very much. Kolokov registered the uproar but kept singing until he saw James dashing for the exit.
James felt light-headed, but he kept running. At the door, he paused for no more than a quick beat to keep from colliding with Iosef and Zelach, who had just entered. James dashed past them into the night. The pursuers were only a few steps behind.
The pursuers bumped into Iosef and Zelach, and tried to push them out of the way. Both of the detectives grabbed a pursuer. Iosef slammed Alek against the wall. Zelach punched the hip of Bogdan. Bogdan went down with a wailing groan. Montez ran into the night, followed by the wheezing Kolokov. One of the men now on the floor reached into his jacket. Iosef said, “No,” and held up the gun in his hand.
Much attention was now being paid to the scene by patrons and the band on the stage.
“What’s this?” said a bodybuilder type with an accent Iosef thought might be Bulgarian.
“We’re the police,” said Iosef.
“So?” asked the bouncer.
“We’re looking for some black men,” said Iosef.
“One just ran out of here,” said the bodybuilder. “If you hurry, you can catch him.”
“He’s not the one we are looking for,” said Iosef, looking at Zelach.
Zelach shook his head no. The man who had run from the bar was definitely not one of those with whom they had the shootout this afternoon. The detectives had been to five bars based on a vague suggestion by the restaurant owner, Maticonay, who had been shot. Iosef had begun to feel that they had been lied to until they came to this place.
“Let’s take these two out of here for a talk,” said Iosef.
The bodybuilder shrugged. It was not his business. He did not even care if they were really the police. He was paid to keep the place relatively calm. He swaggered away as the two policemen helped the men to their feet.
“That business with the knuckles to the hip,” said Iosef, “where did you get that?”
“Pressure point,” said Zelach. “I’ve been studying a tape, practicing.”
“On your mother?”
“No. On myself.”
“You are a man of many talents, Detective.”
“Thank you.”
“We can. .” Iosef began, but did not finish.
There was a gunshot outside, down the street. The detectives immediately abandoned their prisoners and dashed into the night. The two fallen Russians rose and went through the door after them.
“Wait,” said Alek, holding out his hand.
“What? It came from that way.”
“Why don’t we go that way?” asked Alek.
He was pointing in the opposite direction.
“Yes,” said Bogdan.
“If Kolokov gets back, we tell him we escaped from the police.”
“Yes, that is what happened,” said Bogdan, already believing the lie.
“Two of them,” said Detective Jan Pendowski as he sat feeding seeds to big, ugly, gray- black crows from a bench on Venetsiansky Island in Hydropark.
They could hear the balls bouncing on the tables in the Ping-Pong area beyond a mesh fence a few dozen yards away. On nice days like this in Kiev, Jan liked to come out and watch the college girls bouncing under their thin shirts as they swatted at the balls.
“Two,” said Oxana.
She sat next to him touching a fingernail to her lower lip, where she sensed an imperfection in her makeup. As much as Jan liked looking at the young girls, Oxana Balakona liked to be looked at by males of all ages as they walked by. She had become a model because it had been what she always wanted to be: admired, looked at, wanted.
“A man and woman,” said Jan. “Moscow detectives. They are looking for you.”
Oxana turned to face him as he hurled a handful of seeds at a bird near his feet. The bird retreated, not sure if it was being attacked or rewarded.
“Me?”
“It appears that the woman who gave you the diamonds has been murdered.”
He had her full attention now, but he did not look her way. The Ping-Pong balls and the laughter of girls beyond the fence was all-powerful.
“Murdered,” she repeated.
It struck Jan, and not for the first time, that while Oxana was clever, she was not terribly smart. She frequently repeated whatever he said as if she were mulling it over or using it as a question.
“The diamonds,” he said. “They are here looking for them. We must get them to Paris quickly. The two Moscow detectives will find you here. It will not take them long. I’ll guide them in a long search for wild ducks but they will find you if you are here, and going back to Moscow does not strike me as a viable option. They will find you even more easily there.”
“So, Paris quickly,” she said, deciding to stare down a boy of no more than seventeen who couldn’t help openly and longingly examining her.
“I have something to tell you,” she said. “Something that is amazingly lucky.”
“See that one?” he asked, pointing at a bird slightly smaller than the other dozen or so that circled before him on the ground, scurrying out of each other’s way. “Lost an eye. A fight, or disease.”
“Disease,” said Oxana. “A fashion editor at
“How did she find you, this fashion editor?”
“An agency here.”
“She came all the way to Kiev just to find you?”
“She was here anyway,” said Oxana. “And why would not a fashion editor come here for me? I am one of the very best.”
“I know,” he said. “I have my own experience of that.”
She allowed herself a small smile.
“I think I should like to meet this famous editor,” Jan went on, digging into the small white paper bag on his lap for the last of the seeds. “Before we send you off with her and the diamonds.”
“It can be arranged,” said Oxana.
“I have the Moscow detectives today. I shall run them to every corner of Kiev and back. What is the name of your editor?”
“Rochelle Tanquay,” she said. “She gave me a card. Here.”
Oxana reached into her small, quite fashionable red leather purse and handed it to him. On it was the name of the woman in gold script and a cell phone number.
“Call her,” he said. “Set up a time. Late night at Eric’s Bar.”
“What do I tell her?”
“That you want her to meet your fiancé, your handsome Ukrainian police detective. What does your Rochelle look like?”
“Pretty,” said Oxana.
“Better than ugly,” he said. “Call.”
She took a sky blue ultra-thin cell phone from her purse and punched in the number on the card Jan held up for her.
Four rings and then, “Hello.”
“It’s Oxana.”
“Yes. Can you leave tomorrow evening? The photographer will be available most of next week, and then he has to go to Bahrain.”
“Of course. Can we get together tonight for drinks?”
