Vaksberg tipped his umbrella back to see the rain. "There is no better place for a confidential conversation than outside in the rain."
"Conversation about what?"
"You. You're the man I've been looking for. Intelligent, resourceful and with absolutely nothing to lose."
"That's a harsh assessment."
"It means you're ready for a change of fortune."
"No," Arkady said.
"Wait, you haven't even heard the offer."
"I don't want to hear the offer. Until tomorrow at least, I'm an investigator."
Dima joined them, carrying the Glock openly. He asked Vaksberg, "Is there a problem?"
"No, just a little stubbornness."
Dima asked Arkady, "What are you smiling about?"
"You're carrying a gun in a lightning storm. You're a human lightning rod."
"Go to hell." Perplexity covered the bodyguard's face.
Arkady wondered whether death would make up for a lifetime of sleep deprivation. As for hell, he suspected that it would turn out to be more like Three Stations than fiery pits of brimstone and sulfur.
Through breaks in the clouds were glimpses of blue predawn haze. The storm beat a last drumroll in retreat.
Anya got out of the car and slammed the door. She didn't look happy with anyone.
Vaksberg called, "Anya, you missed us."
She pointed to the trunk.
"This?" Dima pointed at a rope that held the trunk of the Mercedes shut.
Arkady wondered since when did Mercedes use rope to keep their trunks shut?
Dima seemed to have the same question.
As he bent for the rope the trunk popped open and a stowaway sat up in the dark of the lid. At this point bodies moved slowly. The stowaway shot Dima with muzzle flashes one, two, three. Dima tried to return fire and his infallible pistol jammed. Staggering backward, futilely squeezing a trigger that wouldn't give, he absorbed four hits before he dropped.
Slava also had a Glock. The driver's pistol didn't jam and he sprayed the Mercedes until his clip was empty, while the stowaway rolled to the side of the trunk, protected by the car's armor. Just as the idea of retreat seemed to occur to Slava, he went down.
Arkady picked up Dima's pistol. He was not a marksman-his father was an army officer who inspired in Arkady a loathing for guns-but he had grown up stripping and cleaning and generally tending them. A nine-millimeter round stood straight as a smokestack in the feed ramp of the Glock. Arkady cleared it, advanced a fresh round and, because he was a poor shot and the stowaway was hidden in the dark of the trunk, walked directly toward the car. Hurried, the figure in the trunk missed with the last rounds of his rack, strung together some "Fuck" s trying to reload a clip wrong way 'round, corrected and raised his gun when the sky split open. Facing the lightning, the stowaway blinked. The white light at his back, Arkady fired. The stowaway folded, toppled and dropped onto the ramp.
Arkady found a flashlight in the glove compartment. The shooter was a dwarf between thirty and forty years of age, muscular, in fairy-tale tights and a roll-neck sweater right out of Snow White, except for the Makarov nine-millimeter by his hand and a hole as round as a cigarette burn between his eyes.
"It's Dopey," Vaksberg said. "You killed Dopey."
Dima and Slava were also dead, facedown, flat as fish, blurring the water with blood. Arkady felt around the interior of the trunk and found the courtesy light taped over, pulled the tape off and discovered a plastic supermarket bag that held a change of clothes, poncho, shoes and Metro pass. No ID. Nothing worth a ride in a car trunk, let alone murder. Arkady remembered the Spartak athletic bag in the passenger compartment.
"Wait! Let me explain." Vaksberg saw Arkady veer into the car.
As Arkady unzipped the bag, credit-card receipts and dollars and euros in $10,000 rolls spilled out.
Vaksberg said, "They're donations from guests leaving the fair."
"For the Children's Fund," Anya said.
"Good luck. Once it's in militia hands, you may never see it again."
"You can explain to them," Vaksberg said. "As you said, you're still an investigator."
"Not a popular one. How much cash is in the bag?"
"A hundred thousand dollars more or less," Anya said. "The same in credit-card charges."
"Well, believe it or not, to some people that's a lot of money."
"Does the militia have to know how much money?" Vaksberg asked.
"Are you bargaining? After you almost got us killed?"
"Yes. But in my defense, you didn't seem to care one way or the other. I mean, Dopey was blasting away at you and you just walked up to him and shot him in the head."
The lightning display faded to a steady rain. The day was off to a slow start but Arkady knew that sooner or later a patrol car passing the barricade would see a limousine standing on the ramp. If they came closer they would trip over bodies. Highway police accepted bribes for almost everything. Homicide crossed the line, and when Arkady added up the bodies, he still lacked a killer of the world's most lovable dwarf.
Vaksberg asked, "What are you doing?"
Arkady put the Makarov in Vaksberg's hand, aimed at the sky and forced Vaksberg's trigger finger to squeeze off a couple of rounds.
"Making you a hero. That's to prove to a paraffin test that you fired a gun."
"You're incriminating me?"
"Not at all. I'm making you a hero. Tell them what happened just as it happened, except that I wasn't here. Act it out and get your stories straight."
Anya said, "You're leaving us?"
"That's right. The Metro will be running soon. There's a station ten minutes away. I'll find my car. It's not a Mercedes but it has no bullet holes."
Vaksberg considered his role. "So I acted in self-defense. I simply walked up to this assassin and… Bang!"
Arkady said nothing, although he remembered how his father put it in an army manual: In the field, an officer should run only as a last resort and never in retreat. An officer who, under fire, can move calmly and confidently rather than race from one cover to another is worth ten brilliant tacticians.
It was Arkady's ambition to die before he became his father.
16
Although the night's rainstorm had become morning's drizzle, Yegor insisted on getting in line for hot dogs and beer at an outdoor kiosk.
"I knew you'd come," he told Maya.
"Just until we find my baby."
The clerk in the kiosk was brown, with dark eyelids and a scholar's wire-rim glasses. He greeted Yegor tentatively. "Are you in a good mood today, my friend?"
"Definitely."
"That's good. You are always welcome when you are in a good mood."
"We've been waiting an hour for some fucking service. I'm just kidding."
"You are in a fine mood, I can see. You are our guest. Whatever you want."
"You're sure?"
"A hundred percent."
"Ali is a good guy," Yegor told Maya. "Indian or Pakistani?"
"Pakistani, please," Ali said.
"Who somehow got stuck here in Moscow."
"Stranded by fate. I came to study thirty years ago and here I am."
"Some ignorant shits gave Ali some trouble."
"Prejudice is a terrible thing. You bet I am the only Pakistani with his own kiosk."
"Prejudice." Yegor shook his head.
"But Yegor snapped his fingers and trouble disappeared. Now there are no more problems, at least not from violent youth, thanks to Yegor. You go to any other kiosk and you will hear the same story. Yegor is an important friend to have."
Yegor pushed Maya's hood back and revealed her blue scalp. "What do you think?"
"Quite exotic. How old is she?"
"Enough." Yegor collected the food and hustled Maya away, but he was pleased. "Did you hear that? You have an 'important friend.'"
"I don't want a friend, I want Katya."
"Agreed, but you can't go talking about a fu
cking baby with potential customers. A deal goes both ways. You have to keep your end of the bargain."
"I will."
"And stay away from Genius. He thinks you're the Virgin Mary. Don't act that way around me. You should be happy I appreciate you the way you are."
Which was nothing more than a prostitute, Maya thought. He had a way of looking at her that made her feel as if his hands crawled over her body, milking her breasts and insinuating himself between her legs, although he hadn't put a hand on her. The sensation was hypnotic and demeaning and she was sure he knew exactly what he was doing.
From hours of intimate observation she could read men. Some wanted the fantasy sex of a lifetime, worth a special chapter in a book. Some wanted to rescue an innocent girl, after sex, not before. They all wanted their money's worth.
Maya choked on her hot dog and spat it into the gutter.
"What's the matter?" Yegor asked.
"It's disgusting."
"No time to start like the present, then."
Rain slowed but didn't halt traffic and Maya wondered what passengers in the cars saw when they looked out of their cozy lives. A red stream of brake lights. A miserable few tables of CDs and DVDs under plastic. A young pimp and a whore in their element.
17
At three weeks Katya was still a part of her mother. Every taste and smell, warmth and touch, was her mother. When she was startled her mother's voice soothed her, and if she could not focus farther than her mother's face, that was enough. Like the earth and moon, they seemed to be in perpetual orbits around each other, and when she woke and heard a different voice, her universe began to collapse. The babushka Auntie Lena went into the Kazansky Station ladies' room and came out as Magdalena, still an imposing woman but colorfully dressed, with hoop earrings and hennaed hair. Basket in hand, she swept through the waiting room and joined her partner, Vadim, who had made his own transformation from drunken soldier to sober civilian. Together they left the station and crossed a side plaza with a statue of Lenin to an eight-story apartment house that overlooked Three Stations.
Usually she put on her Auntie Lena act to troll for girls. Hard class always had a couple. She would soften them up with stories about money to be made in Moscow and share snapshots of herself and a "daughter" in front of an expensive car. Why endure the boredom of a rural village giving sex for free to pimply youths when a glamorous life awaited them in exclusive clubs as escorts of the wealthiest, most dynamic men in the world? Then Vadim would step in as a menace or a friend in need; he could play it either way.
The baby was pure luck. Vadim had gotten drunk with a General Kassel, who confided how his wife was driving him crazy from wanting a baby. Not a shelter baby or some disease-ridden four-year-old delinquent, but a real baby. If possible, one with no birth certificate or history. The general was being reassigned to a new post two thousand kilometers from the old. It would be nice if they could show up without having to explain to people the miraculous addition of a newborn. The general named a figure that was astronomical. At best Magdalena and Vadim had hoped for a pregnant girl who would prefer her freedom and money in her pocket to pushing a stroller with a snotty, bawling baby. Maya was the dream candidate.
"I'll tell you just how this will go. The new parents will examine the goods-that's only natural-but they will have milk, diapers and rattle laid out so they can play mommy and daddy right away. It will take fifteen minutes. They won't want us hanging around."
At the elevator Vadim asked if the baby's diapers were clean.
"Yes. She's a beautiful baby. The general and his wife should be very happy."
"What if it's a trap?"
"You're always so nervous. That girl's not going to go to the police. She's on the run. She's our ticket. A healthy baby without a single record? Who doesn't even exist on paper? That's one in a million." When the baby started to fuss, Magdalena smiled indulgently. "Our golden baby."
The Kassels were in a second-floor apartment borrowed from friends who were on holiday. The general welcomed Vadim and Magdalena with a bonhomie that didn't hide the sweat on his forehead. He had brought in a doctor the same way a sensible man has an auto mechanic check out a used car before buying.
The general's wife bit her knuckles. Her fingertips were already raw.
She said, "You should have given me more warning."
"Everything happened so fast. And we're leaving tomorrow."
However, she was ready with nappies and formula, as Magdalena had predicted, right down to the rattle.
The doctor warned the Kassels not to get their hopes up. Generally a baby was abandoned for a reason. The chances of a street foundling not being damaged or sickly were poor.
Magdalena opened the basket. "See for yourself."
While the doctor unwrapped the swaddling Vadim tried to entertain the general and his wife with lies about the baby's provenance, how the mother was a young ballerina forced to choose between the baby and a career. He tailed off when he noticed that no one was listening. The room's attention had shifted to the examination.
The human face was a map. The shape, size and position of the ears could imply one syndrome. The spacing of eyes, mouth or nose could imply another. Or genetic damage. No alarms yet.
She was quiet while the doctor listened to her chest and back, but she fussed during her ear exam and cried vigorously about having a light shined in her eyes. The doctor looked in the baby's mouth for thrush and checked the palate. Felt her abdomen, scanned her for rashes, bruises or birthmark and finally gave her a shot of hepatitis B, which didn't make her any happier.
"This is a well-cared-for infant," the doctor said.
"Is it healthy?" the general demanded.
"Oh, yes. Off a brief examination, thriving."
"Didn't we say so?" Vadim jumped out of his seat and shook the general's hand. "Congratulations, you're a father."
"I am! I feel different already!"
"This is an expensive blue blanket. Where did you get this child?" the doctor asked, but his question was overwhelmed by the popping of champagne corks and the lusty crying of the baby.
Magdalena said, "There's a good set of lungs. That's a good sign, much better than a silent baby."
Vadim clapped. "Everyone wins. The baby gets a loving home and the mother can return with a clear conscience to the pursuit of her art."
The wife said she was afraid of holding the baby and everyone assured her it would become second nature. Magdalena and Vadim stayed for one more toast, took their money and left. The doctor left a minute later.
"We're on our own now, the three of us," Kassel said. The plan was that they would leave the next day by train to his new posting, a thousand kilometers away, in a fresh start as a happy family.
"She's rejecting the bottle," his wife said.
"She was probably breast-fed. She'll get used to the bottle."
"I can't breast-feed."
"Of course not, that's what the formula is for."
"Why did you even mention breast-feeding?"
"It's no big thing."
"It is a big thing. She wants her mother."
"She's just hungry. As soon as she adjusts to the bottle, she will be fine."
"She doesn't like me."
"You're new to her."
"Look at her." The baby was red from kicking and squalling. "She hates me."
"You have to hold her."
"You hold her. Why did you bring her? Why is she here?"
"Because every time we see a baby, you tell me how much you want one."
"My baby, not somebody else's."
"You said you wanted to adopt."
"Some idiot from a shelter?"
"This is a perfect baby."
"If it were a perfect baby, it would shut up."
"Do you know how much I paid for this baby?"
"You paid for a baby? That's like paying for a cat."
And the baby cried.
There were no complaints because everyone i
n the surrounding apartments was at work. The baby cried itself to exhaustion, slept and regained enough strength to cry again. Just in case, the general turned on a television with the volume up. His wife pulled on a sleep mask and went to bed. Neither tried to feed the baby again.
During a lull in the crying, he carried a pillowcase stuffed with baby paraphernalia to a refuse bin in the basement. When he returned he found the baby on the floor, hoarse from crying, and his wife standing over it with her fists against her ears.
He asked, "What are you doing?"
"I can't sleep."
"So you moved her?"
"Someone has to. It just keeps crying. You're a general; order it to shut up."
"I'll get rid of it."
"Then do it."
In the bedroom closet Kassel found a shoe box complete with tissue to nestle in. As if that were an amenity.
The baby was a mess, its eyes swollen almost shut, nose stopped with mucus. A wheezing, shivering, smaller baby. He put it in the shoe box and taped the lid shut. Decided on no airholes. Put the shoe box in an oversize shopping bag and took the stairs down rather than meet anyone in the elevator.
The general didn't know Moscow well but his plan was to leave the bag amid the crowds and confusion of Three Stations. The problem was that when he got to Kazansky Station, he discovered how little confusion there actually was. Everyone moved with a purpose and had four or five eyes instead of two and all on the watch for suspicious behavior. He regretted the shopping bag; unfurled, it was large and gaudy and had an Italian logo that drew attention. He had to be casual. Unrattled. Even so, when the box shifted in the bag he panicked and headed for the nearest tunnel. He found himself in a pedestrian underpass that was a gallery of stalls staffed with women who would no doubt detect a baby's least whimper. Kassel was grateful to reach the blaring speakers of a music stall.
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