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moment. Tatiana caught a glimpse of the driver reddish, very short American crew cut hair. Vasily’s thoughts were as dark as the night into which the cigarette smoke escaped through the small opening at the top of the window. He thought about his nights stalking through the streets of the city they had just left, desperately looking for someone, something, from whom he could steal enough to support his pitiful family, his patient wife, his adoring melinki kotyonok , his little kitten, Tatiana.
    When Vasily discovered the way to make money, pocketsful, boxes and walls full of it, Inga was already coughing furiously. When he found a way to make all the rubles needed to pay for a good life here, the doctor told him that Inga had tuberculosis, that she needed a dry climate. And then there was the K.G.B.! Vasily cursed silently. But perhaps the K.G.B. finding out about he and his activities, forcing him to flee, was Providence’s way of guiding him to move his family to America, to Arizona, where American doctors could cure Inga. He was sure the American doctors could cure her. If only this driver would go faster.
    The money-producing discovery that Vasily had made, came from Uri Mojolevski, another man of the night, with whom Vasily had sporadically done some work—mischief work, monkey work. Mojolevski had returned to Leningrad from Tashkent, Uzbekestan, dressed like a big shot, with a big wad of cash. There were certain people, certain very powerful, politically connected American people, Uri had explained, who were willing to provide funds and protection, to someone in Leningrad who knew how to handle himself and their product—heroin.
    Although heroin was totally prohibited in the Soviet Union, considered a decadent, Western commodity in the minds of the Politburo, in the streets it was gold. No, it was better than gold. It was more easily obtained. It didn’t have to be clawed out of the frozen ground. It grew, abounded, and grew again and again. And people wanted it, needed it, would pay gold for it. A small amount of heroin, in no time at all, could lift a vast weight of weariness, dreariness, boredom out of the cold, dark, long, Leningrad winter.
    Vasily didn’t know how the people he began to work with were able to accomplish all they did each time there was a trip to import the heroin. Obviously they were, as Uri had said, very powerful, politically connected American people. They were able to give Vasily and his smuggling team funds and travel routes by which they could bring in the heroin from Pakistan without detection, and distribute it through street pushers in Leningrad. In the last two years, Vasily’s people had distributed a ton of heroin in Leningrad, and Vasily had made a ton of rubles in the bargain.
    One thing he realized for sure was that if he made all the money he did, this organization of Americans made many more tons of rubles. Why the Americans came all the way to Russia to sell drugs, when there must be so many buyers with far more money in America, Vasily could never figure out. Especially since being caught in Russia would have very harsh Siberian consequences.
    He received a partial answer to this question one night as he traveled with the American assigned to protect the shipment—an American always accompanied the shipment to the outskirts of Leningrad. The American, drinking a strong, amber colored liquor from a small bottle—to fight the cold night, he had said—became more talkative with each swig. He said they were able to get through the red tape and borders because they had inside connections, and safe planes, everything they needed to transport the product. In addition, the American said, the K.G.B. agents were all money hungry scumbags. This was a new word to Vasily. Scumbag! All Russians were scumbags, the American added, fucking scumbag enemies. If all their brains fried on heroin, it was no skin off his ass.
    About a month ago, however,