It was late afternoon in Tironkorn, the suburb his cheap hotel was in. The ceiling fan had been broken for eight months now, and vigorously waving a paper one was starting to numb his left arm. Rock had just shifted to a cooler spot on the sofa when his mobile rang.
Caller ID was unknown. Weird, it was usually Dutch ringing this number. Rock flipped the phone open. "Hello?"
"Hello, japonski," came an all-too-familiar voice, amusement colouring the nickname. Having Balalaika on the line sent Rock into nervous overdrive, wondering what he did so wrong that earned the ear of his boss's boss. Back at Asahi Industries, mistakes could be forgotten with a bottle of sake, but out here, they'd glass you first, then use the alcohol to set you on fire.
"Hi, Miss Balalaika," Rock said, trying to stay calm. "What do you need?"
"Just a moment of your time, Rock," she said. There was a low creak, like an office chair curling back. "I hear you've been with Lagoon for a whole year now, is that right?"
Rock glanced at the peeling calendar. "Yeah, it's tomorrow. I guess this anniversary's been a year coming now." He winced at his own lame joke. Damn, he was nervous. To his surprise, Balalaika just laughed.
"Well, you should celebrate!" she said. "Have you ever driven outside the city?"
"Uh, no… never."
"Well, are you free tonight? I'll show you around." Balalaika's voice dipped a little, full of promise.
Rock figured he wasn't in trouble, but he also didn't want to risk saying no. It couldn't hurt to go for a nice jaunt out of town either.
"Sure, I'm not doing anything," Rock said. "Do you suppose your car's got aircon at least?" he asked, eyeing his broken fan.
He felt her grin over the phone. "Even better," she said.
They arranged to meet in an hour outside his hotel. Rock threw himself into the shower's lukewarm water, hoping to wash away the miserable heat, but he just ended up sticking to the inside of his new shirt. Rummaging through the drawers, Rock wondered whether getting a lift from a mafia boss required a tie or not, then put one on anyway. He was just clearing away old cups when a car horn blasted loudly from the street below.
Rock hurried downstairs to the main street, where Balalaika was waving from a shiny black convertible.
His mouth fell open. "Is that actually a BMW?" Rock exclaimed. The way the sun glinted off the spotless chassis, it exuded pure, designed luxury.
"Absolutely!" Balalaika said proudly, getting out. "I had to wait three days at the dock, but the handling is worth it." She pointed out everything from the paint finish to the tire treads, and Rock was almost disappointed when she finally told him to get in.
"Miss Balalaika, you don't even need to show me around anymore, your car's amazing enough," Rock said, grinning as he climbed into the passenger seat.
Balalaika snorted. "You haven't seen anything yet," she said wickedly, and floored it.
The car leapt forward in a single, gut-wrenching jolt. Roanapurr's familiar buildings bled into a continuous blur as the car sped through the city, making it to the highway in record time. With the roof down, the wind whipped past hard enough to sting, but it was cooler on the fast roads as Balalaika drove out of the city, heading for the distant hills.
Rock let the air run through his hair, stripping away the city's mugginess. In front of them were huge plantations of banana trees, standing like tattered umbrellas in the sun. He looked over at Balalaika. Her thick blonde hair streamed out behind her, while her eyes followed the road intently. Soon, Rock couldn't see Roanapurr at all; it felt like he'd just travelled to another world completely, speeding without a care, the sun on his neck and the wind in his face.
They reached the mountain roads and had to slow down, climbing the slope gradually. Rock let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Balalaika offered him a pack of cigarettes; he took one, then one for her too.
"Thanks," she said, craning her neck towards the lighter. They smoked in silence as they drove on, until Balalaika pointed out a large, lone house just off the road.
"That's Salowaluk Place. From out here, it looks nice, but the architect who designed it must have been crazy," Balalaika said. "No corridors."
Closer to the house, Rock could make out the vaulting curves and embellishments of a traditional French mansion, topped off with little cupids. Which had bullet holes in them. Lots and lots of holes.
"Was there a gunfight here, Miss Balalaika?" He could follow the individual sprays of bullets where they gouged out the main door and support columns.
"Yep. Big one. When we first got here, plenty of small gangs came after us, hoping for fresh blood. We fought them in and out of the city." She took a long drag. Rock bit his lip. It was weird remembering that Balalaika had only been in Roanapurr a few years, he thought. She seemed a constant in the chaos that brewed in the city, merciless and iconic like a statue.
They turned with the road and Rock could make out a giant hole in the rear of Salowaluk Place, an entrance blasted open with surgical precision. Hotel Moscow never did anything unprofessionally, it seemed.
"What was it like when you first arrived, Miss Balalaika?" Rock asked, curious.
Balalaika thought about it for a while, one hand tapping on the wheel. "Messy," she said finally. She flicked the cigarette butt out of the car. "It was mainly the triads running business, with dozens of little gangs all fighting with each other, like dogs over scraps.
"When we came in, we took down most of the small gangs, then combined enough territory to go after the triads," she added. "We got the docks and weapons racket out of that, plus a bit of the heroin."
"Mr. Chang probably didn't like that," Rock remarked.
Balalaika looked distant. "No, he didn't," she agreed.
They finally made it to the top of the hill. Balalaika parked the car in the shade of some trees and got out, leaning on the bonnet. Rock followed suit, feeling the engine cool under him. Standing over the quiet countryside, Rock noticed Balalaika was wearing a flowing red sundress, its spaghetti straps revealing long, twisting scars that ran across her upper arms, travelling up from her chest and neck to stop just before her hairline.
"You know, I've been meaning to ask you a small favour," Balalaika said.
Rock paused, new cigarette halfway lit. "What favour, Miss Balalaika?"
"I'm hoping you can patch the holes in the report Dutch turned in," Balalaika said lightly. "He didn't say whether the spare G3 rifles got bought or not. Do you know what happened to them?"
Rock remembered Revy delightedly playing with one on the voyage home. "Yeah, Revy borrowed them. Should I tell her to give them back?" he said.
"No, I just wanted to know where they were," Balalaika said. She shifted closer to him, pulling out a cigarette. He obliged and lit them both, the coiling smoke replacing conversation for a while.
"If we wait a few more minutes, the sun will start to set behind us," Balalaika said. Rock turned around and shielded his eyes from the glare. The sun was indeed sinking behind rows of banana trees, bathing everything in an orange-gold glow. He felt a warm hand on his back.
"Look at the city," Balalaika breathed.
Rock obligingly turned back, and saw that Roanapurr had taken on that golden light, painting itself in temporary glory. At this distance, there was no trash on the road, or street rats dying in gutters, just a twinkling cityscape. It was like the sunset transformed the city like Cinderella, urchin by day, princess of cities by night.
This cesspool, Rock's new home, looked beautiful. Even though Revy proclaimed that Roanapurr would only look good when it got vaporised by an atomic strike, Rock wanted to tell her a different story.
Turned out Roanapurr only looked good when you were smoking with a Russian woman on her convertible at sunset. And it wasn't a bad look.
They watched the city fade from gold to pink and purple, then artificially twinkle out into a landscape of night lights.