Operation Green Card Read online

“Is it legal?”

  Again her eyes slid to the side, then she threw him a mischievous grin. “Maybe not exactly, but something like moonlighting doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

  He clicked his tongue, thinking. Maybe she did have something for him. He could still walk away if he didn’t like it. “Make it nine, and I’ll be there.”

  He got a brief nod in response, then she turned and disappeared down the hallway to his left. He stared after her for a few seconds, then made his way toward the stairs. Elevators were for pussies. And fuck his old drill sergeant for making him hear that in his voice.

  Jason had quickly dropped off Mark and taken ten to shower and change out of his uniform.

  He went to the Gull for a pint or a few now and then. It was a somewhat dingy little relic of Bluewater Bay’s pre-TV days. One beer on tap, one bottled import brand. The menu consisted of a large jar of pickled eggs and a bowl of peanuts on the bar. It was a good place if one wanted to get quietly shit-faced in a corner. And an excellent choice if Natalya didn’t want anyone to know about their meeting. Jason had never seen any of the Hollywood crew here, and he didn’t know any of the locals. He was surprised Natalya had even heard of the place. She didn’t strike him as the type who got quietly shit-faced all by her lonely self.

  Right now she was waiting for him at a small table in the corner by the door, tapping her foot and drumming her fingers.

  When she saw him, she slapped her hand on the table in what looked very much like triumph. It didn’t help Jason’s feeling that he might be getting himself in over his head. He grabbed a pint at the bar, then joined her, watching all the little tell-tale signs of her nervousness—the tapping, lip biting, roaming eyes. Well, keeping her off-kilter until he knew what she wanted worked in his favor, so he didn’t say anything, merely kept observing. She was cute, and nicely muscled, but he preferred his women tall and dark-haired. Cute wasn’t going to get her a break.

  She took a sip of beer, then set the glass back down. “So, you came.”

  He had, but not to make small talk. The sooner he knew what the hell she wanted, the better. “You have something to say, say it.”

  “You need money,” she shot at him, niceties definitely over. “Why?”

  “None of your business.”

  She leaned back and fiddled with a beer mat until it snapped in half between her fingers. “What I have in mind involves someone else,” she said. “But before I bring him in on this, I need to know that you’re not in trouble with the law.”

  He laughed. “Really? You need to know that I’m not in trouble? After going through all this shady stuff?” He waved around at the cigarette-yellow walls and ceiling.

  There was that saucy grin again. He was getting an idea of what Anna saw in her. It was conspiratorial and engaging, a daredevil grin.

  “Humor me.”

  “I’m not in trouble.”

  She seemed to weigh that for a moment, then dug for her wallet and pulled out a faded and dog-eared picture. For a few seconds she stared at it without a word, then handed it to him.

  It showed two young men, one blond, one dark-haired, both lanky, almost skinny, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling and waving into the camera.

  Jason put the picture faceup on the table and watched her, waiting for an explanation.

  “That,” her finger tapped the blond one, “is my brother Arkady. That,” tap, tap on the other man, “was his best friend, Dimitri. They weren’t a couple, though they’re both gay. Dimitri died while they were in the army under mysterious circumstances about a year after this picture was taken. Because that’s what happens to gay men in Russia.” She threw him a challenging glance. “He was nineteen. That was ten years ago. The situation is worse today.”

  There wasn’t really anything to say beyond the obvious outrage, so he didn’t.

  After a while she went on, “I’ve been trying to get Arkady out of Russia since I came here, but it’s never been more pressing than in the past few years. Ever since Putin’s Propaganda Laws—” She choked on whatever she was going to say, and took a hasty gulp from her glass. “He was supposed to get hired by security on the set last winter, but it fell through. He needs a green card yesterday.”

  Again she paused, but Jason was still mystified. She’d overheard him asking for more work. Why would she think he could help with a job for her brother?

  “Something Ben Krueger said when you left his office . . .” Her hand closed into a fist on the table, opened and closed, opened and closed. “I’ve tried everything else.” It was a whisper, as if she was trying to convince herself this was a good idea.

  The good idea for him might be to get up and walk away now.

  “When Krueger joked about you needing to marry rich, I had this thought.”

  What?

  “I know people are marrying for green cards, so it must work.”

  “Come again?”

  “You need money. I know Arkady has some savings I’m sure he’d be willing to invest in getting out of Russia. I’ll have to talk to him, but he could also share whatever he earns with you as soon as he finds work.”

  “Whoa. Hold it. Are you asking me to marry your brother?”

  “It’s legal now.”

  “That’s the most . . . I’m not even gay.”

  At that she barked a bitter laugh. “Really? That’s your objection to a fake marriage? That you’re not gay?”

  The shame washed over him like acid. It wasn’t even like he thought that would be particularly terrible. Hell, he very much doubted there was a soldier out there with long-term deployment under his belt who’d had zero contact with another man’s dick. In any case, it had been a stupid thing to say. “Sorry.”

  She got up. “You know what? Forget it. You’re not the kind of guy I should have as—”

  “Every other objection was obvious, so why would I mention them?”

  “What?”

  “That it’s illegal? That it can fail at about fifty different stages? That he might not even want to take the chance? You know all that.”

  She paused, half-standing, both hands on the table.

  And against all reason, it suddenly became most important to convince her that she was wrong about him. “I don’t give a shit about anyone being gay or not. It just seemed like a thing one would want to know in a situation like this.”

  It wasn’t a lie, though it sounded more thought-out than it had been; he hadn’t quite gotten to the bottom of where he stood on that line. This whole proposition had come way too far out of left field.

  Natalya sat back down, but she didn’t stop frowning at him.

  He picked the picture up again and stared at the blond guy, a boy, really. Okay, ten years ago, so he was a man now. Still. He didn’t deserve to be harassed or hurt or, worse, killed for who he loved or fucked. Nobody did.

  “Does that mean you’ll do it?” Natalya asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s not the kind of decision I want to make over a beer. I don’t have the foggiest idea how this would work and what it would entail. Why don’t you ask your brother if he’d even consider it?” After all, it might be a decision he wouldn’t have to make. It was such a desperately ludicrous thing to do. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure this Arkady would give his sister a piece of his mind about what she said to random strangers.

  “Okay. Yeah, I’ll talk to him.” She sounded deflated now, robbed of momentum, and he took the opportunity to drain his glass.

  “I guess I’ll see you around, then.”

  She nodded without words, eyes fixed on the photograph on the table. So he left, pulled his collar up against the April wind, and walked back to the house by the beach that had been his grandmother’s. Snippets of their discussion ricocheted around in his skull. The boy who’d been killed. The other one who was in danger. Neither one of them was any of his business, really. He was under no obligation to save anyone. He didn’t know the guy. Hell, he barely knew Natal
ya.

  He knew himself, though. And walking away just wasn’t in his DNA. Getting people out of danger zones was what he did. What he’d been trained for, anyway, though these days his job was more about preventing visitors from “getting lost” on set. Was this the universe throwing him a bone? A chance to do something that would actually make a difference to someone? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Then there was the money. However much some savings was. He could definitely use money, but robbing a man of his life savings wasn’t his thing. And a second income only sounded tempting if it wasn’t hypothetical. Would the guy be allowed to work in the first place?

  Ah, fuck, it was bullshit even to think about the whole plan, because Natalya’s brother would want to know what she was smoking. There was no way anyone would agree to this. He should put it out of his mind and figure out how he could come up with a better paying shift.

  With that resolution firmly in place, he fired up his computer as soon as he got home to google green card marriage.

  The rock came out of nowhere and hit Arkady just under his cheekbone with enough force to whip his head around. He instinctively ducked down on one knee, but was too startled to form coherent thought. The street seemed completely empty in the semidarkness of false dawn. He was in the wrong part of town for a mugging, hadn’t even crossed the river yet. Kids, then? Leftover partiers out for a drunken lark?

  “Pidar.” The hiss came from the left. Though all Arkady saw was a low stone wall, the homophobic slur sent his heartbeat up into his throat. Fuck! It meant the attack hadn’t been random. But how so? Who? He’d been afraid of something like this ever since the university had fired him, but this was a terrifying first. Was this a student? An ex-colleague? Or had the rumors that he was gay spread beyond the university by now?

  As he slowly approached the wall, he heard cursing and twigs snapping. He should probably run, but he couldn’t help himself. The need to see the face behind the hatred and the rock pushed him forward. He kept his forearm up, expecting another rock, but nothing happened, and when he rounded the corner where the wall met a low fence, all he found was some crushed grass and an empty bottle.

  He went back to where he’d dropped his tool bag on the sidewalk, dug his cigarettes out of the side pocket, and lit one with shaking fingers. The whole left side of his face throbbed with every beat of his heart, but careful probing with his tongue revealed no broken teeth. The metallic taste of blood told him he’d cut his cheek on his own teeth, though.

  That had been too close. Much too close to home. Too close in every respect. Whoever had been behind that wall had been waiting there, had known Arkady would pass here on his way to work, had known who he was.

  It took a second cigarette before he calmed down enough to get going again, to the small electric company that was work these days, and to face cousin Misha—who was also his boss—and his concerned scrutiny.

  “You’re late, Sparky.”

  Arkady turned barely enough to give his cousin the finger, before dropping his tool bag on the shop floor and stretching his shoulders. Normally he shrugged the hated nickname off, but this morning he was already done.

  “Pizdets! What the fuck happened to your face?” Misha came over and gently hooked his finger under Arkady’s chin, turning his left cheek into the light.

  “Probably looks worse than it is.”

  “Your fucking cheek’s cut open, man.”

  Arkady winced and jerked his head back. “I’d better get cleaned up, then.” He should reassure Misha, make light of the truth, or invent a kind lie, but he didn’t have the energy or the head space. He ducked into the tiny washroom and inspected his face in the mirror. Yeah, it wasn’t pretty, but the cut wasn’t deep and had stopped bleeding. An open cut might even save him from developing the grandmother of all bruises. He slid the first aid kit off the shelf by the door and braced himself for the disinfectant. Blyat, that crap stung. The sticking plasters in the kit were all too short to cover the cut, so he left it. He was scheduled to work on a building site today, and he didn’t need the shit he’d get from construction workers for putting an actual bandage on a shallow cut. A quip about women with long nails would have to do to head off any questions.

  He volunteered for grunt duty, laying cables, just to be able to work alone that day, but it was a double-edged sword, because it gave him ample time to think. About really having to leave now, like Tasha’d been telling him all along. Leave Petersburg, the city he loved; leave everything behind. And not “eventually,” as he’d anticipated a year ago, when he’d lost his job and lost every chance at making full professor. But the worst, leave his family: Misha and Katya and the girls, his parents, his aunt and uncle . . . Merely thinking about it felt like a fist around his heart. A very different pain from a little cut on his cheek.

  His stomach was rumbling when he finished up and stepped out for a smoke on the concrete platform that was going to be the fifth floor of the building. Checking his watch told him he’d not only missed lunch, but was working overtime. He needed a shower and something to eat.

  When he returned to the shop and hung the keys for the truck up on the board, Misha came over and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “You okay, Sparky?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Just beat. Crawling around in hip-high spaces dragging a cable drum all day will do that to you.” Plus, I’m not a fucking electrician, I’m a literature docent, and I’d much rather teach Chekhov and Shakespeare. But that last part, he didn’t say, because he owed Misha. For giving him a job, for supporting Arkady in every way. Hell, working here had put him through university in the first place.

  “I guess you don’t want to hear about Pavel’s freezer crapping out again, then?”

  “Fuuuck. When’s he going to replace that piece of shit?” Arkady picked his tool bag up again, but Misha took it from him.

  “I’ve got this. Go home, Kashka. Sleep. You’ve been on for ten hours straight now, and knowing you, you didn’t eat.”

  “Guilty.”

  “See you tomorrow. Or better, have dinner with us.”

  Normally he’d jump at the idea: great food, playing with the girls . . . But tonight it would just remind him of all the things he couldn’t have. All happy families were indeed alike. He hadn’t asked to be different. Alike would have worked fine for him, thankyouverymuch.

  “Not tonight. Rain check?”

  Misha gave him a long, hard stare, but then dropped it with a shrug. “Okay, see you tomorrow, then.”

  “Thanks, Misha. I appreciate it. All of it.”

  “Get out of here, Sparky.”

  This time Arkady managed a grin. It pulled on the cut. “Asshole.”

  Misha’s laughter followed him out the door.

  April was preparing for May with a real effort at spring, and for a few minutes, Arkady stopped on the bridge across the Nevka to admire the shades-of-apricot beauty reflected on the water and let the evening sunshine drive the dark clouds out of his head. It had been a long day, was all. He was alive, he had a job, and when he got home, there would be mail from America waiting for him, asking him to pack his bags.

  Which was what he’d been half-dreading, half-hoping every day for over a year now, ever since Tasha had told him the film people had promised a job and papers. It would happen. Eventually. When the sun was shining on him and glinting off the water like this, he could almost see a day when he wouldn’t have to live a lie anymore; when he’d be able to have a family of his own.

  He spit into the river below, because when you were leaning over the banister of a bridge and didn’t feel the urge to spit into the water, you were practically dead and calcified already. Then he pushed himself off the banister and squinted into the low evening sun. Despite the late hour it was still too bright to make out the silhouette of the fortress on the other side. A promise of the white nights to come.

  Turning away from the Petrogradskaya embankment, he did a quick shoulder check and immediately hate
d himself for it. The rock at dawn had shaken him worse than he cared to admit, but deep down he’d felt on thin ice since the university had fired him. They hadn’t actually accused him of being gay, of course—not to his face. They didn’t have anything concrete. He’d been extremely careful, had avoided the muscled and ultra-male tough guys he had such a weak spot for, and this past year, he’d avoided any sort of relationship at all.

  But the university hadn’t been able to give him a solid reason for firing him either. He knew the budget cuts line had been a lie. And he knew the looks and the whispers and the occasional verbal challenge. Rumors had followed him like shadows for years. A decade, even. Had followed him since Mitja’s death. It had only been a question of time until they caught up with him.

  And if he wasn’t allowed to work with university students in Petersburg, the most liberal of Russian cities, he’d never work in a university again. Not in Russia. Not unless they needed an electrician.

  But that was no reason to live like a mouse. He wasn’t important enough for anyone to care about who and what he was as long as he lay low, which meant he didn’t need to check over his shoulder. Or so he’d thought until this morning.

  Maybe he was already listed and being watched, and had been since his time in the army. But then nothing he did now, short of giving them an obvious excuse, would make a difference anyway.

  When he unlocked the battered door to his building, it took an effort not to look over his shoulder again. Too many rumors, a rock too close to home, and Mitja.

  He checked for mail with his usual vow to give up smoking and cut down on his drinking for the right letter, bracing himself for the disappointment, but it still hit him low and hard, every day. No envelope with Latin letters in the bunch.

  He dragged himself up the stairs and into the tiny bedsit he’d been living in since his graduate days. At least he still had that. At least, with the job Misha gave him, he could still live close to the university, in the midst of clubs and cafés, art and books.

  He showered and checked his email, frowning at a message from Tasha to Call me. Anytime.