“Grisha Curtis is gone, we think he’s in Russia, as you probably guessed” she said. “The last we have on him is his buying a ticket. We don’t know if he boarded the plane, but we have to assume it. We have our people in Moscow on it. You always believed he killed Valentina Sverdloff?”
“Yes.”
“But now you’re sure.”
“Yes. He hired a thug to do it who messed up and killed another girl, Masha, and when Grisha saw how he butchered her, he had to kill Valentina himself. He couldn’t stand the idea of Val ending up like Masha, wrapped in duct tape, left in a playground.”
“I got you a visa.”
“Thank you.”
“I assumed you’d want to go.”
“Thanks. I know that Tolya Sverdloff thinks he was poisoned, like Litvinenko, he thinks his daughter was also poisoned. Something is wrong with him, but not this. I need to convince him. This is your subject,” I said. “Help me.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, and I told her about the thug Terenti they’d picked up in New York for Masha Panchuk’s murder. “I’m guessing he beat me up the other night, too.”
“We can’t find him,” she said. “It’s a bloody can of worms.”
“Yes.”
Handing me an envelope, she said, “Your visa. This should get you out of here and into Moscow.”
“You knew?”
“I knew you’d try to go, and if you have to go to Moscow, and I know you will, do at least pretend you’re an American tourist with an interest in Russian culture. When you get there, use a different name, at least for a bit, try to stay safe,” said Fiona, putting her hand on my shoulder. “These days I can’t help you over there, Artie. We Brits are not in good odor. If there’s trouble in Georgia, which is what I’m hearing from the chatter, they won’t be in love with Americans, either,” she said. “I wish to God you wouldn’t go at all, but you will, and this is the best I can do for you this end.”
“You’ll let me know what you find out?”
“If I can.”
“In that case, lunch when I get back,” I said. “I’ll bring the wine. I like your hat.”
“I got it in Israel,” she said. “Did you know there are an awful lot of Russians there now, Tel Aviv’s a bit like a Russian colony by the sea. No matter, I’m glad you like my hat. And, Artie?”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t for God’s sake take the bloody gun with you. And don’t try buying one in Moscow.”
“You have me pegged as some kind of gunslinger, or what? You think I’m Dirty Harry?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
I thought about it. I had never liked guns, but all the years I’d been a cop, they had become a kind of body part.
“I hear you,” I said. “And I don’t love guns.”
Her mouth turned up in a smile.
“I wouldn’t blame you, considering the scum we’re dealing with, but it’s about your safety. If you’re caught with a weapon in Moscow, they won’t be nearly as nice as I am,” said Fiona. “You were wondering, I imagine, what my relationship is with Larry Sverdloff?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“Good,” she said. “Don’t think about it. He’s helped me, leave it at that,” she said, and suddenly I felt just a flicker of jealousy.
“What else?” I said, getting up from the bench. As Fiona got up, too, I realized she was as tall as me.
“Don’t pick your toes in Pushkin Square,” she added, and we both laughed and exchanged banter about our favorite old movies, especially comedies.
“God, don’t you wish life was like that?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “More comedy would be great.”
For a few more minutes we chatted about movies, and the weather, and her daughter, unwilling to part, sensing it could be our last conversation.
Fiona adjusted her straw hat so it shaded the gray eyes, pushed her thick dark hair away from her face, and said, “I can get you to Russia, but please try to make yourself invisible, they’ll be watching you.”
“Who?”
“In Moscow? Everyone.”
PART FIVE.MOSCOW
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
As soon as I’d put my bag in the overhead luggage rack and sat down on the airport bus into Moscow, a gang of teenagers in pink t-shirts crowded around me, like something out of Lord of the Flies, except that they were pretty girls, nice girls, who wanted only to recount the great time they’d had at camp near Sochi on the Black Sea.
The little girls swarmed me. Giggling, chattering, clutching their backpacks and books and fashion magazines, they flopped onto the remaining free seats near me in the back. The little ones, who looked about eight or nine, had sticky faces from the candy they were cramming into their mouths, and it was smeared on their dolls and stuffed animals, including an immense white plush bear. I helped its owner stash it in the overhead rack.
The older girls, thirteen, fourteen, kept track of the younger children; acting as chaperones they made sure the little ones were in their seats, then the teenagers sat and began to gossip to each other. At first a few complained about taking the regular airport bus. The plane had been late. The private bus intended for them had not appeared.
All of them wore the candy pink t-shirts that read I ♥ Putin, except for one whose logo read IF NOT HIM, WHO? Medvedev had been president for two months, one girl said, but everyone knew that Putin was the man who mattered.
The girl closest to me-she was about fourteen-looked at me with interest and asked me in Russian where I was from, In English, I said that I didn’t speak the language.
“You are from where, sir?” she said in English, and told me her name was Kim. I said New York City, and she grinned and looked excited and tapped her pal on the shoulder and told her that New York was wonderful and not at all like the rest of America, and the shopping downtown, Broadway, the things you can get, the designer bags, the shoes at Steve Madden, and the cute boys! She had been with her aunt twice, and, oh, New York, she said again, gabbling, running her words together, excited, practically jumping up and down.
Kim, the leader, the spokeswoman for the gang of girls, took charge. Camp had been fun, they said, with Kim as a translator. She explained that at camp they swam in the sea and camped under the stars, they had athletics, games, dramatics- she had been the star of an entire play they’d written and produced by themselves.
So many kids were going to camp these days, she noted, and the girls giggled when she described the Love Tents at a place on Lake Seliger. More for poor young people, of course, said Kim. At the Love Tents, she said again, older teenagers were encouraged to make babies for the fatherland.
The girls giggled some more.
I want four children, said one girl.
Suddenly, all the girls were talking at the same time. I pretended not to understand anything, waiting until Kim translated. The talk was of boys.
I would marry Vladimir Vladimirovich, said one of the girls, I would like this type of man we have for our leader. I would like one similar to him for a husband.
“You admire Mr Putin, sir?” said Kim, the English-speaker. “It is right word, admire?”
I didn’t answer right away, and another girl said in Russian, “He is American. He does not understand.” Nobody translated this. “Americans think they run the world, they think we are just a dumb old-fashioned country.”
I ignored her, pretending I couldn’t understand, and said I was a tourist and a travel writer. I was in Moscow to see the sights, the Kremlin, the museums, the churches.
I asked for their advice; they told me about Novodevichy, the convent and the cemetery, they mentioned Gorky Park, the museums, too, and the metro. The subway, said Kim, translating, was the most beautiful in the world. And the best ice cream, of course.
I listened. I thought about Grisha Curtis. I had come to Moscow to hunt him down. I knew Tolya would already be on his trail, and I had to get there first.