Excerpt from Pinkos by Nathaniel Klein:

I woke from blissful, post-coital dreams to the blaring sound of International Espionage–the Men from Moscow were on the other line. Disentangling myself from the mass of limbs strewn lugubriously across my bed, I piloted blindly to the red telephone reserved for special fuckings, the likes of which are given to pact-makers who sell out their homelands for an unending IV-drip of hookers and absinthe.

“Oh, Miro, what is that?” complained Roy, one of my usual, unfortunate concubines.

“The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, go back to sleep,” I said, which was not so far from the truth–the KGB had long ago plucked me straight out of a Komsomol dance night. I reached the telephone on the last ring, and was greeted with the familiar voice of a squeaky young apparatchik. 

“The albatross flies–”

“Yes, yes, what do you want?” I answered. 

“Jesus, Miroslav, you’re supposed to be on call. I’ve been ringing for five minutes.”

“Right, my apologies, I’ll be sure to brush up on the correct procedure–listen, do you know what time it is over here? I’ve specifically asked you not to call before two in the post-meridian, this had better be–”

“You have a fresh assignment,”  the apparatchik interrupted squeakily, “comes straight down from the premier.”

“Well color me flattered,” I said, slouching a cool detachment over the real fear that I had finally wound up in something of consequence.

“Last night, a local Weathermen cell was butchered. Mutilated. Thoroughly exploded. Four bodies down at the morgue.”

“Some American kids blow themselves up playing with their new toys? Doesn’t that happen every day in this fucked up bourgeois hellhole?”

“Boy, you really lay it on thick for them,” Za-Za called, emerging out from under Roy’s legs with a long cigarette between her fingers. 

“Not like this,” the apparatchik said, a kind of squeaky dread oiling up his voice, “six dead pigeons were found at the scene.”

A primal fear from deep in my Soviet psyche activated: the fear insects have of lizard-things, the prey instinct that lights up when one encounters polar bears and tiger tanks. 

“Six?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s–”

“Perfectly matches the modus operandi of Grigor the Haunt.”

The forbidden name sent a shiver that shook me from nape to sphincter.

“Shit,” I said.

“Precisely.”

“So, wait, now hold the fuck on!” I stammered, grim reality struggling to sink in. “He’s been rogue for, fucking, thirty fucking years?”

“Twenty-six, don’t be dramatic.”

“The biggest bogeyman in our great Soviet mythos pops up after twenty six years in the wilderness, and you want me to neutralize him?”

“Neutralize? Oh, no. No, no, no, we’re not communicating here. You’re bringing him in, Miroslav. Back to the fold.”

“Holy fucking shit! I’ve heard the stories, Vlad, he makes coats out of people! I’m a, a, a diplomatic prostitute, what do you expect me to do with this shit?”

“Relax. You’re not on this detail alone. We’ve got you a partner: a homegrown American.”

“Oh, brother! An American? Where has your conscience gone!”

“It’s the best bet we’ve got to save your skin. He’s combat rated hyperlethal and hates kulaks, so when things get hairy, he’s your guy.”

“So you are expecting this to get wet.”

“Only a matter of time before you had to earn that Soviet salary,” the apparatchik squeak-chortled. “I hear they’re keeping it nice and plush for you in Washington.”

“Well, I am a Bohemian, I’m entitled to some creature comforts.”

The line changed hands; the Poobah’s vodka-breath telephonically transmitted down the back of my neck. 

“Do you want to tell me,” the chief of the KGB growled, “just what the fuck your problem is?”

“Well, sir–” I hastily composed myself, “–as much as I might appreciate the exciting opportunity of such a, ahem, excitement, it might compromise my more subtle and yet absolutely critical information-gathering projects. Besides, I fear that with a subject of such far-famed talent for violence as the Haunt, I’m less likely to have him hanging from your mantelpiece than to wind up in the back of his pickup, if you catch my mixed metaphor.”

“Grigor the Haunt was the most feared NKVD operative our great Russia ever produced, but he did not kill his own kind.”

“But–I’m Czech. And Grigor the Haunt was Ukrainian–”

“I mean Communists, you shit!” the Poobah roared. 

“Right,” I squeaked, “of course, sir. Do you have any leads?”

By way of an answer, a manila envelope slid under my door. 

“Vlad will give you the details. I expect results, Miroslav.”

“Oh, you know me, sir: it’s pushpushpush all the way!” 

The line changed hands; the apparatchik was stifling squeak-laughter.

“Your partner’s train arrives in twenty. You best get rolling.”

“Sure thing, Vlad; we’ll be in Berlin by Christmas.”

I hung up before he could squeak again and tore open the envelope as cries of pleasure echoed once again from my bed, sans-moi. 

“Oh, Christ! What’s the matter with you two? I’m trying to work!”

“I’ll work you, Miro,” Za-Za called. “Join us.”

“Yeah, chuck that detail, Miroslav, there’s nothing but loving here,” Roy beckoned. I sighed and threw myself on the bed, throwing the two up like a trampoline, my concubines giggling as I curled up between them and tousled their hair like fairy godmother. 

“Oh, my beautiful friends. I’m afraid there comes a time in every international agent’s life when he must hang the sword over his bedsheets and answer his overlord’s call. Fear not, for I shall return to you whole, with great spiritual wounds from all the liary and bloodletting that only your debauched lovemaking can mend. But, in the meantime, friends, I must bring a great legend from the steppe–back to the fold!” 

I sprung from the bed and threw open the curtains, blinding myself and my hireling bedfellows with the day-star’s accusatory glow. 

“Oh, Christ fucking tits! Get out, I have killing to do!”

Rubbing my hangover-pounded temples, I poured a fresh flask of Pernod and collected my turquoise coup de ville from the valet, Georgie–a quite accommodating fellow, who met my early rise with a delightful cocktail of cheer and suspicion–he was an agent of some British extraction, whom I had convinced I was a Belgrade man. 

“Up this early, Miro?

“You know how it is–The Man Upstairs never sleeps.”

He nodded knowingly and tossed me my keys.

“My best to Tito.”

“And mine to Ted. Ciao, baby.”

Georgie blew me a kiss, and by the powers of Detroit I thundered away to Union Station. My new partner, alias Jersey, was waiting for me, stepping forth from the romanesque headhouse with shiny green eyes, beaming at me like I was a Hero of the Soviet Union fresh out of The ‘Grad. He was the strange kind of American boy who had read too many comic books and too much Marxist-Leninist theory, so that in his mind bringing about the International Worker’s Revolution was like Batman stopping the Joker from blowing up Gotham. He also committed to the exploited laborer look a little too enthusiastically, and I was embarrassed to have a youth in grease-stained leather and torn jeans climbing into my stately turquoise Cadillac.

“Hey there, Mr. Miroslav! Gee, what a swell ride. Only in the great Soviet Union can average joes like you and I afford such an automobile! Did Mr. Vladimir tell you about me?”

“Is that what you call him?” 

“Sure do, Mr. Miroslav. Ah gee, I haven’t introduced myself! Call me Jersey.”

“O-kay, Jersey. I took a look at your file–”

“Oh, they’ve got paperwork on me?”

“They have paperwork on everybody. They’re the Russians.”

“Neat-o!”

“Quite. I saw you’re listed as hyperlethal. How’d a kid your age get that designation?”

“Well, my uncle was in the mob, and he realized that a kid is a lot less threatening than a 200-pound mafioso, so I’ve been running hits since I was eight.”

“Jesus.”

“Yup!” he exclaimed jubilantly, a sparkle in his eye. “I’ve gotten pretty good at it by now.”

“And you don’t mind performing acts of treason against the land of your birth?”

“I’d do just about anything to bring about the International Worker’s Revolution,” he said innocently, as if it were the duty of every good Cub Scout.

“All right. You seem to be a little new at this international espionage stuff, so you’ll forgive me if I’m a tad more honest with you than I should be. This is not a normal kind of assignment, especially for me.”

“Oh, I know. You’re the smooth-talking prostitute, and I’m the muscle. Fine by me, Mr. Miroslav.”

I blinked, more than a little shocked at his nonchalance. 

“And you know who Grigor the Haunt is?”

“Sure, what good commie doesn’t?” 

“Sorry, I’m just a little surprised that an American, much less one your age, would be familiar with the tale of Grigor the Haunt.”

“Well, I might be a little rusty on the–”

“He flayed Nazis alive and made coats from their skin.”

“Oh, yeah, I know that part! He sounds like a real tough guy, but they told me he never hurt any good commies, so I’m not worried.”

“You know that’s a lie, right?”

“Really?”

“The NKVD killed more Soviets than Nazis. They were the ones running the Gulags before our own great KGB came along.”

Jersey’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t know if I understand, Mr. Miroslav. Are you saying that the Committee for State Security would lie to their own agents?”

I patted my young American ward fatherly on the shoulder.

“I have a feeling you’re gonna learn a lot from me, Jersey. Let’s get to it: our file says the Weathermen are down at the morgue in Dominion–that’s the county just across the Potomac in Virginia. It just so happens that I’m on good terms with the Dominion PD. I’m something of a thespian, see, and one of my most favorite roles is a big hit with the sergeant: Inspector Louis “Lou” Bobovich from Chicago–I’m maybe understanding why they’ve detailed me here now. We’ll use that connection to get in and make sure the murder tracks with the Haunt’s M.O., see if we get any leads about where we might find him.”

“What about me? How do I get in?”

“Oh. Uh–you’re my nephew, Alex, who I’m babysitting. It’s bring your nephew to work day.”

“Okey-doke.”

We arrived at the station at an inopportune time, as the universally despised Captain Mongoose was giving the good sergeant Harry a right chewing-out.

“Goddammit, Harold!” The Captain always referred to his underlings by their unadulterated Christian names. “What the fuck kind of mess did you walk us into? We’ve got CIA and FBI in on this?”

I raised my eyebrows at Jersey; this was, indeed, a big deal, and my ward’s eyes gleamed with bloodlust at the mention of big game. 

“Easy, hotshot, let me do the talking,” I whispered to Jersey. 

“L-look, sir, I don’t have control over crimes,” Harry stammered, “if they want the jurisdiction over whatever this is–”

“It’s a shitstorm is what it is! And it goes right up to me! If you botch this, I swear to Jesus–”

“Ahem.”

All eyes zapped to me–it was showtime!

“Uh, Captain, this is Inspector Bobovich, from Chicago–”

“Charmed,” I chortled. I enjoyed catching Harry off-guard; it resulted in the best, most spontaneous acting. “And this is my nephew, Alex.”

“It’s bring your nephew to work day,” Jersey explained cheerily.

“Is it?” the Captain probed. “Goddammit! My wife’s brother’s kid’s been asking to hold my gun for years! I’m gonna get chewed out for sure.”

“You’ll have to commiserate later, Captain; I’d like to see the bodies, if I may.”

He stared at me, terrified, mouth agape.

“You’ve heard?”

“Nothing gets past Bobovich,” I crooned, snapping reciprocated finger guns at Harry.

“Well, hold on, Inspector Bobovich, I don’t think you’ve got jurisdiction on this,” Mongoose said. “Besides, it’s likely that the FBI and/or CIA will be taking this–”

“You leave the FBI and CIA to me–the Secret Service will have a word with them.”

I flipped open my forged badge, and a delightful gasp of amazement echoed through the station.

“You were Secret Service this whole time!” Harry exclaimed.

“Precisely, Harry; now, no more dithering–we have some killings to solve.”

Dutifully, Captain Mongoose led me and my little procession back to the morgue. Mongoose’s puritanical notoriety had excluded him from many a poker night, but he seemed like he could be another valuable member of the cast, if the flesh was willing.

“Bobovich, that’s a, Russian name?” the Captain chit-chatted.

“Moldovan, actually.”

“Ah.”

“Bit of French Creole by way of mother. Acadian, you see?”

“Uh-huh. I didn’t realize Inspector was a formal title.”

“Very common in Chicago. Everything’s a little Canadian up there.”

“Well, naturally.”

“Now, the case: any leads?”

“Er, nothing substantial yet. But we have our top psychotherapist, Dr. Totenbastard, analyzing the crime.”

“Oho, I’d love his opinion. It is so rare that in the science of dead bodies you find someone who truly lives the life of the mind.”

“Truly,” Captain Mongoose proudly agreed. He rapped on the metal door of the morgue and led us in. 

  A slight elderly man pushing eighty was drilling a hole up the nose of a well-dead twenty-something with three bullet wounds closely grouped around her heart. Two more bodies were on display, both males displaying a few dozen stab wounds, one with a large cavity where the back of his head should be.

“My reports said four bodies,” I whispered to Harry. He pointed to a black garbage bag, wilting sadly in the back. I was not as accustomed to such events as I would have wished, but before I had time to ponder its contents too greatly, Dr. Totenbastard enthusiastically shook my hand with his bloodstained glove. 

“Inspektor Bobofich, a pleasure. Harry’s told me so much about you.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Dr. Totenbastard. Captain Mongoose said you were a psychotherapist, I had no idea you were a man of many talents.”

“Yes, ah, Dr. Totenbastard is filling in while our M.D.’s on his lunch break,” the Captain explained, “if you’re willing to wait–”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary, Captain; what does the good doctor have to say?”

“Vell!” Dr. Totenbastard exclaimed cheerily. “Ze situation is quadruple murder; two shtabbings, vun multiple gunshot vounds, and a fourth qvite kompletely exploded. Vhere vould you like to shtart?”

“How about motive?”

“Ah, but of kourse! Now, it is my analysis zat ze krime is in fact, by its very nature, sexual in nature.”

“Sexual?” asked Captain Mongoose, astounded.

“Vell yes, I believe zat zis is, euh, vell in line vis ze Freudian principle of ze sexual inadequacy. You see, ze firearm in qvestion, zis euh, forty-four kaliber revolver, it is taking ze place of ze phallik member, or penis, if you vill, so zat in the ze very akt of killing, it is like making ze love.”

“What?”

“Inspector, isn’t this analysis a little, unorthodox?” Harry confided.

“Ah, perhaps, though not dissimilar from the Viennese school,” I reassured. “Thank you for that analysis, Doctor. Might I examine the bodies?”

“Be my guest,” the good doctor bowed. Daintily (for I was unaccustomed to dealing with the dead, much less ones despatched with such grizzly means), I inspected the palms of their hands. It was a trademark of the Haunt to take a patch of skin from the hands of each victim, if they weren’t flayed whole, but each hand was fully intact. 

“Any of them been ID’d, Captain?”

“This is Mia Simmons,” Mongoose pointed to the woman. “Over there is Ezekiel Cribs, and the one missing the back of his head is Jacob Reissling. Still working on #4 in the bag.”

“We know where they set up shop?”

“A shitty townhouse Mia’s father was renting for her. The three were students at St. Ignatius, we assume the fourth was, too. Looked like they were putting pipe bombs together, planning on bombing Congress or something.”

“A sex-killer using his preversions to defend the country, “I mused, “curious indeed. I, ah, heard something about dead pigeons?”

“Oh, yes;” Totenbastard said, “I’fe got zem right here:”

Totenbastard led me to a tray where lay the six birds, each of their throats inexplicably slit, finished with the mechanical precision and compassionate speed of a shepherd slaughtering his lambs.

“What do you make of them, Inspector?” the Captain asked.

“Not sure, Mongoose; but they fit in here somewhere. It’s a great puzzle, and these pigeons just might be the key.”

Mongoose and Harry nodded piously, revering Bobovich’s authority.

“Vould you like to see ze fourth as vell?” Dr. Totenbastard asked, pointing to the garbage bag wilting in the back.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, doctor; we’ll be in touch if we need anything further.”

I shook hands with the assembled company, and Harry escorted Jersey and I to the door.

“Jeez, Bobovich, you’re a lifesaver,” Harry said, “I thought Mongoose was gonna have my ass for sure.”

“Fear not, my friend; Bobovich is on the case.”

Harry kissed my hand and waved as we departed, and I breathed a bittersweet sigh as I stowed away Bobovich and returned to Miroslav Ondrisek, the Czech Soviet agent extraordinaire who’d conned the capitalists yet again.

Outside the police station, I began to feel the Jersey character cracking, a twitch in my young ward’s eye betraying a withering patience. 

“Don’t worry, Jersey; we’ll give you something to kill soon enough. In the meantime, we’ve got a sex-killer to find.”

“Gee, Mr. Miroslav, I’m not so sure you’re good with this stuff,” Jersey said, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. Evidently, he didn’t realize I was bullshitting him. “That German guy was talking crazy.”

“Oh?” I smirked. “You’re right, of course, Herr Totenbastard ist ein krank, aber, sometimes one can glean tremendous revelations from the babblings of madmen, and if that scalpel-wielding psychotherapist wrote a book, I would buy it.” 

“Mr. Miroslav, I’ve heard a bit about Grigor the Haunt, and I don’t think Dr. Totenbastard’s theories apply.” 

Jersey didn’t mean to be funny, I was sure, but his deadpan cracked me up.

“You’re absolutely right, Jersey–whew, okay. I think it’s fair to call this operation a bust. That’s just how it is in the International Espionage Scene; you spend years chasing down the hottest trail you’ve ever found, only to discover it was nothing but a puff of smoke, a trick of the light. Good thing we’ve got ahead of this one–”

“Not so fast, Mr. Miroslav. If the FBI and CIA were interested in this, something stranger here is afoot. Besides, there’s still those six dead pigeons.”

“What do you mean? You heard the Captain; they were planning to blow up Congress. That’s reason enough to get the Feds involved. And the pigeons could be explained by, you know, any number of natural phenomena…point is, those killings were not the Haunt’s work, no flayed flesh from the palms. I’m filing this as a false alarm, and–”

With spider-like quickness, Jersey lifted me bodily by the collar, his crisp leather jacket evidently hiding considerable muscle mass.

“Listen here, you kulak: I can keep up this boyscout schtick for only so long listening to your cowardly, traitorous drivel. They warned me about you. Oh yeah, they showed me your file: insubordination, defeatist sentiment, ideological equivocation. What if I tell them you’re trying to defect, huh? Bet the Men Upstairs’ll get a real kick out of that!”

“Jersey, might I remind you, we are still standing directly outside of an American police station.”

Out of practicality, he lowered me back to the ground, but kept his hands just below my neck. 

“So, Mr. Miroslav, here’s what we’re gonna do: we’re gonna tell the apparatchiks about the six dead pigeons, about the Feds’ interest in this one, and we’re gonna see what we can do to pick up the trail. All right?”

My smile never dropped–I could play this just fine.

“Fine by me, fair Jersey. Let’s get this show on the road!”

He released me and brushed clean my lapels, following one step behind to the Cadillac. As I pulled away from the station, I gestured to the space-age interior, the plush leather seats, the marvel of its air-conditioning. 

“You see this car, Jersey? This great, majestic ship-of-the-land, this pearl of blessèd Detroit?”

“I see it.”

“Under what circumstances do you think I could have a car like this behind the Iron Curtain?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point, my young ward, is that though it is ideologically distasteful, there are many creature comforts available to me in America that I happen to enjoy quite a bit. And, considering this fact, I’m more than a little confused why you’ve come to work for the KGB.”

“Not everyone in America can afford Cadillacs.”

“Of course not, but it’s a real possibility, if you’re sufficiently unscrupulous.”

“Let’s just say that America and its labor system has done me and mine great wrongs,” Jersey said. 

“Okay. Fair enough. I can say the same thing about the Soviets.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I’m Czech, and Czechoslovakia’s been a subject nation of the Soviets since 1945.”

“Then why are you helping your so-called oppressors?”

I shrugged.

“Convenience. I have no real special love for Czechoslovakia, but on principle, I would rather them have their own free communism, like Yugoslavia, than lying under Brezhnev’s boot. I am a member of a subject people, and you are one who would like to be a subject. Excuse me for having a different perspective on Marxism-Leninism than you.”

“How long have you been in America, Mr. Miroslav?”

“Oh, uh, let’s see–eight months?”

“You don’t know shit about how this country works,” Jersey snarled. “I can’t believe they’ve put you on this detail. You’re not even a real Commie; you’re just a Fellow Traveler, a Pinko!”

I laughed cheerily.

“As much as I appreciate the compliment, it’s entirely besides the point: I am the man in Washington that Moscow needs, and because I am needed, I shall not be dispensed with so easily.”

“Is that so?”

“It is; they wouldn’t put up with my ideological impurity otherwise. So, regardless of what I believe, I am going to do this job, and I am going to do it right, regardless of what you believe ‘right’ is. Capiche?”

“Well, I believe, Mr. Miroslav! I believe that there’s some really fucked up things happening in this country, and the Men in Moscow have a plan to fix it. I’m not a great politician or anything, but I know that they did not send me down here from Newark for nothing. I’ve got a part to play in bringing about the International Workers’ Revolution, and you are gonna help me do it, or else!”

“Kee-rist,” I sighed. Was I really going to sell out my charmèd life of debauched pleasure to risk life and limb chasing a ghost? This Sicilian-American comunista was uncouth enough to make good on his threats–if I did not believe in the legend of Grigor the Haunt, I did believe in the KGB’s ability to spirit me away, never to be heard from again. “All right, Jersey. I’ve got a contact, a rather big one, who’s almost certainly able to help: China’s man in Washington, name of Zhou.”

“I don’t know how I feel about Maoism,” Jersey said, “are you sure we can trust him?”

“Jersey, my dear boy, you have to put away such notions of ‘trust.’ Zhou and I operate on a strictly quid-pro-quo basis. This is the game; we both give up as much as we can that we know they already know, and–more often than not, cause I’m good at this–something juicy slips through the cracks.”

“Doesn’t that cut both ways?”

“Not when you’re as good as I am. Trust me.”

“Fine. But I’m reporting all of this to the apparatchiks.”

“You do that, Jersey. You do that.”

Zhou was more than happy to meet at our usual spot, a quiet café in Ignatius that made me think of old Kavarna Radikalni in Prague. We kissed each other’s cheeks and nestled into our corner booth.

“I’d say I was happy to see you, Miro, but I know your calling at this hour means business is on.”

“Afraid so, Zhou; they’re finally making me earn my keep.”

“Oho. I suppose that’s what this one’s to do.”

“Indeed: my young ward, Jersey, though really it’s the other way around. He’s here to handle the wetwork.”

“Oh?” Zhou smiled, thinking I had misplayed, but this was likely enough already for him to give me what I needed. “Well, do keep him safe, Jersey; this one has a real nose for trouble.”

“Indeed I do. Zhou, I’ve sniffed something out that requires your assistance.”

“Oh dear,” he said, “it must be bad.”

“At least for the poor schmucks who got hit it is. Quartet of Weathermen, Ignatius students, got themselves whacked before they could make good on their part in the Revolution. Pretty violent M.O., one done in with a .44, two with knife wounds all over, another in a garbage bag in so many pieces. Sound familiar?”

“Hmm,” Zhou mused, rubbing his cigarette in a figure-eight pattern in the ashtray. “Funnily enough, might be a pair of new faces I’ve recently been made aware of.”

“Oh? Do tell,” I crooned. Zhou looked at me blankly behind the flame of a new cigarette and blew smoke in Jersey’s face. 

“There’s a new pair of Plumbers plugging leaks at the White House. And doing so violently.”

“Huh. Thought Nixon kept things buttoned up, you know, clean.”

“He’s been desperate ever since the Pentagon Papers. The one with the knives is the Rain Hawk–Vietnam vet, Dominion raised, wild card all around. The one with the .44 is the Gutter Snake, a Ukrainian defector, more controlled, and yet, more cruel. A fascinating pair.”

“Sounds like it. Thanks, Zhou; anything we can elucidate for you?”

“Well, I am rather curious why you two care whether or not some Weathermen find themselves rained on.”

Jersey stared daggers at me in sudden anger, but I had Zhou right where I wanted him.

“Well I’ll tell you, Zhou: the Weathermen aren’t just disaffected teenagers mad at Mommy and Daddy for hugging them too much as a kid. There are a few cells with actual Soviet agents in them, stirring up protests and, yes, occasionally bombing somebody.”

“Really.”

“Not this St. Ignatius cell, of course; it’d be too on-the-nose. But even when they miss, you want to know who’s shooting at you, y’know?”

“Quite,” Zhou smiled. “There is something else, something stranger, that I don’t have the full measure of yet, but has something to do with this pair. Something…occult is going on in Nixon’s White House.”

“Well, naturally, I’m sure their schemes are getting pretty arcane over there–”

“You misunderstand,” Zhou blushed, “the Rain Hawk and the Gutter Snake are pursuing some kind of, ‘supernatural interest.’ I know that sounds rather far-fetched, and unfortunately I can’t be any more specific, as I’m sure I don’t know myself. But, there have been signs.”

Jersey tensed up like he was on the receiving end of a knifethrowing act, but I only laughed. 

“That’s splendid, Zhou. We’ll look into it.”

Zhou leaned in close, the dim light casting weird shadows down his cheekbones.

“I suggest that you do. It may have much to do with our peoples’ survival–regardless of all else, I’m made uncomfortable by the prospect of a man who believes he is a vessel for a higher or lower power having the Nuclear Football at-hand.” 

Zhou leaned back and lit another cigarette, its small flame breaking the spell of darkness shrouding our scheming-place. A supernatural conspiracy sure as hell would be a bizarre smokescreen, but for all I knew, the Americans were after the Haunt, too–and it sounded like they knew something we didn’t.

“Whew. Well, thanks for the tip, Zhou, most intriguing.”

Zhou nodded, waving out his match with feline boredom. 

“If you’re willing to mix business with pleasure this eve, Miro, might I buy the first round?”

“Much obliged,” I said, and without further ado, three absinthes were brought forth. It felt just like home.

To my surprise, Jersey met my practiced Bohemian consumption measure for measure. I bid Zhou adieu after round four, and Jersey and I stumbled out onto the nightlit waterfront, the sludge-green water of the Potomac shimmering with the reflected city lights. 

I had grown fond of this new home of mine; its shabbiness suited me well. Though it had none of the history, it reminded me, in a strange, faraway sense, of Prague. There was something very honest about a capital in disrepair, something pitifully sympathetic about monuments to long-lost demigods standing proudly amidst urban decay. Across the river, the city’s Virginian twin, Dominion, appeared like an ancient seabeast, dense prongs of bioluminescence fanning out from Jules, disappearing quickly in the papered scales of Dominion’s forests. I did feel an old song humming through me–that, unlike so many places, Dominion was a place that was not like other places, just like Zaolzie and the Tatras. It was not impossible for me to conceptualize the presence of the supernatural–it just seemed damned unlikely. The City would be too obvious anyhow, but something strange could be playing out in Dominion. If the Haunt was anywhere, he was tucked away somewhere beneath those trees, hidden beneath the underbelly of the seabeast. 

Jersey seemed similarly lost in thought, standing silently at the water’s edge, peering at something I could not see.

“Alright, Jersey, let’s get a-rolling. Jersey?”

Jersey’s gaze was fixed on the small lights of Dominion, humming in the sinking summer dark. 

“Hey, Mr. Miroslav?”

“Finally, he speaks.”

“There’s weird shit afoot, man,” Jersey droned, his voice transmogrified with the clarity of a trance. “Some kind of–convergence. A thinning of the veil between the worlds. Can you feel it?”

“Sure, buddy, let’s get you–”

“No; listen. Something very important is going to happen, Mr. Miroslav, and you, you have a role to play.”

“Well of course I do, Jersey, we’re gonna bring about the International Workers’ Revolution!”

His mouth fell open in a lolling smile, like somebody had broken his jaw. His eyes roved wildly over the retroceded county’s lights.

“There’s something over there, Mr. Miroslav,” Jersey said, leveling a finger across the water.

“What is it, my boy?”

Jersey’s head whip-snapped to me, his irises kaleidoscoping with the detached focus of a hunter. “The Haunt,” Jersey cried haltingly, choking on the name, “in the Pine Barrens. My boy scout troupe was menaced by a wingèd demon with a horse’s head. It sang with such a bloodcurdling cry of primal rage–its eyes, Mr. Miroslav, oh, Jesus! It slashed their throats with its razor claws, and from their palms carved a little patch of square flesh. But I was spared. For even then, I was a good Communist, and it did not kill its own kind. Don’t you see? I was meant to find him, Mr. Miroslav; it was foreordained! And I can feel him–just across the river. Our salvation is right there.”

“Riiiight,” I said waxily, “we’ll get our salvation first thing tomorrow. Think you had a bit too much absinthe, m’boy–shoulda warned ya, the Czech stuff really will–”

Jersey fell into me, and it was all I could to remain upright and keep him from slipping into the river.

“Hey, easy! What are ya–”

Looking up at me, his eyes quivered opalescently, like he was an ocean-going fish I had saved him from the trawler’s net. I remembered that he was only seventeen.

“Mr. Miroslav, am I gonna be okay?”

“Oh, sure,” I said reflexively, “nothing bad ever happens to Communists in America.”

In confirmation, a dead pigeon fell like a brick to the asphalt behind us, its little throat inexplicably slit.