As they drove away Franny had a feeling he had overpaid by a lot, but since he had no idea about Kazakh money he let it go. He realized he was exhausted and ravenous. The last food he’d eaten had been half a fish yesterday morning. Sitting in the van didn’t look like a good option for either of them, and from a hotel maybe he could try to find a doctor. It would also be good to take a shower, eat some food, and maybe at some point he’d get to sleep. Assuming he could with the grinding agony in his side and shoulder. Maybe that hypothetical doctor could get him some painkillers.

He picked a run-down-looking hotel with a lot of trucks parked in front of weathered doors. He buttoned the tux jacket to hide the blood that now formed a Rorschach test on his shirt. There was a heavyset woman with bottle-blond hair behind the desk, a cigarette hung from her lower lip as if affixed there with glue. She was staring at an old-style tube TV that sat on the counter. The images showed mobs in the street, police in riot gear, bricks and stones and Molotov cocktails being thrown. Occasionally the picture would cut back to an older man in a suit behind the ubiquitous news desk. He and his female counterpart sounded serious, but Franny had no idea what they were saying. Then he recognized that equestrian statue. The riots were occurring in Talas. At first his reaction was indifference—couldn’t happen to a nicer shithole. Then he remembered the fear and the gnawing rage he’d felt in that hospital, Baba Yaga’s ominous warnings, and he felt a lot less dismissive.

The clerk continued to ignore him and watch the television. This time he was going to have to speak.

“Uh, hi. Need a room. Two beds.” He should have left it at that, but he found himself adding, “I’m an American. Came to visit my grandma. We got lost that’s why we’re so late—”

“Don’t care,” the woman said. “Four thousand five hundred tenge.”

“Uh, wow, okay.”

“You got dollars?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll take twenty-five of those instead.”

“Okay.”

Franny returned to the van and pulled out a bundled stack. Everything in the bag were hundreds. “Well crap.” He folded a bill between his fingers and thought; made up his mind. Returning to the lobby he held the bill so the woman could see the denomination.

“How about this. I need a clean shirt and pants, socks and underwear, a razor and shaving soap, some pain pills and antibiotic ointment and bandages. Oh, and something to eat. I get that from you and you get this hundred to cover the cost and another hundred when you deliver.”

The woman shifted the cigarette to the other side of her mouth. “Deal.” She slid a key across the desk to him.