Gregori - Heat

1988

Gregori sighed out. He needed a cigarette. He pulled out a little set of matches. The matches weren't individual, but instead were like blades of grass, connected at the roots. Each one was so tiny and so cheap, fighting him as he ripped one off. However, unlike all the local matches, it lit every single time. Of course it did. It was smuggled in, and it was military grade, jungle grade even. It was from Amerikanski rations, likely from their bases in what used to be West Germany.

When you are smoking Prima, which likely sounded like the Latin or English words "Premium" for a reason, you couldn't just use dogshit matches on them. It would be like pouring wine into a paper cup.

And he needed his Prima, because how could he possibly get himself up and spend the time to make his coffee? Deal with the intrusive thoughts suffocating him, his eyes struggling to open, his mind going a million kilometers an hour.

He, finally, took the kettle off the stove and poured himself a piping hot cup of black liquid liberation. No longer would he be oppressed by the chains of exhaustion. Detektivy of the world, unite! Holding his cup towards the ceiling, it was hard to keep from smiling.

His smile was completely dead and gone once he was on the job and doing what the People expected from him.

"Cyka" he muttered under his breath, so that the women around him didn't think he was talking about them or the victim.

A moment of joy or contentment was always just a moment.

-

That morning

Gregori rubbed his hand against the bar of soap. He then reached up, his hand crossing his vision, and grabbed his brown part. He pushed it left, because he was right handed. There was an imported detective novel or other, that mentioned this was how you knew if someone was right or left handed. The weakness of this method was, it only worked if they had long hair and they parted it to one side.

After this much practice, there was no point in checking a mirror. Everything felt the way it should, and when he strained his eyes outside of... xa xa, the frame of view his glasses provided, he could see his hair was where it should be.

He was not a genius, but he was incredibly well read and educated. He wasn't a strongman, but he got himself through conscription and he could take most people in a fight, baton vs vodka bottle. He wasn't young, but his beard and tired face was the only thing keeping him from looking barely 20. He often was unsure, doubtful, but he was willing to attempt a joke.

The Prima was in his hand as he blew out smoke and braced himself for the intrusive thoughts, the dark, doubting, angry thoughts. Looking at the clock, he listened for the whistle of his kettle.

He deserved better. He should be married or at least have a woman who would visit him when she was lonely.

Instead, nothing was going right for him. In the professional world, women were reliable. In the Militsiya, they were perfect clerks and secretaries. They never lost anything, and they were unlikely to steal anything. He had never seen one show up drunk to work. As witnesses, they either told you nothing, or told you what you needed to know. They didn't try to fight you, and you rarely, if ever, had to arrest them.

Romantically, they were impossible. One kiss of betrayal and he was cursed for the rest of his life. He apologized, but the forces of nature or math or... Communism, perhaps... had doomed him. Just once it would be nice to be the one to set everything ablaze. He wasn't asking for the ability to call her a bitch to her face and walk away. No, that would be too prideful. He was very willing, and very eager, to be able to just say "It's over, I'm leaving" and just walk away with a suitcase with his things in it.

To look into the eyes of a manipulative woman, with her power plays, and just shut her down and walk away with his dignity.

It was some strange nightmare of science, perhaps down to the level of physics. A woman was a trustworthy and honest creature, perhaps more trustworthy than he was. Who knows? Not him. If she rebuffed him, she was a kind and gentle person, what the Christians would call a saint. If he didn't like her, then she was a perfect communist and model citizen, an obeyer of the law.

However, however... The second he has interest in her, and she doesn't rebuff him... She's insane. She's completely insane.

And sometimes he could see it, but most of the time he couldn't. He couldn't see it till his things were in his arms and he was being pushed out the door.

His neck almost snapped from the sudden transition in personality. She enters his life, the splitting image of Aphrodite. Sex sex sex, her clothing cries out. Sex sex sex, her posture and language cries out. All those smoking breaks, those weren't entirely just smoking breaks. Those were "I need five minutes to make sense of how much sex this person is".

She batted her eyelashes, she spoke in a deep voice, and her hands were constantly on him. What else could that possibly fucking mean? The leaning over, the winking... If she didn't mean sex, then every guy who beat his chest and flared his nostrils didn't want to fight!

And then his stuff is in his hands, he's standing outside. All he has is her words echoing in his head, and all they say is "You're too sexual, you pressured me into this".

Shit. How was he supposed to be a scientific and rational mind, when the laws of science and psychology bent themselves around him?

And then other times his kiss of betrayal was repaid with interest. Vile cowards. Unwilling to break things off first. And why? Money, multiple men?

And the marriage, the toxicity, the poison she breathed into him.

The whistling sound separated him from his thoughts and he rushed towards freedom, liberty.

-

It was a little easier to see a dead person, after all these years. Dead woman, dead woman, dead woman, two dead drunks, dead woman, idiot accidently killed himself, suicidal man, dead woman.

Of course the smell getting to this alleyway, and in the alleyway itself was awful. He still hadn't gotten used to this horribly stench of alcohol, likely cheap vodka and puke. In the partially sunlit shadows between tenements, he could see filth and trash that only Moscow's heavy rains could wash away.

Something was wrong with this city. She was sick and unwell. It was like she had consumed something radioactive, because she was clearly unwell, and then she appeared to get better suddenly. However, he could feel in his bones how unwell she was. She was dying, she was consumed with something like cancer. The first sign was right here in this alleyway, the tripling and quadrupling of murders against women, especially those in the "oldest industry in the world".

The second was select goods disappearing and then reappearing months later, but seeming to be worse than he remembered them having once been.

He dragged an old, raggedy blanket over the woman in front of him, to respect her modesty. It was the least he owed her, in death. She had a big coat on, but the clothing underneath wasn't suitable for walking around outside in the dark. She also died on her back; or she fell back as she died. Her face was a splattered pile of gore and glass shards. That was why he had started by putting a bag over her once pretty head. Her head was covered for his sake, the rest of her was covered for her own.

Too bad. On paper, she was a criminal. But she wasn't really harming anyone. How could she? No no. Even if he had to arrest her, he wouldn't take her to the sector militysa's station and put her with the drunkards. No. He'd just find an equivalent location and just lock her inside. House arrest. Adult timeout.

This woman... Fuck... He might even have had the faintest bit of work for her while she was "locked up". Three rubles, five rubles. A woman should decide her own worth.

Sigh. This city was getting to him. This is why he had pulled the blanket over her so quickly. He hadn't had a good look at her, but... Well he had a very good memory, that's how he survived university.

Gregori pulled the bag up a bit and stared into the horror in front of him. It was hard to see her as a beautiful woman. He had to cover her again. He had the blanket adjusted so he could check something. He wouldn't look to long.

This wasn't expensive clothing. Cheap floral print dress, with bright colors that were already beginning to fade. If her income was anything like his, she deserved more.

He had to stand, the air was starting to heat up.

"Do either of you have a picture of the victim?" Gregori said. The two women with him certainly just looked like ordinary women. One of them looked around a bit, as the other pulled out a little photograph from her purse. The now dead "Sofyia" was in the middle with her arms around her fellow coworkers. She had a darling face, too bad. "Yeah, that's her alright."

She was wearing the same coat, and he was glad he had managed to notice this, the same pair of cheap, pastel shoes.

Wait, something was off about her face in this picture.

"How old was she?"

"She didn't tell us and we didn't ask."

Fuck. This city was getting to him. Redact those earlier thoughts... They both seemed to suspect nothing. Did they know?

Urg! He pulled up the bag a little and looked right into the horror, to clear his mind. After several, agonizing seconds, the bag went back down.

"Bottles don't normally shatter on impact," he said, taking out a cigarette from his shirt pocket. Striking up a match, he lit up his cigarette for the second time. The other two women were watching him, hands in their coats. "Either of you need a light before I put this out?'

One of them shook her head and the other gave a half-bemused smile. "Only if you can let me have one."

Funny. No way. "I can't be affording to do that," he said. "But out of the spirit of peoples' solidarity... Maybe next time I'll light a fresh one and we can pass it back and forth or something."

Marx. How old were these? Past the line? Please? Please?

She gave a look to the other woman that likely meant something like "Can you believe this guy?".

The blanket and bag returned to view. The Party has failed this.. Woman? Hopefully a woman?

Gregori was perhaps the last remaining communist alive. Well, the last communist who wasn't a complete idiot. The Party was currently staffed with people who should be watched over by nice men and women, who spoke in soft voices. Perhaps primary teachers. That's it. Yes, primary teachers.

The price of oil dropped, the amount of imported goods dropped with it, and yet no controls or price fixes were changed. The result? There was the same amount of money going around, and less things to buy... Which led to money losing value.. It was pretty obvious this was going to happen. The problem was, you couldn't sell things for a little more, because that was illegal.

These two women with him, they didn't have to worry about fixed prices. But maybe the fixed prices were why they were streetwalkers.

"Ladies," he said. "This is an outrage. I want to find the bastard responsible..."

Their faces indicated they didn't fully believe him. At this point he wasn't sure if he believed himself. He was starting to think that maybe he should run away from this city, this country even, run very very far away.

"But bodies are dropping left and right," He continued. "And I need to find time for the arts. And then there is stress. I'm smoking enough cigarettes as is," (A bit of a lie. He was smoking around 10-15, so he was a light or medium smoker. These women could be smoking more than him. )

"And getting justice won't result in me getting a single kopeck in compensation. I couldn't even get a glass of sparkling water from a dispensary machine, before I lie down for fitful sleep."

(That part was true. He didn't even have a motorcycle or a washing machine. )

One of them rolled her eyes, and the other, the one who previously seemed to think he was a little funny, raised an eyebrow. She almost mouthed a word.

His hand went out to indicate she needed to stop. "And I know you likely don't have enough money for a reward," he said, before taking another drag from his cigarette. "But hopefully some friend of hers, one who wants her to get justice as much as I do... Can cook... or something. Maybe something nice that I can use to talk myself into trudging around in the dark for this."

One impulse wanted release, the other felt bad for her. One was tired and made excuses, the other was just angry.

Regardless of their eventual answer, he had to put in the hours that he could spare while he was on the clock.

Something was wrong about the glass that smashed up her face. Gregori took another look, and this time it wasn't that bad. Yeah.. The glass was in a lot of pieces.. The clue was right there in front of him, and he was distracted by half a dozen other things.

And the trash around the body, it had been moved around, but not deliberately. Some of it looked stepped on, some of it looked kicked.

He reached under with his gloved hands and checked her own. There was a lot of stuff under her nails... Odd. Normally women in this profession cleaned their nails often... And... Maybe that was dried blood..

Was she trying to fight him off? Had her murder been a struggle?

When he was trying to check her for bruises or other signs, he thought he smelled something chemical that he had not smelled in a good amount of time. What was it?