Nikolay Volkov, Supergenius
Cornell University, Early February, 1995
"How'd you get here so fast?" Vasya blinked down at the coyote in his doorway. He'd called up here less than five minutes ago.
"Mobile telephone, my friend. Wave of the future." Kolya entered with a broad sweep of his hands, sat down at the drafting table and held up a device Vasya had only seen in movies, the kind of thing rich businessmen had in their cars. It was the size of a low-grade military radio with a retractable antenna.
"Huh." Vasya grunted, not really surprised. Kolya loved all things new. "You sounded like you were calling from inside a subway tunnel."
The coyote grinned, his gold incisors shining. He compressed the antenna and, with some difficulty, shoved the clunky device into his jacket pocket. "Still some bugs to work out. Test model." He looked around at the starkness of the dorm room, and it occurred to Vasya that his friend had never been in here before. "I knew you denied yourself the pleasures of the flesh but this is ridiculous. Not even a centerfold to keep you company?" he said, indicating the spartan room with its lack of décor. Only a model of the Stoneheart tower in Manhattan atop the table, and a poster for a Kandinsky exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art on the wall, along with a few of Vasya's own sketches, added any personal touches to the space.
"I like it just fine. Besides, for all I know you're homeless, since I still don't even know where you live," Vasya pointed out. "And it's not like I stay here permanently, so…"
"Fair enough, spoilsport." Kolya looked to his right, then his left, his fingers tapping a staccato rhythm on the table. "Shit, I just remembered I can't smoke in here, and I need a fix right now. You have some coffee or anything?"
Vasya pointed to his little refrigerator with a microwave on top. "There's some zavarka in a thermos. You can heat it up if you like."
While Kolya fixed his tea, Vasya watched with a careful eye. The coyote's eyes were wide and manic, and his body was twitching all over with the usual manic energy, but his pupils didn't seem to be fully dilated, the way they got when he was riding a high. That helps. He couldn't be here by accident, though. With Kolya it was never I'm just passing through or I was in the neighborhood. "You, uh, said you needed to talk?" he said, trying to keep things light.
Kolya drank deeply from the cup, sighing with pleasure. "What would you say if I offered you a business proposition?"
"I'd say that last time you offered me a proposition, I wound up at that sorority house where they wanted me to take my clothes off for money while they watched," said Vasya, shuddering at the memory.
"But you did wind up with a dozen beautiful ladies' telephone numbers that night. Which you never even used, to my knowledge. And didn't bother to share with your Kolyen'ka." The coyote pouted. "Waste not, want not, eh?"
"That's not the point, Kolya. You tricked me." He jabbed a finger into Kolya's chest. "I'm tired of getting tricked. And I'm tired of you taking advantage of me," he added, not wanting to admit that he'd never have met Mei, or gotten to tag along on the rat-hunting expeditions, had it not been for Kolya's "tricks."
Kolya set down the teacup and held up his hands defensively. "No, no. Not a trick. This is, as Americans say, 'the real deal,' my friend. This will make you a very rich man if you play your cards right."
He sat and stared for a long moment. He'd spend the last three and a half years hearing the same pitch from his father, his professors, the recruiters who came to campus. Near the top of his class at Cornell, so they said, he could pick and choose where he worked and never want for anything. Live in Manhattan. Have a summer home in the Hamptons. Circle in the same orbits as the Palmers, Kennedys, and Rockefellers of the world. Ensure that his mother would never want for medical care again. In America, if you work hard and study hard, even if you come from nothing, you can become something. "What's the catch?" he said, narrowing his eyes.
"Not really a catch. You come with me back to Brooklyn for a weekend here, a weekend there, I'll show you the ropes. Introduce you to the right people. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but you are, how do Americans say, 'socially awkward,' my friend."
Alexei's words echoed in his mind as if he'd been standing right behind, a ghost bearing a grim warning. That boy is a vor. Stay far away from him. "I don't know, Kolya. I'm behind already and we're barely into the semester." He gestured to the towering pile of paperwork next to the drafting table. "And don't you have work to do? You know, for your doctorate?"
The coyote shrugged. "Only so much I can do here before I go mad. Ithaca is a very small pond, and I am a big fish." He sipped at the dregs of tea. "You might be able to live like a monk, but I need some enjoyment in life. Remember, I was born to be a capitalist hedonist even if you were not."
Vasya's eyes flickered to the unopened letter from his advisor, clipped where he had left it. "I can't afford to miss any class," he said stubbornly, hearing his father's voice just as much as his own. "Maybe after I graduate, but I just can't right now. I'm sorry."
"I figured you'd say that," Kolya said, standing up and stretching casually. "If you change your mind, I'll be headed back tomorrow night. Meeting some business associates. I told them about you and they said you were just the type they were looking for. But, since you're up to your ass in schoolwork…"
"You told them about me?" Vasya interrupted, once again feeling hurt that Kolya talked about him behind his back. The thought of being able to go back so soon, to fulfill his promise to his mama, was instantly tempting, and he regretted the words as soon as he'd said them.
"Yeah. That you're smart, maybe the smartest chuvak I know. These guys want smart, Vasya. They want university education. How'd you think I wound up working with them?"
"I figured it was an accident."
Kolya playfully tossed a wadded-up ball of paper at him. "No accident that I wound up here. You know what Cornell's acceptance rate is like. And these men, they are even interested in my rat experiments."
"Why? Are they scientists or something?" Vasya frowned. Even he wasn't exactly sure why Kolya spent so much time studying rat behavior, no matter how fascinating it was.
"Who fucking cares? They pay me in cash, and they always have work for me, which is more than you can say for most employers. Anyway, think it over. It's too good to miss, Vasya. You really want to spend the rest of your life sitting in a room like this, writing papers nobody will ever read? Like your papa?"
He abruptly stood to his full height and leaned in close to Kolya, his voice deliberately low and even. "I am not my father."
"Glad to hear that. I'm not sure we'd be friends if you were. Your da seems like a stick in the mud, honestly," Kolya said, unfazed. He likewise stood up. "Anyway, I have to run, but I've got an extra seat on the Volkov Express back to Brooklyn tomorrow night. I'll have you back safe and sound before Monday classes. Take my card, it has this new phone number on it. Yeah?"
"Maybe, Kolya. I have to finish my work. I'm glad you came, though. Good night." He did, right before shepherding the coyote through the door and closing it before Kolya could get another word in edgewise.
Vasya had never been good at lying, and as he watched Kolya's wiry figure recede into the snowstorm below, he knew he'd told at least three tonight with a straight face. He had plenty of schoolwork to do, but not so much that he couldn't take a weekend away. And no matter what he'd said to Kolya, the prospect of a well-paying job, even a side job, was downright tempting, no matter how much his conscience nagged.
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is, Alexei's ghost seemed to say.
"Fuck off," he growled, trying to banish the embodiment of the third and most egregious lie he'd told: I am not my father.
No answer. He hadn't expected one.
"Well, I'm not," he said out loud to the walls, as if trying to prove a point. The same point I've been trying to prove for over 20 years now…
Sighing, Vasya turned over the card. He shoved it deep within his pocket before turning on his desk lamp and sharpening a pencil. He turned the page to look at the design he'd begun earlier that week, studied it, and scowled. Instead, he picked up his smaller, well-thumbed sketchbook, and, with a flash of inspiration, began to draw.
If I'm busy, I can't overthink…if I'm absorbed, I can't obsess…
Dolce Delight, Ithaca…The Next Afternoon
"You've been acting really strange, big fella. Something on your mind?" Mei sipped at her chai, an amused quirk on her lips.
There were a dozen somethings, none of which he felt comfortable discussing with her. "Just tired," Vasya sighed. And he was. He'd been up until nearly sunrise going over imaginary conversations with his parents, his advisor, and even Mei herself in between revisions of his drafting sketches. He poked halfheartedly at the remaining portion of his bear claw. "You want to finish that?"
"I'm good. I already had an apple fritter." She gently touched his hand. "Are you sure there's nothing bothering you? You've been scowling ever since we got here."
Her touch was electric, sending a jolt of excitement through him. "It's…complicated," he said, trying to sound philosophical, but the words came out instead like pure nerves. "You're friends with Kolya, right? You know him pretty well?"
"I guess so. I've known him a couple years." Mei's hand retreated, much to his disappointment. "You two have a fight? I'll go kick his scrawny ass for you, if you like…"
"No, nothing like that. He…made me an offer, a business offer, and I'm not sure what to do."
Mei's big brown eyes met his. "As long as we're not talking anything illegal, follow your gut. It's almost never gonna steer you wrong."
"Really?" Vasya spent so much time inside his own head, it was easy to forget he even had a gut sometimes. And with Kolya, the Rat King who freely indulged in illicit drugs and stolen explosives, 'legal' was only for lesser mortals. "That's it?"
"Okay, let's try something. I feel like you might have a hard time saying no to a friend, so I'll pretend to be Kolya. Little bit of role-playing." Mei pulled down her knit cap low over her brow. When she spoke again, her accent and mannerisms were all Kolya. "So, my friend, you want to make money. Be big rich American. No problem! I'll hook you up, get you in on the business, yeah?"
He had to laugh. "Not bad. But I'm still going to say no."
Mei leaned in closer over the table, moving the plate with the bear claw aside. "Hey, I don't know you as well as he does. But I know you've got a good conscience, and a good heart."
He wished he could tell her everything then…the secret envy he felt when he was overshadowed by Kolya, the growing unease he felt here at school, the chafing at his father's domineering side. I'd settle for having the courage to just ask her out. Instead, he offered her a rueful half-smile. "What if this deal might help your mother get better from a sickness? No matter if it were illegal or not?"
"Never really knew my mom. She died back in Vietnam when I was little. My dad, though?" Mei returned the expression, and her eyes sparkled with tears. "I'd walk through hell and spit in Satan's face if it meant helping him. You gotta do what you gotta do, you know?"
Vasya did know. He nodded at her before breaking the intimate eye contact. "People do weird things for love," he said softly, hoping she wouldn't catch the implication.
"Excuse me, I can take that if you're finished," another voice, gentle and feminine, interrupted. One of the café servers stood next to the table, a tray of dirty dishes in one hand, pointing to the bear claw plate with the other. Her nametag read Jen and she beamed at him.
"Yeah, that's fine." Vasya shrugged. "Can I get a to-go cup for the tea, though?"
"Sure. Um…are you guys together by any chance?"
"Like, together, together?" Mei said. "Nope. Just friends."
The waitress flicked her red braid over one shoulder. "Oh. Cornell?" she asked casually, even though most of the regulars were students and faculty.
Vasya nodded and looked away hastily. He didn't want Mei to see the disappointment he felt at being called "just a friend," or the potential embarrassment in talking to Jen.
"I hope you don't think I'm being pushy, but…" She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with numbers scribbled on it. "I've been admiring you for a while but I thought she was your girlfriend. I'm at Cornell too…art history. I'd love to get coffee sometime, not here, though…" The words came out in a rush and she held out the paper to him.
Mei looked at the paper, then up at him, as if approving. He couldn't bear to look at her, or at Jen. "Um, thanks," he said, hoping he wasn't blushing again.
"You don't say much, do you?" Jen laughed. "It's okay…you don't have to talk…you're seriously gorgeous. Call me, all right?" She winked, added the plate to her tray, and made her way to the kitchen.
After he was sure she'd gone, Vasya studied the scrap of paper before shoving it into his pocket. "That was…kind of weird," he said.
"Are you kidding me? She's right, you are gorgeous. You just need a little confidence, big fella. Life is all about confidence. Look at Kolya…that son of a bitch has no right to be confident and he thinks he's Donald Trump. If you can't be confident, just bullshit for a while 'till you can."
If Vasya wasn't blushing before, he knew he was now. This lovely girl he adored had just paid him a sincere compliment. He took a deep breath; he'd made up his mind. "I've, um, decided I'm gonna head back home this weekend. With Kolya. You, uh, want to come too?"
"I can't…"
He scowled. "It's all right."
"…but I'll be going for President's Day weekend, and I'd love to have a little company then," she finished.
To Be Continued
