Mitnick’s briefcase was bulging with cash, so I picked it up and took Nika by the elbow, hustling back the way we came. There was no sign of Lanzo, but the pistol he had murdered Mitnick with was on the floor a dozen yards away. I found a set of stairs going down and took them, orienting towards the outside of the house, hoping that’s where Sophie would be.
Nika was frightened but functional. Once I was certain she’d keep up I let her go, taking point. We exited the house near a massive garage, each of its five doors open, the cars gone, some of Mitnick or Oleg’s men smart enough to have driven off.
I guessed which way the pool might be, swinging around the house, keeping an eye on the shell-shocked Nika to make certain I didn’t lose her. I peeked around every corner with the pistol leading the way. A column of smoke drifted across the face of the waning moon.
The pitted white concrete of the pool patio was surrounded by columns and tall shrubs painted by cool blue ripples as the underwater lights waved up from the chlorinated depths. There were no black-clad vory or smartly dressed gangsters, but a lone figure, sitting crumpled on a deck chair. I turned to Nika and held a finger to my lips, then moved forward.
If the figure hadn’t shifted to face me, I would have thought he was dead. Both of his eyes were bruised, one to the point of swelling shut, a corner of his mouth equally distended, a trail of purple welts circling his neck. He smelled of piss and blood. The hand he raised to wipe his broken nose wasn’t much better off.
“Atwell?”
“I found him,” Sophie stepped out of the bushes, much quieter than my approach. I didn’t suppress the urge to hug her, pulling her close. I was stopped from kissing her by the appearance of the small blonde teenager behind her. The girl looked no less traumatized than she had been emerging from underneath Oleg in the study, but she floated near Sophie like the older woman was a life-preserver.
Ignoring this, Atwell complained, “They were torturing me,” Atwell’s blue eyes didn’t have room for any trauma but his own. Clouds of anger blew over them, though, as he added, “Oleg thought I had something to do with your insanity.”
“Oleg’s dead.”
Atwell stopped glaring at me to stare out across the blue of the pool, the green of the grass, away from a house that was bleeding fire. “Well, at least there’s that.”
“Mitnick?” Sophie asked.
“Dead too.”
“Foo,” was all she said to that. Then she turned to see Nika slowly making her way towards us, like the dangerous animals we were. Despite the blood, Sophie hugged her, allowing Nika to weep quietly, the unnamed girl gathering close, too shocked to cry, but sensing fellow survivors.
Atwell struggled to stand. “Well, that’s just great. The police are bound to show up any second. I’d rather not have to answer any questions they have from a jail cell.” He gestured weakly, “My car is around the corner.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “You drove here? Of your own free will?”
Atwell’s one good eye glared at me. “Mitnick said he wanted to see me.” And like a loyal dog, Atwell had come, landing in the loving arms of Oleg. But Atwell’s stupidity was our luck. We moved to his car.
We found the Citroen, yellow and small, much like Atwell. With his broken hand, Atwell gestured me to the driver’s seat where I found the keys in the ignition. Sophie kept an eye out on the perimeter, making sure none of the remaining gangsters made an ill-advised appearance.
Nika asked, “What about Lanzo?”
I resisted the temptation to shrug, having a newfound belief in Lanzo’s ability to take care of himself. Sophie touched Nika’s shoulder in a comforting gesture, surreptitiously glancing at me. I only shook my head. Sophie said, “He will need to find his own way.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Nika looked back, her feet shifting towards a new mission of finding him, but the younger blonde clung onto her, unwilling to let the additional strength go. Whatever guilt Nika felt for the sins of her father kept her in place.
We cramped into the Citroen’s cabin, Sophie and the girls in the back, Atwell riding shotgun. I drove us out slowly at first, peeking out from behind the mansion, accelerating quickly as we moved into open space, speeding past the burning hulk of Sartre’s car. Charred corpses lay near the fire, splayed out, arms open as if welcoming the sky.
We headed back down the mountain towards the city. It wasn’t long before a firetruck and several police cars, sirens blaring, sped past us, too busy getting to the site of an emergency they had already missed. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure none slowed down to eye us. None did.
As always, Atwell didn’t have the sense to stay quiet. “You’ve only made things worse, you know.”
I thought about kicking him out of the car. “What?”
“Mitnick, the Avoritet, having been keeping things organized, peaceful. They would have just squeezed Sartre out slowly, but you came along and threw a bomb into the mix. When the rest of their buddies back in Russia find out what happened, they’re going to be baying for blood.”
I thought about Sartre throwing Mitnick down the stairs of the casino. “And how do you think Sartre’s friends are going to react when they find out what happened?”
“Sartre’s small fries. Regional. Oleg and Mitnick have all the Avoritet.”
I took my eyes off the road long enough to glare at Atwell. “Is that why you sided with them? Why you were willing to let all this happen? Let Mitnick and Oleg move in here, let Sergei get cozy with Sartre until they stuffed him into a sewer pipe for it?”
“I was doing my job,” Atwell insisted. “Siding with Mitnick was just a condition of the inevitable. It kept things calm. Calm makes it easier to spot the real trouble.” Trouble like Tariq, I inferred, brown and from other parts of the world. Like so many armchair generals, Atwell was too busy looking at the last war to see the next one coming.
“Your calm,” I said, glancing into the rearview mirror, “is bought with other people’s suffering.”
“It’s how the world works.”
“Maybe. Or maybe some fights are worth fighting.”
That was too sanctimonious for Atwell. “You’re an idiot.” I couldn’t argue with that so I let him finish. “They’ll just replace one monster with another.”
With the burning mansion and all of it corpses behind us I said, “Maybe. But I suspect with everything that’s gone down that Rotella and the Flic will be particularly wary when a new Russian shows up in town.”
“Besides,” I added, filled with a perverse joy that I suddenly wanted to share, “No one knows you were spying for Mitnick now. All the evidence is burning down in that house. Hell, I bet you get credit for disrupting the Russians’ operations.”
I felt Atwell settle into his seat as that idea acted as a balm on his soul, perhaps thinking of his narrow escape and what his rewards might be. Unwilling to simply let the argument go, though, Atwell added, “He was from Belarus.”
I did chuckle at that, grateful for the sun behind us that lit up the city as we drove down into it.
Atwell wanted to be dropped off at a hospital, but the best I was willing to do was let him out a block away. I kept the car and told him if he reported it stolen I’d be back for him. He protested, but he glanced over my shoulder at Sophie. Whatever he saw there shut his mouth. We never ran into trouble with the police, even later when we crossed the border.
We didn’t try that straight away. We hid out at the apartment for a few days, waiting for the heat to die down. I kept an eye on the building while Sophie spent hours with Nika and the girl, whose name was Daria. Each of them had been in their own long dark and I let them share that with each other.
Mitnick’s briefcase was full of cash and papers, plenty to last Nika till her father’s fortune found her. Her passport was in it too, as well as one with Mitnick’s picture but a different name. I pocketed it. If I grew out a beard I could pass for the man in the photo.
After the second day, I left the tenement by the back alley and cruised around to see if I’d pick up a tail. I didn’t. I thought about getting in touch with Rotella, but decided against it. He’d have his hands full protecting the other women and untangling the international incident of Mitnick’s house. Having me show up would only complicate things.
On the third day, Sophie and I left Nika and Daria with most of the money and the keys to the apartment. The lease was good for a couple of months and they could hide there until they felt ready to face the world. “It will be their cocoon,” Sophie said.
I did check the dead drop one more time. I was surprised to find a piece of paper under the payphone. It read, “Montalbano Municipal Cemetery. Cheryl Blackburn Teig, 02/01/1983 – 07/12/2012.”
At least now I knew where we were headed next.
Atwell’s car stayed safe in street parking for a few days, so we took it when we left. It was early on the fourth day. I knew I probably shouldn’t, but I stopped by Simon’s on the way out. I wasn’t sure what the future held and starting off with eggs galette felt like the best preparation for that.
The tall doors of Simon’s restaurant were open. The inside was as well-lit and warm as any good memory. Simon, without his customers yet, turned his belly and bald head to me and Sophie, twirling his dishtowel.
He walked over to us, briskly even though there was a hitch in his step. He looked me up and down, inspecting my face with its strata of bruises, almost approvingly, as if I had earned them in a fight over his or Sophie’s honor. I basked in the small, happy joy of knowing he was alive and tending to his cafe.
He led us to the table in the back and I sat with my back against the wall. Keeping an eye on the front door, I noticed a young head filled with black hair pop out of the kitchen, spot us, and then disappear back into it again.
I looked up at Simon and asked, “Was that who I think it was?”
Without taking his eyes off the completely unnecessary order pad Simon responded, “He showed up a time ago. He had nowhere else to go.”
I nodded, thinking that Nika was only a few blocks away. Maybe they’d find each other. Or maybe they wouldn’t. It was hard to say which would be better for them.
To read the previous chapter, go here.
Photo courtesy of Hert Niks.
To read the author’s published work, go here.
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