Starobeshevskaya village—after midnight
The mayor was, by all accounts, a man of extremely sober reputation, completely incorruptible.
The deputy mayor, on the other hand, was open to all offers, intending to make as much as he possibly could before he was fifty, then cash in and move to Crete. Crete was not only the most beautiful place in the world but it was also the home of the world’s most beautiful women, and when he was rich, the deputy mayor was going to bed them all, one by one. This was his God-given right, and anyone who stood in his way would answer for it.
Tolevi heard all of this from the deputy mayor himself, who held forth at кінської голови—Kins’ koyi Holovy, or Horse Head, a bar two blocks from town hall. The man weighed three hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed an ounce, and however he had managed to get his job, his fellow citizens, at least those in the bar, gave him a wide berth. He had a volatile temper, which he hinted at as he spoke, gesticulating wildly even when making a mild point. Three times as he and Tolevi spoke about the power plant and the local coal that fed it—the most benign subject Tolevi could imagine, short of the weather—the deputy mayor balled his fist up and slammed it on the table.
Tolevi could not have wished for a better person to deal with, temper or no. After most of the bar’s patrons had cleared out for the night, he suggested that they move to a table near the back.
“Why?” asked the deputy mayor.
“Maybe we can do business,” said Tolevi nonchalantly.
“What business?” The tone could not have been less pleasant if Tolevi had threatened to rape the man’s daughter. “What business with you, Russian?”
“I am actually from America,” said Tolevi. “And my business is bringing things to Ukraine, where my family was born.”
“What things?”
“Aspirin, cough medicine. And real coffee.”
“You can import these things to my town?”
“Let’s get a bottle and talk.”
The deputy mayor was fond of single malt scotch whisky, expensive under any conditions but outrageously priced here. Tolevi put down three hundred euro for a bottle of Macallan 12-year, which represented a markup approaching ten times what the original would have cost at the distillery.
He brought the bottle back to the table and poured the deputy mayor a drink, three fingers of scotch neat, no ice, no chaser.
The Ukrainian took the glass in hand, toasted the room, guzzled the liquor, and slid the glass back for a refill.
“Where’s yours?” he asked Tolevi as he took back the glass.
“I don’t like scotch.”
“I don’t drink alone.”
Sociable devil, aren’t you?
Tolevi reluctantly went to the bar for a glass and some ice. By the time he came back, the deputy mayor had drunk about a quarter of the bottle.
“So what is your business?” asked the deputy mayor.
“As I said, I bring things across the border,” said Tolevi. “My business is mainly in Crimea, but I’m looking to branch out.”
“Why here?”
“Because there is money to be made,” said Tolevi.
“We have our suppliers.”
“The shelves are bare in the pharmacies. No aspirin. And many other things.”
The deputy mayor shrugged. Clearly the man was a dolt.
“Band-Aids,” continued Tolevi. “Cough medicine—”
“We have many such items in town with the plant. They can get us anything we want. We are richer than Donetsk by far. Richer than Kiev. Even than Moscow.”
“How’s your coffee?” asked Tolevi.
It was the magic word. The deputy mayor lowered his drink.
“Tell me more about your business project,” he said. “How exactly does it work?”