Russian Roulette- the Story of an Assassin pdfdrive com

Crime
and Punishment
, the book I had been forced to read at school. I could
almost have done the same.
He wanted to give me eight rubles for the earrings but Dima talked
him up to twelve. The two of them knew each other well.
“You’re a crook, Reznik,” Dima scowled.
“And you’re a thief, Dima,” Reznik replied.
“One day someone will stick a knife in you.”
“I don’t mind. So long as they buy it from me first.”
Dima took the money and we went back out into the sunlight. He gave
me three rubles, keeping nine for himself, and when I looked down
reproachfully at the crumpled notes he clapped me on the back. “That’s
three weeks’ rent, soldier,” he said.
“What about the other three rubles?”
“That’s my commission. If you hadn’t had me with you, that old crook
would have ripped you off.”
I’d been ripped off anyway but I didn’t complain. Dima had said I
could stay with him for three weeks. It was exactly what I wanted to
hear.
“Let’s get some breakfast!” he said.
We ate breakfast in the smallest, grimiest restaurant it would be
possible to imagine. Somehow, I ended up paying for that too.
So began my stay in Moscow. I adapted very quickly to the way of life.
The truth is that nobody did anything very much. They stole, they ate,
they survived. I spent long hours outside the station with Dima, Roman
and Grigory. The two boys didn’t warm to me but gradually they began
to accept that I was there. At the same time, Dima had made me his
special project. I wondered if he might have had a younger brother at

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some time. He never spoke about his past life but that was how he
treated me. When I write about him now, I still see him with the sleeves
of his precious leather jacket falling over his hands, his smile, the way
he swaggered along the street, and I wonder if he is alive or dead. Dead
most probably. Homeless kids in Moscow never survived long.
Dima taught me how to beg. You had to be careful because if the
police saw you they would pick you up and throw you into jail. But my
fair hair, and the fact that I looked so young, helped. If I stood outside
the Bolshoi Theatre at night, I could earn as much as five rubles from the
rich people coming out. There were tourists in Red Square and I would
position myself outside St Basil’s Cathedral with its towers and twisting,
multicoloured domes. I didn’t even have to speak. Once, an American
gave me five dollars, which I passed on to Dima. He gave me fifty
kopecks back but that was his own special exchange rate. I knew it was
worth a lot more.
I got used to the city. Streets that had seemed huge and threatening
became familiar. I could find my way around on the Metro. I visited
Lenin, lying dead in his tomb, although Dima told me that most of the
body was made of wax. I also saw the grave of Yuri Gagarin, the first
man in space. Not that he meant anything to me now. I went to the big
shops – GUM department store and Yeliseev’s Food Hall and stared at all
the amazing food I would never be able to afford. Just once, I visited a
bathhouse near the Bolshoi and enjoyed the total luxury of sitting in the
steam, breathing in the scent of eucalyptus leaves and feeling warm and
clean.
And I stole.
We needed to buy food, cigarettes and – most importantly – vodka. It
sometimes seemed that it was impossible to live in Tverskaya without
alcohol and every night there were terrible arguments when somebody’s
bottle was finished. We would hear the screams and the knife fights, and
the next day there would often be fresh blood on the stairs. Those who
couldn’t afford vodka got high on shoe polish. I’m not lying. They would
spread it on bread and place it on a hot pipe, then breathe in the fumes.
No matter how much time I spent begging, we never had enough
money and I wasn’t surprised to find myself back at Reznik’s, the
pawnshop. With Dima’s help, I got fifteen rubles for my mother’s
necklace; more than the earrings but less than I’d hoped. I was

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determined not to part with her ring. It was the only memory of her that
I had left.
And so, inevitably, I turned to crime. One of Dima’s favourite tricks
was to hang around outside an expensive shop, watching as the
customers came out with their groceries. He would wait while they
loaded up their car, then either Roman or Grigory would distract them
while he snatched as much as he could out of the boot and then ran for
it. I watched the operation a couple of times before Dima let me play the