The Same River Twice (47 page)

“No,” said Max. “I’ve only met him once.”

The couple stared at him, waiting for him to say more. When it became apparent he didn’t intend to elaborate, Kukushkin smiled at him in what seemed to be good-natured sympathy. “May I propose, in that case, you join us for a drink? Véronique and I would greatly enjoy the honor of your company, and my club is around the corner. You might find it amusing place.” He leaned forward and added, in a melodramatic stage whisper, “Russian,
very
Russian.”

Max hesitated, seized again by the sense that he’d stumbled into something much larger than it had first appeared, with his part already choreographed. But he brushed away his doubts. In times like these, forward was the only possible direction. “It would be a pleasure,” he replied.

After walking a couple of blocks, they arrived before a massive oaken door with no windows and no apparent street number. Instead, it bore an iron-grillework peephole at eye level and, just below that, seven brass Cyrillic letters, Meдвeдь, meticulously polished and set flush into the wood. Kukushkin, his fist poised to knock, turned playfully to Max. “Do you know what it is meaning, this word?” He pointed to the brass letters.

“Sorry, I don’t have any Russian at all. But I guess it must be the name of the place, right?”

Kukushkin roared with laughter and began to pound the door thunderously, announcing his presence in shouted Russian for good measure.

“It means ‘The Bear,’” Véronique told Max, as if apologizing for Kukushkin’s failure to answer. “The bear, of course, is a symbol for Russia.” She shrugged. “Sentimental—but really, these days, who cares?”

“Not us,” said Max, testing his ground. She smiled—a little grimly, he thought.

Finally, the iron bar covering the peephole slid to one side and a pair of ice-blue eyes appeared at the grille. Then the bar slid shut again, the door swung open, and a blast of cigarette smoke and disco music escaped into the night. The three new arrivals filed in, the door closed loudly behind them, a deadbolt slammed shut. From several quarters, shouts of welcome greeted Max’s host.

“You realize,” Véronique whispered, “that when Kolya calls this place his club, he’s speaking literally.”

“You mean he owns it.”

“Exactly. Along with many other things, of course.”

They were standing beside a long mahogany bar that serviced the entry area. Set against the opposite wall was a red leather banquette with a dozen small zinc-topped tables positioned closely before it. A tall muscular man in a black suit and gray roll-neck sweater—the manager, Max presumed—came forward to give Kukushkin a crushing embrace and the traditional three kisses. He ceremoniously pressed his lips to Véronique’s hand and shook Max’s, then returned his attention to his boss, and they at once fell into serious conversation. At a glance from Kukushkin, Véronique took Max’s arm and guided him past the bar to three broad steps that led down into the primary space. They stopped there at the threshold, as if their mission were purely educational, arranged for Max’s benefit, as perhaps it was.

The club had two stories, with a mezzanine running around the three nearer sides and projecting a few feet over the main floor. Semicircular booths of black leather lined the walls, which were covered with flocked red wallpaper, while widely spaced tables occupied the center of the room. Beyond them, in the back, was a parquet dance floor on which six or seven conspicuously well-dressed couples were dancing in desultory fashion, colored lights playing over them from above. Finally, against the rear wall, on a shallow platform that stretched the width of the room, was a fifteen-foot-tall effigy of a bear, rearing up ferociously. Hollow and made from clear acrylic, it was filled with water in which a hundred or more goldfish swam contentedly. To either side of this extravagance, and effortlessly upstaging it, half a dozen improbably beautiful women, expressionless and perfectly naked, their pubic hair shaved into identical vertical strips, lent themselves to the music with neither complaint nor enthusiasm. Flower arrangements towered here and there about the room. Except for colored spots over the dance floor and those trained on the girls and the bear, the lighting was dim, but Max guessed there were maybe forty patrons downstairs, with another twenty-five on the mezzanine. It was a little past nine thirty.

“Yes,” Max said after a time. “Quite Russian.”

“It’s not my favorite place,” Véronique allowed, “but sometimes it has its advantages.” She smiled at him. “Anyway, we have a private room upstairs that’s very nice. I’ll show you.” With a quick glance over her shoulder, she added, “Kolya will be along any minute. We’d better hurry.”

OUT OF THE AUCTION HOUSE and onto the street, Turner forced himself to slow down, turning corners randomly until he sighted an inconspicuous, mid-block
brasserie
, soothingly crowded. Squeezing himself in at the bar, even though a few tables remained free, he ordered a double whiskey and drained it at once. He ordered another and, despite the bartender’s disapproving gaze, bolted it down too. He grew somewhat calmer. By the time his third drink arrived, he remembered that he was armed, that he’d just made a little under ten million francs, and that he was, for better or worse, in love. He made an effort then to behave more befittingly, sipping rather than gulping his drink and examining his surroundings in the mirror behind the bar as if considering, in a detached if not entirely theoretical way, what they might be worth to him should he decide to make an on-the-spot offer. Before long, he was himself again.

It was fear, of course, that had driven him from the auction floor.

He had lived with various kinds of fear all his life. About this he was undeceived and also, though he admitted this to no one, unashamed. It took a clear eye and philosophical cast of mind to see the benefits embedded in this accident of temperament, one which for him had been compacted into a kind of credo:
I fear, therefore I am
. It was that simple. So many had less.

And yet.

Lately—he couldn’t say exactly when—he had begun wondering if this view hadn’t outlived its usefulness, or worse, without his noticing, had
ceased to be true at all. For instance, he knew quite well that he harbored little fear of Max Colby. Over the years, he’d had to deal with his fair share of disobliged husbands, and by now he knew pretty much what to expect from them and how to handle it. Even Kukushkin, whose threats and messages had been far from subtle, was no longer enough to inspire real terror, at least not face-to-face. It was clear that Kolya, despite his air of understated, carefully tended ruthlessness, wanted to maintain a healthy distance from whatever extralegal activities might be carried out at his behest. He saw himself as a gentleman and, for the most part, wanted others to as well.

So if what had driven Turner so precipitously from the auction was fear, it wasn’t the kind to which he was accustomed. Two worlds he had believed were completely separate had just now collided, to effects unknowable at best. That the woman with the tattoo had seen fit to bring Max and Kukushkin together—their meeting seeming less and less plausibly accidental—both puzzled and alarmed him. The fear unfolding in him now, he saw, belonged to an entirely new order that rendered his old credo useless. He was afraid this time of losing something irreplaceable, he was afraid for someone else.

After paying his bar bill, he walked for some time without purpose, avoiding the larger thoroughfares. When he happened past a bus stop shaded from its streetlight by a chestnut tree, he sat down and, after several seconds wasted pointlessly in thought, called Odile’s cell. To his surprise, she answered on the second ring—though still talking over her shoulder to someone else, as if to indicate she wasn’t alone, not at home, not to be trifled with.

“Hi, it’s me. Can you talk?”

“Hang on a minute.”

He heard her walk into another room and close the door. Somewhere in the background children were laughing.

“So, Turner, my dear. How was your auction?”

“From a financial point of view, outstanding. We netted about twice what I expected—a little under ten million, after the house cut.”

“We? Who might that be?”

“Well, you can have half of it if you like,” he heard himself say.

She laughed. “Thank you, but no. This sudden wealth, I think, would be difficult to explain.”

“Suit yourself.” He took a deep breath. “But there were some other surprises, too.”

“Such as?” Odile said quietly.

“Your husband was in attendance, for one thing.”

After a small silence, she said, “He saw the article in
Le Monde
. He asked me to go to the auction with him, and when I said no, I guess he decided to go by himself. Did you talk to him?”

“No, but I think we can assume he knows.”

“Yes, he noticed the watch, I’m fairly sure. And of course, if one puts that together with everything else …”

“But there’s more. He was sitting with Kukushkin and a woman I don’t know, probably his girlfriend. She knew your husband. In fact, she seemed to be introducing them right there for the first time.”

“What? I don’t believe you.”

“I left before the end—to avoid Kukushkin, of course. But I do wonder what direction your husband and Kukushkin’s conversation might’ve taken, especially given a discreet nudge by this very
enthusiastic
girl. Any ideas?”

There ensued a much longer silence. “What does she look like?”

“Late twenties, blond, some kind of tattoo on her arm. A wheel, I think.”

“I don’t know her.”

“It seemed that she and your husband hadn’t expected to run into each other, but I’m not really sure about that. Anyway, she was clearly with Kukushkin—his date, as it were—and she introduced them right away. Almost as if she’d already spoken to each about the other—favorably, by the looks of it—and their curiosity was sufficiently piqued for her to bring them together.”

This time the silence was so long that Turner wondered if the connection had been lost. “Hello?”

“I’m here.”

“Look,” he said, “I need to see you.”

She sighed. “That can’t happen tonight, Turner. I’ve got to be somewhere.”

“Somewhere?”

“A dinner party at Rachel and Groot’s—you know, my houseboat friends. It was meant to make Max forget about the auction, though obviously
that
didn’t work.”

“But Odile, something’s happening, something serious. I can feel it. Kukushkin, your husband … I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t. It’s a waste of time.”

“What’s that boat called? It has a Dutch name, doesn’t it? The
Nacht
something or other?”

“No, you’re absolutely
not
to come down there! Do you understand? For any reason at all.”

“But just in case.”

Again, a pause. “What’s that? I can’t hear you clearly. You’re breaking up.”

“At least call me later, so I’ll know you’re all right.”

“Hello? Hel
lo?
Damn these things.”

The connection seemed perfectly clear to Turner. “Odile?”

“Shit! Now I can’t understand a word you’re saying. All I’m getting at this end is static. But I’m grateful for the alert, if
you
, by some chance, can hear
me
. Yes? No? Fuck, that’s it, it’s pointless to go on. We might as well be talking to outer space.”

And with that the line went dead.

HER THUMB STILL PRESSED
to the end button, Odile leaned up against the wall and closed her eyes for a moment while she caught her breath. “Bye,” she said in afterthought, dropping the phone back into her purse.

She stepped over to the mirror and pinched her cheeks a few times when she saw how pale she looked, then returned to Eddie Bouvier’s living room, where he and the two girls had started—and were even half attending to—a game of blackjack. All three looked up at Odile as if they’d been waiting for her for hours, though it hadn’t been ten minutes since she’d swept in with Dominique and Allegra, fresh from the catacombs. The druggy glow still enveloped the girls, but Eddie appeared not to notice.

“Papa, can Allegra and I just go to my room and listen to some music?” Dominique asked. “I’m really not in the mood for cards.”

“Go. We adults will do just fine without you and your moods.” He gathered up the cards and shuffled them distractedly.

As she got up from the table, Allegra went over to Odile and whispered in her ear, “Remember what you promised!”

“Remember what
you
promised,” Odile replied with a smile.

The girls vanished like cats. Eddie fanned the cards out before Odile and she took one, laying it faceup on the table. The queen of spades. He picked it up without interest and returned it to the deck. Then he wearily put the deck aside.

“Thanks so much for looking after Allegra tonight,” said Odile. “Max and my plans got badly scrambled when they decided they didn’t want to go to that party after all.”

“Not a problem.” Eddie settled back in his chair. “But I wonder what made them change their minds. Earlier, they were so eager to go.”

“Oh, I don’t know, they had some petty quarrel with the girl giving it, what’s her name.”

“Lili de Bassignol.”

“Yes, Lili. Something to do with the guest list. Anyway, you can be sure that by tomorrow they’ll have forgotten all about it. I remember being thirteen. It’s not easy.”

“On the other hand,” Eddie said, “it’s not so easy being my age either. Fewer surprises, less forgetfulness.”

They laughed.

Odile folded her legs under her. “Speaking of surprises, how’s your brother, the besotted bridegroom?”

“To tell you the truth, he’s driving me crazy. It’s his wedding plans. He calls me three times a day to ask advice: how this is done, how that is done, what do I think of this caterer, that florist—ad infinitum. Naturally, Gaspard’s ghastly girlfriend wants a very grand wedding reception, highly visible. And in Paris.”

“So I take it the detective turned up no skeletons in her closet?”

“Ah, the detective.” Eddie’s eyes went distant, and there followed a silence so lengthy that Odile grew uncomfortable. It was as if he’d totally forgotten she was there. Then, just when she was about to say something, anything, to reestablish her presence, he snapped back to awareness and smiled at her.