Tsar

windows. It was called the Promenade. Every five feet was a comfy-looking leather chaise facing the outward- slanting windows, little round tables in between. Light was pouring in, and a couple of windows were slid open a foot or so, and there was a nice chilly breeze blowing through. The views of Long Island Sound were spectacular.

Nice place to hang for a couple of hours or the rest of your life. Paddy could imagine it when there were passengers aboard. The ship was already sold out for its maiden crossing to England, the purser had informed them. Maiden voyage? As in, all virgins? Hey, I’m in. He could see all the swells sitting here, sipping their tea and reading novels or whatever they did. Nice way to travel across the Atlantic, he thought, skimming along a few hundred feet above the waves at 150 miles an hour, listening to the latest beach book on your iPod.

Yeah, one day, he just might have to spring for a trip on this beauty.

He came to the end of the Promenade. A glass door slid open, and he was in some kind of reading and writing room. There were comfy armchairs scattered around and also little desks with old-fashioned blotters and inkwells and stationery with a big red T engraved at the top. Tsar. Great name for a great ship, he had to admit.

Next was a kind of foyer with a staircase and another hall branching off that must have connected to the other side of the ship. He peeked inside a leather-padded door marked “Odeon.” It was a little jewel box of a movie theater with red velvet seats and two golden dolphins over the screen. He kept going straight and found the gym, typical exercise bikes and treadmills and shiny weight machines all along the windows. Personally, he didn’t see the kind of people who would book a flight on this thing being all that interested in sweat. More interested in the wine- and-cheese buffet, he’d bet.

And finally, as far back as you could go, there was a shiny silver elevator door with bronze dolphins carved into it. What the hell, he’d already seen what was up front. He pushed the button, and the doors slid open. There were a total of five decks, two below him and two above him. He pushed the top button. Going up, ladies’ lingerie.

“Private,” the big guy in the black suit said when the doors slid open. “Didn’t anybody tell you? No press allowed.” He was holding a small Glock submachine gun loosely at his side. He had a single gold stripe on each sleeve of his jacket. Private army. Ex-Russian special forces, had to be.

“Sorry. I’m freaking lost here.”

Paddy reached for the button, and the doors had started to close when the muscle man stuck his foot out and automatically opened them again.

“Hold on a second,” the guy said. “You’re not Paddy Strelnikov?”

“Dimitri Popov?”

He knew the guy, all right. Gone to high school with him in Brighton Beach. Then his family had moved him back to the Soviet Union. Last time he’d seen Dimitri, it was on TV. Barbara Walters was interviewing him in Athens after he’d won the gold in Olympic wrestling for the Russian Federation.

“All-Beef Paddy!” Popov said, “Yeah, how you doin’, player? Come out here, talk to me. It was you went out and blew up that prison in the boondocks, right? That was some sick shit, huh? Sixty jerkoff cons on Death Row catching the train on the same night? I loved that! And you know what? I wasn’t the only one to think so. You got friends in high places, my man.”

“Yeah, well.”

“Listen, I’m not supposed to do this, but you want a quick look-see around? This is some serious shit up here.”

“What about your elevator?”

“I’ll lock it. Got a remote right here. There. Game’s locked, throw away the key, remember?” He dropped the remote back into his pocket.

“What’s up here?”

“The man, baby. This whole deck is his private world.”

“Ivan?”

“Count Ivan Korsakov, baby. Who else?”

“He’s a count?”

“Fuck no. He’s a god. Come on, there’s a bar down this way. I’m on duty, but I can get you a Bloody Bull. You look like you could use a little eye opener.”

“Jet lag.”

“You know what cures that? Pussy. We got that up here, too. In spades.”

PADDY DRAINED THE last of his second Bloody Bull and put the glass down on the mahogany bar. The bartender, a Ukrainian girl named Anna who was a dead ringer for Scarlett Johansson, whisked his glass away and said, “One more?”

Paddy shook his head and turned to Dimitri. “So, let me get this straight. You’re saying you think I could get a job working for the man? I mean, directly?”

“Man, I know you could. I’m telling you, he just lost his closest security guy in that latest assassination attempt three months ago in Moscow. Driving out of Red Square. This guy was more than muscle, he was the man’s last surviving brother. In real life, his real brother, is what I’m saying. Lifelong best asshole buddies. The brother took a stomach full of lead for the man. Now he’s got nobody.”

“What about me?”

“What about you?”

“I’m nobody. Backstreet borscht with a gun.”

“Fuck that! Man, he knows you. He knows exactly who you are. That prison thing? Shit, I was in the screening room watching CNN with him the night you showed the world the true meaning of Death Row, man. You should have seen him light up. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t carry your laminated picture around in his fuckin’ wallet. And sinking that Japanese trawler up in Alaska? C’mon, Beef. You think he doesn’t know who’s out there getting his personal shit done for him every day? He knows everything, man.”

“Taking care of business,” Paddy said, twisting his ring around so he could see the lightning bolt. “TCB.”

“Straight up. Yeah. And you know what else, I personally think you should have a little talk with him.”

“What?”

“Talk to him. See if he likes you. Why the fuck not?”

“He’s here?”

“Of course he’s here. You think he checked into the Plaza? This is where he lives half the time. Look, I’m going to call him, all right? Tell him you’re aboard, that we’re old friends and shit. You down with that?”

“Dimitri, hold on a second. What about you? Why don’t you take the job?”

“Are you kidding me? I live in a flying pussy palace, Beef! I ain’t going anywhere. Ever. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

“You going to call him?”

“Hell, yeah, I am.”

He left. Paddy said to Anna, “I gotta tell you, the views from this thing are unbelievable.” He was staring down at forests of swaying treetops just below. The Pine Barrens, he thought, and that must be the Peconic River over there. Yeah, that’s what it was, all right. They were about sixty miles from the city. A leisurely voyage, and so damn quiet!

“I’ve got the best office in the world,” Anna said with a shy smile.

“You sure do. Tell me something, Anna, at what altitude does the Tsar sail?”

“Oh, right now, I’d say we’re cruising at about six hundred fifty feet. That’s our normal altitude when the winds allow. The captain likes to fly so the passengers have a view.”

“We’ll keep to that all the way out to Montauk?”

“If the winds hold. Normally, we would climb higher if the currents were more favorable aloft. But we’re not trying to get anywhere in a hurry today.”

“How high can you go?”

“Maybe four thousand feet.”