The Survivor

The van deposited Nate and Misha on a seedy downtown block where, with mounting concern, Nate was led up a set of cracked marble stairs into a sweat chamber announced as a banya on the sole sign providing translation from Cyrillic. They moved through several thick oak doors, passing hoary valets manning cash registers and towel booths, Misha’s mere presence dispensing with procedure of any sort. Broad, hewn- featured men lounged naked on long benches before lockers, eating pickled fish, sipping chocolate-colored liquid from mugs, and arguing in rough Eastern tongues.

The temperature rising with every step, they passed a bank of urinals and a stone arch, entering an open antechamber where men of all makes and models sank into icy plunge pools, lolled corpselike in steaming claw- footed tubs, and rinsed beneath shower nozzles protruding from the walls at inexplicable intervals.

Misha shoved Nate onward through the furnace and a sturdy wooden door into a miasma of steam so dense that Nate choked against it. Bodies sprawled about the stone ledges framing the large room, glimpses of marbled flesh visible here and there through the mist. The men were naked, save a few who were absurdly accessorized with oversize mitts and bell-shaped felt caps. A worker fed a firebox with logs of white birch, the scent and taste as biting as eucalyptus, though less medicinal. The outside air from Nate’s forced entrance blew a wavering corridor through the haze, revealing a masculine form sitting centered on the stained stone slab, his flesh an angry red beneath the elaborate ink.

Pavlo Shevchenko lifted a hand, and the room emptied. No rush, no ado. The others simply exited, sweat dripping, feet padding moistly, leaving them alone.

Nate’s clothes clung to him, damp and oppressive. The heat was like nothing he had ever experienced. An approximation of hell within sweating insane-asylum-white tiles. What kind of men would subject themselves to this for leisure?

The steam reintroduced itself, rendering Pavlo’s outline vague and ghostly, smudging the tattoos into bloodstains. The slab was elevated, thronelike. Misha shoved Nate forward, bringing him eye level to the stars tattooed across Pavlo’s knees. I kneel before no man.

Pavlo’s face was little more than an impression in the heavy air. “I know everything you do. I have eyes on computer screens in important offices. You file police complaint, you spend on credit card, you make flight arrangement, I will know.”

Nate stepped forward again until he could discern the old man’s eyes. “You never said my wife and daughter couldn’t leave. You said I couldn’t leave. And I haven’t. I’m still here, working on getting into that safe-deposit box.”

“You had ticket, too. In your name.”

“Just so I could make sure they got on the plane. I didn’t go.”

Pavlo stared, his face carved from stone.

“Where are they?” Nate asked.

“In Los Angeles. Flight was canceled thanks to your clever call. Everyone was questioned. And released. It is fortunate Yuri has proper work visa. I need one man who can travel.”

“Don’t hurt them. That wasn’t the deal. I haven’t broken the deal.”

“Kneel,” Pavlo said.

“What?”

“Kneel.” Shevchenko pointed down, a dog-training command.

Nate stood, dumbfounded, his shirt pasted to him. The cut on his shoulder from the letter opener gave off a healing itch so intense he wanted to reach back and claw it open with his nails. The heat was wreaking havoc with his symptoms, his hand and arm aflame, his legs weak, his lungs straining to draw full breaths in the soupy air. This is what it will feel like soon, he thought. All the time.

Pavlo sprang to his feet, causing a violent disruption of the steam around him. He towered, enraged, glistening with sweat. “On your knees!”

A blow from behind knocked Nate down, Misha kicking out one of his legs. Nate’s kneecaps ground against the stone. His muscles screamed beneath the heat.

Pavlo leaned over him. “If you have hope of success to get into safe-deposit box, why do you panic and go to LAX?”

“I have a plan. I know Danny Urban’s safe-deposit box is number two twenty- seven, and I’ve acquired the key. Agent Abara wants me to retrace my steps through the bank one more time to see what I can recall. For obvious reasons the bank manager wants to do it on a Sunday when the bank is closed. Tomorrow afternoon I’m gonna walk the crime scene again. I’ll ask to be left alone when I get to the bank vault.”

“You will need-”

“A master key. When I went to the bank Thursday, they gave me the VIP treatment, left me behind the teller bank alone.” His brain raced a quarter second ahead of his mouth; he was lying as fast as he could speak. “I got to the master key and made an impression. I cast the duplicate Friday.”

Shevchenko frowned, impressed. “If you can deliver, why do you put your wife and daughter on plane?”

Nate moved to rise, but Misha shoved him forward again, back onto his knees. He was having trouble breathing, thinking, his left arm trembling. Sweat stung his eyes.

He forced the words out. “My daughter is willful. She gets in my way. It’s easier for me to do this with her gone. And”-he sucked in a moist breath-“I don’t trust you.”

The silence, dense as the air. Then Pavlo gave a resonant laugh. Genuine amusement that seemed to catch him by surprise. “These are first words of yours that are not lies.” He chuckled a bit more, a deep sound that held little mirth. “You have daughter you struggle with. Who no longer cares for you. Americans let their children speak to them with disrespect. This is why they do not obey.” For the first time, his face held a sentiment that Nate found familiar, human. “They are impossible creatures. Daughters. They wind barbed wire around your heart and tug.”

He gestured mercifully for Nate to rise. Nate found his feet, stooping in the heat, his legs aching.

“You have a daughter?” Nate asked. “I thought you made some Russian-mafia promise to have no family. Only the brotherhood of thieves.”

“Russian mafia.” Pavlo chuckled. “Sounds frightening. Like your Marlon Brando. We are not mafia. We are not even Russian. The only real criminals from Russia live in the Duma and the Kremlin. There are no laws. Only loopholes, favors, bribes. We have been under the heel of war for generations. We fear no God. We believe in nothing. To survive you need muscle. And will. Here you need only lawyers. And I have them. A team of them-Jews-working in concert, burning midnight oil. They protect my businesses. My freedom.”

His gaze sharpened, zeroing in on Nate’s aching arm, which Nate had been holding against his stomach. He dropped it, letting it dangle, though the skin felt scoured by sandpaper. “Your guy twisted my arm at the restaurant,” he said quickly. “Tore something.”

Pavlo sneered at him. “We are not our bodies. We are more. Greater. This, our skin, is a cage. We must be more.”

The firebox leaked a steady stream of heat. Nate’s vision dotted. He had never felt the disease so acutely, his muscles hanging about him like rags. It’s not always that easy, he thought.

Pavlo’s expression demanded a response, so Nate gestured at his tattoos. “But your body defines you.”

“Because I am decorated? No. I am my body no more than you are yours. I have pride in my code. These?” His hands slid across his sweat-slick skin, moving from tattoo to tattoo. “They are my passport, my story. They cannot lie. In prison do you know what most valuable currency is?” His thumbs rubbed across his fingertips. “Pigment. One burns a boot heel. Sifts the ash through handkerchief and mixes with urine. The needle? A guitar string sharpened on strip of a matchbook. In the worst conditions, we find a way to speak our truth. To say, ‘This is my promise. It is carved into my flesh.’” He slapped his flushed chest, leaving white handprints on both pectorals. “I fulfill every promise written here.”

“Then fulfill your word to me,” Nate said. “I didn’t break the code. Don’t touch my family.”

“Go home. Your wife and daughter will be waiting. They must now behave. You do not know when we are looking.” At last Pavlo sat, his bare flesh slapping the stone wetly. “Enjoy them for next thirty-six hours. The next time you see me, I will either release you or force you to watch your daughter die.”