Moscow Noir Page 8

  After dragging the bodies around the corner and stacking them next to Double Jack, he drove the Geländewagen on, into the rear yard, and parked it next to the Land Cruiser. The blizzard was not abating. Veltsev tried to warm himself for a couple of minutes behind the wheel. Even though he was soaked with sweat from dealing with the bodies, he was still chilled to the bone. “We’re rolling, rolling, rolling,” he intoned, holding his palms over the humming heating vents. He stared at the thug’s loaded gun in front of him.

  The Uzbek’s gang showed up at Lana’s entrance like clockwork, at exactly 11:30. Three men came out of their SUV, which differed from the Land Cruiser parked out back only by its license number. Veltsev was waiting for them to go through the door, but after conferencing at the lobby threshold, the trio returned to the car. Veltsev blinked away his frost-induced tears. There was a weak crimson glow spreading behind the Land Cruiser—probably from the taillights, but broad enough that it lit up the whole section of the apartment building spread out behind the car, as well as the buildings in the rear of the courtyard, about 150 meters away.

  When it became clear to him that the SUV was headed down the track blazed by the Geländewagen around the building, the Land Cruiser had already driven into the rear courtyard, rocking over the potholes. Veltsev removed his gun from its holster. “Rolling, rolling, rolling…”

  After hurrying to the abandoned cars, the trio moved around them in single file, and then—obviously following Veltsev’s tracks—came upon the bodies heaped in the front garden. Veltsev, whose teeth were now chattering from the cold, leaned his shoulder into the edge of the back wall. The blizzard was seething all around, but a silence fell over the front garden such that when mustache guy’s walkie-talkie started talking in the snowdrift behind it—“Five, where’d you go? Over”—Veltsev nearly pulled the trigger. Disjointedly, reluctantly almost, the trio turned toward the sound. Seeing their vacant young faces animated by death, he shot them calmly and methodically, like targets at a shooting range. Only the gunman at the far right had time to throw up his arm before falling onto the powdered bodies. “Five, are you asleep?” he heard behind him.

  Veltsev rested his hands on his straight legs as he bent over. He was struck by a chill. “I think that’s enough for today,” he muttered, glancing at the front garden. The trio’s car was parked with the engine running and its bulk lit up, and once again he caught a glimpse of a reddish glow behind the SUV, only now its source definitely wasn’t the taillights but something beyond the cemetery fence. The trees and flying snow on that side were tinted by a hazy crimson. Puzzled, he walked over to the Land Cruiser, opened the door, and looked inside. Nothing special. The same smell as in the Uzbek’s car, half sheepskin, half hash. A sticker with Arab lettering on the rearview mirror. A phone. A cigarette burn on the driver’s seat. Veltsev was about to slam the door shut, but he froze when he noticed a fresh drop of blood next to the melted hole in the seat. Stepping back, he peered down at his feet and saw something tiny break off into the snow from the Beretta’s silencer. He raised the weapon in front of him: the left side of the gun, and the tips of his right fingers as well, had obviously been dragged through blood. Frosted oily traces had caked across his coat’s lower lapel. On the upper lapel, to the side of the lower button loop, gaped a small hole. Veltsev opened his coat. The silk lining on the left side, some of his sweater below his chest, the edge of the holster that touched his shirt, and his pants down to the knees—all of it was wet and steaming with blood. The bullet had penetrated his waistband and entered his belly above his pelvis, a little lower and to the left of his navel; judging from the fact that his waist was still dry, it had landed in his abdominal cavity. “The Vul,” Veltsev whispered, and then closed his coat. “Nice and easy…”

  He used the sterile wipes from the car’s first aid kit to plug the wound, but he didn’t try to treat it with iodine for fear of passing out from the pain. He chewed a few painkillers and tried to calculate how much time had passed since he’d taken the bullet; in any event he was sure to go into shock soon and wasn’t going to last long on the capsule he’d just swallowed. He thought a moment and then dialed the Kalmyk’s number.

  “Hello!” Kirila shouted, turning down his loud music.

  “Where are you?” Veltsev asked.

  The music stopped. “Still here. Why?”

  “Do you have Promedol with you?”

  “As usual. Why?”

  “Wait. I’ll be right there.

  “If you’re not a fool, Veltsev thought as he made his way through the deep snow to the alley, you’ll drive away. Or shoot first. If you are a fool… Actually, the human heart is always a mystery. Everyone saves himself in his own way.

  The Cayenne was parked in the same place by the business center fence. Using his gun to press the plug to his wound, Veltsev climbed into the backseat. Kirila half-turned and looked silently at his bloody clothes. When Veltsev held out his hand between the seats, Kirila quickly opened the army first aid kit in front of him.

  Removing the cap with his teeth, Veltsev jabbed a needle into his belly through his pants, slowly pressed on the plunger, and spat the cap on the floor.

  “Where’d you get that?” Kirila asked.

  Panting, Veltsev set the empty syringe aside. “It’s nothing. I’ll live to see my wedding day.”

  “The butcher’s going to weep over you.” Half-rising, Kirila picked up the syringe and put it back in the kit. The handle of a Walther flashed between the lapels of his jacket. “Let’s go, eh?”

  “Not just yet.” Veltsev shook his head. “I have something else… I thought you wanted to help.”

  “Yeah.” Kirila straightened up. “Sure. What?”

  “I shot a guy here on the Yauza. I have to go clean it up. Will you help?”

  “Let’s go, Batya. You should’ve said so first.”

  “Godspeed then.” Veltsev nodded.

  The current had not taken the Uzbek’s body far at all, a couple of meters, to a bend in the river where it must have caught on an underwater snag. Whistling, the Kalmyk stood on the bank and tested the ice with the tips of his boots. Veltsev pressed the plug over his coat with his left hand and cautiously freed his gun.

  “We need something to retrieve him with,” Kirila said without turning around.

  “No we don’t,” Veltsev answered, firing twice.

  The bullets struck the Kalmyk with a boff right below the shoulder blade. Shaking his sloping, bearlike shoulders as if chilled, and shifting from one foot to the other, Kirila calmly peered back at Veltsev, lowered himself without hurrying, reached toward the water, and then just as smoothly lay down in it head first, as if it were a bed. Through all this the water didn’t so much as splash. “The butcher did cry,” Veltsev said, breathing heavily, and then he spat. “Three hundred thousand cried.”

  Scooting behind the wheel of the Cayenne, he changed the sodden towels on his groin, wiped his fingers, and, looking at the dirty gun lying between the seats, remembered who he could go to for help. All his old working options connected with Mityai were obviously out. That left only two: head to the Sklif, or to the guy who was kicked out of the Sklif for drugs—Oksana’s classmate—who lived on Trubnaya. Let’s try the last first, Veltsev decided, and he started the engine. Trubnaya.

  On the ice-packed road, the powerful SUV swerved from shoulder to shoulder; right in front of the exit onto Menzhinsky it took a turn that swung him around onto the median. Veltsev lifted his hand over the wheel and a tremendous shudder ran through it. His belly and left hip were numb, and a fever was rising from his groin to his chest that made his head swim. Veltsev tapped the SUV’s wheel with his nail. “Okay. Correction…”

  Driving up to the apartment building at a snail’s pace, at the last minute he confused the gas pedal and brakes and slammed into the Geländewagen’s rear fender. Halfway between the front garden and the piled up cars, at the end of a bloodied rut, lay one of the trio’s gunmen, facedown. Veltsev had t
o step over him. He ran right into Lana by the lobby door. Gasping from fright, she backed off with her key extended like a weapon. Veltsev reached out his trembling open palm to her.

  “It’s me.”

  In the apartment she carefully sat him down on the bed, squatted next to him, peeked under his coat, buried her head in the sleeve of her pea coat, and started crying bitterly. “God, I… you… me…”

  “I’m asking you for the last time,” Veltsev said, smiling in pain, “will you go away with me?” He freed his gun from under his coat and set it on the rug. “Or rather, will you drive?”

  Lana looked at him skeptically. “Where? In what?”

  “To see Dr. Doolittle. Can you drive?”

  “Listen…” Swallowing her tears, she hugged him below the knees and gave him a gentle shake. “A medic lives right here in the next courtyard. He did an abortion at our house for Baba Agafia’s niece. Should we go see him?”

  “Are you serious?” Veltsev frowned.

  “Wait.” Jumping lightly to her feet, Lana kissed him on the lips and hurried into the kitchen, where Veltsev immediately heard the clicking of telephone buttons.

  He took out his lighter and flicked it idly. Lana hung up with a clatter, came back, and sat down by him again.

  “No answer.” Worried, she blew hard on the fist she’d brought to her mouth. “Let’s do this then. I’ll run over to his place, and if he’s home I’ll set it all up. If he’s not, we’ll go see your Doolittle. Can you hold on for a couple of minutes?”

  Veltsev kept flicking the lighter and watching her silently. He heard but wasn’t listening to her. He was listening to himself, to the sensation that for some reason felt like a memory: right now he wanted to be with her more than any other women he’d ever been with. It seemed strange and at the same time simple, like the strawberry flavor of her lipstick.

  She was saying something else, then she kissed him again, turned off the light, and ran into the front hall.

  “Where are you going?” he asked with difficulty.

  Lana spun around and turned the key over in her fist. “I told you.”

  “Wait.” Veltsev tried to stand. “I’ll tag along.”

  “Right,” she hedged, opening the door. “And if you check out, should I call an EMT? Or a hearse? Wait.” The door banged shut behind her and the lock clicked twice.

  Veltsev lit up, leaned back on his elbows, put a cushion under his head, and lay down across the full length of the bed. The little man hanging from the chandelier swung in the smoke streams.

  He woke himself up coughing.

  A cobweb danced on the ceiling. Smoke from burning wool ate into his eyes and singed his throat. The cigarette had fallen from his fingers and set the rug pile on fire. Rubbing out the smoldering fibers with his sleeve, Veltsev glanced at his watch and shook his wrist, perplexed. He’d slept more than fifteen minutes. The plug had pulled away from the wound so that blood was seeping through not only his sweater but also the rug under his spread-out coat. Veltsev rose cautiously from the bed.

  “Lana,” he called.

  The reply was a ringing, rugged silence. Thinking his ears might be stopped up, he opened and closed his mouth. The floor rose and fell under his feet in big even waves. Propping himself up on the wall with one hand, Veltsev made his way out into the front hall. The door was still locked. He looked through the peephole, tugged at the bolt, opened and closed his mouth again, and listened. Somewhere far away, almost out of hearing range, in that rugged silence, he heard the gasping siren of an ambulance or the police. Suddenly the phone rang in the kitchen. Veltsev pushed away from the door but stopped half a step away. There was no second ring; the rugged silence had swallowed that up too.

  He returned to the room and was about to lie down when the phone started wailing again, and again broke off after the first ring. Veltsev smeared the wallpaper with his blood as he hobbled to the kitchen. He could barely feel anything between his chest and knees, and it seemed like his legs were moving independently of his body, first lagging behind, then rushing ahead, which made it quite a trick to maintain his balance. The light was off in the kitchen, but the small room was illuminated by garlands of colored lights framing the window on the inside. The red light on the old telephone, below the dial, was shining. Sitting at the table, Veltsev picked up the receiver, brought it to his right ear, and held it with his shoulder. His left hand, stretching toward the dial, rested on the table. In the receiver he heard the nervous voices of Lana and Baba Agafia interrupting each other—the telephone was on an extension.

  “… when I saw him I nearly pissed myself,” Lana rattled on, short of breath. “I thought, that’s it, he’s going to shoot me. My Phuket’s fucked. Can you imagine?”

  “Oh, and about that card of his,” Baba Agafia chimed in, barely listening to her. “It fell out of his passport, but he didn’t notice. After I locked you in I found it in the snow, and when I got home I couldn’t believe it. Why go to a hotel, I thought, if you have a residency permit, and then, if you’ve already paid for the hotel, come all the way out here? Well, I’m no fool, so I went and turned on the television. And there—saints alive!—I saw his photograph and his name. And a number to call.” Baba Agafia sneezed loudly, with a chesty wheeze. “I nearly died.”

  “And nice Farid, when he came over”—Lana spouted laughter—“after I called you I gave him a buzz right away and figured out about Sharfik’s debt… He was in the bathroom then… so I let that little fool Farid know”—she whispered wickedly—“and an hour and a half later he and Sharfik shoot it out.”

  “You could have done it earlier, dummy,” Baba Agafia said reproachfully. “He and those downtown characters nearly fell into each others arms out there. Where are your brains?”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have told such a massive lie then,” Lana snarled.

  “Well, who knew they’d show up so fast, and in this blizzard?”

  “Well, you just shouldn’t have. This guy wasn’t going anywhere.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he fell for me, that’s how. I don’t know why. But I can always sense what these lechers are up to. More than likely—it’s not all that complicated—it was my latest sew-up. Even I didn’t expect that this time. There was even a little blood.” Lana paused. “Yeah, by the way, what did you tell them, the ones who came in the Mercedes?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Baba Agafia sniffed. “They didn’t just not have three hundred thousand, they didn’t have a kopek. I said I wouldn’t let them in. Over my dead body. Well, I could see they realized they were barking up the wrong tree. They walked away, whispered their secrets, and drove off. And now, just before you, they called again. They said they’d be right over. With the money. What about yours?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, little Farid’s mujahideen.”

  “That’s why I’m calling. This guy fixed everything, looks like, finished them off. Amazing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “None of their cells answer.”

  “That means you’re free. And you have the money. You got away from me and little Farid.” Baba Agafia cackled, tickled. “Where are you hightailing it to?”

  “Thailand, like I told you. Tomorrow there’ll be last-minute tickets on sale at this office I know. We think we can pull it off. Hey, dead man,” Lana said away from the phone, “what do you think, are we going to get those tickets?” Baba Agafia could hear a muffled male voice. “The dead man says we are.”

  “All right, then,” Baba Agafia sighed. “You and I have talked too long. They might still call and the phone will be busy. Are you sure you locked that guy in?”

  “You want me to go over and check to see if he’s already broken out?”

  “Oh, I’m just afraid of him, the murderer. That look of his… makes my skin crawl.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Lana chuckled. “He’s the one whose soul is hanging by a thread. If he has one, of course.”


  “Listen”—Baba Agafia’s voice dropped to a whisper—“what if he’s listening on the extension right now? Ugh, I didn’t think of that.”

  “Not likely.” Lana chuckled again. “That’s the least of his problems. And even if he is listening… Hello,” she said in lower voice. “Hell on the line. I’ve got your number. God will call when—”

  “Curse that tongue of yours, fool!” Baba Agafia shot back. “Fear God, you shameless girl!” There was a staccato chattering, after which short beeps started leaping in the ether.

  As if expecting to hear something more, Veltsev held the receiver to his ear for a while longer, and then, sitting up straight, he lowered it carefully on the hook.

  Rattling the chair, which he pushed in front of him like a walker, he headed over to the still smoking bed, took his passport out of his pocket, leafed through it, shook it out upside down, and tossed it aside. The rug seemed to be tilting to the left with the whole bed. It’s going to break where it’s weak, he thought, remembering how yesterday at the registration desk he’d slipped his hotel card between the pages of his passport and how today he’d searched for it in his wallet without knowing what he was looking for. A hot sea seemed to be overflowing its shores inside him. Smiling distractedly, like someone dangling his last cigarette in his fingers, he pictured Lana’s tear-stained face as she sat in front of him, and wondered at this image, at how it already existed on its own, as if it were something outside of him, which meant that the laughing voice he’d just heard in the ether no longer belonged to him. The cuckoo clock on the wall shuddered. A moment later, its chilled steel struck half past 12. The bird’s door didn’t open, it just shook; however, behind the toy mechanism Veltsev heard heavenly thunder. Someone was fiddling with the lock in the front door very carefully. Without looking he picked up his gun, cocked the trigger, and chuckled at the little man on the string: no one had called.