Londongrad

by Reggie Nadelson

  I didn’t say anything, just waited for him to catch his breath and take another slug of the vodka.

  It was the hot dog that got to Tolya, he said. Before he and Bobo got to the morgue, he saw the lunchtime crowd, and in it, a man eating a hot dog with yellow mustard and listening to his iPod. He saw the mustard, the white strings of the iPod, the man’s red shirt very clearly. Then they went inside.

  “I can’t look,” said Tolya. “I just went back outside. You love her, Artie? I know that. I know you loved her also not just as my daughter. I know that you did and that you never touched her. You said to yourself, this is not right, and you left it.”

  “What else?”

  “In the official world, it’s hard to get information.”

  “You bought some?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was it?”

  “They tried to poison her, Artyom.” he said. “Turn off the music, please.”

  “With what?”

  “Polonium-210.”

  “The autopsy?”

  “They said they were still testing. They didn’t know how to look. You have to know how to look for the symptoms. In another week, or perhaps two, she would have lost her hair, her skin, everything. She would have died very fast, very ugly. But Leven gave me the pictures he took of her at home, after she was dead, she looked very pretty in her summer dress Artyom, everything was in place. How was that possible I asked myself? I asked myself over and over, and I don’t know. Maybe I was wrong about the poison, maybe I went crazy, or maybe the poison had not yet started its work on her body.”

  “But you came here to see me.”

  “I think, I must tell Artie about the fingerprints. I must tell him before anything happens to him.”

  “You think it was me?”

  “I only know your fingerprints were everywhere in her apartment, even on the desk, the pictures, the bed, everywhere, even things in the wastepaper basket, old boxes of film, on brushes she uses to clean her negatives. I tell everybody, Artie Cohen had nothing at all to do with this. He was often here, he is our friend, of course his fingerprints are in the apartment. And I don’t ask you anything at all,” he said. “This second killing was not murder. Whoever did this, it was a blessing,” he said. “It kept her from dying like Sasha Litvinenko. It kept her from being eaten from inside. It was from mercy, I understand,” said Tolya who got up, kissed me on the cheek and went to his room.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who?”

  “Do you believe me?” I said.

  “If you tell me, of course,” said Tolya, but I could see he didn’t believe me, not completely.

  “Will they believe me at home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who, Artyom?”

  “Grisha Curtis. You were right, it began in London, you can get anything here, buy anyone.”

  The housekeeper came in with a tray of drinks, but Tolya shook his head.

  “I must go,” said Tolya, barely reacting to the information about Grisha. “We all travel too much now,” he said. “Russians feel they have to keep moving or somebody might take this right away again,” he added. “Don’t worry, I’m okay,” he added, but it was hard for him to talk and he caught his breath constantly the way you might catch your clothing on a thorn.

  “You should eat.”

  “It’s all right. I’ve had everything,” said Tolya. “I’ve had my share,” he added. “I’ve had all the good things.” He left the room again, and I listened to the music until he came back, carrying a black raincoat and a small bag.

  I asked him again where he was going.

  “Where is Curtis? Is he in Moscow?”

  “I don’t know. You’re going after him?”

  “What do you think, Artyom? To Moscow?”

  “Probably, yes,” I said, and regretted it as soon as I did. In that instant I knew Tolya would go after, him and in Moscow Tolya would be in bad trouble.

  “What else?”

  “Curtis knows I have stuff on him, he knows I got it from his office, that I can make the connection that he hired this Terenti creep to kill Val, and Terenti got it wrong and killed Masha by mistake, and then Grisha took over. He knows I can make the connection to Valentina. I think he was furious when this Terenti shit got the wrong girl and killed Val himself. If he went to Moscow it’s because the Russians won’t let the Brits extradite, he probably thinks he’s safe there.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you?”

  “Then he killed her twice, once with the Polonium, the second time because he suddenly thought about her suffering horribly, and so he suffocated her and laid her nicely on the bed. And I believed it was you. Oh God,” said Tolya. “I want you to stay here for a little while, please. To be safe. I’ll call you as soon as it’s safe.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll call you.”

  I ran out of the house and caught him near the car. He was bent over, trying to catch some air, to get a breath. I took his hand.

  “What’s the matter with you, what’s wrong?” I put my hand on his shoulder.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m just tired.”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “He didn’t tell me,” Larry said. “He asked me to go to New York to look after things there for him.”

  “I thought Fiona said you were in danger, that you should have already left England, wasn’t that it, what happened?”

  “I didn’t go,” said Larry. “I had to be where Tolya could find me if he needed me. I’m not such a coward as you might think, Artie. But now I’ll go to New York for him. And you must stay here. He said if you went to New York now, there would be questions about Val’s death.”

  “Is he going to Moscow? He shouldn’t go to Moscow, it will be bad for him. He’ll act crazy.”

  “I can’t stop him. Look, I’m going to have to leave myself,” said Larry. “Do you need any money?”

  “I don’t know. Yes.”

  “Then just take it.” He held out a wad of cash. “Anything else I should know? I might be able to help.”

  I told him I beat up a creep near Moscow Road with a gun.

  “God, Artie. That means your prints are in Valentina’s room in New York, and also on some creep in London. Did you kill him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll make some calls. Chances are it was just a hood nobody will give a fuck about. Was he black?”

  “No.”

  “Islamic?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “If he was Islamic, you’d be in better shape. The cops here personally feel one less is a better thing. It doesn’t matter. But they’re not crazy about guns here, at least not officially, and there’s only so much I can do, so just stay put, right? Just a few days. Don’t make calls. Don’t take any.”

  “What about Fiona Colquhoun?”

  “What about her?”

  “She’ll wonder where I am.”

  “I’ll let her know as much as I can.”

  “How well do you know her?” I asked Larry.

  “We’re friends,” he said.

  “How good?”

  “Good enough. It’s fine. You don’t need to know anything else about it, just stay here, Artie, okay? Just stay until we know it’s okay for you to go home to New York.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until I call you. I’m on your side, you know.”

  I stayed overnight at Larry’s. I swam in his pool. I tried to sleep. I knew that Tolya had followed Grisha Curtis to Moscow. But I had seen the look on his face when I told him I thought Curtis had killed Valentina and had then gone to Moscow. Tolya had nothing else to lose, I knew if he found Grisha, he would hurt him, or kill him.

  In spite of what Larry said, I had to know. I tried Tolya on half a dozen numbers. For two days, I worked the phone. But he had vanished.

  It was true, I was in ba
d fucking trouble, my prints on a gun I had used in London. My prints all over Valentina’s room. My pictures were in her room, or had been.

  I thought about calling Fiona. I knew I was on the edge, dancing at the very edge of an open manhole cover and I could fall into the sewer. Fiona Colquhoun had access and I trusted her, more or less. I gave it one more day. For one day, I’d go quiet. Maybe two.

  I stopped answering e-mails. I turned off my cellphone. I bought a pay-as-you-go phone and gave Fiona the number but nobody else.

  Stay out of London, she said. I felt crazy from waiting. I swam in Larry’s pool, I swam so much, my skin wrinkled. In a shop in the little village near Larry Sverdloff’s house, I picked up a couple of books, one or two spy novels, and sat in the pub reading, drinking a little beer, keeping to myself.

  In spy novels, in the Bourne movies, that kind of stuff, guys always leave false traces; they use different names; they have extra passports and money in Swiss banks.

  I thought about moving into some remote hotel, but they’d ask for my passport. At night I went through the papers I had taken from Grisha’s office, following the dates, the e-mails, working out when he had been in America.

  By Wednesday, two days after I’d seen Tolya, I was going nuts. The weather had turned hot and outside the pub, a couple of boys kicked a football around. I walked back to Larry’s, and on the way I called Fiona Colquhoun from a public payphone. From inside the red box I watched an old lady bicycle past.

  Fiona told me to wait for her near the village post office, and half an hour later, her green Mini pulled up.

  “Grisha Curtis is gone, we think he’s in Russia, as you probably guessed” she said. “The last we have on him is his buying a ticket. We don’t know if he boarded the plane, but we have to assume it. We have our people in Moscow on it. You always believed he killed Valentina Sverdloff?”

  “Yes.”

  “But now you’re sure.”

  “Yes. He hired a thug to do it who messed up and killed another girl, Masha, and when Grisha saw how he butchered her, he had to kill Valentina himself. He couldn’t stand the idea of Val ending up like Masha, wrapped in duct tape, left in a playground.”

  “I got you a visa.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I assumed you’d want to go.”

  “Thanks. I know that Tolya Sverdloff thinks he was poisoned, like Litvinenko, he thinks his daughter was also poisoned. Something is wrong with him, but not this. I need to convince him. This is your subject,” I said. “Help me.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said, and I told her about the thug Terenti they’d picked up in New York for Masha Panchuk’s murder. “I’m guessing he beat me up the other night, too.”

  “We can’t find him,” she said. “It’s a bloody can of worms.”

  “Yes.”

  Handing me an envelope, she said, “Your visa. This should get you out of here and into Moscow.”

  “You knew?”

  “I knew you’d try to go, and if you have to go to Moscow, and I know you will, do at least pretend you’re an American tourist with an interest in Russian culture. When you get there, use a different name, at least for a bit, try to stay safe,” said Fiona, putting her hand on my shoulder. “These days I can’t help you over there, Artie. We Brits are not in good odor. If there’s trouble in Georgia, which is what I’m hearing from the chatter, they won’t be in love with Americans, either,” she said. “I wish to God you wouldn’t go at all, but you will, and this is the best I can do for you this end.”

  “You’ll let me know what you find out?”

  “If I can.”

  “In that case, lunch when I get back,” I said. “I’ll bring the wine. I like your hat.”

  “I got it in Israel,” she said. “Did you know there are an awful lot of Russians there now, Tel Aviv’s a bit like a Russian colony by the sea. No matter, I’m glad you like my hat. And, Artie?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t for God’s sake take the bloody gun with you. And don’t try buying one in Moscow.”

  “You have me pegged as some kind of gunslinger, or what? You think I’m Dirty Harry?”

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  I thought about it. I had never liked guns, but all the years I’d been a cop, they had become a kind of body part.

  “I hear you,” I said. “And I don’t love guns.”

  Her mouth turned up in a smile.

  “I wouldn’t blame you, considering the scum we’re dealing with, but it’s about your safety. If you’re caught with a weapon in Moscow, they won’t be nearly as nice as I am,” said Fiona. “You were wondering, I imagine, what my relationship is with Larry Sverdloff?”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “Good,” she said. “Don’t think about it. He’s helped me, leave it at that,” she said, and suddenly I felt just a flicker of jealousy.

  “What else?” I said, getting up from the bench. As Fiona got up, too, I realized she was as tall as me.

  “Don’t pick your toes in Pushkin Square,” she added, and we both laughed and exchanged banter about our favorite old movies, especially comedies.

  “God, don’t you wish life was like that?”

  “Yeah, of course,” I said. “More comedy would be great.”

  For a few more minutes we chatted about movies, and the weather, and her daughter, unwilling to part, sensing it could be our last conversation.

  Fiona adjusted her straw hat so it shaded the gray eyes, pushed her thick dark hair away from her face, and said, “I can get you to Russia, but please try to make yourself invisible, they’ll be watching you.”

  “Who?”

  “In Moscow? Everyone.”

  PART FIVE.MOSCOW

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  As soon as I’d put my bag in the overhead luggage rack and sat down on the airport bus into Moscow, a gang of teenagers in pink t-shirts crowded around me, like something out of Lord of the Flies, except that they were pretty girls, nice girls, who wanted only to recount the great time they’d had at camp near Sochi on the Black Sea.

  The little girls swarmed me. Giggling, chattering, clutching their backpacks and books and fashion magazines, they flopped onto the remaining free seats near me in the back. The little ones, who looked about eight or nine, had sticky faces from the candy they were cramming into their mouths, and it was smeared on their dolls and stuffed animals, including an immense white plush bear. I helped its owner stash it in the overhead rack.

  The older girls, thirteen, fourteen, kept track of the younger children; acting as chaperones they made sure the little ones were in their seats, then the teenagers sat and began to gossip to each other. At first a few complained about taking the regular airport bus. The plane had been late. The private bus intended for them had not appeared.

  All of them wore the candy pink t-shirts that read I ♥ Putin, except for one whose logo read IF NOT HIM, WHO? Medvedev had been president for two months, one girl said, but everyone knew that Putin was the man who mattered.

  The girl closest to me-she was about fourteen-looked at me with interest and asked me in Russian where I was from, In English, I said that I didn’t speak the language.

  “You are from where, sir?” she said in English, and told me her name was Kim. I said New York City, and she grinned and looked excited and tapped her pal on the shoulder and told her that New York was wonderful and not at all like the rest of America, and the shopping downtown, Broadway, the things you can get, the designer bags, the shoes at Steve Madden, and the cute boys! She had been with her aunt twice, and, oh, New York, she said again, gabbling, running her words together, excited, practically jumping up and down.

  Kim, the leader, the spokeswoman for the gang of girls, took charge. Camp had been fun, they said, with Kim as a translator. She explained that at camp they swam in the sea and camped under the stars, they had athletics, games, dramatics- she had been the star of an
entire play they’d written and produced by themselves.

  So many kids were going to camp these days, she noted, and the girls giggled when she described the Love Tents at a place on Lake Seliger. More for poor young people, of course, said Kim. At the Love Tents, she said again, older teenagers were encouraged to make babies for the fatherland.

  The girls giggled some more.

  I want four children, said one girl.

  Suddenly, all the girls were talking at the same time. I pretended not to understand anything, waiting until Kim translated. The talk was of boys.

  I would marry Vladimir Vladimirovich, said one of the girls, I would like this type of man we have for our leader. I would like one similar to him for a husband.

  “You admire Mr Putin, sir?” said Kim, the English-speaker. “It is right word, admire?”

  I didn’t answer right away, and another girl said in Russian, “He is American. He does not understand.” Nobody translated this. “Americans think they run the world, they think we are just a dumb old-fashioned country.”

  I ignored her, pretending I couldn’t understand, and said I was a tourist and a travel writer. I was in Moscow to see the sights, the Kremlin, the museums, the churches.

  I asked for their advice; they told me about Novodevichy, the convent and the cemetery, they mentioned Gorky Park, the museums, too, and the metro. The subway, said Kim, translating, was the most beautiful in the world. And the best ice cream, of course.

  I listened. I thought about Grisha Curtis. I had come to Moscow to hunt him down. I knew Tolya would already be on his trail, and I had to get there first.

  I didn’t want Tolya killing Grisha. I didn’t want Tolya in harm’s way. He hadn’t left me any messages, I didn’t know where he was, I figured he was here, someplace, in this vast sprawl of a city where I grew up and where once I knew my way around every back alley. I looked through the glass, the flat countryside, the suburbs, the endless billboards passed. We got closer to Moscow. The bus slowed. The traffic slowed up, roads clogged, then gridlock.