A short trip on the marvelous subway system and I reached Forty-Fifth Street and a lovely little boutique— I’m being polite—called Ivan’s. Or that’s what everyone calls it. On the street sign it just says PAWN SHOP. And in case one needs services beyond pawning one’s ill-gotten goods, there are additional hand-lettered signs taped up all over the windows: check cashing, money transfer, loans, phone cards for sale, fortunes told. I didn’t need any of those things.
I pushed my way in, immediately greeted by the odor of illegally bought tax-free Russian cigarettes. A young fellow I’d never met before sat behind the counter (said counter being glass. A display case showing an extensive array of watches, some still engraved with the previous owner’s initials) chewing on a lollipop and reading the latest issue of something called Maxim.
“Hello,” I greeted.
“Hey,” he said, not looking up. Must have been an engaging article.
“I need to see Tchekhy.”
He looked away from the magazine, sized me up, looked back down. “Nobody here by that name.”
“I see. Do you smoke?”
“Hmm? No.”
“Then you can imagine my confusion, because I happen to know Tchekhy does smoke. I know what brand he smokes, and I can smell that brand right now. I can even see some smoke coming from behind that black curtain to your left.”
That got him to close the magazine. He slid off the stool, calmly put the magazine down, and pulled up the front of his shirt to reveal a snub-nosed revolver tucked into his pants. “There is nobody here named Tchekhy,” he repeated slowly, as I evidently had a learning deficiency.
Now he was confused. “Who are you?”
“Tell him Efgeniy is here. And be quick about it.”
“Fuck you,” he muttered, walking through the curtain. Kids these days.
A few seconds later Tchekhy poked his head out. “Efgeniy! Come!” he waved.
He led me through the curtain and down the unlit staircase. We passed the surly counter help on the way, and Tchekhy cuffed him on the side of the head, almost as an afterthought. I resisted the urge to do the same.
The basement of the pawnshop is geek paradise, and Tchekhy Ivanovich Gruschenko is its undisputed master. There are a half-dozen computers, printers, scanners, and things I have no name for, whose purpose I don’t understand. (What little I do know about computers I know thanks to Tchekhy, but there are a few things he won’t explain to me because doing so would make me “legally liable.” Which is just as well. I don’t think I would understand it anyway.) Cables run along almost every single portion of the floor to power all of the equipment.
A corner of the basement is devoted to portraiture, which comes in handy when manufacturing bogus IDs. Another corner holds a couch, which is about the only thing in the whole basement I know how to use. Keeping the place from overheating are two floor fans and a severely overworked air conditioner shoved in the only window. His power bill would be insane if he ever actually paid it, but I don’t think he does. I think he steals electricity directly from the city. When he turns everything on at once, the streetlights dim.
Tchekhy doesn’t fit the profile. He’s a tubby little second-generation ex-pat Russian with too much hair in too many of the wrong places. Back when the United States and the Soviet Union were playing nukes at twenty paces, he was a major dealer in espionage, but nowadays he gets most of his work from the Russian mafia and poor immortal bastards like me.
Tchekhy stepped into the nest of equipment in the center of the room to access a Styrofoam cooler nestled between two box computer thingies, extracting a Coke. I tiptoed my way after him—I’m always afraid I’m going to step on a live wire—and sat in a squeaky old office chair.
“So, my old friend,” he began, popping open his Coke and nestling into his own chair, “you need new passports already?” Behind him a large flat screen monitor was displaying what looked like live satellite images of South America. He hacks into government surveillance just for kicks sometimes.
“Not just yet,” I said. “I need a different sort of favor today. Two, actually.”
He perked up. “Really? Anything illegal?”
“Only marginally.”
He looked disappointed, as any good anarchist would. I reached into my bag and pulled out the miniature camera Iza had used. “There are photos of a police file in this. I need to read them.” I tossed him the device.
“Digital,” he said, examining it. “USB port. Very light. Very expensive?”
“Moderately.”
“Very sleek. Can I keep it?”
“When you’re done, sure.”
“You are too kind.”
“I know. It’s a failing.”
“And the second thing?” he asked.
“That’s a bit more complicated.”
I explained to him the matter of the bounty placed on me while he fiddled with the camera, plugging it into one of his stations and pulling up the digital photos. By the time I was finished, the printer was already running.
“And this man who had the papers?” he asked.
“He ran into a bullet. It was very sad.”
“
He pulled the sheets of paper from the printer and handed them to me without examination. “So, there is a wealthy person out there who knows a few more things than he or she ought to about your unusual nature. He or she is placing anonymous advertisements in newspapers and hiring armed men to hunt you down. And you wish for me to find out who.”
Needless to say, Tchekhy is aware of my immortality. If anybody were to notice I don’t age it would be the guy taking my photograph every seven years. (You have to take a new photo every time because of wear and tear on the old photo, but more importantly because clothing styles change.) You might be thinking his knowledge would make him a prime suspect, because after all, somebody had to cough up information, and for this particular someone, secrets are currency. But I’ve known Tchekhy since he was ten years old, which was when his father Ivan—who also did my passports for me—introduced us. I was also there fifteen years later when Ivan was dying prematurely of lung cancer, when Tchekhy took an oath in front of his father to keep my nature secret. Then we all got outrageously drunk. That’s the kind of loyalty you can’t buy.
“Let me see the contract.” I handed him the manila folder. He pulled the phone out first.
“This is very interesting,” he said.
“How interesting?”
“You say this is a scrambled phone?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Satellite, no doubt. I wonder what manner of encryption it uses.”
“That’s your department. I’m no good at that stuff,” I admitted.
“Have you used it?”
“No. I think it’s only good for one phone call. I figured I’d wait until you’d seen it.”
“Very smart.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He put it on one of the nearly clean counters and waved a peculiar device—it looked like an old TV antenna, complete with tin foil—over it.
“That’s lucky,” he said.
“What is?”
You carry the electronic device of a man you killed. Did you consider that it might have a tracking
