The vodka makes a good lunch, but I
still have to drift in and out for solid food and to check on other
things. Immobility is death.
The details of this place and the
criminal environment it is part of become clearer. Georgians and
Russians run this place, an uneasy but effective truce. The Russians
are definitely on their way out, though. Something recently cost
them a major pipeline, and their influence is less than it was. That
makes them desperate, and therefore not my choice.
I do not want position, seek no place
within these organizations and what they call power. I want a few
small jobs, a little cash for those expenses that credit can't pay.
So I will work with the safer side. Less reward, less risk.
I am about to stand and weave my way
over to Grigol and begin my pitch. He has a small package and his
courier is late. Boris would be good for this, easy to overlook and
underestimate. As I begin to rise, though, I smell rats.
Two of the lesser Georgians and a
waiter leave through the back, quietly but all too quickly. Too bad,
this might have been a reasonably good operation to become involved
with. Instead of the booth, I head to the bathroom. By the time I
am out the window, I am hunched over, shorter, dark, and old. Some
weakened old man from several thousand miles to the south, just
trying to find a dry place in the alley.
The gunfire doesn't last long. Sounds
like Ingrams, probably knock-offs. Cheap, effective and disposable.
Grigol and his crew just turned their pipeline over to the Russians,
and two lessers and a waiter just stepped up a notch. Politics,
always the bane of getting simple things done.
I walk off into the rain. Pizza sounds
good.
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