The Opportunists

Peter Ivanov stared intently at the playing cards on the green felt blackjack table. He was sitting in the underground gambling hall of the Soviet and was no longer playing to win, but rather hoping to break even. The dealer was showing a six of clubs, while Peter had a queen of hearts and a five of diamonds face up in front of him. He had five hundred dollars at stake, and if he lost, he would not make his rent for the month. He had already lost seven thousand dollars this evening. The strong smell of cheap cologne wafting from the greasy-haired Estonian to his right was making his nose burn. The dealer and the other four players around the table were impatiently waiting for him to make his decision. Two of the players gave him contradictory advice on whether he should hit or stay. He took a deep drag from his cigarette and thought some more. Hit or stay, hit or stay.

He felt eyes on him from around the smoky, dimly lit gambling hall. He was a regular here, and the pit bosses knew that he was on a month-long losing streak. The seven thousand dollars he had so far lost this evening was a loan from the owner, and it was just the latest installment of the fifty thousand dollars he had slowly borrowed, and lost, during the last two weeks. Every day he’d come to the Soviet, a seedy, mob-owned bar and gambling hall in the heart of Brighton Beach. He desperately wanted to win this hand. If he did, it would allow him to hang on and potentially recoup his losses for the evening. He considered carefully. Hit or stay, hit or stay.

His hand glided onto the felt and tapped it. The dealer slid a card out of the shoe and flipped it over onto Peter’s hand. It was a seven of diamonds. Twenty-two.

“Sorry, brother.” The dealer took Peter’s stack of chips in a sweeping motion. The dealer then pulled a card out of the shoe and dealt it to himself. The king of spades. Sixteen. He dealt himself another card. The eight of clubs. Twenty-four. The remaining five players cheered as the dealer passed out their winnings.

Peter felt like he had been slapped in the face.The overdressed Estonian to his right nudged him with his elbow. “Better luck next time,” he said in Russian. He chuckled as he counted his winnings.

Peter gave him a look that wiped the smile off the man’s face. Peter stood at six feet and had a muscular frame and a crooked nose that had never set properly after being broken a long time ago. The Estonian got up and walked away.

Peter finished smoking his cigarette in silence. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what had happened to his luck. While in the army, he had gambled well and won often. He returned home from his tour in the Balkans and finished his enlistment with twenty thousand in savings, most of it from winnings. Exactly one month ago, he still had that twenty grand. He had lost all of it in two weeks. Desperate, he had borrowed from the owner of the Soviet, hoping to win back his losses. Now he found himself fifty thousand dollars in debt to the kind of person to whom he never wanted to owe money. His fortunes had changed dramatically, and he saw no way out of the bind he was in.

Feeling unwelcome at the blackjack table, he pushed his chair back and stood up. He wanted to disappear without anyone noticing. He walked toward the exit, but as he reached the door, a very large man with a grim face put a hand on his chest to stop him. “Not so fast, Ivanov,” he said in English but with a thick Russian accent. He casually pointed toward the kitchen doors. “The boss wants to see you in the back.”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat, knowing that nothing good could come out of a conversation with the Ukrainian owner. He didn’t have any doubts about what the chat would be about. He put on his most confident, no-worries expression, strode to the kitchen entrance, and pushed through the double doors.

Yury Popov, the short, dark-haired owner of the Soviet, was leaning against a polished aluminum cooking table, facing him with his arms crossed. Standing around him in a half-circle were a handful of Yury’s men—large, doped-up Slavic men who lacked the English-language skills, sophistication, or brainpower to assimilate into American society. They looked at him with cold, merciless faces. Two members of the kitchen staff stopped what they were doing, wiped their hands on towels, and walked past Peter into the gambling hall, avoiding eye contact with him as if he were radioactive. He was all alone now with Yury and his thugs. Peter despised the man, but his strong feelings about the presence of his kind in Brighton Beach had settled to a low simmer during his time in the military.

Yury was wearing a tacky purple double-breasted suit. Even though he was in his early fifties, he looked older because of the creases in his skin and the gray hair at his temples. He said in heavily accented English, “Tough night, Peter?”

Peter smiled. “Yury, don’t worry about my loss today. I’ll have the money back in your hands in a few weeks.”

“And with what money do you plan on winning my fifty grand back?”

“I’ll scrape some together. I’m getting paid in a few days, plus a few friends of mine owe me money.”

“You don’t have any friends, and the few hundred dollars you make in construction isn’t going to be enough to pay back the fortune you have so skillfully managed to lose over the last month.” Yury’s men shifted toward Peter and began circling behind him.

“My luck is going to change, Mr. Popov. Just give me some more time,” Peter said reassuringly. Glancing around him, he realized that he wasn’t being convincing enough.

Suddenly, one man bear-hugged Peter across the chest from behind and another jabbed him hard in his stomach. The blow dropped him to the floor and he doubled in pain. Peter knew how to fight, and on an average day could have bested any one of Yury’s thugs, but he didn’t stand a chance against four of them. And fighting back wasn’t going to make his debt go away. So he gasped on the floor like a wounded beast, making no effort to take on the thugs around him.

Yury took a step toward Peter. “I could kill you right now, you know? Believe me, no one is going to miss you around here. Rumor has it that you’re not very good company,” he chuckled as he looked down at Peter the way an owner might look down at a misbehaving dog. “I’m going to give you one very good option for getting rid of this debt. I suggest you take it. You work for me for one full year, doing everything I ask you to do, and the debt will be forgiven.”

Peter pushed himself off the red-tiled floor with one arm and looked up at Yury. “No thanks, I already have a job.” A hard blow to the back of the head slammed his face against the greasy kitchen floor. He felt blood dripping from his nose and his vision began to blur.

“Don’t be an idiot, Ivanov. Your only other option is dying, slowly and painfully.” Yury took a step back and leaned against the kitchen table.

Peter pushed himself up onto his elbows and looked again at the Ukrainian. A motion behind Yury caught Peter’s attention. A slender young woman observed him from an unlit part of the kitchen. He didn’t recognize her, but thought the woman’s cold eyes diminished her otherwise attractive appearance. “I’ll think about it,” he mumbled, wanting to spare himself the physical pain of continuing the conversation. His vision came in and out of focus. Yury’s men came around to either side of him, lifted him, and carried him through the kitchen doors and through the gambling hall. The men around the tables fell silent as they watched a bloody-faced Peter being taken outside. This was no doubt meant to be an example to the other patrons who had a debt with Yury Popov....