“Respect? What do you mean? Like good manners?”
Boris nodded. “Exactly! Here’s my grandfather talking now: It’s important to remember someone’s name. It’s the right and polite thing to do. Don’t forget a man’s name, or he might forget you. To remember is respectful. It will gain you his friendship. Or to put it the Russian way, it’s for blat.”
“Excuse me?”
“Blat. That means having friends in the right places. Connections.”
I scratched my head. The sentiments were actually fairly conventional. “I don’t see what that has to do with rapping.”
“Here it is, Clare Cosi. I am not so good at the memory thing, but I like the rap music, and I remember the lyrics, and I can make them up, too. One day I discovered that if I rap a person’s name, make it like a song, then the memory is locked here.” Boris tapped his temple. “That way I never forget.”
“There’s a name for that kind of thing,” I said. “Mnemonics? I think that’s the term. I can’t remember.”
Boris stuck a finger in the air, nodded sagely. “Ah, but you would not have forgotten if you had rapped about it!”
“Ready to go,” Esther declared.
I looked up, blinked in surprise. The transformation from barista to hottie date was stunning. Esther wore a little black, clingy dress that hugged her zaftig curves and dipped daringly down to reveal a Renaissance-era quantity of push-up bra cleavage. The hem barely reached midthigh, and she added matching black tights and stacked heels. Her black librarian glasses were gone, replaced with bright red cat glasses. Esther had applied scarlet lipstick to match the frames, and she’d lined her big, brown, long-lashed eyes with a sexy dark liner.
Boris grinned stupidly and practically stumbled to his feet. “Like a vision of night, her beauty takes flight! Like Jam Master’s bling in the blazing sunlight. My lady, come ride with me on a silver streak of phosphorus bright.”
“Huh?” Esther said, clearly baffled. “Could you maybe translate that one?”
“My SUV’s parked right outside.” Boris explained with a shrug. “It’s the silver Subaru.”
Twenty
BB Gun parked his SUV on the street, and the three of us walked along Brighton Beach Avenue. Beneath the subway’s elevated tracks, a gust of wind off the nearby Atlantic whipped at our coats and hair. In a sweet gesture, BB draped his arm around Esther’s shoulders and pulled her close.
On the drive to Brooklyn, Boris had explained that we were coming to the “fast-beating heart of Little Odessa.” And within a few blocks of his parked Subaru, I understood what he meant. The neighborhood was pulsing with life; the streets were busy; the markets, stalls, and shops glowing and crowded, even on this cold, dark November night. Everyone was speaking Russian, and most of the signs on storefronts and food stands were printed in Cyrillic lettering.
We soon found the address for Nick on Brigitte’s note, a four-story yellow brick building with art deco trim and a small storefront at street level. Through a crack in the curtained picture window, I spied cloth-covered tables with neat place settings, and even though the sign painted on the glass was Russian, I definitely recognized one word: café.
“Let’s go in,” I suggested.
The interior was warm but not luxurious with cheap wood paneling and simply framed pictures of various Russian cities. Beside a muted television a large chalkboard was covered with Cyrillic writing—probably the menu. Swinging half doors blocked the kitchen, and another doorway was veiled by a black curtain. A large samovar occupied a wooden table between the two exits.
I counted a dozen tables. At the small register near the front door, a plump, florid-faced hostess in her forties greeted us in Russian. Needless to say, Boris did the talking, and we were led to a table in the corner.
A waitress soon appeared with a tray of water glasses, no ice, filled nearly to the brim. I didn’t care; my mouth was parched, my lips chapped from the persistent winter wind. I took a huge, long drink—and thought I’d just swallowed napalm.
“This isn’t water!” I gagged, my eyes filling with tears. “It’s vodka!”
Boris lifted his own glass. “Za Vas!” he cried, draining it. Esther took a tentative taste, then a big swallow.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, waving air into her mouth.
Boris ordered hot borscht for everyone.
“Beet soup?” Esther’s nose wrinkled beneath her red cat glasses. “I hate beets, and I was promised caviar.”
Boris pulled her close. “And caviar you shall have, my tsarina, but try a little borscht first.”
My eyes cleared, and my mind started moving.
Beets…beets are important. Why?
I suddenly flashed on the cut-up beets that had been scattered on the prep table around Tommy Keitel’s corpse. And there’d been stock bubbling on the stove, too.
Tommy was preparing borscht, I realized, probably from a recipe the mysterious Nick had given him!
Could Nick be the chef here?
The scorching fire in my throat had turned into a pleasing warmth in my stomach. I took another taste of the superb Russian vodka and looked around.
The place was pretty dead, especially for a Saturday night. Only two other tables were occupied. One by a trio of young Russian men in black leather coats, with hair that stood straight up, giving their heads a distinctly angular appearance. Four very attractive young women sat at the other table, nursing cups of steaming tea. One polished her long fingernails; another leafed through a dog-eared copy of Vogue.
“They look like hookers,” Esther whispered.
“They work here,” Boris said. “This is banya, probably also Red Mafiya.”
Esther stiffened. Boris touched her knee. “It’s all right. We’re no threat. We’re…how you say…civilians.”
A young man at the other table rose. Cup in hand, he crossed to the samovar. Boris watched him and suddenly called out.
“Leonid, Leonid, the music man, he books my band as fast as he can. The man with the power and the hour was midnight, we rapped so neat we gave Eminem a fright.”
The man turned toward us, and his eyes lit with recognition.
“BB Gun!” he cried, rushing to our table. Boris rose, and the two men embraced like long-lost friends.
“Hey, guys,” Leonid called to his comrades. “This is BB Gun. He played at Klub Bespredel, the big Halloween show. Really brought down the house. Good haul for the boss!”
“Ah, Leonid, but we both know why you remember me,” Boris said. “That was the night I introduced you to my ex-girlfriend, Anya.”
The man touched his heart. “What a night! And thanks for introducing me to Svetlana, too.”
“Da…da.” Boris nodded.
Leonid smacked his lips, thumped his barrel chest. “They’re a pair of hot pistols, I’ll tell you. Make me feel like byki—strong like a bull.”
“I’m the guy who’d know,” Boris boasted. “That’s why they call me BB Gun!” Boris put his arm around Leonid’s broad shoulder. “Homey, listen up now! I wrote this song about those two phat booties.”
Boris launched into another rap, this time in Russian. The names “Svetlana” and “Anya” came up a number of times, and the references were obviously lewd. The men at the table guffawed. The women pretended to be shocked, but in the end they laughed, too.
When Boris finished, everyone applauded except Esther. Stewing, she glowered at her new boyfriend.
Leonid nudged Boris with his elbow. “So what is the great BB Gun doing in our banya?”
“It’s my new friend,” Boris said, tilting his head in my direction. “She came to this place because of a mutual friend of Nick’s.”