'I don't know.'
'She's dead.'
Not all the beauty in the world could mask the fact that no light shone in her eyes, no breath stirred at her lips and she had no objection to the fly examining her ear.
'Why are you showing this picture to me?'
'Because she had a VIP pass to the fair.'
'It's possible she's a house dancer. I don't remember her name. They have new dancers here all the time. She's young. Dima, have you seen her?'
The bodyguard peered over Anya's shoulder.
'No. They pay me to watch for troublemakers, not girls.'
'And if you find troublemakers?' Arkady was curious.
Dima opened his jacket enough to afford Arkady a glimpse of a matte-black pistol. 'A Glock. German engineering never fails.'
'I thought no guns were allowed in the club.'
Anya said, 'Only Sasha and the boys. It's his club. He can write the rules any way he wants.'
During an intermission Vaksberg gave a surprisingly heartfelt speech about homeless children. Five to forty thousand lived on the streets of Moscow; there was no accurate count, he said. Most of them were runaways, boys and girls as young as five who preferred life on the street to a household ruined by alcohol, brutality and abuse. Freezing to death in the wintertime. Squatting in abandoned buildings and surviving on petty theft and restaurant scraps. Vaksberg pointed out volunteers with collection baskets. 'Remember, one hundred percent of your donations go to Moscow's invisible children.'
Then the records began spinning again and the relentless beat resumed.
'They didn't hear a word,' Vaksberg said on his return. 'They only know when to clap. I could have been talking to trained seals.'
Anya bestowed a kiss on Vaksberg's cheek. 'That's why I love you, because you're honest.'
'Only around you, Anya. Otherwise, I lie and fabricate as badly as Investigator Renko thinks. I'd be dead if I didn't.'
Arkady asked, 'What is the problem?'
'Sasha has been receiving threats. I mean more than usual.'
'Perhaps he should keep his head down instead of hosting a party with a thousand guests.'
Arkady was not about to feel sorry for a billionaire, even one who looked as exhausted as Vaksberg did. He seemed more and more in shadow, his shoulders weary, his smile forced. He was head of the Vaksberg Group, an international chain of casinos and resorts. It seemed to Arkady that Sasha Vaksberg should have been backed by an army of lawyers, accountants, croupiers and chefs rather than a female journalist, an investigator half out the door, a single bodyguard and a drunken dwarf. This was an historical fall. Vaksberg was one of the last of the first oligarchs. He still had a fortune and connections but every day that his operations were shut down his situation deteriorated. It was written on his face.
The houselights dimmed, and when they returned, the Club Nijinsky dancers were on the runway in braids, denim skirts, bare midriffs, short skirts and long socks. Their eyes were outlined with mascara, freckles and rouge applied almost clownishly to their cheeks. In other words, as child prostitutes.
'Ready?' The tennis star had been asked to do the honors with a simpler script in hand.
The dancers straightened up. They might not have been from the Bolshoi but they knew the basic positions of ballet.
'First position!' the tennis player said.
The first girl stood with her feet set heel to heel and her hands on her waist.
Anya said, 'I remember this. Every little girl goes through a ballet phase. Then ice skating and then sex.'
'Second position!'
The next girl widened her legs and held her arms out at shoulder level.
'Third position!'
The third girl brought her legs together, her right heel ahead of her left. Left arm as before. Right arm lifted in gentle curve overhead.
'Fifth position!'
Legs crossed, left foot touching right instep. Both arms lifted.
Anya asked Vaksberg, 'What happened to the fourth position?'
Some in the crowd assumed the tennis player had made a mistake and yelled, 'We want the fourth position!'
The call was picked up by the crowd; playfully, but also as a taunt, they stomped their feet and shouted in unison, 'We want the fourth! We want the fourth!'
The tennis player burst into tears.
Vaksberg sighed. 'It's Wimbledon all over again. I have to deal with this.'
A spotlight followed Vaksberg to the stage. On the way Arkady watched the transformation from a defeated man to an energized, take-charge Sasha Vaksberg who bounded up the stairs to the stage and took the microphone. The man had stage presence, Arkady thought. The crowd chanted and he faced them down. He smiled them down.
'Do you want to see the fourth?'
'Yes!'
He shook off his jacket and handed it to the tennis player.
'I can't hear you. Do you really want to see the fourth?'
'Yes!'
'What a feeble choir. You are a disgrace to the city of Moscow. For the last time, do you want to see the fourth position?'
'Yes!'
Vaksberg did it deadpan. Right foot pointed out, left foot tucked behind, left hand on the waist and the right arm raised in triumph or grace.
The reaction was shock and delight. Sasha Vaksberg clowning? Hijacking the joke and turning it around until applause started first from the old lions in the upper tiers and then the young crowd on the floor. 'Bravo' s and 'Encore' s broke out.
Arkady said, 'He's a comedian too?'
'He still has a few surprises. When the guests leave the fair tonight, they might talk about a Bugatti for him and a Bulgari for her, but you can be sure that they'll talk about an unworried Sasha Vaksberg.'
'He was lucky he knew what to do.'
'Luck had nothing to do with it.'
That took Arkady a second to decipher.
'You mean it was staged? The entire routine? The tennis player crying? How could he even come up with the idea like that?'
'Because he's Sasha Vaksberg. Let me see the photo again.'
Vaksberg took bows. Anya studied the head shot. Smeared mascara and rouge couldn't hide how beautiful the dead girl was and how unblinking, as if she were watching clouds.
'It's Vera,' Anya said in a rush. 'It's the missing dancer.'
'Vera what?'
'I don't know.'
'You're a reporter. Maybe it's in your notepad.'
'Of course.' Anya flipped through the pad. 'Here it is, a list of Nijinsky dancers, starting with Vera Antonova.' She gave Arkady a second assessment. 'Suddenly you sound like an investigator.'
12
