Zeitgeist Read Online Free PDF

with big chocks of brick and driftwood. A taut steel cable strung far out to sea, humming with tension.
    Pulat Khoklov was an Afghan war veteran, a former Soviet fighter pilot, now in his early forties. The Russian had made a halting effort to adapt to Cypriot conditions: he wore a black fisherman’s cap, an open-weaved tourist shirt, shorts, and sandals. Khoklov was badly sunburned, and gaunt with illness. The braided rim of his hat showed pale wisps of hair, with the fluffy, damaged look of chemotherapy.
    “How’s life, ace?” said Starlitz in Russian. “Long time no see.”
    “Why are you dressed like this, Lekhi?” Khoklov said. He examined Starlitz’s bright green suit. “You look like a Popsicle.”
    “It’s good to see you, too, Pulat Romanevich.” Starlitz gave the man a bear hug. There wasn’t a lot left to him. The bones of the Russian’s wasted rib cage were flexing like Teflon.
    Khoklov smiled sourly and held Starlitz at arm’s length. “You seem so fat and happy.”
    “I’m in the muzik biznis,” Starlitz told him. “Not like the old days. I’m peaceful and civilized now.”
    Khoklov dropped his arms and lowered his voice. “Give me a cigarette?”
    Starlitz patted his pockets and shrugged. “I quit, ace. I quit. I finally kicked the habit.”
    “Me, too, damn it.” Khoklov sighed, and coughed a bit, painfully. “Well, you need to meet my sister’s boy. He does a lot of my legwork these days.”
    They found Khoklov’s nephew gnawing a spear of kebab,sipping a Fanta orange pop, and staring out to sea. The young Russian was wearing a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey jersey, and rave-kid jeans, with pant legs so enormous that they could have fit a Kenyan bull elephant. Khoklov’s nephew sported a patchy goatee and short blond dreadlocks. His drug-addled eyes were like two dinner plates.
    “Viktor, this is Mr. Starlits,” Khoklov said patiently. “Lekhi Starlits is an international financier and musical impresario.”
    The kid staggered to his sneakered feet and knocked sand from his ass.
“Da,”
he remarked. Viktor looked all of seventeen. He offered Starlitz the fixed, ingratiating grin of a heavy dosage of Ecstasy.
    “This is my nephew, Viktor Mikhailovich Bilibin,” said Khoklov. “He’s from Leningrad.”
    “Petersburg,” Viktor corrected pleasantly.
    “We’ve been on the Baltic circuit together,” Khoklov said. “Finland, Germany, the Kaliningrad enclave … I had a little banking start-up in Kaliningrad, much like the one we tried together in the Alands. Vinogradov was backing my scheme. You know of him, Vinogradov? One of the legendary Seven Bankers.”
    Starlitz nodded. “The Seven Gnomes of Moscow, huh? You sure can pick ’em, ace.”
    “But I wasn’t feeling well. And then came the big Russian market crash. Vinogradov washed out, the Gnome went down with all hands.” Khoklov shrugged his emaciated shoulders. “The south, the warm and kindly Mediterranean … Cyprus is a better place for my health.”
    “I heard you’d been killing some time up in the former Yugoslavia,” said Starlitz.
    Khoklov scowled. “Yes, I was there.”
    Starlitz nodded. “I kept meaning to go up to Yugoland. Wanted to make that scene all through the nineties. Never could quite make the proper opportunity.”
    “You don’t want to go there,” said Khoklov, his face grim. “Trust me on that assessment.”
    “It’s fun there,” offered Viktor suddenly in English.“The son of Milosevic owns the biggest disco in the Balkans! Marko Milosevic is a very hip fellow. He’s like you, Mr. Starlits, the noted musical impresario.”
    “You’ve got pretty good English, kid,” said Starlitz indulgently. “That’s good to hear, because that’s good for biznis.”
    “Viktor’s my English translator,” said Khoklov. “He grew up with Radio Free Europe. And many pirated punk and rave cassettes.” Khoklov grunted. “But in Petersburg the Tambovskaya gang set fire to Viktor’s