Last Dance

by Jeffrey Fleishman

  “You got into his head,” says Lily.

  “I’ve listened to hours and hours of him over the past few years. I’ve read everything about him. Think about it. How can one person hide in so many skins? Be comfortable in each. How do you do that? Who are you inside? What is the voice you hear? You get that, Carver, right?”

  “He was a spy first. Everything else was part of the disguise.”

  “Yes, but to excel at each is incredible.”

  “He got to you,” I say.

  Azadeh shakes her head and half smiles.

  “I never met him, but yes, he got to me,” she says. “My obsession. I—we—almost had him. We were so close. We knew he was behind it all. One step ahead and hiding in plain sight.”

  “What if he went through the tunnel but isn’t on the plane?” I say. “What if that’s a deception too?”

  “Could be,” says Azadeh. “We hope to find bodies in the sea.”

  “Even then we might never know.”

  The sun has burned away the dew. It is almost noon. The shadows are gone, and the movie screen bares its seams and small rips. Most of the tuxes and evening gowns have been questioned and released. They wander over the lawn looking like the extras they are, rented elegance turned back into baristas, waiters, and salesclerks. I wish they were still out by the pool, pretending in their wigs, pencil mustaches, and cheap jewelry. They were pretty at night, making you want to tag along on their whispers. They file through the gate and into a sheriff’s bus. Agents carry away cameras, editing monitors, laptops, boxes of wires. Azadeh walks toward the villa. I know how she feels to be so close, so inside an obsession that slips away. Maybe Orlov and Dylan Cross will one day conspire over espressos and brandies on an island off the Croatian coast or in a town square in Sardinia. It wouldn’t be impossible; the world’s designs and coincidences, though most go unnoticed, are infinite.

  Lily is down by the back wall, looking, I imagine, for where Orlov’s tunnel comes out beyond the palms and umbrella pines.

  I stand by the statue of the peasant girl. She is the color of a gravestone in an old church cemetery. I touch her cheek. She is cool. Lichen has bloomed at her feet, by the fountain water, but she is still young, a child, glancing away with a discreet smile, as if she has overheard a secret. She must be special to Orlov—an artifact from the Old World, stolen in the night, perhaps, from a Russian village and brought here to stand alone amid jasmine and honeysuckle, calling no attention to herself, yet drawing you to her.

  I pull my hand away and walk back toward the lawn, my feet crunching on the loose stone of the curved driveway. An agent carries a painting out of the villa—a portrait of a young woman wearing a scarf, black hair blowing, eyes staring at something unseen in the distance. It is Maria. I imagine Orlov painting her many years ago in the room by the wine cellar. I can hear his brushstrokes, the swirl of his colors, how he must have labored to freeze time, to keep a version of her alive. Another agent follows with a portrait of a ballerina stretching along a barre, peering into a mirror that reflects a city spreading behind her. Only part of her is painted. The rest is a sketch, her face unfinished.

  Chapter 35

  Two men pulled from the sea.

  Mickey Orlov. Armando Torres.

  Trawlers gathered them like fish and sailed for Montauk. This is what Azadeh says through her phone as I stand at my window and listen in darkness. The plane’s tail number matches the one listed to Holly Martins. A passport bearing the same name was found floating in the water. The plane, a Bombardier Global Express, exploded in midair. Fishermen heard a blast, saw pieces of sky fall. The bodies, including the pilot and a woman in a blue skirt, were nearly intact, which, Azadeh says in a detached monotone, is unusual. But it does happen. There have been cases, she says, where those blown from a plane have been found hundreds of miles out in the ocean, unbruised, uncut, fully dressed. DNA tests confirm the identities of Orlov and Torres with 99.9 percent certainty. She says this twice, reading the number with slow specificity, as if to harden it in the air.

  “We have photographs, too, Carver. It’s him.”

  The words through the phone stop for a moment. I can hear Azadeh breathing, vaping. She’s on her porch in South Pasadena. Alone. Elsa is sleeping. Papers are spread beneath a small lamp on a table that Azadeh keeps by a rattan chair. Her neighbors know that when the porch lamp is on in the dead of night, Agent Azadeh Nazari has a case that has gone bone deep.

  “A plane like that doesn’t just explode, Carver.”

  “Maybe our guys did it.”

  “No. The CIA wanted him arrested, not killed. The great spy exposed. Washington wanted a show. The Democrats certainly did. They’d love to stick it to Putin.”

  “Trump wouldn’t want that. It would have invalidated him.”

  “The Bureau did. Trust me. The whole point these days is to invalidate the last two years.”

  “Maybe Orlov’s own people.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Azadeh hangs up. I splash water on my face, change my shirt, comb my hair. I grab the car keys and head for the 10 and the Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu. The ocean air is faint with the scent of burned-out wildfires that have left hillsides and canyons as black as the night sky. Beyond the windshield, it seems another country, the other California, land of nightmares and charred, skeletal houses. But the road curves, the white threads of waves glow, and the houses that escaped the embers whirling in the gusts stand sturdy and bright in the moonlight. I push the gas and feel the wind, racing north. I turn and rise into the hills. I slow and stop at Stefan’s gate. I buzz. Luksala’s voice greets me. The gate clicks open, and I drive into the courtyard. Luksala appears, regal and never hurried, like an African tribal leader strolling through a sleeping village.

  “How are you, Mr. Sam? Come.”

  He leads me through the foyer and living room and out back past the pool and across the grass, where two shadows sit in Adirondack chairs, smoking cigarettes and facing the ocean.

  “Ah, Sam, welcome,” says Stefan. “Up late, huh?”

  “Hello, Mr. Sam,” says a silhouette I am coming to know well.

  “You’re not in disguise,” I say.

  “Not tonight,” says Zhanna Smirnov. “Tonight, I am me. A pleasant change. Stefan invited me to dinner. He’s a good cook. We had fish and potatoes with rosemary—rosemary tastes like Christmas, no?—and wine from Chile. Now we are full and drinking bourbon and talking to the ocean. Sit, Mr. Sam.”

  Stefan offers me a cigarette. I take it. Zhanna hands me a bourbon. I sit in the chair between them. We lean back, blowing smoke at the stars. I sip. I look to Zhanna: black jeans, black sweater, a silver necklace, a black leather jacket with buckles and zippers. Stefan is dressed in black too: a thick old cardigan and a ball cap keeping him warm. We listen to the wind and watch distant tankers in the moonlight.

  “Do you like this bourbon, Mr. Sam?” says Zhanna. “Stefan keeps telling me to like bourbon.”

  “You can get used to it,” I say.

  “It’s from Kentucky,” says Stefan. “The best is from Kentucky.”

  “Maybe you give me bottle to take back to Russia,” says Zhanna.

  I turn to her. “You know about Mickey Orlov,” I say.

  “Is that question, Mr. Sam?”

  “No.”

  “We heard something on the news over dinner, didn’t we, Stefan?”

  “Tragic,” he says. “I didn’t know he had made so many movies.”

  “Curious that a plane would explode like that,” I say.

  “Yes,” says Zhanna. “I am worried to fly always. Statistically, you are safe, but you are in the air, no? So many things can go wrong. Electrical. Fuel lines. Who knows?”

  “Maybe you do,” I say.

  “You are funny, Mr. Sam. You are a hard worker. Clever man, I thi
nk. But now is time to drink and talk to the ocean.”

  “Katrina’s diaries.”

  “You read them, so you know, Mr. Sam.”

  “I read only the pages you gave me.”

  “They were the most important pages,” she says.

  “You loved her.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not enough,” I say.

  Zhanna looks at me. I can feel her eyes. Stefan leans toward me. The wood of his chair creaks. He gets up and walks toward the hill’s edge. He stops, barely discernible from the night—and looks over the water.

  “What do you mean, Mr. Sam?”

  “To save her.”

  The words hang, dissolve. Zhanna bites her lip, sips her bourbon. She lights another cigarette, blows an arrow of smoke. She is like Orlov the other day: agitated, showing a sudden break in composure. She regathers herself. Takes a breath, pats my arm, stares into the sky.

  “Katrina was unstable,” I say. “On drugs. Chaotic. Then Maria told her Orlov was her father. That upset things, didn’t it? Orlov had no idea. A ballerina daughter shows up at his studio. It unsettled even him. But it gets worse, right? Katrina threatens to out him. To expose Moscow’s election hacking. All of it. At least, what she knew. She didn’t know much, but just enough. Dangerous variable. What to do, right?”

  I watch the waves.

  “This is clever bedtime story, Mr. Sam. Like my father used to tell in Russian when I was a girl. Maria had left by then. She was older. It was just Father and me. Mother died in accident long before. A brother before her. Father made lies real. He made little pretend worlds. They existed by themselves. That is a gift.” She pours more bourbon, tips the bottle toward my glass. “Tell me more, Mr. Sam. Please. We are here talking to the ocean. Ocean is full of stories.”

  “Something had to be done with Katrina,” I say.

  “And Mikhail Orlov did it,” she snaps. She takes a breath, returns to calm. “Obvious, Mr. Sam. The Russian men who came here. The Krause man who is dead. All Mikhail. This is what he does. All his life, like a man starting and blowing out fires.”

  “No,” I say. “I think Orlov wanted Katrina to be his daughter. He was startled, yes. He didn’t know what to believe. But he was a romantic, and here she comes, out of the past, out of the only thing that is pure to him. His connection to Maria. He would never have hurt that. He would have tried to control her. Get her help. He wanted a DNA test to be sure. Katrina was outraged at that. But Orlov would have convinced her. She was a threat to his spying, but I think—”

  “You think, Mr. Sam. What do you know?”

  “What can I prove, you mean.”

  “To know and to prove—they are like opposite sisters, no?”

  “Too often.”

  “I think this time. Mikhail’s whole life was for Russia. You think he would betray all that for crazy daughter out of nowhere?”

  “Yes.”

  We drink our bourbon. Stefan sits at the hill’s edge, his cigarette ember bright in the distance.

  “You did it, didn’t you, Zhanna? You killed your niece.”

  “You know, Mr. Sam, when we met in Brussels, I thought we might be lovers. For a night. I did not know when or where. I just thought it. I think you felt the same way. I can tell these things. Do you feel that way now, Mr. Sam? Here in your America, in your California. This place is paradise with end of days sneaking inside, no? Fires, earthquakes. People sleeping in the street. Maybe this is where world ends. My father would like this. He would tell a great story.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  She laughs.

  “Mr. Sam, you are funny.”

  “What do you do? Who do you work for?”

  “I am Russian.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know.”

  “But Katrina . . .”

  “Speak of her no more, Mr. Sam. I don’t want to get angry at you.”

  “What I know but can’t prove is this,” I say. “Katrina jeopardized Orlov’s operation. She had to disappear. Isn’t that a euphemism from your country? Orlov was getting sloppy. Too sentimental. He was obsessed with the film he was making about Maria. He was becoming a liability. The FBI was getting closer. You knew. You knew it all. You were sent to clean it up. A ballerina overdoses. A plane explodes. You made the first look like Orlov did it, and the second like an accident.”

  “Like perfect package. With bow.”

  “Putin will give you a medal. The master stroke was Jimmy Krause. That linked Orlov to Katrina’s death. How did you get Armando Torres to put Krause with the two big Russians? Moscow, right? Someone called Orlov, someone high up, and said two men were coming and needed a guide to show them around. Orlov doesn’t suspect anything. It must happen all the time. Innocent request. Orlov tells Torres to take care of it.”

  “Please, go on, Mr. Sam. I’m on edge of seat.”

  “But you had Torres. He was working for you. The whole time. How did you flip him? What did you promise him? That had to take time. Orlov had no idea. You tricked the great spy. But you decided it was too risky if Orlov was arrested for Katrina’s death. Too much else could come out.”

  She stands and turns toward me with her glass. She kneels beside me. I can smell her cigarette, her perfume, her leather. She runs a hand through my hair, presses closer to me. She puts her lips to my ear the same way Dylan Cross did in the moment before she vanished. Zhanna has survived intrigue. She has slipped between worlds and exists beyond comprehension. Outlasted even Orlov. I wonder what she is like alone in the dark, her disguises left at the door. I don’t turn. She whispers.

  “I am going now, Mr. Sam. Your story is like comic book.”

  “No.”

  “Katrina could not be saved. She was not who she was. She was Katrina no more.”

  “What was she?”

  “The truth you cannot prove.”

  “Orlov?”

  “He, too, was not the same. A man gets older, no?”

  “Why . . .”

  “I did nothing, Mr. Sam. I am here having dinner with a friend in Malibu.”

  “Does Stefan know?”

  “What is there to know?”

  “I can arrest you.”

  She laughs. She stands, kisses me on the forehead.

  “No, Mr. Sam. We both know you can’t. I am ghost, like Mikhail’s movie.”

  “The FBI, CIA will come.”

  “One day, perhaps.”

  She starts to say more but doesn’t. She finishes the last swallow of bourbon and walks toward the house. She’s in no hurry. I have no hard evidence, and what I know is not enough. I call Azadeh.

  “Let her go,” she says, and hangs up. I dial Ortiz. Same thing. I turn. No trace of her. Stefan returns from the hill’s edge. He sits beside me. We don’t say anything for a long time.

  We walk to the house. Luksala tells us Zhanna is gone. “A black car came with two men. Two very big men.” Stefan pulls another bottle of bourbon from the shelf. He pours three glasses, winking and handing one to Luksala, who heads down the hall to his room at the far end of the house. Stefan lights wood in the fireplace. “It’s cold this year, Sam,” he says. He puts on music from Serbia. I don’t know the lyrics, but the voice is deep and soft.

  “Zhanna had Katrina killed.”

  “I know, Sam.”

  “And you invite her for dinner.”

  “I only found out tonight.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Do? What do? It’s done.”

  “There’s no feeling, then?”

  “Katrina and I split long before. There’s feeling, Sam. But there are wars you cannot win.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you.”

  “Tonight, it is me. Tomorrow, who knows? Have another drink, Sam. It is alm
ost light.”

  Stefan lifts an envelope from the table and hands it to me. It’s addressed to “Mr. Sam.” I open it and read Katrina’s diary entry from the night she died.

  I don’t know if I can do Giselle. The body resists her. She must be like air. But I am air no more. I want to be child again. To see the world that way. To be with Suly in a new city. Mikhail wants test that I am daughter. He knows. I can tell. But still. I am scared. I see those men again on the street. Watching. They will come and knock, but I won’t let them in. I take a pill. The tender little bite it gives. I look out the window. The men are gone. Wonder where they go. I wish Levon was here to play. I would dance until morning. Sweet, lost boy. Oh, but he can play. To be girl. To be like air. I see her. Zhanna called. She was crying. I have never heard her tears before. She wants to save me but knows she can’t. I ask her what this means. She hangs up. I call back, but no answer.

  At the bottom of the page, written in a different hand in fresh ink, is a street name and house number in Joshua Tree.

  Mr. Sam, the man you want is here.

  Chapter 36

  Lily and I drive at dawn. The 10 is uninspiring for miles. Chino, Riverside, Redlands, Beaumont, Banning. The outlands stretching away from the kingdom, distant mountains rising in copper ranks—a land you want to speed through. Sun on the windshield, St. Vincent playing low, Lily sleepy and quiet, cold air reaching in from the desert, drawing the car east until the raggedness falls away, and wind turbines, like fields of white propellers, spin in broken unison at the edge of Palm Springs, where we turn north and rise on Route 62 toward Joshua Tree.

  “I’ve only been to the high desert once,” says Lily.

  “I slept here in a blanket on the ground when I first moved to LA. I counted the stars until I fell asleep.” I crack the window and breathe in dry air. “This is where you come when you don’t want to be found. Dylan Cross built a church in this desert.”

  Lily knows this. She lets the sentence disappear. A few minutes pass.

  “Butterscotch, bone, and pennies,” she says out of nowhere.