(2.5) A Good Time To Quit

The black sedan’s leather seats felt like pure bliss. The wait for Yuri allowed a moment’s displeasure to inspect the damage. Dmitri could barely move his fingers and contemplated cutting of his feet to stop the pain in his mangled toes. The youth was fairly certain a rib or two was broken. His left eye was completely swollen shut but had stopped bleeding. On an ironic note Dmitri thought the scar would look pretty menacing when it healed.

Now assured that he was thoroughly broken, Dmitri felt his nerves weakening from the abatement of adrenaline. The uncontrollable quivering in his fingers was only slightly less annoying than the aching of his entire body. On a brighter note the adrenal crash came with fatigue. The ravaged teen welcomed the closing of his eyelid. He’d given up on trying to open the other one.

But as the saying goes there is no rest for the wicked, Yuri opened the back door of the car.

“Dmitri, do try not to bleed too much on the seats please,” a black brief case was stowed at the old man’s side. Yuri leaned forward and motioned for the driver to take off.

While the youth watched buildings pass his latest mentor cracked the window to light up an expensive looking cigar.

“Care for a smoke my boy?” The thick white smoke did nothing to help the old man’s rasp.

Dmitri took a pause to look at the cigar. His lungs burned to no end but the offer sounded wonderful.

“Let’s see if the smoke comes out of any holes I don’t know about,” the youth mumbled to himself.

“What’s that?” Yuri cocked a graying eyebrow.

“Nothing, yes please,” he reached for the smoldering cigar. With the minuscule amount of motor function that remained in his fingers Dmitri could only watch as the red hot embers fell into Yuri’s lap.

Needless to say there was a colorful display of swearing to follow. While Yuri displayed some of the finer qualities of the Russian language it was all Dmitri could do to close his slack mouth. After the cursing settled down from rampant catastrophe to small-oil-rig-capsizing Dmitri made his second mistake.

“Boss, if I can’t hold a smoke how am I going to be able to hold a gun?”

Yuri was thumbing at the burn holes in his once suave looking slacks. “Who said we were going to give you a gun?”

Fuck.

For the first time the sedan’s driver displayed an ounce of life as he let a grin cross his otherwise steely features.

The remaining minutes in the sedan passed in completely non reassuring silence. Dmitri almost hoped that Yuri would scold him and get it over with. The waiting was torture, and Dmitri knew all too well what that word meant now. If anything could ever be said about Yuri it would be that his stoic calculations were something to be marveled. Secondly to be noted was the amount of effort he put into determining a proper form of punishment. Dmitri would understand later that anxiety was just one of the many tools Yuri used frequently to drive fear deep into his enemies and allies alike.

The sedan rolled to a snow crunching halt in front of an otherwise unimpressive vehicle yard. Nameless driver got out after turning off the engine and proceeded to open Yuri’s door.

Dmitri limped behind Yuri like a good, faithful dog would, with tale firmly tucked between legs.

They walked in silence, save for the snow beneath their feet.

“Virgin mother Dmitri, what the hell happened to you?” A familiarly drunk voice called from ahead.

“I believe you know Ivan,” Yuri motioned to a flatbed truck that a handful of men were loading with a rather large wooden crate.

Ivan took a long drag from his cigarette and produced one for his newest brother in crime.

“No I think I’m going to quit,” Dmitri looked at Yuri’s pants. Ivan looked puzzled for a moment before understanding why the boss was going with the new ‘charcoal’ look.

Either way Ivan let himself down from the trailer bed and greeted Dmitri with a more than sufficient hit on the shoulder.

“I thought I told you to stay away from this whole mob business,” keeping his voice out of earshot from Yuri who was talking to the other workers.

Dmitri looked at his old friend and simply shrugged, “Let’s just say our boss is very persuasive.”

The two of them smiled, even if both of them didn’t find the situation comical.

The teen looked past the man’s shoulder at the crate. “What’s that for?”

Ivan took a moment’s pause before speaking, “Well I guess that’d be for you.”

Dmitri’s brow furrowed in return. Before he could ask for further explanation Yuri called to them.

“Dmitri, my boy, put this around your neck,” the old man tossed over a shoddy wooden plank with a loop of rope attached to it.

The teen caught it and had a slightly morbid feeling as to what the words written in marker would mean later.

A present from Yuri

“Now if you will,” Yuri motioned to the crate, “get in.”