Chapter GRIFFIN #2
“Do what? Griffin, where are you going?” Marcus asks, panic returning to his voice.
“I have to go,” I say, already walking away.
“For God’s sake, stay away from the hospital! The place must be crawling with Malakov’s men!”
I don’t even turn around. The hospital is a noisy trap. The tailor, on the other hand...
“Why are you limping?! Griffin!”
I have a visit to make.
The path to Schmidt’s tailor shop is a microcosm of the city. The asphalt looks like it was spit out on purpose, cracked and with the dignity of a forgotten battlefield, but maybe that’s just my projection. The place emanates a kind of miserable dignity.
I hear the rapid taps of my shoes against the concrete, the whir of the new arm synchronized with my heart rate, the pain from the bullet that hasn’t even had time to heal in my thigh, and the constant feeling that I’m going to find a piece of myself that was left behind on these streets.
This is no man’s land, the purgatory of the wretched, the intermediate kingdom where everyone just wants to make it to the end of the day alive.
The progression becomes automatic, as if my body knows the route by heart—turn left at the graffitied alley, jump over the puddle of oil with a rainbow on the sidewalk, dodge the homeless man who always asks for a cigarette, even though he knows no one will give him one.
It’s impossible not to feel the eyes; the gaze of those who recognize their own kind.
An addict sitting in the doorway of a ruined hardware store watches me with a priestly respect.
An old prostitute with purple-dyed hair assesses my appearance and deduces in two seconds that I’m not a client.
Here, my prosthesis and my bruises only make me more legible; I’m just another variant of the survivor.
The “Schmidt’s Tailor Shop” sign is unlit, the window covered in dust. The mannequin on display must have been white once—now it’s a dirty gray, and the suit it wears is so old that if anyone wore it, they’d be stoned for obsolescence.
When I enter, the little bell on the door is so faint and out of place that I feel sorry for it.
The smell hits me head-on: a mixture of mothballs, aged wool, and the slightly sweet steam from an iron.
It’s an aroma that provokes involuntary memories—school uniforms and the few times my mother took me to buy normal people’s clothes.
An old man is hunched behind the counter. He has something of an old owl about him: enormous eyes, translucent skin, rebellious white hair. He doesn’t notice me at first, but when he becomes aware of my presence, he just raises his head.
His gaze lingers on the prosthesis, then on my face, but there’s no judgment, just a kind of recognition. It makes me think he’s sewn up scars like these before.
“Can I help you, my son?” he asks with a thick German accent.
I approach the counter. I need an excuse. “I have a coat. The lining is torn.”
“Of course, of course. Bring it in. Mr. Schmidt fixes anything,” he says. His smile is a comforting cliché, paternal. “I am Mr. Schmidt.”
He’s exactly what Alexei would never understand. Intimidating him is out of the question. It would be like kicking a puppy.
“It’s not with me today. Actually, I need some information. I’m looking for a friend. A guy who helped people in this neighborhood.”
Schmidt’s smile doesn’t waver, but his eyes become more attentive. “Many good people help each other, my son.”
“But not all of them solve problems with Albanian loan sharks.”
Schmidt swallows hard. I notice because I’ve seen this gesture in others, when the memory is so heavy it suffocates them.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do,” I insist. “Karpov paid your debt because someone paid his first. An angel.” I lean over the counter. “I knew this angel when he didn’t have wings yet. When they called him Lucian.”
The name hits him. I see the recognition and the protective wall that rises in his eyes.
“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he lies, firmly.
“Alright,” I back off. “I understand. But maybe you know mine.” I look at him and offer a piece of my own soul as proof. “He used to call me Myrddin. At St. Gabriel’s orphanage. Before the nuns started calling him Seraphim.”
Schmidt’s chin trembles. The facade breaks. His pale blue eyes fill with an emotion I can’t decipher. “You... you’re one of his boys?”
“I’m the first,” I whisper, and the truth in those words hurts.
He slowly comes around the counter and stops in front of me. He’s small, fragile. His trembling hand comes up and touches the prosthesis. His wrinkled fingers trace a line over the carbon fiber.
“He would be sad to see this,” he says. “He always wanted to get you boys out of the violence.”
He’s the one who did this. I bite my tongue.
“...I know.”
Schmidt senses something bitter. He makes a small gesture, a nod of his chin toward a corner of the shop where two upholstered chairs in faded fabric hold the warmth of some previous century. Beside them, a patched-up electric heater hisses and burps ozone vapor.
“Sit down, boy. You’re trembling,” he says, with a kindness that disconcerts me. “I’ll make some tea. Chamomile tea. It calms the nerves.”
I want to refuse. I want to keep my distance, but my body is exhausted.
The pain in my thigh throbs. I sit down, sinking into the worn chair.
As he turns to fiddle with the electric kettle that is probably older than me, I watch him.
Only when the smell of chamomile fills my senses do I realize how tense I am.
Schmidt places the cup in my hands and closes my fingers around it.
The steam from the tea mixes with the hum of the heater, and I’m suspended in a childhood I never had.
Schmidt sits in the other chair, with a creak of old joints, and looks at the wall with his eyes lost in a memory.
“Do you know what it’s like to lose someone, my son?”
I find myself wanting to say ‘no’, because that’s what you do in these conversations, but I can only nod. Yes.
“My wife died fifteen years ago,” he begins.
“The kindest woman this neighborhood has ever known. When the leukemia took her, I wanted to close everything down. Throw every suit in the river. But she...” he pauses, “she made me promise I would continue. Because this place was about offering dignity to those the city always denied.”
I drink the tea, tasting flowers and trauma. My throat burns, but it hurts less than saying anything.
“The owner of this building... after years, he wanted to evict me to sell the land. I prayed. To God. And then Lucian came in here. Asked me to fix a button on his coat... and we talked. About the city, about fabrics, about flowers... and I told him what I was going through. He listened to me talk about my debts, my wife, my fears. He listened for over an hour.”
Lucian. I drink the rest of the tea in one go. The warmth makes my eyes water.
“The next day, the building owner came to me. He apologized and offered me a twenty-year lease for the same price. Lucian never mentioned it again.”
I remain silent. It’s his signature. No visible violence. Just the weight of his influence, moving everything in a way no one sees.
“He’s a good boy,” Schmidt says, with a tenderness reserved for ghosts. “Sometimes, when I work late, I find a hot meal at my door. Other times, a roll of expensive fabric I could never afford appears in the shop. He... he takes care of his own.”
He glances at me over his cup for just a moment. I feel the urge to ask him if he knows where Lucian gets the money for his blessings. But something convinces me that he knows.
I look at the old man and see the fear of what might happen if I reach Lucian. Of course, Schmidt knows more than he’s letting on—he knows Seraphim’s real name. He recognizes the currency of the underworld, knows that every debt is paid, sooner or later.
I put the cup down on the small table. “I need to find him,” I say. “Do you know where he is?”
Schmidt looks down, weighs his soul before deciding whether to give away another secret.
“I don’t know, my son. He never stays in one place for long.”
“But he has people,” I insist. “People he trusts, who are with him.”
The old man studies me, perhaps searching my face for a clue that I’m not just another predator hunting a saint. “Why are you looking for him?”
“Because...” I swallow hard. I don’t like the idea of lying to this old man, but I force a half-truth. “The person who’s hunting him is the same one who’s hunting me,” I say. “And I’m the only one who can get close.”
He weighs my truth for a long time. Finally, he seems to make a decision.
“He trusted you,” he says. “I remember your name. Myrddin. The strong boy.”
The idea of Seraphim mentioning my name to someone else, after everything that happened, consumes me.
I try to push the image away, but it clings to me.
It’s an internal struggle, a battle between the need to forget and the inevitability of remembering.
The strong boy. What does that mean? The idea of being reduced to a distant echo in his mind destroys me from the inside.
It’s an anger directed at myself for still caring.
Schmidt gets up, walks slowly to an old cash register, and takes out a piece of paper folded in four. He hands it to me.
“What is this?”
“Read the back.”
The paper smells of mold and is covered in small rust stains. On the back, a name and an address are written in a nervous hand:
Cain. St. Jude. Thursday night.
My heart almost stops.
“Cain is alive?”
The old man nods. “Those who carry much guilt never die.”
I don’t know what to say. I stare at the paper.
“Give this card to the priest at St. Jude’s on Thursday,” Schmidt continues. “Tell him you have a donation for ‘Schmidt’s cause’. If Cain is in town, he will find you.”
I think of the last time I saw Cain. Of his blood-stained hands.
He was crying.
If he’s really alive, it might be out of pure stubbornness.
“Thank you,” I say, the word sounding strange in my mouth.