Belly of the Beast (24 page)

Niki shook her head slowly. “Don’t say that. I already love you, Pytor. I’ll talk to your father; I’ll do whatever it takes to get you and Katrina to America.”

“It will be hard enough to get out of Sverdlovsk.”

“But when you do—”

Pytor put a finger to Niki’s lips. “I have trouble imagining a week’s worth of food.”

“I’ll send money. I’ll—”

“You don’t understand,” said Pytor. “I don’t know how to dream that big. I can only take baby steps. I need to get your ticket now.” Pytor turned toward Katrina. “Wake up sweetheart. I need the passport to get Niki’s ticket.”

Pytor took Irina’s passport, put it with the money, and pulled the pistol from his coat pocket. “Take this, just in case.”

Niki didn’t touch it. “I wouldn’t even know how to use it.”

Pytor pointed to the safety. “Once this is down, pull this slide back. Then just keep pulling the trigger.”

“No. I’m past the idea of shooting people.”

Pytor put the pistol back in his pocket and reached for the door handle but turned back and kissed Niki once more. Every nerve end tingled, every longing reared, every—Pytor backed away again. “If I were weaker, I wouldn’t let you go. I love you too.” Pytor left the car running as he opened his door and walked solemnly toward the station house.

Niki wondered how she could love a man she hardly knew, but she did, she knew it. She crawled to the driver’s seat to see him better through a clearing in the frosted windshield. Pytor was half a block away when the door of a black Volga opened. A man stepped out. With his bandaged face, there was no doubt, Victor Malenkov had found them again. He leveled his pistol on Pytor’s back.

“No!” Niki yelled as she slammed the car into gear and stepped on the accelerator.

“What’s going on?” asked Katrina.

“Hold on!”

Wheels spinning, Niki aimed the little Zhuguli at the man beside the big Volga. Pytor and Malenkov both turned.

“What’s wrong?” yelled Katrina.

“Get down!”

Victor Malenkov turned his pistol toward Niki. She ducked. The windshield shattered.

Above the engine roar, Nike heard more shots. She looked up. For a split second, she saw the raw hamburger that was Malenkov’s face as he and a long string of bandages flew over the missing windshield.

The Zhuguli crashed hard into the Volga. Papers flew from under the front seat.

Half stunned, Niki looked toward Katrina. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” answered Katrina.

Niki jerked the door open and ran toward Pytor. He was flat on his back. “Stay in the car,” she yelled to Katrina.

Blood dripped from Pytor’s mouth. His left hand clutched his chest; his right hand held the pistol. Niki knelt at his side.

“Take care of Katrina,” he whispered.

Katrina wasn’t far behind, vegetable bag in hand. She ducked in front of Niki, wrapped her arms around her father, and pressed her head on his bloody hand. “No, Papa, no. You can’t die!”

Niki eased Pytor’s other hand from the pistol and held his fingers to her face. His eyes found hers.

“I promise,” she said barely able to see through her tears. “I will take care of Katrina.” She felt a slight squeeze of his hand. “I love you,” she added, and imagined that he had smiled as his hand went limp.

“He’s getting up,” said Katrina.

Niki didn’t understand until she realized that Katrina had turned toward the Volga. Unstoppable Victor Malenkov was almost to his feet.

Niki grabbed the pistol and stood. The slide was already back. She pointed it in Malenkov’s direction and pulled the trigger. The recoil knocked her off balance, but she regained it and fired again and again until the only sound was the click of the hammer and Katrina’s screams.

In the distance, Niki saw people. It was almost light. She knelt, put her lips to Pytor’s one last time, then grabbed Katrina’s arm and ran. Several blocks and alleys away, Katrina’s screams turned to soft cries. Niki stopped and pulled the young girl into her arms. “I’m going to take care of you,” she whispered, then cried herself.

The cold seeping through her body made Niki take stock. Pytor had the passport and most of the money. The rubles she had were somewhere in the car. In the final tally, all they had were the clothes they wore and the vegetable sack. “I have to go back,” she whispered.

“I got your stuff,” Katrina said between sobs.

Niki’s satchel was inside the vegetable sack, and inside it were Niki’s notebook, Malenkov’s gloves, and the canister of bone morrow.

“I knew that stuff was important. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Niki slipped Malenkov’s heavy gloves on Katrina’s hands over the thin pair she already wore, then felt her own grief rise again. Her knees buckled. Katrina in her arms, Niki collapsed to the snow between two garbage bins.

A warm cup against her lips startled Niki to consciousness. It was the old woman with the tea pram.

“Sometimes, you have to help a stranger,” said the woman as she poured a cup for Katrina.

Niki tried to stand. The old woman helped her. Katrina got up on her own, Pytor’s blood on her face. The tea seller studied them a moment but showed no sign of recognition. Niki and Katrina were not the same people the old woman had served two days before.

“Everything may seem hopeless,” the old woman said, “but there is always tomorrow. Walk in that direction.”

Once again, the old woman pushed her babyless pram through the snow, turned a corner, and was gone.

“We have to save ourselves,” said Niki. “I promised your father; now I promise you. Do you know how to get to the new building with the curved front?”

“The one we see from our flat? It’s not far. I can never go home again, can I?”

Niki shook her head. “No. But I met someone in that new building who might help us.”

Two guards patrolled the front door of the curved-front building. Niki and Katrina kept their distance and watched.

Within an hour, a silver Mercedes pulled up and the driver got out. A moment later, Dimitri Andryevich walked from the building, a fox-skin coat draped over his shoulders.

Niki rushed forward. “Dimitri.”

He glanced at the ragged street people approaching him, a woman in work boots, quilted peasant clothes, red scarf around her head, and a cloth sack over her shoulder, and a girl in an old snowsuit with oversized gloves. Dimitri continued toward the car without a word.

“I was on the plane. I need your help.”

“Get rid of them,” Dimitri said to the driver.

The driver nodded at the two door guards, then stared at Niki and Katrina shaking his head in disgust at their shabby clothes.

Niki turned back toward Dimitri. “I sat next to you. We talked about ski clothes.”

Dimitri slid onto the front passenger seat, the driver shut the door. The guards hurried forward.

Niki grabbed her satchel from the cloth sack and pressed the YSL logo against the Mercedes window. One of the guards dragged her back. “Go back to your side of town before I call the police. Mr. Andryevich doesn’t give handouts.”

Niki eased back, but turned at the sound of a window motor.

Through the half-open window, Dimitri Andryevich stared at Niki’s Yves Saint Laurent satchel. “Where did you get that? What did you two do to that Niki woman?”

“I am Niki,” Niki said as she pulled off the scarf.

Dimitri got out and studied her a moment. “She had blond hair.”

“Red dye.”

Dimitri looked at the dried blood on Katrina’s face. “Niki was alone.”

“This is my friend’s daughter. We need your help.”

Dimitri laughed. “I don’t believe a word of this. And why would I help you?”

“Black Diamond Skiwear. You control clothing in Sverdlovsk. You liked the double diamond logo. You wanted to be my partner.”

Dimitri hesitated, squinting at Niki’s face as if trying to squeeze out some recognition. “You went there, didn’t you?” he finally said. “I told you people don’t return. You’re hardly a person now.” Dimitri turned away. After a long moment he said, “Get in.”

As Dimitri’s chauffeur drove around the city, Niki explained what had happened over the last two days.

“That explains why you smell like manure,” said Dimitri. “I’ll have to have the car cleaned. Why did I ever roll down my window?”

“The KGB is after us. I thought you might be the one person rich and powerful enough to stand up to them. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“I could make a call or two, but I can’t be seen with street people. Galen, drive back to the service entrance. We’ll take the freight elevator up.”

Everything in Dimitri’s penthouse looked expensive: gold doorknobs, oil paintings, sculptures, and carved furniture. But the bathroom door stuck, the ornate sink faucet leaked, and the floor tiles were loose.

“Mind the towel fixture,” yelled Dimitri from the other room.

The gold plated bar hung loose at one end.

Katrina carefully folded her snowsuit into a corner, then slumped to the floor on the other side of the large bathroom and began crying again. Niki held her, caressed her, bathed her, then showered herself. Raw skin peeled from her swollen feet.

Several robes hung on one wall. Niki and Katrina each put one on, stacked their clothes in the cloth sack, and went to the living room, Niki with her boots back on, Katrina with bare toes sinking deeply into plush carpet. Niki agonized on the thought of Pytor’s body on the frozen ground.

“I made inquiries about Victor Malenkov,” said Dimitri. “He’s KGB, but a maverick of sorts, special missions, a most dangerous man.”

“He was going to kill us.”

“From what I understand, he had reason, and I doubt you improved his disposition by shooting him.”

“I hit him?”

“A bullet through his shoulder, and your car broke his arm. They said his face was badly burned. You knocked down a hornet’s nest, then stomped on it. I’ve got to distance myself.”

Niki drew Katrina to her.

Dimitri smiled his gold-toothed smile. “Not to worry, my little friends. I’m not putting you back on the street.
Sibirgaz
is flying some oilmen back to Leningrad, they owe me a favor. I can get both of you on, but we have to hurry.”

“Is there a U.S. embassy in Leningrad?”

“I thought you were Canadian.”

“I had a Canadian passport.”

“Perhaps you would make a good Russian after all. I don’t know who you are, Miss Niki person, and I have less idea why I’m helping you. I have a preference for blonds, but you’re not even blond anymore.”

“Perhaps you are a good person at heart,” said Niki.

Dimitri scowled. “Don’t think that for a moment.”

The driver came in, shopping bags hanging from his right hand, clothes draped over his left arm.

“Galen, hold them up, and let them pick.”

Galen held up several stylish dresses and pantsuits.

“I told you, I’m the clothing baron of Sverdlovsk.”

Niki picked out a rather plain pants suit. Katrina chose American Levis and a red sweater.

“I knew you would like them,” said Galen to Katrina. “Try them on.”

The fit was perfect.

“He has an eye for women’s bodies,” said Dimitri.

“She’s just a girl,” said Niki.

“Not to worry. Galen prefers boys.”

Galen turned away.

“He’d go to prison if I didn’t protect him. Do you know what they’d do to him there? Makes him a loyal employee. And he has great taste in clothes. What else do you have, Galen?”

Head down, Galen handed Niki and Katrina fur-lined boots.

“They’re kind of silly looking,” whispered Katrina.

“Designer boots,” said Niki. Fortunately, hers were loose as her feet were still swelling. “Dimitri, how can I ever repay you?”

“I suspect you can’t. Get out of here.
Sibirgaz
is holding the plane. You’re on your own once they land, and you never heard of me.”

Niki grabbed the YSL Satchel, and Katrina picked up their clothes sack.

“Galen can throw those out for you.”

“I like my old stuff,” said Katrina, “but thank you for the new clothes. You are a good Russian.”

“I hope you did not steal anything.”

“I don’t believe you are as mean as you sound,” said Niki. “Russia is a cold country, but you have shown us warmth. Thank you.” Niki kissed Dimitri on the cheek.

“Just don’t tell anybody,” said Dimitri, “and for God’s sake don’t write any of this down.”

Galen drove directly to a small jet that sat on the airport tarmac, engines running.

As Niki and Katrina got out, a police car approached.