock bin at the Kmart? I wonder who it was we dismembered that day. Was it his excellency the Ukrainian ambassador? Or was that the day we circumcised the minister of fishing and hatcheries? Would you like me to tell you? How about I look in my log book? Better still, how about I snuff you and your little friend? Why waste a hundred words when one bullet will do between you two pederasts?"

He was close enough for Vladimir to smell the intense shoe-polish reeking off his motorcycle boots. Vladimir opened his mouth--what was he going to do? Recite Pushkin? Bite Gusev's leg? He, Vladimir, had done something to Jordi back in the Floridian hotel room . . . He had . . .