VYKHINO -- Just as I ended my nearly 24-hour slots machine spree, Vanya, a drunken thug I'd picked up along the way, ran me down on the street. Vanya was a head taller and at least 30 pounds heavier than me. He wanted my last 500 rubles. He knew I had it because I had just split my last 1000 with him, anything to get him off my back. Now he was threatening me, with a crazed gambler's look in his eye. That was when I recalled the pitiful, unthreatening Grigory, and thought, maybe he wasn't so bad after all.
