Mazurka (40 page)

Pagan rolled down his window, let his hand hang out of the car. He didn't question the genuineness of Sundbach's emotional reaction to the mention of the KGB. He said, “I agree. But I've got a feeling he's lying about all the rest of it. He hired Kiviranna, arranged the trip, set everything up. The only thing I got wrong was the KGB connection.”

“If that's true, who's he working for?”

Pagan was silent a second, looking up at the apartment as if the curtained windows might be made to yield an answer. “Maybe himself,” he said.

“And the motive?”

Pagan pressed his fingertips into his eyelids. “Who knows? Maybe he just didn't agree with the Brotherhood's plan. Which tells us something definite – he knew all about it.”

“Which means he's either one of the Brotherhood, or he's got an inside source,” Klein said.

“Precisely.”

Klein undid his bow-tie, which collapsed and fell in two thin strands across the front of his chest. “What now?”

“I think we let old Carl marinate for a while,” Pagan said. “Then we'll go back over there and we'll put some real pressure on him.”

Max Klein, who wondered what Pagan meant by ‘real pressure' but didn't want to ask, took a pipe from the glove compartment and lit it, filling the car with a richly-perfumed tobacco smoke. Pagan watched the street, noticing a gang of kids outside a corner grocery store, a couple of men passing a bottle back and forth, a TV repairman's van. A young man with blond hair that fell to his shoulders got out of a parked Jaguar on the corner and walked past the clutch of kids and the men drinking. In his white cotton jacket and pants – casual chic, obviously expensive – he had the appearance of somebody who'd made a wrong turning along the way. He looked as if he'd happened upon this drab street purely by chance, which was why Frank Pagan tracked him idly as he came along the pavement.

The man went directly to the building where Sundbach lived, climbed the steps, rang one of the doorbells, waited. Pagan saw Sundbach come to the door, open it, and the young man entered the building after exchanging a couple of words with Carl, who seemed reluctant to let him in. An intriguing pair – the old man in the shabby cardigan and the well-tailored visitor who had the looks of a fashion model. What could they have in common?

Pagan glanced at Klein, who had also seen the young man enter Sundbach's building. “They make an unlikely couple,” Klein said. He took a small notebook from his pocket and wrote down the registration of the Jaguar. The notebook was stuffed with loose slips of paper, suggesting the enormous, if finally futile effort of an untidy man to impose order on his world.

Pagan settled back in his seat. “Give it ten more minutes. Then we'll go back for the pipe you just happened to leave behind in Carl's apartment.”

“Gotcha,” Max Klein said brightly.

Andres Kiss drank a glass of the old man's horrible Yugoslavian wine. This apartment, which he'd visited only once before, was unsufferably cluttered. He put the wineglass on the table, then smiled across the room at Carl, who was sipping quietly. Although there was a sociable grin on the old man's face, he was puzzled, even troubled, by Kiss's presence.

“You go tonight,” Sundbach said. “It's still the same?”

Andres Kiss looked at his glass and reminded himself to clean it before he left the apartment. “The plan hasn't changed, Carl.”

Sundbach realised he was slightly drunk, that his reactions were coming to him through a series of filters, just like the daylight that fell first through muslin then damask at the window. His head was like the inside of the apartment, murky and overloaded.

“You go be a hero, Andres. Myself, I think there are other options.”

Andres Kiss smiled. He put a hand in the pocket of his pants. “Such as?”

Carl Sundbach shrugged. He was remembering the meetings with the madman Kiviranna, the night on the boardwalk, the time they met in Penn Station, or the afternoon they'd walked through the Metropolitan Museum of Art – five, maybe six encounters in all.
You shoot Romanenko, Jake. That's all there is to it. You'll be a goddam hero
. Jake Kiviranna, another asshole, a
tagumik
, with a hero complex, hadn't even asked questions. Romanenko was a Communist, a turncoat, and that was all there was to the business. He deserved to die. Perfectly logical. Perfectly natural. Jake's mind didn't have compartments that spilled over into each other. There were no complications when it came to Kiviranna. Of course, it would have been a different matter if Jake had known that he was assassinating one of the leading figures in the anti-Soviet underground in the Baltic.

One of the leading figures
…

Carl Sundbach was suddenly depressed. The murder of Romanenko wasn't a decision he'd taken lightly. He and Aleksis had fought side by side for years, not always liking each other, and not always agreeing, but they'd developed a mutual trust, a dependency. And the Brotherhood's plan had always seemed feasible to Carl, although less so with each passing year. It wasn't just that his memory of his native country was beginning to fade around the edges and had begun to recede in importance to him. It wasn't even the fact that age had depleted his energy, his sense of commitment. It was the idea that fresh new voices were being raised in the Soviet Union which had caused him to stop and think and to debate whether the Brotherhood's way had any merit in the end, or whether it was time to put the scheme under wraps – at least until the new directions in Russia had come into focus. Perhaps the directions would be good, perhaps not. But it was a chance worth taking, especially when the consequences of the Brotherhood's scheme could bring about wholesale slaughter – and not simply inside the Baltic countries.

Carl, who knew Mikhail Kiss was beyond reasonable argument and could
never
be persuaded to give the Kremlin a chance, saw only one way to make the plan grind to a halt. Aleksis had to die. He had to die because nothing short of his murder would make Mikhail Kiss consider abandonment.
And it hadn't worked
. If anything it had backfired, because both Kisses were simply more determined than ever to go ahead. Especially this young one, this terrifying boy with the yellow hair and the face that wouldn't melt
margariini
, this young creature with ice in his veins.

“I asked a question, Carl,” Andres Kiss said.

“There are alternatives that are less destructive. That's all I'm saying. I'm talking about reality.”

“I'm listening,” Andres said. “Reality fascinates me.”

“You don't hear the pulse, sonny. You and Mikhail, you're deaf men. You don't want to hear.” Sundbach picked up the decanter, but it was empty.

“Tell me about this pulse, Carl. I'm curious.”

The old man wandered round the living-room in an unsteady way. “Things are changing over there. The time for this plan has gone, Andres. It's time to put violence in cold storage.”

“You really believe what you're saying?”

“Listen to me,” and here Sundbach placed a bony hand on the young man's wrist. “We can't get our country back the way it was. But we can get
something
back. We can get some kind of self-determination over there but only so long as we stay inside the system. So maybe it's not independence. Maybe it's not the way it was. But it's the best goddam shot we've got! Your way is doomed, sonny. Your way is pure romantic bullshit – a fart on the wind, Andres. I didn't always see it like that. But I'm prepared to give this new regime a chance.”

Andres Kiss shook his head. “You swallow their crap about all these terrific changes?”

“I believe it can happen. Slowly, sure. But it can happen.”

“Nothing's so cheap as words. The Russians can talk up some fine intentions. After all they've put us through, you're still ready to trust them?”

“Up to a point –”

“You've grown soft in the head, Carl.”

“Listen,” Sundbach said. “Try to have patience. Don't go ahead with this foolish scheme. Things will get better in the old country. More freedoms will come. Why not let the new system have a chance? And if it doesn't work out, you can go back to the plan later.”

“In your world, Carl, cows will fly.”

Sundbach sat down in a very old grey leather armchair. “You're an impossible boy, Andres. What do you know? From where I sit I can smell milk on you.”

“You want us to fail, don't you?” Andres asked. “You want the whole fucking thing to fall apart!”

Sundbach said nothing. Why bother to answer the question? It was wasted breath. Tomorrow, over the Baltic, Andres Kiss might have his moment of truth.

“What did you feel when Aleksis was shot, Carl? Glad?”

“Glad isn't the word,” Sundbach said.

“What is the word, Carl?”

Sundbach was quiet a moment. “I thought it would be a time for quiet reconsideration. Why rush into violence? Why go ahead with something so drastic if another way could be found?”

Andres Kiss stepped closer to where the old man sat. He saw Sundbach turn his face to the side and look across the room. Andres folded the hand in his pocket around the length of soft, silky material that lay concealed there. It wouldn't take long, he thought. A minute perhaps. A little more. He gazed into Sundbach's discoloured eyes, detecting nervousness in them, something furtive.

Andres touched Sundbach's shoulder very lightly. “You listen to the Russians, you think you're hearing something new. But there's nothing new. It's the same old song only with a new singer. Freedom isn't in the melody, Carl. The words haven't changed. The only thing that's changed is your mental condition.”

“All I said was we give it a try. Postpone –”

“Postpone nothing.”

Sundbach began to rise from his chair, but Andres gently pushed him back into it. It wasn't a violent gesture, but Sundbach interpreted it that way, as the first trivial skirmish in a situation that would escalate. He tried to rise again, but again Andres pushed him back down. Carl Sundbach, who had always been a little afraid of this young man, albeit in an abstract sense, was surprised to find how quickly the fear could become a concrete thing.

Andres Kiss said, “With Aleksis dead, you thought the plan would be abandoned, didn't you? That's how you wanted it to be.”

Sundbach didn't speak. He sensed violence all around him, the very air of his apartment electrified by it. He saw it in this young man's cold eyes and mirthless smile. So much beauty and no heart.

“You thought if Aleksis was killed, Mikhail would lose his nerve and give up.”

Sundbach shut his eyes. The sound of a gun fired in a railroad station echoed through his imagination. He didn't believe he'd been mistaken in arranging for Aleksis to be murdered. But he'd failed to change anything, and it was a failure purchased at a very high price.

Andres Kiss took the soft length of material from his pocket. It weighed nothing in his hand. He let the thing dangle against the old man's lips. Carl opened his eyes quickly.

“What's this?” He pushed it away from his mouth.

“What do you think it is?”

“A stocking, a lady's nylon.”

“You got it, Carl.”

“Mikhail sent you here,” Sundbach said. “Mikhail sent you here to be my goddam assassin!”

Sundbach, panicked into movement, tried to get up out of the chair but Andres struck him quickly on the mouth, knocking him dizzy. Sundbach felt the nylon go around his neck and he kicked vigorously at the young man, striking Andres Kiss on his cheek. The old man got up, rushing across the room to the door. Andres caught him there. He pinned him against the wood and shoved his palm up under Carl's chin and thrust the old man's face back. Sundbach gasped and made a claw of one hand and dug it into Andres's forehead, scratching the flesh, breaking the skin. For a moment, shocked by pain, Andres Kiss released his grip and Carl was able to get a hand on the door-handle. But before he could pull it open Andres struck him on the back of the head with his clenched fist.

Carl slid to the floor and moaned.

Kiss went down on his knees, twisting the nylon stocking around Carl's neck even as the old man flayed at him feebly with his fists.

“For the love of God, Andres.”

Andres crossed the ends of the nylon. He pulled them very tightly, hearing Carl groan and feeling Sundbach's hands, which fluttered desperately upwards, pressing against his mouth. Andres held his breath and kept tightening the stocking.

And then Carl was finally silent and his neck, caught in the fatal tourniquet Andres Kiss had applied, hung at an odd angle to his body. Kiss, out of breath, stood up.

“I think it's time,” Frank Pagan said, and got out of the car, slamming the passenger door shut. He took a step in the direction of Sundbach's building, conscious of Klein sliding out from behind the wheel, aware at the same time, from the edge of his vision, of the TV repair van pulling away from the pavement.

Later, Pagan might marvel at the gall of the operation, but his first impression was of the van swinging in a squealing arc, making an illegal turn on a one-way street. Then the vehicle clambered up on the kerb and struck a fire-hydrant, which immediately sent a great jet of water rainbowing into the air behind Klein's Dodge. Pagan, halfway across the street, watched the van continue in its destructive path, seeing it plough into the trunk of Klein's car, which crumpled like construction paper. Klein, emerging from the driver's side, was tossed forward by the impact. He fell face down under the glittering cascade of water that rose out of the ruptured hydrant. Pagan hurried back to the sidewalk and leaned over Klein, who was sitting up and dazed, looking at Pagan with the expression of a man on thorazine.

“Holy shit,”
Klein muttered. “Was it lightning?”