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Back The Deal Goes Down
Chapters (55)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Dedication
  4. CHAPTER ONE
  5. CHAPTER TWO
  6. CHAPTER THREE
  7. CHAPTER FOUR
  8. CHAPTER FIVE
  9. CHAPTER SIX
  10. CHAPTER SEVEN
  11. CHAPTER EIGHT
  12. CHAPTER NINE
  13. CHAPTER TEN
  14. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  15. CHAPTER TWELVE
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  33. CHAPTER THIRTY
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  43. CHAPTER FORTY
  44. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  53. CHAPTER FIFTY
  54. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
  55. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

That’s about as far as I got. But I’ll have a chance to talk to her some more and coach her through Act II. He is already in love with her. She just has to convince him that his love can win the day, that he can save her from the ogre, and run off with her. That makes him part of our team. Then all that’s left to deal with is Yvetta.

—

A little after eight, as we were finishing dinner, Kaylee called Allison to invite her for dinner, the next night, Thursday. Her uncle Victor was invited as well. Kaylee wasn’t about to say it on the phone, but things had taken place that would go a long way toward making her escape much more probable.

As we took our post-prandial stroll through Lech, I noticed a couple of Americans. You can guess at nationalities by appearance and be right a great deal of the time. Certain physiques, facial characteristics, the way people carry themselves and the way they move, their fashion choices, their attitudes. Of course, if you hear them speak, they might as well be wearing flags of their nations stamped on their foreheads. It’s not just different languages, or different accents with the same language, it’s the way they use language. Brits tend to speak in complete sentences organized in complete paragraphs. I’ve heard Americans carry on entire conversations with just the word “fuck,” its variants, plus “it,” “that,” “way,” and “hey,” to give it direction. These were Americans, though not the fucking fuck it, fuck that, fuckadelic, kind. There were three of them, and I would have sworn that the one with the big furry hat with earflaps was the Mormon from New York. But that couldn’t be. So it must’ve been one of his cousins from Utah.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

BANYA

Wondrous to relate, I saw the land of the Slavs, and while I was among them, I noticed their wooden bath-houses. They warm themselves to extreme heat, then undress, and after anointing themselves with tallow, take young reeds and lash their bodies. They actually lash themselves so violently that they barely escape alive. They then drench themselves with cold water, and thus are revived.

APOSTLE ANDREW, in the year 1113

“Peter the Great attempted to stamp out the banya as a relic of medieval Russia…But, despite heavy taxes…by the end of the eighteenth century, nearly every palace in St. Petersburg had one.

It was called the ‘people’s first doctor’ (vodka was the second, raw garlic the third).”

ORLANDO FIGES, NATASHA’S DANCE: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF RUSSIA