Three Stations

29

As soon as Itsy saw the amulet in the baby's basket, she mobilized the family, no matter that it was in the dark of night. They had encroached on a Tajik cache of heroin hidden under the crates they had been using as firewood for the trailer stove. The amulet was an eviction notice. A parade of runaways with a crying baby was likely to interest people. However, few people were likely to be outside on such a damp night. Besides, the baby had become too precious to Itsy to give up. She had little concept of the long term. At heart she knew that the long term did not apply to her. All she had were day-to-day survival skills but she had no complaints. School, office, a comfortable old age held no appeal for her. In many ways her life was perfect.

Leo and Peter lagged behind. They were in the heavy eyelids phase of sniffing. Everyone had different stuff. Aerosol, model glue or shoe polish. Itsy wanted the boys along because they were big enough to provide some protection; otherwise, the responsibility fell on Tito, who had trotted along one side of the group and then the other until they reached Kazansky Station, where they huddled and waited for the boys to catch up. A three-week-old baby, even one as well swaddled as Itsy's, was not meant to be out in the damp and cold.

"The boys left their gear," Milka said.

Their sniffing gear, Itsy thought. Their stupid cans and bags.

"Stay here." Itsy handed the baby over to Emma.

Itsy ran back the way she had come, with every step rehearsing the things she was going to say to Leo and Peter when she found them.

The railway shed was a shadow set in a field of rails. She paused on the tracks to listen for a footfall or voice. Although she had a flashlight, she kept it dark. Her senses had been educated by living on the run and she saw the deeper, darker trench for undercarriage repairs, caught the scents of ashes and urine and heard the drip of rainwater from the open sleeve of a drainpipe. There was no sign of magical Tajik warriors astride either thunderclouds or floor sweepers. All the same, she was uneasy about being near Tajik goods.

The trailer stove still held embers and a diminishing nub of warmth. As Itsy maneuvered between bunk beds she remembered the grandiose plans she had had for a portable crib. It could still happen once she established a new base. It was just a matter of getting through the night.

Itsy smelled blood. She stepped down from the trailer and looked under the wheels. Then she returned to the lip of the trench and this time turned on the flashlight. Leo and Peter were facedown on the bottom of the trench, each with a hole of not much account in the back of the cranium. Their caps had been tossed in afterward. Itsy had promised Leo a new pair of used basketball shoes. A cigarette was still stylishly cocked behind Peter's ear, the cigarette he never smoked. A buzz in Itsy's head was faint at first but growing to monumental dimensions. Her mother said, "Isabel is a beautiful name," and the flashlight died.

The second shot dropped Itsy into the trench and a pair of silhouettes took her place.

"And one more for good luck."

His gun made a dull pop.

There was a moment of quiet satisfaction, terminated by the sound of padded feet approaching fast.

"What's that?"

"A fucking dog."

Tito hit the nearer shooter chest-high. Both landed in the trench, the dog on top.

"Get him off me."

"Stay still." A second figure looked down from the edge of the trench.

"Off me."

"Don't move."

"God!"

"I don't have an angle."

"Mother of…"

"You have to stop moving."

"Neck."

The man on the edge aimed as best he could and fired. The tussling continued in a one-sided way.

"Ilya, you all right? Ilya?"

The second shooter found Itsy's flashlight and shined it into the trench.

His brother said nothing because his carotid artery was torn and the dog was pulling him without resistance one way and then the other. Blood everywhere.

"Ilya!"

As Tito looked up, his eyes lit. He dropped the man from his jaws and started for the steps, gathering speed as he came. The second shooter emptied the rest of his clip on the dog and was still squeezing the trigger when the animal rolled back down the steps, dead ten times over.

Decisions had to be made. In ordinary circumstances, the shooter would never leave his brother behind. Ilya had been a master at tying up loose ends. Dead, Ilya was the biggest loose end of all. Just the logistics. Getting Ilya to the Volvo or the Volvo to Ilya. Finding a cartridge for every round he had fired. Digging two more graves. For the sweat alone he deserved a bonus.

Something flitted across the shooter's face. An orange laser that moved as erratically as a butterfly came to rest on the nameplate of his coveralls. He felt the coolness of the air.

"Fucking Tajiks."

That much he figured out before the bullet hit.