Chapter 85

I took a look around the restaurant. Then I turned to Vald and said, "I thought you were on unpaid leave?"

"I am, I have a little money, so I treat myself as well as I can." he replied.

"Graft pretty good in Moscow, is it?" I asked.

"I never took a penny from anyone to do or not do my duty." he replied with a smile. "However things get lost now and then."

"I do hope the items you found belonged to the bad guys?" It was a question and he knew it.

"To the worst of them. After my wife and daughter died, I decided they owed me." Vlad said.

"Of course they owed you. The bad guys should be the ones who pay for the cops." I said it thankful that there just wasn't much money floating around the base housing units or who knows. A retired military policeman might not be as well setup as a Moscow drug copper, but it might have been better than the small pension I got. Would I have done it, who knows. "So I can stop worrying about the cost of this little adventure."

"I fully expect for us to find a way to make them pay. If we can't, then I will absorb the cost. However, there is always loose money, where there are drug traffickers.

"And if they were dealing in kiddie porn like they were here?" I asked.

"Then there are access codes to off shore accounts. Sometimes they need a little persuading to make me the beneficiary, but it can be accomplished."

"Did you ever turn one loose for the numbers?" I asked. "You are moving from found money to extortion. Are you positive that you weren't involved in anything that got your family killed." Yes it was cruel, but I suddenly had a feeling Vlad wasn't exactly a white knight.

"I was a very honest and as you say straight cop until that happened. After that, I decided to hurt them anyway I could. It hurts the boss, I can't reach, when I confiscate his money. The true meaning of socialism. Take from those who have more than they need, and give to those who need more than they have. But I assure you no one who I could have put in jail ever bought his freedom. Some even paid more than they would have if they went to trail."

"There are an awful lot of us who need more than we have," I suggested.

"Which is why socialism only works when we can control that numbers. Not to worry Maxine, you will never be one who can be controlled."

"Glad that you recognize it," I said.

"What I really recognize is that we need a serious drink. I do not drink and drive an automobile, so would you like to come back to my hotel room, or should we retreat to your cabin again."

"Since you treat yourself well, and I don't, lets do your hotel." I suggested.

"Good, I'm sure that the bed there is much larger than the one in your cabin," he observed.

"After the steak, we need to find a liquor store. I don't like Vodka." I admitted.

"Ah Tennessee sour mash sippin' liquor, I presume?" he asked.

"Of course, Jack Daniels Black Label, since you are buying." I waited a full minute before I went on. "I have to warn you though, I am still a bit tender from the surgery, so there definitely won't be any wild sex in your future."

"Well maybe not with you," He said with a hearty laugh. I laughed as well, though I wasn't quite sure why.

It was 9PM when we arrived at Vlad's hotel. He was staying in the nicest of the Tryon's Downtown Hotels. It was the hotel that specialized in upper middle class and higher weddings, and other events. Of course, if you had limited space, they would put your brother or sister up for a few days, should they decide to visit unannounced.

"So," Vald began, when I had my drink in hand. "How old were you the first time?"

"My first boy was when I was 15," I replied.

"No, I mean when you killed your first man," he said smiling. "I know you don't talk about those kinds of things. People just wouldn't understand, so I'm asking."

"I was twenty, he was trying to get onto our base outside San Salvador. Kid was trying to drive a car through my road block. I had nightmares for a year," I said honestly. "Fortunately there were local's shooting as well. They got the credit and the abuse, I got transfered out of the country. We were all thrilled. From that I got my first lesson about how things work. It isn't what you do that counts, it's what people think you do, for which you must account. I was not a hero, but I also didn't go to jail. It seemed like a fair exchange."

"I was fourteen, a drunken man tried to rob my mother of her pension check. I stabbed him with a sharp broom handle. I doubt anyone would have even bothered about it, if I had not stabbed him over twenty times. I was tired of being threatened, and I was tired of my mother being abused. It all ended that night.

I learned that being willing to kill, wins one as much respect as actually doing the deed. People knew that I could kill, so they found others to torment." He said smiling at me yet again.

"Sounds reasonable." I commented. "After I did it, people either wanted me around, or they ran from the room screaming, when I entered."

"Not really," he demanded.

"No, but it was strange, once it happened, I began getting assigned to places where it might happen again. It was like killing was a disease and had to be kept with those already contaminated. It didn't happen often, but they kept putting me where it was possible. When they ran out of shit holes, I did tours on stateside bases near high crime areas."

"Me, it was the Russian Army. I was with the troops that invaded Afghanistan, before your country ever heard of it. I did things there no man should be expected to do. That time did something to me that never went away. It taught me something that is universal.only the loser gets judged. Never lose, and you never face judgment day."

"Were you Spetnaz?" I asked.

"No, they are the worst of the worst. I was a sniper, interrogator and reconnaissance operative. I was in the real war. They were involved in trying to break the will of the people to resist. It was truly ugly."

He paused a long time, so we both finished out drinks, then began another. His drink was almost straight vodka with just the touch of water from the melting ice. Mine was three ounces of JD and one ounce of real coca cola for the sugar.

"How many?" he asked.

"I'm not going there, I don't want to think about that." I said it shaking my head to make sure he knew that it was my final word on the subject. "Do you usually tell people that?" I asked it because I was curious. I had never told anyone.