by David Duffy
The room was all white—walls, carpet, furniture, marble mantelpiece. The sole exceptions were a bright red lacquered desk and the pile of pillows on his white leather daybed—an array of red, green, and gold, too many to count. The effect was quite striking and very Russian, in its gaudy kind of way. We’ve never been known for subtlety.
“Greetings, Electrifikady Turbanevich, you shit-eating son of a whore fucked up the ass by her pederast father,” Lachko wheezed in Russian, smoke floating from his mouth. “I hope you don’t mind paying a visit to an old, sick friend.” He stopped to cough.
Russians excel at vocal vitriol. The language facilitates improbable, attention-grabbing slurs, and Lachko was well practiced at the verbal body slam. To respond was simply to invite more.
“Lachko, I am sorry. I heard about your illness. I hoped it wasn’t true.”
“Bullshit. You’d dance on my grave naked. These fucking doctors. They say I have cancer. They may be right. They say it can be treated, maybe. They may be right about that, too. They tell me to stop smoking. Fuck what they say. What can I offer you? Coffee, beer, vodka?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Vodka, Sergei,” Lachko said to a large, well-built man in a silk suit and wraparound mirrored sunglasses. “Two glasses. You will drink with me, Electrifikady Turbanevich. We have not had many opportunities recently, and who knows how many we have left.”
I thought he was referring to his disease, but the grim grin on his withered lips told me to think again.
Lachko picked up a couple of cashews from the crystal bowl on the table beside the bed and dropped them, one by one, into his mouth. He chewed slowly. He’d eaten the nuts for years—in a small way, they were part of the reason for our rift. He used to smuggle them by the bushel, intended for a store serving the nomenklatura, the privileged class, but diverted to the Barsukov private stock.
“How long has it been, Turbo? Twenty years, twenty-five?”
“That’s how you wanted it.”
“That is correct. I still do. I had hoped to finish my days without ever setting sight on your piss-ugly face. Do you like my home?”
“Magnificent,” I lied. “I recognized it immediately, of course.”
“Of course.” The withered lips turned ever so slightly upward beneath the pointed nose, as close as Lachko ever came to a real smile.
He did not offer me a seat, so I remained standing. I didn’t try to make small talk or fill in the years. If he was interested, he’d know what I’ve been up to.
Sergei returned with a chilled bottle and two glasses. He poured Lachko’s first, then mine. Lachko held his up.
“Za vashe zdorovye—to health, Electrifikady Turbanevich. Mine, that is. You can rot from your maggot-infested insides out for all I care.” He tossed back the drink. I skipped the return toast and took a sip. Lachko was watching my every move. The scrawny paw scooped up more nuts. He hacked twice, spat in a silver bucket on the floor and fired up another Belomorkanal.
Lachko chain-smoked a vicious brand of papirosa, an unfiltered Russian cigarette made by stuffing the cheapest possible tobacco into a cardboard tube. They were introduced in the 1930s to commemorate the completion of the Belomorsko-Baltiyskiy Kanal, the White Sea–Baltic Canal, which runs from St. Petersburg through a hundred and forty miles of rock to the White Sea. One of Stalin’s showpiece projects, built entirely by prison labor from the Gulag—170,000 laborers to be precise—using only handmade picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, and such. No machines. No explosives. No technology. Tens of thousands died of starvation, exposure, exhaustion, and illness. Of course, the cigarettes have killed many times more. The irony is, when it was completed, the canal was too shallow and too poorly constructed to be of much use. Still, it was completed, and therefore it needed to be commemorated.
“I’m told you’ve been asking after an associate of mine,” he said.
“If I’d known he worked for you, I would have come here first,” I lied again.
He appeared to consider that, weighing its truthfulness, deciding whether he cared. “What do you want with him?”
There was a question requiring a delicate answer. What did he know? It rarely paid to underestimate Lachko.
“He kidnapped a young woman. Or he and the young woman pretended she was kidnapped. I was hired to deal with the problem.”
“Kidnapping? Ratko? Don’t make me laugh.”
“Why would I make up such a stupid story?”
“Who’s the girl?”
“Not your concern.”
Mistake, I knew it as I said it. The fist came down on the table, and the crystal bowl jumped. Cashews spilled over the top. He still had strength.
“I decide what concerns me, Electrifikady Turbanevich. Look around you. Have no doubt, I alone decide. You concern me now, you and this bullshit kidnapping. Who hired you?”
I was treading on cracking ice around a gaping hole. “A rich American. I didn’t know it had anything to do with Ratko until his associates told me last night. He hires stupid people.”
“How much was he after?”
“Hundred grand.”
That came as a surprise. The storm-cloud eyebrows wobbled slightly. He reached for some more cashews.
“Who are these associates?”
“Three Ukrainians.”
“Names?”
“They don’t matter.”
Another mistake. The thunderclouds shook until he brought his anger under control. “You understand as well as I, it will be easier for everyone, including these stupid Ukrainians, if you tell me who they are. If I have to find out myself…”
Sergei grinned and flexed his fist. I did understand. This was the way the Cheka worked. Pressure, squeeze, exploit. The only modus he knew. Here he was a criminal, but he was a Chekist at heart, and I was on his turf. His rules ruled, and I wouldn’t do Marko and Company any favors by bucking them. I told him their names. The thunderclouds twitched and Sergei took out his cell phone. The Ukrainians would soon be receiving visitors.
“You’re not drinking, Turbo. How’s Aleksei?”
“Why?”
“You show such an interest in my affairs after all these years, I thought I should return the favor. Still working for those shit-sucking faggots at the CPS?”
Not sure where he was going, or whether he was just needling me, I stayed silent.
“He and some other pea-brained bunglers have been sniffing around Rislyakov, too. I was curious if there’s a connection. Perhaps you’re trying to help out.”
“I haven’t talked to my son in years, Lachko.”
“You blame me, of course.”
“I didn’t say that. How’s Iakov?”
He didn’t answer, just glowered.
“Ivanov says his bronchitis—”
“Ivanov. Hah!” He practically spat the words. “We should have shot that bastard Zinoviev when we had the chance. Filthy liar.”
This time he did spit.
“This new bastard’s no better, maybe worse. Ibansk-dot-com! Thinks he’s funny. He’s arrogant, they all are. He’ll make a mistake and the Cheka’s axe will chop his balls into farina. I hope I live to see it.”
He spat again and lighted another papirosa. The air-conditioning was working fine, but the room smelled like damp cardboard.
Sergei closed his cell phone as he returned to his boss’s side. Lachko nodded, and he went to the desk and brought me a thick manila envelope.
“Like your son, you’re sticking that ugly nose up a lot of assholes that aren’t yours,” Lachko said. “Open it. It’s what you’ve been looking for.”
I undid the clasp and looked inside, but I already knew what I’d find. Lachko wheezed again, or maybe it was a laugh. “You thought you were so smart, you and your little faggot helper, snooping. You thought you could fool the Cheka. Hah! Sasha’s in a cell, Turbo, and it’s your fault. There’ll be an interrogation, and he’ll confess. They always do, as you know. What happens next is up to you.
”
I lunged toward Lachko. Strong arms wrapped around me from behind. I could feel Sergei’s breath on my neck. I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe.
“Sasha didn’t do…” Sergei squeezed. I couldn’t finish.
“What? Sasha didn’t what?” Lachko said, smiling. He was enjoying himself.
Sergei loosed his grip—a little. “He didn’t do anything. You know that. He was helping me with information about my family.”
“Selling state secrets, Turbo. That’s twenty years.”
“State secrets? My mother’s—”
“Gulag secrets are Cheka secrets, Turbo. You, of all people, should know that. You’re not the only one, by the way, he was assisting. He had a long list of clients, I’m told. Maybe enough to hang for.”
Sergei tightened his hold. My chest ached.
“What do you want with Rislyakov?” Lachko said.
“Kid… nap. I told you the truth.”
“You haven’t become any more cooperative with age, Electrifikady Turbanevich.”
“Tell Sergei he can let go,” I managed to hiss. “I’ll stay right here. I’d like some vodka.”
Lachko nodded, and the arms released me. He pulled himself upright on the daybed.
“Do you know why you’re still alive, Turbo?”
There was no good answer to that.
“What my father saw in you, I’ll never fucking understand. Once a shitty little zek, always a shitty zek. You had no place in the Cheka, you have no place in the world. No one wants to know you, not when they discover that’s what you really are. Polina fucked half the officers at Yasenevo when she found out. She even fucked me. You didn’t have the balls to tell her yourself.”
I threw my glass, but missed, before Sergei’s arms clamped on again. Shame and hatred filled my veins—shame for myself, hatred for him, more hatred for myself and where I came from. I pulled against Sergei, but he held on. The rage passed, but the humiliation remained, as it always does, razor wire wrapped tight around the soul. For the millionth time, I told myself to ignore it, it meant nothing. For the millionth time, I had no chance.
Lachko didn’t budge, the cold gray eyes staring at me, filled with loathing, waiting. “You haven’t had the balls to tell your own son either, have you, zek coward?” he said.
The rage came roaring back. I couldn’t have responded if I wanted to.
“Maybe I’ll take care of that, too. If I don’t have him killed first. Like you, he’s getting too close to things that don’t concern him.”
I lunged again—or tried. Sergei squeezed. My ribs felt like they were cracking.
Lachko said, “I will happily drink vodka while I rip your dead eyes from their sockets with the strength I have left. Here’s a deal, your lifeline, more than you deserve. Stay away from Rislyakov. And tell that mouse-eyed son of yours to do the same. That goes for the other leprous whores at CPS, too. He’s none of their fucking business. He’s no longer any of yours.”
“I just told you—we haven’t spoken since Aleksei was two.” My voice came out as a wheeze almost as weak as his.
“BULLSHIT!” The fist landed on the table again, and the cashews danced across the glass. “Russian sons obey their fathers, even when the fathers are pathetic, pointless piss-colored zeks. If either of you try to do something stupid, it will be the last mistake both of you make. And your faggot friend might just rot in his cell forever. Now get out.”
Sergei shoved me back down the long hall. He didn’t need to push—I went willingly.
I spent the first half of the ride back to Manhattan thinking about how easily Lachko could inflict pain and self-loathing, not just with his threats toward Sasha and Aleksei, but with his bigoted reminders of my background. He struck every chance he got. The fact that he’d been committing crimes against the state, the Party, and the Cheka, to which we’d all sworn oaths, was irrelevant. I’d undermined his rise to the top, and he was going to spend the rest of his life getting even. Polina was one way. Another was my past. Once I let him see how much he could hurt, he attacked with relish.
Millions of Russians are just like me. The fact that we’re all victims of a calculated, state-sanctioned system of betrayal does nothing to relieve our shame and disgust. We can’t even feel any kinship with our fellow zeks. None of us wants to recognize a fellow traveler—if we do, we admit our complicity in the horrors of our Gulag pasts. The complicit victim. The Soviets’ greatest irony. Stalin’s enduring legacy.
I spent two decades running from my childhood inside the very organization that did so much to shape it. I’ve spent another trying to find freedom in a foreign land where we’re all told, repeatedly, we can be anything we want to be. Even so, like anyone, I’m a prisoner of the past, as surely as I was born an inmate of the Gulag. I’ve yet to find freedom from either.
Bemoaning fate was getting me nowhere, as usual, so I spent the rest of the ride making a mental list of things out of whack—right here, right now, today. Polina/Felix hiding out on Fifth Avenue. Ratko Risly kidnapping Eva Mulholland. Eva’s cooperation. Barsukov’s fear about Ratko. Sasha, a low-level FSB archivist, whose only crime was helping people like me find out what happened to their families, locked in a cell, serving as leverage for something Lachko knew I couldn’t deliver. As we came out of the tunnel, I thought about my options. The only one that made any sense was going back to Greene Street.
CHAPTER 13
Sergei left me outside the office at 6:30. He hadn’t said a word. I walked around to the sidewalk. His window slid down. He dropped the manila envelope on the pavement.
“Boss said you forgot this. He also said, ‘Oo ti bya, galava, kak, oon a bizyanie jopuh—your face looks like a monkey’s ass.’”
The window rose as he sped away. I took the envelope upstairs. Foos was nowhere to be seen. Pig Pen was sleeping. I dialed Gina’s number.
“Sorry I stood you up.”
“What happened to you? I waited as long as I could, but I had to split at six twenty. I was late as it was.”
“Thanks. Not your fault. You see anyone?”
“Guy, girl, and an older guy.”
“Together?”
“No. Guy came first, at four fifteen. Girl at ten to six, and the older guy just before I left, six ten.”
“Describe them.”
“Girl’s tall and thin, about five-nine. Probably eighteen, nineteen years old. Reddish-brown hair, real blue eyes. Great skin, you see that, even across the street. Hot figure, could be a model.”
I’d seen a picture of someone who looked like that, tied up with a gun to her head. Eva Mulholland.
“She looked kind of nervous,” Gina said.
“Strung out?”
“Maybe. More furtive, jumpy. Like she’s afraid someone’s gonna take something away from her.”
“The guy?”
“Medium height. Medium build. Brown hair, expensive cut. Good-looking, slightly pudgy, big nose. Dressed in black. Had a suitcase, one of those rollers, and a messenger bag.”
“Look like Dustin Hoffman?”
“Yeah, when he was younger.”
“The older guy?”
“Seventy, maybe seventy-five. White hair, tall, maybe six-four. Thin as can be. Wearing a suit—you don’t see many of those in SoHo. Looked like he was checking numbers as he came down the block. He rang the bell and got buzzed in. Girl, too. First guy had keys.”
That description sounded all too familiar. I would have dismissed it as coincidence, even though my Cheka training didn’t believe in coincidence, except that I’d just spent an unpleasant hour with his son. This was turning into a family reunion.
“You want me to go back when I get off here?” Gina said.
“Send me a bill and forget you were ever there.”
“You’re the boss.”
I went downstairs, hailed a cab, and told the driver Franklin and Broadway, where there’s a building with an entrance on each street. I watched out the back window the
entire ride but saw nothing. I got out on Franklin, went inside, came out on Broadway, walked a block south, then east to City Hall subway station, stopping along the way to look in shop windows, tie my shoe, buy the Post at a newsstand. Nobody appeared to be following me. At City Hall, I caught a crowded uptown train to Fourteenth Street, where I waited until the doors started to close to step out. Up and down the platform, nobody followed. I crossed over to the downtown side and repeated the trick back at City Hall. I returned to the street and hailed a cab. This time I said Greene and Grand. I was sure I was clean of tails.
The block was still quiet. Almost eight o’clock now, but no cool to the evening air. Just to be sure, I waited in a door across from number 32 for fifteen minutes, watching for any activity on the street. A few people walked by, carrying briefcases, backpacks, and shopping bags. Locals on their way home. This was a daytime block. SoHo nightlife was Prince, Spring, and West Broadway.
I crossed and rang Goncharov’s buzzer once, twice, three times. No answer. I returned to my watching post and called a Russian locksmith I know. Forty minutes later a van pulled up with AAA-ACE-ACME LOCKSMITHS painted on the side. A wiry man got out and grinned. I met him at the front door. Three minutes later we were climbing a stifling stairwell to the sixth floor. Two doors, marked A and B. I pointed to the former, and he went to work. It took twelve minutes before the door swung open on oiled hinges. Glad that I’d insisted on expenses from the Mulhollands, I gave the man five hundred dollars. He nodded his thanks and left. I stepped into the cool, dry, air-conditioned air of Alexander Goncharov’s loft.
The lights were on. A dozen halogen cans shone like high noon from the twelve-foot ceiling. If Ratko’s Chelsea apartment was minimalist-chic, this was neoclassical color run amuck—greens, reds, and golds everywhere. A pair of enormous matching sofas faced each other in the center of the room—each could seat six—covered in embroidered gold fabric folded over on itself in a way that defied both physics and finance. Maroon upholstered chairs bookended the sofas. Ebony coffee table with mother-of-pearl inlay in the center. The full-length curtains shimmered avocado and orange. Green paint on the walls, the kind of green and the kind of paint you hire a guy who doesn’t advertise in the Yellow Pages to spend weeks applying. Carpeting picked up all those colors and worked them against red and sky blue in a chain-link pattern. Too much—too much of everything. Before the blood.
