“You’ve been very kind,” he said. “I’ll certainly urge her to see you.”
“Would you?” he asked.
“Yes. Perhaps I could get her to come with me to see you later in the week.”
Deforge could not keep himself from clasping his hands till his knuckles were white.
“My door will always be open to both of you.”
“Her address?” said Balta.
Deforge held up a finger to indicate that he would take care of the matter. He picked up his phone and made a call without looking up the number.
“Nina,” he said. “I need the phone number and address of Oxana Balakona. . No. . Yes. Of course, my sweet. If anything comes of it, you will be involved.”
There was a pause. Deforge looked at Balta and smiled. His teeth were false, large, and slightly yellow.
“Ah yes, Nina, fine. I will.”
He hung up and scribbled on a square yellow sheet he tore from a pad.
“You want me to call the number for you?” Deforge asked, holding out the sheet. “It would be no trouble.”
“No, thank you,” said Balta, taking the sheet from him. “I think I want to surprise her.”
The train pulled into the Kiev station. It had been on time. Lydia had packed for Sasha. She had done it quickly, efficiently. Everything had been fitted neatly into the blue cloth duffel bag. The price he had paid for her help had been a twenty-minute speech on life, loyalty, the need for caution, the sad demise of the Communist Party, the end of the benevolent Soviet Union, her certainty that Elena Timofeyeva would try to seduce him, his responsibility to her, his wife, his children, and the uncertainty of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov’s motives.
Sasha had listened, or pretended to, without the usual exasperation and arguments. Lydia had tried with increasing perseverance to get her son to react, but he was having none of this. His lack of response worried her far more than her fear that something might happen in a backward place like Kiev where people marched in the streets over elections.
Adding to her concern was the fact that he leaned over and kissed the top of her her head before he left the apartment.
She had decided that she would have to talk to Rostnikov about Sasha as soon as the Chief Inspector returned from whatever ludicrous expedition he had undertaken in Siberia.
Elena’s packing had taken no more than five minutes. It consisted of putting her small zipper bag of makeup, toothbrush, and tooth powder into the brown leather suitcase that she always kept ready under the bed.
She had ceded the window seat to Sasha so she could watch him during the train ride. His behavior in Georgi Danielovich’s apartment, his taking away the addict’s gun, could have been brave or suicidal. Elena considered the latter to be more likely. His smile did not reassure her. It made her more suspicious.
“You want to go see Maya and your children when we get there?” asked Elena as they walked to the exit where a Kiev detective was to meet them.
“Yes,” Sasha said.
“Maya has a cousin, Masha, a model,” he said. “Maybe she can help us find the model we’re looking for.”
The four o’clock meeting in Moscow with the Africans who had given Georgi the diamonds to deliver to Kiev had been a bust.
Georgi had been there, suitcase in hand, pacing in front of the toy store, glancing furtively at Lubyanka Prison, looking as conspicuous and obviously addicted as he was. Elena and Sasha had been watching from inside the toy store. People had passed Georgi, even a young black man in jeans and a blue T-shirt, but the man had not stopped.
After ten minutes Georgi had suddenly stopped pacing. He looked around as if listening to something and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, which he held to his ear. He listened, began to say something, and stopped. He put the phone back in his pocket, went up to Elena and Sasha, and said, “They know you’re in here.”
“What did they say?”
“They want their money. I wanted to tell them that I did not have their money,” he said woefully. “But they knew that too. They want me to find the person who killed Christiana and took their money. Shit, I cannot even find my way to the fucking toilet half the time.”
“We will find whoever killed Christiana and took the money,” Sasha said.
“But you will not give the money to the black guys who gave me the diamonds to deliver.”
“No,” said Elena.
Georgi chewed on his lower lip and said, “What do I get out of this?”
“With a little luck, you get to Odessa and you stay alive,” said Sasha.
“That is something,” Georgi said.
Now, in Kiev, Sasha and Elena were in search of a thief and murderer and millions of rubles in diamonds. They had eight days left and the promise of help from the Kiev police unit that dealt with illegal traffic and theft of diamonds and other precious jewels.
There was a chill in the air and a gray sky, which was not particularly welcoming, but the man standing next to the blue and white police car was. He wore dark slacks, a pale blue shirt, and a tan zippered jacket. He was about forty, and to Elena he resembled the Australian actor Russell Crowe.
“Timofeyeva and Tkach?” he asked, holding out his right hand.
“Yes,” said Elena. “Elena Timofeyeva.”
“Sasha Tkach.”
“Jan Pendowski, Detective Inspector.”
They shook hands.
Pendowski opened the car doors. Elena got in the front passenger seat, Sasha in the back. Pendowski got in the driver’s seat and looked at Elena with the approval of a man who was confident of his appeal.
“My wife is here with my children,” Sasha said.
“I know,” said Pendowski. “I’ll take you to her. And?”
“We are looking for a woman, a model, a very beautiful model who has been in television ads. She took a suitcase containing diamonds from a woman who was then murdered on a train back to Moscow.”
“Yes, I know all this. I think I can help you,” said Pendowski with a grin as he started the car.
And he could help them. And he would help them, but not nearly as much as they wished and not in the way they wished.
Jan Pendowski could, if he wished, drive them directly to the apartment of Oxana Balakona. He knew it well. He had recently spent the night next to, on top of, and under Oxana in her bed. And he could certainly take them directly to his own small apartment where, locked in a small, extremely heavy steel safe with very thick walls, was the decorated wooden box into which he had transferred the diamonds.
Jan Pendowski’s plan was to be pleasant and helpful to the Moscow officers, particularly the pretty and not model-thin woman. Jan had grown tired of the thin Oxana whose bones he could feel when his body was pressed against hers. The firm flesh of Elena Timofeyeva was very inviting. She was seated close enough for him to smell. Her scent was pure and natural, a welcome change from the sweet and artificial scent of Oxana Balakona.
The next few days promised to be interesting and very rewarding for Detective Pendowski. He had many circles and dead ends for the Russians before he killed Oxana and delivered her to them.
Chapter Eight
The office of Fyodor Andreiovich Rostnikov, Director of Security, Alorosa Mine, and the
