She looked at the bump in his robe, smiled, and reached down to touch it. He stepped back and she followed.
“I see the way you look at me,” she said.
Artiom said nothing.
“And you,” she continued, “see the way I look at you.”
“How did you find me?” he asked.
She shook her head as if he were a foolish little boy. Then she unzipped her dress and kicked off her shoes. She was magnificent. She removed her bra and panties and stepped forward to unwrap his robe.
She tasted of heat, vanilla, and smoke. They made love on the floor by the front door, and when they were through, she coaxed him back to life with her mouth and they did it again. She smiled and made soft cooing sounds during what turned out to be less than half an hour. And then she rose and began to dress. He got to his feet, vertiginous as a result of what had happened. She put on her shoes and kissed him, tickling his tongue with hers. Then she was gone.
Artiom picked up his robe, then looked at the door and around the room, wondering if he had imagined the miracle. Artiom was not a man of great imagination, and he took no drugs that could account for such a vivid vision. He still smelled her in the room and on his body. He did not even consider getting back into the shower.
A few days later she had appeared with her car at the garage. She had a noise, a loose muffler. She was dressed in stylish black, complete with a small hat. She smoked a long cigarette while he worked on the car and gave no hint of her visit to his apartment. When he finished, she thanked him, shook his hand, and paid in cash. That day she did not smell of vanilla but of something distant and bittersweet.
She reappeared at his apartment that very night. This time they made love on his bed, which, he reminded himself, badly needed clean sheets. She did not seem to mind the sheets. This time when they finished, she smoked her long cigarettes and they talked. Or rather she talked-about her life, her husband, his wealth, and her attraction to Artiom, who was strong and uncomplicated.
She could not tell him when she would next appear, so he had taken to staying home with his television and his bare feet. He had hired a woman to come in and straighten his room and clean his linens. He sat waiting. Four days passed before Anna Porvinovich reappeared, looking sad and running into his arms, pressing into him passionately.
Less than two weeks after she had first come to him, Artiom agreed to kidnap and murder her husband. She made suggestions about time and place, where they might take him, how to handle it, and though he had been more than a bit reluctant when she brought up the idea of kidnap and murder, she had been very convincing.
He easily obtained the weapons from one of his mafia customers, recruited his assistant, Boris, with promises of money, and imagined a life of wealth and leisure with Anna.
The kidnapping went reasonably well, and the plan seemed to be fine. But it had all quickly become very complicated when Porvinovich comprehended what had happened and who was responsible. Accepting Porvinovich’s offer was out of the question. He had done this for Anna. But that was of small concern now that the police seemed to know what he had done. His simple visions were now of dark cells and sodomy and of weeping in the night. He hoped that he was not tried and executed for what he had done. Worse yet, Artiom had heard stories about how the police simply executed criminals in the street and put a cheap gun in the victim’s hand to make it look as if he had resisted arrest.
All of this was on Artiom’s mind as he put his key in the door of the apartment and wondered if there was anything he could take for his headache.
Something seemed wrong. Artiom closed the door. The light was on. Porvinovich sat in a chair across the room, half turned from the door. He did not acknowledge Artiom’s arrival. Artiom looked at Boris, who was seated in his chair across the room. His mask had been removed, and he looked up at Artiom with a plea in his eyes.
For an instant Artiom stood before the door looking from man to man. Then he realized that his assistant did not have the weapon in his hands, on his lap, or on the floor beside him. He also realized that Boris’s hands were behind his back.
Artiom froze. Boris let out a tiny sob. Porvinovich rose from his chair, the automatic weapon in his hands. He was smiling.
“You’re late,” Porvinovich said, his words slurred by his shattered, swollen face.
“Things … the police know … I came to release you.”
Porvinovich smiled again.
“I’ll ask you a question. You answer truthfully and briefly.”
Artiom wet himself. He nodded.
“It was my wife’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Artiom. “All her idea.”
“She made love to you a few times and you agreed to murder her husband,” said Porvinovich.
The man bound on the chair sobbed a little louder.
“To kidnap you,” said Artiom. “Not to murd-”
He was cut short by a sharp sound from the weapon in Porvinovich’s hands. Artiom closed his eyes and then opened them, fairly certain that he had not been shot. He looked at Porvinovich, who nodded toward Boris, who was slumped forward, held up only by the cord that tied his hands behind him to the back of the chair. There was blood dripping from a wound in the man’s chest and even more blood coming from the bent-over head of the man, who was surely dead.
“You killed him,” said Artiom.
“You lied.”
“I …”
“You were going to kill me. She told you to.”
“Yes,” said Artiom, unable to take his eyes from the bleeding dead man. “I’ve never killed anyone. She-”
“I believe you,” said Porvinovich.
Artiom did not feel relieved.
“The neighbors,” Artiom said desperately. “Some of them must have heard the shots.”
“Two shots. A car backfiring. Light bulbs falling,” said Porvinovich. “They will mind their own business. I assume she picked this place.”
“Yes,” said Artiom.
“Then it is unlikely that any neighbors here would report what may have been two gunshots. You agree?”
“I agree,” said Artiom. “May I sit? I don’t feel …”
Porvinovich pointed the barrel of his weapon at the chair he had stood up from. Artiom, wet and sick to his stomach, made his way to the chair and sat. Porvinovich stepped back half a dozen feet.
“Have you ever met my brother?” asked Porvinovich.
“No,” said Artiom, gripping the sides of the chair to keep his hands from shaking.
“I’ve had all day to think about this, Solovyov,” said Porvinovich. “All day. I am a smart man cursed with a scheming wife who cares as little for me as she does for you. I’m sure she cares even less about Yevgeniy.”
“Yev-?”
“My brother, whom, I am now certain, she has helped nurse back from impotence. Without Yevgeniy, who is not smart-don’t ask me why some genes pass to one child and not to another-she cannot handle the business. It is my belief that without me he cannot handle it either. If you had a reasonable amount of intellect, you would understand that you are not part of her future plans. My guess is that she has already arranged for your death within a very short time. And that she realizes she will have to do it herself. Yevgeniy is incapable of either complex thought or direct action.”
Porvinovich paused. Artiom nodded.
“Do you want to know what happens next, Artiom Solovyov?”
Artiom wasn’t sure that he did. He resisted the sudden, compelling urge to turn his head and look at his dead assistant.
“I’ll tell you,” said Porvinovich, leaning back against the wall. “I’m afraid the events of the day have made me temporarily insane, especially when I discovered that you had murdered my wife and brother.”
“Your wife and …?”
“You just came in and told me that you had murdered my wife and brother,” Porvinovich said. “I was enraged. I rushed at you, took you by surprise. You fired, killing your assistant. I wrenched the gun from you and you started toward me. I shot you.”