man whose loyalty was purchased uncertainly for several nights of passionless sex and the gift of the gold box passed down to her by her father. The Mafia member had risked his life and eventually lost it by contacting a cousin in Moscow.
Two months later, the great-granddaughter of Boris Antonovich Dermanski had lost the precious, carefully compiled-contents of her package to the man with the limp, and escaped with the gift of her own life.
Now she sat as the winter wind hummed down the street outside the building where she shared a room with a friend. She looked out the frosted window and saw snow dancing madly in thin waves down the street.
She watched for hours, finally falling asleep in her chair, covered by a blanket. She dreamed of her father and mother, of the limping man at the train station, of her dead husband, and of a dark formless mass streaming toward her from under the door.
She awoke with a gasp to the sound of the Trans-Siberian Express roaring to a stop at the train station less than a mile away. She awoke to the sound and a warm light.
Outside the window, the sun was shining brightly.
