by Greg Dinallo
Rafik is silent and motionless now, his eyes half-lidded and unfocused as Alexa buzzes around him. She cuts one of his sleeves to the shoulder, searching anxiously for a vein. Nothing. “Lost a lot of blood.”
“Can you replace it?”
“If I had some. If I knew his type. If I—”
“What about that stuff you used to—”
“—had any plasmanate,” she continues without missing a beat. “Hard to find these days. The saline’ll replete his intravascular volume, but it’s no substitute for the red stuff.”
She lets Rafik’s arm hang from the table, then ties a length of rubber around the biceps. A faint, bluish ripple rises just above his wrist. Alexa inserts the stylet, feeds the intracath up the vein, and cranks the valve wide open. She whirls to a cabinet. Surgical gloves snap and squeak as she pulls them on, then douses Rafik’s bloody shirt with disinfectant.
“I don’t know, Niko,” she scolds, as she begins cutting away the loosened fabric. “I haven’t heard from you in years, and when I finally do, you’re up to your ass in trouble.”
“Déjà vu, I know.”
She pauses, allowing her expression to soften. For an instant her eyes have the adoring affection they had when we first met, when she admired my outspokenness and shared my belief in a free society. “I should’ve let you die,” she says mischievously, before her eyes narrow in concentration and she peels away the last of the fabric, revealing the wound.
I’m staring at a nasty puncture in Rafik’s gut, but it’s mine that I see. It’s been over twenty years, and the once-jagged scar is smooth and shiny now, but Alexa’s remark makes the memory of that cool, autumn morning painfully fresh.
I’d just graduated from Moscow State University when Egypt and Syria invaded Israel on the eve of Yom Kippur. The Kremlin sent massive arms shipments to the Arabs and I wrote an editorial for an underground paper urging dissidents to march on Red Square in protest. The KGB showed up in force and came at us with billy clubs. The blow that struck my scalp hurt like hell, but did little damage. I was getting to my feet when an angry voice shouted, “Jew bastard!” Then a searing pain erupted in my side, and I realized I’d been stabbed.
Before the pit bulls could finish me off, friends intervened and rushed me to a hospital. Despite the trauma, I was quite taken by the young woman who was waiting for me in surgery, taken by the compassionate eyes that peered over the top of her mask and the reassuring voice that came from beneath it.
“You’re going to be fine, Nikolai,” she said, holding my hand as the anesthetic took me under. I thought about her constantly during my recovery and pursued her upon my release. Alexa spent ten years blaming my writing and political activism for ruining her medical practice. And I spent the next ten blaming her ambition and willingness to put up with tyranny for our divorce; but, in all fairness, my alcoholism had as much to do with it, if not more. I’ve never admitted that to her. I’ve never had the—
The harsh chatter of adhesive tape pulls me out of it. “Cut this, will you? Nikolai? Nikolai?!”
I take the scissors and snip the tape that she uses to secure a bandage beneath Rafik’s rib cage. “He going to be okay?”
“If he gets to a hospital.”
“Come on, Alexa.”
“He’s severely exsanguinated. Probably still bleeding internally. There’s no exit wound, which means the bullet’s still in there. And I’ve no way to remove it or assess the damage.”
“There’s no more you can do?!”
“He needs blood, Nikolai. He needs surgery. A hospital is his only chance.”
“What’s the point of saving his life if he’s going to spend it in prison?”
“This is no time for riddles. He’s got a couple of hours, maybe less. Don’t waste them.”
“I promised he wouldn’t die and wouldn’t go to jail. I might as well make good on one of ‘em. Get your car. I’ll meet you in the alley.”
“I don’t have a car. Not one that runs anyway.”
“You have a waiting room full of patients and you can’t afford to get your car fixed?!”
“Like everyone else in this damned city, Niko, most of my patients are out of work. And when they’re broke, I’m broke!” She turns on a heel, crosses to her desk, and calls for an ambulance. Then she fetches a blanket and covers Rafik. “He an old friend?”
“No. Why?”
“Well, you seem so worried about him. I—”
“I worry about everyone who spent time in the gulag,” I interrupt, a little too pointedly. “I’m sorry, Alexa. It’s been a long night. Poor bastard was helping me with a story.”
She nods knowingly. “It could’ve been you, couldn’t it?”
“Should’ve been.”
“You’re going to run out of lives one of these days, Nikolai.”
“I already did . . .” I say, pausing before delivering the punch line. “I died the day you left me.”
“A guilt trip. I should’ve known. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
“Sure I have.”
“For example?”
“I don’t drink anymore.”
That gets her attention. Her eyes latch onto mine, prying the truth out of me the way they used to.
“Well, not much anyway.”
“Alcoholics either drink or they don’t,” she says sharply. “There’s no in-between.”
“I’m trying.”
She groans, exasperated. “Talk about déjà vu.”
“It’s different. Really. You ever hear of Moscow Beginners?”
Her eyes widen with surprise. “You’ve been going?”
“Uh-huh. A friend told me about it. She kept bugging me to look into it.”
“It’s nice to have someone who—”
“Where the hell’s that damned ambulance?!” I interrupt, preferring not to get into it with her.
“Take it easy. It’s only been a few minutes.”
“See. Another change. I’m much more impatient, not to mention incompetent—according to the ‘teenagers’ who staff Pravda these days.”
“Well, you sure haven’t lost your knack for writing things that piss people off.”
“That wasn’t it. I was doing a story on black-market medals. The militia put the squeeze on them. They blamed it on me.”
A horn sounds in the alley.
I hurry down the corridor and open the door. Two emergency technicians are coming up the steps with a gurney. By the time Alexa finishes filling out the transmittal form, Rafik—oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, IV bag swinging from a hook on the gurney—is on his way down the corridor to the ambulance.
“Take care of yourself, Nikolai,” Alexa says as the ETs shove the gurney inside.
I force a smile and climb in after it.
“I mean it, Niko,” she says poignantly. “I do.”
One of the ETs slams the door. The ambulance bounces down the alley, turns into the street, and accelerates toward the Ring Road, emergency flashers strobing in the darkness. A short time later, as the ambulance snakes through traffic, Rafik’s chest suddenly arches against the restraints. Then he expels a massive amount of blood into the oxygen mask and goes limp. His head lolls to one side and stays there, blank eyes staring up at me. Through me.
The ET puts a finger to Rafik’s neck, then shines a light in his eyes and closes them. “Save it,” he calls out to the driver, who backs off the gas and flashers in response. The ambulance slows and changes direction, heading toward downtown. A short time later, it clears the main gate at Militia Headquarters and circles around to the morgue. Attendants remove Rafik’s body while an arrogant clerk in a militia uniform deals with the ETs, who turn over the paperwork and leave.
“He was shot?” the clerk asks me, after reviewing Alexa’s transmittal.
“If that’s what it says.”
“You don’t know the circumstances?”
“No,” I reply, wanting no part of a homicide.
“You
his next of kin?”
“Good Samaritan.”
“Put that down and explain it,” he says, pushing a form across the desk. “You can’t leave until I run it past the duty officer.”
“I told you I wasn’t a witness.”
“That’s for him to decide.”
I cook up an innocuous story and scribble it on the report. He methodically separates the copies, putting several into cylindrical carriers that vanish with a whoosh into a network of pneumatic tubes. Ten minutes later, I’m lighting my third Ducat when Shevchenko comes through the double doors. “Katkov,” he calls out. “Saw your name. Thought I’d say hello.”
“It’s been that kind of night.”
He produces a copy of my report. “It says here you found an injured stranger in the street?”
“That’s correct.”
“And since you just happened to be in the vicinity of your wife’s office, you took him there.”
“Uh-huh. She did what she could for him. We were on the way to the hospital when—”
“So it says,” he interrupts, casually adding, “I didn’t know her office was in Serebryanyy-Bor?”
“Serebryanyy-Bor? It’s not. It’s in—” I bite it off, realizing he set me up.
“My people covered a shooting there today. In a bar. Mafiya style. The way they do it in America. One dead. One wounded. The latter, according to witnesses, was a short fellow named Rafik. He was with a third man, unidentified; described as"—he pauses, making a show of checking his notes—"lean, dark blue parka, unruly hair, wire-rim glasses.”
“So? We all have a double out there somewhere.”
“And we have a body, a pistol, and experts who I’m betting will find your friend’s prints all over it, not to mention ballistic markings that prove it was the murder weapon.”
“Get to the point, will you?”
“You’re an accomplice to murder, Katkov.”
“What?! I was the fucking target, for Chrissakes!”
“You?”
“Uh-huh. The guy followed me around all day. Rafik saved my ass. No thanks to you.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“The medal dealers. You heard that guy threaten me. They thought I set them up.”
“That’s what happens when you stir up trouble for a living. You’re an action junkie, Katkov. You crave it. All you media people do. You get high on it, and then you crash.” He pauses and looks to his clipboard. “What’s this Rafik got to do with it?”
“He was my connection.” It dawns on me the shooter wasn’t following me to make me squirm, but because the medal dealers wanted to take out both of us. “Rafik was there that morning. They must’ve blamed him too.”
Shevchenko nods thoughtfully, then studies me.
I’ve a feeling he’s knows more than he’s telling and is deciding what to do about it. “Come on, don’t hold out on me. We still have a deal, if this is what I think it is.”
“It probably isn’t,” he says unconvincingly. “Regardless, we’re still working on it.” His eyes dart to his watch. “Sorry. I’m in the middle of something.” He signs off on the report, and leaves with a spring in his step, setting the double doors swinging on their hinges.
I wait while the clerk completes his work, then hurry outside, anxious to get the smell of formaldehyde out of my nostrils. The temperature has dropped below zero and the sky is gray with the promise of snow. I walk past the line of cars parked along the wall and out the gate, deciding to treat myself to a cab.
Ten minutes later, I’m still waiting for one when headlights illuminate the courtyard, and a car emerges. Shevchenko’s car. It comes in my direction on the other side of Petrovka and stops at the employees’ entrance. A woman steps from the shadows in the recessed doorway. Her walk is familiar. Unfortunately, so is her face. Too preoccupied to notice me in the darkness, Vera crosses to the car and gets in next to Shevchenko.
I feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut. He said he was in the middle of something! This sure as hell explains it, along with Vera’s endless supply of coffee. I’m seized by an impulse to get roaring drunk and confront them. But it’s a short Metro ride to the community center, and if there was ever a time for a session at Moscow Beginners, it’s now.
“Nikolai K.!” the heavyset fellow with the wintry eyes enthuses, clapping me on the back as I enter the meeting room. “How’ve you been doing?”
“Lousy. I’m in a rotten mood. Frankly, I’d rather be getting drunk.”
“So would I,” Ludmilla T. says with mischievous eyes that make brief contact with mine.
“So would we all,” the old fellow in the skullcap chimes in. “Want to talk about it, Nikolai?”
“Nothing to talk about. Even if there was, ten years of talk wouldn’t change a thing.”
“How do you know?”
“Yes, why not give it a try?”
“You don’t have to be afraid with us.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Of course you are,” the old fellow says gently. “The way to overcome fear is to meet it head-on.”
“Maybe he’s not ready,” Ludmilla says vulnerably.
“Are you?” one of the younger men challenges.
“No,” she whispers. “I may never be.”
“I can relate to that,” an older woman says. “I hate confrontations. Especially with myself.”
“It’s like picking at a wound,” another observes. “It never heals.”
I couldn’t agree more. It was a mistake to come here tonight. I’ve too many wounds, too much pain. I’m drifting off, trying to tune them out, when an uneasy feeling comes over me, a feeling I’m being watched. I look up to find stern, hypnotic eyes staring at me from a poster. Beneath the life-size image of an ascetic-looking man, identified as “The Founder,” is flame-scorched typography that proclaims:
DIANETICS
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY WINTER SESSION REGISTER FOR CLASSES NOW
It’s a depressing sight. No sooner do we topple the statues of Lenin, then we rush to replace them. Rafik was right. Little has changed. We’re still eager to be wooed by charismatic men who claim they have all the answers. Oh, we applaud democracy, but it’s religion—an infallible hierarchy to tell us what to do—that we crave. I’ve no doubt this guy, Hubbard, and others like him, will have a field day with the current craze for self-improvement.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” I say, having decided that maybe Alexa and Vera can’t accept me warts-and-all, but I can. I know who I am, I know it’s futile to fight my nature, to be someone I’m not.
“No pain, no gain, Nikolai,” the old man warns.
“As my ex-wife would say, ‘That’s why God made anesthesia.’” I head for the door, turning a deaf ear to the group’s exhortations to remain.
Heavy snow is falling as I leave the community center. I’ve gone about a block when I hear the crunch of footsteps behind me. A figure bundled in greatcoat, fur hat, and boots moves into view as I turn the corner. The snow obscures my view, but it looks like a woman, a tired woman, paying me no mind. Is her blank gaze the result of an exhausting day’s work? Or of professional schooling intended to conceal she’s tailing me? I’m tempted to duck into an alley until she passes, but I’m sick and tired of jumping at every shadow and sound. It’s a few blocks to State Liquor Store No. 12. If she’s there when I come out—if she is surveilling me—I just might confront one of my fears and offer to share my bottle of painkiller with her.
14
I’m running down a long, narrow alley. It’s dark and still except for the glint of steel and threatening movements of the person stalking me. I keep running, deeper and deeper into pitch blackness. The towering walls suddenly converge. There’s no way out. I’m trapped, backed into a corner. The assailant charges, shoves a pistol against my chest, and pulls the trigger with a vengeful sneer. A deafening explosion! Blinding blue-orange flashes! Glimpses of a face! A
peaked cap set at a jaunty angle.
“Bastard!” Rafik shouts. “Fucking bastard! You promised you wouldn’t let me die!”
Searing pain tears through my body. I stumble in the darkness. A door! There’s a door! My fists pound on it frantically. No one responds. I’m on the verge of passing out. My arms drop from exhaustion but the pounding continues.
Another gunshot!
The pounding intensifies!
I scream and sit bolt upright, drenched in sweat. My tongue feels like it’s made of wool. My head like it’s being crushed in a slowly tightening vise. My eyes, wide with terror, are staring at the door to my apartment. Someone’s knocking on it. I crawl out of bed, stubbing my toe on an empty vodka bottle that goes spinning across the floor. I’m halfway there when I hear a key in the lock.
It’s Vera. She recoils at the sight of me. Then her eyes react to something and flare with anger. “Who the hell is that?!” she demands, slamming the door closed after her.
“Who’s who?” I wonder meekly, head throbbing.
“That!” She stabs a finger at the sleeping alcove.
I squint at the bed, trying to resolve the blurred image. Christ! There’s a woman tangled in the sheets! A naked woman! Legs drunkenly askew, a breast exposed, one arm hanging over the side of the bed, the other bent at an angle over her face.
“I don’t know,” I rasp, shuddering at the sight of hastily removed clothing and yet another empty bottle as it starts coming back. “Last night . . . yes, yes, there was this woman . . . she, she was following me. I thought she was, anyway. But she wasn’t. She—”
“You picked up a woman on the street?!”
“Yes. Wait. No. I’m not sure,” I stammer, leaning into the alcove for a closer look. There’s something familiar about her. As a matter of fact she looks a hell of a lot like what’s-her-name. God, it is what’s-her-name.
Ludmilla T. stirs, pushes up onto an elbow in a lemon-vodka haze, then collapses with a groan.
“No, she’s not from the street, Vera,” I say, foolishly expecting to mollify her. “She’s from Moscow Beginners. Yes, that’s where she’s from.”