by Greg Wilson
The doctor, Aleshkin, was a kind old man and he had done everything he could to help, but then after two weeks even he had told her there was nothing more he could do and that the rest was up to her. That he would stay in touch and look in on her and Larisa from time to time, and that Natalia could call him whenever she wanted, but that she had to deal with things herself now, for her own sake as well as her daughter’s. Then soon after that Raisa had to move out and return to her own life and that left them alone. Waiting. For what?
Each night when Larisa finally fell to sleep Natalia would sit by herself in the silent apartment, enveloped in the desolation of her fear, wondering where Nikolai was and what was happening to him, crying until there were no more tears left within her. Then each morning when Larisa woke and looked at her with her huge, questioning dark eyes and asked when her daddy would be coming home she would force a smile and always give the same answer.
“Soon darling. Soon, I promise.”
Vari would know what to do, Nikolai had promised her, so she waited.
After the first couple of weeks he stopped coming around but every few days he would call to see how she was and they would talk and that helped. She had promised Nikolai that she would say nothing of what she knew and she didn’t, but there was always a subtext to the conversations that passed between them. Things were happening, Vari promised her, but she must be patient. So she was. As patient as it was possible to be and for a time she even thought there may have been a trace of optimism in Vari’s words, but then that faded as well and the space between his calls became longer and their conversations shorter and she could feel her life slipping away from her like a silk cord running through her fingers, and it was then that she found the lawyer.
He was smart and urbane and confident and he promised he could help, so she transferred money from the account in Estonia, whatever he asked for and then more, until one day he simply stopped returning her calls.
After that there was a second lawyer and a third. More money. More promises. A hint of progress now and then. Reports of meetings arranged and discussions held and procedures to be followed and then… And then nothing.
She was alone the day Vari came to tell her he was leaving.
Raisa had taken Larisa down to the park and she was standing at the window, watching them play together in the snow when she heard the knock on the door and her heart froze, as it always did now, at that sound. He came inside and took off his coat. Threw it over a chair and looked at her and took her hands.
“It’s over, Natalia. There’s nothing more I can do. Nothing more either of us can do.”
She refused to accept the defeat she heard in his voice. Shook her head and pulled her hands away from his but he took them back and came closer, holding her eyes as he spoke.
“Listen to me Natalia! They won’t deal. They won’t give him up.” His fingers closed on hers, pressing tighter.” I mean it, Natalia.” She began to speak but he cut across her, shaking his head. “They don’t care about the tapes, I’ve tried. I’ve tried to trade them for Nikolai but they won’t do it. Won’t let him go. They believe Niko is their insurance… and not just Niko.” His eyes traced sideways, stopping at the framed photograph of Larisa that stood on the sideboard. Her gaze followed slowly and she felt a new terror settling over her like a veil as she began to understand. Somewhere beyond herself she heard Vari speaking again, his voice soft and insistent.
“It’s not safe here any longer, Natalia.”
She felt his hands squeezing hers again, drawing her back. “Listen to me! We have to get out. We have to get away from here. Go somewhere else where they can’t reach us. Think, Natalia.” She stared at him, trying to. Trying to think. Trying to steer her mind through the chasm of confusion. “It’s what Nikolai would want. We have to get out of Moscow. Out of Russia. You have money Natalia, I know. Not a lot, but enough. You have to think of yourself now.” His eyes traced back to the photograph. “And her, Natalia. You have to think of Larisa.”
A minute crawled by, then another. Vari stood with his back to the room staring down at the flow of traffic running along the embankment. The sky was lightening now. Streaks of dirty gray clutching upwards from the horizon.
“I tried, Niko,” he breathed. “I tried to get her to leave but she wouldn’t, so in the end,” he lifted a hand to his face, pinching his eyes, “… in the end I went without her.” He turned abruptly, throwing both hands in the air.
“I had to, Niko! You tell me? What else was I supposed to do?
“I still had the tapes. But Ivankov knew I wouldn’t release them because, if I did, he would have Natalia and Larisa killed. And he would have done it, Niko. At that point he would have had nothing to lose. So work it out for yourself, how safe did that make me? How long would it have been before someone came up behind me in a car park somewhere and slit my throat? The way I worked it out, as long as I did nothing Natalia and Larisa were safe, so the only smart thing to do was get the hell out myself. Hope they thought they’d scared me enough that I’d shut up and mind my own business. And believe me, they had, Niko.” His voice dropped to a shiver. “They fucking terrified me.” His eyes fell to the floor. “There are some hands you can’t win, Niko. You have to know when to fold. Some games you shouldn’t even try to play.”
Nikolai’s memory wound back to Samara. To Zalisko’s wife and her report… The telephone disconnected. Vari Vlasenko no longer worked for the FSB.
“Where?” he asked, finally. As if it mattered.
Vari looked at him. The answer was blunt. Defensive.
“Bulgaria.” He stopped. Turned to the kitchen. “I’m making coffee, you want some?”
Nikolai shook his head.
“Please yourself.” Vari shrugged. He walked past the sofa and around the granite bench while Nikolai’s eyes travelled around the apartment again.
“And Bulgaria was kind to you, I see.”
Vari glanced up sharply. “It was hard work, Niko.” His tone was curt. He looked down, busying himself; breaking the foil seal on a pouch of grounds, pulling a filter from a box, pushing the box aside. “I had a friend down there from the old days. Ex KGB. A Moscow guy who had been based in Sofia, made some local contacts and married a Bulgarian girl. He saw what was coming, just like Ivankov did. Got out in 1990 and set up a club in the best hotel in town. He gave me a job working security to begin with then after a year he cut me in for a piece of the action.” He slid the filter into the cassette, flicked the switch, folded his arms, waiting.
“There was a lot of American money around. The Balkans were turning to shit and the place was full of soldiers and peacekeepers on leave.” He paused, looking up from a dropped brow. “You want to pass a moral judgment, Niko? Okay… judge. We took their money. We sold them liquor and we organized their girls and you know what?” Vari s eyes lifted defiantly. “We made a fucking fortune.” He cast a hand in the air, sweeping aside any concern of his own. “So pass judgment, I don’t care. Bulgaria made me rich, Niko, and you know what else,” he leaned forward, his voice lowered. “It made me safe. And it could have made Natalia safe if she had just listened.
“Sofia is a small city, Niko. Anyone arrives you hear about it before they’re out of the airport.” He lined up a cup, a spoon, sugar. “And they don’t like Russians, I can tell you, because for forty-five years we fucked them senseless. I only survived down there because I was connected. In fact, you want to see something?” He raised a hand and slipped the first three buttons of his black shirt. Ran his fingers down across a six inch welted scar that followed a fine from the base of his neck to the top of his shoulder. He laughed. “That one wasn’t so bad. I saw it coming. If you’re interested I’ve got another one in my gut and a bullet hole in my side.” He ran the shirt back up his arm; left the buttons undone. The light above the bench caught the crucifix that hung against his chest. “After a year the locals settled down and left me alone. Labor’s cheap down there, Niko, protection is cheap. Cheaper
than here and better quality. Four bucks an hour buys you the best. Seven hundred a week and you’ve got round the clock cover from people who are just waiting to slit Russian throats. If any of Ivankov’s people had ever turned up they would have been diced and served up on skewers in the Zezavisimost market inside an hour.” The coffee was percolating but he ignored it. “She should have come with me, Niko.” He looked aside and turned his head. “If Natalia had only listened, imagine how different things might have been.”
Nikolai rolled to his side, blinking at the light that seeped past the edge of the curtain, trying to imagine how it might have been if Natalia had only listened. If she had taken Larisa and gone with Vari then she would have been safe and then she could have… could have what? Waited? And for how long? How long could someone wait? Three years? Five? Ten? Forever? And for what?
He rolled to his back again, staring at the ceiling, his hands straining into fists at his side. Straining to escape the reality.
But she hadn’t listened. Hadn’t gone because she wouldn’t give up and in the end because of that…
‘She wouldn’t let go, Niko. Even after I got to Sofia I kept trying to persuade her but it was useless. When the lawyers did nothing she went to the newspapers, then when they wouldn’t listen she started on the politicians, one after another, driving them crazy.
“I warned her, Niko, time and again I warned her. Told her she was playing with fire, but she couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Then she had to leave the apartment and find another and the money began to run out so they had to find somewhere cheaper and move again and that was when I lost track. It was three years before I even set foot back in Moscow. Only then that I found out what had happened. It was Aleshkin who told me. He was a soft old bastard. His wife was dead and he had no family. He’d taken a shine to Natalia and the little one so all that time he’d stayed in touch and tried to help where he could.” Vari’s eyes fell shut and his voice dropped to a whisper.
“It was an overdose.” His lids lifted slowly, his eyes finding Nikolai’s.
“It happened in the winter of “97. She was so desperate for information she’d found some private investigator and he was milking her. Aleshkin warned her as well but she was so stubborn, Niko.” His lips sealed and he looked away, slowly shaking his head. “She needed money to live; money for Larisa; money for this investigator guy…” His voice fell soft. “She took a job in a club, Niko.”
The words ground into Nikolai’s gut.
Vari turned his head away. “I was on my feet by then. If I had known… But I didn’t, and so…”
Images tumbled through Nikolai’s brain. Jagged images too awful to bear. He had done this to her. He had caused it all. Then Vari was talking again and he looked up, his brow twisted with pain and despair as he listened.
“She told Aleshkin it was the only way she could make the kind of money she needed, but she wasn’t using, Niko. She wasn’t on drugs. Aleshkin would have known.” Vari stopped, taking a breath. “She picked the wrong place, Niko. Or maybe it was the right place. Maybe that’s why she chose it. Maybe she was trying to get close to them, I don’t know, but they owned it, Niko. They owned it and that made it easy for them.
“There was a woman. A woman she paid to look after Larisa while…” Vari stopped short. Looked away. “One morning she came in and found Natalia and…” He grimaced and chewed his lip. “You don’t want to know the details, Niko. Even if you do, I’m not telling you.”
A cold silence settled over the room. Outside the city was stumbling awake beneath a dirty gray canopy of cloud. The worst time to see anything, Nikolai thought. The blanket of night, with all its dreams and possibilities, drawn back to show the ugliness of truth.
‘They took Larisa, Niko.”
Vari’s voice startled him. He had walked to the window again and he was talking to the glass, his hands flexing at his side. “With Natalia dead and no other relatives she was made a ward of the state. Aleshkin tried to fight them – applied to adopt her himself – but he had no hope.” Nikolai watched the older man’s expression reflected in the glass. Read the grim bitterness of resignation.
“It was all worked out in advance. She was put into a state home for a month and then she was allocated to a court-appointed guardian.” He swung around, facing Nikolai, the massive, ugly sprawl of the city reaching behind him forever into the distance.
“Does the name Vitaly Kolbasov bring back any memories, Niko?”
He walked back across the room, standing above Nikolai, letting the question hang.
“He called me, Niko. Somehow he found out I was back here and that I had been asking questions and he tracked me down and called me to let me know how things stood. He told me he was Larisa’s formal guardian now. That if I wanted to check it out I should feel free to search the court records. He said he wanted me to understand that just in case I had any ideas about picking up where we had left off. I shouldn’t worry about her, he told me. She would be well looked after. She would receive a good education and be well cared for and then when she grew up…” his lips twisted again, “when she grew up there would be all manner of career opportunities for her.” He stopped, looking down.
“You remember the other man in the tapes, little brother? Ivankov’s lieutenant, the man who was always at his side? Vitaly Kolbasov. They worked together until Ivankov decided it was time to clean up his image, then when he did he handed the rackets to Kolbasov. But Ivankov is still there, in the background. Still controls it all and pulls the strings… The black market, the protection rackets, the weapons deals, the gambling, the drugs and the clubs. So now you see, little brother,” he stared down at Nikolai, his jaw set hard. “Now you see it all. Natalia flew too close to the flame. And now, maybe you begin to understand.”
24
NEW YORK
“I don’t believe this.”
Kelly Hartman carried her wine glass with her as she stepped her way along the basement wall, following the charts and the photographs and news cuttings and the colored string lines that traced between them. Her father glanced up, running his glasses down the bridge of his nose, and looking at her across the top of the computer monitor.
“Yeah, I know,” he grimaced. “It’s pretty untidy. I should try and work out a better way of doing it.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Kelly tipped her head to the side, studying a diagram linking two photographs. Her voice was distant. Disconnected. She stepped in closer to read the fine print of a press clipping, stepped back and moved on again. “What I mean is I don’t believe this…” She swept a hand through the air. “These people. The connections.” She shook her head again. “This is amazing,” she murmured.
Her father took it in his stride. Slid the glasses back up his nose, propped an elbow on the desk and dropped his chin into his hand, switching his attention back to the glowing screen. “Yeah. Interesting, isn’t it?”
“Interesting?” Kelly’s brow bunched. “Explosive is probably a better word.”
Hartman chuckled. “Now you’re sounding like a journalist.” He tapped the keyboard and scanned the screen, speaking without looking up. “The problem is, Kel, believe it or not there aren’t many people who really give a damn.”
Kelly turned, looking back across the room.
The clam linguine had taken half an hour to make. When it was ready she’d set the table in the dining room, opened another bottle of wine, walked to the top of the stairs and called him. Waited alone for five minutes then walked back and called him again. After five minutes more she’d given up. Stacked everything onto a tray instead and carried it all downstairs to her father’s bunker in the basement. By then the linguine was cold and the salad was wilted and warm but the wine was still okay and she knew her dad, so there was no point in bitching.
“Oh, thanks, sweetie.” He’d looked up apologetically as she set his dinner down to the left of his keyboard, squeezed her hand a second then immediately slipped his attention back t
o the screen.
“But why?”
He looked up again. “Why what?”
“Why doesn’t anyone give a damn?”
Hartman exhaled. Pushed the keyboard aside and picked up a fork. “Good question. Maybe it’s because they’re conditioned to accepting it all. You know… corrupt business, corrupt politicians, corrupt government. Or maybe everyone’s given up. Or maybe we’re all just too busy trying to cut out our own share of the dream to be too concerned about what anyone else is doing.” He ran the fork into the pasta, twisted it and scooped a pile into his mouth. He chewed a few seconds before the taste kicked in. When it did his features arranged into a look of surprised approval. “This is really good. Even if it is cold.”
“Thanks.” Kelly tried for severe but it didn’t quite work.
Her father chewed. Studied her. Shrugged his brows. “Sorry, hon.” Chewed some more, watching her.
What the hell. Anyway, she was more interested in what she had been looking at. She turned around again, her eyes sweeping across the room.
The shape of the basement followed the rectangle of the living area above, fifty feet long, probably, and thirty wide. The utilities were bunched in a separate screened off area at one end, leaving a space thirty by thirty in which her father had established his “workshop” as he liked to refer to it. The house itself was late nineteenth century. The old brick walls down here in the basement were original but that was about the only part that was. Kelly remembered how there had once been a coal chute and a series of narrow high windows running around the top of the walls but they’d gone after the attempted break-in and that was when the other alterations had begun. The fireproof ceiling, the double steel doors, the dedicated power and communication lines and the secure air handling plant that had its intake hidden somewhere out in the fields. Yet despite all this new, clinical security, her father had still managed to make the place feel cozy in an eclectic, disorganized way with antiques and high technology gadgets bundled together in a manner that shouldn’t have worked, but did. The ceiling lights were turn of the century, frosted-glass saloon hall originals. She knew their heritage since she’d picked them up herself from a demolition sale in lower Manhattan and made a gift of them to her father when the renovations began. Their warm glow splashed gold across the old brickwork and lit the colors in the Persian rugs scattered across the clay tile floor and the polished dark green of the leather chesterfield and its matching chairs.