something else. This time it took him only a few seconds. Then he was gone, leaving the handcuff dangling from the steering wheel and half of his tools on the floor of the van. He didn’t bother to shut the passenger door.
Yuxia reached over, pulled the door shut, then settled herself in the driver’s seat again and put the vehicle into gear.
Then she took one last look back at the apartment building. What about Zula and her two hacker boys? The one who was bad for her, and the one who was good for her?
CSONGOR WAS A bit slower than Peter when it came to picking his handcuff. Zula noticed that he was sticking his tongue out as he worked. Somehow, from that, she concluded it was best to remain absolutely still and not distract him.
She, however, was growingly distracted by a sound that was echoing down the stairwell and getting louder every second. It was a human voice, repeating the same utterance, again and again, as if the speaker were an actor trying to memorize an elusive snatch of dialog. At the beginning she could only make out a few of the more percussive consonants, but as the speaker got closer, one flight at a time, she was able to piece the sounds together into words.
He was saying: “You FUCKINK bitch! You FUCKINK bitch! You FUCKINK bitch!…”
It was Ivanov and he was saying this in a tone, more of astonishment than of anger, as if the degree of fucking-bitchness exhibited today by Zula went far beyond all known historic precedents, to the point where Ivanov himself almost could not credit the testimony of his own senses. As he proceeded, his astonishment only mounted, and when he said “FUCKINK” his voice would flutter, for a moment, up into a falsetto before collapsing back into “bitch.”
In spite of all her efforts not to, she glanced at Csongor to see how he was doing. He reacted immediately, which told her that he could hear it too and that he understood its significance.
Then the chant was interrupted with a sudden “YOU!”
Ivanov was only two, perhaps three flights above them. His footfalls had stopped.
He had to be talking to Peter; but Peter made no response that Zula could hear.
“All by yourself?” Ivanov asked. He had to repeat the question and insist that Peter supply an answer. Finally Zula was able to make out some sort of faint response, kind of a yelping sound, from Peter.
“And where is your lovely girlfriend then?”
The conversation, if that was the right word for it, was nothing more than a series of utterances from Ivanov:
“Ah, brave Peter goes ahead to scout for danger? Zula waits behind, ready to follow? Shall we go and have conversation with Zula? No? Vwy not? Perhaps story is lie? Yes? Is lie? Zula is in cellar for other reason? Maybe because she is CHAINED TO PIPE!? Because BRAVE BOYFRIEND left her behind? TO DIE? While BRAVE BOYFRIEND ran away LIKE FUCKINK RAT?”
A hand came down gently on Zula’s shoulder, and she jumped away so violently that she practically split the skin on her wrist when the manacle pulled her up short. But it was only Csongor. He had gotten free. He put a finger to his lips, then dropped to one knee, in the attitude of a man proposing marriage, and went to work on her handcuff with the bobby pin. At first he tried to get access to the keyhole on the manacle that encircled her wrist, but this was pointed downward and it was difficult for him to get the right angle on it, so he gave up on that and began working on the one that was locked around the pipe, which was tilted toward him conveniently.
“How does BRAVE GIRL like Zula get such piece of shit boyfriend!?” Ivanov was hollering. “What would your parents think of you, Peter!? Who raised you anyway? Wolves? Gypsies? Answer question! Not just sob like little girl. Ah, you FUCKINK… PIECE… of SHIT!”
Each of the three words was punctuated by a boom. Csongor jumped at the first one and dropped the bobby pin. Soon enough he had snatched it up and resumed work on the manacle.
At the sound of Ivanov’s gun, Zula had instinctively turned away from the door at the base of the stairs and now she stayed in that position, focusing all her attention on Csongor’s hands, like a little kid who thinks that the monster will go away if she pretends it isn’t there. This was some really stupid shit, but nothing that had happened in the last few days had really prepared her for anything like what had apparently just happened to Peter.
“Csongor!” called a soft voice.
Zula and Csongor both startled and turned around to discover Ivanov in the room with them, a semiautomatic pistol in one hand, pointed at the floor.
“This is good,” Ivanov said. “Finally, someone is real man.”
Csongor gave up on picking the manacle and rose to his feet, standing at Zula’s side, facing Ivanov from perhaps eight feet away. Ivanov was gazing on Zula’s face in a way that made Csongor want to intercept the eye line; he took half a step forward and got between Zula and Ivanov.
“Yes,” Ivanov said. “This is proper. I always knew you were proper gentleman, Csongor. Now, move aside so that I can put bullet in head of lying bitch.”
“No,” Csongor said.
Ivanov rolled his eyes. “I understand you must continue gentleman behavior. Is all quite proper. But situation is as follows. I told Zula she must tell truth about apartment or I would kill her. Zula lied. Now I must carry out end of deal as promised. Surely you understand.”
Ivanov now raised the weapon so that he could sight along its barrel and sidestepped a little bit so that he could draw a bead on Zula. But Csongor moved to get in the way.
“Is not game of hockey. Is not puck. Is fuckink
“Yes, I can,” Csongor pointed out.
“Csongor! You are only man in whole building who deserves to be alive,” Ivanov pointed out. “Please stop being fuckink asshole. Don’t you want to get old and grow the mustache? Drive the bus?”
Zula could only interpret those questions as further proof of Ivanov’s derangement, but they seemed to mean something to Csongor, who shrugged.
“Zula wants you to live. Don’t you, Zula?”
It was an odd question. Csongor turned around to look at her.
As he did, Zula saw Ivanov lunge forward with unexpected speed.
The look on Zula’s face told Csongor that something was wrong and Csongor began to swivel his head back—just in time to receive a crushing blow on the jaw from the butt of Ivanov’s gun. Csongor spiraled toward the floor. Zula was able to get half underneath him and cushion the impact. She got her free hand under his head and cradled it until it reached the floor.
Then she was stuck, sitting on the floor with Csongor’s full weight on her lap. He must have weighed well over 250 pounds.
Zula wet her lips and opened her mouth to make the last speech of her life, in which she would try to explain to Ivanov why it didn’t make sense to kill Peter for not treating Zula chivalrously and then shoot Zula in the head while she was handcuffed to a pipe.
There was a series of deafening bangs. The side of Ivanov’s head was ripped off by an invisible shovel and flung across the room. He dove sideways as if trying to catch his brains before they hit the floor.
Zula now noticed that there was another person in the room: a tall black man. He was carrying a long weapon that Zula recognized from the re-u as an AK-47.
His eyes met hers.
“English?” he asked.
“American,” she said.
“Your confusion is understandable, but I was inquiring, not as to
A faint jingle sounded from one of Ivanov’s pockets. The man reached in and drew out a handful of change, sorted through it, and pulled out one item that was not a coin: a handcuff key. “Bingo,” he said. Slinging the assault rifle over his shoulder, he stood, strode over to Zula’s side, and unlocked the end of her handcuff that was locked around the pipe. “Freedom!” he proclaimed brightly.
