start. For a brief moment he was slightly disoriented, but the sensation passed immediately. He got up and went over to the window, which looked down on the Bolshoi Theater. People were crowding into the theater, as cabs drew up, dropped off their passengers and went away. The big banner on the facade said giselle, which was one of the more famous ballets performed by the company.
He stood smoking by the window, until the crowds thinned out around 8:00 p.m.” when the performance was scheduled to begin, then took another long shower, shaved, and got dressed in dark slacks, a turtleneck, and black leather jacket.
He switched the television to CNN, turned the volume up, and removed his gun and a spare magazine of ammunition from his laptop computer. The pistol went into a speed draw holster at the small of his back. He pocketed the silencer, and magazine.
At half-past eight he presented himself at the hotel’s main dining room where he had alight buffet supper, and a bottle of reasonably good white wine. He took his time over his coffee and brandy afterwards. The restaurant was barely a third full, but preparations were being made for the after theater crowd, when the dining room would fill up.
McGarvey paid his bill, then retrieved his car from one of the bellmen, who turned out to be Artur’s cousin. He tipped the man well, and was heading through heavy traffic up to the Kazan Station by 10:15 p.m.
It took nearly a half hour to get across town, and Astimovich was leaning against his cab as he watched the people emerging from the railway station. McGarvey powered down the passenger side window and pulled up next to the cabby, who turned around in-surprise, the expression on his face changing from mild irritation to incredulity.
“I’ll follow you to the club,” McGarvey shouted out of the window.
Astimovich looked the Mercedes over with round eyes, like a kid in the candy store. “Is this the deal?”
“Do you think he’ll go for it?”
“Him and every other big deal hot shot in town. I hope you’ve got more of them.”
“A lot more,” McGarvey said.
Astimovich jumped in his cab, and took off, McGarvey right behind him.
The Grand Dinamo club occupied an out-of-the-way corner of the Dinamo Soccer stadium on the way to Frunze Central Airfield. McGarvey had picked up the Russian corporal’s uniform at the flea market set up on the opposite side of the sprawling sports complex. But here the front entrance was brightly lit and security was very tight with armed guards and closed circuit television cameras.
Astimovich pulled his cab off to the side, but McGarvey parked the big Mercedes under-the overhang at the main entrance.
One of the guards saluted, then opened the car door. “Good evening, sir. Are you a member?”
Astimovich ran over. “Not yet. But he’s here to see Yakov. We have an appointment.”
A ferret-faced man came out of the club with a clipboard, as McGarvey got out of the Mercedes. “Are you Pierre Allain?” he asked. He was wearing a tiny lapel mike and an earpiece. “Da,” McGarvey said.
“You’re late. Mr. Ostrovsky is a busy man—”
“Fine, I’ll take my deal elsewhere, you little prick,” McGarvey said, and he started to get back in the car.
“Wait a minute,” Astimovich cried.
McGarvey turned back.
“You’d better tell Yakov that we’re here,” Astimovich told the man with the clipboard. “We’re importing cars. A lot of them.”
The ferret glanced indifferently at the big Mercedes. “Moscow is full of car salesmen, who if they want to make a deal, show up on time.”.
“Fifty thousand deutsch marks McGarvey said.
The ferret chucked. “You’ve come to the wrong place. No one here buys used cars.”
“It was new when I picked it up in Leipzig last week. And I can bring a dozen a month.”
A corpulent man with heavy jowls came out of the club. He wore a silk shirt open at the collar, several heavy gold chains around his thick neck, a gold Rolex on his wrist, and a huge diamond ring on the little finger of his right hand. He looked amused, as if someone had just told him an off-color joke. He sauntered over.
“Yakov,” Astimovich said.
“Good evening, Arkasha,” the heavyset man said. He turned his intelligent eyes to McGarvey. “I’m Yakov Ostrovsky. Did I hear the price correctly? Fifty thousand deutsch marks
“That’s right,” McGarvey said.
Ostrovsky glanced inside the car, then slowly walked around it. “What’s the catch, Monsieur Allain? With import duties, even if you could get this machine at wholesale, you’d have to sell it to me for ninety, perhaps a hundred thousand marks.”
“I don’t buy them at wholesale.”
McGarvey get the car’s paperwork and gave it to the Mafia boss, who handed it to the ferret. “Do you have partners?”
“None who you’ll have to deal with.”
“Where would you deliver these cars?”
“Anywhere in Moscow.”
“For fifty thousand marks, my cost?”
“Fifty-one thousand,” McGarvey said. “I think your brother-in-law deserves a finder’s fee. He’s already been of some assistance to me.”
‘ The documents are legitimate,” the ferret said.” “But it says that you paid nearly ninety thousand including fees.”
“That’s about what you’d expect to pay,” McGarvey said with a faint smirk.
Ostrovsky pursed his lips after a moment, then shrugged. “How would you like to be paid?”
“American hundred-dollar bills.”
“Ah,” Ostrovsky said, smiling broadly now. “Not so easy to counterfeit yet.” He put out his hand. “I think we can do business, Monsieur Allain.”
McGarvey shook hands. “I thought you might say that.”
THIRTY-THREE
McGarvey decided that although his Pierce Allain work name had held up to this point he would leave Russia from St. Petersburg. The search would be concentrated for him in Moscow, and security at the three airports would be too tight for him to take the risk. He had an excited Astimovich drive him up to St. Petersburg in the morning, a distance of 350 miles, where he explained that he had further business. Astimovich was so bedazzled by his good fortune that he, didn ask any questions, though during the seven-hour drive he kept up a running commentary about what he was going to do with twelve thousand marks every month once McGarvey’s business fully developed.
“Goddamn, it’s good to be a businessman just like in the West,” he said.
McGarvey felt a touch of sorrow for the man, because even if the deal had been legitimate he would probably have been cheated out of his finder’s fee by his brother in-law. It wasn’t western business, but it was the new Russian business.
He was passed through passport control at St. Petersburg’s PuIkovo-2 International Airport without trouble, and his Finnair flight touched down at Lidosta International’s too-short main runway, the pilot standing on the brakes all the way to the end, around 10:00 P.M.
He’d repacked his gun inside his laptop, so he encountered no problem with Latvian customs either, though passengers arriving from Russia were given a closer scrutiny than those from the West. His passport and visas were in order, and he was admitted without a search of his single canyon bag.
Taking a cab downtown to the main railway station, McGarvey walked over to his apartment three blocks away, making two passes before he went in. With less than a week to May Day he was starting to get a’little
