“What’s this got to do with your boy Viktor?” March asked. “He’s planning a night club, too, is he?”
“Not that I know of.” Polutin’s eyes went lazily to Chemayev, like a man reassuring himself that his prize possession was still in its rightful place. “However, I see in Viktor many of the qualities Yuri possessed. He’s bright, ambitious. He can be ruthless when necessary. He understands the uses of compassion, but if he wasn’t capable of violence and betrayal, he would never have risen to his present position.”
“I only did as I was told,” Chemayev said fiercely. “You gave me no choice.” Furious, he prepared to defend himself further, but Polutin did not acknowledge him, turning instead to March.
“It’s in his talent for self-deception that Viktor most resembles Yuri,” he said. “In effect, he has made parts of himself disappear. But while Yuri became an adept, a true professional, Viktor is still a rank amateur… though perhaps I underestimate him. He may have some more spectacular disappearance in mind.”
Chemayev’s feeling of apprehension spiked, but he refused to give Polutin the satisfaction of thinking that his words had had any effect; he scanned the upper tiers of booths, pretending to search for a familiar face.
“If I were to ask Viktor to describe himself,” Polutin went on, “he would repeat much of what I’ve told you. But he would never describe himself as cautious. Yet I swear to you, Viktor is the most cautious man of my acquaintance. He won’t admit it, not to you or me. Nor to himself. But let me give you an example of how his mind works. Viktor has a lover. Larissa is her name. She works here at Eternity. As a prostitute.”
“Don’t tell him my business!” Chemayev could feel the pulse in his neck.
Polutin regarded him calmly. “This is common knowledge, is it not?”
“It’s scarcely common knowledge in Ireland.”
“Yes,” said Polutin. “But then we are not in Ireland. We are in Moscow. Where, if memory serves me, underlings do not dare treat their superiors with such impertinence.”
Chemayev did not trust himself to speak.
“Larissa is a beautiful woman. Such a lovely face”—Polutin bunched the fingers of his left hand and kissed their tips, the gesture of an ecstatic connoisseur—“your heart breaks to see it! Like many who work here, she does so in order to pay off a debt incurred by someone in her family. She’s not a typical whore. She’s intelligent, refined. And very expensive.”
“How much are we talking about?” March asked. “I’ve a few extra pounds in me pocket.”
Chemayev shot him a wicked glance, and March winked at him. “Just having you on, mate. Women aren’t my thing.”
“What exactly is your thing?” Chemayev asked. “Some sort of sea creature? Perhaps you prefer the invertebrates?”
“Nah.” March went deadpan. “It’s got nothing to do with sex.”
“The point is this,” Polutin said. “Viktor’s choice of a lover speaks to his cautious nature. A young man of his status, ambitious and talented, but as yet not entirely on a firm footing… such a man is vulnerable in many ways. If he were to take a wife it would add to his vulnerability. The woman might be threatened or kidnapped. In our business you must be secure indeed if you intend to engage in anything resembling a normal relationship. So Viktor has chosen a prostitute under the protection of Yuri Lebedev. No one will try to harm her for fear of reprisals. Eternity protects its own.”
Chemayev started up from the booth, but Polutin beckoned him to stay. “A minute longer, Viktor. Please.”
“Why are you doing this?” Chemayev asked. “Is there a purpose, or is it merely an exercise?”
“I’m trying to instruct you,” said Polutin. “I’m trying to show you who you are. I think you have forgotten some important truths.”
Chemayev drew a steadying breath, let it out with a dry, papery sound. “I know very well who I am, but I’m confused about much else.”
“It won’t hurt you to listen.” Polutin ran a finger along the inside of his collar to loosen it and addressed March. “Why does Viktor hide his cautious nature from himself? Perhaps he doesn’t like what he sees in the mirror. I’ve known men who’ve cultivated a sensitive self-image in order to obscure the brutish aspects of their character. Perhaps the explanation is as simple as that. But I think there’s more to it. I suspect it may be for him a form of practice. As I’ve said, Viktor and Yuri have much in common… most pertinently, a talent for self-deception. I believe it was the calculated development of this ability that led Yuri to understand the concept of deception in its entirety. Its subtleties, its potentials.” Polutin shifted his bulk, his belly bumping against the edge of the table, causing vodka to slosh in all the glasses. “At any rate, I think I understand how Viktor manages to hide from himself. He has permitted himself to fall in love with his prostitute—or to think he >has fallen in love. This affords him the illusion of incaution. How incautious it must seem to the casual eye for a man to fall in love with a woman he cannot possibly have. Who lives in another man’s house. Whom he can see only for an hour or two in the mornings, and the odd vacation. Who is bound by contract to spend the years of her great beauty fucking strangers. Is this a tactical maneuver? A phase of Viktor’s development? A necessary step along the path toward some larger, more magical duplicity?… Or could it be a simple mistake? A mistake he is now tempted to compound, thus making himself more vulnerable than ever.” He spread his hands, expressing a stagy degree of helplessness. “But these are questions only Viktor can answer.”
“I bet I’m going to like working for you,” March said. “You’re a right interesting fellow.”
“Nobody likes working for me. If you doubt this, ask Viktor.” Polutin locked his hands behind his head, thrusting out his belly so that it overlapped the edge of the table; he looked with unwavering disapproval at Chemayev. “Now you may go. When you’ve regained your self-control, come back and drink some more. I’m told the entertainment this evening will be wonderful.”
The countertop of the bar in the lounge adjoining the theater was overlaid with a mosaic depicting a party attended by guests from every decade of the Twentieth Century, all with cunningly rendered faces done in caricature, most unknown to Chemayev, but a few clearly recognizable. There was Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria, the bloody-handed director of the NKVD under Stalin, his doughy, peasant features lent a genteel air by rimless pince-nez. He was standing with a man wearing a Party armband and a woman in a green dress—Beria was glancing up as if he sensed someone overhead was watching him. Elsewhere, a uniformed Josef Stalin held conversation with his old pal Kruschev. Lenin and Gorbachev and Dobrynin stood at the center of small groups. Even old Yeltsin was there, mopping his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. Looking at the mosaic, Chemayev, sick with worry, felt he was being viewed with suspicion not only by his boss, but by these historical personages as well. It wasn’t possible, he thought, that Polutin could know what he was planning; yet everything he’d said indicated that he did know something. Why else all his talk of disappearances, of Larissa and vulnerability? And who was the Irishman with him? A paid assassin. That much was for sure. No other occupation produced that kind of soulless lizard. Chemayev’s heart labored, as if it were pumping something heavier than blood. All his plans, so painstakingly crafted, were falling apart at the moment of success. He touched his money belt, the airline tickets in his suit pocket, half-expecting them to be missing. Finding them in place acted to soothe him. It’s all right, he told himself. Whatever Polutin knew, and perhaps it was nothing, perhaps all his bullshit had been designed to impress his new pet snake… whatever he thought he knew, things had progressed too far for him to pose a real threat.