— What in the name of Saint Stephen is going on here? a voice roared.
He looked up to see another man, feet spread, hands closed into fists, looming over him. He wasn‘t Lev Antonin so Arkadin figured he must be Mischa Tarkanian.
— My name is Leonid Danilovich Arkadin, he said, through gasps. -Your poorly trained animal, Oserov, just put a knife into that boy‘s heart. As Tarkanian glanced over at the small crumpled form on the stairs, Arkadin continued: — That‘s Lev Antonin‘s son, in case you have any interest.
Tarkanian jerked as if struck by an electrical current. -Oserov, for the love of-
— If you don‘t finish off what I started, Arkadin said, — I will.
— The fuck you will, Tarkanian roared. -You‘ll lie there and keep still until I tell you otherwise. Then he knelt beside Oserov. There was a lot of blood, and his right collarbone was sticking through the skin. -You‘re lucky he‘s still breathing.
Arkadin wondered whether Tarkanian was talking to him or to himself. He wondered if it mattered, then realized that it certainly didn‘t to him.
— Oserov, Oserov. Tarkanian was shaking his compatriot. -Shit, his face looks like a piece of ground meat.
— I do good work, Arkadin said.
While Tarkanian shot him a violent look, he got to his feet.
Tarkanian raised a warning forefinger. -I told you-
— Relax, I‘m not going near him, Arkadin said with a wince of pain, and went over to Joškar Antonin. Kneeling down, he untied her, then unwound her gag.
At once, her wail of grief and despair filled the room. She rushed past the men, mounting the stairs to take her dead son in her arms. And there she sat, sobbing uncontrollably, rocking her child against her breast, insensible to anything else.
The other three children were crouched at Arkadin‘s feet, weeping and sniffling. He turned his attention from mother and son to free the three girls, who immediately rushed to their mother‘s side, brushing their hands over their brother‘s hair, briefly holding his legs before resting their heads against their mother‘s thigh.
— How did this happen? Tarkanian said.
Again, Arkadin couldn‘t tell whether he was talking to him or to himself. Nevertheless, he spoke up, recounting everything that had happened as he‘d seen and experienced it. He was quite detailed, he left nothing out, and he was absolutely truthful, intuiting that this was the best-indeed, the only-
course to take.
When he was finished, Tarkanian sat back on his hamstrings. -Dammit to hell, I knew Oserov was going to present a problem. My error was in underestimating its size and scope. He looked around at the homey surroundings, made bleak now by the bloodstains, the female keening, and the stench of death. -Essentially, we‘re screwed. Once Lev Antonin gets wind of what Oserov did to his family, our safe passage out of this shithole of a town will evaporate faster than you can say Not with My Wife, You Don’t!”
Arkadin said, — Tony Curtis, Virna Lisi, George C. Scott.
Tarkanian raised his eyebrows. -Norman Panama.
— I love American comedies, Arkadin said.
— So do I.
As if acknowledging the inappropriateness of this conversation, Tarkanian hastily added, — All we‘ll have are those memories, and then not even those once Lev Antonin and his crew get ahold of us.
Arkadin‘s mind was in full gear. He was in the middle of yet another life-or-death crisis, but unlike the two Muscovites he was in his own territory. He could abandon them, of course, and go on the run. But then what, back to his hole in the basement? He shuddered, knowing he couldn‘t spend another minute in enforced confinement. No, like it or not, his fate was now bound to these people because they were his ticket out of here, because they would take him all the way to Moscow.
— On the way in I saw Joškar‘s car in the driveway, he said. -Is it still here?
Tarkanian nodded.
— I‘ll gather her and the children. Find her purse, the car keys ought to be in there.
— You do realize that I‘m not leaving without Oserov.
Arkadin shrugged. -That piece of shit is strictly your business. You want him along, you can carry him, because if I get near him again I swear to you I‘ll finish the job I started.
— That won‘t sit well with Maslov, I promise you.
Arkadin had just about enough of these interlopers. He got up into Tarkanian‘s face. -Fuck Maslov, your worry should be Lev Antonin.
— That cretin!
— Here‘s a news flash: A cretin can kill you just as efficiently as a genius-and usually a whole lot quicker, because a cretin has no conscience.
He pointed to Oserov. -Just like your boy over there. An attack dog has more sense than he does.
Tarkanian gave Arkadin a penetrating look, as if he were seeing him for the first time. -You intrigue me, Leonid Danilovich.
— Only my friends call me Leonid Danilovich, Arkadin said.
— So far as I can see, you don‘t have any friends. Tarkanian went searching for Joškar‘s handbag and found it on the floor just past the end of the sofa where it had apparently been knocked off the end table. Opening it, he dug around, a moment later lifting out the car keys in triumph. -Maybe, if we all get lucky, that will change.
Asphyxiated in her own home was not a fate Moira had ever contemplated. Her eyes were watering and she was slightly dizzy from holding her breath for so long. Holstering her Lady Hawk, she hauled out a low stepstool leaning against the rear wall, shook it open in the center of the small space, and climbed up until she could reach the ceiling-which, like the rest of the closet, was lined with cedar. A buzzing in her ears had already begun, product of a lack of oxygen, as she felt for the outline of the square in the cedar planking that was invisible from below. Tracing a line to the center of the square, she used both fists to pop the hatch she‘d built in the closet. Pulling out the laptop, she hauled herself up into the crawl space in which she stored her bulky winter items in the summer months. Crawling across the bare plywood floor, she jammed the hatch back into place, collapsed onto her side, and gasped air into her burning lungs.
She gave a little moan, knowing she couldn‘t afford to stay there long: The carbon monoxide would seep into the crawl space soon enough. The small storage area gave out onto a jungle gym of beams and raised roof joists, across which she now crawled with great care.
Because she had built the storage space herself, she was familiar with every square inch of it. On either end, as the building code specified, there were venting triangles. She didn‘t know whether they‘d be large enough for her to squeeze through, but she knew she had to try.
The distance wasn‘t great, but, sweating, her heart pounding, it seemed to take her forever to traverse the treacherous expanse of crisscrossing beams to the far end, where a glimmer of streetlight announced the venting triangle. That light drew her like a moth, growing in size as she approached it. Still, when she arrived her heart sank, because it didn‘t look nearly large enough to accommodate her body. She hooked her nails around the nether side of the metal band that described the triangle, and pulled it off. A freshet of cool night air brushed her face like a lover‘s caress, and for a moment she lay still, simply breathing.