Kingmakers, Graduation

31. Sabrina

31

SAbrINA

H akim and I work for several hours, using up all our remaining supplies. We’re gonna need more raw materials, fast. Hakim and I couldn’t make enough to fill even the orders we promised to the Markovs, let alone everyone else.

As we strip off our protective gear, I say to Hakim, “You going to Neve Markov’s wedding?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She invited all the Wolfpack. Which is nice, since I don’t know her personally.”

“How ‘bout you, Jasper?” I call, tossing my goggles onto the messy heap of my hazmat suit and gloves in the trunk of the SUV.

Jasper is smoking moodily, sitting on the filthy curb behind the brewery. He doesn’t seem to care that the cement is wet and icy, or that he probably shouldn’t be smoking so close to a fresh tattoo. He gives a little start when I call out to him, looking up at me with those pale green eyes ringed with black .

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t like weddings.”

“This one’s gonna be a who’s-who of mafia royalty though,” I say, “It’s the mafia Oscars.”

“That sounds fuckin’ awful.” Jasper stubs out his cigarette on the curb, dropping the butt in the gutter.

“Winter weddings are stupid,” Hakim says. “They should wait for summer.”

“Maybe they don’t want to wait.” I shrug. “Everybody says they’re crazy about each other.”

“Yeah, give it six months,” Jasper says.

“You should write greeting cards, Jasper,” I say. “For people who want to ruin their loved one’s day.”

“Happy Birthday,” Hakim says. “The endless nothingness of death is one year closer.”

“Happy Anniversary,” I say. “I’ve only cheated on you twice in twenty years, and I feel like that’s pretty good.”

“Happy Father’s Day,” Hakim says. “All my worst traits come from you, Dad, yet I look like Mom and that bothers you ever since the divorce.”

“Fuck off,” Jasper snarls.

I have at least six more Jasper greeting card ideas, but I decide to save them to tell Adrik later. Jasper really does look like shit, and it’s not as much fun to tease him when he’s all fucked up.

“Come on,” I say. “You gotta try Shake Burger. ”

We drive around the purse factory, even though it would only take a couple of minutes to walk.

Jasper looks around at the turquoise vinyl booths, the checkered tiles, Formica tables, and the old jukebox in the corner.

“Looks like that Pulp Fiction movie,” he remarks.

“You like Tarantino?” I say. “I didn’t know that.”

“I like all movies,” Jasper replies. “But his are some of the best.”

“You want me to put on You Can Never Tell ?” I grin. “We can dance.”

“Jasper can’t dance,” Hakim informs me, plopping down on the stool closest to where his crush is furiously slicing tomatoes. “ Dobriy den, Alla.”

Alla glances up at us, but offers no greeting other than a long-suffering sigh.

“ Gde Misha ?” I ask. Where’s Misha?

“ V shkole,” Alla grunts. School.

“Oh, right.” I check the clock on the wall. “We’re early today.”

“Doesn’t anyone else ever eat here?” Hakim asks, looking around the empty restaurant.

“ Nyet,” Alla says. “American diner is stupid idea. My father was idiot.”

“But your food’s so good,” I say.

“I hate cooking.”

“What do you like doing?” Hakim asks her.

“Not cooking. ”

Jasper slouches over to one of the booths. Usually I take a spot at the counter next to Hakim, but some impulse of sympathy, or maybe just the desire to talk about Tarantino, prompts me to sit opposite Jasper instead.

“What’s your favorite movie?” I ask him.

He’s silent so long that I think he isn’t going to answer. Then I realize he’s considering the question with more deliberation than I would have expected.

At last he says, “ Predator, The Mirror, Inglorious Bastards , The Big Short and The Irony of Fate .”

“Not bad,” I say. “I love The Big Short but I feel like nobody else has watched it.”

“I watch it every year,” Jasper says. “To remind me what happens when people get greedy.”

“Yeah, and what do you watch Predator for?” I grin. “So you know what to do when aliens start hunting us?”

To my surprise, Jasper smiles just a little. “That one was my brother’s favorite.”

I’ve never heard Jasper mention his family before.

I want to ask him about his brother, but I don’t want to step in anything when we’re finally getting along at least a little bit.

Alla brings us a couple of burgers without waiting for us to order. She already knows what I like, and I guess she figured Jasper would want the same.

Jasper lifts his burger and takes a bite, chewing gingerly because of the plastic wrap along his jaw. He just expanded his skeleton tattoo s, covering the left side of his face with a perfect approximation of the lower mandible and teeth beneath.

“Shit, that’s really good,” he says.

He puts his burger down a moment later, looking out the window listlessly.

He’s been a wreck since the thing with Zigor.

“I have a brother, too,” I tell him. “Damian.”

“I know. I’ve heard you talking to him on the phone.”

“He’s younger than me. He goes to Kingmakers next year.”

“Isaak was older,” Jasper says quietly. “I idolized him.”

“What was he like?”

“Smart. Confident. Aggressive. He wasn’t a dick though—even though I was five years younger. He protected me.”

That sounds a lot like Adrik. Many things are coming clear for me in this moment.

I should probably shut up now. But I can’t stop myself from saying, “Adrik told me what happened to your family. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t give me sympathy,” Jasper says, looking at his hands in his lap. “I don’t deserve it.”

“Everyone deserves sympathy.”

Jasper gives a bitter laugh. “Adrik didn’t tell you everything.”

“He said … he said there was a car bomb. That your mom and dad and brother were all inside.”

“Did he tell you why? ”

I shake my head.

“My father worked for a don named Kazimir Anisim. Have you heard of him?”

“No.”

“He was the big man in Belarus at the time. My father was his accountant.”

Jasper cracks the joints of his fingers mindlessly, compulsively. Crack, crack, crack, each pop sharp and distinct in the quiet of the booth.

“My brother was brilliant and good at everything. Not me. It was a struggle to get my parents’ attention. I wasn’t popular at school. My marks were shit. Over the summer holidays I was always underfoot, driving my mom crazy. So my father would take me along with him on errands. Sometimes he took me to Anisim’s house. He’d go into the boss’ office and I’d sit out on the patio, playing with Anisim’s dogs. He had two cocker spaniels.”

He pauses again, making a face as if he’s in pain, as if his stomach hurts.

“Anisim would come out to watch me with the dogs. He said they liked me better than anyone. I knew he was important, and my father’s boss, so at first I was scared of him. But he looked kindly, like a grandfather with white hair and blue eyes and round gold-framed spectacles. He wore tweed suits and smelled like peppermint. He used to give me peppermints, and tell me that he could see I was clever and observant. He’d ask me things like, did I notice the new painting in the hall? When I said I did and described it to him, he praised me for it. ”

It all sounds so benign, and yet a feeling of dread creeps over me. Jasper is still looking down at his hands. I can tell he’s not seeing his fingers or anything else in the restaurant around us. His eyes are glassy, his skin bleached whiter than ever.

“He started asking me other questions. What was my mother’s favorite flower? What did my brother like to do for fun? I thought he was curious, or testing me. Maybe he meant to send my mother flowers, or take my brother to the movies. I was eight and an idiot.”

“All eight-year-olds are idiots,” I say softly.

Jasper hardly seems to hear me.

“My father would ask me afterward, ‘What do you talk to Anisim about?’ And I’d say, ‘Nothing. The dogs, mostly.’ I didn’t want my father to stop bringing me along or to stop his boss talking to me. I loved the attention. Soon the questions became more specific. Strange questions I didn’t always understand—did your father go anywhere Thursday night? Does he have another cell phone? I knew there was something off about it. Maybe I even knew I was spying on my father. But it seemed harmless.”

My stomach is churning, though no more than Jasper’s I’m sure. I want the story to stop, while compelled to hear every word of it.

“Anisim was right about one thing: I was observant. I reported many things to him. Things my father wouldn’t even know that I’d know. That my father was drinking too much, that he was sneaking out of the house at night when my mother was asleep.”

Jasper sighs.

“What I didn’t know was what had happened six months earlier. My father was driving home one night in the rain. He hit a woman crossing the street. She was a nurse, walking to the bus stop from the ho spital. My father knew he’d be charged, so he fled the scene. He didn’t know the militsiya had him under surveillance. They saw the whole thing. They’d been looking for an in with Anisim. The hit-and-run was a gift from heaven. They cornered my father. Threatened him. Swore that Anisim would never find out where they’d gotten the information. And maybe he wouldn’t have.”

Jasper’s face contorts. His fingers clench into fists and then lie still on his lap.

“But he did suspect a mole. I gave him all the information he needed to confirm it was my father. His lieutenant put the bomb in the car. It was Sunday morning. We were all driving to brunch. I was in the backseat with my brother. My mother turned her head and said, ‘It’s a long drive, did you use the bathroom?’ I ran back into the house. We had a big house with a detached garage. My father started the engine so he could drive the car close to the door and pick me up out front. I stepped outside right at that moment. I heard the key turn and saw the car explode in front of me. The blast blew me backward into the house.”

My hand is over my mouth. I can’t speak.

“It knocked me out for a minute. When I came to, I stumbled outside. The car was a ball of fire and smoke. The windows had shattered. I could see all three of them, black and melted, their faces on fire. My mother and father in the front. Isaak in the backseat.”

“That’s awful Jasper, god I’m sorry.”

I’m feeling deeply guilty for every moment I resented him, for every stupid remark I’ve thrown his way.

Jasper looks at me, eyes narrowed .

“Don’t pity me. It was my fault.”

He passes one skeletal hand over his face, as if to wipe away his own emotion.

In that moment, I finally understand his tattoos. They’re penance for what he did—the mark of death all over his body. The reminder of his family, burned to the bone. Perhaps a desire to join them.

And the tattoo on his face—that’s penance for Zigor. For endangering his new family once more.

I want to say something to Jasper—what, I’m not sure.

Misha comes bursting through the door, throwing her backpack down next to Jasper and plopping beside me in the booth.

“You’re early today!” she chirps.

Jasper is making a face like he’s never seen a human child before.

“Who is this?”

“Misha,” I say. “She’s the manager.”’

“More like the janitor,” Misha mutters, casting a mutinous glance at her sister.

“Did you finish Ender’s Game ?” I ask her.

“Yeah, last night!”

“Perfect.” I pull a battered paperback from my coat pocket. “I brought you the next one.”

“There’s a sequel?”

“Sort of. It’s the same story but from Bean’s perspective. You might like this one even better. ”

“Cool!” Misha says, immediately opening the book and beginning to read.

“You done?” Jasper says to me, returning to his usual chilliness.

“Yeah,” I say. And then to Alla, “Can I get another box?”

No sense letting Jasper’s burger go to waste.