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The voice comes through the crack in the concrete wall. From the man in the cell next to mine who, only moments ago, was screaming as if he hoped the whole world would hear.
Tonight marks the second time he’s spoken to me. The first he’d pissed me off and I’d made it known. This time, I’m too fucked up, too disturbed by everything I’ve experienced to even think of being an ass.
“How do you know?” I ask.
“Because,” he answers after a pause, his tone dull. “He will not kill you… ’til he kills me.”
“Is that supposed to clear things up? I don’t know who the fuck you are.”
“Is it true what I have been told? Is it true that she is dead?”
I go still, feeling sick. “Who’s dead?!”
Please… no… please don’t tell me Delphine’s…
“Stefania,” the man answers. And for the first time, though faint, I detect an accent. “It is true that she is dead?”
“Yes. For months now. She died this past summer. Who are—how did you know her?”
At least a minute goes by where the man says nothing. I’m beginning to think he’s either fucking with me or he’s dozed off when, finally, he speaks again.
“We can do it. We can make it. We can… escape.”
I lean closer to the cold cinderblock wall. “Escape how?”
“There is only one way out,” he says simply. The more he speaks, the more pronounced his voice and accent becomes—distinctly Russian. “The question is, do you really want it? Are you willing to die for it?Burnfor it?”
volchok
october 2003
Iama man who has always done well in the shadows. For many, the dark is a foe, but for me, it is a friend of mine. From an early age, I was groomed to do well in such conditions. In the dark, you do not see the horror. In the dark, you arefree.
It is why I am so adept at lurking out of view. I do so on a night that Americans call Halloween. We do not have Halloween in Russia. If I had it my way, the occasion would not exist at all.
Lurking would be significantly easier without tiny children scurrying by in plastic costumes.
Nevertheless, I am among the night’s many shadows, tucked away behind the neat hedges of million dollar homes.
I could be waiting hours. Possibly all night long. On occasion, he does not return home. He works late enough that he stays in the city.
It is my hope tonight he bothers to come home. My luck has not been very good tracking him down at city hall. Most times, once security discovers who I am, I am shown the door. Other times, I am not allowed past the door at all.
I check the time and then refocus on the house I am watching for the foreseeable future.
Every light is on despite the fact that only one person is home. The rest are staff.
Leontine Adams spends the evening sipping wine and chatting on the phone with her sister. She wanders the pristine halls of the home, coming into the wide view of the window whenever she moves from one room to another. The woman is quite used to being home alone. Over the years, from the spying I have done, she has resigned herself to tolerating her husband’s career and his frequent absence.
Two young female voices sound from the sidewalk nearby. I take a step further into the shadows and keep still.
Ernest Adams’s daughter is making it home.
She is too old to dress up like the small children, but by the looks of it, she attended a celebration for the frivolous Halloween. She and her friend both wear cat ears as they stroll down the sidewalk and chat away.
Far too loudly that anyone lurking such as myself can easily overhear, though girls their age do not think of such things.
“I can’t believe I kissed Chester Bailey,” says the friend of Ernest’s daughter. She shudders with her tongue out in disgust. “His braces are sooo gross!”
