Chapter 16 Mischa
We slip out of the hotel in a rental car and Max drives us to the Blue Mountains.
It’s after midnight by the time we get there, but the bar in the country town is still open.
Our contact hasn’t arrived yet, so we play a game of pool with an attractive young girl with curly brown hair who seems quite drunk.
“You’re cute,” she tells Maxim. “We should fuck.”
“No thank you,” he says. “I’m taken.”
When the contact does arrive it’s obvious, because he looks exactly like Maxim, only younger. Just a boy. Maybe they share a Romanian look or something. Sexy vampires.
They talk quietly with each other, and I watch them from a distance.
My superpower tingles. There’s something about being close with someone.
People ask if you are related even if you aren’t and don't look alike. People don't ask that about close friends but always with the fuck-buddies and siblings, even adopted ones. Maxim’s contact has this weird unspoken connection to the him, and Max is acknowledging that connection in his body language, and it isn’t just that they are both from Transylvania or wherever the fuck. I am looking at his brother.
He can’t be more than sixteen. Maxim has two brothers and he’s trying to find them. The other contact in Melbourne must have been his older brother. No wonder he was so shaken at the restaurant.
The three of them were adopted to Australia when he was little, but the family ended up changing their mind and they went into a group home.
Max went to juvenile detention soon after for running a huge fake I.D.
ring through all the high schools and making absolute bank.
It was epic. Soon after, Shivishni came knocking.
This is not a bad development. Maybe. Maxim’s brother would be less likely to screw him over.
Probably. Although, the two of them together just increased the chances of me getting screwed myself.
Not very likely that Max would do it, because he’s a good guy, and because our brother Ivan would chop him into pieces and leave him in a suitcase in Moscow Train Station.
We are setting this kid up with millions in product for pennies on the dollar.
A small deposit to get a foothold in this almost unbreakable market.
Even so, our small deposit is a lot of money for most people.
I keep watching, and they never look my way, which is good.
If this deal was fine for Konstantin and Sivishni, I’m fine with it too.
The brunette girl we played pool with has passed out on the couch opposite us. I try to wake her but she’s out cold. A creepy older man is observing us from the other side of the bar.
“It’s time to leave,” Maxim says.
“What about the girl?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Not my problem.”
His contact-slash-brother looks at us. “You can’t just leave her here with that guy eyeing her.”
“I didn’t drug her,” Max insists.
Max’s brother prods and shakes her but she only shifts a little. Then he checks her purse.
“She has a driver’s license. She only turned eighteen a month ago,” he says, and shows it to us. “It has her address on it, we could drop her back to her parent’s house?”
“Blackheath is in the opposite direction,” Maxim says.
“By how much?” I ask him.
“About twenty minutes.”
“Yeah, fuck it,” I nod to the Romanian brother. “We can drop you off first, and then swing by her house.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Cool.”
I drive us to a quiet, forested lane and the contact-slash-brother follows in his car. He gets in the passenger seat and something feels off. I look at Maxim, and even he looks suspicious.
No. Max would never, but I want this over fast.
I hand the Romanian his product and he hands me a bag full of money. He opens the case packed with three small glass vials. He turns off the car light and shakes one of the little bottles in the dark. It lights up with bright white zaps of electricity.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, it’s so cool!” he yells, excited. “I never thought I’d get to see it.”
“That’s why they call it lightning in a bottle,” I tell him.
“How much acid is in here?” he asks.
“That is one million, sixty-five thousand, one hundred and forty-one very fucking strong doses of LSD,” I beam. "Enough to keep every space-cadet in this country happy for the next year. Dump it in the water reservoir and you’ll have Sydney flying for the next month.”
“Woah...”
“His father was a scientist,” Max tells his little brother. "He taught him chemistry.”
“But he didn’t teach me how to make that,” I tell him.
“My chemistry teacher taught me about indole alkaloids,” the brother says, “and I’ve read all Professor Shulgin’s books. What method do you use?”
“K-POP. Safest way.”
“Nice.”
I check the money fast. “That’s a great payday.”
The Romanian nods, and offers me his hand to shake. “You know, I’d love to learn, if you want a prospect...”
Don’t shake his hand.
“Yeah, we’d definitely...”
Shake his hand, and he’ll kill you.
I freeze. My superpower is now blaring so loudly I cannot ignore it. Everything goes quiet and I hear a gun click.
Now the girl in the back seat is awake, and stone-cold sober. Her gun is touching me and I can feel it. I didn’t imagine the weirdness a moment ago. The Romanian boy is suddenly very still, and Max looks at him then at me.
“Give me the money, and nobody gets hurt,” the girl says.
I look at the Romanian and know he’s in on it.
“Hurry up,” she growls. “Don’t be a hero.”
They don't know what they're doing, but you do. Show them what it means to be an Abramov.
“Are you ready?” I ask Max, in Russian.
“What are you saying?” The girl barks at me.
The boy yells at Max in Romanian. I understand enough to know that this boy is telling Max to listen to him. I do not know which way Maxim’s loyalty will fall, and I now have a bullet pointed at my fucking head.
“I need you now,” I tell Max, my eyes pleading.
“Speak English!” the girl screams.
The Romanian little brother gets jumpy and pulls out his own gun. He points it at Max.
“Stop,” Max says, and puts his hands up in the air.
The Russian word for “safe word” is “stop-slovo”. My brothers and I use it, or just “stop” three times if we are in trouble.
“Stop,” I nod, and raise my arms as if we are trying to diffuse the situation.
“Stop!” Maxim yells and launches at the girl.
I take the Romanian’s gun and break his fucking arm in one fluid motion.
The gun thing I have practiced every day for years but the arm thing only once before.
Maxim grabs the girl’s wrists and pushes them up to the ceiling.
She pulls the trigger and blasts a hole in the top of the rental car.
I feel the bullet rip through the air just above my head and the sound ruptures my eardrum.
I duck and she fires again. Maxim slams his forehead down onto her nose and breaks it.
He grabs the gun and hits her face with it.
He blood splashes on the window and she screams at him that it hurts.
For a moment everybody is too stunned to speak.
“That was actually loaded?” Max asks, stunned.
“Okay,” I yell, “new rule; no joyriders!”
“You broke my nose!” the girl screams, her shaking hands feeling the damage.
Max punches her just above the temple and knocks her out.
“Careful,” I tell him. “That could actually kill her.”
“No,” he says. “I have done it to so many assholes, I know just how hard to hit.”
He looks at her pistol. It’s a compact.
“Cute. Looks like it matches yours.”
I look at the Romanian’s. Same brand, only bigger.
“Oh yeah,” I say. “There must have been a Valentine’s special.”
The Romanian starts bargaining with Maxim in their language. It has not escaped my attention that Max hasn’t knocked him out yet. I am still in danger, still holding the gun to this guy’s face.
Maxim turns to me. “You should drive a couple miles out,” he suggests. “We can leave them in the middle of nowhere.”
I am silent long enough for him to know I don’t like it.
“I could take her in their car,” I suggest.
“Their car might be hot. We all go in this car.”
I try to think but I can’t. “I cannot drive this back to Sydney for obvious fucking reasons.”
“It’s only superficial damage,” Max says.
I glower at him. “We can’t return a rental with two bullets in it.”
“It only has one bullet, and one hole. It’s okay; I got the extra coverage, we just pay the excess.”
“We can’t drive around with cash and contraband in a bullet-ridden car,” I huff.
“It’s not bullet-ridden, it’s just bullet-sprinkled.”
I’m irritated now. “What if they have used this gun somewhere else? They could test that bullet and ask questions.”
“We have an alibi. We don’t live in Australia.”
I take the safety off, and point the gun at Max.
“Maxim,” I say calmly, “I am not taking my hands off this gun. But I’m also not going to shoot your baby brother unless I have to, okay? You are going to drive this car or I’ll be eating two skull’s worth of vampire fry for breakfast. Understood?”
His gun is still pointed at the passenger. He deflates a little, and hands it to me. I take both guns, get out of the driver’s seat and swap with Max.
“We’re all speaking English for the rest of the ride,” I tell Maxim. “I don’t wanna hear any Romanian.”
He’s quiet on the drive into the mountain valley. We’ve only been driving for ten minutes when the girl starts to wake up. Seems a good time to let her out.
“You can’t just leave me in the middle of nowhere,” she whinges.
“I won’t leave you alone with a man you don’t know,” Maxim says. “If you’re together we can leave you together. So, what’s the story?”
His brother nods. “We’re together.”
I groan in frustration. “You are a smart kid, but your girl is not, and she’s a psychopath. Cut her loose.”
“This is why you couldn’t come with me,” Max tells him. “You will always make the shitty choice and the whole thing turns to shit.”
“At least give me the stuff I paid for,” his brother says.
“It doesn’t work like that.”