Boris feels right for this. Not Ivan,
he's... provocative. I make sure I have a Merchant Marine card in
Cyrillic, then drop down to the alley and over to the bar.
The interior is as dark as I had
expected, the clientele no different than groups I've seen in a
thousand other places. All thinking themselves unique, all thinking
that their place is different than all those others. Blindness.
I wave a thin fold of bills at the
bartender, ask for 'wodkya'. He overcharges me for something that
the locals think of as such and leaves. Boris isn't a troublemaker,
though, so I let him. The important thing now is to fade down and
disappear. I hunch over my drink and let my ears become more
sensitive, until I can hear every conversation in the room.
It isn't long before I can pick the
players, the wannabes, and the contact points in the room. Some
people think they're so subtle. Four different languages and 'sly'
references to things. Listen long enough and they might as well
write it all down and make charts for you.
The beginning is always the hard part.
I'll have to be here for a few days, become a minor fixture, complain
a bit about not being able to find good vodka. Once they've written
me off as inconsequential, just a sailor drinking away his shore
time, I can make my approach.
236
No comments:
Post a Comment