by Alina Adams
Which was why, no matter where they were headed, be it Moscow or Paris or Geneva or even New Jersey, Bex dutifully wrote up her historical facts and the major import/export data, all the while knowing full well that, odds on favorite, nobody would give a damn.
Depressed by that always most depressing of things, truth, Bex hurried to change the subject, thumbing through the pages until she got to the few that she knew would be read. She showed Sasha. "Here, we have the skater's element sheets. Right here we write down the name of their music for both their Short Program and their Long Program, plus all the elements in the order they are planning to do them. See, it says Lian Reilly, and there's the pronunciation, Lee-ah-nn, so the announcers say it right, and then her music for the short program, Carmen by Bizet, a most original choice—"
"You are being funny, yes?" Sasha asked.
"I am being funny, yes," Bex reassured herself to see that the runner had a sense of humor. It would serve him well in the days of production ahead and quite possibly be the only thing capable of retaining Bex's sanity once Gil fully stretched into his, "Come on, people, we're putting on a show, here," mode. "Anyway, Lian's music is the ever popular Carmen, and her elements are... I put them in order so the announcers could just follow along down the list... first a double Axel, then a Layback Spin, then a footwork sequence—"
"Why is it," Sasha asked, "that you need to write this down? Do the people who make talking during the program, can they not see what performers are doing on the ice?"
"That would require lifting their heads from the binders," Bex explained. "See, these sheets, originally, they weren't for the announcers, they were for the tape-operators in the truck. Strange as it may seem, your average tape-operator does not know a triple Salchow from a triple Axel, so that during a live broadcast when Gil is screaming for an instant-replay, "Rewind the tape back to the triple Axel, now, now, now!" they have no glimmer what he's talking about. By listing the elements in order like this, Gil can just scream, "Rewind to element number four!"
"Now, now, now?"
"Oh, yes, that's part of the routine; and they can just go to element number four. The problem is, when the announcers found out about these sheets, they demanded them, too. Now, they're like addicts, they're totally hooked. Why look at the program when you can just read off your cheat sheets? So we go to the skaters, and we ask them to list their elements for us. The problem is, you end up with stuff like this: See here? Lian's combination jump is listed as a triple Lutz/ triple Toe Loop, which, by the way, she has yet to ever, ever land in competition, but she insists she's going to do it, so I keep putting it down, idiot that I am, and every time she chickens out and goes for the triple/double, Francis and Diana glare at me, like it's my fault. But..." Bex smiled at Sasha. "I digress."
Sasha smiled back. "Is okay. I like."
"Good, because there'll be a lot more of that." Bex pointed to the page facing the one with the skater's elements. "And then this is their biography. See, we've got Lian's name again, and her pronunciation, again, because Diana doesn't like to look from one sheet to the other, she says it confuses her. And here we have Lian's bio information. Her name means 'my joy,' and her mother named her this because she'd been trying to have a baby for five years, and then trying to adopt for ten, and nothing was working, and then, finally, when she was forty, she and her husband adopted Lian from China."
Sasha tapped the bio sheet as if uncovering the answer to his question was the same as coaxing a goldfish to the corner of its bowl. "You know all this news of her?"
"It's my job to know all this news about her. That's what a researcher does. Fortunately, in the case of Lian, it isn't that difficult. Her mother is what we, in America, like to refer to as a motormouth. You ask her, 'How are you?' and you get a lecture on what joy her joy, Lian, has brought her today. You so much as nod politely in her direction, and she corners you for a forty-five minute discussion the theme of which can best be described as, 'So, tell me, what do you love best about my precious Lian?'"
Understanding dawned in Sasha's eyes. That look of faith he'd radiated in Bex's direction during Gil's meeting came back with a vengeance. "That is why Mr. Cahill puts you in charge."
"Oh, no, no. I'm not in charge. I'm pretty much the lowest person on the totem poll when it comes to the show."
"But, no. I hear him. He puts you in charge of finding out who killed the poor man, Marchenko. He put you in charge because you know everything about everyone."
On most occasions, Bex would have appreciated the compliment. On most occasions, she liked to think that she did know everything about everyone. Not only because it was her job, but because she prided herself on being one of those people who actually listened. She prided herself on being able to absorb facts other people might miss, and use them to draw conclusions other people might overlook. Boy, but she was an arrogant little snot, wasn't she?
Well, in that case, she'd gotten no less than what she deserved. You're so smart, Bex, then solve another murder, why don't you? And this time, just to knock it up a notch, do it in a foreign country where you don't speak the language. And do it in four days. That shouldn't be too difficult for a clever girl like you, right?
"I—" Fortunately, the sentence Bex had no idea how to end got lost in the screech of the taxi's tires as it pulled up to the front door of the arena. Bex and Sasha exchanged looks. The young man watched Bex for guidance and a hint as to what he should do.
Figuring that there really was no choice in the matter, Bex gestured for Sasha to climb out of the cab. She, reluctantly, did the same. They walked towards the arena.
And into a madhouse.
CHAPTER TWO
Apparently, in the twenty-four hours since Igor Marchenko slipped on his poisoned gloves and fell to the floor in a deadly convulsion, the world had discovered non-Olympic figure skating. From the one local, Moscow reporter who'd shown up the day before to write a feature on how present-day Russians were too busy struggling to give two blini about art, culture, or sport, the press corps had swelled to include representatives of every Moscow-based American television station, several American newspapers and radio stations, plus members of the French, German, British, Dutch, and even Greek fourth estate. The press conference room was packed. A babel of the inquisitive tossed their bulky, winter coats atop the few available gray folding chairs, then balanced precariously on the tottering two-tier structures as they thrust forward red-light-blinking tape-recorders, or clutched spiral notebooks with stiff, chilled fingers. Those unable to get a seat leaned against the wall and made up for their distance from the podium by simply shouting their questions, regardless of whether or not they'd been called on.
At the microphone stood Penelope Fuki, newly-elected president of the United States Figure Skating Association. She'd worked her way up to the leadership position after spending almost seventeen years on the finance committee. While other officers—athlete's advisory, singles and pairs, dance, grievance, rules, ethics—argued and battled and plotted and backstabbed and lobbied to get their way ASAP, Penelope sat quietly in the back and balanced the budget. She spoke only when spoken to, smiled at anyone who asked a question, and never missed a deadline or a decimal point. As a result, when it came mandatory time to elect a new president, Penelope was the only member of the USFSA who hadn't offended or made enemies out of seventy-five percent of the voting body. And so she became president. A week before boarding the plane for Moscow and the "U.S. vs. Russia" match. The press conference following Marchenko's death was the first one she'd given, ever. When Bex and Sasha arrived, it was not going well.
Penelope stood at her podium, shrieking in decibels usually reserved for dog whistles and Celine Dion concerts. For those who'd never heard her utter a word, this was the first surprise. The second was that the woman who for years had diligently tracked every expense, every receipt, every donation from conception to rubber-stamp, seemed incapable of doing the same thing with a thought. Now, granted, it was hard to k
now which question to answer when the entire international press corps was lobbing them at you, theater-in-the-round style, in a half-dozen languages. But, even when Penelope did manage to pluck a single query out of the fracas and attempt to respond to it, she very quickly skidded off-track.
"Penelope! Penelope! Over here! Does the USFSA take any responsibility for Marchenko's murder?"
"Will the competition be cancelled, Penelope?"
"Do you trust the Russian authorities to conduct a fair investigation, considering Marchenko's status as a notorious defector?"
Penelope waved her arms in front of her chest, fingers splayed, palms flapping back and forth at the wrist, as if her answer was bubbling its way up from her rib cage to her neck, throat, and finally mouth. "The USFSA deeply regrets Igor Marchenko's death. Naturally, we expect all aspects to be looked into when trying to figure out what exactly happened to him and who may be responsible, but, the fact is, it would do Igor no good for us to cancel a competition that was months in the planning and has already been purchased for TV broadcast rights, which is a very difficult proposition in today's harsh financial climate but people forget that it's our primary source of funding, funding that goes to young athletes for development and holding local competitions which are not televised but are critically important, especially for the boys in our sport, an area where we also have a critical deficit, which is why we can't come close to competing with the rest of the world on the Pairs and Dance field, which is why there is no Pairs or Dance in this competition, and why no men, although our American men are quite good, there is no doubt about that, but until we remove the social stigma—"
She went on in a similar vein for another fifteen minutes. When it looked like the vein was about to become a major artery, Bex tried to decide if Penelope was actually extremely clever and simply choosing to masterfully obfuscate the issue at hand until every single reporter grew frustrated and left, or whether she genuinely was that bad at this whole press conference thing. If it were the former, Penelope could definitely put a checkmark in the "mission accomplished" column. Right around the time she started rhapsodizing about the beauty of Moscow, three-quarters of the press picked up their coats and slunk out, figuring they had a better shot at getting their questions answered by Shura, the grumpy custodian, than by the woman in charge.
Luckily, none of the aforementioned press had to sink quite that low since, in addition to the rather ineffective press conference, there was, simultaneously, a practice session going on at the ice surface a few feet from the meeting room.
Bex and Sasha followed the rest of the throng into the tunnel that led to the main arena and to the ice. The six- thousand-seater was eerily quiet so early in the day. The sound of flashing and scraping blades echoed off the empty, metal seats, and a thick, almost solid, fog hung a few inches over the ice. Only the American girls were there. In the interest of building up tension, those in charge—i.e., 24/7, i.e., Gil—had decided the ladies shouldn't see each other's routines before the competition.
Gary Gold stood at the barrier, wearing his focused-coach face. At no point did his eyes ever leave Lian. She was currently his top student, a seventeen-year-old Asian-American jumping bean who looked eleven tops and plotted her career with the savvy of a forty-year-old corporate raider. Adopted as an infant from China, Lian was her mother Amanda's only child and, as far as Bex could tell, her only interest in life. Wherever Lian went, her mother was sure to follow. Amanda Reilly was in the stands for every practice, every competition, every exhibition, show, and television interview. When Lian got off the ice, Amanda was by her side, helping Lian dry off her skates, smoothing out the felt rag afterwards and tucking it neatly into Lian's skate bag. She spent a minimum twenty minutes after each session in deep conference with Gary Gold. Bex heard rumors she would even call him at home in the middle of the night if struck by a sudden thought about Lian's training or inspiration for a costume ("What do you think, Gary? Flowers to suggest Lian's blooming as a skater, or butterflies to emphasize her lightness on the ice?").
To be fair, though, this was not a solely Mom-driven enterprise. Li an Reilly herself was famous for expounding to reporters how she had a "master plan" for her career, which included winning the Juvenile Girls Nationals (check), then skipping the intermediate level ("I don't really need it," she patiently explained to Bex during a pre-interview, "It's a superfluous level. As long as you have one tide at the junior Nationals level, there's no reason to hang around. You might as well head straight to the big Nationals and start making your name there.") to compete in novice. She placed third in the U.S., her first year there, stayed for a second year in order to win the title, then moved to junior, winning the silver medal before making her senior ladies' debut. Lian's first year in senior, she placed dead last. "That was fine, that was okay," she insisted while the back of her green velvet costume still dripped melting ice chips. "Everyone has to wipe out at one competition to get that psychological block out of the way. I'm happy I've put my wipeout behind me. Now I can focus on never doing that again."
Bex didn't doubt her. Considering the ferociousness with which Lian made all of her pronouncements—she would furrow her brows, thrust out her lower lip and narrow her eyes until her face formed a perfect point like a Muppet— Bex strongly advised no one to ever doubt her. If Lian said she was going to be the next Senior Ladies Champion of the United States, Bex would happily believe her. Except for one teeny, tiny obstacle.
Named Jordan Ares.
Lian Reilly had never beaten Jordan Ares in any national, international, local, or made-for-television competition. And from the looks of it that record wasn't about to change. Even here in Moscow, while Lian spent her time on the practice ice doggedly practicing a triple-Toe-Loop/triple-Toe-Loop jump combination over and over again, landing maybe two out of every ten she tried, Jordan, skating a few feet away from her, was landing the much more difficult triple-Lutz/triple-Toe (the same jump Lian always claimed she'd be doing in her short program, yet never did) with twice the hang time and seemingly half the effort. Everything Jordan did seemed effortless. She didn't so much skate as simply breathe normally while her body floated across the ice of its own volition. She was only four inches taller than the not-quite five-feet-high Lian, but her elegant arms and legs created the illusion that each limb was as long as her competition's entire body. When Lian jumped, she resembled a top spinning in place. When Jordan did, she was like a shooting star. That landed on one foot
Add to all that Jordan's innate sense of musicality, her all-American blond hair, blue-eyes, pert nose, small chin, and dimples, and the reality that she never got nervous, or even mildly concerned, in competition; and if Jordan said she was going to be the next Senior Ladies Champion of the United States, Bex would also happily believe her. Except for one teeny, tiny obstacle. Also named Jordan Ares.
Because for all of Jordan's talent very few people in skating could stand her.
And not only for the usual reasons: jealousy, competition, pettiness, resentment, greed, and spite. Those would have been normal and expected. When it came to Jordan, those old favorites were only the tip of the iceberg. In addition to everyone she had ever beaten or had the possibility of beating, Jordan was hated by the USFSA because of her tendency to answer press conference questions in the following manner:
"Jordan, what were you thinking when you fell on that triple Salchow?"
"F@#&ing ow!”
She was hated by other parents at the rink because Jordan had declared herself an emancipated minor at the ripe old age of fourteen. The fact that no one had ever set eyes on Mom or Dad, and yet Jordan seemed to be thriving and succeeding nonetheless, was a direct slap in the face of all those who believed it was imperative they be at the rink every single day to monitor and wholeheartedly contribute to their little darling's progress.
But most of all, Jordan was viscerally disliked by every coach in the Professional Skaters Association (PSA). Because, in her eleven-year career, s
he had been coached by every coach in the PSA. None of those relationships ended happily. Some years, Jordan came to Nationals with one coach, only to leave dramatically with another, and show up with yet a third for Worlds. The fact that she and Igor Marchenko had worked together for almost two years now was actually a story in and of itself. Except now he was dead—so there went that record.
Being newly coach-less, however, did not seem to be holding Jordan back in the slightest as she whipped around the arena. Even after practice was officially over, Jordan continued working on her combination spin, going from Sit to Camel to Scratch and then repeating the entire sequence for extra show-off points. It was only when Gary Gold, upon being assaulted with a dozen questions the minute he stepped away from the barrier, answered a reporter's query about Jordan's future by asserting, "For this competition, I will take over coaching the entire American team; it is the only sensible thing to do," that Jordan skid to a stop and, from across the ice, howled, "The hell you will!"
Within seconds, she was at the barrier, leaning to grab Gary's sleeve with one hand and the reporter's coat with the other. The force of her lunge practically pulled Jordan heels above head over the barrier, but she held on stubbornly with all her might.
Mrs. Reilly frowned distastefully. Not so much at Jordan's actions, as at the fact that Lian hadn't thought of it first. The second Jordan screamed and leapt, every camera at the arena dutifully snapped her picture. Several times. Lian, getting off the ice at the same moment, ended up being a flashbulb-less orphan.
