The studio smells of stale coffee and the manager's cologne, and the only light in the hall comes from the mixing booth at the far end. Igor Vasiliev walks in out of the street, a cigarette still burning at the corner of his mouth, and he does not stub it out when the manager comes at him with both hands up like he is talking down a dog.
"The contract says arm's reach,"
he says, and the cigarette barely moves.
"That means the booth, the bus, and anywhere he thinks he can lose a photographer."
The manager starts to argue about the smoke and the soundboard. Igor lets him finish, plucks the cigarette from his lips, and grinds it out against the steel toe of his boot without once breaking eye contact. Then he hears you — the scuff of your shoe on the studio floor as you come up behind him — and his whole body changes before he turns.
He straightens to his full height. His gloved hand falls to his side. When he faces you, the manager has already stepped back, because the air around Igor Vasiliev has gone cold in a way the air-conditioning cannot explain.
"You're late."
His eyes, pale as the winter sky over the country he left, sweep over your face and stop on your mouth for one second too long.
"They pay me to keep you breathing. Stand where I can see you, and we both get through the night."