Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 17

Moscow, March 1996

Liza was in the habit of waking up at seven, sneaking into bed with her parents, and sleeping another hour or two there. Today she was sleeping so soundly, she didn’t even hear the alarm go off. She just gave a grumpy snort and turned over.

It was nine in the morning and drizzling, the first spring rain of the year. Lena slipped out of bed and pulled the blanket up over Liza. Let the child sleep another half an hour. She really didn’t feel like taking her with her to the store, but it was risky buying shoes without trying them on first. Not only that, she wanted to give Vera Fyodorovna a chance to pack for her holiday in peace.

Lena took a shower and drank her coffee. By the time she was finished with her last cup, Liza had woken up.

“Are we going to the holidouse today?” she asked, happily scarfing down her oatmeal.

“Tomorrow, Liza darling. Today we’re going to buy you new shoes and some new toys, just for your trip.”

She polished off her oatmeal and milky tea in five minutes.

“That’s all, Mama! Let’s get dressed fast!” the child declared delightedly.

Usually getting Liza dressed turned into an ordeal. Liza would race around in one boot, and Lena would try to catch her to put on the other. Then she’d have to catch her again to put on her hat, jacket, and her mittens. That could take twenty minutes, sometimes even forty. This time, though, Liza let herself be dressed without running around, so inspired was she by the idea of buying new toys.

Over the past few days, the last remnants of snow had nearly vanished, though there were still spongy, blackish drifts here and there. It was nice pushing the stroller over smooth asphalt. They reached Children’s Wares in half an hour. For the first time, Liza chose her own toys. She was very excited and talked nonstop.

All the fuss of choosing her own toys wore Liza out, so she calmly offered her feet for trying on shoes and didn’t whine or fuss while her mama bought her tights, T-shirts, pajamas, and other things for the upcoming trip.

Finally, after dropping an unthinkable amount of money at Children’s Wares, Lena put Liza in her stroller and headed for home. She also needed to buy food, but she’d run out of both energy and money. Nothing wore her out so much as shopping trips.

Along the way, there was a large connecting courtyard with a playground.

“Mama. Let’s swing on the swings a little,” Liza asked. “Just a little. A tiny bit.”

Lena parked the stroller near one of the wet benches, lifted Liza out, and carried her over the puddles to the swings.

Killing someone without resorting to using the services of a professional hitman or leaving any traces is very hard.

A healthy young woman who has a small child, doesn’t drink, doesn’t use drugs, and lives quietly and well is hardly going to hang herself out of the blue in a state of narcotic intoxication or inject a fatal dose of morphine and drop a burning cigarette on her blanket.

If Polyanskaya had the kinds of connections in the criminal world that Azarov did, there’d be something to latch onto to create the appropriate circumstances for a hit. If only. But Polyanskaya wasn’t Azarov. She didn’t sing for thieves, she hadn’t been a witness to a shoot-out, and she hadn’t given testimony.

The temptation to hire a professional was great. But employing a professional required going through a middleman. Every decent killer had his own representative, the way a prostitute had a pimp. That meant two more people would know about the contract—the middleman and the killer.

Just because the police very rarely solved contract killings didn’t mean who ordered a particular killing was a mystery in the criminal world. This murder had to be a complete mystery to everyone. Even the smallest leak of information could be deadly for Veniamin Productions.

In this case, she had to do it herself, quietly, cautiously, and intelligently. So far she hadn’t come up with the right way to pull it off.

An accident would be the ideal option, of course, but only in theory. What could a person accidentally die of in the middle of Moscow in the middle of the day? A car could run her over, but the driver was unlikely to get away unnoticed.

An icicle could fall on her head. There were lots of them now, in March. For that, though, she’d have to climb onto a roof, and not just any roof but a roof that Lena was definitely going to pass under. The personal risk to Regina was great, and the chance of success ridiculously small.

After a lot of thought, Regina settled on two possibilities that she considered viable.

The first option was a small bomb, fifty grams or so of TNT, that could be slipped quietly into a coat pocket, a purse, or a bag of groceries. The explosion wouldn’t be terribly powerful and could be set off in a deserted place. No one but Polyanskaya would be hurt. At worst, her child might be hurt as well.

The second option was poison. Having been in Polyanskaya’s home, Regina had had a chance to examine the lock on the front door closely. With a good pick, she could break into the apartment when no one was home. She just had to choose the best place to put the poison. The sugar bowl? The teapot? The soup pot?

The first option seemed more reliable and less risky to Regina. She decided to start with that and adjust her plan later, if necessary.

The next day, at nine in the morning, Regina sat in a low-profile green Moskvich with a mud-splattered license plate. Her eyes were glued to the door Polyanskaya might come out of at any minute.

Polyanskaya emerged with the stroller a little after ten.

Since you’re with the child, that means you’re not going to work and you’ll be coming home soon. I might not have enough time to plant the bomb before Polyanskaya returns, Regina thought. She turned the ignition, and, cursing the pathetic tin can of a car, drove out of the courtyard at minimal speed.

Regina knew every gateway in this old Moscow neighborhood. But she didn’t know Polyanskaya’s route. And it was virtually impossible to tail a pedestrian from a car so that neither the pedestrian nor anyone else noticed.

Judging by how fast Polyanskaya was walking, she wasn’t taking her child for a walk.

Where are you headed? Regina thought. To the store for groceries? But there are several supermarkets nearby, and you’ve already pushed your stroller past one of them… No, you haven’t gone out for groceries. Or to the Filatov Clinic.

Pulling up at the head of a long side street, waiting for Polyanskaya to get halfway down it, Regina started following her again slowly. That kind of driving gets on your nerves. Regina lit a cigarette and cracked her window. She drove a little ways and stopped. So did Polyanskaya. She started straightening the child’s cap—directly across from Regina’s open window.

“Mama, are we going to buy doll dishes?” Regina heard the child ask.

“Absolutely, Liza,” Polyanskaya replied, tying the strings under her chin.

Right then Regina remembered that twenty minutes from here, on the square by the Metro station, there was a big department store, Children’s Wares. That was where they were headed. Regina could relax a little.

Parking near the store, Regina decided to follow Polyanskaya in. If there were a lot of people there, if Polyanskaya got distracted at some counter, Regina might find an opening.

As long as Polyanskaya’s daughter was choosing her toys, Regina couldn’t get close. There was no one else in the toy department but this mother and child. The sales clerk took down one toy after another for them to examine. This went on for half an hour.

Regina loitered in the cosmetics department across the way. She sniffed perfume and toilet water samples and read the brochures for the endless varieties of creams, shampoos, and hair dyes. She kept casting brief glances at Polyanskaya and thinking there was nothing more annoying and bad for your health than surveillance. She pitied herself and consoled herself with the fact that this was the first and last time in her life she would be engaged in this kind of tedious spying.

What idiocy, Regina thought irritably. I drive around in that nasty tin can of an automobile, I squeeze into ugly cheap dresses so I can blend in with the crowds on the street, and I hang around a department store sniffing mass-produced perfume. I have to get this done, and soon.

“Madam, may I help you?” She heard the sales clerk’s sleepy voice.

That polite question held so much rude, lazy arrogance that it made Regina squirm. She glanced at the pudgy woman in the violet satin jacket. Under a thick layer of makeup you could see her dirty, porous skin; her thin, insipid hair hadn’t been washed in a long time, and her small brown eyes were full of dull ill will.

If you only knew who you were talking to. Regina grinned privately and out loud said with a gentle smile, “No, thank you, young lady.”

Looking around yet again, she discovered Polyanskaya wasn’t at the counter anymore. Cursing herself, Regina headed deeper into the store.

You can’t get distracted for a minute. No, a second! She was seriously worried she had lost her quarry.

There were lots more people at the back of the store near the children’s clothing and shoe departments. Don’t tell me she’s left! Regina’s mouth went dry with frustration. But then she heaved a sigh of relief. Polyanskaya and her stroller were headed straight toward her. She was coming back from the cashier in the toy department.

A few minutes later she was carrying not only her small purse but a plastic bag, which she hung on one of the stroller handles.

Now that’s better, Regina thought tensely. That’s much more convenient. Her hand slipped into the pocket of her cheap sheepskin jacket and cautiously felt the package, a little smaller than a cigarette pack.

Polyanskaya lifted the child out of the stroller, sat her down on a chair in the shoe department, squatted, and started removing Liza’s boots.

The stroller with the bag hanging from the handle was so close, and no one was looking at it. Regina took a step toward it. Her hand, the small package squeezed tightly inside it, was already reaching cautiously for the bag.

All of a sudden a fat lady flew up to the counter, bumped into the stroller, and hollered in a thunderous voice, “Whose stroller is this? Move it this minute! It’s blocking the counter!”

Regina abruptly stepped aside and put her hand back in her pocket.

“Forgive me, please.” She heard Polyanskaya’s calm voice. “It’s our stroller. I’ll move it right now.”

Leaving her child on the chair in the shoe department, she quickly rolled the empty stroller away and put it next to a glass wall away from the counters and aisle. She took the bag with her.

Regina waited a couple of minutes, walked over to the stroller, and examined it carefully from all sides. There had to be some pocket, some hidden hollow where she could slip her small package without being noticed. But there wasn’t.

Idiotic construction, Regina thought as she calmly stepped to the side.

Polyanskaya emerged from the store twenty minutes later. Now there were bags hanging from both stroller handles. Regina decided her subject would go back the same way she’d come, taking side streets and connecting courtyards.

Slowly following Polyanskaya in her car, Regina cursed herself for never having had the wit to learn how to shoot. Her job today would have been simplified if she could have used a rifle like a sniper. You never know what skills will end up being useful in life.

Right now she could only count on luck. And Regina did. Her intuition told her that today she would be lucky. She was already starting to get the hang of it—the hunt.

Polyanskaya turned into a big connecting courtyard with a playground, pushed the stroller up to one of the benches, lifted the child out, and carried her over the deep puddles toward the swings. Leaving the bags hanging on the handles. Regina held her breath.

The courtyard was empty. The weather was nasty—a fine drizzle, cold and annoying. The place where Regina parked her car gave her an excellent view of the playground and provided her an excellent escape route. She could easily leave the courtyard and slip down a side street.

Polyanskaya wiped off a wet swing with her glove and sat her child on it. Regina calmly got out of her car, walked up to the bench where the stroller was, dropped her small package into one of the bags, and just as calmly went back to her Moskvich, got in, and turned on the engine.

Polyanskaya was wholly focused on her child and never even glanced at the stroller.

Holding the tiny remote in her hand, Regina began to wait, calmly and patiently, for Polyanskaya to approach the stroller.

“Mama, swing me a little more,” Liza asked. “Just a little.”

“Little one, let’s go home. It’s such awful weather. Look, we’re both soaked.” Lena tried to take her daughter out of the swing, but Liza protested.

“I want to swing some more. Please!”

There were a few different kinds of swings on the playground, and Liza wanted to try them all.

If Liza gets a good outing now, she’ll fall asleep faster after dinner and sleep a little longer, and I’ll be able to get at least some of my to-do list for today done, Lena thought as she pushed the swing.

“That’s enough, Mama. Now let’s go home. I’m hungry. Take me down,” Liza said at last.

Lena picked her up. The stroller was about twenty meters away. Stepping cautiously through the wet crusts of ice, trying not to slip, Lena took a few steps.

She heard the squealing of brakes. A new SUV, painted black with zigzags and stars on the sides, drove into the courtyard. The muscle-bound thug sitting behind the wheel was swearing colorfully. Parked right where he usually parked when he visited twice a week was some dirty old pile of Moskvich junk.

Ever since the SUV’s owner had rented an apartment in the building for his lover, almost none of the building’s occupants with cars had had the nerve to park in his favorite spot in the courtyard lot. The SUV’s owner was used to the spot being free and drove in without even looking. That’s why he noticed the worthless piece of shit too late.

“Fuck you!” he said, and he rammed his powerful bumper into its pathetic rear end.

Before she could think, Lena fell to the soft wet grass, covering Liza with her body. Car alarms started howling desperately.

Then there was a very bright flash very close by. Lena was afraid to look. All she could think was that Liza was lying on the wet, cold ground. Her snowsuit would get soaked. And it was a fifteen-minute walk home. Lena saw her child’s enormous, frightened eyes quickly fill with tears.

Lena was surprised that Liza was crying without making a sound. Then, gradually, the sound of her desperate, indignant crying started to mount, and Lena realized she’d temporarily lost her hearing from the shock of the blast.

“Mama… Mama…” Liza kept repeating through her tears, unable to say anything else.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Lena raised her head and then got to her knees. Liza jumped up and clung to Lena’s wet coat, still wailing.

She had to get up off her knees, but her legs were like cotton wool. Added to the cascading car alarms was another sound—the wail of a police siren.

A few minutes later the courtyard was sealed off and there were police everywhere.

“Are you and your little girl okay?” An overweight young captain asked as he helped Lena get up off her knees. “Do you need a doctor?”

“I don’t know,” Lena whispered.

“Is this your stroller?” A plainclothes officer walked over to it.

Feeling an icy emptiness inside, Lena slowly turned her head. In the middle of the courtyard lay the stroller’s frame. Scraps of green fabric and foam rubber were burning on the twisted tubes of the metal carcass. Only one of four wheels remained, and it was spinning slowly, helplessly.

“Yes.” Lena nodded. “That’s our stroller. Only I left it somewhere else, by the bench.”

“The explosion carried it away,” the captain explained.

“My monkey!” Liza cried, and her sobbing turned to a desperate wail.

“I have to change the child’s clothing. I have to go home. We live very nearby, fifteen minutes’ walk.” Lena couldn’t tear her eyes from the twisted frame.

“We’ll take you home. Let’s go to the car,” the overweight captain said. “It’s warm there. Let me take the child.”

“No!” Liza clutched Lena. “No! I don’t want to go to the man! Where’s my monkey?”

“Your purse?” The officer picked up Lena’s black leather purse.

“Yes, thank you.”

It turned out that the small plush monkey was in her purse, not in one of the bags hanging from the stroller. Hugging the toy animal to her wet snowsuit, Liza stopped crying.

The SUV’s owner didn’t understand what had happened. He’d only given the back of that heap of junk a light tap, but then, for some reason, a baby stroller thirty meters from him had blown up. He didn’t have time to be astonished or to think it through any more than that. He knew what would happen after an explosion, and the prospect of giving testimony to the cops who would be arriving shortly did not appeal to him one bit.

Swearing loudly and nervously, he stepped on the gas and shifted into reverse. As he was pulling away from the scene, he noticed a woman shoot out of that heap like a bullet and race off as fast as a sprinter. But that was not his concern. He had to get away, the faster the better.