The Pretender's Gambit

by Alex Archer

  Sequeira thought about that for a moment. “I have only rumors and superstitions about the elephant. There was a Japanese sailor who saw the elephant, a man who was rescued by Russians hundreds of years ago who saw the elephant and heard the tale about it and the fortune it would lead to.”

  “What fortune?”

  Smiling, Sequeira shook his head. “I am sorry, but there are some things I will not share.”

  She feigned a disappointed look.

  “In time, perhaps I will tell you.” Sequeira drained his champagne glass. “I must have my passions, you know.”

  “I know.” Joana took his glass and set it along with hers on a side table. The crew would be along soon enough to gather them up. She stood and pulled him to his feet. “Then you may pursue the elephant when we return home. Until then, you have a party to attend. The day will be over soon and you should enjoy what you can of it.”

  Sequeira went with her, stepping out into the bright evening sunlight. Joana quickly became lost in the crowd as music pumped from the yacht’s sound system. She danced out on the deck with the other young girls, all of them laughing and showing off their slim bodies as they threw themselves to the rhythm of the music.

  Alvaro, one of the ship’s crew, brought Sequeira another glass. The young man was sleek and hard, a product of the streets until Sequeira had hired him seven years ago. Alvaro had tried, with considerable skill, to pick Sequeira’s pocket. After Alvaro’s broken arm had healed, after he’d seen Alvaro made no sound when it had been broken and did not plead for his life afterward, Sequeira had offered the boy a job.

  Leaning in, Alvaro spoke into Sequeira’s ear. “The tide is going out now. Captain Nogueira says we are in a good place.”

  “Excellent.” Sequeira fell in behind Alvaro.

  “Fernando!” Joana’s voice cut across the din.

  He turned back to her, waved and smiled. “Keep dancing! I will return in only a minute!”

  Joana pouted briefly, then returned to the music.

  Downstairs, Sequeira followed Alvaro to the middle of the yacht. Sequeira had spent a fortune on the craft, outfitting it for long trips, for parties and for diving. An open moon pool allowed divers to leave the yacht directly from inside the vessel.

  The moon pool ran three meters square. The water lapped the sides of the opening and filled the compartment with the brine smell of the sea. Many of Sequeira’s guests had enjoyed the moon pool while staying aboard the yacht.

  Some of them, however, did not.

  Reaching up just inside the room, Sequeira turned on the light as Alvaro closed the door behind them. The white light filled the room with bright intensity and revealed the man bound hand and foot and gagged lying on the floor.

  “Hello, Jorge.” Sequeira smiled down at the man, seeing the fright in Melicio’s wide eyes. “You didn’t think I had forgotten you, did you?”

  Jorge Melicio was a member of the public security police. He worked against organized crime and terrorism. Melicio was in his sixties, gray-haired and lanky. A wide piece of surgical tape covered his mouth and bruises covered his face. He bore sailor’s tattoos on both arms, and they were visible because he’d been stripped down to his underwear.

  “You know, Jorge, you tried for years to put my father away.” Sequeira knelt down beside the man. “My father, he could be a patient and forgiving man. You knew this and you took advantage of it. Growing up on some of the same fishing boats, perhaps he maintained a soft spot for you.” He placed his hand over his heart. “Regrettably for you, I am not my father. No such soft spot exists. And I grow weary of your constant attempts to investigate me.”

  Melicio struggled against his bonds and worked to speak. His body writhed and his face colored and contorted.

  “On another day, perhaps I would let you go. But I’ve had a rather disappointing night and morning.” Sequeira spread his hands. “I know this is not your fault, but I have no one else to take it out on. So this will be what it will be.” He paused. “Do not think you are leaving your wife a widow. She is already dead. A traffic accident a few hours ago. A tragedy.”

  Melicio went limp and tears leaked from his eyes.

  “Do not worry so much. She will not be there alone long. You’ll be seeing her in the next few minutes.” Sequeira nodded at Alvaro and together they picked up the policeman and dropped him into the moon pool.

  Unable to swim, Melicio sank at once, dragging at the coil of rope beside the moon pool that quickly grew taut from the bucket of lead. Sequeira heaved the heavy bucket into the water as well, then leaned over the water and watched as the old man slid to the bottom of the sea hundreds of feet below.

  Perhaps, like the Neustra Senora de las Mercedes, Jorge Melicio would one day be found, but Sequeira didn’t think so.

  Chapter 10

  “You are not going to see the witch, are you?” The young boy peered out around a door halfway down the hallway from where Annja stood in front of an apartment with her hand raised to knock. He was about eight, thin and had narrow shoulders that bookended his head almost defensively. He wore a superheroes shirt and kept his hand on the door’s edge like he was ready to bolt at any second.

  “I’m here to see Yelena Kustodiev.” Annja smiled, but she felt a little uneasy. She thought part of the feeling was because she hadn’t had enough sleep, had been shot at only a few hours ago and still didn’t have a clue about Maurice Benyovszky’s elephant.

  But some of the uneasiness was because the hallway was long and narrow, the building kind of on the shoddy side in a marginal neighborhood, and because the women in the Laundromat had acted the way they had. Now the boy looked afraid and had cared enough to warn a stranger about her choice of destination.

  The boy lowered his voice and leaned toward Annja, but he maintained his grip on the door, ready to dart back inside. “Yelena Kustodiev. That’s the witch.”

  “She’s a witch?” Annja raised a skeptical eye and smiled slightly. “Seriously? Maybe she just has a bad temper now and again.”

  “She has that, too. She doesn’t like kids. She puts the evil eye on things like Baba Yaga does.”

  “You know that Baba Yaga wasn’t real, right?” Annja couldn’t help but smile. Baba Yaga was a Russian witch who was supposed to have lived in a hut supported by chicken legs. In the evenings, Baba Yaga would lay with her feet in the fire. There were a lot of stories and legends about her.

  “I know Baba Yaga isn’t real. Harry Potter isn’t real either, but the witch is.” The boy nodded toward the door. “She’ll put a hex on you and no one will ever see you again. Or maybe they’ll just find you dead somewhere with your eyes and tongue gone.”

  Okay, somebody’s been putting thoughts in his head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  “She put a hex on my cat, Petey. I never saw him again.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that.”

  The boy suddenly cried out in surprise, disappeared behind the door and slammed it shut behind him. The bang of the door filling the frame echoed along the hallway.

  A cold spot strangely took shape on the back of Annja’s neck. Breath catching in her throat just a little, chiding herself for how she’d reacted, she turned back to face the door she’d been standing in front of. The hinges were well oiled because she hadn’t heard a thing when it had opened.

  A thin old woman with a haggard face, wild gray hair, rheumy hazel eyes the same color as the bottom of a dark beer bottle stood in the open doorway. Almost languidly, she peered out at Annja, taking her measure. The woman wore a black, shapeless dress that ran from her neck to her ankles and looked ancient. As tall as Annja was, she had to look up at the old woman, who almost had to duck under the door.

  “Yes?”

  Annja smiled but the effort felt stiff and false, and thought her expression proba
bly looked like that, as well. “Good afternoon. I’m—”

  The old woman raised a long-fingered hand in front of Annja’s face. Startled, a bit leery, Annja stepped back.

  “Do not tell me,” the old woman said, staring over Annja’s shoulder like she was peering into another world. “I will tell you. I have the power, you see, the power to know things and see things when the mists of the world part.”

  “Okay.”

  The old woman pierced Annja with her gaze. “You are an explorer. Someone who hunts the past. You are a world traveler, someone who has seen many things in her life. Many of those things you wish you had not seen. You often look for things that frighten other people. Perhaps some of these things are dark creatures. But you have been successful in your journeys and you have escaped with your life from these encounters.”

  Annja didn’t quite know what to say to that.

  “You seek an audience with me, da?” the old woman prompted.

  “I was hoping to speak with Yelena Kustodiev.”

  Theatrically, the old woman stepped back and waved Annja into the apartment. “You already are. I am Yelena Kustodiev, seer of things in the unseen world.”

  Annja didn’t want to enter the apartment. She tried to tell herself that reaction was because she was in a hurry, but she knew the boy’s words still slithered around inside her head.

  “I really didn’t want to take up much of your time.”

  The old woman waved her into the house again, imperiously this time. “I have a few moments to answer your questions. I knew you were coming and I made an opening in my schedule. You cannot deny my generosity.”

  Okay, that’s creepy. Cautiously, Annja stepped into the apartment.

  The living room was small and looked lived-in, if the person living there was into supernatural things. Shelves filled with grotesque demon masks carved from wood, stuffed crows and ravens, two snakes coiled and kept in gallon jars of formaldehyde, a collection of still yet more stuffed and bottled dead things, and drawings of impossible creatures and places hung on the wall. Much of the items looked Slavic in origin, but a lot of them looked like fantasy stuff.

  One of the odder pieces was a cat with the head and wings of a bat. The chimeric creature looked almost natural. At least, the pieces all fit together well. The black leathery membranes disappeared into the sable cat’s fur as if they’d sprouted there. Seeing that, Annja relaxed—a little, but she would not put down her guard. She figured she knew what had become of the weird taxidermy project Demyan and Yegor had been talking about during the interview with Bart McGilley.

  “Please sit.” Yelena Kustodiev pointed to a small couch in the living room.

  Annja sat, but she was ready to get out of the apartment as soon as she could. Too many odd occurrences had already happened since last night and she didn’t want the trend to continue. “Thank you, but, really, I won’t be but a moment.”

  Yelena sat on the other side of the low coffee table. “You need me, young woman. Otherwise you would not be here. Da?”

  Not exactly true. Annja nodded, though, and sat silently as Yelena pulled an embroidered black cloth from the coffee table to reveal a crystal ball about the size of a cantaloupe sitting there in a brass, three-toed claw.

  “Behold.” Yelena tossed the cloth over her shoulder and gestured to the crystal ball. “The all-seeing eye. I know your present. I know your past. I can even tell you your future.”

  Glimpsing the TV listings in the newspaper on the shelf under the coffee table, Annja smiled. “Okay, I’ll play. Tell me why I’m here.”

  That didn’t stop the woman. “You need me. You seek the wisdom I have.”

  “No, tell me what I’m going to ask you.”

  Yelena hesitated and tried to recover. “You’re going to tell me about the problem that has brought you to my door.”

  “Tell me who told me how to find you.”

  The old woman frowned. “Do not mock the dark powers, young woman. You do not realize what you are risking by doing so in such a cavalier manner. You try their patience.”

  “Dark powers?” Annja reached under the coffee table and brought up the TV listings. The newspaper was only a couple weeks old, and it carried a picture of Annja, showing an interview with her about being on Chasing History’s Monsters. “I’m thinking maybe you read up on me.”

  Yelena grinned, showing perfect dentures, and leaned back more comfortably in her chair. “Okay, I’m busted, but I had you going for a minute, didn’t I?” Her accent wasn’t nearly so thick now and sounded more New York than Russian.

  “It’s a pretty good act.” Annja put the TV listings back under the coffee table.

  “I get away with it because I’m so tall. People aren’t used to looking up at a woman. I intimidate them. I bet you understand that. Makes guys shorter than you uncomfortable, and makes women stay away.”

  Annja knew that was true.

  The woman motioned toward the door. “At first I didn’t know who you were. I heard Osip talking to you in the hall, telling you to look out for the witch. After I recognized you through the peephole, I thought I would have some fun. When you’re the neighborhood witch, you don’t get to crack a lot of jokes. Not if you want to keep your status.” Yelena pulled her witch attitude back on and looked scary for a moment. “So maybe you miss out on some fun, but I get to hear all the gossip in the neighborhood. The women that come in here seek my help to find out if their husbands are cheating on them, to decide what to do about a job they are working or one they are considering taking, or to learn if they are in relationships that are going anywhere. They end up telling me much more than I tell them. They just don’t realize it. Hearing everything like that helps me tell the fortune of most everyone else that wanders into here.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “For the money, of course. My mister, God rest him, was a stage performer up in the Catskills back when families liked entertainment like that. When that dried up, we started a telephone service, then we got into internet psychic stuff. I still do the internet stuff, but I keep up the witch shtick for the neighborhood because it makes me a few bucks and I enjoy it.”

  Annja smiled back at the woman. “I came here to talk to you about Maurice Benyovszky.”

  “Who said I knew anyone by that name?”

  Annja pointed at the rogue taxidermist project. “Your cat-bat told me.”

  “Oh.” Yelena reached out a hand and stroked the bat’s head. “What does Fluffy have to do with anything?”

  Fluffy? Seriously? “You got him from Benyovszky.”

  “How do you know that?” Most of the humor drained from Yelena’s face.

  “His nephews told me.”

  “Oh. Them.” Yelena scoffed. “In the shape they’re in, I’m surprised they can remember anything.” She mimed smoking and being drunk and chuckled.

  “You have to admit, that—” Annja looked at the bat-cat “—is hard to forget.”

  Yelena smiled and patted the stuffed animal again. “I think he’s cute. If he existed, he would be thoughtful and wise.”

  “I want to talk about Benyovszky.”

  The levity and jokiness left Yelena’s face then, and her features softened into a more somber attitude. “He was killed last night. Shot in his own home.”

  “I know.”

  “Of course you do. You’re working with the police.”

  Annja lifted an eyebrow.

  Yelena smiled and shook her head. “I watch the news on my computer in the bedroom. I saw the story. I didn’t think you would ever end up here, though.”

  “I am working with the police. A friend of mine.”

  “Would you like to know about that relationship?” Yelena leaned over the crystal ball, waved one hand over it with practiced slowness and false drama
, closed her eyes and put her other hand to her forehead. Her fingernails were painted black. “I’m sensing some feelings of attraction there.”

  “No, I don’t want to know about that relationship.” Annja and Bart had flirted over the years they had known each other, but they’d never crossed a line. They had also tabled that discussion a long time back, before Bart’s engagement. Since that engagement had gone away, Annja wasn’t quite sure where things were. She liked being Bart’s friend. She liked him being her friend. She didn’t like things in her home life changing much or being complicated, especially since the sword, Roux and Garin changed so much of everything else. “I want to know about Benyovszky.”

  Yelena dropped her hands to her lap and shrugged. “I bought Fluffy from Maurice.”

  “And?”

  Yelena sighed. “And sometimes I hung out with him. A little. When you get old, that doesn’t mean the passion completely drains out of a person. We were not in love. Our lives are—were—too much our own and we liked it that way. But sometimes Maurice and I would—”

  Annja held up a hand. “Whoa. We’re not going there.”

  A feral, mocking smile framed Yelena’s red lipsticked lips. “Coward.”

  “I would just like to know what you know about Benyovszky that might help me find his murderer.”

  “I don’t know who murdered him. If I did, I would have already gone to the authorities.”

  “I’m not looking for his murderer. That’s the job of the police.” Annja had been telling herself that since setting out on her own. She didn’t want a conflict of interest with Bart, or to get enmeshed in the murder investigation. Those things took time, and time was something she had precious little of.

  Yelena stared into Annja’s eyes. “This relationship, it is with a policeman, yes? Do not disagree with me because I can see this in your face.”

  “We’re not going there, either.”

  Yelena smiled and clapped her hands. “I knew it!”

  Annja ignored her. “I’m especially interested in anyone who might have harbored ill feelings toward Benyovszky.”