The Word Cloud

This extract is set in 1984 and Grigory Dankovich is sleeping with Alice, whom he met when his daughter Julietta and her son Jarrod became friends at nursery. Grief stricken at the death of his first love Irena, and unable to talk to his young wife Maaria about it, he turned to Alice for consolation.

There is swearing and an attempted assasination, and Grigory fails to get his leg over despite having two woman on the go - such is life!






‘Are you picking up Julietta today?’

‘Yeah, don’t have to be in ‘till later.’

‘She did a cute painting yesterday, they were making Easter things, you know, eggs and chicks?’

‘I saw.’

‘You should, you know, stick one up at work?’

‘You should come back to bed.’ Alice smiled at him as she pulled her comb through her hair, stood at the window of her bedroom.

‘I can’t. Got things to do.’ He rolled himself lazily out of bed, shambled over and gathered her into his arms.

‘I got things I wanna do to you.’ He traced the edge of her cheek with his finger.

‘You done them.’ She kissed him, and deliberately moved away. He let her, because he thought there would still be time to do them.

Grigory had wondered if being with Alice would lessen his desire for Maaria, but found he hungered for Maaria with some dark energy she responded to. Alice was calm, melancholy even; with her it started to feel like coming home - he felt he was cheating on Alice with Maaria. He fucked Maaria, but made love to Alice.

‘What’s got into you?’ Maaria grinned back up at him, still on all fours. ‘You’ve fucked me into the floor, big man.’

She’d come down when she heard him moving about in the kitchen at night. She was light and slender as a wand; and he liked that it still felt he had to take what she gave him.

‘Hey, Mr Vitch, you lookin’ fine today.’ Candy Wrapper, strung out in red, totted on her heels and lent against the fire hydrant on the corner.

‘You ok?’ he asked as he passed her. She pouted, rolled her tongue over her teeth.

‘Oh, I good now, sugar, I got me a proper Daddy.’ She hugged herself.

‘You take care,’ he hadn’t seen her round much. He guessed that must be why.

‘Oh, I always take care. I take good care of you too, if you want Mr Vitch?’

‘You know me Candy, married man,’ he risked a smile, as they were not observed.

‘Oh, I know you Mr Vitch,’ she peeled herself from the hydrant.

There was an air of anxiety in the club when he entered. Two of the cleaners were standing with the bar staff. All looked at the kitchen door next to his office. Uri was speaking with Sarah, one of the girls who paid rent to Viktor and had permission be inside.

‘What’s up?’ Grigory asked. There was a boxing night to tonight; Mason was due in later with some people he wanted shown a ‘good time’. It was not a good time for the cleaners not to have cleaned, the bar staff not to have re-stocked, or Uri to be consulting a hooker.

‘They’ve disturbed a fuckin’ yellow jacket nest out back.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah...’ Sarah re-crossed her arms over her green sweater. ‘I came in to use the can, the place’s alive with em.’ She shivered. As if to illustrate the point, one of the cleaners screamed and started flailing her arms about. The rest jumped back, ducking and diving out of the way. Grigory saw vicious points of yellow and black squeezing under the kitchen door.

‘Shit!’ Sarah ducked round Uri, who began a wasp dance of his own.

‘Fucking bastard fucker!’ He yelped, slapped, and everyone made for the door.

Viktor pulled up in his grey Mercedes an hour later. Grigory had sent the staff to wait in the coffee shop, and the exterminators were inside. He’d offered them whatever money they needed to get the place clear in time.

‘What the fuck’s goin’ on here?’ Viktor demanded. Grigory noticed that as always, his trouser legs were a shorter than they should be. His ankles look thin and exposed.

‘Wasps.’

‘You’re fuckin’ kidding me,’ Viktor glared at the door of the club. ‘You assholes got scared of some fuckin’ bugs?’

‘Hey, what you want us to do?’ Uri grumbled, nursing an angry pink welt on the side of his neck, ‘take ‘em out one by one?’

Three nights ago they were together in Viktor’s Mercedes, dealing with other pests.

‘What’s the plan?’ Uri leant forward and rested his hand on the back of Grigory’s headrest.

‘We’re gonna smoke ‘em out,’ Viktor smirked, ‘sick of these fuckers thinking they’re something they ain’t.’

‘These the same guys what worked over Nelson?’ Two weeks back Nelson, the clubs other boxing trainer, had gone to his car. Three men had jumped him, beaten him down then held him up so he could see them trash his car. ‘He loved that car,’ Uri added.

They watched the dive. It was a square, red brick building, solid and economic, two floors and a flat roof. The corner of the place was sliced off from roof to sidewalk, to accommodate a large window and main door. The name ‘Beer Hunters’ was written in neon inside the glass. On the west side was a second, less illustrated door. Opposite the main door were a telegraph pole and an old-fashioned red mailbox. They watched as two men came up on the east side of the building, heads together as they talked.

They’d driven there in a convoy, Grigory and Viktor in the Mercedes, Uri in a sacrificial BMW.

‘We good to go?’ Uri asked.

‘Not yet,’ Viktor tapped the steering wheel with his index finger. Grigory felt sick. He always felt sick when they were waiting; his stomach lurched sideways. He belched.

A car parked up a little way down from the place by a row of locked garages. The headlamps winked out. In the streetlights gloom they saw the driver get out, and head toward the bar. The neon touched his face for a second as he entered.

‘There,’ Viktor pointed. In the dark Grigory saw the lean mans eyes glazed orange with sodium light. He nodded and Uri got back into the BMW.

‘You wanna light it up?’ Viktor asked.

‘That’s your bag,’ Grigory muttered.

‘Sure – I like playin’ with fire,’ he said almost to himself.

They got out and Viktor popped the trunk. As Grigory picked up his baseball bat his knuckles brushed against cold glass. Viktor picked up a bottle, unscrewed the cap and fitted a rag into the neck. Uri screeched the BMW across the main door of the bar. As soon as he jumped free, Viktor threw.

Hot, wet flame engulfed the bar in seconds, ripping the night apart as the bottle showered glass and burning gasoline over both car and building. As men swarmed out of the side door, the three of them swatted them down. As a guy collapsed at his feet, Grigory felt nothing, not even sick.

‘This better be sorted by tonight.’ Viktor said as they watched the door of Mason’s club for yellow jackets.

‘They say it will,’ Grigory said, and straightened up. ‘I’ll be back in a hour or so.’

‘Where you goin’,’ Viktor demanded, ‘this shit ain’t sorted yet?’

‘Can do nuttin’ till they’ve finish.’

‘You can’t come in, I got company.’ Alice was not pleased to see him.

‘I just passing.’

‘Yeah, well,’ Alice closed the door not shutting it completely and lowered her voice, ‘you better pass bye.’

‘Ok – why you bein’ like this?’ Grigory nodded toward the closed door, ‘who you got in there?’

‘Family,’ she said shortly, ‘hey - you don’t get to look like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you get to say who I see and who I don’t.’ She softened a little, ‘It’s just my Mom, anyhow.’

‘Oh,’ he didn’t move.

She glanced behind again, and hissed ‘Please, Grigory, she don’t know nuttin’… I ain’t about to tell her I been seein’ some married white man.’ Unreasonable anger swelled inside him, but her eyes trapped behind her glasses pleaded. He stepped back.

‘Ok, I go then. As you so busy,’ before he made the stairs, he heard her hesitantly say -

‘Next week, yeah?’

Maaria was going out as he came in.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘what you doin’ here?’

‘Got time out,’ he said, closing the front door behind him. ‘We got wasps, exterminators in.’

‘Shit?’ She pulled a face, ‘I hate wasps.’ She glanced at herself in the hall mirror emblazoned with the Coke logo. ‘Well, there’s cold cuts in the fridge, I gotta go.’

‘No you ain’t,’ he tried to get hold of her.

‘Oh back off,’ she muttered, ‘I gotta get Julietta; she’s been with Mom today after school.’

‘Come on, baby,’ he got an arm round her again, wanting the struggle, ‘we got the time.’

‘I said no,’ she said forcefully, and pushed at him. ‘Sit on it, I’m late already.’

The exterminators had gone when he got back. He’d stopped en-route to pick up Caviar. There were other events Mason held, which Grigory knew only by report, where double this quantity of Caviar in would be served, by girls twice the price. But Mason enjoyed it more on rounds of buttered bread at his boxing club, where he ate it for pleasure and not to impress.

The wasp episode left a chemical stink in the air and a lot of work.

‘They said as how there might be a few of ‘em left,’ Uri said as they were going through what had yet to be arranged, ‘just gotta keep an eye out. Can we let the regulars in yet, it’s nearly five?’

‘Sure,’ he picked up the jar printed in Cyrillic script from his desk, and passed it to Uri. ‘Take this to the kitchen.’

‘Shit, this stuff’s worth more than gold!’ Uri cradled it in his hands.

‘Yeah – so keep your fingers out.’

‘No sweat.’ Uri grinned, ‘if I wanted to eat expensive fish, I’d rather buy the wife some hookers and coke.’

Viktor left to fetch Mason, who didn’t drive - like violence, he preferred other people to do that for him. Grigory idly glanced over the people in the bar, running through his mental checklist. His task was to make sure that the fight would be brutal and entertaining; the strippers and poker would remove as much cash from the guests as possible; and the best of Viktor’s hookers would get the rest. Mason aimed to show his guests everything was his to command without ever seeming to put a hand in his pocket, or stoop to eat from the same trough.

The regular punters were massing round the bar. There were a couple of working girls, the sort who choose one John a night; a few clusters of men not yet drunk enough to let themselves get chosen, and a few oblivious kids. At the end of the bar one guy sat alone on a high stool opposite the kitchen door. As Grigory watched, one of the girls ventured toward him, but he turned his shoulder to her. Grigory noticed a white bandage across the back of his hand, and at the same time, three or four yellow jackets lazily circling the bar. One landed on the man’s back.

On another occasion he’d have ignored it, but the main door opened and Viktor’s lanky form came down the stairs, clearing a path for his master. Behind Mason, came three other men, all strangers, all in silver grey suits - with a crowd of Mason’s personnel bringing up the rear. If the wasps went for the expensive cologne that also came in with them, there would be hell to pay.

Grigory strode toward the man at the bar, deciding he would slap the wasp dead against his shoulder and explain afterwards. In the second before Grigory slapped the wasp, the man aim a gun at Mason.

Grigory slapped the wasp.

The man fired.

The lights in the ceiling above Mason’s head exploded. The man fired again. The bullet tore into Grigory’s right arm. The impact hit before sound ripped through his ears as the hooker screamed. There was another shot.

‘Oh my god!’ The hooker yelled. People went down, drinks spilled, chairs went over. Mason stood motionless while the suits scattered and Viktor drew his revolver. Snagged against the bar, his right arm on fire with pain, Grigory looked into the gunman’s face. The man raised his weapon, pressed it to his own forehead and closed his eyes.

‘No.’ Mason demanded of the chaos. Viktor launched himself at the assassin and before he could pull the trigger, he was on the floor. His gun skittered from his grasp. Viktor smacked him in the face.

Grigory struggled against the bar, his hand clamped over his burning arm. He watched as Mason walked toward him, moving as stone drops through water, the room whirling and billowing behind him.

‘Enough.’ He said, standing over Viktor and the assassin. Viktor hit the man one more time, then dragged himself up, his chest heaving as he wiped his mouth with his hand.

‘Fucking asshole,’ Viktor spat.

‘You ok, Dankovich?’ Mason asked.

‘Fuckin’ hurts.’ Grigory winced as he tried to move. The man on the floor groaned, rolled onto his side, cradling his head in his hands.

‘Only when you laugh, right?’ Mason brushed his jacket and turned to the three men who had come in with him. ‘Forgive this unfortunate interruption my friends.’ He flicked his hand and the suits were escorted away.

When they were gone, Mason waved Uri over.

‘Stay with Dankovich – if anyone asks, some guy just shot up the place. You never saw where he went, you never saw who he shot at, you never saw him before. You….’ he pointed at the gunman. ‘Viktor’s gonna take you home.’ The gunman flinched on the floor. Grigory looked at him and saw both his arms were bandaged; band-aid covered the back of his hands and his fingers.

‘They’ve gone,’ the man cried out as Viktor yanked him to his feet. ‘They ain’t there no more.’

‘Yeah?’ Viktor grinned at him. ‘Let’s go see, shall we?’ The man whimpered. His legs couldn’t support him, he staggered and Viktor slung an arm round him.

‘You got me,’ he pleaded, ‘please…please, you got me, they’ve gone...they ain’t there -’

‘Yeah,’ Viktor dragged him out, ‘we’ll just go make sure, shall we?’

‘Where the hell a’ you been?’ Alice said when she saw him three weeks later.

‘Sorry,’ she walked passed him, turned her face away and went to her door. ‘Alice, please…’

‘I saw your wife.’

‘What?’ Alice struggled with her key to unlock the door; trying to balance the brown paper bag of groceries she was carrying.

‘Get off,’ she demanded when he tried to take it from her.

‘I help,’ he said.

Though she let him take it, she snapped - ‘no, you’re not, not anymore.’ She got the key into her lock, ‘It’s over, Grigory. I don’t want this anymore.’

‘Baby, please-’

‘D’you know what it was like?’ she retorted, ‘hearing from your wife you’d been shot?’

‘That was nothing.’ He said.

‘I don’t mean the shooting,’ she hissed, ‘I mean, I had to listen to her tell me. Then seeing her for weeks, every goddamn day at school? Jesus, Grigory, it’s one thing to do this here, but its something else when I gotta look her in the face, and pretend like I don’t know you, like I don’t…’ she swallowed.

‘What?’

‘Care about you, you bastard,’ she pushed the door open, and took her shopping from him.

‘It’s ok, baby, look, I fine now…’ he grinned sheepishly and touched the bandage under his jacket sleeve.

‘It’s over,’ Alice said, ‘I don’t want to see you no more - what ever shit you’re mixed up in Grigory, I don’t wanna to be part of it.’

‘Baby, it not like that…’

‘No, Grigory - I should never have let you in, you’re married - you’re wife’s a child, go back to her. I don’t wanna put Julietta through what Jarrod and I went through.’

‘Baby, please…’ he put his hand on the door as she closed it.

‘Let go,’ she said.

‘I ain’t got time to take Julietta to school no more,’ he said to Maaria when he returned from Alice’s apartment.

‘Why…she loves you takin’ her?’

‘I busy.’

‘Well, that’s great. You can tell her, I ain’t doing it.’

Thanks!
You're right, punters is wrong - thanks for that!
The shooter, or what happens to him, for now is irrelevant - the point is that he tried to kill himself rather than let Viktor deal with him - later on the reader finds out why. If you want to know, he had been threatend by Viktor and Mason (he's had his hands burnt) and was supposed to come up with money, when he couldn't he was driven to try an assasinate Mason - but when he failed tried to kill himself and knows that Mason's MO is to kill his victims loved ones in front of them as the ultimate punishiment - nasty stuff I know, but these guys are nasty!

Okay - hookers and coke - that's a really obscure one I admit - but you have to think about eating something fishy? Might have to work on that a bit!

Thanks anyway, much appreciated that you took the time to read!

Hi TF

I know we’re well into the book but – a few things on the structure – I needed to keep stopping to work out who was saying what to who...

... at the start...

‘Are you picking up Julietta today?’

‘Yeah, don’t have to be in ‘till later.’

‘She did a cute painting yesterday, they were making Easter things, you know, eggs and chicks?’

‘I saw.’

‘You should, you know, stick one up at work?’

‘You should come back to bed.’ Alice smiled at him as she pulled her comb through her hair, stood at the window of her bedroom.

‘I can’t. Got things to do.’ He rolled himself lazily out of bed, shambled over and gathered her into his arms.

...the first five lines of dialogue are blank – put a ‘asked Alice’ or ‘said Grigory’ to plant the reader.

‘You should come back to bed.’ Alice smiled at him as she pulled her comb through her hair, stood at the window of her bedroom.

...who says ‘You should come back to bed.’ ??? – it reads like Alice – then – no – she’s standing at the window.

‘I can’t. Got things to do.’ He rolled himself lazily out of bed, shambled over and gathered her into his arms.

...again – who says the above – reads like Grigory but it’s not...

...the sentence structure needs some attention...

Alice smiled at him as she pulled her comb through her hair, stood at the window of her bedroom.

Standing at the window, Alice smiled as she pulled a comb through her hair.

Alice smiled. She was standing at the window pulling a comb through her hair.

...these – simple – things kept tripping me up – making this a start-stop read –

As ever – ignore at will.

The whole point of the start is that you're not meant to know who's speaking, and because of the nature of the conversation assume it's Grigory and his wife Maaria - and of course it's not, it Grigory and his mistress - which illustrates (shows) that he is more at home with her than his wife.

Thanks though, will check the later passage but won't be adding in speach tags at the start,that's the point!

Hi TfX . Just to avoid the confusion at the start, you've got it all mixed up. Yes you have... Dialogue/action belongs to whose saying it, as follows:

‘You should come back to bed.’ (That's Grigory)

Alice smiled at him as she pulled her comb through her hair, stood at the window of her bedroom. ‘I can’t. Got things to do.’ (Now we're with Alice)

He rolled himself lazily out of bed, shambled over and gathered her into his arms. ‘I got things I wanna do to you.’ He traced the edge of her cheek with his finger. (Grigory)

‘You done them.’ She kissed him, and deliberately moved away. (Alice)

He let her, because he thought there would still be time to do them. (Grigory - and I love this sentence, it's brill)

And another:

Now for the critique - I agree with Eli. Bloody good. In need of a clean-up AND in need of a making it even tighter and sharper. Reminds me of Elmore Leonard's best stuff. Not his latest, though.

‘Are you picking up Julietta today?’(I want it to be deliberately vague at the start who this is - I want them to think it's Maaria, then realise it's not)
‘Yeah, don’t have to be in ‘till later.’ (I think the reader who's come this far, would know it's Grigory, he is Juletta's father and the chapter before introduces that he takes her to school)

‘She did a cute painting yesterday, they were making Easter things, you know, eggs and chicks?’

‘I saw.’

‘You should, you know, stick one up at work?’

‘You should come back to bed.’ (Dropped the action to the para below - is it more clear?)

Alice smiled at him, ‘I can’t. Got things to do.’ She was stood by the window, pulling a comb through her hair.

(Trying to show it's Alice speaking by moving the speach to the middle of this para, better setting?)

He rolled himself lazily out of bed and shambled over.

‘I got things I wanna do to you,’ he gathered her into his arm and traced the edge of her cheek with his finger. (Splitting up the action with speech?)

‘You done them.’ She kissed him, and deliberately moved away. He let her, because he thought there would still be time to do them. (I like it too!)

Sti

But thatks, sorry, forgot to say ST and BJ - and for E - the joke now reads -

'If I wanted to eat that much expensive fish, I'd score some coke and go down on the wife.'

(Boom-boom!)

Crosed with you - thanks ST, very much appreictaed that comment! Dare I use the Leonard comparison in my letter to an agent? (Seems awefully boastful, but hell ....) Doing edit number 2,046 now, waiting for legal advice to be sure my ending is possible ( I have some stand by ones just in case) - Then I try again to whittle - so far I've come down from 150,000 to 134,000 - it's going to be an tough sell I fear though as this is combined with more girly stuff - but I content myself that I'm a girl and I like a good punch up as well as some lurve - and I don't think all chaps are dead to the more touching stuff!

Ah - you could say in the style of... To sell you have to make it clear what genre it is - no good sitting on the fence here. Is it wholly crime or is it something else entirely?

It's a thriller - (thrillers can still have romantic side plots and back story )- it's about an ex-con going straight and the woman he loves struggling to escape their personal demons, demons not ready to let either of them go.
(Her - ex-husband and artistic depression - him the Russian mafia - we all have our different crosses to bare!)