Bleeding under control, we’re sitting in the living room, across from one another. I’m in the chair; she’s on the couch. I get this notion like we’re about to go to the prom.
There’s a nervous energy but I dig on it. I like this woman. So much so that I want her to stay okay. I’m watching her for signs of concussion and thus far she looks like she’s recovering fine. Keeps pressing the sheet to her head, checking it.
“Hey, yo, listen. Stop doing that, it’s clotted, you’ll mess it up.”
She doesn’t respond. I’ve fetched her a glass of water, from which she takes a long drink. Wipes her mouth with her sleeve.
“Yakiv is—”
“A killer and a rapist, I know.”
She shakes her head impatiently. “Mafia, back in Ukraine. Assume he start with running goods, not legal stuff. Guns, drugs. Then it was people. Before this ‘Occurrence’ …”
I nod emphatically. Trying to vibe: skip this part. Everybody has a Valentine’s Occurrence story—where were you when, how you felt, how you’re feeling now, etc., etc. I’m not the least bit interested in such touchyfeely nostalgia, and I don’t want to hear it.
But Iveta doesn’t go there. She continues, “Transport mostly girls, some boys, but mostly girls. For, you know …”
Yup, I know. That was a worldwide epidemic.
“Tell them they have job at nice restaurant or hospital, whatever. Then takes away the passport. Puts them in apartment …”
“I know what you’re describing. Tragic.” I say it and mean it.
“Me too, I was one of these girls.” Her face flares and she looks at me accusingly. “But I never did anything like that. I was student, trained as nurse, speech therapist you know, I have some skills. He was talking very poorly, like with a stutter. I can fix this. Also, he likes me very much. So I become his girlfriend, and later in Las Vegas we are married. God, he was so drunk. Well, okay, me too.”
A wan smile. She takes a Newport out of an open pack on the coffee table. Offers me one.
This is a loopy deal. We’re, like, hanging out. I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’m allergic. To menthols.”
“Oh. So is it okay if I … ?”
“Yes, it doesn’t bother me secondhand. Plus, your house.”
True this. She fires it up, exhales.
“I should say to you, leave. Why haven’t I said leave?”
I shrug. “I have a gun.”
“Yes. What is your name?”
“Dewey.”
“That’s a strange name.”
“It’s African.”
She shrugs. “Dewey, I don’t know how you’re involved with this, but these people …” She trails off.
“Well, I’m a freelancer. I’m not tied to one thing or the other, per se.”
“Yes, but in the end we all work for somebody. I should really check on Dmitry. May I go do this?”
“Of course.”
Iveta gets up and exits. I scan the room.
Really and truly: the joint is depressing, and is in possession of not one item of interest. Amazing how people choose to live.
I take the opportunity to bust out some PurellTM. The only thing that could make this place more depressing would be the presence of a cat.
I hate cats. I really fucking hate cats.
Subdued voices from upstairs.
I take a pill. Have to chill, gotta destress. I can’t believe I started thinking about cats. Cats are satanic. Choke on a piece of steak in your apartment alone, and your beloved cat will walk all over your corpse and eat the chunk of meat straight out of your dead throat—
“Dewey, don’t move.”
Sweet Christ. I’m an idiot.
Iveta is in the doorway, aiming what looks like a Sig Sauer P220 at my head. Naturally.
“Place the pistol on the floor and kick it away.”
Goddamnit. I could probably take her out first, but I do as I’m told. I don’t want to hurt this woman.
The gun skitters away, under the fake rosewood IKEA entertainment center. I hate anything called an “entertainment center,” you just know it can only look shitty. I hate IKEA. It’s an inhuman environment, toxic. I wonder about the IKEA in Red Hook, Brooklyn, tomblike, abandoned.
“Stand up slowly.”
I start to get up, perhaps a bit too quickly. I’m anxious and unhappy with my performance here.
“Slowly! I said stand up, but do it slowly!” She shouts this, her voice cracking on the “up.”
Dmitry peers around her legs. He’s wearing a backpack, and holds a largish Reebok sports bag.
They’re going to run.
I stand, as slow as I conceivably can. Iveta tells Dmitry something, and he scurries out the front door. Yeah, they’re gonna jet.
“I get it,” I say. “I won’t follow you …”
As I’m finishing this sentence, I observe (too late now) that she has shifted her aim to my leg. Without pause, Iveta shoots me in the knee.
Prior to the pain eclipsing everything else, I’m thinking she’s got fantastically steady hands. And although she owes me a pair of slacks, I’m thinking I don’t intend on holding this incident against her.