The Devil's Garden

by Richard Montanari

  Another slow nod.

  “Good.” Aleks helped the man to his feet. The man was heavy, and offered no aid, but Aleks’s arms and back were powerful. He handled him with ease. “Which is the nearest hospital?”

  Vänskä hesitated. He had not expected this. “West Tallinn Central. On Ravi Street.”

  “I have a car,” Aleks said. He pointed to the crest of the hill. “Just around the bend. I will take you. Do you know the way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you walk?”

  The man took a few moments, found his center. “I . . . I think so.”

  Aleks glanced over Vänskä’s shoulder. He saw the moon reflecting off the glassy surface of Lake ülemiste. He recalled the way the Narva River shimmered on warm summer nights in his youth, glimpsed from the window of his stifling stone room in the orphanage, how he had always wondered what lay at either end.

  He thought about his little girls, about this man in front of him. The wrath ignited within him as . . .

  . . . the acrid smell of burning flesh hangs over Grozny, a damp, red blanket of death. In this hellish moment, as death rattles around him, he feels his destiny, the centuries he has lived, the centuries yet to come. He sees the farmhouse at the top of the hill. He hears the cries of the dying animals and . . .

  . . . the man’s arrogant words.

  You have something to sell?

  Aleks turned. In one nimble motion, he spun 360 degrees, the torque of the movement, combined with his strong legs and back muscles – as well as the exquisite steel of the Barhydt – caught Mikko Vänskä just below his jaw, nearly severing his head from his body. The arterial spray launched nearly ten feet as the man chicken-stepped. Aleks then plunged the knife deep into the man’s groin, bringing it up with great strength. He pulled it out and finished with a lateral slash forming a T. Vänskä’s bowels spilled into the night, pink and black and foul as the man himself. He was dead before he hit the ground. Steam rose from the ropy entrails.

  Aleks took a moment, closed his eyes, sensing the man’s soul on its journey. He always gave this moment its due. In the distance, in the silent canopies of the forest, a murder of crows stirred, awaiting its moment.

  Ten minutes later Aleks walked to his car, and drove back to the center of the city. Tallinn was coming alive, and he would take full advantage of its charms.

  Harkov, he thought. Viktor Harkov of Queens, New York City.

  I will meet you very soon.

  THE NEXT MORNING Aleks awoke early, showered, dressed casually. He had rolled Mikko Vänskä into a large canvas tarpaulin, weighted his body with stones, and sank him in Lake ülemiste. It would only be days before the man floated to the surface, but by then Aleks would be long gone.

  Over breakfast, he logged onto the Internet and began to plan his week. He purchased an e-ticket to New York. He made arrangements for lodging in New York, and arranged to ship what he could not bring with him – including the Barhydt, and more than one hundred thousand US dollars in cash – via International FedEx. He returned to his room, packed everything into a FedEx box, and dropped it off with the concierge.

  He may not have been at home in the city, but he availed himself of every progress, every advancement. Laptops, cellphones, wi-fi, online banking.

  Over his final cup of coffee he searched the web for Viktor Harkov. He found him with ease. Viktor Harkov, Esq., was the owner of a firm called People’s Legal Services. He printed off the information at the hotel’s business center, making sure he erased all files and the cache from the hotel’s computer. He slipped the data into his carry-on bag.

  During a layover in London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal Five – while luxuriating in the British Airways Terraces lounge, the area set aside for those traveling business class – Aleks allowed himself a massage in the Elemis spa.

  Three hours later he sat in the section of the lounge overlooking his gate, a tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black in hand. He glanced down, saw Elena’s face swim up from the depths of the clear amber liquid. He recalled the first time he saw her, standing in the grove where he had seen the grey wolf, already an ennustaja of her village at the age of seven.

  He wondered: would Anna and Marya look like Elena? Would they have the same beguiling blue eyes, the same milky skin?

  He reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat. He took out the three crystal vials held on an exquisite gold chain. One of the vials was filled with blood. Two were empty. He slipped the chain around his neck.

  Three girls, Aleks thought. The legend of Koschei and the prince’s sisters. Anna, Marya, and Olga. When all their blood was at long last his, they would live forever.

  He looked out the window at the lights of Heathrow’s runways. Cities, he thought. How he hated them, and all that they have spawned. Now he was heading to the most important city in the world.

  An hour later he settled into his seat on the plane, the power within him beginning to grow.

  SHE WAS PETITE and pretty, with a generous mouth and slender, boyish hips. She wore a stiff white blouse, navy skirt. She seemed to be in her late thirties, although her hands suggested she might be older.

  “Can I get you something?”

  They had been airborne for two hours, served a gourmet meal. The crew had dimmed the lights.

  Aleks looked around the Club World cabin of the large, powerful Boeing 747-400. He knew all too well about societal divisions in life. The small group who had stood in a separate, fast-moving line at Heathrow, the select few who had been welcomed aboard with a warm towel and glass of champagne, looked at each other with an understanding that they were all in this together, a cut above those who traveled coach, chosen all.

  Aleks glanced back at the woman. She was not a flight attendant. She was a fellow passenger. “I’m sorry?”

  She pointed over her shoulder, spoke in a hushed voice. “From the kitchen. Club World passengers have access to the galley, you know. Would you like some juice, or a glass of wine?” She held up her own empty glass.

  What a world, Aleks thought. Your own kitchen on a plane. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  The woman eyed the seat next to Aleks. Business class had individual seats, side by side, facing in opposite directions. The seats flattened into beds, and could be fashioned into dozens of positions. The seat next to Aleks was unoccupied. The woman clearly wanted to sit and chat for a while.

  “My name is Jilliane,” she said, extending a hand.

  Aleks smiled a disingenuous smile. He was traveling under one of his three passports. This identity was Jorgen Petterson. He introduced himself, carefully crafting his accent.

  “My friends call me George,” Aleks added. When it was clear the woman was not going to leave, he gestured to the seat next to him. Before she sat down, she picked up the small pile of papers Aleks had put there. He had meant to put them back in his bag. He must have dozed off.

  Jilliane arranged herself on the seat, smiled. Despite the dim light, Aleks could see her teeth were white and even. She had dimples, a flawless complexion. She glanced around the cabin, back.

  “This is all quite posh, isn’t it?” she said. Aleks could smell the sweet-sour breath of alcohol.

  “Yes.”

  She tapped a manicured nail against her wine glass, perhaps searching for a portal into the conversation. “Do you travel to New York often, George?”

  Questions, Aleks thought. He had to be vigilant. If he said he came to New York often, she may ask him other questions. “This is my first time.”

  Jilliane nodded. “I remember my first time in the city. It can be a bit overwhelming. I live there now, but I grew up in Indiana.”

  “I see.” Aleks was beginning to regret asking her to sit down.

  Before she could respond, she pointed at the swing-out table on Aleks’s side of the partition. “What are these?”

  She was referring to pair of marble eggs sitting on the table. The eggs were actual size, intricately carved to depict the ancient Ru
ssian legend of an egg inside a duck inside a hare, the fable of Koschei the Deathless. Aleks had had them carved in Kaliningrad. He had forgotten to put them back into his carry-on bag. He wished the woman had not seen them. It was a mistake.

  “These are for my precious brorsdotter,” he said. “For Easter.”

  Jilliane looked puzzled.

  “I’m sorry,” Aleks said. “They are for my nieces. I am from a town called Karlskrona. It’s in south-eastern Sweden.”

  Jilliane picked up one of the eggs, a little mystified. She put it down, getting to the point. “Do you like music, George?”

  “Very much,” Aleks said. “I play a little.”

  Her eyes lighted. “Really? What do you play?”

  Aleks waved a dismissive hand. “My instrument is the flute. I kneel a thousand feet below Gaubert and Barrère.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet you’re just as good as those guys.’’

  Those guys. He remained silent.

  “What about jazz?”

  “I am quite a fan,” Aleks said. “Chet Baker, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson. There is not that much to choose from for the flute, but I have played some of Charles Lloyd’s arrangements. To no great acclaim, I’m afraid.”

  Jilliane nodded. She didn’t know Charles Lloyd from Lloyd’s of London. She hesitated for a moment, looked over shoulder, back. Most of the cabin was asleep.

  “Look, there’s this jazz place I go to, not too far from where I live. I think you’d like it a lot.” She took her pen out, and grabbed a cocktail napkin off his tray. “They play a lot of jazz like Kenny G.”

  My God, Aleks thought. Jazz like Kenny G.

  She whispered, “I’m free all weekend, George.”

  She gave him her number.

  LONG AFTER ALEKS had spirited the napkin away, and Jilliane had returned to her seat, he glanced at his watch. They were somewhere over the Atlantic.

  He wondered what Konstantine would look like. The last time he had seen the man he had been standing over the body of a Chechen soldier, the dead man’s heart in one hand, a half-eaten pomegranate in the other. If one did not know Konstantine, it might have looked as if he was eating human flesh.

  Aleks did know him, and it was entirely possible.

  He settled into his seat, the thoughts of his past set aside. For now, he slept.

  Five hours later he awoke from a dream, a vision of Estonia, a fantasy of sun sparkling on the river, of yellow flowers in the valley, of children running through the pines. His children.

  Moments later, the jet began its slow descent to JFK International Airport.

  FIVE

  Abby Roman stared at the young man in disbelief.

  He looked about nineteen or so, drove a tricked-out Escalade with tinted windows, spinner hubcaps, and a vanity plate that read YO DREAM. A real class act. He looked a little threatening, sitting high in the SUV, but that was just part of the white boy thug routine. Abby glanced at the girls. They were in the back seat of the Acura, still strapped in. They were both listening to audiobooks that Michael had downloaded onto their new iPods. Charlotte was lost in A Bear Called Paddington. Emily was giggling at something called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. The windows were rolled up. They wouldn’t hear anything, if there was anything to hear.

  Let it go or stand down, Abby?

  She glanced at her watch. She had forty-eight hours off at the clinic, and at least sixty hours of things to do, but that had never stopped her from getting in the face of some asshole.

  Not yet, anyway.

  She may have grown up in Westchester County, she may have had a horse named Pablo – named after Neruda, of course, not Picasso – and studied ballet at the Broadway Dance Center, but she had spent nearly ten years in the city, all of them as an ER nurse, and there was a principle at work here

  She pulled the handbrake, and got out of the car.

  When the kid emerged from the Escalade he turned out to be about five-four – baggy jeans, T-shirt, backwards Mets cap. The bigger the SUV, Abby thought. He clicked the remote-control lock button on his key ring, locking the Cadillac with a toot of the horn. Just one more thing to endear him. He turned to do his pimp-roll into the market, staring at his cellphone, God’s gift in a pair of Nike Jordan Six Rings.

  “Excuse me,” Abby said, at least twice as loud as necessary.

  The kid glanced over, pulled the earbuds from his ears. He looked at her, then to his left and his right. She could only be talking to him. “Yeah?”

  “Got a question for you.”

  The kid looked her up and down now, perhaps realizing that, for a woman around thirty, she was in pretty good shape, and maybe, just maybe, he was going to hook up here. He half-smiled, raised his eyebrows in anticipation. “Sure.”

  “Are you fucking crazy?”

  Exit the smile. Exit most of the blood from his face. He backed up an inch. “Excuse me?”

  “You did that for a parking space?”

  For a moment the kid resembled not so much a deer in the headlights, but a deer that had just been run over. “Did what?”

  “Endangered my life. The lives of my children.” A little dramatic, Abby realized, but so what.

  The kid glanced at the Acura, at the girls. “What . . . what are you talking about?”

  Abby took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. This kid was completely clueless, as expected. She put her hands on her hips. “All right,” she said. “One more question.”

  Another step back. Silence.

  “When was the last time you saw me?” Abby asked.

  The kid did some kind of ape-math in his head. Apparently, he came up with nothing. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  Abby moved in, her finger out front. “Precisely my point. I was about to turn into that space and you jammed into it right in front of me. You didn’t even look. You didn’t even see me.” Abby clocked it up now, the angel of death on a tear. “You’re so caught up in your damn MP3, cellphone, text message, Jay Z gangsta-wannabe world, you can’t see anything past the end of your fucking 37th Avenue Serengeti knock-offs.”

  The kid looked at the ground. So they were fake. He looked up. “What . . . what do you want me to do about it?”

  “I want you to move your truck.”

  The kid grimaced. Abby knew the word truck would get under his skin.

  “It’s not a truck. It’s an Escalade.”

  Wow, Abby thought. An Escalade driver with attitude. How rare. “Whatever. I want you to get inside, start it, and move it.”

  The kid looked around. There were no parking spaces for about a hundred feet in any direction. “Where should I go?”

  Abby glared her answer at him, as in, who gives a shit?

  For a second, the kid looked like he was going to stand his ground. He glanced at the front window of the Acura. On the dashboard was a parking permit for the Queens County DA’s office, a large rectangle of laminated plastic that, despite the mayor’s efforts to curtail, generally allowed ticket-free parking on everything up to and including sidewalks.

  The kid glanced at his laceless Nikes for a moment, weighing the options. He conceded. He pressed the button, unlocked the car, and with a movement somewhat slower than the glacier that had carved out the Niagara Escarpment, rolled back, and slipped inside. Driving down the aisle he executed his gangster lean, gave Abby one final glance in the rear-view mirror but did not – as Abby had expected – give her the finger. Obviously, he still had to go inside the store, and was not quite prepared for Round Two. Besides, who would get Mom’s nutmeg if he left?

  Abby got in her car, pulled into the spot, the thought of NEW YORK AXIOM #208 giving her a warm feeling all over, that being:

  Parking spaces fought over are much sweeter than parking spaces earned.

  She unbuckled her seatbelt, checked her purse, making sure she had her wallet. Before she could open her door there was a query from the back seat. It was Emily.

 
“Mom?”

  Abby turned around. Both girls had the earbuds out of their ears, and their iPods turned off. How did they learn these things so quickly?

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “Who was that boy?”

  Abby had to laugh. Boy.

  God she loved her girls.

  THE CITY WAS EVERY photograph he had ever seen, every film, every song, every postcard. Aleks had taken a cab from JFK Airport to a section of midtown Manhattan called Murray Hill.

  If he had been a tourist, he could see himself taking in the wonders of New York for a week or more. He looked at the booklet. The UN Building, Grand Central Station, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Flatiron Building, the Guggenheim Museum. There was much to see.

  But he was not a tourist. He had business here. The most important business of his life.

  THE SENZAI HOTEL WAS located at East Thirty-Eighth Street and Park Avenue. The pictures on the website had not done the place justice. The floor was marble, the ceilings were high, the brass appointments were subdued. Before leaving Tallinn, Aleks had had his hair cut at the airport salon. He knew that all styles were served in a city like New York, and it would take something pretty outrageous to stand out, but he did not want to take any chances. At just over six-foot three, with shoulder-length sandy hair, dressed all in black, he might attract some attention. So now he looked like a tall European businessman in town for a meeting. In many ways, this was true.

  He checked in. The girl behind the desk was Japanese, about twenty-five. She had small streaks of gold in her lustrous black hair.

  She greeted him warmly, moved with grace and efficiency, an attention to detail Aleks had not only anticipated but expected. It was one of the many he things he admired about Japanese culture, another being how much was expressed in a non-verbal way. He sometimes lived in silence for weeks at a time, and he appreciated this.