“I think it’s him,” she said.
“So do I. The images are from the Immigration cameras at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport eight days ago.”
Why would he fly into Texas, Soraya wondered, rather than New York or LA?
“He came in on a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris under the name Stanley Kowalski.”
“You’re joking,” Soraya said.
“I kid you not.”
The man definitely had a sense of humor.
LEONID ARKADIN WATCHED with slitted eyes as the battered dirt-brown convertible came bouncing along the road that led to the wharf. The sun was a bloody flag on the horizon; it had been another scorching day.
Fitting the binoculars to his eyes, he watched Boris Karpov park the car, get out, and stretch his legs. With the top down and no trunk to speak of, the colonel had no choice but to come alone. Karpov looked around, for a moment looked right where Arkadin lay stretched out, before his eyes moved on without seeing him. Arkadin was perfectly camouflaged on the corrugated tin roof of a fish shed, peering out from the space below the hand-painted sign that said, BODEGA-PESCADO FRESCO A DIARIO.
Flies buzzed busily, the stink of fish enveloped him like a noxious cloud, and the heat of the day, stored up by the tin, burned into his belly, knees, and elbows like a furnace floor, but none of these distractions interfered with his surveillance.
He watched as Karpov lined up for the sunset cruise, paid his fare, and climbed on board the schooner that daily took to the Sea of Cortés. Aside from the crew of grizzled Mexicans and sailors, Karpov was the oldest man on board by a good thirty years. A fish out of water was the only way to describe him, standing on the deck amid the partying bikini-clad girls and their drunken, hormonal escorts. The more uncomfortable the colonel was, the better Arkadin liked it.
Ten minutes after the schooner cast off and set sail, he climbed off the fish shack and strolled down to the wharf, where the cigarette-a long, sleek, fiberglass boat that was, basically, all engine-was docked. El Heraldo-God knew where the Sonoran man got that name-was waiting to help him cast off.
“Everything’s all set, boss, just like you wanted.”
Arkadin smiled at the Mexican and clamped a powerful hand on his shoulder. “What would I do without you, my friend?” He slipped El Heraldo twenty American dollars.
El Heraldo, a small, barrel-chested man with an old salt’s wide, bandy-legged stance, grinned hugely as Arkadin climbed into the cigarette. Finding the pre-stocked ice chest, he opened it, dug down deep, and stowed an item he’d packed inside a waterproof zip-lock bag. Then he went to the wheel. A long, deep, phlegmy growl rolled up through the water at the stern, along with a blue drift of smoke from the marine fuel as he started the engines. El Heraldo cast off the lines fore and aft, and waved to Arkadin who steered the boat clear of the docks, threading through the buoys that marked the brief channel. Ahead lay the deep water, where the warm colors of the setting sun stippled the cobalt-blue waves.
The waves were so small, they could have been in a river. Like the Neva, Arkadin thought. His mind returned to the past, to St. Petersburg at sunset, a velvet sky overhead, ice in the river, when he and Tracy sat facing each other at a window table at the Doma, overlooking the water. Apart from the Hermitage, the embankment was dominated by buildings with ornate facades that reminded him of Venetian palazzos, untouched by Stalin or his communist successors. Even the Admiralty was beautiful, with none of the brutalist military architecture found in similar buildings festering in other large Russian cities.
Over blini and caviar she talked about the exhibits at the Hermitage, whose history he absorbed completely. He found it amusing that not far away on the bottom of the Neva lay the corpse of the politician, wrapped and tied like a sack of rotten potatoes, weighed down with bars of lead. The river was as peaceful as ever, lights from the monuments dancing on its surface, hiding the murky darkness beneath. He wondered briefly if there were fish in the river and, if so, what they’d make of the grisly package he’d delivered into their world earlier that day.
Over dessert she said, “I have something to ask you.”
He had looked at her expectantly.
She hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed or whether to go on at all. At length, she took a sip of water and said, “This isn’t easy for me, though, oddly, the fact that we hardly know each other makes it a bit easier.”
“It’s often easier to talk to people we’ve just met.”
She nodded, but she was pale and the words seemed to have gotten stuck in her throat. “It’s a favor, really.”
Arkadin had been waiting for this. “If I can help you, I will. What sort of favor?”
Out on the Neva a long sightseeing boat plowed slowly by, its spotlights illuminating great swaths of the river and the buildings on either embankment. They might have been in Paris, a city in which Arkadin had managed to lose himself many times, if only for a short time.
“I need help,” she said in a lost little voice that caused him to put his elbows on the table and lean toward her. “The kind of help your friend-what did you say his name was?”
“Oserov.”
“That’s right. I’ve always been good at summing people up very quickly. Your friend Oserov strikes me as the kind of man I need, am I right?”
“What kind of man is that?” Arkadin said, wondering what she was getting at and why this normally articulate woman was now having such a hard time finding the words she needed.
“Disposable.”
Arkadin laughed. She was a woman after his own mind. “What do you need him for, exactly.”
“I’d rather tell him personally.”
“The man hates your guts, so you’re better off telling me first.”
She looked out at the river and the opposite bank for a moment, then turned back to him. “All right.” She took a deep breath. “My brother’s in trouble-serious trouble. I need to find some way-some permanent way-of extricating him.”
Was her brother some sort of criminal? “So the police won’t find out, I’m guessing.”
She laughed without any humor. “I wish I could go to the police with this. Unfortunately, I can’t.”
Arkadin hunched his shoulders. “What’s he gotten into?”
“He’s in over his head with a loan shark-he’s got a gambling problem. I gave him some money to help him out but he just blew through that and when he came up short yet again, he stole a piece of artwork I was delivering to one of my clients. I’ve mollified the client, thank God, but if it ever came out I’d be finished.”
“I imagine it gets worse from here.”
She nodded woefully. “He went to the wrong people to fence it, got a third of what he should have gotten, an amount that wasn’t nearly enough. Now, unless something drastic is done, the lender will have him killed.”
“This lender, he’s powerful enough to make that happen?”
“Oh, yes.”
“All the better.” Arkadin smiled. He thought helping her would be fun, but also, like a chess player, he could already see how he could bring her into checkmate. “I’ll take care of it.”
“All I want you to do,” she said, “is introduce me to Oserov.”
“I’ve just told you, you don’t need him. I’ll do this favor for you.”
No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you involved.”
He spread his hands. “I already am involved.”
“I don’t want you involved any deeper than you are.” The low lamplight fell across her as if they were in an intimate scene in a play, as if she were about to say the things that would make the audience gasp after holding its collective breath. “And as for Oserov, unless I’ve mistaken him, he likes money more than he hates me.”