'Yevgeny,' Logan said, 'it's been a hell of a long day. Go away.'
'Hey, I can dig it. I'm gone.' He started to move away and then turned back, to lean over the table again. 'One other thing. You guys know where there's some big tigers, right? If you ever need to make some quick money, I know where you can get a hell of a good price for a clean skin--'
Logan started to stand up. 'Okay, okay.' Yevgeny held up both hands and began backing away. 'Be cool, man. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.'
'Yeah,' Logan muttered as he disappeared into the crowd. 'Just start turning over rocks… hand me the bottle, Misha, I need another one now.'
'Wonder what he wanted,' Misha mused. 'As far as I know, his main business is running Chinese illegals. You suppose he's branched out into drugs or something?'
'Doesn't matter.' Logan finished pouring and looked around for the cap to the vodka bottle. 'I don't even want to know… well, this has to be my last one. Have to deal with Steen tomorrow,' he said, screwing the cap down tightly, 'and I definitely don't want to do that with a hangover.' **** But Steen didn't show up the following morning.
'He hasn't been here,' Lida Shaposhnikova told Logan when he came in. 'I came in early, about eight-thirty, so I could have his account ready, and he never showed up.'
Logan checked his watch. 'It's not even ten yet. He probably slept late or something. We'll wait.'
The office occupied the front room of a run-down little frame house on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, not far from the airport. The office staff consisted entirely of Lida. The back rooms were mostly full of outdoor gear and supplies--camping kit, camouflage fabric for blinds, night-vision equipment, and so on--and various mysterious components with which Misha somehow managed to keep the old helicopter flying. The kitchen was still a kitchen. Logan went back and poured himself a cup of coffee and took it to his desk and sat down to wait, while Lida returned to whatever she was doing on her computer.
But a couple of hours later, with noon approaching and still no sign of Steen, Logan said, 'Maybe you should give him a call. Ask him when he's planning to come.'
He got up and walked out onto the front porch for a bit of fresh air. When he went back inside, Lida said, 'I phoned his hotel. He checked out this morning at nine.'
'Shit. You better call--'
'I already did.' Lida leaned back in her chair and looked at him with dark oblong eyes, a legacy from her Korean grandmother. 'He left on the morning flight to Novosibirsk.'
'Son of a bitch,' Logan said in English.
'So it would seem,' Lida said in the same language.
'Well.' Logan rubbed his chin. 'Well, go ahead and figure up his bill and charge him. You've already got his credit card number, from when he paid his deposit.'
Lida nodded and turned to the computer. A few minutes later she muttered something under her breath and began tapping keys rapidly, as the front door opened and Misha came in.
' Sukin syn,' he said when Logan told him what was going on. 'He's run out on us?'
'It's all right,' Logan said. He nodded toward the front desk, where Lida was now talking to someone on the phone. 'We'll just charge it to his credit--'
'No we won't.' Lida put down the phone and turned around. 'The credit card's no good. He's canceled it.'
'He can do that?' Misha said. 'Just like that?'
'He did it yesterday,' Lida said. 'He paid his bill at the hotel with a check.'
Everyone said bad words in several languages. Misha said, 'He can't get away with that, can he?'
'Legally, no. In the real world--' Logan shrugged heavily. 'He's got to be connected. You know how hard it is to do anything to someone who's connected. We can try, but I don't think much of our chances.'
'At the very best,' Lida said, 'it's going to take a long time. Which we don't have.' She waved a hand at the computer. 'I've been looking at the numbers. They're not good.'
'Got some more costs coming up, too,' Misha put in. 'We're overdue on our fuel bill at the airport, and the inspector wants to know why he hasn't gotten his annual present yet. I was just coming to tell you.'
'Hell.' Logan felt like kicking something. Or someone. 'I was counting on that money to get us off the hook. Well, I'll just have to get busy and find us another job.'
There was a short silence. Logan and Misha looked at each other.
Misha said, 'We could--'
'No we couldn't,' Logan said.
But of course they were going to. **** Yevgeny said, 'Like I tried to tell you before, it's not Chinks. I mean, it's Chinamen, but it's not your regular coolies coming north looking for work and a square meal. These are high-class Chinamen, you know? Some kind of suits. The kind you don't just cram into the back of a truck behind a load of potatoes.'
'Sounds political,' Logan said. 'No way in hell, if it is.'
'No, no, nothing like that. This is--' Yevgeny hunched his bony shoulders. 'I'll be straight with you guys, I don't really know what the fuck it's all about, but it can't be political. The people who want it done, that's just not their thing.'
Which meant mafia, which meant Yevgeny was blowing a certain amount of smoke, because in Russia nowadays the concepts of mafia and political were not separable. This was starting to feel even worse.
Misha said, 'I'll tell you right now, I'm not flying into Chinese airspace. Money's no good to a man with a heat- seeking missile up his ass.'
'That's okay. See, there's this island in the river--'
'The Ussuri?' Logan said skeptically. The Ussuri islands were military and heavily fortified; there had been some border incidents with the Chinese.
'No, man, the Amur. Way to hell west of here, I'll show you on the map, they gave me the coordinates and everything. It's just a little island, not much more than a big sandbar. On the Russian side of the channel, but nobody gives a shit either way, there's nothing much around there, not even any real roads.'
His fingers made diagrams on the tabletop. 'You guys set down there, there'll be a boat from the Chinese side. Five Chinamen get out, you pick them up and you're outta there. You drop them off at this point on the main highway, out in the middle of nowhere. There'll be some people waiting.'
'Sounds like they've got this all worked out,' Logan said. 'So why do they need us? I'd expect people like that to have their own aircraft.'
'They did. They had this chopper lined up for the job, only the pilot made some kind of mistake on the way here and spread himself all over this field near Blagoveshchensk. So they got hold of me and asked could I line up somebody local.'
'Yevgeny,' Logan said, 'if this goes wrong you better hope I don't make it back, because I'm going to be looking for you.'
'If this goes wrong, you won't be the only one. These people,' Yevgeny said very seriously, 'they're not people you want to fuck with. Know what I'm saying?' **** Lida said, 'I wish I knew what you're getting mixed up in. Or perhaps I don't. It doesn't matter. You're not going to tell me, are you?'
'Mhmph,' Logan replied, or sounds to that effect. His face was partly buried in his pillow. He was about half asleep and trying to do something about the other half if only Lida would quit talking.
'I talk with Katya, you know,' she went on. 'We've known each other for years. She's seen you with Yevgeny Lavrushin.'
Logan rolled onto his back, looking up into the darkness of the bedroom. 'It's nothing. Just a quick little flying job.'
'Of course. A quick little flying job for which you will be paid enough to get the company out of debt. You can't help being a fool,' she said, 'but I wish you wouldn't take me for one.'
She moved closer and put out a hand to stroke his chest. 'Look at us. You need me more than you love me. I love you more than I need you. Somehow it works out,' she said. 'I'm not complaining. Only don't lie to me.'
There was nothing to say to that.
'So,' she said, 'at least tell me when this is to happen.'
'Tomorrow night. Wha--' he said as her hand moved lower.
'Then I'd better get some use out of you,' she said, 'before you get yourself killed or imprisoned.'
