night’s sleep for tomorrow’s matinee. If you haven’t answered my questions — and Yuri plays the same game — you’ll both go to the police station and sit there, handcuffed to chairs, until your memories improve.”
She had the turned-out foot position of a ballet dancer, feet planted firmly on the floor. I held the back of the chair to keep myself balanced as we hurtled forward along the tracks. She dabbed at her eyes and bent her head toward the wall, trying to make out the conversation between Yuri and Mike.
“Did you see Fyodor this week?” I raised my voice a notch.
“I think so.”
“Yes — or no?”
Oksana pouted.
“Sit down.”
“I’m perfectly comfortable, Ms. Cooper.”
She was so much better balanced than I that she was probably counting on me lurching over at the next bump on the tracks.
“I asked you to sit.”
Her fear was morphing into defiance now, like it was the Zukovs against the world. Slowly and with the graceful movements of her art, she pivoted and sat on the edge of her bed.
“Did you know that in the state of Georgia there’s still a death penalty, Oksana?”
I wasn’t sure whether she flinched at that prospect or at the tone of Mike’s voice coming through the wall.
“There are more than a hundred murderers on death row there, most of them likely to be burned to toast in the electric chair.”
There were moments I knew I had spent too much time in Mike Chapman’s company.
She swallowed hard. “Georgia? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Your brother killed a man in Georgia.”
Oksana crossed and then uncrossed her long, slender legs. “That’s absurd.”
“The mayor of New York City is going to hold a press conference any minute now. Your brother’s name and picture will be broadcast all over the country. Armed police officers, trained bloodhounds, and gun-happy vigilantes hungry for reward money will be looking to track him down.”
“I don’t even know what you want him for. I don’t know what he did.”
Every time I thought we would be moving forward, Oksana took a step or two back.
“I guess you haven’t had the TV on for very long, have you? If Fyodor’s still in New York — New Jersey — he’ll have a better chance. You can convince him to turn himself in. He’ll be safer in the long run.”
She tilted her head and stared at me, trying to divine the truth. Meanwhile, Mike was getting nothing from Yuri, as I judged from the noise level next door.
“Did you see him this week?” I asked again.
“Yes. Yes, we saw him.”
“Where, Oksana? What day did you see him and where?”
“Tonight’s Friday, right? It was yesterday. Thursday morning.”
“Where?”
“In Manhattan. Where we were rehearsing, at Madison Square Garden.”
“He called one of you?”
“Yuri told you the truth. We don’t use cell phones.”
“How did Fyodor get into the Garden?”
“He still has his identification card. He knows our practice schedule. He showed up, that’s all I know.”
“How long did you talk with him?”
“I didn’t. Just to say hello. It was Yuri he wanted. For money, for Yuri to give him money.”
“Did Fyodor say what the money was for?”
She hung her head and answered. “No. But it must have been for food. For everything. I don’t know how he’s been living. I’ve been so worried about him.”
“And Yuri gave him cash?”
“Yes. Almost three hundred dollars.”
“But Yuri doesn’t have any pockets, I thought. Where did he get the cash?”
Oksana didn’t like my sarcasm. “His gym bag. Fyodor was in the back row of seats, sort of in the dark. I saw him first. It’s where one of us usually sits to spot the others when we’re on the wire. Yuri went up to talk to him and came back for the money. He only let me say hello for a minute. To ask how he was feeling.”
I tried to sound empathetic, as hard a stretch as that was. Maybe she’d be more forthcoming if I showed interest in her brother’s health condition. “What’s wrong with Fyodor? Why did he have to give up the act?”
“He — he won’t tell me. He’s embarrassed, I think. He’s the first one in the family in more than three generations to cause — well, to have a terrible injury happen to a partner. I thought he was going to kill himself that first night.”
“Is he being treated by doctors?”
Rabbi Levy told us that Naomi talked about meeting a friend — probably Fyodor — at Bellevue, shortly before she was killed. Maybe it was psychiatric treatment that he was undergoing, as we had speculated.
“I don’t think he has any use for doctors. He said they can’t help him.”
“Did he tell Yuri where he was staying?”
“No,” she said, getting weepy again. “If they arrest Fyodor in Georgia, are you sure they could put him to death?”
“I’m sure. A hideously painful death.”
Oksana was biting the inside of her cheek. “But not in New York?”
“Not in New York.”
She was struggling with whether to confide in me, maybe encouraged that the conversation in Yuri’s room sounded like it had taken a more civil turn.
“I don’t know where Fyodor has gone, Ms. Cooper. But he doesn’t have friends in New York. He doesn’t really know people here.”
“That’s very helpful, Oksana. Are there people he trusts somewhere else? People in whom he confides?” Was she telling me that she believed her brother would be on the move to the South?
“It used to be that he told Yuri everything. It used to be they were very close. When you work together like this — when you do what all of us do — you practically have to read the other guy’s mind. It’s instinct and trust. What wasn’t passed on to us by our parents, we learned by spending our whole lives in each other’s hands, literally. But then — the accident changed things.”
“I’m sure it did,” I said, not wanting her to register my impatience. “You know who his friends are? Can you tell me their names and numbers?”
We were deep into southeastern Connecticut. Long, wooded areas bordered the tracks as we steamed toward Rhode Island, engulfing the colorful train in total darkness, broken by an occasional set of lights at the crossings.
“I don’t know their names.”
“You can’t have it both ways, Oksana. I get the feeling you’re wasting my time. I’m going to step out for a few minutes and then—”
“May I come too?”
“No, no. You stay right here.”
“But I’m being honest, Ms. Cooper.”
“Where are these friends, Oksana? Are they in Florida?” I asked, but got no response. “Do something to help your brother. If you don’t care about the missing girl, do something to help Fyodor.”
“I told you it’s not his fault. It’s these guys he got mixed up with after the accident.”
“At home?”
“No, no. In Georgia. At home, in Florida, he’d have had the church. Our priest would have helped him through anything. He was a deeply religious boy, Ms. Cooper. Our whole family is religious.”
“I have great respect for that.”
“It was only his faith,” she said, and I shivered at the thought of Chat’s sister, waiting out this dreadful ordeal
