People Who Walk In Darkness

Chapter Nine

“The restaurant. It was delivered to the restaurant an hour past.”

The speaker was thin, no more than thirty years old, a deep ebony color. He had been one of the men who had engaged Iosef and Zelach in a gun battle and had barely gotten away. In the middle of the table at which he sat were wadded and crumpled remains of pages from Pravda. Resting on the paper was a finger-the small, black finger of a left hand. The curled finger was a matter of debate between the speaker, whose name was Patrice, and the other two young men at the table. They, too, had been in the gun battle.

The other two men were looking at Patrice for guidance, orders. The problem was that the finger on the table appeared to belong to James Harumbaki, their leader. In addition, the note left with the finger had said that both Umbaway and Roger were dead. The hierarchy was clear. Patrice was in charge, a position to which he did not aspire.

“You think they have killed Harumbaki?” asked the tallest of the three men.

Of the three, Biko looked most like a leader. He was erect, decisive in his language, prepared for whatever was to be done. The problem was that he had only one solution for any problem that emerged. Kill. Biko was more than a little crazy, and Patrice well knew it. Patrice also knew that Biko had two wives and six children under the age of ten.

“I don’t think he is dead,” said Patrice, who had no idea if what he was saying was true.

“He is not dead.”

This came from the third man, short, bespectacled, and young, the youngest of the group, named Laurence. Laurence was seventeen. He looked fourteen. He was the most battle-experienced member of the group, having been a shirtless mercenary with a Kalashnikov when he was ten. Now he had an extended family of thirty people to support.

“That’s not the finger of a dead man,” said Laurence, adjusting his glasses. “I’ve removed fingers from the living.”

“You can’t be sure,” said Patrice.

“I can,” said Laurence.

“He is sure,” said Biko.

“If we don’t give them diamonds,” said Laurence, “they will send us a toe.”

“Or his penis,” added Biko.

“No, that might kill him,” said Laurence.

Biko and Laurence looked at Patrice, who stared at the finger and said, “Then we answer them by leaving a message. We set up an exchange location. We tell them they must bring James Harumbaki.”

“We don’t have the next shipment,” said Biko.

“No,” said Patrice.

“What do we give them?” asked Laurence, already knowing the answer.

“Bullets,” said Patrice.

“James might be killed,” said Biko.

“We might be killed,” said Patrice.

“That is true,” said Biko.

“We will give James’s share of everything for three years to his family,” said Patrice. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” the other two said in near unison.

Patrice was afraid but not for his own safety. He was afraid he would be killed fighting the people who had James. Then who would look after his parents and grandfather?

“Where do we meet them?” asked Laurence.

“The park,” said Patrice.

“Which park?” asked Biko.

“East Gate Park on Kamiaken Street,” said Patrice.

“I do not know it,” said Biko.

“We had an exchange there under some statue when I first came to Moscow last year,” said Laurence.

Patrice nodded to show that this was true.

“The statue is a good place,” said Patrice. “It is quiet.”

“See,” said Kolokov, “it doesn’t hurt much.”

James Harumbaki saw little point in disputing the statement. In fact, the joint where his little finger had been removed really didn’t hurt very much. The crazy, parading Russian had given him two pills and a bottle of vodka. James accepted both with whatever dignity he could muster.

The bar, owned by a trio of brothers who were well established inside of one of Moscow’s most entrenched Mafias, was crowded. People were laughing, drinking, smoking. Music was blaring, causing a deep headache over James’s right eye. Two very large-screen television sets were on, one over each end of the long bar.

Kolokov was circling the table, balancing a drink in his hand, talking loudly over the pain, which was almost worse than the loss of a finger.

“Do not worry,” the Russian said, leaning over the table. “You can always grow another finger. Oh no, I forgot. People do not regrow toes and fingers, do they?”

Kolokov laughed.

James was flanked on either side by two of Kolokov’s gang, one of them was the bald man, Montez, who kept his hand upon the Botswanan’s leg.

“Do they?” Kolokov repeated leaning even closer.

“No,” said James.

“No, that’s right,” Kolokov repeated. “They do not, but they can reattach them. All we have to do is get you and your finger. . Oh, I forgot. I sent the finger to your friends. Pau, how long will a severed finger be usable?”

“A day or so,” said Montez. “More if it is iced.”

“Then,” said Kolokov, “we had better get you back to your friends quickly, or you may never be able to play the pipe organ again.”

“We should not be here,” said Montez.

“Why not?” asked Kolokov, looking around. “Our guest is not going to try to run. It would be useless and very painful. And he is not going to ask anyone here for help. Who here would help him? Do you see another single black face?”

Silence.

“Answer.”

“No,” said Montez.

“We are celebrating,” said Kolokov. “The friends of our guest have agreed to turn over to us a fortune in diamonds to get our guest back almost in one piece.”

“I don’t trust them,” said Igor.

“Of course not,” said Kolokov. “They mean to. . what do the Americans call it. . double crucifix us. I would. They will try. When they do, we remove another one of the fingers of our friend here. He gets weaker. We try again. Being a criminal is not an easy job.”

Some fresh music blared and a woman, pretty, in her forties, with large breasts, wearing a sleek black dress, climbed on a small stage and began to sing in Russian.

“What is that song?” asked Kolokov.

“ ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ ”

“I know it, but she is destroying it.”

Kolokov moved through the crowded tables and climbed onto the stage next to the singing woman. James tested the grip of the bald man. As soon as James moved no more than a twitch, the Spaniard’s fingers dug deeply into his thigh.

“No,” said Montez.

James went nearly limp. His bloody finger had been rinsed with alcohol and wiped with a towel of doubtful cleanliness. The tape over a small square of bandage was clinging without conviction to his finger.

Kolokov sang. The woman in the black dress sulked as he nudged in front of her at the microphone. When he had taken the microphone, the bar patrons who were listening had hooted for him to sit down, but they quickly discovered that Kolokov was more than adequate. He was good. He tapped his foot, held the microphone almost touching his lips, and belted out the music. Hoots turned to cheers.

The three men at the table with James tried to disassociate themselves from their leader. He was a clown, a buffoon. But he was also fearless and smart-at least smarter than they were.

And then James made a decision. His arms and legs were strong, very strong. The big man at his side could probably crush him, but James surprised him with his sudden strength. James pulled out of his grasp, threw his elbow into the mouth of the man on the other side of him, and dumped the table and its contents into the face and lap of the third Russian.

Then James ran for the door, leaping over a table.

The three Russians and the Spaniard were up, but behind in the chase. No one seemed to care or notice very much. Kolokov registered the uproar but kept singing until he saw James dashing for the exit.

James felt light-headed, but he kept running. At the door, he paused for no more than a quick beat to keep from colliding with Iosef and Zelach, who had just entered. James dashed past them into the night. The pursuers were only a few steps behind.

The pursuers bumped into Iosef and Zelach, and tried to push them out of the way. Both of the detectives grabbed a pursuer. Iosef slammed Alek against the wall. Zelach punched the hip of Bogdan. Bogdan went down with a wailing groan. Montez ran into the night, followed by the wheezing Kolokov. One of the men now on the floor reached into his jacket. Iosef said, “No,” and held up the gun in his hand.

Much attention was now being paid to the scene by patrons and the band on the stage.

“What’s this?” said a bodybuilder type with an accent Iosef thought might be Bulgarian.

“We’re the police,” said Iosef.

“So?” asked the bouncer.

“We’re looking for some black men,” said Iosef.

“One just ran out of here,” said the bodybuilder. “If you hurry, you can catch him.”

“He’s not the one we are looking for,” said Iosef, looking at Zelach.

Zelach shook his head no. The man who had run from the bar was definitely not one of those with whom they had the shootout this afternoon. The detectives had been to five bars based on a vague suggestion by the restaurant owner, Maticonay, who had been shot. Iosef had begun to feel that they had been lied to until they came to this place.

“Let’s take these two out of here for a talk,” said Iosef.

The bodybuilder shrugged. It was not his business. He did not even care if they were really the police. He was paid to keep the place relatively calm. He swaggered away as the two policemen helped the men to their feet.

“That business with the knuckles to the hip,” said Iosef, “where did you get that?”

“Pressure point,” said Zelach. “I’ve been studying a tape, practicing.”

“On your mother?”

“No. On myself.”

“You are a man of many talents, Detective.”

“Thank you.”

“We can. .” Iosef began, but did not finish.

There was a gunshot outside, down the street. The detectives immediately abandoned their prisoners and dashed into the night. The two fallen Russians rose and went through the door after them.

“Wait,” said Alek, holding out his hand.

“What? It came from that way.”

“Why don’t we go that way?” asked Alek.

He was pointing in the opposite direction.

“Yes,” said Bogdan.

“If Kolokov gets back, we tell him we escaped from the police.”

“Yes, that is what happened,” said Bogdan, already believing the lie.

“Two of them,” said Detective Jan Pendowski as he sat feeding seeds to big, ugly, gray-black crows from a bench on Venetsiansky Island in Hydropark.

They could hear the balls bouncing on the tables in the Ping-Pong area beyond a mesh fence a few dozen yards away. On nice days like this in Kiev, Jan liked to come out and watch the college girls bouncing under their thin shirts as they swatted at the balls.

“Two,” said Oxana.

She sat next to him touching a fingernail to her lower lip, where she sensed an imperfection in her makeup. As much as Jan liked looking at the young girls, Oxana Balakona liked to be looked at by males of all ages as they walked by. She had become a model because it had been what she always wanted to be: admired, looked at, wanted.

“A man and woman,” said Jan. “Moscow detectives. They are looking for you.”

Oxana turned to face him as he hurled a handful of seeds at a bird near his feet. The bird retreated, not sure if it was being attacked or rewarded.

“Me?”

“It appears that the woman who gave you the diamonds has been murdered.”

He had her full attention now, but he did not look her way. The Ping-Pong balls and the laughter of girls beyond the fence was all-powerful.

“Murdered,” she repeated.

It struck Jan, and not for the first time, that while Oxana was clever, she was not terribly smart. She frequently repeated whatever he said as if she were mulling it over or using it as a question.

“The diamonds,” he said. “They are here looking for them. We must get them to Paris quickly. The two Moscow detectives will find you here. It will not take them long. I’ll guide them in a long search for wild ducks but they will find you if you are here, and going back to Moscow does not strike me as a viable option. They will find you even more easily there.”

“So, Paris quickly,” she said, deciding to stare down a boy of no more than seventeen who couldn’t help openly and longingly examining her.

“I have something to tell you,” she said. “Something that is amazingly lucky.”

“See that one?” he asked, pointing at a bird slightly smaller than the other dozen or so that circled before him on the ground, scurrying out of each other’s way. “Lost an eye. A fight, or disease.”

“Disease,” said Oxana. “A fashion editor at Paris Match wants me to go to Paris with her tomorrow or the next day for a fashion layout. Perfect cover.”

“How did she find you, this fashion editor?”

“An agency here.”

“She came all the way to Kiev just to find you?”

“She was here anyway,” said Oxana. “And why would not a fashion editor come here for me? I am one of the very best.”

“I know,” he said. “I have my own experience of that.”

She allowed herself a small smile.

“I think I should like to meet this famous editor,” Jan went on, digging into the small white paper bag on his lap for the last of the seeds. “Before we send you off with her and the diamonds.”

“It can be arranged,” said Oxana.

“I have the Moscow detectives today. I shall run them to every corner of Kiev and back. What is the name of your editor?”

“Rochelle Tanquay,” she said. “She gave me a card. Here.”

Oxana reached into her small, quite fashionable red leather purse and handed it to him. On it was the name of the woman in gold script and a cell phone number.

“Call her,” he said. “Set up a time. Late night at Eric’s Bar.”

“What do I tell her?”

“That you want her to meet your fiancé, your handsome Ukrainian police detective. What does your Rochelle look like?”

“Pretty,” said Oxana.

“Better than ugly,” he said. “Call.”

She took a sky blue ultra-thin cell phone from her purse and punched in the number on the card Jan held up for her.

Four rings and then, “Hello.”

“It’s Oxana.”

“Yes. Can you leave tomorrow evening? The photographer will be available most of next week, and then he has to go to Bahrain.”

“Of course. Can we get together tonight for drinks?”

“I’ve got a dinner meeting,” said Rochelle. “It will have to be late.”

“Late is fine. Do you know Eric’s Bar, across the street from the Kinotheater Kiev on Chervonarmiyska Street?”

“I’ll find it. What time?”

“What time?” Oxana repeated looking at Jan.

He held up ten fingers and then another one.

“Eleven?”

“Eleven,” said Rochelle.

“I’ll bring my fiancé,” said Oxana. “He’s a policeman. He would very much like to meet you.”

Jan nodded yes.

“Perfect,” said Rochelle. “Eleven at Eric’s Bar. I look forward to it.”

The call ended, and Oxana returned the phone to her purse as Jan crumpled the empty white bag and dropped it into the metal trash container to his right. He got up. So did she.

Balta watched them walk down the path together. He was reclining on a blanket under a tree about fifty yards away. In front of him was a gathering of six old men watching two other old men playing chess on a park bench. They provided near perfect cover.

Balta decided to follow the man with Oxana. At the moment he looked like someone for whom he should have some concern. Balta had no doubt that he could handle the man if it were necessary or if it would help get the diamonds. And he felt that this just might be the case.

He welcomed the challenge.

The street was almost empty. The few people James Harumbaki passed were drunken men and a woman who clutched her purse as he approached from behind her. She looked over her shoulder, saw this black man with his mouth open panting behind her, and pressed herself against the wall, searching inside her oversized bag for the knife her husband had given her for things like this.

James saw the fear in her eyes and simply kept running, losing blood from the stub of his finger, leaving a red trail as he bled through the cloth napkin he had snatched from the table in the bar.

It was not easy to will the world back into submission. He tried as he trod on, no longer running, not looking back over his shoulder. There was no need.

Even with his loss of blood, the out-of-shape Russians were no match for the lean, athletic Botswanan. Still, he could hear someone coming behind him. James had no idea where he was running. His thought now was to get out of sight of his pursuer, hide until daylight, hope that he could stop the bleeding, and perhaps even get back to Patrice and the others and reunite with his missing finger.

His run was now a slow shuffle. He chanced a glance over his left shoulder. There came a large man.

The man was jogging steadily. He was not one of the three Russians who had taken him prisoner, killed his friends, and cut off his finger. This man was fully clothed and determined, and definitely not out for a jog.

James willed himself to hurry. His body did not respond. He turned and spread his legs to meet the man who was coming. Maybe he could surprise the man, kick him between the legs, break his collarbone with a blow to the neck. The options were not good, but at least there were options.

The man was closing. Far behind him, in the light from a street lamp, was another man, a slouching creature who reminded James less of a man at this distance than of a monster.

The pursuer closed in now.

Then there was the sound of a car behind the man. James saw headlights coming closer. The car screeched as it changed gears. James headed for the sidewalk.

The car almost hit the pursuing man and skidded to a stop in the street next to James. The back door of the old Zil opened.

James knew the car. He had ridden in it to the bar.

No escape. He looked at the man coming down the street and could see now that the man was holding a gun.

“Kuda namylilsja. Where do you think you are going? Get in now you black son of a bitch,” shouted Kolokov.

“I had that audience and you took it from me. Now I think I’ll take something from you.”

The man in the street with a gun, no more than twenty yards away now, shouted, “Stop.”

James went through the open door of the car.

Iosef fired a shot, and then another as the car in front of him took off down the street. When it had turned a corner, Zelach appeared at his side. Unlike Iosef, Zelach didn’t appear to be breathing hard.

“I thought you do not work out,” said Iosef, panting.

“I do not.”

“Are you even sweating?”

“No,” said Zelach. “Yoga.”

“You do yoga?”

Iosef was looking down at the trail of blood he had been following.

“Yes. My mother, too. She taught me.”

“Maybe she will teach me.”

“I’m sure she would,” said Zelach.

“Good. Now we must find the people in that car.”

“How?”

“The Botswanans.”

Sasha Tkach was afraid.

He moved slowly up the dark, narrow wooden stairway in the old three-story building that had once housed the offices of the Voluntary Collective of Sewing Machine Operators. The stairway was dark. The steps creaked with each step he took.

The building had been converted to apartments more than half a century ago. The conversion had been far less than successful. Some of the apartments were small, just single rooms of unimpressive size. Others were four rooms of varying sizes.

Sasha moved to the door he was seeking, took a deep breath, brushed back his hair, smelled his breath against the palm of his hand, and knocked.

He had left his gun in the hotel room provided by Jan Pendowski and the Kiev Police Department’s Smuggling Division. He had put on his primary change of clothing, told Elena, who was in the room next to his, that he was going out, and made his way to this building, to this door.

He knocked again and thought he heard a woman humming. She sounded happy. The sound of happiness was not a good sign.

“Yes?” she asked.

“It is me,” Sasha said.

There was a beat. Then the door opened and there stood Maya, looking small, dark, a brush poised touching her long, dark hair.

“You are here,” she said.

Had he hoped for a look of forgiveness, or even a tiny smile of appreciation, he would have been disappointed.

“I am here,” he said.

“Why?”

“May I come in?”

She considered, let her hand with the brush drop to her side and answered, “No. Yes. Come in.”

She was wearing a pale green dress he did not recognize. Around her neck was a strand of small, glittering glass pieces that looked like diamonds. Sasha had given the strand to her as one of the many peace offers made over the years for his inevitable transgressions. Was there hope in it being around her neck?

She stepped back, let him enter, and closed the door.

“The children?” he asked, looking around the room brightly lit with aluminum floor lamps and scattered with unmatched furniture.

“They are with Masha tonight. I am sorry. I did not know you were coming to Kiev.”

He waited for her to offer him a seat. She did not.

“Perhaps tomorrow,” he said.

“You came to Kiev to see the children?”

“And you, and because of a case. Elena is here with me.”

“Give her my best.”

“Would you like to see her?”

“No. I was about to go out.”

“I see. Maya, I have changed.”

“Into what?”

There was a bitterness in her voice he did not recognize and did not like. He had interviewed too many people, particularly women, not to recognize what she was doing.

“Who is it?” he asked.

Maya’s shoulders drooped, but only slightly. She looked at the brush in her hand and then at the wall, wishing that perhaps it would provide some counsel.

“I am going to dinner with a man from my office.”

“The Japanese?”

In response to his history of infidelity, a little more than two years ago Maya had begun a brief affair with an older, married Japanese executive with the company for which she worked.

“No. I have not seen him since. .”

“Are you going to come back to Moscow with the children? I do not mean right away, though that would be. .”

“I am not coming back to Moscow,” she said softly. “You are not going to change. I don’t want to spend any more years trying with you and failing.”

“Would it cost so much to try once more?”

“Too much,” she said. “How long are you planning to be in Kiev?”

“Not long.”

“Can you come back tomorrow morning to see the children before I go to work?”

“Yes.”

“Eight o’clock.”

She looked at the door again and then at her watch. He knew why she was doing both. He should have made an effort to make the situation easier for her, but he could not bring himself to do it.

And then a knock came, startling Maya who looked around for someplace to put her brush. She settled for a small round table with a surface the size of a dinner plate.

Another knock. She looked at Sasha, trying to decide whether she would choose defiance or pleading. She decided on a plea. Sasha closed his eyes and nodded in acceptance of a truce with good grace.

Maya opened the door. The man was not impressive. He was slightly shorter than Sasha, at least a decade older, his gray hair thinning significantly. His face showed weathering and suggested reliability. He wore a knowing smile and a very neatly pressed blue suit, white shirt, and a tie that hinted at old English school.

The man kissed her cheek before she could back away and close the door.

“This is my husband, Sasha,” she said, folding her hands knuckle white in front of her. “Sasha, this is Anders.”

The two men shook hands, and Maya said, “I did not know Sasha was in Kiev till he knocked at the door a few minutes ago.”

Anders nodded and smiled.

“I have heard a great deal about you,” Anders said in only slightly accented Russian.

“I have heard nothing about you,” said Sasha.

“Maya and I work together. I’m Swedish, forty-five, reasonably healthy, a lawyer, unmarried.”

“And you tell me all this, why?”

“Because I want to marry your wife and raise your children.”

“What has she told you about me?”

“Sasha,” Maya pleaded.

“That you love her, are a fine father, and a good but immature and very unreliable man,” Anders said.

Sasha nodded. The assessment was accurate. Sasha liked the man. This encounter would have been so much easier if he could see something in Anders that he could attack, but he saw and felt nothing.

“Yes,” said Sasha.

“I think you should go now, Sasha,” Maya said, touching his sleeve.

He looked down at her hand, willing it to stay where it was, knowing his will had no effect on her and had not for a long, long time.

“We should go too,” Maya said softly. “Come by in the morning, Sasha.”

Sasha nodded. He suddenly had questions that he knew he could not ask: Did she love this man?

“Tomorrow,” he said, taking Anders’s offered hand and then moving to the door.

When the door had closed behind him, Sasha heard their voices but he could not make out what they were saying.

Gerald St. James listened calmly to the caller and with his free hand popped a ripe, black Greek olive into his mouth. After listening for a few minutes, he said, “No more killings.”

“No more are needed,” said the caller.

“That is for me to determine. It was for me to determine before you disposed of, what’s his name?”

“Lebedev.”

“Lebedev. The policeman from Moscow? Is he competent?”

“Yes.”

“Meaning he could cause a great deal of damage.”

“Yes.”

“But if he were killed, they would send another.”

“But not one so competent, probably.”

“Keep me informed, and I may revise my order.”

“To. .?”

“Refrain from killing. This has become very messy. I don’t like things messy.”

The caller knew that in his younger days, when Gerald St. James was a Bulgarian street robber, killing had been very messy.

“If it is necessary, it will not be messy.”

“Good.”

St. James hung up. Let the caller worry about it. The entire operation was not going smoothly. The murders at Devochka were drawing too much police attention. The termination of the Botswanan connection in Moscow had run into problems. The recovery of the transported diamonds in Kiev was at best incomplete.

St. James was alone in the house in Kensington-Highgate. His very English wife was visiting friends for the weekend. One of those friends was Vikki Thorpe. Vikki’s husband was Sir Charles Thorpe, former head of the British consulate in northern Russia, the area which included all of Siberia.

Gerald St. James would get up in the morning, drive himself to pick up his wife, and conveniently run into Sir Charles. Gerald had a proposal he wished to make, a very subtle proposal which he hoped the sometimes-obtuse member of the House of Lords was capable of understanding.

Weak links, weak links, weak links. Balta was an expert in finding weak links, be they in the personalities of those he stalked or worked with or those at the base of their necks that invited the blade.

Balta didn’t enjoy killing. It was simply something he did well. Other people’s dying was his living. The question now, as he lay naked in bed after a hot shower, was: who was the weak link, and who might he have to kill.

Oxana would give everything up with the threat of a sharp razor stroke across her cheek. He would not even have to kill her, though if he went that way he might as well.

The policeman on the park bench, the one she was working with and certainly sleeping with, was a good choice. He was probably a pragmatist who would give up the diamonds in the hope of living another day, going on to something else or going after Balta. Balta would have to find out, meet with the policeman, probe his weakness.

It would all be decided in the morning.

He checked his watch. It was time. He had to make his call. He was sure that his cell phone was fully charged.

As he placed his call, Balta moved before the full-length mirror behind the hotel room door. It amused him to wonder what St. James would think if he knew Balta was admiring his naked body in the mirror while he talked to him on the phone.

“Yes,” St. James said after the second ring.

“I’m in Kiev. I have not found the diamonds yet. Tomorrow perhaps. I do have the money.”

“Where are you?”

“Premier Palace Hotel.”

“Keep me informed.”

Balta went back to the bed. He had peeled back the blanket and laid on the sheets still damp from the touch of his body after the shower. He would give the money to St. James, but he would report that he had been unable to find the diamonds though he had tortured and killed both the policeman and the model. He had every intention of getting the diamonds. He had no intention of giving them to “Sir” Gerald St. James. Balta would take them to Paris, where the buyer was waiting. And with his wealth, he would go to the United States, where opportunities suitable for his talents awaited him.