Tatiana ar-8

by Martin Cruz Smith

  “Why the wasp?” Victor asked.

  “Amber,” Lotte said.

  Zhenya proudly said, “We think it’s an agreement between the Chinese government and a company close to the Kremlin.”

  Arkady asked, “Would it be Curonian Renaissance? Curonian Bank? Curonian Investments?”

  “No.”

  “Curonian Amber,” Tatiana said.

  There was a long pause at the other end. Lotte said, “That’s it.”

  Tatiana said, “I’ve been studying this strange entity for years. On the face of it, Curonian Amber is a virtually dead amber mine on the spit. Dig a little deeper and it’s also the holding company for the Curonian Bank, Curonian Investments, Curonian Renaissance and all the rest. It’s Grisha’s brainchild, a way to move money in any direction. Who would stop him? He was a billionaire with allies everywhere. So far, remarkable but not unique. Moscow has a dozen more Grishas. What Joseph Bonnafos was hinting at would have been a coup that set Grisha apart. It was also potentially another Kursk disaster.”

  “I think that Curonian Amber plans to repair a Chinese nuclear submarine here,” Zhenya said. “There’s a price tag of two billion dollars mentioned. Wouldn’t that put Grisha in a league of his own?”

  That wasn’t the only possible interpretation, Arkady thought. Tatiana thought so too; he saw it in her face. But a sum that magnificent inspired respect. Even Arkady felt it momentarily.

  “It doesn’t change the fact that Grisha was nothing but a thief. They’re all thieves,” Victor said. “Somehow the repair was a scheme to steal money. A lot of money.”

  Arkady asked, “Was there any mention of Alexi in the notebook? Doesn’t he feel that he is the heir apparent and that whatever was Grisha’s is now his? Alexi has been trying to cut in from the start. Zhenya, when he had you and Lotte translate the notebook, was there anything in particular that he was after?”

  “Everything.”

  “What was the last thing he asked?”

  “Where the meeting was going to be. I told him on Grisha’s yacht, the Natalya Goncharova.”

  “Abdul is in Kaliningrad,” Victor said. “His concert is over. He’s sticking around for something.”

  “I’ll keep working on it,” Zhenya promised. “Nuclear submarines, that’s pretty wild. Maybe I got it all wrong. Maybe it’s about rubber duckies in a tub.”

  “Come home,” Victor said to Arkady.

  “Good night,” said Tatiana.

  The screen returned to a home page of the Milky Way. Arkady noticed that Tatiana had not mentioned the submarine Kaliningrad and its failure in sea trials, rather than feed Zhenya’s assumption. She saw the big picture; anything less was a distraction. Tatiana thought in terms of nations and history, just as Arkady focused on the small picture of three children and a man in a butcher’s van.

  30

  All the cars in Zelenogradsk had gone to bed, except for black sedans that continued to cruise the streets. Arkady and Tatiana had not slept for days and took their chances on a motel that featured plastic swans and called itself the Bird Haus. The front desk was stocked with wildlife guides and offered wake-up calls for early birders.

  They set out their shoes and her gun beside the bed, she laid her head on his shoulder and almost instantly, before he even turned off the nightstand light, she was asleep.

  It occurred to Arkady that he and Tatiana were too cynical. As mature Russians, their dials, so to speak, were set by experience at “the Worst,” at disaster, not success. For example, Zhenya had it backward. That Curonian Amber would repair a nuclear submarine for China was bad enough. The worst, however, was the possibility that Curonian Amber would outsource a Russian nuclear submarine to be repaired in China. Arkady remembered the name of the faulty submarine. The Kaliningrad. That didn’t sound Chinese at all.

  He drifted off listening to the hull of a submarine being crushed and bent, the sound of the ice maker in the hall.

  • • •

  Morning traffic backed up on the road to Kaliningrad as police in yellow vests sorted out cars, trucks and bikes.

  Arkady said, “We have to separate now. They’ll be looking for couples on bikes. I’ll go first. If there’s no problem, wait ten minutes and see if you can hitch a ride.”

  “I know how to do that.”

  “Be careful.” Although he saw that he was preaching to the joyously deaf.

  • • •

  For the driver of the delivery van it was another day of miserable weather, slippery cobblestones, “Bony Moronie” on the radio and a breakfast of glutinous peach pie. He had picked up the woman because she looked good from the back and not so bad from the front either, trying to hitch a ride on the highway. Police were waving all the traffic to the side of the road, like maneuvering a herd of elephants. She threw her bike in the back of the rig, hopped in the cab and said, “If anyone asks, I’m your sister.” Pretty nervy. They were checking papers but it was the driver’s regular route and he got through with a wink. Sailed along.

  He expected some reciprocation and a kilometer down the road they pulled into an empty fruit stand. She said she wanted privacy. She said she’d do it in the back of the truck. But there was no room because of her bike. He courteously climbed up and handed the bike down. She jumped up, pulled down the gate and locked him in. It turned out she could drive a rig. And she picked up her boyfriend on the way.

  They didn’t stop until they reached a zone of eerie quiet and when people finally heard him pound on the side of the truck he found himself in a lot of windblown trash beside the empty colossus of Party headquarters.

  • • •

  “Where are you now?” Victor asked.

  Arkady said, “We’re having coffee in Victory Square in Kaliningrad. Tatiana is with me.”

  “Have you made contact with Maxim?”

  “Not yet.” Why not? Arkady asked himself. He and Tatiana had been in Kaliningrad for two hours and hadn’t tried to connect with anyone. She kept her backpack. Otherwise, they ditched their bikes and traveled light. It was intoxicating to be a tourist, to climb the stairway of a pastry shop and take in a view of the city’s central square with its bubbling fountain, a requisite victory column, skateboarders clicking over tiles and a new church that looked snapped together from plastic parts.

  In the pastry shop, vitrines of glass and chrome offered strawberry tarts, Sacher tortes, cream puffs, and figures of Grover and Elmo sculpted in marzipan. The shop was also a display case for trophy wives dressed in Prada and Dior. Upstairs, Arkady and Tatiana were on a level with a street banner that announced in stark black and white letters a hip-hop concert by Abdul, larger than life-size, scowling, with the pallor of a healthy vampire. The concert had taken place the night before. Arkady imagined Abdul sleeping in a closet upside down.

  An Audi rolled into the shadow of the church. The driver emerged to tuck in his shirtfront and comb his fingers through his hair. Detective Lieutenant Stasov, surveying his domain.

  “I’m coming out there,” Victor said.

  “No,” Arkady said. “You’re needed in Moscow. If you come here, Zhenya will follow and then Lotte.”

  Victor asked, “What about Maxim?”

  “We’ll get in touch with him.”

  Lieutenant Stasov started across the square. Whether he had spotted Arkady and Tatiana or had a fondness for pastries didn’t matter. In a minute he would be walking through the door, strutting with the lopsided swing of a man wearing a gun, and if he climbed the stairs, Arkady and Tatiana would be in full view.

  The lieutenant changed his mind and retreated to his car, to release a pug with a monkey face. The little dog dragged Stasov by the leash, eyes rolling like marbles, tongue flapping from side to side.

  The shop’s glass door was directly below the table that Tatiana and Arkady shared. For the dog the shop was a blend of irresistible aromas and he balanced on his hind legs to view each display case in turn.

  Stasov played the indulgent pet ow
ner. “There’s no stopping him any time we’re near sweets.”

  A woman asked, “What’s his name?”

  “Polo. That’s what it said on his dog tag. I rescued him from a criminal. Can you imagine?”

  Did the lieutenant carry the dog as a social icebreaker wherever lonely women congregated? Arkady wondered.

  “How old is he?” another woman asked.

  People always asked certain questions, Arkady thought. How old is your dog? Your baby? Your grandmother? Another constant was, is your gun loaded? Tatiana’s pistol rested on her lap.

  “I swear, he’s as curious as a cat. Come on, Polo. Don’t bother the nice people, Polo. Good boy. Oh, now he’s going up the stairs.”

  Arkady heard the dog scamper up. He was halfway to the balcony before Stasov snagged the leash. Arkady got a glimpse of the lieutenant’s bald spot when he scooped up the dog.

  “Excuse me,” he told the ladies. “Excuse me, please. Such a rascal. Ah, well, here comes his treat.”

  “A bonbon!”

  “He’ll gobble this down in two bites. See?”

  “What a character.”

  “Well, ladies, duty calls. My friend and I must go fight crime.”

  Polo made a final bolt for the stairs but Stasov stepped on the leash and reeled him in like a fish.

  “Au revoir.”

  “Au revoir.”

  Stasov retreated to his car and held high an extra bonbon. Polo was enraptured.

  “I told you that dog had no loyalty,” Arkady said.

  31

  Maxim knew. He knew as soon as Arkady and Tatiana walked into his apartment that the situation had changed. He had gone from suitor to also-ran. All the risks he had taken were worthless chips. He was a poet without words.

  “I’m sorry,” Tatiana said, although she didn’t mean it. Not really, Maxim thought.

  “They’ve been here already, Alexi’s men and the police.”

  “Good, maybe they won’t be back so soon,” Arkady said.

  “How is your boy, Zhenya?” Maxim asked. “Has he deciphered the notebook yet?”

  “Most of it. The ‘what’ and the ‘where.’ But not exactly ‘when.’ We think there will be another meeting.”

  “All this sound and fury for a notebook of incomprehensible symbols. This calls for a drink, only I haven’t got a bottle in the house.” Maxim poked around in an empty liquor cabinet. “And they’ll hold the meeting without Grisha?”

  “It’s still a good plan,” Tatiana said. “The Defense Ministry provides two billion dollars for a submarine refit. Half will actually go to the shipyard that does the work. Curonian Amber will take the other half and carve it up like a wedding cake. Everybody gets a piece. Friends in the Kremlin, the Defense Ministry, the banks and the Mafia. That was Grisha’s genius. He was generous as well as inventive.”

  Maxim said, “So it’s one more rip-off. What’s so unusual about that?”

  “Actually, it’s a Chinese refit of a practically new Russian nuclear submarine, the Kaliningrad,” Tatiana said. “It’s new but in such poor condition it’s never actually gone into service. So now they’re going to fix it on the cheap in China.”

  Maxim shrugged. “ ‘Made in China.’ What isn’t these days?”

  “This is different. Hold back that much money and the Kaliningrad could be a disaster on the scale of the Kursk. If so, the public won’t stand for it. If anything could bring down these crooks, this is it.”

  “Sit, please,” Maxim said. “I apologize about the heaps of clothes. Creative people are messy. I must have something to drink here. I should be a better host. Tea? Coffee?” Maxim wandered in and out of the kitchen searching for clean cups. In the living room, some bookshelves were bare, not carefully removed but swept aside. Shakespeare, Neruda, Mandelstam commingled on the floor, and it occurred to Arkady that Maxim probably had not left the apartment for days.

  Tatiana saw that she was not penetrating. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really.” Maxim slapped his hands together and studied them. “So, the two of you have been on the run. That’s always romantic.”

  “Do you want us to go?”

  “No, no. You’re my guests. I told myself not to be bitter or vituperative. I should have known better than to have set you up with someone as long-suffering as Investigator Renko. Tell me, Renko, have you noticed that our Tatiana likes the sound of bullets? Has she done anything you would consider a little reckless, like stand in front of a moving train? Does she inoculate herself with fear on a regular basis? I see you have a mark on your ear. Has it occurred to you that it’s not safe to stand next to a martyr? Unlike Anya. Have you been in touch with her?”

  “We talked,” Arkady said. Days ago, he realized.

  “She was one of the also-rans, like me,” Maxim said.

  “I don’t think she cared one way or the other.”

  “Surprise.”

  It occurred to Arkady that Anya may not have betrayed him. She had delivered the notebook to him, not to Alexi, and had not told him where Arkady was. What else could he have misread?

  “Where is she?”

  “Moscow, I suppose. Moscow suddenly seems sane. Ah, here we are.” Maxim pulled out a half-empty bottle of vodka from under the couch. “And where is this meeting going to take place?”

  “The Natalya Goncharova, Grisha’s yacht.”

  “Pushkin’s whore,” Maxim said. “As a literary man, I can appreciate that. When?”

  “Tonight, we think.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Last night Abdul gave a concert of hate here in Kaliningrad. Tomorrow night he’ll be in Riga, but tonight he’s still here, as are Ape Beledon and the Shagelmans.”

  “There’s not much you can do about it, is there?”

  “I think there is, but we need your help.”

  Maxim transferred his gaze from Arkady to Tatiana. “This is rich. Help you ascend to martyrdom? First, your friend is going to get himself killed. Second, I’m not a fucking Sancho Panza. Not even a Pushkin. Now I really do need a drink.”

  Tatiana said, “It’s simple. Arkady will go to the meeting with a cell phone. You will be waiting on the other end here, listening with a tape recorder.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “We’ll need a witness.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ll be with Arkady.”

  A wolfish grin spread on Maxim’s face. “You two. You two are too much. Every time I think I’ve got you topped, you come up with something better. A witness? You mean a floating body. Two floating bodies, and I’m supposed to be on the other end with a phone up my ass. This is fucking moral blackmail.”

  “You should be safe,” Arkady said.

  “Exactly, and that’s all people will remember me for, staying safe while you get your throats cut.”

  “You don’t have to do it.”

  “Right.” Maxim took a long pull on the bottle and exhaled a cold cloud of vodka. “What makes you so sure the partners of Curonian Amber will be there?”

  “Because these are the sort of partners that keep an eye on each other. We don’t want to get into a violent confrontation. We just want to threaten to take their plans public.”

  “Will Alexi be there?”

  “Apparently Grisha didn’t tell him about the first meeting, but he knows where this one is.”

  “No, no, no, no. I won’t do it.”

  “I understand,” Arkady said.

  “No you don’t. I’m going with you.” He pointed at Tatiana. “She can stay with the tape recorder.”

  “That’s not what we’re asking,” Tatiana said.

  “It’s that or nothing. I’m not going to be a butt of contempt and derision the rest of my life. Besides, you don’t know anything about the harbor. The Natalya Goncharova doesn’t mix with lesser craft. She’s anchored in deeper water and you’ll need a boat to get to her. I happen to know where one can be found.”

&
nbsp; “We’ll find another,” Tatiana said.

  Maxim said, “I doubt it. Kaliningrad harbor is closed to personal craft. Soon it will be evening and you’ll be searching in the dark in an active harbor of ships moving back and forth. Not to mention, it’s the port of the Baltic Fleet. They’ll shoot us dead and our bodies will be swept out to sea.”

  “Then I’m going too,” Tatiana said.

  “You’re staying here,” Maxim said. “That’s the deal.”

  “Do you know what to look for?” Arkady asked.

  Maxim had the smile of a poet whose words had finally fallen into place. “Of course: the most beautiful boat in the harbor. A true Natalya Goncharova.”

  • • •

  There were two boats at the dock of the Fishing Village, only one with an outboard engine. While Maxim drew it alongside the dock, Tatiana pressed her face against Arkady’s and whispered, “As soon as I have everything on tape, I’ll catch up.”

  “Don’t. It will be confusing enough.”

  “Maxim is acting very strange.”

  “What is he going to do? He’s not a killer even if he thinks he is.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Positive.”

  Maxim pulled a cord and jerked the engine to life. “Are you coming or not?”

  “Coming.” Arkady kissed Tatiana lightly on the cheek as if he were going on an evening cruise.

  The dinghy was a tin tub with an outboard engine that rattled and spewed fumes. Before leaving, Maxim leaned into the other boat and slipped its oars into the water. Arkady watched their outlines float away.

  “Why did you do that?” Arkady asked.

  “So nobody gets any ideas. I’m the captain now.”

  There was nothing Arkady could do about it. It was done. He kept his eyes on Tatiana until she faded into the evening’s haze.