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“Sabrina,” I say, holding out my hand.
With Adrik watching, he has to shake hands.
He squeezes hard. I squeeze back harder, holding his eye with none of the placating smiles women are taught to offer.
“Jasper,” he says.
I could say,I know,but I don’t. I don’t care what he thinks of my cousins or of me. I’ll forge my own relationships here, on my own terms. None of us are at Kingmakers anymore.
“Good to have you back,” Jasper says to Adrik, meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror before directing his attention to driving.
I notice Jasper doesn’t use any term of address with Adrik—notPakhanor Boss orKrestniy Otets.
“It’s good to be back, brother,” Adrik says, leaning forward to clap Jasper on the shoulder. “We’ll talk tonight—I’ve been making plans in my absence.”
I feel the frisson of excitement on Jasper’s bare skin, though he only nods.
I’m lit with the same excitement myself. It’s impossible not to be affected by Adrik’s voice, deep and clear and confident. The Churchills and the Washingtons of the world have always had this quality—to stir the hearts of men when they speak.
As we pull onto the main roads of Moscow, I note the broadness of the avenues. The main artery of Kutuzovsky spans ten lanes across. Still, the streets are clogged with cars, each red light interminable. In the midst of all this congestion, a black town car with a howling siren speeds down the highway in the opposite direction, forcing the cars to edge out of its way as it careens past.
“Was that a cop?” I ask.
Adrik laughs. “A politician—top-ranking officials don’t have to obey the traffic rules. They can speed all they like, drive on the wrong side of the road, cut off an ambulance or a fire truck … You better run for office, Jasper, or we’ll never get anywhere.”
Jasper spits out the open window. “Fucking parasites.”
I smile to myself. The antipathy between criminals and politicians has always amused me, each of us disgusted at the corruption of the other. At least criminals are honest—we admit what we are.
“It didn’t used to be this way,” Adrik tells me. “The number of cars in Moscow has doubled in the last ten years.”
The further we drive into the center of the city, the more I’m astounded at its sprawling mass. Twelve million people live here, I looked it up before I came. The number gave me no idea of its real density—four times the size of Chicago, and in some places, just as modern in appearance. To the west, I see a forest of skyscrapers, gleaming glass towers to rival any at home.
But I’m not at home. The heavy Brutalist architecture reminds me of that, the many cement tenements and, in the distance, the unmistakable red brick Kremlin and the colorful onion domes of the basilica.
The cars themselves are a bizarre mix of ultra-luxury Ferraris and beemers, bumper to bumper with Ladas and Kias held together with wire and twine.
On the plane I read that the average salary in Moscow is $1100 a month. Conversely, Moscow has more billionaires than London or San Francisco. I can see the dichotomy everywhere I look, the gated communities of the privileged jammed up against the cramped Soviet apartments of the worker ants.
“Where’s the Den?” I ask Adrik.
“In Lyublino,” he says. “Not much further.”
Jasper navigates a series of increasingly narrow streets, through concrete buildings that loom up on both sides, claustrophobically close. Everything in Moscow is built on a grandiose scale, thick and heavy and hulking. Each glimpse of a park is a relief, a breath of green in all this gray.
We’ve passed through countless strata of neighborhoods. Lyublino is on the seedier side—metal bars across the windows, graffiti in the alleyways. I see a mural of a woman with crow’s wings growing out of her eyes, and another of a technicolor Matryoshka doll.
At last we reach the end of the road where Adrik’s house sits. We pass through an iron gate running beneath a pointed archway topped by several spires, the crumbling stone blackened with soot and grime. Adrik’s parents live in a monastery in St. Petersburg—perhaps his childhood home influenced his choice. The Den resembles a gothic church, dark and ornate, with mats of crawling ivy attempting to pull down the dilapidated stones.
Jasper pulls the SUV into an alcove of cars, among which I see Adrik’s bike and several others of similar style. I’ll have to get a bike of my own—fuck sitting in Moscow traffic.
“Come meet everyone,” Adrik says, taking my hand.
He lets go before we enter the house, which I prefer. I don’t want to be presented as his paramour, I’m here to work.
The interior of the Den is dim and cool, thankfully smelling only of damp and dust, not sweaty men. Tiny motes swim in the thin bands of watery sunshine crossing the hall.
The floors are bare stone, relieved by a few faded rugs. No art hangs on the wall, and the furniture I can see is sparse and shabby. I leave my suitcase by the door. Adrik does the same.
