Mazurka (36 page)

Malik fell into step beside him. “I had a meeting with two men from British intelligence, Viktor,” Malik said. “They called me at the Embassy, insisted on an urgent conference.”

“And?”

“Your name came up several times. They seem to think you're responsible for the killings.”

“Preposterous,” Epishev said.

“As you say.” Malik looked up at the sky in the manner of a man who thinks he feels rain in the air. “I denied all knowledge of your existence, Viktor. What could
I
possibly know about KGB personnel in any case?”

Epishev stopped on the corner of Earl's Court Road. He saw people plunging into the underground station, workers heading towards their places of employment in the half-dark. He turned to look at Malik. “You want to know how they came up with my name, of course.”

“I'm curious,” Malik said. “Did they pull it out of a hat like a rabbit? Did they conjure it out of nowhere?”

“British intelligence is hardly known for its powers of extrasensory perception, Alexei.” Epishev, who didn't like the idea of standing on a main road, moved in the direction of the side-streets again. “The explanation is very simple,” and he told Malik about Kristina Vaska, about how she'd recognised him outside Pagan's apartment.

Malik and Epishev turned into a quiet street of trees. From somewhere nearby there was the rumble of an underground train, breaking the silence.

“It's unfortunate,” Malik said eventually. “Mistaken identity, of course. Besides, how could this woman recognise you after all this time? When the men from British intelligence come back, and they're bound to, I'll tell them I made further inquiries and that the only KGB operative by the name of Viktor Epishev is enjoying his retirement in the Crimea, or something to that effect. Therefore, you couldn't possibly be in England.”

“That's only going to work so long as they don't start making some inquiries of their own through their network in Moscow. If word gets back to the Chairman that I might be in London …” Epishev had no need to finish this sentence. He was conscious of how fragile everything was.

“I shall be completely convincing, Viktor.”

Epishev was impatient suddenly. He hadn't accomplished what he'd come all this way to do. He hadn't ensured the security of the Baltic plan. And now there was the disturbing connection between Pagan and Kristina Vaska. He felt exposed, endangered, saddled with complexities he didn't need. His memory of the gunplay in the street last night didn't help his mood much either. Pagan had moved too quickly, squeezing under the car with such alacrity that Epishev hadn't had time for accuracy. It was a good thing to learn for future reference that Pagan's instinct for survival was extremely sharp. It was something to take into account.

Malik looked at his wristwatch. “I need some breakfast. Let's go somewhere for coffee.” He clasped Epishev by the elbow and steered him gently back in the direction of Earl's Court Road. Epishev went with reluctance, following Malik into a coffee-bar a few blocks from the underground station, a busy, smoke-filled room run by Turks.

“Why this place?” Epishev asked. He was uncomfortable in this crowded room.

“There's somebody I want you to meet,” Malik said.

Feeling vaguely alarmed, Epishev asked, “Meet? Meet who?”

Malik spotted an unoccupied table and headed towards it, drawing Epishev with him. Epishev asked his question again, but Malik was already gazing at the menu, a grease-stained, typewritten sheet, and seemed not to have heard.

“Who?”
Epishev asked a third time.

“A friend,” Malik replied. “Do you want coffee? Toast? Eggs?”

“Friends should have names,” Epishev said with some anger in his voice. “I don't like being introduced to people without warning, Alexei. I don't like having things sprung on me.”

Malik shook his head in vigorous denial of any underhand behaviour. “I'm talking about an ally, Viktor. An important one.”

Epishev was about to say something when Malik stood up and waved an arm in greeting. Epishev turned his face towards the door, seeing the newcomer step in. The man, who wore thick glasses and a lightweight suit, smiled at Malik and came across the room, threading through the clutter of tables and the harried waitresses balancing trays with the agility of circus performers. The man reached the table and pulled up a chair. He shook Malik's hand. Epishev, displeased by what he perceived as subterfuge on Alexei's part, unhappy at the notion that Malik was bringing in an unknown third party, absorbed only a brief impression of the stranger before turning his face to the side.

“Viktor,” Malik said.

Epishev looked at the newcomer again. He saw round, rather flabby features, a button-down shirt, a seersucker jacket of pin-striped design, a crewcut.

“Viktor, I want you to meet a very good friend of ours.”

The newcomer smiled warmly. “Gunther,” the man said. “Ted Gunther.”

There was a long silence during which Epishev studied the American's face. There was a certain kind of face which Epishev didn't care for. And Gunther had it – a face as obvious as an open sandwich.

“I think it's time to clarify things,” Ted Gunther said, and he rubbed his hands in the congenially cautious manner of a diplomat about to do some business in detente. “The last thing we want is misunderstandings, right?”

Epishev, still staring at the American, said nothing.

Brighton Beach, Brooklyn

It was dark and the moon was rising on the ocean when Frank Pagan and Max Klein stepped on to the boardwalk at Brighton Beach. The night, hot and close, filled with smells of sweat and the collected suntan lotion of the day and fried foodstuffs, crowded Pagan like some great damp creature risen up from the water. Both men walked slowly to the end of the boardwalk, drifting through the crowds, the roller-skaters and skateboarders, the cyclists, the old couples moving arm-in-arm, the kids popping beercans and jousting for the attention of girls with hairdos fashioned by stylists from other planetary systems – seething activity, clammy heat, the ocean almost motionless. Pagan, sweating, leaned against the handrail and looked out at the water.

“Welcome to Brighton Beach,” Klein said, and he waved a hand at the sky, as if the very constellations were a part of Brooklyn.

Pagan studied the storefronts that lined one side of the boardwalk. Here and there a vendor sold soda and hot-dogs, but what really intrigued Pagan were those places that seemed to serve as social clubs, establishments without signs. You could see through open doorways into cavernous rooms where men, mainly old, played cards or studied chessboards. Slavic music drifted out into the darkness, oddly nostalgic, even sorrowful. Though he couldn't understand a word of what was being sung, Pagan found the sound touching anyhow.

Klein said, “These places used to be stores. Some sold tourist trinkets, others greasy foods. But they gradually got taken over by emigrant societies. Mainly the Russians, although you sometimes find Ukrainians or Moldavians or Latvians – you've got to be careful with the distinctions, Frank. Come here some Sundays it's like Babel, guys talking in Russian or Latvian or Georgian. You name it. Odessa Beach, USA.”

Pagan started to walk. Klein, nimble in his open sandals, kept up with him. Now and then, like a nautical blessing given in a miserly way, a faint breeze would come up from the ocean and blow aside the humidity for a moment, then the swamplike dark would reassemble itself. Pagan paused in the open door of a clubhouse and saw a middle-aged man in a loose-fitting suit dance with a large woman who wore pink-framed glasses and had her yellow hair up in a beehive. The music was big-band stuff that might have been recorded in the early 1950s.

Klein said, “The people that come to America from the Soviet Union tend to keep to themselves. It's almost a force of habit with them, Frank. They come from countries where everybody was a snoop. Even your next-door neighbour was a potential informer for the KGB. What I'm saying is you can't just walk around here asking questions. If some Baits have organised themselves into a fraternity with a sinister purpose, which is what you tell me, they're not going to be shouting it from the rooftops.”

Pagan moved out of the doorway. “Rose Alexander mentioned an old shop.”

“Take your pick,” Klein remarked. He gestured with a hand, indicating three or four stores that hadn't been occupied in a long time. Some had windows protected by metal grilles, others padlocked doors, one had a faded To Rent sign with a realtor's name bleached by the sunlight. Pagan had a sense of decline here, of an age that had passed, a world receding. There must have been dignity here once, but it had been reduced to the kind of seediness he associated with decrepit English seaside resorts.

He walked a little way, trying to imagine Kiviranna coming along these same slats of wood. It would be dark, and Kiviranna's contact would be waiting for him in the shadows, perhaps inside one of the vacant shops, and Jake would move along the boardwalk in a stealthy manner, taking care that nobody saw him. Pagan conjured up these tiny pictures, almost as if he were forcing himself to see the ghost of Kiviranna appear before him now, leaving a spectral trail for him to follow. He tried to eavesdrop an old conversation.
The man's name is Romanenko. You have to kill him. This is the key to the place where you'll find the gun
.

Would Jake have asked why Romanenko had to be killed? Would he have bothered with a mere detail like that? Suppose he had? What would his contact have answered?
He's carrying something that can't reach its destination, Jake. That's all you need to know
. And Jake might have nodded his head, absorbed the information. But it probably hadn't happened that way at all. Jake's connection would only have to say that the world would be a better place if a treacherous Commie like Romanenko was taken out of it and that would be enough for Kiviranna. Pagan walked to the handrail, leaned there, gazed out over the dark water for a time, seeing the moon that sent a column of shivering silver across the sluggish tide. Then he turned back to the empty stores whose dark windows suggested rich mysteries.

“I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to track the owners of these places down,” he said to Klein.

Klein guessed it would be a matter of public record. It would take maybe a phonecall or two, a little legwork. Pagan wanted to know how quickly this could be accomplished and Klein, wondering at the Englishman's dedication, his apparent immunity to jet-lag, figured it might be done first thing in the morning when people with
regular
jobs were at their desks. There was a hint of sarcasm in Klein's speech, nothing objectionable, enough to make Pagan smile to himself.

He continued to stare at the windows. Some had faded signs inscribed on glass, old lettering barely legible in the thin light from the lamps that burned along the boardwalk.
Roo beers. H t dogs. C t on candy
– like half-finished answers in an elaborate crossword puzzle, or words in an alphabet designed to be read only by initiates. Frank Pagan, feeling fatigue creep through him at last, glanced once more at the moon, thought about Kristina Vaska – in whose half of the world this moon would already be fading – then he asked Klein to drive him to his hotel.

They walked back to the place where Klein had parked the Dodge. Once again, either on account of fatigue or darkness, neither man noticed the car that travelled behind them all the way back to Manhattan. It was not this time the pea-green Buick, which had been replaced by a navy blue 1983 Ford Escort, a car unremarkable in every way, and just as anonymous as its predecessor. The pea-green Buick had gone in another direction, back to the apartment building in which Rose Alexander lived.

London

The moon that had taken Frank Pagan's attention had disappeared completely from the sky when Kristina Vaska woke in her hotel in Kensington. She rose at once, went inside the small bathroom, splashed cold water across her face, brushed her teeth. She dressed, packed her suitcase, then she sat for a time on the edge of the narrow bed. She had three hours until her plane left Heathrow. She checked her ticket to be absolutely sure, then put it back in her wallet. She remained motionless on the bed. A morning newspaper had been shoved under the door of her room, one of the hotel's little courtesies, but she couldn't bring herself to pick it up. From where she sat she could read the headline, or at least that half of it which hadn't been folded.

TWO POLICEMEN SHOT IN

That was all she could make out. She turned her face away.

Those men were dead because Frank Pagan had asked them to protect her. It was a world of blood in which men kept dying
.

She found it an unbearable thought to get around, an obstacle in the dead centre of her brain. She got up, covered her face with her hands in such a way that an observer might have imagined her to be weeping – but she wasn't, even if she felt like it. She picked up the phone on the bedside table, dialled the hotel operator, asked to be connected with Mrs Evi Vaska at a number in upstate New York. While she waited Kristina imagined the antique phone in her mother's tiny downstairs living-room, the room she called the parlour, she pictured Evi Vaska in her white makeup moving through the small boxlike rooms and down the crooked stairs of the old house, past the shelves of fragile china figures, all the glass reindeer, the crystal ducks, the porcelain gnomes and elves that crowded the little house and that always seemed to be growing in number, as if they bred in the dark. Kristina imagined she heard the lacy gown Evi always wore whispering on the steps as she moved. From her house in the foothills of the Adirondacks, Evi Vaska wrote impassioned letters to Congressmen and Senators and British Members of Parliament concerning Norbert Vaska's incarceration, conducting a relentless campaign she thought would win her husband's freedom.