Bad Russian 05

by May Ball, Alice

  Carla calls. Her face appears on my phone screen. I don’t usually allow that, but I haven’t completely mastered this Russian phone yet.

  “Is this the man you’re trying to avoid?”

  She turns her phone to a show me video screen. It’s the camera over the entrance. “He’s pressing the keypad for your old apartment.”

  I see no point in trying to hide it from her. “Yes, Carla. That’s him.”

  “Hmm.” She sounds thoughtful. Wistful. “You’re sure you want to avoid him? Or do you just want to make him work hard to find you?”

  “Honestly, Carla? I’m not sure. No.”

  “I think you need to be.”

  “Why?”

  “Do you know who he is?”

  “He said his name is Mischa Bronski. He gave me a card.”

  “Mikhail Bronski is a powerful and a very dangerous man. If you really don’t want him to find you, then you need to be a very long way away. And that may not be enough. He has connections that go everywhere. He’s in every kind of business in Russia. Even some of the legal ones.”

  “He gave me the impression that he was a gangster.”

  “Oh? How did he do that?”

  “He dangled a man out of a high window.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing here?”

  “No. And I think I know less every minute.”

  “If you want to be safe, Irina, I think you should go home, very quickly.”

  “Can I see that picture on my entryphone screen here?”

  “Yes. You want to talk to him?”

  “No. Just see him.”

  “You’re in some trouble, girl.” Carla’s words sound like an alarm, “Press hash, four, four, five, then star, zero one.”

  I hurry to the entryphone by the door and key the number while I remember it. I get a shock. He’s looking straight at me, out of the screen. My stomach drops down a well. I lean against the wall behind me, with the screen at my eye-level.

  “Are you watching him Irina?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I… I just am.”

  “You need to run, girl.”

  I’m not listening. I’m watching his face as he looks straight into the camera. I feel that he can see me. I know it’s not true, but still I have the electric sense of connection. And I do want to run. I want to run straight down to him. It’s as much as I can do to hold myself back.

  Carla’s voice seems a long way away, but through her clipped, hard accent, I can hear real concern. Caring. “Are you all right, little Irina? Do you want me to come down there?”

  “No,” I say, absently, “I’m fine.”

  “Or, maybe you should come up here. Let me make us some coffee. Have you tried making the coffee I gave you?”

  “No. No, really, Carla. Thanks. But I’m fine. Honestly.”

  I hang up. It’s going to be hard, but I know what I have to do.

  I go to the breakfast counter and grab my purse. My hand goes straight through all the contents to his card. I know exactly where it is in the bag, without even having to look. I carry it back to the screen. I watch him a moment longer.

  Then I get an even stronger impression that he knows I’m watching him when his eyebrow cocks and his mouth pulls in a sardonic twist. My heart bangs as he turns. I watch him walk away. Of course, he would have assumed I was in the apartment he was calling. So he imagined that I was watching him. Expected it.

  I call his number.

  He’s still in view of the camera when he stops to take out his phone. He looks down at the screen. He wouldn’t know the number. It’s never made an outgoing call so far as I know. He turns back to look at the camera as he answers.

  “My little pink rose. How are you, my darling?”

  He can’t know that it’s me calling. I don’t speak. He waits. I press back against the wall to steady myself.

  Then, “I was sure that you were watching me. You waited a long time to respond.” He’s walking back toward the camera. “Are you going to let me in?”

  I’m hot. And wet. “No.” My breath catches. “And I’m not in that apartment anymore anyway.”

  “But you’re still in this building. You’re here now. Watching me.”

  My breath flutters. My chest trembles. Tingling currents crackle in my thighs.

  “I can feel you,” he says. It’s not true. It can’t be. “Put your hand on your chest. Now,” I’ve done it. I didn’t intend to. “Feel me breathe?” I’m shaking my head. But I can’t say no. He would hear me lie. “Feel how I need you?” He puts his hand on his heart. My pulse races. “And you need me?” He steps nearer to the screen. He nods.

  “Move your hand down.”

  My heart pounds. He says, “I will find you.”

  My stomach clenches. Inside me, sensations swirl, like I’m toppling out of control.

  “I will find you, I will make you mine. I will protect you, and I will keep you.”

  He’s looking straight into the camera. Like he’s staring all the way inside me, searching me. Finding me out. My knees are watery. His face is like a predatory animal, ready to feast.

  “I will make you mine and protect you. Forever.” Watching his face, mesmerized by the dark honey of his voice, a rush of sensation swells and storms inside me. His eyes closed and then open, like a contented cat’s. “Soon, my love. There’s nowhere you can hide.”

  He kisses his finger, then presses it to the camera lens. The picture on the screen is blurred as he turns. I slide down the wall, trembling.

  There’s a buzz at the door. I’m shocked but I can hardly move. I look up at the screen. It’s just the dull, blurry image of the street where Mischa had been. On the door is a rapping. Knuckles on wood. I gasp. My back pushes harder against the wall.

  “Irina?” Carla’s voice.

  Chapter Nine

  Him

  WALKING AWAY, TURNING MY back on her is hard. I know that she is near. Inside that building. But I have to wait, to give her time. Wait. She needs space. Soon enough she will be ready to come to me, in her own time. It won’t be too long.

  Waiting is a skill. An art. Hunters learn it. Like snipers and photographers. It’s never easy, especially when you want something so badly. But if the thing you need was not important, you couldn’t focus all of your energy while you remain still.

  The capture is always worth the agony of waiting.

  Chapter Ten

  Her

  OUT ON THE BALCONY, I watch as the lights of the city flicker on and the blue velvet darkness comes down from above. My phone rings.

  On the screen is his name. ‘Misha.’ Seeing it gives me a shock. But of course, I put him in the contacts yesterday. For a short gasp of a moment, I wonder if I let the vampire in. Really, I’m going to lose patience with myself if I keep acting like this.

  I’m not going to answer the phone. He can ring as often as he likes. I’m not going to pick up. I haven’t set the phone up for how many times it should ring before it goes to voicemail. I really have to get ahead in setting up that phone. I can’t put it off much longer. All, obviously, I can’t do it while he’s calling in. Eventually it does go to voicemail. I wonder whether I’ll be able to navigate the Russian voicemail system. Doesn’t matter, I won’t be listening to the voicemail.

  Look at the phone, silent. I watch it not do anything for about a minute. Then I go back to the work I wasn’t able to make myself do before the phone rang.

  I almost jump as the phone beeps. A Russian message on the screen, telling me I have a new voicemail to listen to.

  I turn back to the work. I reread the same dockets, tracing the manifests of freight. Looking at the protocols that Moscow security used with Olympus Logica in all of their freight partnership transactions. It’s hard to believe anything could be duller. And that’s why I can’t concentrate on it, I tell myself. Tracking dockside container movements almost lulls me to sleep.

  I jump. The phone beeps again.
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  It’s just reminding me about the voicemail because I didn’t do anything when it beeped last time.

  No matter. I will do these three pieces of work. I will trace four sets of shipping consignments. I will inform myself of the roots, manifests, protocols, on-time delivery, and landed forwarding. Riveting.

  I will do that and then sleep.

  I pick up the phone. Look at the message. The voicemail alert message doesn’t say who the call was from. But of course I know. I still check the recent calls. There is his name. Misha. Also known as Mikhail. The prince of crime in all of Moscow. Baron of the forces of darkness.

  I’ve dialed his number.

  It only rings once. I should hang up.

  He doesn’t speak.

  Neither do I.

  “Where are you now?”

  His voice flows through me. Takes its sinuous liquid hold of me.

  “I’m not going to tell you.”

  “I love your spirit, my little flower.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He says nothing. I press the phone to my ear, listening to the silence. I look out over the city, wondering where he is.

  I tell him, “Don’t call me again.”

  He takes his time before he responds. I listen to his breathing. I can almost feel him. “You called me.”

  I don’t speak. He can listen to silence for a while, too. He doesn’t seem to mind. I feel like he’s smiling, and his eyes are closing. I have to stop this now, before I lose it completely.

  “You know what I mean. Don’t call me again.”

  “I won’t promise.”

  “Goodnight, Mischa.” I hang up.

  I want to go out and buy a bottle of vodka. But I still have work to do.

  I’m not tired enough to sleep, but not awake enough to do anything. Besides, I want tomorrow to be a normal day. At least, I want to start as a normal time. I want to work, normally. I want to take some air, get some exercise, eat right. That kind of a normal day. Normal hours, normal work. Healthy habits. No gangsters.

  I try to settle in to read—I’ve got guilty pleasures all over my Kindle. Dozens. Including some I am desperate to get to. But I can’t focus. I’m too agitated. Too churned up and apprehensive.

  I start reading but every evocative phrase seems to bring up images of that big, dark man. His eyes. The warm power of his voice.

  But, who am I kidding? That man has a smile as dangerous as a blade. Even if I could trust him, and I know that I couldn’t, not for a minute, I know that if a man like him had any real interest in me at all, it would only last until he got what he wanted. He would use me up and abandon me, spent and crumpled after he took what he needed from me. Still, the thought of him needing me sets me alight. Even more the idea of him taking it from me.

  Oh, my.

  I shake my head and run to the shower. Strip off my clothes as fast as I can. Just drop them on the bathroom floor. Get into the shower and lather myself. The rush of the water is soothing, yeah, the water rolls over me like a wet embrace. But it’s too nice, it’s too easy. I want something to interrupt my thoughts. Shake my head on the inside. I turn the water, full blast, to freezing cold.

  And I squeal. I’m not sure we know cold water quite like this in America. Even in the Pacific Northwest. It shocks my body like a plunge into a deep-freeze.

  That’s still no good. For a few moments, the shock is a thrill. The way all of my muscles tense, the way my body jumps. But if anything, it’s just encouraging my mind to slip deeper into a still-awake, drowsy, half-dreaming state.

  And that’s what I’m trying so hard to get away from. Either asleep or awake but not this drift. It’s too open. Too easy for things to slip in. Ideas. Images. Things I really don’t want to think about. The cold woke me up, but not enough.

  I turn the water back up to a normal temperature. Washing away the freezing, pounding hail of cold, the water is a luxuriously insistent trickle, like a sensual massage. Like warm, liquid chocolate pouring over my skin.

  Those thoughts are not helping me either. I rub my body in a wash of soapy lather. I scrub my feet vigorously with the long, thick loofah, scrape the loofah up and down my back. It makes my spine stretch and twist. I groan as I stretch. The lather and suds wash down my body in trickles, dribbles, ice floes. The water is warm, but my breasts are firm. Tight. As the foam runs down my stomach, rolls over my hips, slips between my thighs, I follow it down there with the loofah.

  Pressure against my mound makes me groan, and I almost double over. I grip it between my thighs. Then drag it. Back, forward. Up. And down.

  I tell myself this isn’t going to help.

  But it’s too late. I can’t stop now. I’m sliding with my back against the wet tiles, down into the corner of the shower. Pulling the loofah. Harder. Round. Up and down. And around. Until I erupt. And burst. Gushing and shaking.

  Then I’m left, trembling, with water cascading down on me from above.

  I wake suddenly. Disoriented in complete darkness. I feel like I have been asleep for less than an hour. It takes a moment to remember where I am. I remember him, though. At least I remember his eyes. The warm scent of his breath. And I remember his strength. His huge hands.

  I’m still half dreaming. Either I got shocked out of it, or something else woke me up.

  I wonder if I could have been awoken by a noise in the apartment. Or, maybe just a noise somewhere else in the building.

  I have to get up. I need to take a walk around the apartment, make sure that nothing’s here. Nobody. What can I do if there is somebody here?

  I’m trying to think what I have here that could remotely serve as a weapon. All I can think of is my laptop. It’s very thin, it would not be easy to use as a blade, but it might be effective if I swung it with enough determination. Otherwise, of course, there are blades in the kitchen. But I have to get there first.

  I take the laptop with me, just in case there is anything between me and the kitchen.

  The rest of the apartment is dark. I throw on all lights as I pass, checking the bathroom, hallway, closets, and the lounge area. There’s nobody in the kitchen, either. As I look out the big windows over the balcony, I get a shock. I step back, almost pinned back against the fridge. But it’s gone as quickly as it came. Only a shadow. A bird, probably, flapping past the window.

  There’s nobody here. Only me.

  I don’t want to go through that again, so I search the kitchen drawers for a blade. I almost jump at the sight of a Japanese cleaver. I wonder if this is standard issue in Russian kitchens. Gingerly, I take it out and try it on a lemon. The peel and flesh of the lemon melts into two.

  It takes me a moment to steel myself to the idea of taking the weapon into bed with me. I carry the chopper and the laptop back to the bedroom, awkwardly shutting off the lights with my elbows as I go by, padding for whatever mysterious reason on tiptoe. I realize I always do that when I’m alone and practically naked. It’s funny what you think about when you’re afraid. I slide back down into the bed with the laptop on one side of me and the chopper under a pillow.