Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [147]
“I met him in Munich. He offered to help.”
“Who’s the woman? She was with him in the car.”
“I don’t know.”
Peter shook his head. “The correct answer is ‘What woman?’ I see now that I shouldn’t have left; I should have camped on Friedrichstrasse and watched. Renko, are you safe?”
“I don’t know.”
Peter accepted that. He took a deep breath. “Berlin air. It’s supposed to be good for you.”
Arkady lit a cigarette. Peter took one. From the balcony below came audible snoring mixed with the garden sound of flies. “The Workers’ State,” Peter said.
“What about the house?” Arkady asked. “Are you going to be a landowner, are you going to move in?”
Peter leaned on one railing, then another. He said, “I like to rent.”
The day was fading when Peter dropped Arkady at Zoo Station. Over the city was a momentary hush, a pause between afternoon and evening. Minute by minute, Arkady was learning what he would do to stay with Irina. The answer seemed to be anything.
She would be going to dinner with American collectors. Arkady bought flowers and a vase and walked through the Tiergarten in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate, its columns and pediments as high as a five-story building. He saw how impressive a promenade this could be, a boulevard that ran the length of the western half of the city and continued through the Gate into the old imperial squares of the east. He had it practically to himself. When the Wall was up, this hundred meters of blacktop had been the most carefully observed spot on earth—from one side by watchtowers, from the other by tourists who climbed a platform to gawk.
At the base of the columns was a white Mercedes and a man bouncing a soccer ball on his head. Wearing a camel’s-hair coat tied as casually as a bathrobe, he balanced the ball on his forehead, dropped it to knee, to instep, tipped the ball to his other foot and flipped it up again. A professional player like Borya Gubenko didn’t lose his skills if he kept in shape. He bounced the ball from knee to knee.
“Renko!” He waved Arkady closer, keeping the ball in steady motion.
While Arkady came closer, Borya kicked the ball high into the air. Arms out like a tightrope walker, he caught it on his foot, cradled it on his instep and flipped it up to his head. “I’ve been doing more than just hitting golf balls in Moscow,” he said. “What do you think? Think I’m ready to run back out there out and defend the goal for Central Army?”
“Why not?”
When Arkady was close enough, Borya stepped back to let the ball drop, then stepped forward and kicked it full force into his stomach. Arkady dropped. As he landed, he heard the vase break. His legs went different ways. The ground spun and he couldn’t get his balance even lying down. There was a ring around his vision and spots in the sky.
Borya knelt and put a gun to his ear. An Italian pistol, Arkady thought. “I owe you a lot more than that,” Borya said.
The gun wasn’t necessary. He rose, opened the passenger door of the Mercedes, lifted Arkady by the collar and the back of his belt—the same way drunks were toted out of football games—and threw him into the front seat, put the ball in back and slid behind the wheel. The car’s acceleration shut Arkady’s door.
Borya said, “If it were up to me, you’d be dead. You never would have left Moscow. If people saw us kill you, so what? We’d pay them off. I think there’s a self-destructive streak in Max.”
Arkady breathed shallowly. He hadn’t had the wind knocked out of him for so long that he had forgotten the utter helplessness. Flowers and vase were lost. His stomach still felt concave. He was aware that Borya was taking a scenic route along the River Spree, more or less in the direction of the sunset, maintaining just enough speed so that Arkady wouldn’t jump. Borya could have killed him by now.
Borya said, “Sometimes smart people overcomplicate. Great plans, no execution. What’s the