Okay?”
I absorb both of them. Honestly, I don’t want to be a snob, I certainly do similar errands on occasion, but there’s this subspecies that’s just so specific. These guys fall into that category.
From past experience I can guesstimate that I don’t exactly have a choice about how this plays out. I’m not up to further static. Say, “Look, boys. At least let me change my pants. As you can see, I’m not presentable and I don’t want to disturb you or your boss’s finely honed aesthetic sensibilities. If I may.”
Again the boys share a glance. It’s a hair tense. Armani is working his jaw. “Stepan, he is going with you.”
“Guys, I’m not a flight risk. Neither you two nor your boss does much in the way of scaring me. I’ll go wherever, I don’t have anything better to do.”
Armani, who I’m sure would love to have at me, is marshalling his cool. “Stepan, he is going with you,” says the big man again.
I shrug, put my gun in my waistband, and start up the stairs. It’s not easy. “Fine, Stepan, please do follow me.”
Armani, in Ukrainian, says to Stepan: “Hurry this up, help the nigger walk.”
“Yeah, Stepan,” I echo in their native tongue, “help this nigger walk.” Throw them off a little.
They don’t seem particularly impressed by my lingual skills.
Stepan offers his forearm, the koi warped by his ridiculous musculature. A lesser man would have gagged on his cologne, but I keep it together and take his arm like Scarlett O’Hara.
“You’re too kind,” I continue in Ukrainian. “Hey, I dig Hardy’s gear. It’s got that edge.” Stepan won’t look at me, so I keep talking. “Cousin, in general I just gotta say, I like what you’re working with. The big guns here. Since David Barton went under, I imagine you have a fantastically well-appointed home gym.”
These guys must be under strict orders and/or truly fear their master. Because their intense desire to beat me into carpaccio is thicker in the air than my man Stepan’s cologne.
Which is saying something.
S uperflu descended like the motherfucking wrath of God, Old Testament style.
H1N1? That stepchild had been the viral equivalent of Ishtar . A big raspberry of a bomb, the failed punch line, all talk and no walk.
Put folks off guard.
But Big Bad Mother Nature learns from her mistakes, makes adjustments, and comes roaring back with an improved model. Those who knew said if you dug the Superflu virus under a microscope, you could watch the bastard mutate, right there before you eyes.
It was perfect, in every respect. And like a snowflake, each and every individual virus had its very own unique design and symmetry. Constantly shifting.
In North America, it’s thought that about two million people lost their lives to this pandemic. Even with all our modern medicine, inoculations, etc.
That slightly beats out the Spanish Flu of 1918, given the current world population. No joke.
Course, me, I’d had the secret shot. The one that never went into production. So as the bodies stacked higher and higher, all I had to contend with was a mild case of the sniffles.
G liding now down Ninth Avenue.
This far west? You can smell the Hudson, even above the Stench. The tainted water level is high, about a meter below the edge of the road. And rising. It’s just a matter of time.
As we arrive, I gather the Maritime Hotel on Ninth Avenue and 16th Street is not what it once was, which is to say that it is apparently no longer a hotel. More like a private entertainment facility.
The first indicator my brain didn’t identify right away. I’m folded into the cramped backseat of a latemodel Ford Volt as the distinctive building comes into view, and I’m thinking something’s funky.
As we pull into the former bike lane and come to stop at the curb, it hits me: all the lights are on. They must have a serious generator, industrial kind of gear.
Dude in some sort of fancy burgundy Mao jacket opens the door for Armani
I absorb both of them. Honestly, I don’t want to be a snob, I certainly do similar errands on occasion, but there’s this subspecies that’s just so specific. These guys fall into that category.
From past experience I can guesstimate that I don’t exactly have a choice about how this plays out. I’m not up to further static. Say, “Look, boys. At least let me change my pants. As you can see, I’m not presentable and I don’t want to disturb you or your boss’s finely honed aesthetic sensibilities. If I may.”
Again the boys share a glance. It’s a hair tense. Armani is working his jaw. “Stepan, he is going with you.”
“Guys, I’m not a flight risk. Neither you two nor your boss does much in the way of scaring me. I’ll go wherever, I don’t have anything better to do.”
Armani, who I’m sure would love to have at me, is marshalling his cool. “Stepan, he is going with you,” says the big man again.
I shrug, put my gun in my waistband, and start up the stairs. It’s not easy. “Fine, Stepan, please do follow me.”
Armani, in Ukrainian, says to Stepan: “Hurry this up, help the nigger walk.”
“Yeah, Stepan,” I echo in their native tongue, “help this nigger walk.” Throw them off a little.
They don’t seem particularly impressed by my lingual skills.
Stepan offers his forearm, the koi warped by his ridiculous musculature. A lesser man would have gagged on his cologne, but I keep it together and take his arm like Scarlett O’Hara.
“You’re too kind,” I continue in Ukrainian. “Hey, I dig Hardy’s gear. It’s got that edge.” Stepan won’t look at me, so I keep talking. “Cousin, in general I just gotta say, I like what you’re working with. The big guns here. Since David Barton went under, I imagine you have a fantastically well-appointed home gym.”
These guys must be under strict orders and/or truly fear their master. Because their intense desire to beat me into carpaccio is thicker in the air than my man Stepan’s cologne.
Which is saying something.
S uperflu descended like the motherfucking wrath of God, Old Testament style.
H1N1? That stepchild had been the viral equivalent of Ishtar . A big raspberry of a bomb, the failed punch line, all talk and no walk.
Put folks off guard.
But Big Bad Mother Nature learns from her mistakes, makes adjustments, and comes roaring back with an improved model. Those who knew said if you dug the Superflu virus under a microscope, you could watch the bastard mutate, right there before you eyes.
It was perfect, in every respect. And like a snowflake, each and every individual virus had its very own unique design and symmetry. Constantly shifting.
In North America, it’s thought that about two million people lost their lives to this pandemic. Even with all our modern medicine, inoculations, etc.
That slightly beats out the Spanish Flu of 1918, given the current world population. No joke.
Course, me, I’d had the secret shot. The one that never went into production. So as the bodies stacked higher and higher, all I had to contend with was a mild case of the sniffles.
G liding now down Ninth Avenue.
This far west? You can smell the Hudson, even above the Stench. The tainted water level is high, about a meter below the edge of the road. And rising. It’s just a matter of time.
As we arrive, I gather the Maritime Hotel on Ninth Avenue and 16th Street is not what it once was, which is to say that it is apparently no longer a hotel. More like a private entertainment facility.
The first indicator my brain didn’t identify right away. I’m folded into the cramped backseat of a latemodel Ford Volt as the distinctive building comes into view, and I’m thinking something’s funky.
As we pull into the former bike lane and come to stop at the curb, it hits me: all the lights are on. They must have a serious generator, industrial kind of gear.
Dude in some sort of fancy burgundy Mao jacket opens the door for Armani
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