He found himself in a very ordinary bedroom with a bedstead, a pair of lamps on nightstands, a dresser, all on a circular hooked rug. Nevertheless, at that moment it looked to him like a room in a sultan‘s palace. He sat on the corner of the bed for a moment, luxuriating in the give of the mattress, inhaling the homey swirl of perfume and body powder, which made him salivate like a beast scenting blood. Oh, for a hot bath, or even a shower!
A narrow floor-length mirror announced the door to a closet, which he opened. He had, quite naturally, a marked aversion to closets, a confined space into which his mother locked him as punishment. But here he steeled himself, reaching in to run his open hand along the downy backs of the hanging clothes: dresses, slips, nightgowns, pale and shimmering as his face had been in reflection. What he breathed in, however, along with traces of perfume and powder was the odor of solitude so familiar to someone like him. In his crummy basement lair this scent was altogether familiar, almost a given, but here in a family home it seemed strange and ineffably sad.
He was just about to turn away and go about his business when he sensed something in the well of darkness below. Tensed and ready for anything, he crouched down and, pushing aside a handful of hideous tweed skirts, perceived a pale oval face rising out of the gloom. It belonged to a small child. They stared at each other for a moment, transfixed. He recalled that Lev Antonin had four children-three girls and a rather sickly boy who, had his father been anyone else, would have had his life made miserable by his peers. It was this very boy whom he now faced, crouched in a closet as he himself had once been.
A sense of loathing for his past overcame even his hatred of Lev Antonin.
— Why are you hiding in here? he whispered.
— Shhh, me and my sisters‘re playing a game.
— They haven‘t found you?
He shook his head, then he grinned fiercely. -And I‘ve been up here a long time.
It was a sound rising up the stairwell from the first floor that refroze them both, a noise so unexpected it intruded upon this momentary and unaccustomed conversation. It was a moan, a female voice caught not in the midst of sex, but in abject terror.
— Stay here, Arkadin said. -Whatever you do, don‘t come downstairs until I come get you, okay?
The boy, clearly frightened now, nodded.
Quitting the bedroom, Arkadin stole along the hall. The lights might have been extinguished all through the second story, but downstairs they blazed like a house on fire. As he approached the wooden balustrade he heard the moan again, more distinctly this time, and now he began to wonder what Lev Antonin could be doing to his wife to cause her such excruciating terror. Where were the other children while Lev Antonin was punishing his wife? No wonder they hadn‘t come upstairs looking for their brother.
Light rose up the stairs in decreasing amounts as Arkadin crept down bent almost double so he wouldn‘t be seen. He was not more than a third of the way down when he was greeted by a strange tableau. A man was standing with his back to Arkadin. In front of him was Joškar, Lev Antonin‘s wife, hog-tied to a ladder-backed kitchen chair. The gag that had been over her mouth was halfway off, hence the moans emanating from her mouth. One eye was swollen and there were cuts on her face out of which drooled smears of blood. Huddled around her, like chicks around a hen, were three of her four children, all of whose ankles were tied together. Thus hobbled, they couldn‘t move and, given the menacing stance of the man looming over them, surely wouldn‘t. Where was Lev Antonin?
The man took a lazy swing at Joškar Antonin‘s head. -Stop your whining,
he said. -Your fate is sealed. No matter what your husband decides, you and these brats- He kicked out, the sharp toe of his shoe making contact with a hip bone here, a rib there. The children, already crying, began to sob in earnest, and their mother moaned again. -You and these brats are finished. Dead, six feet under, get me?
As Arkadin listened to the man‘s manifesto, something important occurred to him. The man, whoever he was, must be an outsider; otherwise he‘d know that one of Lev Antonin‘s children was still free. Could he be the one who had been killing the gang members? At that moment it seemed to Arkadin to be a good bet, one he ought to put his money on.
Retracing his steps, he returned to the bedroom closet, where he instructed Lev Antonin‘s son to come with him, but to stay quiet no matter what happened. Keeping the cringing boy behind him, he went silently down the steps until he was perhaps halfway down. Nothing much had changed in the scene below, except the gag was back in place and there was more blood on Joškar‘s face.
When Lev Antonin‘s son tried to peep out from behind him, Arkadin pushed him back out of sight behind his legs.
Crouching down, he whispered, — Don‘t move until I tell you it‘s okay.
He recognized the look of abject fear in the boy‘s eyes and something tugged at him, an emotion perhaps, buried beneath the silt of his past. Ruffling the boy‘s hair, he stood and drew the Glock he‘d tucked into the waistband of his pants at the small of his back.
Rising to his full height, he said, — Why don‘t you take a step away from those people.
The man whirled around, his face twisted into an ugly mask for a split second before the soon-to-be-familiar smile full of condescension replaced it. Arkadin recognized that expression and what it revealed about the man behind it. Here was a man who lived for subjugation; the blunt instrument he used to gain it: fear.
— Who the fuck‘re you, and how did you get here? Despite being surprised, despite staring down the barrel of a Glock, there wasn‘t an iota of concern either on his face or in his voice.
— My name is Arkadin, and what the fuck‘re you doing here?
— Arkadin, is it? Well, well…
His smile turned smugly ironic. It was the kind of smile, Arkadin thought, that begged to be expunged, preferably with a balled fist.
— My name‘s Oserov. Vylacheslav Germanovich Oserov, and I‘m here to get you the fuck out of this shithole.
— What?
— That‘s right, jerk-off, my boss, Dimitri Ilyinovich Maslov, wants you back in Moscow.
— Who the hell is Dimitri Ilyinovich Maslov? Arkadin said. -And why should I give a fuck?
At this, Oserov‘s mouth opened and a sound not unlike fingernails drawn down a blackboard emanated from it. With a start, Arkadin realized the other man was laughing.
— You really are a hick. Maybe we should leave you here with all the other cretins. Oserov shook with mirth. -For your information Dimitri Ilyinovich Maslov is the head of the Kazanskaya. He cocked his head. -Ever hear of the Kazanskaya, sonny?
— Moscow grupperovka. Arkadin spoke on autopilot. He was in shock. The head of one of the capital‘s premier mob families had heard of him? He had sent Oserov-and presumably someone else, since Oserov had said — we — here to fetch him? Either idea seemed improbable, but taken together the scenario seemed absurd.
— Who else is with you? Arkadin said, trying desperately to recover his wits.