At the apartment, I climbed the stairs, changed my sweat-soaked clothes, and took the rest of Larry Sverdloff’s cash out of my bag. Then I packed. I put Grisha Curtis’ files and my clothes in the suitcase. While I was checking my phones, messages, texts, e-mails, I heard somebody pounding at the door.
When I opened the door, I saw Igor, the caretaker, with a package in his arms.
“Yes?”
He hesitated as if working out what to say to me.
“Look.”
I took the package and peeled back some of the newspaper. It was a tangle of old bones.
Taking my arm, Igor made me follow him down the stairs into the ground-floor apartment. Half of the walls were covered with marble slabs, the rest was empty and unfinished. Empty cups stained with tea littered the floor.
In the bathroom floor was a hole. It had been covered up with linoleum, and worn, turd-colored Soviet carpet, both now pushed aside in a heap. Igor pointed to the hole in the ground.
“Somebody died here,” he said. “This is interesting for a historian like yourself?”
“Travel writer,” I said, and turned to go back up to the apartment. But Igor wasn’t finished and he followed me doggedly. He pointed to the bones.
Maybe it was the tension that made me start to laugh. I couldn’t stop. Sitting on a toilet floor in Moscow beside a Russian named Igor who had produced some old bones like an offering. What else could I do except laugh? He looked at me like I was crazy.
“You think this is funny, the bones of the dead?” and crossed himself three or four times, and I pretended not to understand.
“No, not funny, never mind. What do you want?” I knew this Igor had an agenda.
Did he want some money? Did he think the bones valuable? Did he plan to call the cops and accuse me of – what? Tell somebody a weird American was occupying the top floor flat? He told me he was afraid of the bones; he said that old bones could bring terrible curses on people who did not bury them properly and asked if I would wrap them up again and find suitable burial ground.
I pushed some bills into his hand because I wanted to get rid of him. He smiled a lot now and offered me a smoke. He didn’t leave though.
“Right, what else?” I said, and gave him more money.
“Somebody comes to see you!” he said. “Young guy, black hair, you know this guy?”
“What was his name?”
Igor was silent, but I knew it was Grisha Curtis. I told Igor to get lost, and he went back down the stairs. The bones, which I saw were from a butcher shop, I put in a closet. It didn’t mean anything. It was just Igor wanting money, wanting to stall and bargain before he told me about Grisha coming by.
Grisha Curtis had been here. He knew the apartment where I was staying. I started figuring how to bait Grisha Curtis, how to get him to visit me again.
He knew I was in Moscow. He knew where I was living.
Had it been a set-up? Was it the manager at Tolya’s club? Willie Moffat?
I didn’t care. I wanted Grisha here. I wanted him at the door. I wanted him to hunt me down in Moscow, in a bar, a restaurant, on the street. No more disguises, I thought. I’d show myself everywhere, I wanted him to see me, find me, get in my face.
When I saw Curtis, when I looked at him, I’d know if he had killed Valentina.
I couldn’t wait. I figured the best way was to show myself around, try to flush him out, draw attention, get him to come for me. Come on, I thought. Come get me!
I put on my best clean shirt and the expensive shoes from London. Gun in my pocket, I went over again to Pravda222, this time as Artie Cohen.
Come on, I thought again. I’m waiting.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
At the front door of Pravda222, I asked if Konstantin was on. He wasn’t. I asked if Sverdloff was in, and made sure the girl at the front desk knew he was my pal. Over the sound system, Frank Sinatra was singing “Come Fly With Me”, in that voice that crackled with so much sexual vanity.
I knew that nearby, in the shadows of the fancy apartment buildings, there would be plenty of security. Moscow was full of big men with weapons under their jackets, who knew how to make themselves invisible, at least to tourists.
The girl at the desk, long legs, polished skin, pearly teeth, picked up the phone, smiled at me, considered the condition of her long fingernails and rings, and then smiled again, more fulsomely this time, and led me inside.
Late at night, Pravda222 was a different scene. The girls and boys who served drinks were dressed up in skinny suits by some local designer, tight jackets, narrow pants. The new Russians understood style, they had been told this endlessly by Western fashion writers. It made them preen.
“What’s your name?” said a girl at the bar in perfect New York English. “Where are you from?”
“Can I buy you a drink?” I said.
“Sure.”
We exchanged bullshit conversation about stuff, movies, food. The girl next to me showed me her red crocodile Hermès bag, a Birkin, she said, stroking it lightly.
“These are the little gods of Moscow,” she said, and told me she had waited five years for it. She made me look at it as if it were a rare work of art. Together we inspected the skin.
She was a talkative girl. I thought she might have more to say, something I could use. I bought her a drink, I asked if I could buy her another drink and let her know I knew Tolya Sverdloff.
“Do you know this place well?” I said.
“Of course,” she said.
“Do you know the owner?”
“Tolya Sverdloff? I wish,” she said.
She stroked her bag like a pet. The club filled up. The girl with the bag spotted a good-looking man in a good-looking suit and lost interest in me and tripped away in his direction.
Rich Russians read all the magazines-I’d seen them in the bookstores-and they knew what to do. They looked good, even if they seemed to be in costume. The men wore linen shirts, sleeves rolled up casually, jeans, pale leather Prada loafers, no socks.
I moved to a table in the corner, back to the wall, ordered ginger ale and a salad. The couple next to me on the dark soft leather banquette were Brits and they wanted attention, they wanted to get in on things, they had heard me speak Russian to the waiter, they had seen the girl with the pearly fingernails treat me like a big shot, they wanted a piece.
“That looks rather good, actually,” said the woman, peering at my salad.
“Smoked eel,” I said politely.
“Yum,” she said, and went on chattering, telling me an oligarch, a friend, a Russian friend, very dear, such a lovely man, not at all just about money, always helping people, had rung ahead to say they would be made welcome at the club, at Pravda222, which was the only place worth going in Moscow he had said, their own private oligarch. Just really philanthropic, they had seen him at the White Nights Ball the other week. They had seen him in St Tropez.
Nice, I said, and continued eating.
“You are?” said the woman, who was wearing tight white jeans and a strapless top.
I told them my name was Art.
“From the States?” she said.
“New York.”
“Oh, great, brilliant,” she said. “We absolutely adore New York, don’t we, darling? I’m Dee, everyone calls me Dee, of course, and this grumpy old man is Martin, my husband.” She put out her hand and touched his shirt.
The husband, Martin, who was not interested, nodded. He was drinking cognac steadily, glancing at me, looking pissed off while I talked to Dee.
The noise rose. The music played. The crowds swirled around as if it were a party at somebody’s house, nobody staying in one seat at one table, but moving around, greeting, kissing, joking.