Belly of the Beast (5 page)

Dr. Baxter took a business card from the ornate holder, wrote on it, and handed it to Niki. “I’ll be here until five tomorrow, then I’m supposed to be off for the holiday. Call me if you find your mother; I’ll check my messages. Take care of yourself, Niki. You can’t help Alex if something happens to you.”

Niki nodded, looked nervously up and down the corridor, and walked outside. It was dark, it was cold. Every passing car was a beast on the prowl, every alley a jackal’s den, every building the perch of something about to pounce. Going back to the consulate at night was not an option. Going to the hotel was not an option. Calling a stranger was not an option. Hands in her pockets, Niki felt the notebook, the envelope with Alex’s picture, and the twenty-dollar bill.

Twenty dollars. Where am I going to sleep? I should have called Rob from the hospital
. Niki turned to go back when a dark sedan slowed to a stop.

Niki bolted through a courtyard, up a street, across a small park, and finally into a corner store. Breathless, she peered out through a plate glass window almost opaque with advertising—
Camels, Colgate, Coca Cola.

“Can I help you?” A clerk’s voice shook Niki back to the store.

Niki turned. A stylish black woman, hands on a stained counter top, stood before shelves sagging with liquor bottles. In contrast to the store, the clerk’s nails were manicured and her silk blouse pressed. She looked down at Niki’s muddy slacks.

Hunger outweighed all vanity. Niki heard Dr. Baxter’s voice,
Take care of yourself. You can’t help Alex if something happens to you
.

“I need something to eat. Maybe a granola bar.”

“Maybe a granola bar?” said the clerk. “Make a choice, girl.” She leaned forward as if she were about to reveal a secret. “Honey,” she said, “you got to be assertive. Look at me. Do you think I got this job by saying
maybe I want to work here
? No. You got to be in charge, and, if I may be so bold,” the clerk paused to scan Niki’s limp jacket and muddy slacks, “you got to dress for success.”

The criticism caught Niki like a branch to the face on a fast downhill ski run. Alex needed help, and she needed to find a donor. “Whatever it takes, I’m going to save my son.”

“Pardon?”

“I want a Power Bar,” said Niki as she opened her notebook to the number Fedor had given her—“And a telephone. I need to make a call.”

Yuri Kolchak turned the thick collar of his wool coat against the chill blowing under the Golden Gate Bridge. He was tall, robust. A full head of silver hair swept across his brow. Deep crow’s feet said he was probably seventy. He stood by the rusty anchor chain that formed the guardrail at Fort Point and watched a cab stop in the empty parking lot. A young woman sat in the back.

Niki leaned forward from the back seat and paid the driver five dollars as agreed, then carefully counted out a small tip. “Thank you,” she said. “I really have to watch my money until the airline finds my purse, but the good news is that they are sending my pack from Denver. I’ll be able to change clothes before I start back.”

The cabbie nodded. “Sorry ‘bout your boy. You
gonna
be all right? I could wait a few minutes to make sure that guy is okay.”

“You’d do that? I can’t pay you any more.”

“I have a daughter. I’ll stick around until I see you nod that you’re okay.”

Yuri smiled as Niki approached. “Svetlana’s little girl. You’ve certainly grown up. I am surprised you finally called; it’s been three years since I wrote to you.”

“You sent that letter from San Mateo?”

“Isn’t that how you found me?”

“I got your number at the Soviet Consulate.”

Yuri stiffened. “Another damn setup,” he mumbled in Russian, then glanced about. Above, the Golden Gate Bridge disappeared into the fog, the rumble of traffic the only sign that it went somewhere. Below, confused waves sent up white spray as they crashed on the rocks. Toward the bridge, a few fishermen focused on the tips of their poles. The cabbie watched in his mirror.

Yuri faced Niki, but held his eyes on the cabbie. Any softness turned to stone. “How much did they pay you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Niki, “I’m just trying to find my mother. A man outside the consulate gave me your number.”

“Fedor?”

Niki nodded, then heard the cabbie start his engine. She almost called out for him to wait, but didn’t. Too many questions remained unanswered.

Yuri watched the cab drive off, then turned back to Niki. “I can’t imagine what you said for Fedor to risk his—” Yuri stopped as if he had said too much.

“I told him I needed to find my mother. He said you might help.”

Yuri relaxed a little. Niki didn’t.

Yuri surveyed the parking lot again, then kept his eyes on the fishermen. “What do you know about her?”

“My mother? I called you to find out.”

“What do you know of her life, what she was?”

“She was a school teacher. She taught me Russian, French, and German, because I couldn’t go to a real school. She said my father was after us. She said he’d kill us, so we moved a lot.”

Yuri turned to face Niki. “Do you know why she left Russia?”

“To get away from my father I suppose. I didn’t know she was ever in Russia.”

“She didn’t tell you about Russia?”

“Look, I don’t really care if she’s in trouble or something. I just need to find her.”

Yuri stepped back. “I can’t help you.”

“Fedor said you could.”

Yuri grabbed Niki’s arm. “Who really sent you?”

Niki tried to break free, wishing she had called out to the cab driver.

Yuri maintained his grip, “You didn’t bother to answer my letter. You don’t care if Lana lives or dies.”

Niki shook her head. “I
need
her alive. My son is dying, and she could save his life. Please, I’ll do whatever you want, but take me to her.”

 “What did you say at the consulate?” demanded Yuri.

“You’re hurting me. Let go. Who do you think you are, anyway?”

Yuri eased his grip and Niki shook herself free, hesitated a second, then bolted down Marina Boulevard, the way she had arrived.

“I need to know what you told them,” Yuri yelled after her.

Niki didn’t look back. Ahead, there were no cars, no houses, no people. The fishermen were beyond Yuri.

Yuri started his car.

Sweat broke on Niki’s brow. She glanced back. The lights of Yuri’s car swung through the fog and headed toward her.

Niki bolted up the steep bank to her right, scrambled through wet brush, and dropped face-down into a muddy ravine, just like she knew a deer would do.

Yuri stopped on the road below, turned off his engine, stepped out, and closed the door.

“I did not mean to scare you,” he called.

Niki did not move.

“I would not hurt you.”

Niki held her breath.

“The Consulate knows who I am, the car I drive, where I live, the number of the phone you called. But they do not know what I do. Insignificant as it may be, I cannot jeopardize that.”

Rain started falling again.

“I have to do what I do,” said Yuri. “They would destroy it. I don’t expect you to understand.”

After a moment of silence, Yuri said, “I know you are there; I heard you breathe. It’s safe to come down.”

Raindrops pelted Niki’s back.

“I wouldn’t hurt you. I saved you once.”

Niki shivered, thought about trying to run again, but stayed where she was.
He couldn’t have heard me breathe.

“Do you remember Hunter Creek?”

The name caught Niki’s full attention.

“Aspen, 1970, you were eight. A man tried to drown you.”

Water trickled down the ravine. Niki shivered again, cried silently for herself, and wished she had gone back to the hospital.

Yuri opened his car door. The dome light lit the road by his feet. “I respect your decision not to come out. I won’t come after you. I’ll tell your mother I saw you.”

“Wait!” Niki was on her feet before she realized she had reacted.

Yuri stood by his car and said nothing.

“Don’t go away. I need to see my mother.”

Yuri lit a cigarette.

“But there was no man at Hunter Creek,” Niki shouted down the hill.

Yuri didn’t argue.

“If I come down, will you take me to her?”

Yuri drew on his cigarette, then replied, “I cannot make promises.”

Niki stumbled down the bank. “I don’t care what happens to me. I just need to find my mother.”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Niki stopped by the edge of the road, dimly lit by Yuri’s car light. “Did you really hear me breathe?”

Yuri shook his head.

“Then how did you know I didn’t keep running?”

“I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to chase you. I had nothing to lose by assuming you hid like a deer.”

“You scare me.”

“It’s good to be scared.” Yuri eyed Niki a moment, then took off his coat and extended it to her.

Niki looked at the mud on her blouse and pants. “I’ll ruin it.”

“You need it, I don’t.” Yuri handed over his coat and opened the passenger door.

Niki hesitated. “How can I be sure you and Fedor aren’t tricking me?”

Yuri left the door open and walked to the driver’s side. “You can’t.”

“Why would you help me?”

“I don’t know that I will.” He slipped behind the wheel, started the engine, and talked to Niki through the car. “But peel away the skin and we’re alike, Russians and Americans. When I was a boy, I also rescued a cat from a tree. In the end we all have to live with ourselves.”

“My cat. How did you—”

“Your mother told someone, someone told me.”

“My mother knew I fell and she still didn’t come back?”

“She knew you went up the tree. Perhaps she felt you would be safer without her. Please,” Yuri gestured toward the seat. “Don’t walk off with my coat. The heater is on. Come out of the cold.”

Niki forced herself to get inside. The car was warm. She shut the door and darkness returned. Like a bird with a sack pulled over its eyes, Niki relaxed just a bit. It was enough for the latent effects of alcohol, Valium, sleep deprivation, stress, hunger, fear and cold to grab her by the ankles and tackle her hard. Niki’s eyelids drooped, and danger didn’t matter anymore. Yuri could have been driving down the wrong side of the street, he could have pulled a gun, but all Niki cared about at that moment was a moment’s rest. Death itself would have been a welcome relief.

Yuri stopped in front of a small restaurant, a hole in the wall between Alexei’s Deli and the Wong Laundry. He tapped Niki’s shoulder. “Hot borscht will do us both good.”

Niki woke with a start, took a long moment to realize where she was, then resigned herself to doing whatever Yuri wanted.

Fresh garlic and stale smoke filled the Moskva Café. The walls were barren, save a framed photograph of Vladimir Lenin, a red Soviet flag, and a balalaika, its triangular sound box covered with dust. Yuri and Niki’s footsteps echoed as they passed several tables, but no one looked up. Every face solemn.

Yuri led Niki to a table at the back by a wall heater. “Ironic,” he said, “the Soviet Union is laid in its coffin the same day Joseph Stalin was born. No one is happy about either event. Borscht is the only constant in our lives.” He nodded at a waiter and held up two fingers.

Niki sat without taking off Yuri’s coat, wet mud dripping onto her ankles. She was uncomfortable in her wet clothes, uncomfortable in the strange restaurant, and famished, but she waited patiently while Yuri pulled out a cigarette, tapped it on the table, then held it between his thumb and forefinger like the Russian at the bookstore had done. “Smoking will kill you,” she said.

“Never thought I’d live long enough for a little smoke to affect me. Never thought I’d live long enough to see the Soviet Union dissolve.” Yuri put the unlit cigarette back in his pocket. “There are things beyond understanding.”

“You don’t have an accent, but you’re obviously Russian,” said Niki.

Yuri nodded. “There is a comfort in the way I hold my cigarette, my choice of food, and even the sound of my name. I had to give them up for twenty-seven years. The world finally changed and I retired. I can afford to be Russian again, but for most of my life I had to be American, as did your mother.”

Fatigue and hunger sapped the full implication of Yuri’s words. “After we get something to eat, I want you to take me to her,” she said, then asked, “Is it expensive here? I don’t have much money.”

“The least I can do is buy your dinner.”

“And take me to my mother? Is she nearby?”

The waiter interrupted with steaming borscht and black bread. Niki didn’t wait for a reply, hardly breathing as she ate.

“I have bad news about your mother,” said Yuri when Niki finished.