Londongrad

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When I got to Sverdloff’s building, there was light in the sky, and already people were coming out of the elevator with their dogs, two little rat dogs, a big Lab, somebody with a suitcase holding the door open, and I couldn’t wait, I just bolted up the stairs, the endless-seeming flights of stairs, running faster and faster, until my legs burned and I couldn’t breathe, and all I could think about was Valentina and Tolya and how I had failed, I could see them in my mind’s eye, could see the girl Masha Panchuk too, the blue eyes staring up out of her duct-tape shroud, and when I slammed into the apartment, Bobo Leven had just arrived, had just got to the place, and was waiting there in the living room, to tell me that Valentina Sverdloff was dead.

“Where is she?”

Bobo nodded towards her room.

I was already moving towards Val’s apartment, towards her room, but Bobo put out a hand to stop me. Wait, he said. Wait for me.

“Tell me.”

“One of my guys found some of Masha Panchuk’s stuff, it had been buried near the playground, behind a derelict gas station. I was looking for you when Lippert called and said you were on your way here.”

“And?”

“There was a part of a pink dress, a high-heeled sandal, and a little gold purse with Masha’s clothes, there was a card inside.” He gave it to me. It was Valentina’s card. “I think they killed Masha because she had this card, and she looked like Valentina. They killed the wrong girl the first time. Somebody figured it out,” Bobo said.

“I came here, and the door was unlocked, Artie, and inside is Valentina Anatolyevich Sverdloff, this lovely girl, she is there.” He lapsed into bad English, and switched to Russian. “I am so sorry.”

“When did you get here?”

“Few minutes,” he said.

I started for her room.

“Please, do not go in that room alone. Please.”

I told Bobo to wait. I looked at the card he had given me, and then I went into Val’s place, through her living room into her bedroom.

On her bed, Val looked asleep. Unharmed. Her feet were bare. There were no marks on her face or legs or arms so far as I could see. She was pale, composed, expressionless.

On the floor near the bed were wrappers from the Antistatic brushes I’d seen earlier in her darkroom, but I couldn’t deal with anything now, all I could do was look at her. I sat down beside her on the bed.

Her hands were crossed on her chest. Her eyes were shut. The thin gold chain with the cross was around her neck. I tried her pulse. I put my fingers on her neck. I leaned close to her mouth. There was no breath.

I picked up one of the hands, and it was still soft, still pliant and soft and smooth, a young girl’s hand except for the missing finger. She hadn’t been dead long, as far as I could tell. Maybe I got to the apartment an hour too late. I had left my watch at home. I was going crazy.

How long did I sit in there? Eventually Bobo came into the bedroom and leaned over and took her hand out of mine. I rubbed my hand across my face.

“What should I do, Artie? Tell me how I can help,” he said.

“What time is it?”

“Four minutes after nine in the morning,” said Bobo, and I asked him to check flights to London.

I couldn’t tell Tolya about Valentina by phone. I had to go. I had to be there. It would kill him, but if it didn’t, at least he could hit me. He could blame me for failing, for not taking care of her, he could at least take it out on me, if he wanted.

“Artie?”

“Just stay here, okay? I want you to stay here until I leave.”

He looked up from his BlackBerry.

“You can get a non-stop, JFK, get you into London around six tomorrow morning.”

“Do it.” I tossed him a credit card. I figured there was enough for a cheap ticket on it.

“If Sverdloff calls?”

“By the time I get on the plane, it will be night-time in London. I hope to God he’s still playing golf in Scotland, or at some fucking party. Try to fend him off. Tell him I’ll be in touch. Tell him I’m calling any minute. Just give me a little time, can you do that? Try to stay here with her, don’t call anyone.”

“Of course.”

“After I go, just do what you have to, Bobo. It’s your case now. This is yours. You work this like you were hanging onto a twenty-storey building by one fingernail, you get me? Find him.”

“I don’t know how to work this without you.”

“You know plenty. You’ll solve the thing, you’ll find out who killed Panchuk, and you’ll find out who killed Val. I have to go. The same creep killed them both. He killed Masha thinking she was Valentina, then he killed her.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll call you? I have to get my passport, some other stuff.” I felt very calm and cold. “Lippert will help you, he’ll do it for me.”

Before I left, I looked at Valentina again, and I understood.

Somebody who had loved her had killed her. The killer had suffocated her and then put her on her bed, hands crossed to make it look as if she was only asleep.

Standing next to me, Bobo put out his hand to shake mine, and this formal unlikely gesture moved me, and I choked up before I ran down the stairs and out to my car.