MOSCOW -- Business is a risky business in Russia, a land where bribes and blackmail grease the wheels of commerce and partners often resolve their differences with violence.

What happened to American entrepreneur Paul Tatum has happened to thousands of Russian businessmen.

The 41-year-old Oklahoma native was gunned down Sunday evening just a few hundred yards from his office in a luxury hotel in the heart of Moscow. The boldly public slaying is presumed to be the result of a business dispute.

Contract killings have become so common in Russia they often rate only a few paragraphs in the papers. Only the spectacular ones, such as last year's poisoning of the chairman of the Russian Business Roundtable and gunning down of the head of a huge TV network, get much attention.

Tatum's murder stands out because he was a foreigner. For the most part, the victims of what many see as "wild" capitalism's carnage are Russian. Tatum knew the dangers of doing business in Russia - a country from which more than one foreign businessman has fled in fear - but seemed to thrive on it.

On Sunday evening, just a few hundred yards from the Radisson-Slavyanskaya Hotel, an unknown assailant shot Tatum 11 times in the back in an underground passageway. Neither police nor Tatum's associates have speculated openly on a motive for his slaying.