"The deputy curator at the Hermitage, Boris Kristenko. He's into me for a bit of money. A gambling debt that he can't seem to shake. He'll play along."
"Are you sure?"
"We just need to squeeze him."
"Nobody gets hurt," Tom warned.
"Do you want the information or not?"
"Not like that."
"I'm just talking about applying a little pressure."
"What sort of pressure?" Tom asked warily.
"The sort which is most effective in getting people to cooperate. Fear and greed."
"The fear being that he has to pay you back or face the consequences?"
"And the greed being that, if he helps us, I'll pay him for his trouble. Fifty thousand should do the trick."
Tom nodded his agreement. "How come you didn't mention this last night?"
"Because last night we'd just met. Now, we're old friends." She smiled. "Besides, last night, you hadn't mentioned the Amber Room."
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
It was a short drive to Greshniki, or Sinners, a four-story gay club on the Griboyedova Canal. According to Viktor's informants, Kristenko was in the habit of stopping by for a drink here on his way home.
The club opened at six. Though posters at the door promised all-night male striptease, it really got going only after ten. Then the naked dancers would mix with the crowd, handing out paint and brushes, and offering their bodies as a canvas. Telephone numbers were the most commonly drawn items.
The place was still quiet when Tom and Viktor made their way up to the first-floor bar to wait for Kristenko. She ordered a bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, then filled them both to the brim.
"Nazdorovje" she said, clinking glasses with him. No sooner had she downed the shot than she poured herself another. Tom did the same.
The room was deserted as they sat together in silence, waiting. Looking around, Tom saw that everything from the carpet to the walls, ceiling, and furniture was black. The only color came from a UV light, hidden behind the shelves where the spirits were displayed, so that it shone purple through the different colored liquids each bottle contained.
Viktor's voice suddenly broke into Tom's thoughts. "Who's Harry?"
"What?" Tom's voice registered his surprise at this unexpected question. Did Viktor know Renwick?
"Harry. When I looked in on you last night, you were talking in your sleep. Something about Harry. You seemed angry."
"He's someone I used to know," Tom said dismissively, not wanting to relive whatever it was he had been dreaming about. "He's no one."
There was a long silence.
"You know, I think maybe we're alike, you and me."
The memory of how she had executed the waiter surfaced in Tom's mind, prompting an immediate and forceful response. "I don't think so."
"I'm not so sure," she said.
A pause.
"Why do you say that?" he asked.
"You're angry, like me. I can see it in your eyes. I heard it in your voice when you were dreaming."
"Am I?" Another pause. "Angry about what?"
She shrugged. "I'd say you've been hurt. A betrayal, perhaps. Someone you thought you could trust. Now you've lost the ability to care about most things, most people — but yourself, especially. You're bitter. Every day is a struggle. You hate yourself without knowing why. You live inside yourself."
"Once maybe," Tom said slowly, surprised at her intuition. "But less so now. Since I stopped."
"You can't suddenly change who you are."
"Are you talking about me or you?"
"I know why I hate myself." She seemed not to have heard him. "I've become like Viktor. Become the very thing that I once despised. The irony is that I'm trapped. I'm even more of a prisoner now than I was when he was alive. At the first sign of weakness, someone will make a move against me and I'll be the one they fish out of the Neva. And nobody will care."
Tom thought back to the leopard skin and the chandeliers and the black ceilings of her house and wondered whether she had thought that, like some sort of primitive headhunting tribe, she would somehow absorb Viktor's strength and ruthlessness if she kept his name and his home. To some degree the totem had clearly worked, protecting her vulnerability. But for the first time he sensed that this second skin was only an imperfect fit for her slender shoulders.
"What did you expect?" Tom ventured. "That you could run this sort of operation and have a normal life?" She smiled ruefully. "The choices that we make have consequences. I should know — I've made some bad decisions, and suffered for them. But you can always get out. I used to think that you couldn't, but you can. It's never too late."
"It's not that easy," she said with a shake of her head. "They'd never let me go."
"Then don't tell them."
"I've saved enough money to live several lives. I could leave tomorrow. But how do you know when it's the right time?"
"You just know," said Tom. A pause.
"You know, I'm only telling you this because you saved my life yesterday." There was a shift in her tone, as if she felt the need to justify this rare moment of honesty.
"I was saving myself and my friends too."
"In the car, maybe. But up there on the bridge? You could have let me fall. No one would have known."
"I would have known," Tom said. "That's not who I am."
Another pause.
"By the way, it's Katya."
"What is?"
"My name. Katya Nikolaevna. That's who I am." She held out her hand. Taking it in his, Tom kissed it theatrically. She laughed and snatched it away from his lips. "You should do that more often," he said.
"What?"
"Laugh."
Her face fell immediately, and Tom sensed that she was even now wishing she hadn't let her guard down quite so far.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Kristenko walked in a few moments later, a slight, wiry man with steel glasses that magnified his large brown eyes, giving them a look of perpetual surprise. He looked to be in his late thirties, and had clearly tried to disguise the thinning of his fine blond hair by brushing it across his head, although here and there his scalp showed through. He wore a ratty old tweed jacket over a creased polyester shirt, and his shoes looked in need of a polish. Tom guessed that he lived alone.
The curator didn't look the violent type, yet his left eye was yellow and puffy, his top lip split on one side. Tom flashed Viktor a reproachful glance, but she responded with a shrug as if to say she had no idea how he'd received his bruises. Somehow, Tom doubted that.
Kristenko ordered a beer and a vodka, downing the shot immediately and chasing it down with a mouthful of Russian lager. The combination seemed to calm his nerves. He sighed, sat on a bar stool, and nodded slowly to himself before looking along the bar in their direction. "Zdravstvuite," he greeted Tom.
"Zdravstvuite, Boris Ivanovich," Viktor replied coldly, stepping between the two men.
Kristenko's eyes narrowed with confusion as she said his name, trying to place her face.
"You don't know who I am, do you?" she asked. He shook his head dumbly. "They call me Viktor."
At the name, Kristenko's face fell and he glanced desperately around, giving the barman a pleading look. Viktor snapped her fingers and jerked her head toward the door. The barman, who had been slicing lemons, laid down his knife and silently backed out of the room. Kristenko, all color drained from his face, looked as if he was going to be sick.