The old men looked at Sasha's bloody face, saw the gun in his hand, and hurried on.
Emil Karpo was definitely not good for business at the Billy Joel. It wasn't that business was brisk in the afternoon. On the contrary, most of the tables were empty, and the music was provided by unpaid groups trying out in the hope of a paid nighttime engagement.
Yuri Blin, whose real name was Yuri Tripanskoski, tried to pay no attention to the ghostly figure in black who sat unblinking at a small table near the far wall, watching him. Yuri, who was only twenty-eight but whose great bulk disguised his age, watched the Busted Revolution perform on the slightly raised platform that served as the Billy Joel stage.
Yuri was just developing the proper posture of an overweight, triple-chinned rock impresario. He developed it from watching tapes of American and British gangster movies. The tapes were copies from Finnish television that he bought at 150 American dollars each. Two years ago, Yuri Tripanskoski had been a third-rate black marketeer, a fartsovschchiki, dealing in anything he could get his hands on, from Hong Kong cigarette lighters with naked Oriental women painted on them to low-quality duplications of American rock recordings. He had made a poor living and worked much harder than a criminal should have to work. After all, what was the point in engaging in crime if you had to work just as hard and earn just as little as a peasant? But Yuri did what he did. He knew he could not stop.
He had come to Moscow from the Byelorussian town of Gantsevichi, where his father worked on a collective farm. For the first twenty-four years of his life, the greatest excitement he had was a trip to Minsk for a regional party to honor the productivity of the collective on which his father worked. It was during that party, with its tables of food no better than what he got at home, that Yuri decided to change his name and move to Moscow. It took every ruble he had saved and the four hundred he stole from his parents to pay the necessary bribes to get the papers from the local Communist party headquarters.
And in just four years Yuri Blin had moved from petty black marketeer to owner of one of the most popular clubs in Moscow. He was so successful that from time to time he even considered returning the money he had stolen from his parents.
Yuri always wore dark suits and conservative imitation British school ties. He liked to think that he looked like a French businessman.
Perhaps the pale creature in the corner was after a bribe? The threat would come, and Yuri would have to decide. He was already paying bribes to two different groups, the ones in jeans, who called themselves the Mafia, and to the police, who ambled in from time to time in their gray uniforms and red-trimmed caps, playing with their nightsticks.
Yuri could handle them. He had seen Sydney Greenstreet, Francis L. Sullivan, Dan Seymour, Thomas Gomez, Peter Lorre-especially Peter Lorre-handle all of them.
Yuri sat at his table, the table of honor, flanked by Buster and Buddy and watched the Busted Revolution. Yuri had named Buster and Buddy. Their real names were of no concern. They were chosen less for their abilities than their looks.
Yuri had cast them carefully. Both men were in their early thirties, and both looked dangerous. Buster was enormous, dark, with a broken nose, hair greased back. Buddy was wiry, albino, with a mean, nervous look. Buster and Buddy wore suits just like Yuri's, but their ties were yellow, with little blue circles.
Buster, Buddy, and Yuri were impressive, but the Busted Revolution was not.
The lead singer of the Busted Revolution was a thin boy with long, stringy hair.
He wore cutoff jeans and a leather vest and kept losing control of the song he performed, a song he seemed to be creating as he went along. It had started as a version of one of the songs from the Kino album Night but had deteriorated into this mess. The backup guitar and the drummer, who wore the same costume as the lead singer, tried to keep up with the lead, but they had neither the talent nor the enthusiasm for it.
Yuri had let them go on too long. The four or five other customers in the place didn't care much. They were treating the Busted Revolution as a joke, but Yuri didn't want them to think he was taking the group seriously. He had only let them go on as long as they had because he did not wish to deal with the pale man in black, though he knew he would have to do so. This was not a regular customer. This was not trade off the street. This was a man with a purpose, and Yuri was in no hurry to discover that purpose, whether bribe or business.
But there was no help for it. The lead singer, who screamed on about perestroika, his girlfriend, and Iraq, had strayed into a falsetto that was beyond human tolerance. Yuri removed the cigarette from his lips and leaned over to Buddy, who nodded and shouted over the music, ' 'Stop!''
The drummer and the backup guitar stopped almost instantly. The game was up, and they knew it. The lead, however, who had paid no attention to his band in any case, hit something that resembled a chord and tried to find his way out of a piercing condemnation of the sewage system.
This time Buster stood and bellowed, 'Stop!'
And this could not be ignored. The lead singer gave up and looked over at Yuri Blin, who closed his eyes and shook his head no, feeling his chins vibrate, hoping he looked like Francis L. Sullivan in Night and the City. Yuri opened his eyes and saw that the Busted Revolution were moving from the small stage as they argued with each other over which of them was responsible for this disaster.
Yuri also saw the man in black rise from his table and move toward him.
Buster looked down at the seated Blin for a signal that would tell him how to deal with the advancing man. Yuri put his cigarette back in the corner of his wide mouth, held up a balloon-fingered hand, and gestured in a small, calming motion for Buster to stand quietly and wait. Buddy needed no instruction. He knew his role well.
Emil Karpo stopped in front of the table and looked down at Blin's round, pink face. He paid no attention to either Buster or Buddy.
'I am looking for Yakov Krivonos,' Karpo said, holding out his open leather folder, which revealed his MVD identification card.
Yuri Blin barely glanced at the card. He was protected. He paid well to be protected.
'That is not a familiar name,'' said Blin. ' 'Buster, Buddy, you know anyone named… What was that?'' 'Yakov Krivonos,' said Karpo softly.
Buster and Buddy shook their heads no, but Karpo was not looking at them. His gaze was fixed on Yuri Blin, who looked around the room and sighed.
'I'm sorry, Inspector,' said Blin, 'but-' ' 'His hair is orange, in spikes,'' Karpo said patiently. 'He had a girlfriend named Carla Wasboniak.'
'I don't know that name, either,' said Blin with a smile.
'A pretty blond girl who came in here frequently. She was here last night, at that table. You sat here.'
'Sorry,' said Blin. 'I do not remember. I wish I could help.'
Buster shrugged, and Buddy smiled and let out a small squeal of a sound that might have been a laugh.
Karpo blinked once.
'I do not have time for this,' he said. 'I believe you are lying.'
'I am offended,' said Blin, now playing to his men.
' 'You will tell me what you know about Yakov Krivinos and a man, possibly an American, named Jerold.'
'I know nothing,' said Blin.
Karpo turned away and looked at the people at the other tables. There were not many, and they were all looking back at him. Near the door, the Busted Revolution were packing their drum and guitars and still arguing.
'You will all leave now,' saidKarpo. 'Policebusiness.'
At the nearest table were two very young women, possibly still in their teens, and a dark, thin man with graying temples. He looked at Blin for an idea of how to respond. He got no answer. The dark man with graying temples stood up to face Karpo. Their eyes met, and Karpo repeated, 'You will all leave now.''
The dark, thin man laughed, showing rather bad teeth. He muttered something he was careful to conceal from Karpo and escorted the girls to the door. The remaining few patrons had no teenagers to impress. They left. The lead singer of the Busted Revolution smiled at Karpo and departed with his band.
There were now only the four of them in the Billy Joel, Karpo, Yuri Blin, Buster, and Buddy.
'There are no witnesses,' Blin said, looking at Buster and Buddy. ' 'And the word of a policeman is not, I am sorry to say, as important as it was once in such situations, especially when the policeman is dealing with a person with connections. Are you understanding what I am saying?'
