“You are—”
The right hand came up, smoking Belomorkanal between the fingers.
“You visited Moscow last month. You arrived at Domodedovo at ten o’clock on May fourth, BA flight eight seven four. You stayed three nights at the Marriott Tverskaya. You spent eight and a half hours at CPS headquarters in Ulica Otradnaja. You walked around Red Square, toured St. Basil’s Cathedral, and visited the old GUM department store. You did not pay your respects at Lenin’s Tomb. You did not visit Lubyanka. Pity. Would you like to know where you ate?”
“You’re well informed.” She was working hard to keep her temper under control.
“What did you discuss with the CPS piss-drinkers?”
She shook her head slowly, her eyes not budging from his. “As we say down where I come from, ain’t none of your beeswax.”
Lachko spat again and fired another
papirosa
. “Did Turbo tell you about the Cheka?”
“They arrest people for no good reason. You used to work for it.”
“The
zek’s
-eye view. I assume he told you where he came from.”
“For once, you assume right.”
That stopped him, for a moment. Not the implied insult, but that I’d told her. He hadn’t expected that.
“Things have changed since Turbo left Russia. He’s out of date. Nowadays we always have a reason.”
“If you say so.”
He chewed a cashew. “Russia is an international power—politically, strategically, economically, in all spheres. The Cheka watches out for Russia’s interests.”
“You left out criminally,” I said. “And the Cheka watches out first for itself.”
“I thought y’all were retired,” Victoria said.
“Didn’t Turbo tell you? No such thing as an ex-Chekist.”
“I’m the first,” I said.
“You’re a
zek,
Turbo. You’ve never rid yourself of the stench.”
Victoria picked up the wineglass, reconsidered, and put it down. “I hate to interrupt this stimulating cultural conversation, but you still haven’t told us why you brought us out here.”
Lachko nodded slowly. “Turbo and I have business to discuss. I wanted to make your acquaintance—since you take such an interest in my affairs. Also I wanted to offer a piece of advice. You appear to be an intelligent woman, despite your choice of dinner companions.”
“Like I said earlier, I’m all ears.”
“The pederasts at the CPS—don’t put too much faith in them. They get excited at the sight of naked buttocks, but they are as impotent as eunuchs.”
“I take it you don’t get along.”
“They exist because we have allowed them to exist. They are shit-chewing maggots, feeding on the waste of others. Soon they will be squashed like maggots. There is only one power in Russia today, and Turbo is right, we do take care of ourselves. Those who interfere…” He spat in his bucket.
“I’ll be sure to bear that in mind—but this ain’t Moscow. You’re just another two-bit hood here.”
She was pushing too hard. Color climbed up his pale neck.
“Our reach is as long as it needs to be. London, Zurich, New York…” He spat again.
“Y’all threatening me?”
“Sergei! We have no reason to detain Miss Victoria further. Have Dmitri take her back to Manhattan.”
“I’m in no hurry. I’ll wait and go back with Turbo.”
“Turbo could be here quite a while.”
“That’s okay. I’m trying to learn to enjoy your company. It’s a slow process.”
I was watching Victoria and Lachko. I didn’t see it coming and didn’t hear it until too late. The thunderclouds twitched. Sergei moved behind the stool I was sitting on and hit me full force in the left kidney. Sledgehammer fist, freight-train arm. The vodka glass went flying; the force knocked me to the floor. Pain shot through my torso, one searing explosion after another. I fought the overriding urge to vomit mushroom pasta on Lachko’s white carpet, although in a fleeting lucid moment, I wondered why I bothered. The white room spun. I thought I heard Victoria shout and Lachko laugh.
I have no idea how long it lasted, but after a while the pain started to recede, in both intensity and frequency. The room turned more slowly. I could feel the bile in my throat. I was covered with sweat.
“Pick him up,” Lachko said.
Strong hands lifted me back onto the stool. That set off more explosions. I held my head between sweaty palms until they passed.
Victoria said from somewhere, “Are you all right?” A stupid question if there ever was one, but I suppose she needed to say something. I tried to smile, but I’m not sure I managed. My voice came out as a croak.
“Cheka … entertainment.”
Victoria went over to Lachko, who was lighting another Belomorkanal. “Those men across the street. I can have them over here anytime I want.”
“Turbo, you are a lucky man. I think she likes you, although I can’t imagine why. They will find nothing, Miss Victoria, except a sick old man looking after an injured friend. Tell her we’re old friends, Turbo.”
“We’re … old … friends,” I repeated. I had no idea what he intended for me, but the first thing was to get Victoria out of here.
“I think you’re full of shit. Both of you.”
“I hear you’ve been creeping around Polina, Turbo. You didn’t mention that either.”
Uh-oh. How …
“Did Turbo tell you about his ex-wife, Miss Victoria? He was a big disappointment to her. She used to get sick to her stomach if I mentioned his name. You humiliated her, Turbo, rubbed her nose in the human waste of life. But you couldn’t tell her the truth, could you? Too cowardly, too scared.”
“What are y’all talking about?” Victoria said.
“Zek,”
I managed to spit out. Even the one word hurt.
“She despised him so much she married me,” Lachko said. “That should tell you something, Miss Victoria.”
What the hell was he doing? Victoria was hanging on every word.
“Vengeance is a poor basis for a lasting union. We had a few good years and went our separate ways. Now I understand Polina’s living here, Turbo. On Fifth Avenue, no less. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Assumed you—”
“Bullshit,” he said. “You could easily have said something Wednesday. You chose not to.”
“Sounds to me like something else you didn’t know,” Victoria said to him.
“There’s very little I don’t know, Miss Victoria, when it concerns me. Even less I can’t find out if I care to. Would you like to know who you called from your hotel on Tverskaya? Or what you said? For such an attractive woman, you don’t seem to have much of a social life. All business, twenty-four/seven, as they say. Too bad. You should have a husband—or at least someone better suited than our retching friend here.”
I was listening to him but watching her. She kept a straight face, but he’d found a soft spot in the tough veneer she wore.
“Sergei, tell Dmitri to take Miss Victoria home,” Lachko said.
“Goddammit, you can’t make me leave.”
The thunderclouds twitched. Sergei maneuvered Victoria to the door. She objected loudly the entire way.
“Wait!” Lachko called. “I almost forgot. Did Turbo tell you where our mutual ex-wife fetched up?”
“Lachko, I…” I croaked.
“She goes by the name Felicity now, Felix for short, I understand. Married to a rich banker. Man named Mulholland.”
Victoria shouted and Lachko laughed as Sergei all but pushed her out the door. Again I tried to figure out what game he was playing. At least Victoria was on her way home. That was something.
Sergei came back and nodded at his boss. The thunderclouds twitched again. This time there was only one explosion as the hammer slammed into the left side of my face. A blast of pain, a burst of light as I fell through the air.
I don’t remember hitting the rug.
* * *
When I came back to wherever I was, I was lying on the floor staring at the chrome leg of a desk. Lachko’s desk. The finish was marred by a big scratch, which made me feel a tiny bit better. I stayed there a while, trying to find some part of me that didn’t hurt, hoping to collect whatever wits Sergei hadn’t knocked to Vladivostok. Didn’t feel like I had any. It dawned on me there was no sound in the room. That’s right—Victoria was gone. Where was Lachko?
I pushed myself to a sitting position, which got everything spinning. I waited until the room righted. A sponge-sized splotch of red on the white carpet. Good. I made a stab at standing up. Big mistake. I coughed and spat brownish green bile on top of the blood.
A clock chimed. One o’clock. Maybe everybody had gone to bed. Definitely time to go. I tried standing again and this time got to my knees.
Motion to my left. A wheeze, air sucked through a tube.
“Feel better now that you’ve had some rest?”
Sergei wheeled Lachko toward the desk. He fired a
papirosa
and blew smoke in my direction.
“You lied to me, Turbo. Multiple times.” He shook his head. “You should know better.”
“No,” I croaked.
“Don’t make it worse. You didn’t tell me about Polina.”
“Like I said…”
“Like I said—bullshit. You were going to stay away from Rislyakov, but you went straight back there. You told me this was about kidnapping. Bullshit. What the fuck ever made you dream I wouldn’t find out about your childish games? Do you think I’m senile as well as sick? You’ve always been enamored of your brain, but honestly, it’s your most feeble organ. More useless than your dick. I’m tempted to do you a favor and have Sergei sever both, but I need information first. Don’t even think about not telling me what I want to know.”
Lying—or telling the truth, for that matter—when you’re mentally impaired and have no idea what’s going on is just plain stupid. I wasn’t too enfeebled to recognize that. The sight of Sergei clenching and unclenching his fist made the logic irrelevant. First thing was to buy time, get some wits back. That meant telling Lachko at least some of what he thought he wanted to hear.
“I told you … truth as I knew it,” I said. Each word felt like a knife slicing into my guts. “Polina’s husband hired me. He got a ransom note. Turns out, Polina herself sent it. She … needed money to pay off Ratko. He blackmailed her.”
“Turbo, what is this fucking fairy tale? You are more moronic than even I thought possible. What the fuck? Polina was fleecing her husband because Ratko was blackmailing her?”
“That’s … right. I don’t know why.”
“Suppose I believe you—and I’m more likely to kiss your balls. What did Ratko have?”
“Her new identity.”
“Who was she hiding from?”
I just looked at him.
“Me? You pile absurdity on top of stupidity. Polina and I were finished years ago, long before she disappeared. We were separated. We’d made a deal. She was going to start divorce proceedings. She wasn’t going to try to clean me out, I wasn’t going to contest it. I couldn’t have cared less.”
He sounded sincere. If Lachko can ever be considered sincere.
“Iakov said she and Kosokov…”
“Yes, I know. They deserved each other.”
“He said Kosokov stole six hundred million…”
“Kosokov? Steal? Hah! This gets more fucked up with every word. A minute ago, Polina’s broke, she needs money. Now she has six hundred million. I do think my father’s finally losing his mind. Kosokov was so fucking thick he had to be led around by his member just to avoid walking in front of a bus. And you—you’re just trying to keep your shriveled skin from being peeled off its useless frame. Don’t bother. I intend to take care of that myself.”
I ignored the threat. He and Iakov told different stories. That was worth pursuing, if I had the chance.
“What did you find at Greene Street?” Lachko said.
“Iakov, Ratko’s body, suitcase, computer, Eva.”
“What about bullet holes in the bedroom door, two slugs in one wall, one in another, one in Ratko? Where’s the gun?”
“I took it.”
“What kind?”
“Glock, nine millimeter.”
“I want it. What else did you find on the computer?”
I grabbed hold of the desk leg with both hands and somehow pulled myself to my feet. I leaned on the red lacquer, out of breath, ready to throw up.
“Your laundry,” I gagged. We were going to get there sooner or later.
He thought for a moment, no expression on his withered face.
“How much does your friend Victoria know?”
No good answer to this question. “She knows. Don’t know how. She knew before I told her.”
“Bullshit. You were at the Slavic Center this morning.”
“Looking for Eva. Ratko had the home page on his computer. She ran from the hospital. You sent your men there.” A guess, but a good one.
I missed the eyebrows twitching, not that it would have made any difference. Sergei came across the room and hit me in the stomach. Another explosion and I was sucking rug shag again, looking for oxygen. I couldn’t take too much more of this. No one could.
Lachko and Sergei backed off. I spat again on the brown-red stain and tried to focus. Lachko kept his eyes on me as he chewed some cashews from his pocket. I was almost able to breathe at a normal rate when he said, “Someone copied a large database from Rislyakov’s computer, then erased it from the hard drive. That you?”
Were we finally getting to the point? “Not me.”
“You took the computer with you. You have a partner well known in technology circles. I want what was taken returned.”
I started through the motions of standing again.
“I don’t have it. I found the ransom note and Ratko’s blackmail note, like I told you. I removed them. You can confirm that. I didn’t touch anything else.”
“Turbo, you forget I’ve had the misfortune to know you from the time you crawled out of the Gulag. You learned to lie before you could walk.”
I might have pointed out we all did. He turned the wheelchair away. Leaning hard on the desk, I made it back to my feet. The exertion had me gulping air like I’d just sprinted two miles.
I saw eyebrows twitch this time. Sergei lifted me off the floor with one muscled arm, grinned, and hit me in the gut with the other. He let go, and I crumpled back at the base of the desk. The scratch was still there.
Lachko said, “I’m going to give you one more chance, although I have no idea why.
Zeks
can only be dealt with as
zeks
. They deserve no respect. They deserve nothing.”