The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (29 page)

When Alyona disappeared from Khuy Zalupa’s life without a word, and stubbed out what remained of the light in his soul like a cigarette in a cheap ashtray, he never considered what had happened other than as an abandonment and a betrayal. It was his natural instinct to think in those terms, and that she had left him because she just didn’t care, and rage overcame reason.

It was only much later that he allowed himself to concede that he actually never knew what had happened to her, and to ponder other alternatives. By that time he was in such a position of power and influence that nothing could be hidden from him. He could exhume the past like a corpse and reach into the bowels of the city, grasping the secrets of his enemies and drawing them out like entrails, smashing down the doors of closets and dragging the dusty skeletons into the light. But all he was able to discover was what had not happened to her.

Until the day someone brought him a marriage certificate, showing that Alyona Constantinovna Timovitchka had been wed to one Ferris A. Breek, Jr. of the USA, in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg, on February 17th, 1994.

***

What the fuck are you supposed to say to a painfully shy, naïve nineteen-year-old, whose life experience consists of cyberspace and hand jobs? What possible common ground could there be? Where was the point of connection? And more importantly, where to begin to try and prize some of the sucker’s moolah from his hot, sweaty little grasp?

Hyatt had shown up and introduced a new card to the game, one that Monsoon might be able to finagle up his sleeve; the trick was to ingratiate himself with the nerdy nephew. If he could manage that, he might be able come out of the deal with some sauce and some bread to spread it on.

So the kid was a computer whiz, with an education and more degrees than a thermometer. So fucking what? Monsoon was a doctorate in devious and a Bachelor of Arts in bullshit, with the moral standing of a slum landlord, and the day that he couldn’t outsmart some acne-ridden cyber geek would be the day he hung up his loaded dice.

When Hyatt walked through the door, Monsoon slapped his best reassuring good-ol’-uncle-Monsoon smile on his kisser, held out his hand, and said, “Hi there, Hyatt. I’m Monsoon. It’s really very nice to meet you. Your uncle has told me all about you. How’s your English?”

“
Better than yours, nigger. Where’s the fucking bar?” Hyatt said, ignoring Monsoon’s hand and brushing past him into the room.

Monsoon quickly perceived that Hyatt’s US education had been a little light in the Martin Luther King department. He tried again. “Er, Hyatt, huh? Unusual name for Russian.”

“
Monsoon, huh? Good name for a chimpanzee. Where’s the fucking bar, I said?”

Monsoon indulged himself in a little not-so-amateur psychology.
Hostility brought on by social inadequacy, which leads to rejection, which reinforces hostility
. “The bar’s this way, kid.”

“
I’m not a kid.”

Ah-hah. Anxiety caused by perceived inferiority resulting from lack of respect from peers, as manifested by inability to get within firing range of sophomore snatch.

Monsoon waited until Hyatt had poured himself a scotch big enough to prove that he was a big drinker, then played his ace. “So, Hyatt. Ever been laid?”

Hyatt spun around, his florid face a picture of angst and outrage, but before the venom could leave his lips, Monsoon said, “Ace.”

Ace walked into the room from the bathroom. Ace was employed by Zalupa in the “hospitality industry,” so to speak, and Monsoon knew exactly which buttons to press there. She was five-ten, had long, golden hair, was wearing nothing but stockings, suspenders, and stilettos, and had E=MC
²
written in lipstick on her left breast. Hyatt was a goner from the moment he laid his eyes upon her.

***

The scene in the small park located on a quiet street in the town of Tiburon, Marin County, was a sequence edited from the whirring spool of the American Dream, the epitome of a safe, sunny, suburban idyll, with the golden sun floating down through the pines, and the kids splashing in the fountain and playing ball on the grass, and the bees buzzing in the manzanitas.

It had been Sunday, and across the street, in front of the sprawling, relentlessly tidy white houses, on precise, obedient lawns, under red tiled roofs or in the shade of the palms, people sat in deck chairs, or washed their cars, or chatted with neighbors across the fence. It was the timeless embodiment of success and peace and contentment.

Alyona Breek, or Ally as she was now called, had sat on a wrought iron bench, watching Hyatt playing catch with his friends. He was comical in his clumsy ineptness, and she’d smiled. And then suddenly she’d shivered, as if some abrupt and grave presentiment had crept in to perturb her mind, and in that instant, the sky had seemed darker, as if some cloud had loomed into view. She’d felt a presence, and was afraid, and her eyes had scanned the deep shade under the trees behind the swings and roundabouts, as if in fear of some beast that lurked there.

She’d called out to Hyatt, and he stopped and turned to look at her. She stood and ran toward him. As she crossed the path, a shadow fell across it and lay before her, stark and forbidding against the bright sunlit pavement. She’d looked up, and put her hand to her mouth to stifle her own scream.

Before her stood her brother.

***

Monsoon didn’t really see the fucking point, but hey, so far so good. He had Hyatt eating out of his hand, and the way he had it figured, Hyatt was not only the key, he was the lock, the box, and the fucking treasure. If it made Hyatt happy, he was quite happy to sort through a few golf balls for a while. But the golf balls were nasty, man. All covered in slime and scales and shit. And they stank. Like dead fucking fish or something.

Monsoon looked around the room. It was some kind of weird Frankenstein laboratory. Bizarre Star Wars shit. Something that looked like a giant camera, another thing that looked like a blender, only not one that you’d want to mix your banana daiquiri in. And the light was just plain spooky, a kind of ghastly grayish-green like the lamps themselves were sick. In one corner some kind of overalls were hanging on a rack, and underneath was a row of white Wellington boots. On a shelf above were rubber gloves and dark specs like welding glasses.

Well, if he was going to have to sort through what appeared to be at least three thousand skanky golf balls, there was nowhere in his contract that said he had to get covered in shit doing it. He grabbed a pair of the dark glasses, and a pair of gloves, and sifted through the boots until he found his size. The overalls were a no-go. They only had giraffe size. Who were the lab techs, the fucking Detroit Pistons? He scratted around until he found a white plastic apron hanging from a hook. He slung it around his neck and tied it. He knew he must look like a complete doofus, but what the hell. Nobody was watching, and it was better than getting fish shit all over his one and only shirt.

He went back to the piles of balls and set to, but gradually Monsoon came to suspect that his gadget wasn’t working properly. When he found the ball he was looking for, the dial was supposed to freak out, and the microphone doohickey was supposed to make a static noise like
kshshshhhshhsh
, and then he was supposed to stick the ball in this crazy thingamajig that looked like a Japanese love egg.

But he had been at it for hours, and so far there was no
kshshshhhshhsh
. He didn’t get what it was all about—some wigged-out science bullshit—but there were only about a hundred balls left. As a lifelong hardcore gambler he knew how to figure the permutations. He had started off with about three thousand, so the odds of the right ball being the first one were about three thousand to one. Then it went down to two-nine-nine-nine, and so on and so forth in descending multiples, making the probability that the ball would be the very last one picked about the same as the chances of him putting the boots to Angelina Jolie any time soon. The odds that the machine was fucked were starting to seem better when all of a sudden the needle started flickering like a crackhead’s eyeballs, and the whatchamacallit went
kshshshhhshhsh
.

At fucking last
, Monsoon thought. He picked the ball up and studied it. What was the big deal? It had some faint traces of red smeared on it, but apart from that it was indistinguishable from the other two thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine bastard golf balls. Monsoon shrugged.
Mine not to reason why.
He took the Japanese love egg deal out of his pocket, and pressed the button on the top like Hyatt had told him. A compartment slid open. Inside was a hollow glass container the same size as the golf ball. Monsoon dropped the ball into the container. The compartment closed itself. The egg suddenly became very hot, but even before Monsoon could drop it, it became very cold. Then it started to glow a weird gaseous green color, then a pale flamingo red, and back to green. Then it stopped, and the shell, which had been a kind of porcelain white, turned completely and absolutely black. It suddenly seemed to get heavier. Monsoon didn’t know what the fuck it was supposed to be, but he did know he wanted to get rid of it. Pronto.

He walked up to the glass door and booted it with his foot. “Hey, Hyatt,” he shouted, “I found the fucker. It’s done. Open the fucking door.”

Because the glass door was smoked glass, Monsoon couldn’t see that Hyatt was standing on the other side of it, staring right at him.

***

Khuy had stared at his sister, his face in constant motion as he wrestled with the thoughts and emotions that were struggling for supremacy in his agitated brain. Alyona was next to him on the back seat of the limo. She was sobbing hysterically, her face pressed against her knees. Through the darkened glass, Khuy could see Hyatt, standing next to Oleg eating an ice cream cone. Oleg had been eating an ice cream cone too, looking around with a worried self-conscious look on his face, just in case there happened to be any Russians in the park.

Khuy had looked back at his sister. She looked so different. So
Americanski
. Heavier, softer. Pleasant. He’d kept hearing her words.

Yermak, I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead. I would never have left you. Those others. The ones you were with. They said you were dead.

Did he believe her? Did he care anymore? Did it matter? Did it change anything? Could he resurrect any trace of love for her? Could he see that look, those loving eyes, shining by the lamplight? Were they still the same eyes? Was it too late to make a difference? Would it have made any difference even then? Would he be different? Was his course charted and his compass heading set a long time ago, or could he have altered it? Could he have become something else? And if so, what? Could he have become somebody else, and if so, who? Did he want to be someone else? And if she was telling the truth, why was she scared? What did she think he was going to do? What was he going to do?

Khuy had turned his face away and looked out of the window. Hyatt was smiling at Oleg. Khuy leaned across and opened the door on Alyona’s side. She’d looked up, her eyes puffy and red.

“
Go,” he said.

“
Yermak, I…”

“
Go.”

Alyona had reached out her hand. She’d touched his face, the gentlest of touches. He pulled away. She turned to climb out of the car. He reached out. Toward her. His hand almost touched her hair. He hesitated. His hand stopped. He’d pulled it back. She’d climbed out and turned back to look at him.

Khuy shouted out of the open door, “Oleg.
Davai
.”

He turned his face away from her and waited until Oleg climbed in.

Alyona had watched as the big black car slid away from the curb and rolled down the street and around the corner under the trees. She’d never seen her brother again.

But one week later, and every month after that, on the same date, an envelope arrived, addressed to Hyatt. There was never any letter inside it. No words. Just a check. A very big check.

***