stand by. The Nijinsky is my last toehold. They will use any excuse to drive me out, and a scandal about a dead girl would do it.'
'Too bad. I think she was killed.'
'In that case, I want whoever did it.'
'Wouldn't that create a scandal?'
'Not if it's done right, not if it's managed properly.'
'I don't like where this is going,' Anya said.
Vaksberg leaned forward. Close up, he looked tired, skin rough as parchment and beard and brows dyed inky black, an aging devil relying on his makeup. He asked Arkady, 'What are you doing here? You're investigating by yourself? I don't see anyone else.'
'I'm assisting a detective who's following other leads.'
'As an investigator?'
'Yes.'
Vaksberg put it gently. 'I talked to Zurin.'
'Prosecutor Zurin? At this hour?' Arkady had to admit that that possibility had not occurred to him.
'Yes. I apologized for calling him so late but I have never talked to a man more eager to unburden himself. He said that you had no reason to investigate anything because you were under suspension. In fact, he described you as a self-aggrandizing liar with a history of violence. Was Prosecutor Zurin correct? Are you under suspension?'
'Not yet.'
'But soon. Zurin was full of information. Did you ever actually shoot a prosecutor?'
'That was a long time ago.'
'Have you been shot yourself?'
'Years ago.'
'In the brain?'
'In the head.'
'Now, there's a fine distinction. Described by Prosecutor Zurin, you are an unstable, brain-damaged impostor. Practically a rabid dog.'
'Is that what you are?' Anya asked Arkady.
'No.'
Sometimes the sound of the rain was overwhelming, as if a flood bearing houses, trees, cars was at their heels. Dima followed the exchange with his finger on the trigger. Arkady sympathized. People thought that one of the advantages of being fabulously rich was that you could shoot up the soft interior of a bulletproof car-shred the upholstery and soak it in blood-but at close quarters, with the armor and all, ricochets could be fierce.
Arkady said, 'Leave the country until it's safe to come back. You're the head of a worldwide organization. I'm sure you have moved enough money overseas to have a fresh croissant and orange juice every morning.'
'They've confiscated my passport,' Vaksberg said. 'I'm trapped.'
'Never a good sign,' Arkady had to agree.
'I need my passport so that I travel freely and conduct business. Also I insist on being able to return and defend my interests. For that I need intelligent, trustworthy people around me.'
'I'm sure you have candidates by the score.'
'But they're not here and the ones who are here are intimidated. Why do you think we're meeting here and being half drowned? My office is bugged. My car and phones are compromised. I need someone who knows the law but isn't held back by it. In a sense, Zurin gave you the highest possible recommendation. An investigator who killed a prosecutor. My, my.'
Slava steered around a barricade of orange tubs and let the car coast up an unfinished highway overpass, an elegant four-lane curve of concrete that terminated in midair. There were no cement mixers or generators or any other sign of recent activity. The car came to a halt ten meters short of the end of the ramp.
Slava unlocked the doors.
'You want us to get out?' Arkady asked.
Sasha Vaksberg said, 'We have umbrellas. You're not afraid of a little rain, are you?'
Anya said, 'I'm staying here.'
'You will have to forgive me,' Vaksberg told Arkady. 'I'm paranoid, but when you've been betrayed as many times as I have, you will be paranoid too. It's a sixth sense.'
Dima opened an umbrella for Vaksberg as he stepped out of the car. Arkady declined an umbrella and walked up the ramp to a 360-degree view of the city. The lights of the city were as subdued as banked coals. Lightning played in the clouds and it occurred to Arkady that an overpass bristling with steel rebars might not be the safest place to be when great electrical imbalances were being redressed. If he were crisped, he wondered what in life he had left undone. For one thing, he had the key to Victor's Lada. It would fall apart like a wagon in the desert.
Vaksberg tipped his umbrella back to see the rain. 'There is no better place for a confidential conversation than outside in the rain.'
'Conversation about what?'
'You. You're the man I've been looking for. Intelligent, resourceful and with absolutely nothing to lose.'
'That's a harsh assessment.'
'It means you're ready for a change of fortune.'
'No,' Arkady said.
'Wait, you haven't even heard the offer.'
'I don't want to hear the offer. Until tomorrow at least, I'm an investigator.'
Dima joined them, carrying the Glock openly. He asked Vaksberg, 'Is there a problem?'
'No, just a little stubbornness.'
Dima asked Arkady, 'What are you smiling about?'
'You're carrying a gun in a lightning storm. You're a human lightning rod.'
'Go to hell.' Perplexity covered the bodyguard's face.
Arkady wondered whether death would make up for a lifetime of sleep deprivation. As for hell, he suspected that it would turn out to be more like Three Stations than fiery pits of brimstone and sulfur.
Through breaks in the clouds were glimpses of blue predawn haze. The storm beat a last drumroll in retreat.
Anya got out of the car and slammed the door. She didn't look happy with anyone.
Vaksberg called, 'Anya, you missed us.'
She pointed to the trunk.
'This?' Dima pointed at a rope that held the trunk of the Mercedes shut.
Arkady wondered since when did Mercedes use rope to keep their trunks shut?
Dima seemed to have the same question.
As he bent for the rope the trunk popped open and a stowaway sat up in the dark of the lid. At this point bodies moved slowly. The stowaway shot Dima with muzzle flashes one, two, three. Dima tried to return fire and his infallible pistol jammed. Staggering backward, futilely squeezing a trigger that wouldn't give, he absorbed four hits before he dropped.
Slava also had a Glock. The driver's pistol didn't jam and he sprayed the Mercedes until his clip was empty, while the stowaway rolled to the side of the trunk, protected by the car's armor. Just as the idea of retreat seemed to occur to Slava, he went down.
Arkady picked up Dima's pistol. He was not a marksman-his father was an army officer who inspired in Arkady a loathing for guns-but he had grown up stripping and cleaning and generally tending them. A nine- millimeter round stood straight as a smokestack in the feed ramp of the Glock. Arkady cleared it, advanced a fresh round and, because he was a poor shot and the stowaway was hidden in the dark of the trunk, walked directly toward the car. Hurried, the figure in the trunk missed with the last rounds of his rack, strung together some 'Fuck' s trying to reload a clip wrong way 'round, corrected and raised his gun when the sky split open. Facing the lightning, the stowaway blinked. The white light at his back, Arkady fired. The stowaway folded, toppled and dropped onto the ramp.
Arkady found a flashlight in the glove compartment. The shooter was a dwarf between thirty and forty years
