Quiller Balalaika

13: MARIUS

She danced prettily, Antanova.

I watched her through the pearl-framed opera glasses, alone in the box on the second tier. Her glissades wereenchanting, but she lacked the strength for the grands fetes, her balance wavering a little. In any case it was her face I was interested in.

They're for Sakkas' mistress, I'd told Vishinsky in the hotel. The diamonds.

Antanova?

Yes.

One name to conjure with, in all Moscow. The floor of my new safe-house had been littered with ballet programmes when I'd left there; I'd got them this morning from the Tourist Bureau.

In any case – Vishinsky – he never lets Natalya wear jewellery. To Sakkas she's cattle.

Out of the seven major ballet companies I'd found twelve Antanovas, nine of them in the corps de ballet, three of them soloists, one of them with the first name of Natalya, appearing in Giselle at the Metropolitan.

An entrechat cinque, prettily done. The theatre was overheated, and women with bare shoulders and diamante necklaces were fanning themselves. The performance had been running for an hour.

I'd arrived thirty minutes before curtain-up, taking off my overcoat and leaving it in the Mercedes, going across to the stage door in the overalls I was wearing underneath.

'I'm here to fix Antanova's car,' I told the stage doorkeeper. 'Which one is it?'

'What?'

Hard of hearing, a drip on his nose, his hands chilblained. I told him again.

'There are two Antanovas,' he said, 'in the company.'

'Natalya.'

'The BMW.'

'There are three BMWs out there.'

'The gunmetal-grey coupe.'

'Are you sure?' This was important.

He stared at me, rheumy-eyed, as if I were mental. 'I know all their cars,' he said, and picked up his newspaper again, shaking it out.

Snow was whirling under the lights as I went back to the Mercedes; it had been coming down harder in the past hour; the forecast had warned of a blizzard moving in before midnight. I peeled off the overalls, pulling my dinner jacket straight and checking the tie, putting on the overcoat and walking down the pavement for half a block to the first taxi in the rank, giving the driver a $50-note and telling him what I wanted him to do.

'I'm going to lose a fare,' he said, 'when the audience turns out, this snow and all.'

I was ready for this and gave him another $50. 'Do it right, or I'll skin your hide.'

'I don't think there'll be any problem.'

I didn't let the thought worry me, as I sat watching the exquisite Antanova, that the whole of the mission could now depend on whether that driver out there did exactly what I'd told him to do. Go anywhere near the stage door or remain in sight and he'd blow Balalaika.

Another glissade, this one enough to catch the breath. If Natalya Antanova was working to become a prima ballerina, what was she doing with a man like Sakkas?

I didn't hurry when the curtain came down; she'd take a little time getting the grease paint off. People were bunching on the pavement outside the vestibule as the limousines and taxis came rolling in, forming a double lane. My driver wasn't among them.

I was sitting in the Mercedes when the dancers came through the stage door, seeing the snow and hunching forward as they crossed to their cars. With their fur collars raised to shield their faces I wouldn't have recognized Antanova, had to wait until she reached her BMW and saw the taxi blocking it in and turned to look around for the driver.

I got out and went across to her. 'It's broken down,' I said.

She almost whirled on me, her eyes wide. 'How do you know?'

'The driver told me. He's gone to find a mechanic, if he can.'

Her expression half-believing as she stood staring at me, the snow falling on her shoulders; I thought it probable that she only half-believed anything, was running scared, like Mitzi Piatilova.

'How long will he be?' she asked me.

'On a night like this I doubt if he'll be able to fetch a mechanic out anyway. Let me offer you a lift.'

'No, I -' she swung away to look at the warmly lit stage door while I wondered if she'd go in there to use the telephone and call someone to pick her up, two seconds, three, the waiting difficult for me because if she did that, the whole scenario would be wrecked at the outset. The snow spiralled, black against the lights, the wind chill cutting the face.

Swinging back to me, taking in my expensive coat, the sable hat. 'Which way are you going?'

'The Boulevard Ring.' Sakkas wouldn't rule his empire from the suburbs.

'Which is your car?' she asked me.

'That one. You'll freeze, standing out here.'

An expensive Mercedes seemed as reassuring to her as the coat, and she nodded and went over to it and I stopped myself in time from opening the door for her: it would be surprising, dangerous in terms of a tight cover, in a Muscovite, especially to a woman who was regarded as cattle.

'Your performance is beautiful to watch,' I said as we turned north.

'Thank you.'

The face elfin, sculpted almost in miniature, the cheekbones perfect, the eyes large, luminous, the mouth tender, traces of rouge still glowing on one cheek, clown-like, where she'd missed it in the dressing-room mirror, a single curl of chestnut hair hanging loose below her ear, no jewellery. A beautiful woman, yes.

'How long have you been dancing?'

'Since I was three years old.' But with no interest in her tone, even though her work must be her life, or whatever life Vasyl Sakkas allowed her. Perhaps she had worries on her mind tonight, wasn't always so scared of strangers.

The snow was hitting the windscreen with enough force to smother it, and I switched on the heater wash and slowed until the glass cleared.

'I need the address,' I told Antanova.

'Number 1183. It's one of the big houses, lying back.'

I gave it a moment. 'How is Vasyl?'

At the edge of my vision field I saw her head jerk to look at me.

'You know him?'

'I remember the address.'

Still watching me: 'He's in St Petersberg.'

Throp, throp, the wipers. Steam was rising against the windscreen as the lights of a car swept across it and the clinking of chains became louder suddenly, snow drumming in a wave against the side of the Mercedes as the other vehicle swerved across the ruts.

'When's he coming back?' I asked Antanova.

'Tonight.' She was facing her front now, worried about an accident.

'I would have liked to talk to him.'

'Vasyl? You'd need an appointment, and screening. Or do you know him well?'

'We've done business. And excuse me – my name's Berinov, Dmitri. I'm in jewellery, chiefly export.'

The snow blinding in the beams, the dim outlines of the houses ghostly on either side of the street, some of their numbers legible in the back-light: 1175.

'In any case he won't be in Moscow,' Antanova said, 'until the early hours.' Then she was silent for a time, and when I glanced at her I saw she was crying, her face buried in her furs, the tears glistening in the half-light.

In a moment I asked her, 'Can I help?'

She said nothing, shook her head vigorously, even desperately. Perhaps the worry on her mind tonight, then, was Sakkas' return to Moscow. He would have missed her, and was not a gentle man. I pushed the thought away.

No. 1181, and as I began slowing, headlights on full beam stabbed suddenly from the distance, and I dragged the visor down.

'The next house?' I asked Antanova.

She was shielding her eyes against the glare. 'I don't want to go in,' she told me, the tone raw, a soft cry muted by her hands.

'All right.'

But the headlights were closing on us very fast now and I said sharply, 'Get down.'

'It's one of -'

'Get down low.'

She dropped forward, holding her face in her hands, and I waited for the shots because this could be a hit set up for someone else, someone who was expected to arrive at No. 1183 at precisely this time, someone Sakkas wanted out of his way.

I kept on a straight course, accelerating a little and hearing the chains searching for traction; if I did a U-turn and tried to get out as fast as I could there'd be shots anyway: mere suspicion would be a good enough excuse in the mind of the mafiya.

'Stay down,' I told Antanova as the headlights came blazing through the snow directly at the Mercedes and then swung and went past and I felt the gross impact of the shots as the brain gave way to illusion, then there was only the white tunnel of our own lights ahead of us through the blizzard and I told Antanova she could straighten up.

'It was one of Vasyl's security units?'

She nodded, tightening her seat-belt, staring ahead.

'How many are there?'

'Several cars.' Blowing into a small embroidered handkerchief. 'They're always in the street.'

'And behind the house?'

'Of course. Everywhere.' Her face turned to watch me. 'You didn't notice them before?'

'When I came to the house? It was in daylight, and he'd sent a car for me.' Security units standing off and guards, for certain, at the gates: Sakkas territory, keep out. I'd memorized the number of the house but it was clear enough now that I'd have no hope of surveillancing it, even by night.

'You want to stay with friends?' I asked Antanova.

'Friends? No. I must go back there soon.'

'You want to drive around for a while?'

'No. Take me to the Entre'acte.' Turning to me: 'Do you have time?'

'All the time you need. That's a club?'

'Yes.'

'Where is it?'

She gave me the directions and I turned away from the Ring and headed south; in blizzard conditions it would take fifteen minutes, twenty.

'You can leave me there,' she said, 'and I'll get someone to take me to the house later.' Didn't say 'home'.

'Vasyl's coming in by air?'

'Yes.'

'They'll have cancelled the flight, of course.'

'He'll be in his own 747.'

'Even so, he can't land until this clears and they've opened up the runways again.'

'But I must go back there soon, anyway, or they'll report me.'

'His guards?'

'His aides.'

She wasn't withholding anything, even from a stranger; either she assumed I knew what the relationship was or she just didn't care, just needed to talk, to share her misery.

I asked her: 'Tell me exactly when you've got to be back there.' For her safety's sake I didn't want her to be late.

'By midnight.'

The clock on the instrument panel showed 10:31. 'That's your curfew?'

In a moment, disliking the word. 'It's when I need to be back. You should turn left at the next intersection. If you like you can drop me off at the taxi rank outside the Romanov Palace.'

'No, I'll see you to the club. Are you warm enough?'

'Yes.'

Not strictly true, even though the heater was switched to full fan; she was frozen, crouched beside me with her small body rigid, frozen with cold, frozen with fear as the snow drove against the windscreen in blinding gusts and the illuminated clock flicked to 10:32, another minute nearer midnight.

'So why don't you leave him?'

'I can't.'

She said it impatiently, as if I should have known. Did she expect everybody to know everything about her life with Sakkas? Did he parade her through the clubs of Moscow as his beautiful, talented white slave? It was an important question, because all I knew about him was that he liked his privacy, was a reserved, remote and ruthless entrepreneur operating from his winter fortress in the capital of the new Russia, unassailable because of his ability to control the very centre of Moscow's crime network. Most of this was in the briefing; some of it I'd picked up on my way into the mission, a lean dog hungry for scraps. But I'd found no kind of Achilles heel in the man, though now I thought it might lie here, in his relationship with Natalya Antanova, and this could give me something to work on, even,a chance of closing in on him.

'Why can't you leave him?' I asked her.

She looked down, then up again, but not at me, looking around her in the half-dark: the only light was from candles burning in Tiffany glass bowls on the little tables, so that the scene was a kaleidoscope of fragmented images – the bright outlines of bottles, the sheen of bare shoulders, the glimmer of eyes in shadowed faces, some of them turned to watch Antanova. They seemed to be mostly artists here, gathered together with friends after curtain-down to bemoan their performances and seek the comfort of immediate rebuttal – but darling, you were marvellous!

'I can't leave Vasyl,' Natalya said, her eyes on me now, 'because he would have my brother killed.'

The man in the corner near the bar was one of the people watching her; I'd locked on to him when he'd come in here, less than a minute after we had. He could be an admirer, like the others, or could be simply standing there with one foot hooked over the bar stool enjoying his lust at a distance. Or he could be one of Sakkas' henchmen.

'Tell me,' I asked Natalya, 'about your brother.'

She countered this. 'How long have you known Vasyl?'

'Only a few weeks. We just did one brief deal.'

'You will do other deals with him?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'He doesn't leave much room for profit. And of course one can't protest.' I gave it a beat. 'He hasn't got my confidence, and I certainly don't have his. You can speak freely.'

Her dark eyes were glistening. 'There are so few things I can do freely, and that is why I've told you as much as I have, even -' she shrugged, and the small silver bells on the fringe of her stole shivered with sound.

'Even though I'm a stranger.'

'Yes.'

'Don't let it worry you.'

Taking a breath she said, 'My brother – his name is Marius – was with Vasyl almost from the time he came out here from England. You know Vasyl is a British national?'

'So I gathered.'

'My brother was already in the mafiya, and introduced him to all the right people. He -'

'The right people in the mafiya, or the government?'

'Both. Vasyl impressed him enormously, as he does everyone, and in a short time Marius was offered what he called the "honour" of becoming his chief aide. I didn't know Vasyl then; I only knew that Marius was getting in deep with the organization and making enormous money.' With a shrug: 'It didn't worry me; Moscow was changing overnight, the streets filling with Mercedes and Lincolns and Ferraris, new clubs opening up, Western clothes and cosmetics and music flooding in. But then the killings began, and the ordinary people of the city were given an idea of how ugly the mafiya was, behind all the opulent extravaganza. And I started worrying about my brother.' Taking another deep breath, 'And then about a year ago, last winter, he introduced me to Vasyl Sakkas at a very exclusive party.'

In the silence I said, 'Not your favourite day to remember. Natalya, don't look directly at the man standing at the end of the bar with his foot on the stool. Just glance across him when you next look around.' With her eyes still on mine she said, 'Very well. No, it was not my favourite day. Even before we parted company that night I knew that Vasyl hadn't just fallen for me – he wanted to possess me. At first I think I was flattered, even proud. I knew from what my brother had told me that Vasyl Sakkas was a powerful man, one of the most powerful men in Moscow.' Looking around her: 'He came to watch me dance, with an enormous entourage of bodyguards, and escorted me home to my cramped little apartment in Povaskaya Ulica. He gave me sables, diamonds, and a brand new BMW. It's all right, I know that man – he's just one of my followers, that's all. He never comes up or pesters me.'

'Fair enough,' I said.

'And then I was invited to Vasyl's house for the first time, to dine with him alone. And you know what happened? I woke up two days later in his enormous baroque bed, still groggy from whatever drug I'd been given, though the truth didn't occur to me right away. There were three private nurses looking after me, and a doctor came twice a day to question them about my "progress". They said it was some kind of food poisoning, because two of the staff were also taken ill. And you know? I believed it. So did my brother Marius.'

'And what did your brother Marius feel about your having woken up in Vasyl's bed?'

With a shrug: 'He knows I have affairs. I think maybe he was rather pleased that his boss favoured me, and that I was responding.'

'But were you? I don't want to -'

'No. I refused, the first time Vasyl made a serious pass. I think maybe I wanted to hold him off just to see what it felt like, to show a man as powerful as he was that he couldn't buy me – at least not instantly. Maybe it was that, I don't know. But it must have angered him, even though he never shows anger.'

'No?'

'Just cruelty.'

Two men came in, blunt-faced, hoods, letting the door slam shut on its spring, walking to the bar in step, hands in the pockets of their coats as they stared straight ahead of them.

'When did you start thinking it hadn't been food poisoning?' I asked Natalya.

Her mouth twisting with bitterness: 'Pretty soon. He made me stay in bed until the doctor said I could get up, and then -'

'For a few days? A week?'

'Maybe a week. By that time it was driving me crazy that I couldn't go to the theatre – I was already a soloist. I told Vasyl they could fire me; work isn't that easy to find, even at my level. He didn't listen. Then I saw the whole picture.'

A bald-headed man in a velvet smoking jacket and gold-rimmed glasses came out of the room behind the bar and nodded, motioning the two hoods inside.

'The whole picture,' I said.

'Yes – I could go back to my work, but I would live in Vasyl's house now, permanently. I would be there when he wanted me, when I wasn't performing. I would be his kept woman. His white slave, if you like.'

'He didn't put it like that.'

'Of course not. He says very little, Vasyl, but nobody ever mistakes what he means.'

'How did your brother feel about this?'

'May I have another drink?'

'The same?'

'Yes.'

I got our girl over and ordered more Canada Dry.

'I think Marius saw it as a very good situation developing all round. I seemed to accept Vasyl, and Vasyl seemed to be bringing me into a totally new life-style, like a waif out of the snow. I didn't want to worry my brother at that stage; I knew I was trapped in something I couldn't escape, so I decided to make the best of it, just keep on with my work and cope with the other half of my life as it came.' Hands flat on the table suddenly, her eyes becoming intense: 'Although that's not putting it well. The whole of my life is my work, it always has been. So maybe that was why I found it easier to accept the other things. I don't know.'

The door behind the bar opened and the two hoods came out, one of them tucking an envelope into the double-breasted coat. The man in the gold-rimmed glasses asked the bartender for a drink as the hoods walked in step to the door and a Hari Krishna acolyte came in, snow on his saffron robes and tonsured head. One of the hoods made a quick movement and the acolyte doubled over with a cry of pain as they went on out, one of them laughing, letting the door slam.

'When did the cruelty begin?' I asked Natalya.

'Soon afterwards. I don't want to talk about that.'

'Did your brother know?'

'Not at first. He found out last summer. We were by the swimming pool at Vasyl's dacha. I'd forgotten to put make-up over a bruise, and he asked me how I'd got it. I told him.'

When the drinks arrived we stirred the ice and I asked her, 'Why did you suddenly decide -'

'To tell him? Maybe I just didn't think anything of it, you see, by then. As long as Vasyl didn't hurt me enough to stop me dancing, I let it go. But -'

'How did Marius react?'

'He was appalled. And then furious, so much so that I had to warn him not to let Vasyl know I'd told him what was going on.'

'He took some persuading?'

'We argued half the night. Vasyl was away for two days, at the coast.' The candlelight on the ice threw spangles of colour across her face as she stirred her drink. 'Marius is nine years older than me, and he's always been the "big brother", protecting me from things when there was any trouble.'

'He finally agreed to say nothing to Vasyl?'

'Yes. I made him.'

'Not easy for him.'

'No.'

'But his attitude to Vasyl, from then on, must have been cooler.'

Hands flat on the table again. 'Look, Marius was a trusted lieutenant – actually a whole lot more than that: by this time he was managing most of Vasyl's empire, because my brother is a very astute businessman, and very discreet. Maybe his attitude was different, but if Vasyl noticed, he wouldn't have questioned it. Maybe he thought my brother knew everything already, but anyway he wouldn't have cared. Vasyl cares about no one. That's why he has no friends. Only enemies.'

'Their business relationship went on just the same?'

'Of course. Marius was enormously important to his boss, much too important to lose – or he was at that time.'

'At that time?'

'Three months ago.'

'Marius isn't managing things now?'

'No.'

'Where is he?'

Natalya looked down, her body going slack suddenly. 'He's in a forced-labour camp in Siberia, for life.'