"Folks are the same everywhere," she whispered.
"What?"
"Love watching pain. Give 'em a good show, lover. Don't disappoint them."
It was only as the Russian started to poke around in Ryan's mouth that the one-eyed man realized he was being treated by a mutie. As mutations went it was comparatively slight and very common variations in the numbers and placing of digits on hands and feet. In extreme cases you might see a mutie with thirty or forty tiny, feeble toes on each bare foot, like the stubby tentacles of a sea anemone.
The Russian had only two digits on each hand. But to make up for it, they were huge. The thumb and index finger were like the claws of a massive lobster. The skin was immensely thick, like horn, and there were no nails.
Ryan opened his mouth as wide as he could, leaning back, hands folded white-knuckled in his lap, and closed his eye. He swallowed hard and tried to steady his breathing, feeling an obscure and pointless wave of patriotism, which wasn't something that happened very often when a man lived in the Deathlands. But Ryan didn't want to behave badly in front of the mugging crowd of Russians. He didn't want to let himself and his country down by appearing to be a weakling, even though none of them knew he was one of the hated breed of Yanks.
The man, whose breath stank of vinegar and stale cabbage, turned and said something to Rick.
"Says he'll have to pull it out. Thinks he can see which one it is."
Ryan didn't much like the sound of the word "thinks," but he nodded anyway. He also didn't care for the way the red-bearded man was looking curiously at Rick. Because he was so close to Ryan, the freezie hadn't been able to prevent his hearing the quick burst of a foreign language.
Rick said something to the "dentist," which Ryan assumed was simple a "go" command. He opened his mouth wider and braced himself.
The pincering thumb and finger closed on the afflicted tooth, making him start at the shock of fresh pain.
It happened very fast.
The man's left hand pressed hard against Ryan's chest, keeping him still in the chair, and he felt an overwhelming sense of pressure. To his surprise, the first movement was one of pushing, then a squeezing, crushing feeling. There was comparatively little pain, but he heard a dreadful cracking, rushing noise, as if part of his jaw were being forcibly sucked out through his ears.
Ryan was aware of tendons creaking under the strain. Then blood gushed from the torn socket as the tooth was ripped free. It flooded into his throat, making him choke and gag. He pushed the Russian away from him and sat up, gobbing a great spray of thick blood into the dirt of the street.
Ryan's performance won a round of cheers from the circle of onlookers. He noticed that the driver of a small-goods wag had stopped his vehicle, leaving the engine running as he climbed from the canvas-topped cab to join in the fun.
The dentist, if such a description was appropriate for the claw-fingered butcher, held up the damaged tooth, showing the crimson root, bringing yet another round of applause.
Ryan stood up, holding his jaw in both hands, and moved it experimentally and cautiously. He grinned at the realization that the stabbing shocks of icy pain were gone. On an impulse he reached out and shook the Russian's hand.
The man beamed and said, "Dyengi."
Ryan turned to look at Rick, whose face had gone paler than pale and whose mouth was sagging open. Whatever dyengimeant, it didn't look like it was going to be the best of news.
The man repeated the word, this time the smile making itself scarce. His voice was louder, his eyes narrowing.
Rick licked his lips. Ryan noticed that the muscles of the freezie's arms were twitching and jerking, and speech seemed hard to come by. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at Krysty, who shrugged.
The Russian opened his left palm and tapped it with the claws of his right, shouting the same word.
"Money," Rick finally said faintly. "We never figured on... He wants some bread for pulling the tooth, Ryan. What the... What fuckin' steps do we take now, Ryan?"
"Long ones! Go!"
"Against all regulations and orders of the transport department, the driver had left his wag unlocked with the engine running. He has been subsequently arrested and will be charged with offences under sections..."
Major-Commissar Gregori Zimyanin tutted and laid the typed report on his desk, looking up at Alicia Andreyinichna. "So many facts and so few of them of any interest to me."
He skipped a few lines of coded letters and numbers. The fate of the wretched wag driver was of no concern to him.
"It goes on, 'The three perps broke away and escaped in the above-mentioned wag. One seemed ill and was helped by the tall woman with the red hair, hair that I must report was the reddest it has been my privilege to see. I conducted an investigation into the crowd and could not find anyone who would admit to ever having seen hair of such a bright hue. One man, whose details are appended below, said at first that it was not the reddest hair he had ever seen. Subsequent and diligent inquiries revealed he was color-blind and thought that spring grass was also red. By the hammer and the anvil!"
For a second time the crinkled, recycled folder smacked on his desk. The woman took a nervous step backward. There were so many rumors about Gregori Zimyanin and the barbaric easterly wilderness where he had made his bubble reputation.
"Never have I seen a man who will not use ten words when he can make do with a hundred. But, despite all of... there is still much here. Again, on the southerly and westerly edge of our city. Again three strangers. This time sounding like the three that the kulak encountered. The same dark glasses. Described again and again in statement after... Red hair. And this man who has one eye, when most show a preference toward a pair." It was an attempted joke, but Alicia Andreyinichna was too frightened of him to notice. For this was a new and a different Major-Commissar Zimyanin.
There was a fire smoldering in the eyes. Twice already she had seen the way his face turned to the long sniper's rifle hung upon the office wall, as though he wanted to take it down and go rushing out after this mysterious trio.
"And he is also missing a tooth. Who is he? Who is the woman? The sickly second man? They draw so much attention to themselves rather than pay the peasant a handful of copper. The witnesses mostly say they feared them. Why do they?.. Ah, there is something here, little one."
He got up and paced across to the map, his boot heels clicking on the floor. His finger darted out and stabbed at the name of Peredelkino, hesitated, then moved again and hovered over Nikulino.
"The market was here? Yes. Pins, Alicia Andreyinichna. Little flags. Let us plot our strangers and see where they have come from and where they are going."
While the clerk bustled out to her office, the sec officer stared blankly out the window at the spring day. But his thoughts were slipping back, however absurdly, to a hunt over packed snow and ice. And some Yanks, one of whom...
The phone tinkled uncertainly and Alicia Andreyinichna picked it up. After a few words that he couldn't catch she came back.
"They've found the wag."
"Where?"
"Ramenki. There." She pointed a mile or so farther in from the outer suburbs.
"Ah, good, good. Very good. Now, the colored flags."
While she rummaged through her desk, Zimyanin gazed at the map, smiling to himself. His lips moved. "Thank you for giving me that information. It was most useful. I shall offer you a gratuity for your help, if you do not find such a thing offensive."
His secret language practice was interrupted as Alicia returned.
"Here." She handed him a dozen or so pins with little colored squares of paper attached.
He took them and looked again at the map. "Peredelkino. There. Then where the old man and his cart saw... good. Then the market and the escape in the wag. Finally where it was found dumped by them. Good."