Страница 17 из 108
Bourne, trying to keep the Cadillac out of the Potomac, sensed that the front wheels were still on the top of the barrier. He threw the car into reverse. The Cadillac shot backward, slamming into another parked car before Bourne had a chance to shift back into neutral.
From far away he could hear the seesaw wail of sirens.
“Professor, are you all right?”
Specter groaned, but at least his voice was more distinct. “We have to get out of here.”
Bourne was freeing the pedals from the strangled man’s legs. “That tattoo I saw on the gunman’s arm-”
“No police,” Specter managed to croak. “There’s a place we can go. I’ll tell you.”
Bourne got out of the Caddy, then helped Specter out. Limping over to another car, Bourne smashed the window with his elbow. The police sirens were coming closer. Bourne got in, hot-wired the ignition, and the car’s engine coughed to life. He unlocked the doors. The instant the professor slid into the passenger’s seat Bourne took off, heading east on the freeway. As quickly as he could he moved into the left-hand lane. Then he turned abruptly to his left. The car jumped the central divider and he accelerated, heading west now, in the opposite direction the sirens were coming from.
Six
ARKADIN TOOK his evening meal at Tractir on Bolshaya Morsekay, halfway up the steep hill, a typically unlovely place with roughly varnished wooden tables and chairs. Almost one entire wall was taken up by a painting of three-masted ships in Sevastopol harbor circa 1900. The food was unremarkable, but that wasn’t why Arkadin was here. Tractir was the restaurant whose name he’d found in Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko’s wallet. No one here knew anyone named Devra, so after the borscht and the blini, he moved on.
Along the coast was a section called Omega, filled with cafйs and restaurants. As the hub of the city’s nightlife culture, it featured every variety of club one could want. Calla was a club a short stroll from the open-air car park. The night was clear and brisk. Pinpoints dotted the Black Sea as well as the sky, making for a dizzying vista. Sea and sky seemed to be virtually interchangeable.
Calla was several steps down from the sidewalk, a place filled with the sweet scent of marijuana and an unearthly din. A roughly square room was divided between a jam-packed dance floor and a raised section filled with minuscule round tables and metal cafй chairs. A grid of colored lights pulsed in time with the house music the straw-thin female DJ was spi
The dance floor was packed with men and women. Bumping hips and elbows was part of the scene. Arkadin picked his way over to the bar, which ran along the front of the right wall. Twice he was intercepted by young, busty blondes who wanted his attention and, he assumed, his money. He brushed past them, made a beeline for the harried bartender. Three tiers of glass shelves filled with liquor bottles were attached to a mirror on the wall behind the bar so patrons could check out the action or admire themselves while getting polluted.
Arkadin was obliged to wade through a phalanx of revelers before he could order a Stoli on the rocks. When, some time later, the bartender returned with his drink, Arkadin asked him if he knew a Devra.
“Yah, sure. Over there,” he said, nodding in the direction of the straw-thin DJ.
It was 1 AM before Devra took a break. There were other people waiting for her to finish-fans, Arkadin presumed. He intended to get to her first. He used the force of his personality rather than his false credentials. Not that the rabble here would challenge them, but after the incident at the winery, he didn’t want to leave any trail for the real SBU to follow. The state police alias he’d used there was now dangerous to him.
Devra was blond, almost as tall as he was. He couldn’t believe how thin her arms were. They had no definition at all. Her hips were no wider than a young boy’s, and he could see the bones of her scapulae when she moved. She had large eyes and dead-white skin, as if she rarely saw the light of day. Her black jumpsuit with its white skull and crossbones across the stomach was drenched in sweat. Perhaps because of her DJing, her hands were in constant motion even if the rest of her stayed relatively still.
She eyed him up and down while he introduced himself. “You don’t look like a friend of Oleg’s,” she said.
But when he dangled the IOU in front of her face her skepticism evaporated. Thus is it ever, Arkadin thought as she led him backstage. The venality of the human race ca
The green room where she relaxed between sets was better off left to the wharf rats that were no doubt shuttered behind the walls, but right now that couldn’t be helped. He tried not to think of the rats; he wouldn’t be here long anyway. There were no windows; the walls and ceiling were painted black, no doubt to cover up a multitude of sins.
Devra turned on a lamp with a mean forty-watt bulb and sat down on a wooden chair damaged by knife scars and cigarette burns. The difference between the green room and an interrogation cell was negligible. There were no other chairs or furniture, save for a narrow wooden table against one wall on which was a jumble of makeup, CDs, cigarettes, matches, gloves, and other piles of debris Arkadin didn’t bother to identify.
Devra leaned back, lit a cigarette she nimbly swiped from the table without offering him one. “So you’re here to pay off Oleg’s debt.”
“In a sense.”
Her eyes narrowed, making her look a lot like a stoat Arkadin had once shot outside St. Petersburg.
“Meaning what, exactly?”
Arkadin produced the bills. “I have the money he owes you right here.” As she reached out for it, he pulled it away. “In return I’d like some information.”
Devra laughed. “What do I look like, the phone operator?”
Arkadin hit her hard with the back of his hand, so that she crashed into the table. Tubes of lipstick and mascara went rolling and tumbling. Devra put a hand out to steady herself, fingers clutching through the morass.
When she pulled out a small handgun Arkadin was ready. His fist hammered her delicate wrist and he plucked the handgun from her numb fingers.
“Now,” he said, setting her back on the chair, “are you ready to continue?”
Devra looked at him sullenly. “I knew this was too good to be true.” She spat. “Shit! No good deed goes unpunished.”
Arkadin took a moment to process what she was really saying. Then he said, “Why did Shumenko need the ten thousand hryvnia?”
“So I was right. You’re not a friend of his.”
“Does it matter?” Arkadin emptied the handgun, broke it down without taking his eyes off her, tossed the pieces onto the table. “This is between you and me now.”
“I think not,” a deep male voice said from behind him.
“Filya,” Devra breathed. “What took you so long?”
Arkadin did not turn around. He’d heard the click of the switchblade, knew what he was up against. He eyeballed the mess on the table, and when he saw the double half-moon grips of scissors peeping out from under a small pyramid of CD cases, he fixed their location in his mind, then turned around.
As if startled by the big man with heavily pocked cheeks and new hair plugs, he retreated up against the edge of the table.
“Who the hell’re you? This is a private discussion.” Arkadin spoke more to distract Filya from his left hand moving behind him along the tabletop.
“Devra is mine.” Filya brandished the long, cruel blade of the handmade switchblade. “No one talks to her without my permission.”
Arkadin smiled thinly. “I wasn’t talking to her so much as threatening her.”
The idea was to antagonize Filya to the point that he’d do something precipitous and, therefore, stupid, and Arkadin succeeded admirably. With a growl, Filya rushed him, knife blade extended, tilted slightly upward.