Last to Fold

CHAPTER 27

I’ll never know how I got home.

I came to next to some trash cans, reeking of vomit. The thick night air held the stench. That made me want to throw up again, but there was nothing left. I managed to sit up and, after a while, take off my jacket and pull off my sticky, stinking T-shirt. I threw it as far as I could. I rolled on the grass like a wounded animal—precisely what I was. That helped, at least with the smell.

I was lying in a block of neat brick houses. A few lights. Parked cars, both sides of the street. I pulled my jacket back on and tried standing. To my surprise, I could. More lights a hundred yards behind me, so I stumbled that way. I came to a wide boulevard. The sign above me read OCEAN AVENUE. The other read AVENUE K. I had the vague notion that a subway line ran under Ocean Avenue, so I turned right and stumbled in the direction of Manhattan. I came to a station after a long block. I still had my wallet and my MetroCard.

One of the great features of the New York subway, unlike the Moscow Metro or just about any other system—it runs all night. The city that never sleeps. Get beat up and still get home, whatever the hour. The platform was empty, good thing for me. A train came, and I fell into the car. I had to change at Atlantic Avenue, where I figured I’d certainly be stopped by the cops, but another thing about New York, whatever the hour—if you’re moving under your own steam, however erratically, however smelly, and you don’t look like a Middle Eastern terrorist, everyone, including the police, leaves you alone. I caught a 3 train to Wall Street and had just enough strength to stagger the last few blocks to my building.

Lots of things I should have done. Check messages. Call Victoria. Go to the emergency room. No strength for any of that. I managed to strip and park myself under the shower, sitting on the tile floor, rubbing my skin with soap when I worked up enough strength to do so. After a while I stopped stinking. Toothpaste and mouthwash got the bile out of my mouth. I fell onto my bed and passed out one more time before I was fully horizontal.

The phone pulled me from a netherworld of vixens and violence. Victoria and Polina cavorted half-clothed and just out of reach as Lachko and Vasily chased me with clubs. Iakov floated above it all, thin and ghostly, laughing. I was the one in the wheelchair, in Lachko’s replica palace, looking for something I wanted to steal, floating somehow from room to room, the women staying just ahead, the men behind but sometimes getting close enough to hit me or the chair, either one sending a jolt of pain through my body.

The phone was still ringing when I regained enough consciousness to realize where I was. I reached for it and froze as the agony shot through every muscle. My eyes watered and everything started to sweat. The events of last night came into hazy focus. The phone stopped, then started again. Ever so slowly, all the nerve endings screeching, I rolled toward the sound, grasping for the receiver. I couldn’t get there.

The ringing stopped. The silence felt good—as did the need not to move. I drifted off into another netherworld, this one an amalgam of Moscow Metro stations, all empty, devoid of life, no trains, no people, just Stalin’s silent sculptures honoring the peasants, the soldiers, and the proletariat. The phone pulled me out of that world, too.

I looked at the blurred black object and imagined it was Victoria. She purred over my pain and offered to come right over and soothe my wounds. I floated in the luxury of that until the ringing stopped again.

I awoke, on my own this time, at 10:30 P.M. I was thirsty and hungry and could move a little if I did so slowly. I turned on the light and made it to the bathroom to survey the damage, but one glance in the mirror told me I’d be better off waiting. Getting to the kitchen took time. Anything more than a step or two required support. My reward when I made it was a glass of chilled vodka, which burned beautifully on the way down and washed around my empty, bruised stomach like liquid fire. I took another swallow, and the alcohol began to prevail on the nerve endings to calm down. A third swallow, and I was able to make some toast. Not good to drink on an empty stomach. I sipped more vodka and felt moderately better until I stood and the room spun and the sweat returned. Not ready for prime time. Not ready for anything.

I left everything where it was and weaved back to the bedroom, thankful for the numbing effect of the vodka even if it complicated trying to walk. I found the bed and rolled back in, wondering what netherworld I would encounter on this visit and if it could be any worse than the one I was in.

I emerged from the next netherworld at noon on Sunday. A prison this time—an underground labyrinth of rusty iron doors set in damp stone walls. The jailer was Ratko Risly. He led me down long halls, skipping from side to side to dodge the streams of dirty water dripping from the ceiling. Seemingly leading the way, or perhaps just along for the tour, far ahead of us and almost out of sight, was Eva Mulholland. Voices called from behind the doors, pleading. I recognized them from my childhood. I tried to answer, but I couldn’t speak. Ratko carried a big ring of old-fashioned keys that jingled as we walked. I wanted to ask him where we were going, but no words came. I had the idea that until they did, we’d keep walking, perhaps forever. This maze had no center, no destination.

After a time, I realized I was in my own bed, surrounded by Sheetrock and sunlight. Was Ratko sending me a message from the underworld? What was he trying to say? The fact that I was thinking presaged a return to normalcy, or so I assumed until I tried to move. The pain was now a perpetual ache rather than searing jabs, a big improvement, but pain, like everything else, is relative. I made it to the bathroom, no stopping for support, took a deep breath, and looked in the mirror. A victim of serial train wrecks stared back. My face looked like Quasimodo—after fifteen rounds with Joe Frazier. Black eye, blue cheek, yellow nose, yellow neck, puffed purplish lips. A carpet of dried blood over my left eye. Probably should have had stitches. The colors would ripen more before they started to fade. My body was a mass of yellow-blue-purple skin, darkest where Sergei had hit me, but discolored and tender to the touch everywhere. I should have been lying in a tub full of ice, a prospect painful just to think about. Yesterday was a blur, and Friday night seemed like the distant past, but not so far distant that it wasn’t real. I’d lost twenty-four hours plus to unconsciousness.

First things first. Terror and the need to know equally balanced. I found the paper with Petrovin’s number. I hobbled back to the phone, punched in the digits, and got voice mail.

“Turbo. Something I need to know. Call anytime.”

I made it back to the kitchen. The dishes were where I had left them, as was the vodka bottle. Too early for a drink—medicinal? I put the bottle back in the freezer. The answering machine blinked. Four messages. I hit PLAY.

Three from Victoria, early and less early Saturday morning, then one later in the day. The essence was the same, panic level rising. Wishful thinking?

“Turbo, are you there? What the hell was that all about? You okay? Call me.”

“Turbo, where are you? Call me, dammit.”

“Turbo, if you don’t call me, I’m goin’ back to Brighton Beach with a legion of FBI. Call me.”

The last message was Foos, Saturday night.

“That attorney dame called here looking for you. Sounded worried. Thought you’d want to know.” Typical Foos—note the concern, pass along the message, but think to do something about it? That was one connection his circuitry didn’t make.

Maybe it wasn’t too early. I retrieved the vodka from the freezer and poured two fingers. Lukewarm still, but the fire felt good.

I tried to bring Friday night back into focus. Lachko must’ve worked his way through the list of New York hospitals until he found Eva. He sent his men to get her, but somehow she escaped. Having found her, it was a short step to Polina.

The beating Friday night wasn’t about them though. He told me to stay away—sure—but that was hatred talking, his perpetual knee-jerk response to me and my past. He didn’t care about them—he as much as admitted he had written Polina off in 1999 back in Moscow—but she was still terrified of him. Why? Lachko cared about his laundry. He was convinced I had the missing piece. That was what the beating was about. Or was it? Iakov’s lesson about a million shades of gray floated into my consciousness.

The last time I made a list of things that didn’t make sense, it had led me back to Greene Street and eventually to getting thumped within an inch of my life. That had been a mental list. This time, I’d be smarter—I’d write the list down so I didn’t make another stupid mistake. I got some paper.

A neat list of ten facts. I drew a line under the bottom and tried to add them up. That didn’t work, so I poured another drink. Less burn this time. Something else was bothering me—something that needed to be added. I couldn’t quite grab it. The vodka wasn’t helping.

Petrovin hadn’t called back. How long had it been? I called again. No answer.

I reread the list, considered eating something, and drank some more vodka instead. I thought about calling Victoria.

The glass was empty. I refilled it, staring at the page, waiting for things to clarify. They didn’t. Eventually I decided to try getting dressed. The room spun when I stood. I waited, and the spinning slowed. I could make it to the bedroom. Wrong. Three steps, and dizziness swept down my body, starting at the top. I remember the nausea and hitting my face on the corner of the coffee table as I fell, the same side Sergei worked over. I don’t remember throwing up again or passing out on the rug.

That’s where they said they found me.