As Baby Joe was hanging up, Fanny Lemming was just stepping out of a cab outside the Savoy Hotel, having used the same method as Baby Joe, except having gotten away with fifty bucks. Fanny booked herself a room. She took a shower, redid her makeup, and called down to reception.
“Hi. I wonder if you could help me. I met someone this evening who is staying in the hotel. I’m afraid I can’t remember his name. He’s an American. About forty. Dark-skinned. You wouldn’t happen to know…?”
“I believe I remember. Yes. Here it is. Francis Crick. He’s in the Queen’s Suite.”
“Oh, thank you very much. Could you put me through to his room, please?”
There were only a handful of customers in the rooftop bar. The lights were low, and as if by some prior agreement each person was sitting as geographically far as possible from everybody else. There was no music, and the quiet and the darkness outside and the physical and mental isolation of the solitary drinkers gave the impression of being on an airplane. There was only one person sitting at the bar when Fanny walked in to wait for Momo Bibbs. She took a stool a couple of seats away. The guy never looked at her.
Fanny was intrigued. It was so unusual as to be almost unheard of that she could walk into a bar looking as foxy as she did, and a guy wouldn’t even turn his head. Even the gay guys gave her the once-over, and that guy looked about as gay as John Wayne in a beaver hat. He was motionless. As still as a graven image, with a bleak and forbidding expression on his rugged face. She felt drawn toward him somehow, not in a sexual way, but as if he somehow generated his own gravity. She studied his reflection in the mirror, cautiously, alert in case he should look up. But he just stared into his drink. His face was scarred, and his eyes were a piercing, pale blue. He was like one of the characters she invented for her books. Somebody who didn’t exist, but ought to.
Fanny made a fuss about ordering her drink, but the performance did not distract the man from his thoughts, and still he paid her no attention. The man downed his drink and indicated to the barman.
The barman walked over. “Same again, Mr. Young?” he said.
Baby Joe nodded.
“Fuck,” said Fanny.
Baby Joe turned his ice blue eyes on her. His expression was impossible to read, but she thought she detected just a trace of cruel humor there.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“Oh, er. Nothing. I’m sorry, I was just…I have to call someone.”
***
Just as the feeble northern sun was struggling to make headway against the massed clouds that hung gloomily over the city, and a dull leaden light began to undress the night, three conversations were taking place more or less simultaneously.
***
“If that’s the best fucking restaurant in Moscow, I’d hate to eat in the worst. I must have lost ten pounds. I’m going to go back there and complain.”
“Crispin. Please don’t shout. I don’t feel so great myself.”
“Well, if you will go traipsing about to who-knows-what den of iniquity. Without me, I might add,” Crispin added pointedly.
The phone rang.
“Get that, Crispin, will you please? I don’t have the energy.”
“Yes, hello,” Crispin said. “One moment, please. It’s for you. A woman. An American.”
Asia jumped up out of the bed and grabbed the phone. “Fanny. Hi. Yes, I…You what? When? I mean, where? Okay. Okay. Right away.”
Asia dropped the phone in the cradle and ran to the wardrobe. “Crispin, come on, get dressed. Hurry.”
“Where are we going?”
“To see Baby Joe.”
***
“Lee, Lee. Wake up.”
Endless opened his eyes. Momo was standing over the bed.
“What the fuck’s going on?”
“The broad, she’s here.”
“What broad?”
“The writer. Zalupa’s woman. She’s here.”
“Where?” Endless said, getting to his feet and reaching for his pants.
“Here. In the fucking hotel.”
“How do you know?”
“She called my room. She’s waiting for me in the bar.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. What do you think she wants?”
“I don’t know, but it’s got to be something to do with Zalupa. We need to get it straightened out. Get up there, pronto, and stall her. I’ll take care of it.”
As Momo Biggs was heading out of the door, Endless Lee was trying to pull off the rather impressive feat of pulling his pants on and making two calls on separate phones at the same time. One call was to Huckleberry Hicks. The other was to Oleg.
***
“Agent Black. Yeah, it’s me. I found ’em. Yeah. I’m at the Savoy Hotel. Upstairs in the bar. We can take ’em as they come out of their rooms. Get around here right away, and be ready to rock and roll. What? Yeah. I don’t know how much use he’ll be, but have Oblov drag his fat ass over here with some backup. And maybe call the Ambassador. He might have some shit to sweep under the fucking carpet. No. I won’t make a move ’til you get here. Yeah, yeah. A half hour. Okay.”
Chapter 14
Some scenarios were just too weird to worry about, even for Monsoon Parker. This time it was just too far out there, past risible, way beyond ridiculous, and on the way to slapstick city in a big candy-colored balloon with a deranged clown for a pilot. How—even in this fucked-up world where the fates constantly conspired to shaft you and the gods of chance slipped you a crippler at every opportunity, where Lady Luck invariably whipped out a stiletto when the chips were down and shivved you in the ribs, where every windfall hit you on the head, every foot in the door kicked you in the nuts, and every helping hand helped itself to what was in your pocket, and where, when opportunity knocked, it knocked your fucking teeth out—how was it possible to end up in this situation? The big joker in the sky had truly excelled himself, and Monsoon could almost hear the laughter ringing out above the clouds.
Monsoon was sitting naked, on a hard wooden chair, and he could see his reflection shivering in the blackened window. Outside, a solitary star twinkled though a hole in the clouds. It seemed to make the scene even bleaker than it already was. Hyatt was sitting across from him with an extremely unpleasant smile on his face. Yevgeny was leering at him like some drooling backwoods retard, with a bottle of Stolichnaya in one hand and his WWII cannon in the other. Sasha was sparked out in front of the fire, but Monsoon’s chair was too far away from the blaze for him to benefit from the heat.
There were two other guys that Monsoon didn’t know. The one guy looked like a whale turd wearing jeans. He was glued to the TV, watching Gone with the Wind, with John Belushi in the Clark Gable part and Whoopi Goldberg as Scarlett O’Hara. He wasn’t laughing. Maybe he just didn’t get it. The other guy was so skinny that Monsoon had seen more meat in a vegan’s sandwich. He was fast asleep on three mattresses piled on the floor.
Monsoon looked at the Fab 13, glowing and pulsating in the firelight like some scary dick monster from the twilight zone. He looked at Hyatt. The little fucker looked about thirteen, sitting there with that obnoxious grin on his chops, and yet he had set everybody up.
He knew this because Hyatt was busy taking great pleasure in explaining it to him as he sat freezing his bollocks off in the chair, and Hyatt and Yevgeny guzzled booze and grinned. The whole chain of events. Himself, De Villiers Brooke, Elmo, that creep Lord Lundi, Zalupa, Oleg and his giant poodle, Fanny Lemming, everybody. Hyatt had made suckers out of everybody, with Shitsack Slim and the Ribcage Kid as back up. Everything. The R3, the polonium, the Fab 13. Hyatt had it all weighed up and figured out from the get-go.
“Except I was slightly wrong in my calculations. Well, we all make mistakes. Even geniuses. It was only when the unfortunate Sebastian Type explained it to me that I realized where I had gone wrong. It was only when I realized that the R3 would not make itself redundant, that it could reproduce itself ad infinitum, that I realize
d its true worth. Shame that Sebastian had to go, though. What a brilliant mind. But flawed. A conscience is a terrible thing.
“And Uncle Khuy. Who would ever have figured on him going all goo-goo-ga-ga over a woman? Oh, well, that just made it easier for me. You see? The real chameleon was me. All the time. Changing, transforming, there but not there, seen but not seen, camouflaged, pretending, silently stalking. Harmless little Hyatt, Uncle Khuy’s pet nerd, who turns out to be the biggest crocodile in the pond. Amusing, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, yeah. Fuckin’ sidesplitting. So, brainiac, after you swiped the goodies and planted them on me to smuggle them out of the house, how did you know fuckin’ Jed Clampett here would find me? I don’t know much about dogs, but I know that that useless spaniel couldn’t find an unwashed crotch in a cathouse.”
“Ever hear of GPS, Einstein?”
“Oh. Er, yeah. Well, anyways, if this Polynesian is so fucking poisonous…”
“Polonium.”
“Yeah, that too. If the shit is so bad, how come I ain’t dead?”
“Pure good fortune. If you hadn’t been so concerned about getting dirty, or if you had found a pair of overalls that fit, you wouldn’t have blundered onto the apron.”
“The apron?”
“Yep. Did it feel heavy?”
“Kind of.”
“That’s because of the lead. I won’t bore you with attenuation length and radiation wave patterns, but the apron was the kind used to protect people from X-rays. Only 15mm, but just enough to protect you from the immediate effects of the polonium. All you had was the common flu. Of course, that’s not to say that you won’t die of a horrible, wasting, cancerous tumor in a few years, but it depends on the amount of exposure.”
“Oh, fucking thanks. Wonderful prog-fucking-nosis, doc. That’s what I get for getting you laid, you pimply little bastard, the fucking big C?”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be all right. Anyway, it might be a moot point.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we still have unfinished business.”
Monsoon was relieved to hear it. People have to be alive to finish unfinished business. “Such as?”
“Such as this enchanting piece of jewelry, as it would be considered a national treasure. I need you to smuggle it out of the country.”
“Oh, great plan, Baby Einstein. A black Asian guy going through customs and immigration with a priceless historical artifact. Smart move. What do you expect me to do with it? Shove it up my ass?”
Hyatt grinned. Yevgeny laughed outright.
“You are kidding, right?” Monsoon said.
Hyatt stopped grinning. “Yevgeny. If he hasn’t done it by the count of five, shoot him.”
Yevgeny leveled the weapon at Monsoon’s chest. “One.”
“Hey, guys, c’mon. A joke’s a joke, but…”
“Two.”
“Hyatt. Look at the size of the fucking thing…”
“Three.”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. It won’t fucking fit.”
Yevgeny cocked the hammer. “Four.”
Monsoon lost it. “Stop-no-wait-it-won’t-fucking-fit-fuck-you-you-piece-of-fucking-shit-this-is-fucking-insane-don’t-shoot-stop-no-no-please.”
“Five.”
Monsoon grabbed the Fab 13. Yevgeny pulled the trigger.
***
The vodka might as well have been water. He wasn’t tasting it and he wasn’t feeling it. Oleg was confused, and in a kind of pain that he didn’t understand. Not a physical pain, from being shot. That was nothing. A state of mind. Such had been the violent history of his life—it was hard for him to remember a time when he hadn’t had some kind of injury. It was something else. Loss. A sense of wanting something back, someone back.
At first, as he sobbed in the darkened room of his shitty flat, pouring Stolichnaya down his face like it was milk, he had assumed he was upset because of Bolshoi. It was a reasonable assumption. He had raised Bolshoi from a puppy, and the dog had been by his side virtually day and night ever since. But upon a deep examination of what he felt, he realized that it wasn’t the dog. Sure, he missed him and was sorry, but that was just sentiment. Ultimately, Bolshoi had been a weapon, not a pet.
So what was it? It was Khuy Zalupa. Fucking Khuy Zalupa. He was gone. And now what? He ached. There was a void in his life. He was a ship adrift, with no captain to tell him what to do or where to go. He had killed the king, but he was smart enough to know that he was not smart enough to be a pretender. It had been the woman. She’d changed everything. Confused him. Made him jealous. Clouded his thinking and made him angry.
He thought of Khuy Zalupa, lying dead on the cold floor. The czar, slain. By a traitor. By him. At the time, as he fled though the dark streets, all he felt was exultancy, the victorious blood joy of a savage survivor. But it was only now, all alone, when the rage had subsided, and with the adrenaline flushed from his system by vodka, that he came to the true realization of what he had done. And how much he had loved Khuy Zalupa.
***
The Savoy was a quiet hotel by Russian standards. Sure, there was the occasional shindig, and a visiting rock star threw a couple of TVs out of the window every once in a while, but usually you didn’t expect to see many gunfights. Usually.
Endless Lee and Momo Bibbs walked into the bar like they owned the joint. Oleg stalked in behind them, as if he wanted to torch the joint. His eyes were bright. He was where he needed to be: poised on the edge of violence, a mindless dog of war with someone holding the leash. No more thinking. He stopped by the doorway as Endless and Momo walked over to stand on either side of Fanny.
“You’re coming with us,” Endless said.
“I thought you two usually came together,” she said.
Momo grabbed her arm.
“I don’t think the lady wants to dance,” Baby Joe said.
“Who the fuck are you?” said Endless.
“Stay the fuck out of this if you know what’s good for you,” said Momo.
“Fuck me,” said Baby Joe, “you boys must have gotten a clichéthesaurus for Christmas.”
Oleg was already moving in, fast and lithe and focused, like a Doberman. Like a Doberman—that was his mistake. He stopped in front of Baby Joe, bristling, waiting for the order. Baby Joe spat in his eye, reached behind the bar, grabbed a bottle of Courvoisier, and broke it backhanded across the bridge of Oleg’s nose. Oleg went down. Baby Joe kicked him in the head. He grabbed Momo and stuck the jagged edge of the broken bottle against his jugular.
“What part of ‘I don’t think the lady wants to dance’ did you not understand, there, ace?”
Endless looked pale and confused. His confidence had gone down with Oleg. He was trying to make sense of what was happening. Who was this guy? An accidental Galahad, or was there a new player in the game? He looked at Momo. Momo was scared, trying to keep the pressure of the glass away from his neck. He looked at Oleg. Oleg was climbing to his feet. His face was a vicious, contorted mask of hatred. Endless looked back at the man. He was watching Oleg. There was something about his eyes. What was that—apprehension? Fear? No. Fuck. It was joy. The bastard was enjoying himself. Time to go. Retreat and regroup.
“Easy, pal, easy,” he said. “We made a mistake, okay. We’re on our way. Oleg, c’mon, let it go.”
Baby Joe pushed Momo away from him. They started walking toward the door. Oleg was walking backward, glaring at Baby Joe, speaking in Russian, spitting words like hot splinters of steel. Baby Joe stood at the bar, watching them go. Fanny was next to him, sipping her drink as if nothing had happened. Blue lights from down in the street started flashing in the windows.
Agents Black and White walked in.
Agent White put her hand on Endless Lee’s chest. “Hold up, there,” she said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Endless said.
“People keep saying that,” said Baby Joe.
“You’re coming with us.”
�
�They keep saying that too,” remarked Fanny.
Agent White produced her badge. “BATFE is who we are.”
“We haven’t done anything,” Momo said.
“Then you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about,” said Agent Black. He was staring at Endless Lee when he said it.
Endless returned his stare. “This is not America. You have no jurisdiction. You can’t touch us.”
“No, but he can.”
Oblov walked in. Three officers walked in behind him.
“Major,” said Agent White, “would you take these men into custody? I’ll clear it in the morning.”
Oblov nodded. He spoke to his men. They took Endless and Momo and Oleg by the arms and led them away. Endless and Momo looked at each other, but said nothing.
“I’ll go down with them, just in case,” Agent Black said. He followed the Russians.
Agent White went up to Baby Joe at the bar.
“We done?” Baby Joe said.
“I guess. Thanks. I owe you one. What’ll it be?”
“Bourbon.” Baby Joe grinned. “And since it’s on Uncle Sam, make it a triple.”
Agent White smiled. “Sure thing,” she said, and then to Fanny, “What about you, little lady?” She turned to look at Fanny for an answer. “Damn,” she said.
“What?” Fanny asked.
“Well, this is sure enough weird.”
“What is?”
The first shots exploded before Agent White could reply.
***
As Asia stepped out of the taxi, an upstairs window blew out, and a brittle rain sprinkled around her. Crispin was still trying to shuffle his butt out of the cab when Militsiya Major Leonya Oblov landed on the roof and caved it in. Crispin was wedged. He screamed at Asia to help him, but she was already running up the steps into the hotel. She could hear shots and shouting and Russian and English; curses and screams and an ugly sound like nails being hammered into glass. The night porter tried to grab her but she pushed past him and ran toward the staircase, in the direction of the gunfire. As she came out of the stairwell the firing stopped, and she found another policeman down, with a bullet wound in his leg. His gun was lying by his side on the bloodstained carpet. Asia snatched it up as she ran past. On the corner of the second flight, she ran straight into Fanny.
The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) Page 26