“It is. Thank you. You’ve been very patient.”
Arkady expected some polite disengagement. Lorenzo simply said, “Find the bike.”
Arkady thought that even if Bonnafos was a cipher, his brain had to be phenomenal. According to studies, each human brain was different according to age, gender, consumption of vodka and disease. Was there a difference according to language? Around the world, people mimicked the sound of cats differently. If they heard cats differently, how could they ever understand each other? Eternal questions, Arkady thought. Obviously he was asleep on his feet.
But he heard the horn of a car alarm and from the bedroom window looked down on the garages across the street where the car alarm of his Niva blared. Arkady pressed his remote control to no effect, which only put him in more of a mood to shoot the car and be done with it.
Finally, for the sake of the neighbors, he took the elevator down and opened the garage. It was a tight little shack with just enough room for his car, a work counter and jerry cans. The garage light was out and when the car alarm quit he was in complete darkness.
He smelled ether.
• • •
When Arkady awoke, he was on his back between slabs of concrete covered in slime. He could raise his head halfway and cross one knee over the other. He had nothing but peripheral vision, black on one side and, on the other, the blinding headlights of a car.
He touched a knob that sat in the middle of his forehead from his first attempt to sit up.
“Where am I?”
“I’ll give you a clue,” Alexi said. “You’re not on a yacht.”
“A houseboat?”
“Close enough. A barge. Barge ballast, to be exact.”
It was suspended on straps over another concrete pad where he was laid out like a canapé. Arkady twisted from side to side. He was, in effect, entombed with less room than a coffin.
“What do you want?”
“Very good. Under control. Because we want your full concentration.”
Arkady felt his eyes open wide and found that he was on a level with the other man’s shoes, not the best level to negotiate from. What he needed was a rabbit hole and a white rabbit to lead the way.
“What do you want?” Arkady repeated.
“I want the notebook that Anya gave you.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Who does?”
“I don’t know.”
The ballast came to life and dropped enough to make a point. Totally without effect, Arkady tried to raise his knees and push back. He didn’t shout. It seemed understood that any call for help would swiftly terminate the conversation. It wasn’t the sort of situation that would end any other way. Only right away or a little later.
Alexi asked, “Do you think this will make an impression on Ape Beledon or Abdul? Maybe they’ll take me more seriously. Make them suck up their balls. No opinion? Very well, I’ll try again. Who has the notebook? I know it’s not Anya. So, who can it be?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
Alexi lowered the ballast again, so that Arkady breathed directly into it. The question was, what would be crushed first, rib cage or skull?
Thinking rationally in this situation demanded discipline. Nevertheless, Arkady was almost positive he was at the Moscow Marina. In the day some poor deckhand would have to scrape him off the pad. Meanwhile, Alexi had a remote-control wand and would go spotless.
“Tell me about Kaliningrad,” Alexi said.
“Kaliningrad?” Arkady was taken by surprise.
“Kaliningrad. What’s happening there?”
“I didn’t know anything was happening there.”
“It’s all in the notebook.”
“No one can read the notebook.”
“Then give it back.”
“I don’t have the notebook, I can’t read the notebook and I have no idea what’s happening in Kaliningrad.”
“Then there’s no point in keeping you alive.”
“I have a lot of other notebooks.”
“You’re stalling.”
“No.” Not literally, Arkady thought. Stalling involved the hope of rescue. He was only playing the game out.
The remote clicked and the ballast resumed its slow descent.
Alexi said, “I think it’s a sin to kill yourself over a notebook you can’t even read. It’s not even wasteful, it’s immoral.”
“As soon as I tell you, you’ll kill me.”
“That’s a pessimistic point of view. What have you got to lose?”
“I’ll take you there.”
“No expeditions. You tell me where the notebook is here and now.”
“Wait.”
“Too bad. Last chance. Good-bye.”
A small something ran across the headlights. Not a white rabbit with pink eyes, long ears and a watch, but a dog with short ears and expressive eyes. The ballast stopped abruptly as the dog sniffed along its edge. A pug. Once it discovered Arkady, it squirmed with delight and crawled up his chest to lick his face.
Pugs were rare in Moscow. Arkady knew of only one.
Shouts and whistles tried to lure the dog out of his reach, but Arkady called, “Polo,” and the dog came back.
When Alexi reached in, Arkady seized his arm and gave it a counterclockwise twist hard enough to dislocate the shoulder. This posed a dilemma for Alexi. He had the remote, but in a struggle, he could press the wrong button and crush half of himself as well because he was in the ferocious grip of someone who had decided to live.
The two men backed out from under the ballast like crabs locked in combat. Arkady was aware of fetid air lifting, of boats hauled out under the stars, of the dog running off and headlights retreating. For Alexi the pain of a dislocated shoulder left little time for decision making. He broke free but his gun was holstered under his left arm and his right arm hung uselessly.
Alexi said, “This never happened.”
Arkady hit him in the face.
“That happened.”
Hit him again on the same cheek.
“And that happened. Show yourself to Ape Beledon or Abdul now. Tell them any story you want.”
17
The rain was miserable. The mud was miserable. Tomorrow would probably be miserable.
“Kaliningrad.” Maxim spread his arms to welcome Arkady. “A fantasy gone wrong.”
Starting with its Third World airport, Arkady thought. Construction and aspirations had each halted midway. Much of the roof had collapsed and what remained revealed twisted rebar and streaks of rust. Road barriers forced traffic to approach in a zigzag manner. Black BMW sedans queued to pick up officialdom, but Maxim trumped them all with his majestic ZIL.
