Yulia stepped away, watching, no sign of fear or a move to escape the room or step between her lovers. She was, Oleg thought as he rushed quickly forward to restrain his friend, indifferent. She takes drugs, Oleg had thought. A normal person wouldn’t act like this.
Oleg put his arms around Yevgeny, but the drunken man of the people was beyond restraint. He shook Oleg off. The German, his left eye closing quickly, started toward a door that must have been the bedroom. He moved on legs far less steady than the drunken Pleshkov. The German got about five feet before Yevgeny caught him and with a two-handed grip slammed the wooden box against the side of the fleeing man’s head.
The box splintered and came apart at the hinges. Photographs and cassettes sprayed around the room. The German was on his knees now, holding the side of his head. Yevgeny stood over him, breathing heavily, a piece of the shattered box in each hand. The piece in his right hand was a jagged splinter.
Oleg was afraid to tackle his friend again but he knew he had to try. But before he could do so, the German turned on his knees, a dazed look on his face, blood trickling down his lips and into his mouth.
Yevgeny plunged the splinter into the man’s neck.
The German said something like “Ahhggg,” and Yevgeny stepped away, watching the German fall to the floor on his back and attempt to remove the sharp broken wood from his neck. It was useless. He rolled over atop photos and cassettes and died trying to curl up into a ball to escape the pain.
Yevgeny was breathing hard. He looked around as if he did not know where he was. First he looked at the piece of the box in his hand. Then he looked at the German and at Oleg and finally he looked at Yulia, who walked over to the dead German and poured the remains of her drink on his body.
She placed her glass on a small table next to a lamp and took two steps to the bewildered Yevgeny Pleshkov.
“Sit, Yevi,” she said, leading him by the arm to one of the chairs the German had offered him. Pleshkov sat and Yulia took the remains of the box from him and dropped them on the floor.
“Yevgeny,” Oleg said, “let’s get out of here.”
Pleshkov looked at his friend as if surprised to see him there, wherever
“Help me clean up,” Yulia had said to Oleg.
“The body?” Oleg asked.
“We’ll think of something when we come to that,” she said. “I’ll change into something that won’t be ruined by the blood.”
Oleg got on his knees and began picking up photographs, many of them splattered with blood, and cassettes, some of which had broken and flown across the room, leaving a brown vinyl trail of thin tape. And there were dozens of pieces of wood. In his hurry, Oleg picked up a splinter in the palm of his hand. There was enough visible to pull it out, though his hand was shaking.
Oleg found a wastebasket and was filling it when Yulia reappeared in faded blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt.
“No,” she said, handing Oleg a large green plastic garbage bag.
“Fill this. I can dump it in the trash. It will be picked up in the morning. Put in everything.”
The man and woman worked together. Yulia produced a blanket to wrap the German’s body, which they did with surprising ease, though Oleg did his best not to look at the grotesque naked man with the battered face and the sharp piece of wood buried in his neck. Without hesitation, Yulia pulled the wooden stake from the neck of the man who had humiliated her. She wiped it to remove any possible fingerprints and dropped it into the rapidly filling bag.
Then she produced two electrical extension wires and used them to tie the top and bottom of the makeshift shroud in which what was once a man was wrapped.
The blood was the most difficult part of the operation. Yulia said, “I’ll be right back. Try to rouse Yevi. We will need his help.”
Oleg did as he was told and tried not to look at the bundle on the floor. Yevgeny Pleshkov did not respond to his entreaties, but he did look into Oleg’s face as if trying to recognize him. Oleg gave up and resumed his cleanup, wondering if Yulia would suddenly appear with armed policemen and point her finger at the scene, denouncing Oleg and Yevgeny.
She did reappear with a bucket containing a variety of plastic cleaning items, a pair of brushes, and some towels.
“Took them from the storage closet on the next floor,” she explained. “I will have to get them back soon. Let’s put the body by the door. See if he is leaking through first.”
Again, Oleg did as he was told. The blood did not seem to be spreading, at least not yet. Together they moved the wrapped corpse near the door.
Cleaning up the blood took almost half an hour and left the thin carpet wet.
“We can do no better,” Yulia had announced, surveying the room. “I’ll rearrange the furniture later to cover the spot. It will look fine. Now we get rid of the bag and the body.”
“How?”
“I’ll take the bag,” she said. “I’ll carry it to the park and drop it in the trash there.”
“Burn it,” Yevgeny suddenly said in a monotone, without looking at the others. “No one must find those photographs, those tapes.”
“All right, I will burn the bag,” she said.
“I want to watch,” said Yevgeny.
“You don’t trust me,” Yulia said with a smile.
“No.”
Yulia gave a raspy, deep laugh which sent an icicle down Oleg’s back. “Then you shall watch,” she said.
“The originals,” said Yevgeny, slowly coming to life and rubbing his eyes.
Yulia shook her head. “I will protect you, Yevi. I will burn these photographs and tapes. I will help get rid of the body. The three of us, if the police get close, and they are looking for you, must never vary from the story that Jurgen was attacking me, that he had a gun, that you bravely overcame him and had to kill him to protect yourself. As for the body, you panicked and to protect me again wrapped him up, and we, you and I, took him to the place I have in mind. Your friend Oleg need not be involved.”
Yevgeny nodded in agreement.
“I have the originals of the photos and the tapes safely hidden,”
she said. “And so they will stay. I ask you for nothing in exchange.
They are my insurance that the two of you will not betray me. I like you, Yevi. You have never hurt me. You have been generous and undemanding. And now you’ve rid me of my beast. No, that is a cliche. You’ve rid me of something that looked like a human, something with an insatiable lust, who enjoyed the anguish of others.
He is the only person I have ever known who simply enjoyed being evil. One time I asked him if he was the devil. He said he was.”
Yevgeny finally stirred and stood. “Let us do it,” he said.
The rest was a frightening nightmare for Oleg, who was grateful that Yulia was clearly in charge and knew what she was doing and that Yevgeny was participating. She carried the bulging garbage bag through which shards of wood from the broken box now jut-ted like angry little spikes, while Oleg and Yevgeny carried the awkward and heavy dead German. Yulia also held a two-liter plastic bottle. Yulia had surveyed the hallway and, assured that no one was in sight, led the two men carrying the body to the service steps.
Oleg started to head down but Yulia said, “No. Up.”
Oleg was in no state to challenge anything she said, and Yevgeny had lapsed back into a near- somnambulistic state.
They struggled up two flights, where Yulia opened the door to the roof and put down bottle and bag to open the door with a key.
“Jurgen had the key made,” she explained. “I was never sure why.
Now I have a reason.”
They struggled onto the roof. Yulia led the way to a ribbed metal shed whose door was open.
There wasn’t much inside the shed: a few paint cans, a pile of rags, something that looked like a radio with its electrical intestines showing. The shed was dark, and no light came from the moon and stars covered by clouds.
