He noticed with surprise that she did not try to resist. On the contrary, she seemed to press her body toward him (and she smelled so deliciously female!). She gasped with excitement.
Maxim had an instant hard-on.
But he didn’t lose his head. He took off his coat with the webcam that was always hooked up to the game server, and hung it up in the hall so that the camera was facing the wall. There was no reason for them to watch this.
Zhanna moaned. She squeaked. It was unbelievable. You only come across this kind of girl once every six months, Maxim thought to himself.
He drilled her in her cornhole like a wild animal. Like a baboon. Like an orangutan. And she enjoyed it.
That crazy bitch couldn’t get enough. “More!” she howled, cursing like a Shanghai whore giving herself to a platoon of sailors.
They peeled themselves apart. He listened without interrupting as she praised him. He listened as she cursed her impotent husband. As she begged him to stay. Forever. How happy they would be together. Fucking amazing. Those were the exact words she used:
And then he drilled her some more, with the same ferocity.
He came.
Then he noticed she had an Adam’s apple.
Fuck!
A transvestite!
It was a dirty and dangerous game that Nikita had gotten him into.
He stayed cool, not letting on that he had noticed.
“Let me get us some drinks,” said the transvestite. “Okay?”
“Sure.”
The transvestite brought in two glasses of wine from the next room. And Maxim realized that he wouldn’t drink it even at gunpoint.
He took the glass.
“What’s wrong?”
“I want to watch you drink. You’re so beautiful, I’m sure you drink beautifully too. My cock is ready for action just watching you.”
The transvestite laughed, and took two sips. His Adam’s apple went up and down two times and then stilled. It wasn’t that big. But it was obviously a man’s.
Maxim set his glass down.
“Why don’t we start off with the usual question,” he said, his fingers locking around the transvestite’s throat. Not too tight, but probing. “Who are you working for? Tell me quietly.”
In all likelihood, at that very moment Nikita was glued to his own transmitter, which connected to an opponent’s webcam and mic, and it was extremely important that he not hear a thing. Each player had a transmitter that allowed him to hook up to his opponent’s channels and receive picture and sound from their webcams, broadcast nonstop. The pictures helped players track each other down if they recognized their opponent’s location.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. Now listen carefully: this is your one chance to stay alive. Tell me the truth. Everything, and in great detail. Who hired you and why? And what do they want from me?”
The transvestite shrank back. And spilled the beans. About how they sometimes sent people to him who he didn’t know. And he “served” them, the same way he had served Maxim. Then he would put clonidine into their wine. And when his client fell asleep, he would call a certain Artyom, who would finish them off while they were still knocked out. Then, at night, the body would be taken away by two bald guys in a jeep. The transvestite knew nothing more. The answer why seemed pretty clear, but who was behind this? That was the question.
Another question was how had Nikita turned into such a cunt? The traitor! But Maxim tried not to think about that.
“You don’t kill?”
“No,” answered the transvestite, blanching.
“So you guys have a division of labor and everything. You got one son of a bitch working as a decoy, another giving sexual favors, and the third does the killing. Four and five get rid of the body. You guys are a goddamn hockey team!”
“Please don’t kill me,” whispered the transvestite.
“Did you tell me the truth?”
“Yeah, honest. In the beginning I didn’t know what was going on. I just wanted to make a little dough. But then, after that first time, I couldn’t refuse. They’d get me too.”
“All right, you can live. Call him.”
“Who?”
“The killer, Artyom.”
When the door opened, Artyom got a blow on the head with the handle of a gun. As he was collapsing, Maxim saw that it was Nikita.
What a fucking world, Maxim thought. What a goddamn fucking world.
He even spat on the floor. Rather, he spat on Nikita’s stained jacket, which was his uniform.
“All right, holy man, start talking,” said Maxim when Nikita came to.
Nikita was quiet.
“Do you realize you’re not getting out of here alive, you Judas?”
Nikita nodded.
“Did you kill Arkady?”
Nikita nodded his head again, staring at the floor.
“Talk.”
“I had to.”
“What, does your five-year-old daughter have leukemia?” asked Maxim, recalling the thirty-year-old whose neck he’d broken, snapped just like a chicken’s.
“No, I owe big money. They took my wife. Gave me three months to pay.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred grand.”
“Holy shit!” Maxim roared. “What are you doing? I have the money. I have a million! I could have—”
“How was I supposed to know that? It’s like everybody just kind of up and left. Life fuckin’ pulled us apart in all different directions.”
“Okay. I give you my word that I’ll get your wife out of there. Now talk.”
So Nikita started talking again. He told Maxim how the program manager had decided to play under the table. Of course, he kept that secret from the organizers, who paid the prize money. Player number four was supposed to get ten million. No risks on his part, because the manager had put together an unofficial team. That was where Nikita was working. The unofficial team had two functions: guarding number four, and not letting opponents get near him. Also, they got rid of “extra” players using any means possible, including what they had tried on Maxim. The payoff for the mongrel team was supposed to come from the prize money that number four would receive. Nikita agreed. How much the others were getting he didn’t know; naturally, the manager would be taking the largest cut.
When Nikita finished, Maxim handed him a gun with one shot in it.
“Don’t worry about your wife, I’ll get her out. But don’t try any funny stuff, cause you know my response time was always better than yours. Do I make myself clear?”
Nikita nodded and moved into the far room.
Time slowed down to almost a standstill. It got as thick as ketchup that doesn’t want to come out of the bottle in the freezing cold.
Outside, a baby started crying.
