Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel

by Martin Cruz Smith

  He showed Zhenya a photocopy of Maya sitting with the baby in the bus shelter. The baby existed and Maya smiled as if she could hold it forever. Zhenya made much of trying to see the picture in better light.

  “It’s her baby?”

  “Yeah. That’s another reason to find her. Her parents are worried sick about the baby.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Not that it matters, but we’re her uncles. It’s family business.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Maya. Maya Ivanova Pospelova. The person who delivers her gets a reward of a hundred dollars. The last time anybody saw her she dyed her hair red. Keep the picture. There are two cell-phone numbers on the other side.”

  “She’s pretty.”

  The driver said, “She’s a whore.”

  The car moved on to a streetlamp at the end of the block where a convertible with the top down had attracted a circle of boys. The station wagon rolled to a stop and flashed its high beams. The convertible was a BMW, a German driving machine unlikely to make room for a wreck, and its driver made a rude gesture without bothering to turn and look behind. When the Volvo rolled forward and tapped the rear bumper of the BMW, its driver called on the heavens to rain shit on idiots who drove shit cars. The passenger emerged from the Volvo, opened its tailgate and drew out a long-handled shovel. He marched to the front of the convertible and brought the shovel edge down on the hood. The driver of the BMW ducked so quickly he broke his nose on the steering wheel and blood covered his mouth and chin. That was only teeing up. The second swing had sufficient whip to buckle the hood and a third set off the windshield wipers. Three swings were enough. The convertible rode over the curb in its haste to escape and the Volvo took its place at the curb. The boys had retreated but in a minute they crowded the car for pictures of Maya.

  Zhenya had no idea where Maya and Yegor were. All he could do was race up one block and down the next, avoid being hit by the high-speed traffic exiting the roundabout and dart between the cars slowly cruising the side streets. He wasn’t used to running and he blamed Arkady as a poor role model. The second time around, the blocks were longer, the air thinner. He was staggering to a stop when he became aware that the Volvo station wagon, its lights out, was immediately behind him. It didn’t matter; he couldn’t take another step.

  The man on the passenger side got out and opened a rear door for Zhenya. He gave the boy a chance to catch his breath.

  “Where is she?”

  Zhenya had not panicked in a thousand games of chess, which only underlined the difference between fantasy and reality. A multitude of escape scenarios always came to mind over a chessboard but the man had a grip on Zhenya’s arm that squeezed his bicep in two.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  He was pushing Zhenya into the backseat when an older boy skidded up to the Volvo and said they had the wrong guy; the girl they wanted was with a pimp named Yegor only a few blocks away.

  To the men Zhenya no longer existed and he found himself sitting on the curb loathing his newfound cowardice.

  19

  Arkady slept a luxurious two hours and would have stayed in bed longer but for a muffled sound at the front door.

  The apartment originally had fireplaces. They were bricked in and unusable, but the hardware remained and Arkady chose a poker. Wearing only pajama bottoms, he whipped the door open and found one of the up-and-coming young men from the prosecutor’s staff on his knees with a letter he had been trying to slip under the door. The up-and-comer saw the poker, jumped to his feet and rushed down the stairs.

  The letter was handwritten, which showed Zurin cared. It was also typical that the prosecutor would have enlisted someone else to deliver it, one of the lads who regarded Arkady as ancient and as unpredictable as a loaded harquebus.

  Suspended for cause… poor judgment… calling into question and undermining the aims… concocting cases… flouting the chain of command… given every chance… forced to take action… deepest regrets… your firearm and identification.

  Zurin’s signature was twice as firm and twice as large as usual.

  Arkady turned on the television. Sasha Vaksberg led the newscasts. How could he not? A famous billionaire kills a would-be assassin? And not just any assassin but one disguised as Dopey? A police spokesman solemnly pointed to bullet dents on the limousine’s trunk and fender. Unfortunately for the viewers, rain had washed away the blood.

  He turned the set off. This was the sort of case that Petrovka felt two ways about. Three dead bodies drove up the crime rate. On the other hand, they also drove up the solution rate, which had been lagging badly. There was a niggling question of why Vaksberg’s driver had ignored construction barriers to park on an unfinished highway ramp. The man was dead and it didn’t matter. Keep it simple.

  Zurin’s letter, however, had also accused Arkady of “concocting cases.” Translated, that meant the prosecutor was closing the investigation of the body found at Three Stations. Forget the obscene pose and the ether in her lungs. Her body had been reduced to ashes and all that was left of Vera Antonova was a death certificate that was moved from a file labeled Open to a file labeled Closed.

  So it was over. Arkady rang Victor to call off the rendezvous at Three Stations, but Victor’s mobile phone was off. He tried calling Zhenya. Zhenya didn’t answer, and Arkady discovered that the number he had for Eva was no longer in service, meaning the last link of communication he had with her was gone. Or, more likely, that their connection had died long ago and he had been talking to echoes.

  With the curtains closed, the apartment was a sensory deprivation tank. Once upon a time such a weepy day would have invited self-pity and thoughts of suicide. But his heart wasn’t in it anymore. The blackness of mood, the single-mindedness that was demanded for self-destruction was missing. The boy in the morgue who drained himself as white as alabaster had displayed the proper sense of commitment. He deserved more than his mother’s dismissive “Burn him.” Arkady expected that in his own case, if he did blow his head off, it would please Zurin far too much.

  There was a rap on the door. Arkady assumed that the investigator who delivered the letter had found the courage to return for Arkady’s official ID. However, when he opened the door, he was hit in the chest by an empty red-and-white athletic bag. Anya Rudikova marched in. She was in the same black outfit as the night before, only now it clung like wet crepe.

  “You smug bastard.”

  “What are you talking about?” Arkady pulled on a T-shirt.

  “What do you think is in the bag?”

  “When I looked, money.”

  “How much?”

  “That’s not my business.”

  “There was over a hundred thousand dollars in cash. Now there’s none. The militia got it all because you wouldn’t help. They say they have to ascertain the ownership of the money. They won’t accept our receipts. All you had to do was take the bag with you. You didn’t. You owe me a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Get it from Sasha. He’s the billionaire.”

  “He didn’t leave the money. You did.”

  It dawned on Arkady that Anya was in wet clothes and probably had had no sleep at all. If he was exhausted, so was she.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” he said.

  There was a problem. The militia had taken the key to her apartment to search it for other athletic bags stuffed with cash; if she had one, why not more? And they confiscated the key in case they wanted to return and search the flat again.

  “I’m locked out,” Anya admitted.

  It was an opportunity for Arkady to be smug, but he let it pass.

  They were adults. To get into a friend’s apartment would have taken Anya an hour at least. Even if Arkady’s flat was the last place on earth she wanted to be, logic and a bout of violent shivering made it the only choice.

  “Please,” he said.

  After a brief show
of resistance, she hurried to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. He sat dumbfounded by the situation. A man and a woman find themselves in an apartment against their will. Why should there be a sexual context? There wouldn’t be if he were dealing with a male colleague. It was a pro forma fantasy. But when she showered he not only heard her, he could feel the hot pinpricks of water move down her neck, her back, her stomach. He had a glass of vodka and a cigarette.

  Through the door he offered her clothes that Eva had left in a suitcase under the bed. Instead she emerged in a shirt of his with the sleeves rolled up.

  “It’s bad enough I’m here, I’m not going to wear another woman’s clothes.”

  The shirt hung to her knees. He couldn’t think of any compliment that covered the situation.

  She said, “Anyway, I just need to close my eyes.”

  “Take the bed. I’ll take the sofa in the living room.” It wasn’t much of a sofa and it wasn’t much of a living room. He had taken down all the posters and photos that he and Eva had chosen together. The sofa was little larger than a sled.

  “I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed.”

  “It’s called hospitality,” Arkady said.

  “I am not your guest. I’ll take the sofa.” She sat on it with an air of fait accompli. “It’s nearer the front door and you won’t even hear me when I leave.”

  He gave up. She was impossible. Before she arrived at his doorstep, he had considered the possibility of sleep. Now his eyes were wide open.

  She said from the sofa, “Dopey never had a chance.”

  Talking to Anya was like skydiving, Arkady thought. You were at terminal velocity before you knew it.

  She said, “That was why you could walk right up to him. You had the advantage.”

  “What advantage?”

  “You didn’t care if you died. For you it was a win-win situation.”

  “The only advantage is that when a lot of shots are fired, the trigger gets heavy and the kick gets high.”

  “Not you. You shot him right between the eyes.”

  “And saved your life.”

  “Killed Dopey and gained control of the scene. You knew the militia would confiscate the bag.”

  “At the time, the bag was a minor issue.”

  “Not to me. Was there something dirty about the bag? You thought it was drug money, didn’t you?”

  “I had no idea one way or the other.”

  “But with fashion people there are a lot of drugs.”

  “With police too.”

  “You’re so fair-minded.”

  “I’m trying.” Arkady didn’t know how she had turned the conversation around, but she had.

  “So it could be drug money?”

  “Who knows?”

  “And I could be a whore.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Some whore who writes about other whores who wear the latest fashions. Fuck her, you say. Let her be robbed. Keep her busy all night answering the same questions over and over while the bag gets lighter and lighter. I hear that you’re cozy with Prosecutor Zurin.”

  “Like brothers.”

  “Do you share your cut with him?”

  Arkady swung out of bed. Anya tried to see him as he disappeared in the living room and reappeared in the kitchen. She watched him approach with something white and she flinched as he thrust it at her.

  “What is it?”

  “A letter from my friend Prosecutor Zurin. There’s a lamp on the end table. Feel free to search the apartment. If you find a hundred thousand dollars, it’s yours.”

  He didn’t wait to see if she read it.

  Arkady woke briefly. In the darkness he became aware of another person not just nearby but radiating warmth. The scent of her was all-enveloping and he was so aroused it hurt. He could tell by her shifting on the sofa that Anya was also awake and anticipation and frustration hung in the air in equal amounts until he brushed them aside as products of his imagination.

  When Arkady woke again, at noon, and spread the drapes, Anya was gone. On the pavement umbrellas were open. At his end of the street the pothole was expanding. A battery of workers, all women, shoveled hot asphalt down its maw. He watched a rubber boot go under.

  Banners for the Nijinsky Fair sagged like shrouds. Arkady wondered what luxury or sensation was left. A diamond-studded elephant? Human sacrifice? Or would Sasha Vaksberg himself be an added attraction as a defender of the moneyed class? Arkady admitted to himself that he had assumed Vaksberg would protect Anya and that assumption was proving to be wrong. Smug, in fact.

  Arkady phoned Willi, who said he couldn’t talk. “We’ve got two boys who crashed on the Ring Road, a sniffer, an indigent pneumonia, a fall from a height, a slashed neck and now this threesome of gunshot victims and they’ve pressed me back into service.”

  Arkady asked, “Is one of the three a dwarf?”

  Willi took his time answering. Arkady heard the snap of a rib cutter in the background.

  “A remarkable guess.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “It’s no less work. People think, oh, a dwarf should be fast. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are different types of dwarfs and unusual factors.”

  “I thought he was shot.”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that the main factor?”

  “Don’t get smart. I’m not even supposed to talk to you.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The director. And Prosecutor Zurin. Zurin said that he was going to dismiss you. Did he?”

  “Not yet,” Arkady said.

  This had to be done delicately. He had no authority. It was like casting a small lure on a lightweight line to a dimple in the water where there might be fish.

  “What do you mean?” Willi asked.

  “I mean that ordering someone to alter an autopsy report is serious business. You have the power—”

  Willi hung up.

  Well, that was feeble, Arkady thought. He had used psychology when he should have used blackmail.

  His cell phone vibrated. Willi was back.

  “Sorry, I had to get a cigarette.”

  “Take your time.”

  “This is what happened. Zurin and the director had me cut the girl’s lung again. By then the smell of ether had dissipated. They said if I couldn’t replicate my findings, the autopsy report had to be revised.”

  “Couldn’t you detect it by other means?”

  “Not after they’re cremated.”

  “Already?”

  “It was the wish of the family.”

  “Where’s the dwarf?” Arkady asked.

  “Here under a sheet. We’re waiting for a table.”

  “Has he been identified?”

  “No. We know nothing about him.”

  “Lift the sheet.”

  “Oh. Okay,” said Willi. “We know something now. He’s blue with tattoos from head to toe. He’s a con.”

  Prison tattoos were done with a sharp hook and “ink” made out of urine and soot. Once under the skin, the pigment was blue and slightly blurred, but behind bars, tattoos were more than art; they were autobiography. For anyone who could read the symbols, a tattooed man was an open book.

  Arkady said, “Tell me what you see.”

  “All kinds. Madonna and Child, teardrops, cats, spiderweb, Iron Cross, bloody dagger, barbed wire. The works.”

  “As soon as we hang up, I want you to take pictures of Dopey’s tattoos with your cell phone and send them to me. I have an expert.”

  20

  Itsy’s original family was an addicted mother and abusive father. Their house had been like a listing ship, filthy clothes and empty bottles rolled to one side, bills underfoot and electricity cut off half the time.

  The old man raised guard dogs for security agencies. Alsatians. Rottweilers. Money in that, but it went down her father’s throat. Any money that made it home was an oversight. He smelled like the dogs. Man�
��s best friend. Loyal.

  By the time Itsy was twelve, her older brothers had run off. Lost out on the family business, a thriving enterprise that would have gone to them if, God forbid, anything happened to their father. Good real estate too, if Moscow spread in his direction. So he informed anyone trapped between him and a wall.

  Times Itsy missed school were when she had no shoes. It didn’t bother her father or mother that she didn’t know much more than the alphabet and numbers, and when the school sent people to check on her well-being, she hid rather than be seen in rags.

  Her job from the age of six was to clean the pens and dog run. Her father fed them. His credo was that “Him what feeds ’em is their muvver.” And then he would stagger out in a suit of plastic armor and train them to attack.

  With no companions and little else to do, Itsy spent hours with the dogs, playing with them or simply lying with them in a heap. Each dog had his own personality. The dogs were supposed to be kept apart in their own pens, but Itsy let them mix. Their eyes followed everything she did.

  One winter evening her father came home early, drunk and bruised, the sullen loser of a street fight, when he found the dogs milling freely around Itsy. The dogs read his mood and drew closer to her.

  “Growl at me?” He pulled out his trouser belt and bawled, “Out of the way!”

  He might have cowed the pack and gained control if Itsy had not been present, if the first swing of the belt had not drawn a stripe of blood across her cheek.

  One moment he was up and the next he was just a pair of legs kicking at the bottom of a frenzy that Itsy could not have stopped if she tried.

  After, when the dogs tired of dragging her father’s body back and forth, she put each in its pen, washed and dried the bloody money she found in her father’s pocket and put on as many clothes as possible. He was too heavy to move, and the ground too hard to dig a grave, however shallow.

  Her mother had slept through it all. Itsy would have left a note if she knew how to write. She would have written, “Please Feed the Dogs.”