Three Stations Page 7

  Including platforms, cafés, waiting rooms, tunnels, anterooms, nursery, ticket booths, there was too much ground to cover. Pedestrian underpasses were bottlenecked by shops and salesladies who wasted her time with scissors and clippers and hose until Maya wanted to scream. Finally she found herself in the main hall of the train station like a chess piece with every move exhausted.

  Not every move, Zhenya reminded himself. There was her razor and a wide selection of trains. In a mosaic of families and traders rising with the sun she was in free fall.

  Zhenya took a chair next to Maya. She didn’t acknowledge him but she didn’t leave. They sat like travelers, staring heavy-lidded at the digital clock above the arrival and departure board. As fatigue won out over fury her breathing slowed and her body relaxed. He figured that she hadn’t eaten since the day before and handed her a candy bar.

  “Did that woman call?”

  It took him a moment to guess what woman she meant.

  “The platform woman? No, she hasn’t called yet. She has my cell-phone number.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I put it in her hand.”

  “She seemed a good person.”

  Zhenya shrugged. Social skills were not his strong point. In fact, for Zhenya, one of the most appealing aspects of chess was that victory was self-evident. Screw conversation. The winning player need not say anything other than “check” and “mate.” The problem was that Zhenya was always either boastful or mute. Sometimes when he heard himself he wondered, Who is this jackass? He was aware how miserably he had failed in his first go-round with Maya. The moment was getting strained but he had to say something because militia with rubber truncheons had entered the waiting room to roust any homeless who had snuck in. The officers were led by the lieutenant who had chased Maya.

  Zhenya said, “Let’s get some air.”

  “We’ll come back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without the investigator?”

  Her head shaved, her eyes seemed huge.

  “You two!”

  The lieutenant saw them when they stood. His attention was diverted, however, by a street boy who snatched a purse and bolted for the underpass. Zhenya steered Maya away from the chase and out the station’s double doors to what he had always regarded as an open-air market of crap. Crap toys, crap souvenirs, crap fur hats, crap posters under a crap sky of floating shit. Today, he embraced it.

  They browsed the stalls. To extend Maya’s wardrobe Zhenya bought her T-shirts featuring the Stones, Putin and Kurt Cobain; a knockoff sweatshirt from Cafe Hollywood; a cap from Saint-Tropez and a wig of human hair from India. Maya went along in a bemused way, as if she had caught him playing with dolls, until they reached a kiosk that sold cell phones. Zhenya decided that she should have a mobile phone in case they became separated.

  The kiosk was so crammed with electronic and video gear that the two vendors inside had to move in tandem. They were Albanians, father and son, practically clones, in tight shirts unbuttoned to display gold chains and body hair. They were willing to sell Zhenya a top-quality cell phone and SIM card, no contract and no monthly charges. No rip-offs. They showed Zhenya an unbroken seal on the box of a similar phone.

  “It’s stolen,” Zhenya said.

  The vendors laughed and looked at each other.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The bar code. It’s simple. Drop the first and last bars, break the rest into groups of five, add the digits under the long bars and you have your zip code. You can get the delivery point too. This box was supposed to go from Hanover, Germany, to Warsaw, Poland. It was hijacked on the way. You should show this to the militia. Would you like me to check your other boxes?”

  People stopped to listen to Zhenya’s flat robotic voice.

  “The other boxes?”

  “All the boxes.”

  More people gathered. Traditionally no market was complete without entertainment, a puppet show or a dancing bear. Zhenya was today’s.

  He said, “I shouldn’t have to pay full price for something stolen. And the warranty is probably no good when the goods are stolen.”

  The son said, “Get out of here, you fucking freak.”

  The old man, however, was aware that a sizable crowd was developing. He was protected against acts of violence such as arson or a brick through a window, not agitation from a wiseass who could read a bar code. Besides, strangling the creep right now might drag in the militia, which was like inviting in locusts.

  “Let me take care of the little prick.” The younger vendor started out of the kiosk only to be held back by his father, who told Zhenya, “Pay no attention. So, my young sir, what do you think would be a fair price?”

  “Half off.”

  “I’ll throw in some phone cards, too, as a proof of no ill will.”

  “In a bag.”

  “As you wish.” The father turned on a smile. A murmur of approval ran through the crowd.

  As soon as Zhenya and Maya were gone, another shopper stepped up to the kiosk and asked the father for the same discount.

  The old man turned on him. “Can you read a bar code?”

  “No.”

  “Then go fuck yourself.”

  Zhenya had never noticed before how interesting the market was with all its pirated CDs of hip-hop and heavy metal, T-shirts of Che and Michael Jackson, Chinese parasols, Muscovites with their noses in the air, women from Central Asia dragging a suitcase the size of an elephant calf, the sound of explosions rocking a game arcade while drunks reposed against a wall. That was pulsating life, wasn’t it? More so than any plaster animal decoration on the station wall.

  “Was that a trick back there with the bar code?” Maya asked. “How did you do that?”

  “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

  “What other secrets do you have?”

  “They’d be pretty poor secrets if I told you.”

  “Is that why they call you ‘genius,’ because of the tricks and the chess?”

  “The trick of the bar code is that there is no trick. You just do the math.”

  “Oh.”

  “And as for chess, it’s basically a matter of anticipating your opponent’s moves. You go step-by-step. The more you play the easier it gets to cover every possibility.”

  “Do you ever lose?”

  “Sure. You have to let your opponent win at the start to raise the stakes. It’s not about winning the game; it’s about taking their money. That’s the game inside the game.” He ducked under a display of condoms that promised long-lasting pleasure in a variety of colors and certainly were an improvement over the old Soviet galosh. The words popped into his mouth. “Who is the baby’s father?”

  “It could be anybody.”

  It was the one answer that Zhenya had not anticipated.

  10

  This wasn’t Arkady’s Moscow anymore. The Golden Mile—the area between the Kremlin and the Church of the Redeemer—had been a neighborhood of workers, students and artists. The local restaurants were stand-up cafeterias that served steamed cabbage. The streets glittered not with diamonds but broken glass. But that population was gone. Bought out, sold out, “developed” out, they had been relocated and replaced by boutiques and leggy women with Prada bags who circulated from Pilates class to tapas bar, from tapas bar to sushi, from raw fish to meditation.

  Since the Lada’s muffler sounded like a snare drum, Arkady pulled to the curb to call Zhenya. Sometimes the boy withdrew for weeks and what Arkady feared was his isolation. Besides the chess players he hustled, Zhenya had no regular human contact that Arkady knew of except for a gang of runaways led by a dangerous young thug named Yegor who was suspected of setting homeless people on fire.

  Ten rings without an answer was Arkady’s limit. He no sooner gave up than a white SUV loomed alongside and a woman with sunglasses perched on her forehead motioned for him to roll down his window. A silk scarf was knotted casually around her neck and a gold chain da
ngled from her wrist.

  She said, “This is a ‘No Lada Zone.’”

  “A what zone?”

  “Ladas.”

  “Like this car?”

  “Correct. No Ladas are allowed to park in the zone, let alone to sleep in.”

  Arkady looked at Victor snoring in a rubbery fashion.

  “We are in Russia?” Arkady asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In Moscow?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And the Lada is a Russian car?”

  “One Lada can reduce the value of an entire city block.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “I mean, were you towed here?”

  “Passing through.”

  “I knew it. ‘Through traffic’ is the worst. Why did you stop?”

  “We’re releasing rats.”

  “That’s it. I’m alerting Security.”

  Arkady’s cell phone rang. Because he expected a callback from Zhenya, he answered without checking the caller.

  “Thank you,” Zurin said. “You actually picked up for once. This will be like a birthday present but better.”

  Arkady rolled up his window. When the woman started another diatribe, he held up his ID. A moment later the SUV melted and she was gone.

  “What would be better?”

  “Your letter of resignation.”

  “I haven’t given you one.”

  “No hurry, Renko, you have all day.”

  For Arkady, Prosecutor Zurin exemplified the modest ambition of a cork. It floated. In regime after regime, policy after counterpolicy, Zurin floated and survived.

  “Why would I resign?”

  “Because the last thing you want is a departmental hearing for suspension.”

  “Why should I be suspended?”

  “You disregard orders and overstep your authority and regularly hold the office of the prosecutor up to ridicule.”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  “The business with a dead unidentified prostitute. You were told not to initiate any investigations.”

  “I didn’t. I was with a militia officer who responded to the radio call of an overdose after the local precinct failed to answer. I assisted the officer when, with the exception of forensic technicians, no support arrived.”

  “What support do you need for an OD? You gave me your head on a silver platter. All you had to do was stay in the car.”

  “It’s not an OD,” Arkady said. “According to the pathologist, the girl was administered—”

  “You miss the point. You ignored my orders. You were not authorized to order an autopsy.”

  “Detective Orlov is and it’s his case, not mine.”

  “Orlov is an irredeemable alcoholic.”

  “Today he’s a whirlwind.”

  Victor opened his door and threw up.

  “We only order autopsies when there are suspicious circumstances.”

  “A healthy young woman was dead. If that doesn’t make you suspicious, what does?”

  “That’s enough. I want you here in the office. Where are you now?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a Starbucks on the corner.”

  “That’s no help. Renko, you can resign gracefully or be put out with the trash. Stick with your friend Orlov. You’ll sink together.”

  Five minutes later Arkady sat in a traffic jam on Kutuzovsky while police cleared the way for fleets of government sedans that sped down the center lane and he had time to contemplate the increasing likelihood he was going to be dismissed. Then what? He could cultivate roses. Keep pigeons. Read the great books in their original languages. Exercise. The problem was that being an investigator left a person fit for little else. It was an acquired taste like the Masai’s mixture of blood and milk.

  He found the Nijinsky Fair invitation that had fallen from the vodka bottle at the trailer and turned it every which way. It wasn’t really like a credit card. A little longer and thicker. More like a roulette plaque. The day before he hadn’t noticed the existence of the fair and now banners for it seemed to hang on the scaffolding of every construction site in the center of Moscow, NIJINSKY LUXURY FAIR written in silver against a black field.

  Arkady found a newsstand at a Metro station. The press covered the fair from different points of view. Izvestya approved of its capitalist excess. Zavtra detected a Jewish conspiracy. Readers of the more down-to-earth Gazeta suggested different luxury items, most having to do with private islands, private castles or sexual enhancement.

  To each his dream.

  Victor lived in yesterday’s version of the future: a spiral of units around a central staircase, each unit a cube of exposed cement combining function and grace. One unit had toppled. It lay on its side, stripped of plumbing and wiring. The city and the historical commission had fought over the building for years because at one time the intelligentsia of Moscow regularly met in the Orlov apartment to debate ideas, read poetry and drink. Esenin, Mayakovsky, Blok had attended at a time when, as Victor put it, poetry wasn’t romantic slop. Victor could recite them all. Some people called the building the House of Poets. A cat delicately approached across a yard of empty bottles and dandelions. A pair of kittens watched from a bed of dirty towels.

  Victor was refreshed. The shakes had passed and hearing the price of a ticket to Nijinsky Fair snapped him awake.

  “Ten thousand dollars to get in the door? Then there’ll be free food?”

  “I think it’s likely. By the way, the prosecutor called. He wants me to resign and he wants you to call Olga an overdose and fold the case.”

  “Wait. We’re in the middle of a homicide case. He’s not only fucking you, he’s fucking me on the bounce. He’s fucking Olga too. I don’t mean you, puss.” The cat weaved between Victor’s feet. “So, what are you going to do?”

  “Go to bed.”

  “No letter of resignation?”

  “My heart wouldn’t be in it.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I think it would be a shame to miss a night with millionaires. Mix. Show as many people as possible the photo of Olga but be on your good behavior.”

  “No problem. I can offer them sentiments from Blok: ‘John, you bourgeois son of a bitch, you can kiss me where I itch.’” Victor smiled with self-satisfaction. “Poetry for all occasions.”

  Arkady’s apartment was a distinctly bourgeois affair of paneled wood and parquet floors inherited from his father. There were no photos on the walls. No family gallery on a piano. The women in his life were irretrievably lost. The food in his refrigerator accumulated until he threw it out.

  He dropped into bed but slept badly and in a dream found himself in a white room between a stainless-steel table and a laundry bin. In the bin were body parts. It was his task to reassemble the girl he called Olga. The problem was that the bin also contained parts of other women. He recognized each by her color, texture, warmth. No matter what he switched, however, he couldn’t complete any single one.

  11

  In the blaze of crystal chandeliers nothing was too expensive or ridiculous. A child’s bird rifle that had belonged to Prince Alexei Romanov, once heir to the Russian empire, was offered at $75,000.

  An emerald necklace once owned by Elizabeth Taylor: $275,000.

  For $25 million, a ride to the International Space Station.

  An 1802 Bordeaux left behind by Napoleon as Moscow burned: $44,000.

  Models as beautiful and silent as cheetahs lined the red carpet and watched for labels: Bentley, Cartier, Brioni. Arkady, on the other hand, looked as if he had been dressed by a mortician. The disappointment he provoked in women made him feel guilty.

  As guests shuffled into the fair Arkady recognized famous athletes, supermodels, marginal celebrities, private bankers and millionaires. Onstage a tennis star giggled through her script. “Welcome to the Nijinsky Fair of luxury goods… top social event… sponsors like Bulgari, Bentley and the Vaksberg Group. All the proceeds to Moscow children’s sh
elters. Really?”

  Their gossip was all about real estate. The Golden Mile was the most expensive real estate in Moscow. In the world, for that matter.

  “With an Anglo-American school right around the corner.”

  “Twenty-four-hour security and roller shut windows.”

  “Twelve thousand dollars a square meter.”

  “And a wonderful small church if they would only get rid of the beggars.”

  Ahead of Arkady a man with sloped shoulders and a pockmarked neck confided to a woman so elegant she had no eyebrows, only pencil lines, that the item he was after was an audience with the pope. “It can’t hurt.”

  Arkady recognized the pilgrim as Aza Baron, formerly Baranovsky, who spent six years in prison for fraud. Upon release, he ran the same scams but called it a hedge fund and became wealthy enough to have his conviction expunged. Voilà! A new name, a new history, a new man. Baron was not the only rags-to-riches story. Arkady spied an Olympic official who, as a youth, beat a rival to death with a cricket bat. Another man’s shaved head bore the nicks of a grenade attack, reminders that climbing the ladder of success involved a certain amount of ducking.

  A long display case held wristwatches that told time, date, depth, split seconds and time for medication. Up to $120,000. A cello played by Rostropovich. A giant commode employed by Peter the Great.

  Security men in Armani black filtered through the crowd. Arkady wondered how to even begin. He imagined tapping Baron on the shoulder and saying, “Excuse me. I am investigating the death of a cheap prostitute and, for all your money, you seemed a likely candidate to ask.” Followed by immediate ejection.

  A woman on the runway announced, “Fifteen minutes before closing the fair for the night. Thanks to you and your demand for only the best, luxury helps the needy, especially all those innocent girls. Fifteen minutes.”

  Arkady posed as a man trying to decide between an armored Bentley at $250,000, a Harley-Davidson cruiser studded with diamonds at $300,000 or a Bugatti Veyron as black as a storm cloud at $1.5 million. Security men were definitely coming in Arkady’s direction. Someone had checked his name against the VIP list after all. Arkady thought he could live with the social disgrace. He was only angry at himself for failing to show Olga’s photo to a single soul.