Three Stations

7

Maya sat at the vanity in a Peter the Great restroom with a towel over her shoulders while Zhenya shaved her head. She had cut off her red hair with office scissors but there were places she couldn't see or reach with a razor, and although she resented the forced intimacy of the situation, she bowed her head while Zhenya scraped away with a razor from the dealers' lounge. Cutting her hair was his idea; her red hair as good as pointed her out to the militia. Now she was as bald as a chick.

"Did you ever shave anyone's head before?"

"No."

"Have you ever shaved yourself?"

"No."

"That's what I thought."

They had barely slept because she wanted to meet the six-thirty train at Yaroslavl Station, the same train that she had been on, hopefully with the same crew. Auntie Lena had claimed she was such a regular passenger that people knew her up and down the line. Maybe someone did.

The mirror doubled her misery. She imagined the kind of women usually reflected in such looking glasses as tall and sophisticated, drinking champagne as they gambled, laughing lightly whether they won or lost. Why not? They had better odds at roulette than she had of finding her baby.

She asked, "Why isn't anyone here?"

"The Peter the Great Casino has been closed for weeks. A lot of casinos are closed."

"Why?"

"Arkady says Moscow wants to project a dignified image like other world capitals. He says someone in the Kremlin noticed that there aren't any slot machines on the steps of the White House or Buckingham Palace."

She wondered why anyone would steal a baby. What did they do with babies? How could she have gone to sleep and let her baby be stolen? She didn't ask for these questions, they came unbidden ten times a second. Which reminded her how her breasts ached; she would have to milk herself like a cow before she left for the station. She had made up her mind that Zhenya was staying behind. He meant well but it was like having a squirrel on her shoulder, and, although it was irrational to blame Zhenya, the sight of her hair falling into a wastebasket was as depressing as losing her name.

She asked, "You and Yegor are friends?"

"We have a business arrangement."

"What does that mean?"

"I play chess for money. It's a business that's easily disrupted. I pay Yegor for protection."

"From who?"

"From Yegor, basically."

"You punk out to him? You don't defend yourself?"

"It's a business expense. It's hard to play chess when four guys jump you and another kicks the board. If more people learned how to play without a board, there wouldn't be a problem. I could teach you."

"To punk out? No, thanks. Maybe I should ask Yegor for help."

"I wouldn't advise it."

"Why?"

"He thinks you're attractive."

"Are you jealous?"

Zhenya concentrated solemnly on the crown of her skull. Her scalp was coming up a faint blue and as smooth as a billiard ball.

"Just avoid him."

"Have you ever had a girlfriend?"

He didn't have any answer to that. He might be a genius but he was also a virgin. She could tell by how timidly he blew cuttings from the nape of her neck.

"So Yegor is the guy in charge."

"He thinks he's in charge."

"Why didn't you ask him about my baby?"

"The less you see of Yegor the better."

"You could have asked."

Yegor's name was a drop of ink in water. Everything took a darker shade.

She asked, "So how come you have the run of this place?"

"I know the combination for the keypad."

"You are such a liar. Anyway, nobody plays chess for money."

"How would you know what people do in Moscow?"

That let her know that she was a peasant. They finished the rest of the shave in silence until Zhenya toweled her off.

"Do you want to take a look in the mirror?"

"No. Is there a refrigerator here?"

"An ice bin at the bar. We've got everything. Nuts, pretzels, chips-"

"Can you get me a glass and napkins and then leave me alone?" From the vantage point of the casino Zhenya watched Maya push through the early-morning crowds of Three Stations. The rain made cars appear to crawl over one another. Yesterday Maya had been a flamboyant rebel in red. Today she was a gray figure with a knit cap pulled over a shaved head, as common as a crow. Without a backward glance she went down the steps of the underpass and disappeared.

He did consider calling Arkady but to tell him what? That a mental case searching for an imaginary baby didn't want his help? She had come and gone like a bad dream, taking his knife with her. The only other evidence of her visit was a nest of dyed hair in a wastebasket and in the bar fridge a quarter glass of mother's milk. He shouldn't have taken Maya in. What was he thinking? Not even Arkady knew about this hideaway. No one knew that it was his.

Before the crackdown the casino had buzzed with color. Outside, a neon Peter the Great had opened and closed the lid of a neon chest heaped with crown jewels. Inside, players were welcomed by the lifelike wax figure of Peter, all seven feet of him in a mantle of golden threads trimmed in fur, indicating with an outstretched arm the way to the high-stakes tables, although from certain angles there was something familiar in the twist of his mouth that inspired the nickname Putin the Great.

At that time Zhenya's only connection to the Peter the Great was a guard named Yakov who styled himself a serious chess player even though he knew no more than basic openings, like the diagrammed floor of a dance class. When he opened his jacket to be comfortable, a shoulder holster couldn't help but peek out. Every Wednesday evening they played at the buffet in Yaroslavl Station, Yakov agonizing over every move because there seemed to be no plan of attack simple enough for him to remember. Zhenya toyed with him, letting him almost win, but it was impossible to lose to a man who consistently brought out his queen too soon and castled too late.

The last time they met, Zhenya noticed numbers written in ballpoint on the palm of Yakov's hand and asked if they were moves. At once Yakov went in the direction of the restroom to wash his hands. Zhenya paused the game clock and waited.

After half an hour he realized that the guard was not coming back. Zhenya paid for a sandwich he had not eaten, stuffed his chess paraphernalia into his daypack and ventured out to the square. Evening made the shabby stalls, kiosks and video game galleries busy and bright. All but Peter the Great. A neon replica of Czar Peter, Emperor of all the Russias, was unplugged, a black hole amid the glitter. Two uniformed militia officers stood at the casino's front entrance.

No one knew the shortcuts and courtyards of Three Stations better than the runaways that Zhenya moved among. He slipped into the shadow of the neighboring courtyard, climbed a pyramid of tires to the top of the wall and lowered himself to the lid of a rubbish bin in the courtyard of the casino. The truck bay was shut from the back door and was guarded by a keyless lock with an illuminated numerical pad. Of course, when the casino was up and running, there would have been armed guards and security cameras.

The plate of the lock was brass, unscratched, absolutely new, necessitating a new combination that Yakov apparently had trouble remembering. All the same, was there a parallel system? A silent alarm or a wailing siren? Braced to run, Zhenya punched in the numbers he had glimpsed on Yakov's hand and the door opened with a sigh.

Thus Zhenya claimed the Peter the Great Casino. Nothing unusual about it. So many runaways squatted in the railway cars, basements, empty buildings and construction sites of Moscow that the mayor called them "rats." And although Zhenya was a trespasser, he felt at home. More so than in the rusting Khrushchev-era flats he had shared with his father or in any children's shelter or being under Arkady's eye.

Even if he had to live in it as quietly as a ghost, the casino was the first private place Zhenya had ever lived. And if they caught him what could the consequences be? He hadn't vandalized the place; if anything, he took care of it.

Glossy brochures described the Peter the Great as only one star in a galaxy of entertainment venues offered by VGI, the Vaksberg Group International. Apparently VGI owned twenty other casinos in Moscow, some much grander than the Peter the Great, not to mention gaming establishments in London, Barbados and Dubai. A company like VGI had friends as well as enemies in the Kremlin. The standoff could go on for quite a while.

So the boy lived at Three Stations in a bubble, alone, above the crowd. Every day he explored the count room, the cashier's cage, the corridor behind one-way mirrors, the security room with its elastic restraints. Black jackets and bow ties hung in the dealers' lounge. Zhenya wore a tie loose around his neck and imagined the envy of VIPs and the awe of beautiful women as he approached the roulette table with the long, confident strides of a new Bobby Fischer. The rain continued. Zhenya spent half the day by the casino window before he saw Maya standing on the curb in front of Leningrad Station. Something wayward about her made him think that she didn't know or care where she was. She pushed the hood of her jacket back and lifted her face to the sky, her scalp a naked blue.

She wasn't Zhenya's problem. It only irritated him that he had confided in her enough to reveal his access to Peter the Great and break his own rules about not entering or leaving the casino in the daytime, no lights at night and, most of all, no visitors. The casino was his realm as long as he was alone.

The militia no longer posted men at the casino. Police cars cruised by from time to time and tugged on the padlock on the front entrance but they never bothered with the courtyard in back. Zhenya concluded that the militia had been kept ignorant of the combination to prevent everything that wasn't bolted down from disappearing in the middle of the night.

In the meantime the ventilation system automatically cleaned the air. Champagne was chilled and the icemaker filled to the brim. The owners could walk in and have their casino up and running within an hour.

For Zhenya the casino was a theme park. In the daytime he could lie down on the carpet and take in sparkling chandeliers and murals of virgins preparing for a visit from Peter, who claimed a monarch's right to sample the beauties of his empire, from hot-eyed Circassian exotics to buxom, blue-eyed girls of the Ukraine. The painter had captured each in a state of high anticipation.

At night the carpet was softer than some beds he had known. The slot machines were musketeers in caftans with recorded encouragement like, "One more for the czar!" Zhenya lifted the cloth off the roulette table and found everything in place: blue baize, plaques, winning markers, croupier rakes.

He spun the wheel and tossed a silvery ball counter to the blur of red and black numbers. While the ball rode the rim the sound was circular, and as the ball lost momentum it clicked off diamond-shaped studs, hopped erratically from one slot to another and finally came to rest on "0," the house's number.

He picked up the ball again and threw it the length of the gaming room. Swept a stack of candy-red $50,000 plaques to the floor. Kicked a box that exploded into poker chips.