On the bridge of steel the raindrops are rasping knuckles, when Big Joe presses underneath.
The air feels twitchy. Sane as in cheap motel before bust. Then, out of nowhere, Corey materializes from the mist before him like bad hangover. Zhalkiy negodyay, miserable wretch! Big Joe will pop his head like zit, that´s promise.
He sees Candy standing right next to him. Kakogo cherta ona delayet, what the fuck is she doing? As much as he digs stubbornness, right now it´s trouble, big trouble.
Under the metal curve, she and Corey are locked into silent screaming match. They are desperately dancing against approaching shit. Big Joe can taste tension like metal in his mouth. Walking up to them, he spits it out. As soon as the taste is gone, he prances, a big son of a bitch, fearless and ruthless, who steps out of the raging storm, and sends his grinding voice forward.
"Corey, stupid son of bitch! Where is money? Khvatit, understand? Enough! Give to me, and don't drag khowoshoyu devchonku like Candy into shit with you!"
He moves slow and steady, like every step is a promise. To Candy, and vhimself. When he towers over Corey, the fucking mutak sweats out fear like cheap whiskey in marathon. Nu, ne nado, no need for it! He has never touched him, and never would, dirty fucking rat. Violence is for when talk don´t work, not for kicks, he has learned, and that real power, eto v ugroze. In threat, not in punch.
Aiming exhalations at Corey´s face, he enjoys his over him like a stray dog that finds a ribeye strapped to his leg. Not because he deserves it, not because he earned it, but because a wasted angel with a twisted sense of humor put it there. His eyes attack Corey like it is their right. Even though he hasn't lifted a paw to get what he holds over him. Chto podelat'? It fucking is what it is.
"Joe, listen," Candy´s voice rubs over him like breeze of wind. Nu,eta priyatno, feels good on his skin. But then she adds, "Look, Corey is trying to explain. He just… started making sense, so let him talk!"
His eyes go stormy sky.
Chto eto za huinya? What the fuck is this?
He swallows down a cold and bitter shot of disappointment and it burns in his gut like house in grazhdanskoy voyne, Russian civil war.
Betrayal of Candy is knife in back, and he, durak, fucking idiot, for his loyalty to her. For having braved the storm to return, and she repay him how? By defending Corey, lying sack of bones! How dare she?
"Explain? Chego on nam obb"yasnyayet? He explaining where he found voice again,? Or that he pay off bratva with good intention and dead dream?"
He stares at Candy, but no answer. Why not talk? Why not listen? Why she not want to be saved?
All at once, he hears the pressure inside her building up like steam in a samovar. Her simmering irritation hums, then hisses, then rattles and the fine china on her smooth face trembles. The air around her crackles, before the rivets start to pop, and the pressure blows her up.
"Fucking stop, both of you, What kind of lowlifes are you? There is a woman's life at stake! Fucking narcissists!"
She pauses, rage in her eyes, then her voice darts out once more like tongue of snake. " I thought that you, Corey, let me down enough now, and then you show up, Joe, whisper some shit about the Bratva in my ear and how dangerous they are, but won't answer any questions."
Her eyes are sharp with a red shimmer. Raspberry thorns that sting and burn where they touch the skin.
"And then, that's my favorite part, you leave me here, and return, all big guy, like you want to prove that you are The Russian and exactly the villain that everyone assumes. So you send your cock to fight Corey´s, as if we are in a arena, but we are not, okay? And this shit won´t help us!"
Huh. Da nu nahui… Big Joe can only stare at her. In his eyes, and all over his face, a Fucking shit! What was that?
Then a gasp leaves her throat. Loud in the silence that feels like a blanket over Big Joe´s head. Like the one he would hide underneath when he was little and his mother would scream. The next time Candy meets his eyes, she pulls on it, all superiority, the bitch!
"Do us all a favor," she adds, "and stop the testosterone for two seconds, so we can talk like normal people, you big fucking ape. Let Corey say what he was going to say, and the fuck give him some space!"
Silence. Big Joe´s eyes jump into it and soak it up.
Where is blanket now? Fucking Candy, blyad´ took it.
Without it, he is a cockroach that finds itself suddenly sober at a Dostoevaky reading, all twitchy legs, and the antennae are waving in a breeze that smells of lilies and vomit, pisces`! He has seen women upset before. Shouting women, crying women, pouting women, plate throwing women, but this… Nnot normal!
Candy´s anger wasn't the low hum of a tired argument that you can barely hear past constantly clinking glasses. She uncorked like a bottle of cheap whiskey that has been in the sun too long. Words, sharp and bitter, poured out of her like a bile after a week-long bender. Goddamn howitzers aimed at his gut or cock, whichever.
Suddenly sober, the cockroach that he is realizes that the lights are too bright at the reading, that bratenek Feder´ is too earnest, and that the floor is too sticky.
All he wants now is a dark corner and another shot, but Candy has emptied the bottle, smashed the glass, lit the bar on fucking fire, and left him standing there, staring, with his waving antennae, and silently wondering what the hell just happened.
He barely dares to move. Every of his motions is a challenge, even harder than climbing goddamn Gora Elbrus in the depth of Russian winter.
Then he turns to Corey, and his eyes are chips of ice, but for Candy he roomtemperatures his voice as he talks.
"Nu zhe, kharoscho…" he chooses the words with the same caution as you would a wife. "Explain, Corey! Explain Sherry Jones story! You wanted for making money, how?"
Corey squirms, his face slick with sweat.
"I… Well, seems like I was lying."
Well, you don´t say, da chto ty govorisch`!
"Ya zhe skazal`!" Big Joe´s murmurs, his satisfaction grim, and, and the voice low, then, louder, "Ty vidish now, Candy? Can you see? He liar! Don´t trust word he say!"
Like Lada by gasoline, Corey is fueled by desperation, when he tries to invite Candy for a spin.
"Look, there was truth to it. I was thinking about writing it. It is a good story, and would have paid a lot, especially because I know Sherry. But then…"
His eyes are begging mendicants, blyad´! Big Joe don´t dig, but he goes on and on and on with it.
"I saw Sherry´s note in the pendant first,", he says, all devotion, "even before you did, Candy, but I didn't tell you that I was going to look into the disappearance thing, because if I had done that, I would have had to tell you that I know her, how I know her, and why I was going to write about her, hence my depth with the Bratva."
He sighs like "I tried to protect you, okay? That's why I didn't tell you about a quarter of a fucking million and the goddamn Russian mob." But Big Joe smells bullshit.
Grebeniy mudak, fucking dickhead! He doesn´t say it, only thinks it. For Candy he holds back like a tomcat in a tenement that is prowling the fire escape of his own frustration, with a yowling in the gut that he doesn't want to let loose on the goddamn world. Then suddenly he looks like he has a loaded .38, the safety on, pointed at his own foot. Ready to blow, but too chickenshit to pull the trigger whenever he glances at Candy, because she has good heart, and exploding samowar inside it, both of which throw him off, like a defibrillator, a heart that wants to stop.
Da nu na khui! He is trapped again, caught between hammer and anvil, mezhdu molotom i nakoval'nej, between rock and hard place, because Corey deserves slap, but Candy prevents him from slapping him, vot´ takaia zho-pa, ass situation! Not the worst that he´s ever had, but bad enough.
Chto eto, what´s that? In Candy´s eyes he suddenly sees doubts about Corey´s story. Like sip of petrol for dedushka with home-distillery in dirty garden shed, it is just about enough encouragement for him. But, vot kokay surpriz`! What a surprise! She gives the home-destilling dedushku the entire canister of petrol, as she turns to Corey with the eyes of a wife that can smell the sex with some lowlife bitch off her husband´s dick.
"How were you even sure that Sherry Jones was missing?" "Hardly because of the note. You are a journalist, that wouldn't be good enough for you."
Her voice is as pointed as a nipple in the snow, molodez´! Clever girl you are, Candy, for seeing through the liar next to you like through a handprint on a dirty window.
"I, ahm.." caught gangster Corey stammers, "called her office, asked if I could speak to her, and they told me that she has been missing for days."
Silence. Big Joe's eyes narrow. Nah, more huinya! Big load of elephant shit and now the time to prove it.
He reaches for Candy´s purse, fancy piece of leather fucking junkthat has working phone in fat belly, but, shit, Candy holds on to it, der´mo! He has to talk her into it.
"Golubka moya, spakoisya ty!" he says. "Calm down, I give phone back, okay? In second."
Corey and Candy stare at him like two first communicants at the godforsaken Devil, stumped for a fighting plan, as he walks off, with his finger on his mouth to hush them, just like Corey did with him, durak!
He´ll see now, he´ll see what it will get him.
In the bag, his hand finds the greasy, black brick of phone, takes it out, dials a number, and starts spitting out rapid words in Russian. Just as rapidly, shells of sunflower seeds that he picks off his hand like a fucking mother chicken.
The voice on the other end keeps it short. It sounds professional, which, of course, the bratva are. Spot-on and organized so they can qualify in the game of organized crime. As Big Joe listens to them, his features grow hard like chlen´, a cock, when hand wraps around it. Finally he hangs up, and tosses the phone at Corey like fucking turd.
"For man who say he like truth, you talk lie too much, Corey!" His words are a fly swat they hits Corey harder than Candy´s brick-phone did. Then suddenly the flie gives up its identity to save its life. He becomes a snake, slick and shiny, with writhing eyes. The mouth is wide open for the flickering tongue to dart out, but Big Joe is snake charmer, who knows how to keep it in.
"Bratva say no one called office," he says and pauses, waiting for tension to build like temperature in Banja. "They say Sherry don´t have office. She work from home."
That is dzhekpot, and Big Joe, junkie with winning lottery ticket, all smiles, but too out of it to notice the car crash down the street that is going to get him killed. It is the look on Candy´s face after his words have settled in her gut like lead. She is a sad fawn that is abandoned by the doe. Och, kak schalko, such pity! Big heart of Big Joe feels bad for her, but too late now, and so close now. He's almost there, almost has her saved. There is no going back, ne doroga nazad! His next words he aims at Candy´s heart to settle it, once and for all.
"Slisch´, Candy, bratva have suggestion. We pay visit to old bastard on Beeker Street. To one who made pendant of black koshki. We see if Corey involved in disappearing act of Sherry, khorosho?"
Before she answers, he glances at Corey's face. It has color of bad mayonnaise. Molodez´, rat finally in trap! But still fighting it and trying to escape.
"Look, I don't know anything about this," the rat stammers in his own defense and sticks to Candy´s eyes like a goddamn contact lense but she hates wearing them and rips away from him. Well done, Big Joe digs!
His silhouette, a bit in the distance and on slightly higher ground, casts a shadow like the Antichrist or God, when Candy nods at him. His eyes say "Malodez`!" She is ready for him to take her away. Up to heaven, down to hell, or East to Bleecker Street.
"You know what?" Corey interrupts, because he doesn´t want to let her leave, the dirty son of bitch! He wants to keep her from the Devil, from God, and most from an artisan up the road. Pochemu zhe,why, if he isn´t lying?
"Fine," he says, "let's go to Bleecker street, "the three of us, and get this over with."
On chto? What is he even on about? Nah, no way, he is not coming. He can idi na chui, suck Big Joe´s dick.
"Looks very like the two you won´t fucking believe me any other way," he hears him say, "so I´ll come with you and prove to you that the only reason I lied about Sherry Jones was consideration for you, Candy. But after that don´t ever talk to me again, and find someone fucking else to get pissed with after a good tip"
Like a tiger, a fool who fucking enters its cage in the zoo, the rage in Big Joe´s eyes gets the better off him.
"For man who just found voice again, you run mouth a lot," he rasps at him. "But only comes out wet shit, ne nado nam eto, blad`! I suggest you stop."
He stares at him from above, with the hungry eyes of tigr amurskiy, a tiger from Siberia. For the next while, maybe hour. Even through the pouring rain when they start to make their way to Beecker Street.