The Upside of Death

The readings. Part 26

The door opened and Yuri walked in. "We're going to find interesting breakfast now. Do you have something in mind? I can offer coffee with donuts or coffee with Danish."

Zach sat up from the bed and planted his feet on the ground. "Yo, Yuri. How's things? You going near any drugstore this morning? Don't forget to get your mother's medication. She's suffering, I hear."

Yuri stopped. "What you say about my mother?" His voice was casual, his face struggled to stay passive.

"Just saying that you should look after her. Otherwise she'll join your aunt before her time. I'll have the coffee and donuts. My friend will have the Danish. She prefers tea, not coffee."

Yuri glanced at Keera, who hadn't opened her eyes. He turned and left, closing the door behind him.

Zach heard him talking urgently to the others, the low rumble of Vronsky's voice answering. Semyon loomed at the door, removed the chain, left them tied together, pushed them out.

Yuri was pacing; Vronsky in an armchair pointed to the couch opposite. Zach and Keera sat and waited.

"Why do you call him 'Yuri'?" Vronsky asked, nodding toward Yuri.

'"Because that's his name," Zach replied. He'd decided to take this slow and easy. Reveal a bit at a time.

"What do you know of his mother?' Vronsky asked.

Zach said, "Only what I read in the files briefly. Can't remember much, really. Didn't have time to study it."

"It's not what you recall that interests me," Vronsky said. "It's how you know anything at all."

"We know a lot about the people we need to know about."

"You said before you were just the girl's boyfriend. Now you say different."

"It's complicated. Boyfriend-girlfriend, yes. But there's more."

"How much more?"

"That, Andrei Sergeyovich Vronsky, I'm not willing to say."

Vronsky's turn to freeze. Yuri snapped something in Russian.

"Of course, if you know my name," Vronsky said to Zach, "you know also it's very dangerous for you."

Zach smiled, hoped it looked cocky. "If I know your name, Mr. Vronsky, then be assured a few dozen others in my organization know. You've nowhere to run, nowhere to drive, nowhere to fly. We know too much."

Vronsky spoke rapidly in Russian to the others. He said to Zach, "What do you hope to gain from this situation?"

Zach said, "It's like this. We had something set up, and you crashed the party. We'd like you gone. You're jamming up the works, so to speak."

"You are government, right?"

Zach shrugged. "Can't say."

"Why didn't your people come in and wipe us out?"

"Too messy. It's a delicate operation. We hate publicity. It was tricky when you took my friend. It got worse when you killed Flint and his guard." Came out easy, sounded right. Keep revealing pieces of information and Vronsky had to buy the whole story.

Vronsky smiled. A pretty good smile, lots of teeth, but it didn't reach his eyes. "You know shit."

"Vronsky, we know everything."

"Not possible."

"But true."

Vronsky wasn't bad at the poker face thing but he had to be in shock. Best to press while this new and unsettling information tumbled around his head.