his cup. “Coffee?”
“Er, no, thanks.”
“I know this is all important, Steve. But look at this, man,” Ramses said, pointing at the window. “The snow.”
Steve followed his glance and made a “Doc” Brown stunned look on his face.
“We’re in Russia, pal.” Steve smiled. “In the dead of fucking winter. What did you expect? Beach bunnies and surf dudes playing volleyball under the hot sun?”
“You grew up in Chicago,” Ramses said, sipping his coffee. “Then you moved to the Big Apple. You won’t get it.”
Steve came up to the window and looked at the falling snow.
“No harm in a little bit of snow and frost for your brown Californian ass,” he said. “Will put more energy into you. Next time you will complain you’re missing burritos? Come on! We’re in a hurry! Let’s not keep the tough Russian guys waiting.”
“Where does it say in the contract that we have to go somewhere and celebrate something?”
Steve looked at Ramses with pleading eyes.
“All right.” Ramses drank up the coffee and put the cup in the sink. “But keep in mind that I’m doing it for you.”
Steve smiled and patted Ramses on the shoulder. “Now we’re talking. Still, you’re such a prima donna!”
Ramses put on his coat and looked at the falling snow outside the window.
“Fucking snow, dude,” he said to himself.
They went out and loaded themselves into a taxi which took them to a local judo gym where they would have their seminar next morning.
The gym was situated in the city center. They had seen it already in the morning. It was well-equipped. It was obvious that the city authorities had invested good money in this kind of sports. Judo and taekwondo championships took place regularly in Chelyabinsk, and lots of kids wanted to be enlisted in judo training programs. The audience in the gym was going to be not only judo fighters. There were karate fighters, boxers and even bodybuilders in their list of members. Men and women.
Ramses and Steve were happy with their first world tour. It had been their second success since the time when Steven Seagal invited them to take part in one of his action movies, where they had to do rather difficult fight scenes. Once Ramses’s right knee was hurt badly, but still, he had to finish the scene, anyway. He did not tell anyone, because he was afraid they would remove him from the project, and he desperately needed that money.
They got out of the taxi and entered the judo sports center. A large poster in the foyer invited to the 2013 World Karate Championships in Budapest.
Next to it was their poster, which read, “Ramses Campbell & Steve Clayton: The Ultimate Martial Arts Seminars in Russia.”
The guard on reception in the foyer did not speak English, and he tried using gestures to explain to them that Vassili Koshkin, the local organizer of their seminars, had not come yet. Steve grumbled at the Russian unpunctuality and tried to call Vassili’s number but it was busy.
Then the guard looked at the poster, slapped himself on the forehead and took a piece of paper out of his desk drawer.
It was a note from Vassili. It said they could wait for him in the café across the street.
They went there and sat at the window. Ramses ordered a pizza and Coke. Steve went for a cup of coffee. The snow was still falling. Sudden blasts of wind made the snowflakes jump and dance.
“After Russia, we’ll go to the Ukraine,” Steve said, holding a cup of hot coffee. “The cash we’re gonna make there should be pretty handsome. And the chicks are hot stuff there, too. Then we’ll do Estonia, Romania, Lithuania. Maybe Poland as well. We’re gonna be a hit, bro.”
Steve called a waitress and asked for some pizza, too.
“You know, I don’t like Eastern Europe much,” said Ramses, chewing. “I agreed to come here because of the Red Square. That and the Kremlin are the only things I wanted to see here. When are we heading to Moscow?”
“All in due time, my friend,” Steve said. “In two weeks, probably. We’ll be lucky if we get on a talk show there. Promotion, buddy, promotion. It’s all about promotion. We gotta keep moving all the time. And we have lots of things to do here, starting tomorrow.”
A waitress brought Steve his order.
Ramses said, “Steve, I keep thinking about those times, when I was nothing.”
“Oh, don’t say that.”
“But I mean it. I was going down the drain when you showed up in my life.”
Steve furrowed his brow. “You sound like a faggot, you know that? Hey, it’s all your achievement, man. You just jumped off the hook in time. Drugs are a bad thing. By beating the bad things in your inner self, you become a better man.”
“Hmm, who said it? The Dalai Lama?”
Steve chuckled. “Nope – Steven Harper Clayton.”
“I never thanked you, Steve.”
“No, you didn’t, Ramsey,” Steve said, sinking his teeth in a nice piece of pizza.
“Well, thank you.”
“I appreciate it, Rams. You’re a different man now.”
There was a commotion outside. Ramses turned his head. The door of the café burst open, and half a dozen noisy and laughing men filed in.
“Vassili,” Steve said. “Finally.”
The group of men came up to their table.
“Hey, what are you doing here on Valentine’s Day like two faggots?” Vassili said. He was a tall and jovial man. His English words pronounced with the thick Russian accent rumbled in his mouth like stones in a barrel. “We looked for you all over the city.”
“I called you half an hour ago,” Steve said. “And you left a note.”
“I’m just joking, Steve!” Vassili laughed. “Come to join us at the club party. We’re going to the Diorama tonight. The club manager is my best friend. He will let us in for free.”
“Looks like half of the town are your best buddies,” Ramses said.
“Are there many girls over there?” Steve said.
“As many as you can handle,” Vassili said and winked.
Ramses and Steve laughed.
Vassili’s friends roared with laughter, too, after Vassili translated the joke into Russian for them.
“Well, that sounds like a plan,” Steve said, standing up. “Whaddya say, Prima Donna?”
“Yeah,
