I

A DOWNWARD SPIRAL

Perhaps you had better start from the beginning.
— Christopher Lee, To the Devil a Daughter

HELL IS EMPTY AND ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE is sprayed across the sidewalk in runny red paint when I exit the taxi in front of the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Budapest. The other pedestrians walk over the letters without acknowledgement, just as they do the homeless woman praying over an open sewer hole churning out steam. She looks up at me and smiles with a very Gorgo-like smile. Her lips part and I see maggots.

I walk through the revolving door, leaving behind the blistering summer heat for the temperature-controlled lobby, which is gilded in gold accents with marble floors and fixtures. The vaulted ceiling is at least ten meters overhead and in the center of the sprawling area a massive crystal chandelier hangs below a stained glass dome. Every step clicks on the polished floor as I cross a seating area on either side on my way to the front desk.

A small, mousey woman with muddy brown hair in a tight bun looks up from her computer screen to smile at me. I am much taller than her, forcing her neck to crane back to meet my eyes. She greets me in Hungarian, for which I do not have a good ear. I say, “Ukrainska?” She shakes her head and, I assume, apologizes based on her body language.

I try another, feigning a Ukrainian accent. “What of English?”

“Igen,” she says brightly. “I mean, yes. Welcome to the Ritz-Carlton. How can I serve you?”

“I’m here to see Dmitry Kharlamov in the Penthouse.”

She clicks away at the keyboard. I can see the screen reflected in her glasses when it lights up. “I must call the room to make sure you are cleared to enter. May I see your identification?”

“Tak,” I say and place a small black Gucci leather purse on the counter. I unclasp the buckle and reach inside, past the smooth silver-scaled handle of a straight razor, to find a Ukrainian ID card. The woman in the photo isn’t me, but the picture is worn and scuffed, ensuring that any significant differences in our appearances are not noticeable.

“Thank you,” she says before picking up the phone from the cradle and dialing a string of numbers. I can hear it ring, as well as the line clicking and the voice that follows, though the individual words are difficult to make out.

The concierge speaks a line of Hungarian then checks the name on the card. “Sima Meyloeyko.” More Hungarian follows, and in between each pause a crackle of a man’s voice responds.

Sima Meleyko was a Russian prostitute who catered to high end clients in Budapest. I say was because she’s dead. I know this because I’m the one who murdered her in her sleep. She died in bed, covered in blood with her throat sliced open ear to ear.

The concierge hangs up the phone and smiles. “You are all set. Allow me one moment to create a pass card.” She takes a small plastic card from a stack next to the computer and slides it into the scanner. After a few quick clicks of the keyboard, she retrieves the card and hands it to me.

“Here you are. The elevators are just over there, to the left. Have a pleasant day and thank you for staying at the Ritz-Carlton Budapest.”

The card goes back into the purse, which is then slid up to my left shoulder. “I won’t be staying long,” I say with a fake-fake smile before turning to head for the elevator bay. As I walk, I keep my head low, allowing my blonde-dyed hair to drape over my face, to conceal as much of me from the many cameras scanning the lobby from high angles.

My fingers reach out and press the button to call the lift. A few seconds later, the gold gilded doors slide open and I step into the empty elevator. At the control board, I press the penthouse button and insert the keycard. When the door closes, its polished metal interior softly mirrors my reflection. My hair is styled in a mein of falling, textured curls which sweep diagonally across my face. A thin layer of foundation has smoothed my angular features and my eyes are lined with thin liner and dark shadow. I practice smiling in my reflection, spreading my lips which are splashed with bright red lipstick. As the elevator continues to move upward, I run my hand down the Shona Joy black cocktail dress which drapes down my wide shoulders and carved frame. Is this what beautiful looks like?

The elevator slows. I reach down and remove the high heels from my feet as the doors open. There is a small hallway which dead ends at a set of large French doors. Standing in front of them is a large man in a black suit with a matching tie and a white shirt—a guard with a military buzz cut and, judging from the way his left arm is hanging down his side, there’s likely a pistol holstered inside his jacket.

I purposefully stumble out of the elevator and curse under my breath in Ukrainian before turning looking down to rummage in my purse, allowing more of my hair to fall over my face. I slowly make my way down the corridor. I look up through the platinum strands to see him coming towards me. I drop my shoes on purpose and reach inside my purse.

“Stop,” he commands in Russian. “You are not Sima. Sima is a small, beautiful little flower. You are neither. You look like man in dress. Who are you and where is Sima?” He is reaching inside his jacket for the gun handle peeking out of the holster just below his armpit. I wait for the pistol to clear his jacket, which takes time, because the round cylinder of a suppressor is screwed into the end of the barrel, increasing the time it takes to clear the leather. I rise up and grab his wrist, twisting until the small bones splinter and crack. His finger squeezes off a shot into the wall. PHFT! I bend his arm around and up his back. The pain forces a terrible growl through his clenched teeth. Two more shots hit the ceiling, releasing bits of crumbled drywall to fall like snow. PHFT-PFHT!

I stand up behind him and pull the Glock 17 from his hand. In his left ear is a small radio with a curly wire running down his neck and disappearing under his collar. I pull the plug from his ear canal and whisper, “Sima is dead. And so are you.”

I step back, level the gun to the back of his head and fire. At this range the bullet bores a hole through his skull cavity and explodes out of his forehead, spraying blood, brain and splinters of bone across a large canvas painting on the wall. Behind me I hear the doors open. I spin around to see another guard running out. I drop him with two to the chest.

I pick my purse off the floor and throw the thin strap around my neck and under my arm and then walk to the second guard with the pistol trained on his face. His right hand is outstretched, trying to reach for his gun that fell just out of reach. I step on his wrist with my bare foot and ask him how many are inside.

He coughs up a mouthful of blood and says, “Fuck you.”

PHFT! Another shell casing dances the floor and dances around before rolling away. Cautiously I stand, center the pistol on the half-open doorway and start to move forward without a sound, just like my father taught me. I stay behind the left French door which is still closed, until I’m close enough to listen. The rustle of the air conditioner from the nearby floor vent and the distant sound of a bustling city are scrubbed from my senses and I focus only on what is coming from the otherside of a few centimeters of wood, and what I hear is panicked breathing.

I lift the gun and aim the suppressor, inching it one way then another until it’s directed at the exact location on the x-y axis my ear has pinged. I step back, square my shoulders, and pull the trigger once. Wood splinters. The breathing stops. A man topples over and lands with a hard thud on the floor. His head falls in the threshold of the ajar door. Blood spills out of the ragged wound in the side of his head and pools beneath him.

I look through the hole in the door. Past the foyer and a double-wide open doorway is a living room with several chairs and a large sofa. A man clouded in cigar smoke is sitting in the middle of the sofa facing my way. The embers burn as he takes a long drag, the light of which briefly illuminates two black eyes through the haze.

“Come in,” he says in Russian, then adds, “You have killed all my men and I am unarmed. Let us talk like gentlemen.”

He might be lying, but I’ve been watching him for weeks and I’ve never seen more than these three shadowing him. Still, it’s better to be cautious. I lean around the door with the Glock directed forward and then move to check the corners of the entryway. Once clear, I move to the small door on the left. It’s a guest bathroom. Empty. Across is another door. A closet, also empty.

I move from the foyer to the living room. He sees me for the first time and chokes on a laugh. “You are no gentleman. You are a woman. A large woman, but woman nonetheless. What is a pretty thing like you doing here?”

I look to the left where a door is opened to a dark hallway, then right to the wet bar and another unlit corridor leading to more rooms that I have no time to check. I sweep the gun until it aims directly at the man on the sofa with the sights trained on the center of his chest. He’s wearing a blue silk shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and black trousers. His gray hair is combed back with grease with a hard part on his left side. Faded tattoos cover his hands and arms, and more are visible under his unbuttoned collar. The tattoos of a criminal. Trophies.

In Russian I say sharply, “Take out your gun and place it on the table before I say zero.”

“I already told you, flower, I am unarmed.”

“Five, four, three, two—”

“Okay, okay.” He switches the cigar to his left hand then reaches with his right behind the couch cushion next to him. When his hand pulls back, it’s holding a Makarov by the slide. He leans forward and sits it on the coffee table before relaxing back on the sofa and taking another puff of the cigar.

The large screen television mounted on the wall to my left is tuned to a professional wrestling event. The audio is on low but audible. The commentators are narrating the chaos as several men fight inside a cage over a belt dangling from the middle of the steel dome above.

“You speak Russian like a foreigner,” he says, firmly pulling my attention back to him. “Where are you from, flower?”

“Moldova,” I say flatly.

“Ah, Moldova,” he says brightly and slaps his hands together. “Beautiful country. I have been there many times on business. A lot of wealthy men from Tiraspol to Chișinău to Bălți loved coming to see my fights. I am very important, you see.”

He pauses for a moment and clicks his tongue before looking up at me with raised eyebrows. “I’m also a very rich man.” I could make you rich as well, as rich as any of those men back in Moldova, if we can come to some sort of agreement.”

“You aren’t rich.” I walk around one the furniture and pull the coffee table away from him about half a meter before sitting down on it next to his Makarov. I lower the Glock to my hip with the suppressor trained on his gut.

“What are you talking about? Look at this suite. How do you think I can afford to live here or pay for guards or be chauffeured in limousines?”

I tilt my head and say, “Dmitry Kharlamov is not rich, because he does not exist.”

His eyes widened and there’s a slight muscle twitch above his left cheek. “What are you talking about? Of course I am Dmitry—”

“Your name is Tibor Petrov and you live in places like this and are driven around in fancy cars because you are valuable to your puppet master. These men I killed do not work for you. They work for Maxim Gorodetsky who, unlike you, is very important and very rich. You are the prisoner and these men were your jailers.”

His left hand drops to the sofa. Cigar ash begins to pile on the fabric. His voice quivers when he says, “How do you know this?”

“My father told me before he died a few months ago. He had been keeping track of you, hoping to get better and kill you himself. Unfortunately the cancer would not accommodate his last wish with more time.”

My father said Tibor Petrov was a Russian gangster, a member of the vory v zakone. For a time he spear-headed an illegal, underground pit fighting promotion that toured the world called The Circuit. My father, along with many other well-known fighters and wrestlers, competed for the Circuit. Petrov betrayed everyone as an informant for INTERPOL. Many went to prison. My father was arrested and extradited back to America where he was imprisoned in an insane asylum.

“Cancer,” Petrov says under his breath, then his eyes move to meet mine. “Who are you?”

“My name is Yelena Gorgo. My father was Niels Gram.”

The breath catches in his throat. When it escapes, it slithers like a snake to form a single word. “Spiral…”

“Yes,” I say with a little sigh. “The man you sent to rot in a psychiatric facility where they kept him sedated and medicated and forced him to undergo invasive procedures to ‘cure him’; and then, as if he had not been tormented enough, when he finally regained his freedom five years later, you sent an assassin to murder him in his home.”

He laughs uncomfortably. “This was so long ago, who can remember?”

“Spiral remembered, all the way to the end, and I promised at his death bed to finish what he started.”

He sits there uneasily for several seconds until audio from the television interrupts the tension. A swell of a crowd booing altogether draws his eyes, and then mine, to the high definition screen, where a man covered in flakey body paint and blood is sitting in the middle of a ring, surrounded by carnage, holding a championship belt to his chest and laughing maniacally.

Petrov chuckles softly. I look at him with a tilt of my head and say, “What is so funny?”

He takes a hit off the cigar then blows a stream of heavy smoke. “I already knew that Spiral had one bastard.” His eyes tick to the screen and back. “His name is Nathan. He was raised by nobodies to be a nobody. He only became successful because the world was told who his real father was. Now he is champion. This is a replay from early this morning. Legion, son of Spiral. World famous now. Did papa tell you that you had a brother or were you surprised like everyone else?”

“Half brother. I knew.”

“Really,” he says, as if he doesn’t believe me. “Then why did papa leave Nathan all his money? I was quite a lot. I actually was planning on kidnapping him for a tidy ransom. Interested? We could split it. 50/50.”

I pull the trigger. A hissing bullet tears through his gut, just to the right of his belly button. He yelps from the pain like a beaten dog, but quickly winds the beginnings of a scream back into his throat when I raise the pistol level with his forehead.

I pull the purse from around my neck and sit it down next to me. My left hand quickly works the buckle and opens it up. “You seem to think I care about money,” I tell him, as my nimble digits feel the ivory handle. “My father knew me better than that. That’s why the fortune went to Nathan, but don’t worry. I wasn’t left empty handed.”

When my hand shows him the silver-scaled straight razor, the color drains from his face. I lean forward and whisper, “You’ve seen this before, haven’t you?”

He nods once. The lower half of his shirt is soaked with blood and it’s starting to creep across the sofa’s white upholstery.

“This was just one of the gifts my father passed along to me. See, unlike Nathan over there, I actually knew Spiral. He visited me all throughout my childhood, except of course for those five years he was committed to an insane asylum, care of you.”

“Point is,” I say, leaning back, “we had a relationship. He would bring me books and expected me to read every line of every page so that when I saw him again we could discuss the stories and talk about the characters. He paid for my training and in a month I will be representing Moldova in the Olympics. He taught me that it is okay to be different, to think different, to have different tastes and desires than the uninterestingly normal people, the kind of people who wouldn’t have the stomach to kill you.”

He brings the cigar to his lips, one last time, with a nervous hand. He takes a long drag, pulling it all the way into his lungs before weakness drops his arm. The razor slides out from the handle and I swipe it through the air, across his neck. His eyes peel back and his skin turns white as a thin red line crawls across his throat. He tries to speak, but he can’t because I severed his trachea. I watch as his head swivels backward and that thin line tears open like a fissure. Blood pours down his chest and cigar smoke billows out of the wound. He’s dead in less than five seconds.

I wipe the blade on his pants leg and then stand. I look over at the television, at my older brother cloaked in glory with every advantage given to him, and this is how he repays our father, by painting himself like a clown and pretending to be him. By carrying around a fake head and claiming it’s the mummified head of our father? Spiral would be disgusted by what he sees. Not at the head, at his only son being another one of them. The regular people. The phonies. The frauds. The ones who lie to themselves every morning in the mirror. They want to be happy but they won’t let themselves be.

I bring the razor, my purse and the Glock to the guest bathroom in the foyer. I clean the blade first with a little soap and water, then scrub my hands. I dry off with a hand towel and wipe off the blade before putting it back in my purse. I then disassemble the gun, beginning with the magazine, then rack the slide to release the chambered bullet. It flips through the air and goes rolling around on the floor. Next I remove the slide and the barrel. All of the parts go into the tub and I plug the stopper before turning on the water. After a quick wipe down of the sink faucet and the tub handles, I toss the towel in the water and walk out of the bathroom, leaving the water still on and careful not to touch anything else, and then leave the penthouse.

At the elevator I gathered a bit of my dress around my finger and press the button. As the fabric falls back down my leg I look up to see my warped reflection in the polished door. Not beautiful, not like before. This one is me. The real me. It flashes a jigsaw grin and says, “We did well, didn’t we, precious?”

“We did,” I say simply. I had often imagined how I would feel in this moment, when Tibor Petrov’s last breath had escaped his meat suit and my promise to Spiral was fulfilled. Would I be happy to have honored my father? To have avenged him? Would I feel a tingling of guilt over killing five people to satisfy my promise? Would I fall into depression? Would I be haunted by Sima’s perfect face drained of life with her neck severed to the bone?

In truth, I feel nothing. Tibor Petrov was a box that needed checked. A name that needed to be wiped from the ledger. Now he’s dead and so is my father. Over in America I have a brother galavanting around, carrying around a fake skull which he claims to be Spiral’s, pretending to be something he’s not. We may share a father, but he’s too much like his mother. Soft. Weak. Desperate for success and willing to get it at all costs, even if it means making himself look like a fool.

A ding chimes. The doors open. I walk into the elevator and turn around with my neck tucked low to prevent the camera from seeing my entire face, just like before. After five seconds, the door slides across the threshold and seals me in.

I wonder if he will be mourned like his mother?