Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 38

Regina Valentinovna liked to make money and spend it. It wasn’t that she was too lazy to count it—she just couldn’t bear to. Long ago, when she’d had very little as a young student, she’d counted every kopek.

But now, everything that had to do with banking and bookkeeping made her yawn. Naturally, the company had an entire staff of bookkeepers, lawyers, and managers. She didn’t have to worry about their qualifications. But their trustworthiness, that was always in question.

Veniamin Borisovich, on the other hand, liked to count money as well as make it. The business’s gigantic financial mechanism was under his vigilant and keen control. He trusted his colleagues, but he was constantly checking on them. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and he could answer how much money there was in each account and how much was invested in securities. He always knew what was going on in the markets of Europe, Asia, and America and understood stock prices as well as a professional broker.

Over the years, Regina had gotten the hang of bookkeeping, though. Gradually and imperceptibly—even to her husband—she’d made up for lost time. It’s always better to know than not to know, she thought. Anything could happen. What Venya, still not recovered from the serious flu, was doing with the bank accounts she learned from the bookkeeper Grisha, but confirmed with a few other sources as well.

And here she was, sitting with one of her secret consultants in a small restaurant, sipping on Baileys from a shallow glass and looking thoughtfully into the young lawyer’s clear, brown eyes.

“There’s something else, Regina Valentinovna,” the young man said. “But I’m afraid this information…” He coughed and fell silent.

“Don’t be afraid.” Regina smiled gently. “Call a spade a spade. Are you trying to say this information will cost me more?”

“What do you mean?” The young man blushed. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Then what is it?”

“The information is still vague but dangerous. But for your sake, Regina Valentinovna, I’m prepared to take the risk.”

“Come on, Anton, spit it out.” She leaned back in her chair and suddenly winked merrily. “What do you want in exchange for your burning secret? You don’t have to be shy with me.”

But Anton was shy. He blushed and felt his shirt treacherously soaking through under his jacket.

“I think we’d do better to talk about this somewhere else,” he said softly. “If you don’t object.”

“Where are you and I going to talk?” Regina shook her head.

“If you have no objection”—he filled his lungs with air and blurted out—“at my place!”

For two weeks a quiet rumor had been circulating among the employees that the boss had a new love interest. People had always been surprised by the iron faithfulness of the couple. Neither Volkov nor Gradskaya had allowed themselves any outside distractions. People were used to seeing them as a single unit, whole and indivisible. And now someone had heard from someone else who knew for a fact that the boss was head over heels in love with another woman.

The most interesting part was that the object of his desire was not some film star or model, but a modest, middle-aged journalist. People were burning with curiosity. If the boss had started something with one of the famous beauties that circled around him, no one would have been surprised.

People said that Volkov was very serious about the journalist, he’d fallen in love in his old age, and he was planning to divorce Regina and marry the journalist, who no one knew or had even laid eyes on.

After cautiously verifying the business’s financial affairs on Gradskaya’s instruction, Anton Konovalov had become more and more convinced that his boss was busy dividing up their joint property. He had to give his boss his due. He was dividing up the business’s immense wealth between him and his wife fairly. From what he was able to see, Volkov intended to put the entire business in Regina Valentinovna’s full control, leaving himself with several houses and money in the form of cash deposits in a few Swiss banks. It was clear that Gradskaya was losing almost nothing. The business yielded huge profits, and in five or six years Regina Valentinovna could fully recover what her husband had taken with him.

Regina Valentinovna would be rich and powerful as well as available, so naturally there were several young men prepared to ease her solitude. If previous attempts to flirt with the older but still attractive woman had been doomed to failure, now there was a real chance. And Anton Konovalov had decided that he had the most realistic chance.

This was the second time he’d been alone with his boss in a dimly lit restaurant. What he’d reported to her today unambiguously confirmed the vague rumors of an impending divorce. But there was one other piece of news, quite unpleasant news. Anton believed he’d learned of this dangerous information in time, and it was probably worth a lot. But this had nothing to do with money. His boss should be grateful to him. She could express her gratitude at his place. Then he would tell her what he had discovered.

“Okay.” Gradskaya smiled tenderly. “I’m burning with curiosity.”

His two-room bachelor pad on Vernadsky Boulevard seemed to have been specifically designed for intimate encounters. The floor in the living room was covered in a very soft rug that begged to be walked on barefoot. There was only a low, wide, L-shaped sofa to sit on. The guest had no choice but to sit beside her host. Out of his extensive music library, Anton chose Mozart. A scented candle was quickly lit on the round coffee table, and two tiny cups of strong Turkish coffee were brewed.

“I’m listening, child,” Gradskaya said wearily when her gracious host finally stopped fussing and sat down beside her on the sofa.

“Regina Valentinovna.” He tried to make his voice low and a little raspy. “Aren’t you tired of talking about business?”

“All right, Anton, quit playing these games.” She frowned. “Tell me what you know.”

“I’m afraid,” he murmured in confusion. “I’m afraid you’ll leave the moment I tell you everything. And I want you to stay here a while. It’s so nice to have you here.”

“Don’t worry.” She reached out and ruffled the hair on the back of his head.

He caught her hand and kissed her firm, broad palm, and said in a whisper, “You really won’t leave?”

“I promised,” Regina whispered in reply and tenderly ran her finger across his cheek and touched his lips.

“I discovered entirely by accident that someone has taken an active interest in the business’s financial affairs.” His hands explored under her narrow suede skirt. “At first I thought it was the tax police, but it isn’t. It’s someone entirely different.” One of his hands slid across her hip and the other unzipped her skirt.

“Who?” Regina took his face in her hands and looked closely into his eyes.

“Crooks,” he exhaled. Pulling off her skirt, stockings, and panties simultaneously, he started to unbutton her silk blouse.

“Can you be more precise?” Regina asked.

“Curly’s men.” Her blouse fell to the floor, followed by her bra. In the candle’s weak light, he couldn’t see Regina Valentinovna’s face turn deathly pale.

“What specifically were they interested in?” she asked in a whisper.

Anton, who had been undressing himself as he undressed her, was almost completely nude.

“Everything. Absolutely everything. Not only that, they did it brashly, almost proprietarily.” He took off the last thing—dark blue socks with little white stars.

This is the end, Regina thought, barely responding to the young lawyer’s energetic caresses. Curly is going to take everything. All he needs there is Polyanskaya and Blindboy. In Curly’s place, that’s exactly what I would have done. But what am I going to do in my place? Or can’t I do anything? Is this truly the end? The end could be even worse, but never dumber. Lord, is Sinitsyn’s unlucky verse going to surface again?

Anton Konovalov was already moaning quietly, and Regina noted distractedly that she’d been wrong to reject the advances of these young peacocks for so many years. Although she understood perfectly well that it was exclusively a matter of money and career, nonetheless, she’d missed out on a lot. She couldn’t catch up now.

Things were approaching their denouement. The violin wailed high and passionately, and the cello’s deep, low voice began affectionately echoing it. Regina was surprised to discover that she was well on her way. All of a sudden there awoke in her such a bitter, insatiable thirst for life. She dug her nails so hard into her partner’s muscular back that she nearly drew blood. She arched her head back and she was off somewhere above the sparking waves of the violin solo.

The tub in Konovalov’s apartment was round and roomy and had a whirlpool. Anton carried his lady there and got in himself.

“You know, I think I’ll stay here until morning,” Regina said, and she closed her eyes. “I need to get good and relaxed.”

“Really?” He was overjoyed.

“It’s I who should thank you. Your secret is indeed worth a lot. You’re right, the information is indeed both unpleasant and dangerous. Be cautious with it, please.”

“Of course! Not a word to anyone! The silence of the grave!”

“That’s the truth.” Regina nodded pensively.

The lighter’s flame flickered and went out. Lena flicked it one more time, but it had run out of fuel.

“Hello, Lena Polyanskaya. Please get dressed as quickly and quietly as you can,” the killer whispered.

With trembling hands, Lena pulled the sweater Nina had left over her own. Blindboy flashed his flashlight on her.

“Do you have anything warmer?” he asked.

“No.”

“All right, then let’s go.” He took her by the hand.

His hand was iron.

He’s worked out and is twice as wide as he was then, Lena thought. He’s a killer.

They slipped out of the room and stole down the hallway. The building was filled with a sleepy silence. A minute later they were in some kind of a room. Looking around, Lena realized it was the kitchen. The flashlight flashed again, lighting a small, inconspicuous door next to the giant refrigerator. Through the door was a wooden staircase.

They climbed it and ended up in the attic. Moonlight fell through a small dormer window. Stepping cautiously over the creaking wood floor, trying not to make any noise, they went to a window which Blindboy had left half open. Outside was the steep incline of the metal roof. Blindboy gave Lena a boost, she crawled out the window, and her feet immediately slid on the icy metal. Vasya crawled out and managed to grab her hand.

“I’m going to jump first,” he whispered in her ear. “And then you. Don’t be afraid, it’s not high. I’ll catch you. Why is your hair wet?”

“I washed it,” Lena whispered in reply.

“That’s bad. You’ll catch cold. Okay, I’m going. When you jump, watch you don’t yell.”

He slipped almost silently off the edge of the roof. Lena began creeping after him. She was scared to look down. Easy for him to say it’s not high! It was every bit of five meters. Lena squeezed her eyes shut and jumped, imagining all her bones breaking, but she landed right in the killer’s iron arms. He had an odd smell.

“What is that smell?” Lena whispered.

“Ether. For the dogs,” he answered and cautiously set her down on the snow.

There was a noise in the building. A flashlight ran by a first-floor window. Grabbing Lena’s hand, the killer dragged her to the other side of the building. It was hard to run through the deep snow. Lena realized they were running away from the road.

The building was surrounded by a concrete wall at least two meters high. From her window, she hadn’t been able to see that past the trees. Right by the fence there was something dark in the snow. Lena could see that it was a dead body and that Vasya was taking the short pea jacket and scarf off it.

“Put this on,” he said. “Faster! Put the scarf on your head!”

Lena obediently zipped up and threw the wide knit scarf that had been taken off the dead man around her head. The scarf smelled of tobacco and men’s cologne. Blindboy pulled her by the arm, and they quickly ran along the wall. There was a narrow gap between concrete sections with fat pieces of steel armature sticking out of it.

“I’ll go first, you follow. Be careful going over the barbed wire. Don’t get snagged.”

“Is it electrified?” Lena asked.

“It was. It’s not now.” He climbed deftly, like a cat, onto the two-meter-high wall and immediately disappeared down the other side. Lena grabbed onto a piece of steel and pulled herself up. Even as a child she hadn’t climbed walls. Her foot looked for a hold and slipped over the concrete.

Voices and footsteps could be heard coming from the house.

“Stop!” a voice shouted from very close by. “Stop or I’ll fucking shoot!” And a few shots rang out.

Lena flew over the wall like a bird. And found herself back in the killer’s arms. The moon was shining brightly. They ran into the taiga, slogging through the deep snow, tripping on roots. It was getting harder and harder to run. Behind them, the guards were shooting at random.

Blindboy pulled a small, short-barreled submachine gun out of his jacket as he ran, looked back, and fired a round. The shots behind them stopped for a second. Then they rattled again.

“Get down!” Blindboy ordered.

Lena fell onto the snow. She couldn’t see a thing. She heard only continuous gunfire and cursing. Someone was running heavily over the deep snow. Vasya was shooting off rounds. Lena suddenly realized he was taking out one thug after another with his submachine gun. She didn’t know how long this had been going on, but it seemed like an eternity. She was cold lying in the snow. A trembling struck her. The locks of her hair that escaped the scarf turned into icicles.

Finally it was quiet. She decided to raise her head and looked around. Vasya was sitting on the snow, squeezing his right shoulder with his left hand.

“That’s it,” he said. “We’re going.”

“What happened to you? Are you okay?” she asked.

“Just grazed. I’ll be fine. Shake off the snow.” He stood up. “Let’s go. We have to get as far away from here as possible.”

They didn’t run now. You can’t run through the deep taiga, there’s no solid ground underfoot. You might step into a swamp at any moment. That’s not so bad in winter, when the ground is frozen solid, but by spring the ice is very thin. A taiga swamp will suck you down instantly.

They moved forward, stepping over the trunks of fallen trees. It started growing light. Lena could make out a dark stream of blood on Vasya’s right sleeve.

“We have to stop the blood. Let’s sit down on a trunk and I’ll look at the wound.”

“No.” He shook his head. “We have to get to the hermitage.”

“What hermitage?”

“There’s a place near here, an abandoned hermitage from the Schismatics.”

“You shot them all. Who’s going to be chasing us?”

“Not all of them. When it gets light, they’ll send a helicopter. We have to get to the hermitage, which you can’t see from above.”

“Is it far to this hermitage?”

“A couple of hours at least.”

“Does it hurt?” Lena asked. “Does your shoulder hurt?”

“Don’t talk,” he replied. “Conserve your strength.”

She barely had any strength left. Lena kept rubbing her face with fistfuls of snow. Her feet slipped over the iced trunks of trees. Her head was spinning she was so weak. They walked for three hours without halts or stops. Despite his wounded shoulder, Blindboy walked easily and swiftly over the treacherous terrain. He walked through the taiga as if he had asphalt underfoot.

They didn’t say a single word for the rest of their long, agonizing journey.