Page 28

HOW THE OTHER HALF EAT

VIKTOR WAS BACK in. Sort of.

There was a dinner—short notice; no notice—at his place, and he wanted Konstantin there, a final hoop to jump through. One that may or may not have been set on fire.

“You want prove yourself,” Viktor asked without asking. “Tonight big chance. I hosting small circle friends for dinner. They interesting in restaurant. You impress them, we in business.”

Kostya’s mouth went sour. “I thought we were already in business.”

“These just discussions, Kostik! Not business yet. See, for you, no risk. But for me? Is big investment. Maybe five hundred thousand, half lemon, to build space, hire staff, make marketing. But no problem, I pay. We make beautiful. But I must be sure what I pay for.”

KOSTYA SPENT THE morning trying not to panic.

He’d been an idiot not to anticipate some sort of test—Viktor wasn’t just going to hand him a restaurant, obviously— but now his future depended on schmoozing a bunch of New Moneybags for their glowing endorsements. What could he say to gain their approval? What did people with money even talk about?

His immediate instinct had been to call Frankie. He’d unlocked his phone, his thumb hovering over the speed dial before he remembered. It hurt every time his mind slipped back into old habits, into a world where Frankie was still alive. He’d been gone two months, but Kostya still couldn’t bring himself to remove Frankie’s name from his favorites list, to trash their text chain with the record-breaking number of eggplant emojis, to delete the handful of voicemails he’d left.

What he wouldn’t give, just then, for another taste of that rum cake.

Instead, insult to injury, his phone buzzed through a message from his mother.

Kostya, call me.

He locked it without answering, and she dinged through another text.

Is important!!!

Frowning, he set his phone to silent and went to take a scalding shower. His apartment was still freezing, and Kostya had to find some way to decompress before the party. If he didn’t get out of his own head soon, he was going to have a nervous breakdown before he even had the chance to die of shame.

THREE HOURS LATER, a thick film of sweat undoing all his ablutions, he stepped out of the elevator into Viktor’s Tribeca penthouse.

Opposite the elevator doors, taking up an entire wall, were two enormous pencil drawings, one depicting a twisted Hermès scarf, which barely earned a cursory glance from Konstantin, and the other immortalizing a six-foot-tall strap-on, which triggered a wave of nervous laughter so violent it prompted the arrival of a thick-necked, Soviet-issue bodyguard.

After several deep breaths that enabled Kostya to finally gasp out his name, his new Comrade issued a stern grunt and led him through a sprawling living space—two-story windows overlooking the Hudson, everything shiny and modern and the color of Candy Buttons—where he poked a meaty forefinger into Kostya’s spine and prodded him toward a library. Kostya gaped at the floor-to-ceiling shelves—wall-to-wall built-ins in high-gloss lime, hundreds of tomes cased behind doors of iridescent glass—so absorbed by the psychedelic effect that he didn’t immediately notice the copper French doors at the end of the room, a dinner party in full swing on the other side.

But they noticed him.

The sounds of their cocktail hour—pockets of laughter, chittering talk, the rattle of ice in shakers—dwindled to silence as he came into view.

Kostya peered through the glass panels in the door. Viktor scowled at him from the head of the table. His friends, six of them—posh, polished women, nipped and tucked and sheathed in brands Kostya could barely pronounce; titanic men, flushed and vodka-faced, ties coming loose—drank him in, head to foot—his scuffed black shoes, his off-the-rack jeans, his wrinkled Gap button-down with the ghost of a sauce stain on the collar—before spitting him back out, unimpressed, their gazes tennis-balling back across the polished chrome dining table toward their host, waiting for an explanation because this guy, surely, wasn’t here to sit with them?

It felt like fifth-period lunch.

Normally, Kostya would have made himself small, as invisible as possible. Instead, on a mission to impress, he forced himself to grin broadly, wave, wrap his fingers around the handle of the door. At this, The Comrade death-gripped his upper arm. He hauled Kostya away, muttering a string of colorful Russian endearments ( What the dick kind of cock-braiding? ), and hustled him through a small passage to the right of one of the bookshelves, a corridor that spat them into an enormous, double-island kitchen, where three chefs—two women, one man—were already in the throes of prep.

“I think there’s been a mistake,” Kostya began. “I was invited to dinner.”

“You”—The Comrade slapped the unoccupied side of the second island—“work here!”

“But I’m not cooking tonight! I was just supposed to meet his friends. To—to talk to them. To get them interested. In me.” Kostya looked imploringly at the other chefs, as if one of them might intercede on his behalf. “I’m a guest!”

Even coming out of Kostya’s mouth, it sounded stupid. The people in that dining room had looked at him as if he were a piece of primordial ooze that had washed up on the shore of their private island, an aberration they hoped the next wave would dispose of before anyone stepped in it by mistake.

The Comrade began to laugh. Kostya gave a nervous chuckle. One of the chefs—beak nosed and too skinny to be trusted—snorted. The other two—one with perfect posture and a plait of black hair escaping a silk kerchief; the other with a shaved head, brow ring, and mermaid pinups tattooed on her forearms—exchanged wry looks from their territories on the adjacent isle.

“You,” The Comrade choked in English, the laughter flooding out now, tears streaming from his eyes, “a guest? You!” He gasped for air. “A guest!? You an asshole!” He steadied himself on the edge of the counter. “You serving last, D?ner de Cons !”

And with that, he swept from the room.

The chefs settled down again, went back to mincing, peeling, grating. They all wore unsullied coats in solid colors, with their names embroidered over the breast pockets—Louis-Jean Volière, 朽木 Yume Kutsuki, Val Ibánez—and moved with the untroubled ease of people unaccustomed to pressure—an inertia Kostya had never seen in a professional kitchen.

No, he decided, these weren’t restaurant vets; more likely personal chefs, the kind who made big bucks summering in the Hamptons and nine-to-fiving for flush Upper East Siders in the off-season.

“Welp,” Kostya said, hoping the others would somehow find him pathetic and endearing, “joke’s on me, I guess. So, what are we making? Where do you want me on the line?”

“We?” Volière sniffed, not even deigning to glance up from his station, where he was plucking an infinitesimal bird. “ Mais non, mon ami. We are every man for himself.”

Kutsuki, to his left, put her knife down, and leaned below the counter for a cooler.

“We each bring our own dish,” she explained, hoisting the Igloo up, the sound of water sloshing inside. “The more exotic, the more impressive it tends to be. My employers—the ones with so much Botox their faces barely move?—they’ve been trying to win for over a year.”

“Win?”

“It’s their own personal Iron Chef .” Ibánez sounded disgusted. “They trot us out once a season for this freaking dog and pony. They love a pissing contest so much, why don’t they just buy some wild cocks and have a cage match? Keep us out of it.”

She slammed a cleaver against the top of a jar of caviar, Frisbeeing it across the room.

“What’s the winner get?” Kostya asked.

“Five thousand bucks.” Ibánez shrugged. “Bragging rights. To keep their job.”

Kutsuki nodded; Volière pursed his lips.

“And you want to keep working for the people putting you up to this?”

“You gonna point me to another easy six-figure gig? Plus benefits. Room and board on the Upper West Side?”

“I see your point.”

“You’re not on Viktor’s staff?” Volière asked. “This is your interview? Merde. ”

“I’m not here to join his staff,” Kostya said. “I’m going to EC his new restaurant. If I win, I guess. What are you making?”

Volière didn’t answer, just kept plucking the pathetic creatures on his station, a dozen or so palm-sized birds, their feathers tan and black and bright, bright yellow, their beaks and feet still on, dead eyes glinting.

“Fugu,” Kutsuki cut in. “Hand-delivered from Tsukiji.”

She’d cleared her station of everything but a sharp fillet knife and the cooler, which she uncapped with a flourish. From inside, she withdrew an enormous, scaleless fish, grey on top, white bellied, thick lipped, still thrashing in her slender hands. She gave a squeeze at the back of its belly, and it inflated like a balloon, spikes extruding across its body like dangerous goose bumps. She laid it on its side and gave a quick, sharp slice through the back of its head before beginning to peel the skin away from the flesh. The fish bled out across the counter while her blade moved through its body, each cut surgical, designed to keep the poison in its liver and ovaries—more potent than cyanide; no known antidote—from tainting the meat.

“Blowfish,” Kostya breathed. “Wow. Well, try not to poison them before they taste our food. Or, actually, maybe do.”

Kutsuki gave a small, satisfied smile. “Don’t worry; I’m licensed. Took years of training, but it was the whole reason the Stolis hired me.” She frowned. “They like to surprise their friends on sushi nights. Have them think they’re eating fluke until their tongues go numb. Totally unethical.”

She sliced open the belly and scooped out the interior—the fish’s tiny heart still beating in the palm of her hand—then dumped the guts back into the cooler.

“But no one’s asking your opinion, right, sugar?” Ibánez cut in. “Me either. You deal with one percenters long enough, you learn to look out for number one. That’s why I spent ten grand of their blood money on this.” She held up what looked like a shriveled old stone, greyish brown, streaked with white. “I like the idea of feeding them shit while they thank me repeatedly.”

Kostya squinted at the specimen. “I take it that’s no truffle.”

“Guess again.”

“Something calcified. Rotten porcinis? Ancient cheese? Dehydrated lung?”

“Ambergris.” Ibánez gave a little bow. “The fecal matter of the noble sperm whale.” She took a sniff. “Got a nice musk, actually. Pairs great with Rocky Mountain oysters.” She winked. “If you’re gonna screw around, may as well go balls deep.”

It took Kostya a second to remember what Rocky Mountain oysters were: animelles in Canada; meatballs everywhere else; bull testicles in plain English.

“She thinks she is on Fear Factor .” This from Volière.

“Cojones don’t scare me.” Ibánez shrugged. “But maybe that’s ’cause I got more of ’em than most little boys running around with big knives. Don’t misunderstand, Frenchie. I play to win. I just won’t do it on their bullshit terms.”

“Yes, you are so noble!” Volière spat, unable to contain himself. “Lying by omission! Worse even than Sunday brunch in Midtown.”

“What lying? I’ll tell them straight up what’s in it.” Ibánez grinned, and began Microplaning the ambergris, the smell of it floating, heady, through the kitchen. “They’ll suck it down and ask for more. And you’re one to talk integrity, Lou.” She stared knives at the little bird in his hand. “Least I’m not serving black market.”

This smacked Volière as intended, and he shrank bitterly back to his work, squinting at the tiny fowl scattered across his station, inspecting them for rogue feathers.

Kostya peered again at the miniature bird bodies—what were they? Young squab? Cornish game chicks? Fetal ducklings? Then he noticed several empty bottles of Armagnac, cognac’s spunky cousin, glinting golden on the counter just behind Volière, and the way the birds’ feathers were slicked down, wet. His eyes grew wide.

“No,” Kostya breathed. “No way.”

Ortolan.

Michel Beauchêne had told Konstantin about it one night after a late close, a dish so exquisite, so absolutely enthralling, that he’d measured everything he’d eaten afterward against it. Michel had tasted it just once, in the private home of a French chef whose name he refused to reveal, and it had been the single greatest dining experience of his life, an edible nirvana that, he said, had made him see Heaven even as he hid his face beneath a napkin veil, the traditional way, shielding his indulgence from God as the songbird—drowned alive in Armagnac; fried and eaten whole—sluiced boiling guts and juices and hazelnut-flavored fat down his throat, its little bones breaking beneath the weight of his jaw.

Ortolans were endangered—killed off by centuries of human glut—and unlawful to poach, the dishes made with them wiped off restaurant menus and struck from the collective culinary consciousness in the nineties. Barely anyone knew how to cook them anymore—only those who had trained with old masters.

“But you couldn’t,” said Kostya. “They’re illegal.”

Volière shrugged one shoulder, almost imperceptibly, and Kutsuki made a loud clang on her board, the pufferfish tail flapping off in one piece.

“He didn’t,” she said softly. “Those aren’t ortolans.”

“As if you’d know!” Volière shot back. “It’s a bit out of your league.”

But the look on his face—like he too was looking at the prospect of being plucked and drowned in Armagnac—said more than his words.

“I bird-watch. For fun. I’m quite good.” She gave a low whistle that sounded undeniably tweet-like. “But even an amateur birder would know that what you have there”—Kutsuki switched to a fine fillet knife and shimmied it beneath the blubbery skin of the puffer—“with the characteristic golden chest, far yellower than the ortolan’s greyish brown, is American goldfinch.”

Volière looked like a large bone had lodged in his throat. Ibánez laughed so hard she dropped a bull testicle on the floor. Kostya—who couldn’t help laughing, too—almost felt bad for the guy, almost , until Volière muttered that these idiot oligarchs wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.

“But you will,” Kostya said. “Good food’s about honesty.”

“But fine cuisine,” Volière replied, impatient, “is about perception. Tradition.”

“Look, either you tell them the truth,” Ibánez said, suddenly serious, “or I will. I’m not losing to you on a lie.”

Volière tightened the grip on his knife. Ibánez started to say something else, but Kostya cut in.

“Say you’re reinventing it. Tell them they’ll be the first to taste ortolan reimagined as goldfinch—a New American dish, inspired by the Old World. Just like them.”

Volière looked humbled for the first time. “ Merci , Chef.”

Ibánez gaped. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because when I win,” Kostya said, “I want it to mean something.”

“ When? Check out the Saturn-sized man nuts on you! Wasn’t sure you had it in you, Chef—uh—”

“Duhovny. Konstantin.”

A glimmer of recognition crossed her face. “The same Duhovny that got scalded at the Gild Christmas Circlejerk?”

Kostya held up his arm, scar tissue shimmering beneath the tattoo.

“I was told Beauchêne put you in charge of saucier,” Volière said, awestruck.

“I heard you told the head of Gild to suck it,” Ibánez said, grinning.

“I heard you had a skin graft made of tuna,” Kutsuki added, beginning to plate, translucent slices of puffer fillet arranged in a lotus shape.

“Tilapia, actually. I reeked for weeks. But I didn’t know anyone had heard anything,” Kostya said. “They paid me not to say a word.”

“There are no secrets in a kitchen,” Kutsuki said.

“Ours is a small, incestuous little world,” Ibánez agreed, pouring peanut oil into a cast-iron pan, lighting a burner. “Cooks like to talk.” She was silent a moment, then wiped her hands on a kitchen towel and stared at him, squinting as if she were trying to read something. “My cousin was in the kitchen that night. Fernando Rodríguez. Remember him?”

Kostya did. Fernando worked sauté, had a contagious laugh, liked to leave porn in everyone’s lockers.

“He said he saw some shit go down right before Beauchêne stormed in. Lights glowing. A face, hovering midair. You talking to it. Now, Nando’s a good kid, but he likes to hit the bottle, so I don’t buy half of what he’s selling normally. But something tells me you’re more than just a pretty face, eh, papi chulo ?”

Kostya swallowed, deciding whether to confirm or deny. There had been times in his life when it would have been a no-brainer: downplay the bizarre, deny anything unnatural, keep your head down and your mouth shut.

“You’re not wrong.”

“Huh,” Ibánez said, eyes going wide. “So, share with the class—a guy who walks out on three Michelin stars, who may or may not be some sort of Russian brujo— what are you gonna make to impress the judges?”

Kostya licked his lips.

There was only one thing he could make to compete with what these three were throwing down. He’d win, too. If it worked.

It was a big if.

It had been a couple months since Kostya had attempted a ghost dish. He’d be rusty for sure, and he still didn’t know exactly what he’d done right (or wrong) at Hell’s Kitchen, or how—beyond a potent memory—to make contact with the Dead. Would Viktor scrap the whole thing if Kostya didn’t deliver? Would he give him another chance? No, Kostya answered himself. There would be no do-overs. It was sink or swim. Now or never.

“I’m Ukrainian, actually. And I’m making my signature dish,” he said slowly, meeting Ibánez’s stare. “More shocking than Rocky Mountain oysters.” He nodded to Volière. “Rarer than ortolan. Maybe just as taboo, though.” He turned to Kutsuki. “And it does more than just dance around death. It reverses it.”

There was silence in the kitchen as they waited for the punch line, anxious to learn if the things they’d heard through the grapevine were true.

“Well?” Volière prompted. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

“I don’t know.” Kostya shrugged. “The Dead haven’t fed it to me yet.”

ONE BY ONE, Kutsuki, Volière, and Ibánez all served.

After, they returned to the kitchen to sip wine and rehash play-by-plays.

When Kostya was up, he downed his Malbec and waited for The Comrade to come escort him into the dining room, the way he’d done with all the others. What happened instead was a violation of the unspoken rule between the Kitchen and the Front of House: you don’t come back unless the chef invites you.

Kitchens were private places, where alchemy occurred, where sausage was made, where, once in a while, the divine was summoned and baked into a pie. Every kitchen where Kostya had ever felt comfortable had been intentionally divorced from the goings-on of the dining room, the heat and cursing and shouting of orders incongruous with the serene environments required for white tablecloths and sophisticated banter.

Sure, there were restaurants that put their kitchens on display—right in the middle of the dining room, even, encased in glass—and they worked in perfect silence, never spilling a single drop of demi-glace, never colliding with runners carrying trays, never shouting about the jerk at Table Four who demanded that they kill his steak. Sociopaths ran kitchens, too.

Kostya would never have chosen to be put on display like that, both dinner and the show, but Viktor hadn’t consulted him (he was beginning to notice a pattern) before leading his retinue straight into the kitchen. Kostya watched helplessly as they overtook the room, contaminating the air with perfume and hairspray, cigarette smoke, amuse-bouches they’d transported from the dining room. They draped themselves around the islands, besmirching the counters with fingerprints and grease stains, commandeering Volière’s station and Kutsuki’s without asking for consent from anybody. The other chefs retreated to a corner—so much for comrades in arms—and watched, wide-eyed, eager to learn if Kostya’s would be a tactical victory or a bloody massacre.

Viktor cleared his throat, and Kostya understood that they were waiting for him to say something, to perform, to dance. His heart pounded, dissolving what little courage he’d nipped from the wine, and he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, bracing himself, revealing his tattoos in the process.

His gaze hovered on the knife on his forearm, WTFWFT inked on its handle.

What would Frankie try, if it were him up here? How would he dazzle them?

He’d regale them with stories on the line—hilarious Kitchen Confidential antics—charisma flowing like honey from a comb. He’d play up the food, have them believing in what it could do before they took so much as a bite. If he were there, he’d… make them think they’re the most interesting people in the room, and then show them that, actually, he was.

Viktor cleared his throat again.

“Uh, right.” Kostya nodded at the crowd and they stared back. “Ladies. Gentlemen. I want to begin by saying what an honor it is to feed you tonight. Though as you can see, I, uh, don’t have anything prepared just yet.”

The guests exchanged glances, wondering if there had been some mistake.

A Rapunzel-haired woman crossed her arms. A man in a grey suit fingered his goatee. A petite, curvaceous brunette squinted at Kostya. And Viktor struck a match in a way that communicated his displeasure, and lit a cigarette.

Kostya locked eyes with him.

It was time to face the Musizchka. Prove that he was worth every penny of this investment.

“When Mr. Musizchka first told me about this dinner,” he continued, speaking directly to Viktor, “I was intrigued. And when I spent time with your chefs this evening, I went from intrigued to impressed. It’s not every day that I’m invited to feed appetites as discerning as yours. Fugu, ortolan, ambergris—these are some of the rarest delicacies of the living world. But what I’m prepared to offer you is rarer still. A taste of the Dead.”

“Did he say dead ?” one of the women hissed.

“Oh, no, not that cannibal shit again,” a round man in a paisley shirt whined.

“I have a unique palate,” Kostya continued. “Singular, perhaps. It offers me a culinary connection with the spirit world. With the proper triggers, I’ll taste a meal from one of your Dead tonight. When I prepare it, and when one of you eats it, it will bring that spirit back here to dine.”

Several people shifted uncomfortably.

“If this disturbs you, please, feel free to go.”

A slender woman dressed all in black walked silently to the door. A moment later, a red-faced man followed her.

“Anyone else?”

He looked from person to person, meeting their gazes. Behind him, he heard movement, and turned in time to see Kutsuki shake her head and dash for the door, whispering something that sounded like idiot and raise Hungry Ghosts .

“All right,” Kostya continued, unfazed. “To begin, think of someone you’ve lost. Someone you’d like to see again.”

Several people closed their eyes; several others gave Kostya an incredulous stare.

“Concentrate,” he urged them, “on the Dead. Remember them.”

“What kind of memories?” the brunette asked, her eyes squeezed shut. “Like happy? Or sad? A memory about food, or eating with them? Our first memory of them, or our last one? What, exactly?”

Kostya opened his mouth to answer and closed it again. Frowned.

At Hell’s Kitchen, he’d never dictated a type of memory; he’d just talked to each diner about their deceased and either something appeared in his mouth or it didn’t. But the way she posed the question—what kind of memories?—made him pause.

He thought about Sister Louise. It had taken a while for Stacy to appear. She hadn’t been waiting in the wings to see her; there had been a trigger. She’d come along once Louise thought about her murder, once she’d blamed herself, once she’d missed Stacy so much there had been an almost palpable ache in the room, peppered by regret—the guilt of not being there when she died.

He thought about Steven Tyl— no ; Kostya stopped himself. His name had been Charlie. His dead wife was Anna. And he’d come down to The Library of Spirits practically paralyzed by grief, unable to move on with his life, his desperation so strong that the moment he invoked her— my poor, dead, beautiful wife —Anna came barreling up through Kostya’s digestive tract. The toll those thoughts had taken—it had been written all over Charlie’s face.

He thought about his own dad. He’d appeared in the moments Kostya felt his absence most, the awful resentment at the pool when he was young, the piercing yearning at the Bouche de Noel a few months prior. Just before he’d tasted the pechonka at Saveur Fare, Kostya had been watching the line at work, swelling with pride each time he’d yell a direction and the whole brigade would shift in response, amazed at the place he’d made for himself, the respect he commanded. And he couldn’t help but think it: Papa, how I wish you could see this.

Kostya closed his eyes. He felt very close to something, his fingers twitching toward a pulse. Overhead, the white lights shivered.

“A memory that costs you something,” he said aloud, almost to himself. “One that hurts to remember. That makes you regret what you did or didn’t do. Or makes you remember how happy you used to be when they were here. Something that makes you really feel your grief.”

Those were the memories that summoned the ghosts: the ones that came at a price, that took a little something from the person remembering. These were emotions complex as flavors, sweet articulated by bitter, acid cutting through umami, fat neutralizing heat.

Like a burner catching fire, things began happening inside Konstantin’s mouth. Flickers of flavor—not aftertastes, exactly. More morsels than meals. A whole lot of them.

Boiled-chicken-Kiev-chocolate-cake-kielbasa-tart-red-currant-Wonder-Bread-kvass-coconut-amino-thin-sliced-cow-tongue-pickled-cabbage-bitter-wine-oyster-mushroom-pork-fried-sprats-on-toast-Nutella-morel-syrup-cognac-tuna-tartare-herring-in-a-fur-coat-honeydew-vinegar-burnt-br?lée-mortadella-sunny-side-pineapple-upside-down-marzipan-Jolly-Rancher- grape-fruit-snack-peanut-butter-pesto-escargot-lemon-jus-saliva-stomach-acid-prelude-to-a-puke—

Kostya gripped the edge of the counter for support. It was like drinking the pool of goo at the bottom of the kitchen trash. Dietary discord, cacophony, the notes all sour, curdling. He could feel bile clawing its way up the back of his throat; he was going to hurl.

“Stop!” he gasped. “Stop!”

The diners startled out of their thoughts, the flavors vanishing from his tongue with a little pop. Except for one, which fluttered to the surface now, enveloped his mouth, revived him like smelling salts. A real aftertaste, complete in its complexity.

Sweet, tart, tangy soup. Slim strips of boiled cabbage. Carrot. Potato. Cubed and stewed. A single chunk of beef chuck, boiled so long it dissolved in the broth. Beet, cubed and blanched till its color faded to pink and dyed everything else in the pot maroon. Something zesty, below and above—tomato paste? Pizza sauce? Oh, gross—ketchup (?!!!) and a swirl of (blasphemy!) Miracle Whip. Borscht. With unorthodox trimmings.

“Who puts ketchup in borscht?” Kostya wondered aloud. “Or Miracle Whip?”

The petite brunette gasped.

“Babushka Fira! But how did you—” she began, though Kostya wasn’t listening.

The kitchen seemed to go dim, everything muted but Viktor’s face across the island, stunned surprise registered in his raised brows, his smirk.

“Now we’re in business,” Kostya said.

THE REST WAS easy. Kostya dashed off the ingredients and Viktor sent one of his many minions to the grocery store down the block. Volière had brought a sous vide and a pressure cooker with him and was only more than happy to let Kostya borrow them. ( But of course! This I must see. ) Fortyish minutes later, Baba Fira was coalescing in scarlet fireworks above their heads, the audible gasps and expletives from the spectators filling Kostya with a sort of buoyancy. It never got old, granting people’s wishes.

It made him wish that he could grant his own.

He ached to see his dad. To test his sudden revelation about triggering the aftertastes. He wondered whether embracing his grief would make him taste pechonka again, and how to draw that flavor of agony out of himself, something deeper and more raw than the dull pain he usually felt. He watched jealously as the brunette reached for her grandmother’s glittering hand, thought about how easy it would be to sneak away, to rush back to his apartment and try to conjure up his dad.

But something held him back. A kernel of fear, of doubt.

He’d already missed his father twice. Two strikes. He couldn’t risk a third, not if it might be his last chance. He had to be sure this worked beyond this party. That it worked every time. Airtight. Because what Maura had said—if he kept this up, sooner or later, something had to give—if that was true, he couldn’t let that something be his dad.

He smiled across the room at the old woman’s spirit. One day, when he was sure, it’d be his turn. She looked up, and, through glowing, burgundy tears, smiled back.

AFTERWARD, VIKTOR INVITED him back to the living room for a champagne toast, the clink of their glasses as good as any handshake.

“To partnership,” Viktor toasted.

“And success,” Kostya added.

The bubbles were so fine in Kostya’s mouth, notes of caramel and vanilla undercut by mineral, salt, metal, the limey acid transforming into warmth in the back of his throat, sweetness like bruised fruit. He held the flute up to the light, watched the slender streams of fizz dance across the glass, the almost green glint of it.

“You like the Krug?” Viktor asked. “Is Blanc de Noir. From black grapes.”

“It’s wonderful.”

Viktor studied his own glass. “I always like name. Krug. Like circle.” He took a sip. “I save for special people. My partners”—he nodded at Kostya—“join this circle. Like family. Closer.”

On cue, Kostya’s phone buzzed loudly in his pocket. He silenced it. It rang again.

He pulled it out, his mother’s photo flashing across the screen, a tiny thumbnail of her wedding photograph, she and Kostya’s father in profile, grinning.

“I—I’m sorry, it’s my mother. Please… excuse me a minute.”

He shuffled a few steps away, picked up, didn’t even have a chance to say hello before the barrage began.

“Kostya, thanks God! You completely step off your mind?! I text in morning! Say important! You not call back. I have eight stroke while I waiting. You want kill me, you doing good job.”

“Mama, sorry. Busy day.”

“I hear! Vanya call me yesterday night, and say you talking to Viktor Musizchka—”

“Well, yeah, actually I—”

“—and I tell Vanya, what kind of garbage nonsense you carrying me? Kostya smart boy, he know better. He never talk to thugs like this! Musizchka family all gangsters.”

Kostya’s tongue felt glued to his mouth.

“New money but no better than old KGB,” she continued. “No rules, no moral, bang bang left right. I tell Vanya, you not get involved. You stay away.”

Kostya tried to swallow, couldn’t manage even that.

“Kostya,” she said slowly, “tell me I right. Tell me you not talking with murderers and thieves. Tell me—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said quickly, which was true. “He’s great.”

The Viktor he knew seemed totally legit. A businessman. A well-dressed hunk standing on the other side of the room with expensive champagne and an open checkbook, Kostya’s ticket to a restaurant, to making a difference, to finding Frankie, and his dad, and all the lost pieces of himself again.

“Bozhe moy!” He could hear her clutching the fabric over her heart. “You lose completely sense of smell?! What you messing into! You gonna get yourself killed.”

“I gotta go.”

“Kostya? Kostya! Don’t you dare hang phone! Don’t—”

He hung up and turned back to his host.

“Everything is okay?” Viktor asked him.

“Oh, yeah. She, um—she likes to worry.”

“Well, you have no worries now.”

Viktor raised his glass, and Kostya mirrored him. When they drank, the champagne seemed flatter, duller. Less sweet, more metallic. The iron like blood.

“Welcome to family.”