Woman Chased by Crows (16 page)

“Okay,” he said. He let her light it for him and was deeply dismayed at how good it tasted. There will be hell to pay when I get home, he thought.

She looked at the glowing tip of her cigarette. Waved it in a tiny figure eight. “You see this pretty red light?” she said. “Imagine this red light as big as a pullet's egg.”

Orwell, with his newfound interest in fancy chickens, had a good idea how big that would be. “Okay,” he said.

“It was called the Ember,” she said. “Some called it the ‘Sacred Ember' but that was back when Russians believed in God.”

“What was?”

“Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna's ruby. Ninety-seven carats, mounted like a heart in the centre of a crucifix, surrounded by sapphires and diamonds and pearls. On their own, the stones around it were worth a great fortune, the four sapphires alone were worth a million. But the ruby, the ruby itself was priceless. Maybe the largest in the world. Flawless. Burmese. Blood red. And deep in its blood-red heart it had the magic thing they call a ‘feather.' A star. It was very special. But a stolen treasure requires careful marketing.”

She put her glass beside the sink and found a saucer for an ashtray. The radio on top of the refrigerator now gave her something that made her swoon. Tchaikovsky. “Ahhh,” she sighed. “Now you are talking. I have danced to this.”

She lifted her arms above her head and there, in the small disordered apartment, Orwell saw for a fleeting moment how she might have looked on a stage. The music curved her back and extended her neck. She rose on her toes, bent forward at the waist, and lifted one leg behind her, impossibly high, held the position for a full measure of the melody. And then she looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Lovely,” he said. And meant it.

She returned to the couch and settled in, with glass, ashtray and freshly lit cigarette, tucked her legs under her and wiggled herself into the corner.

Orwell had another sip of vodka, another illicit puff of tobacco. “What happened to the ruby?” he said.

“Okay,” she said. “Back to business.” She emptied the bottle into their two glasses, in equal measures. “How Chernenko got his hands on it no one will ever know,” she said. “All the big ones robbed when they could. They were looting from before the Revolution. They never stopped. But Chernenko knew if he had to run, maybe he shouldn't show up in the West with a state treasure in his pants pocket. So he called up one of his old friends, Yuli Vystovsky, who ran the Moscow black market the way De Beers runs the diamond business. Vystovsky delegated the actual smuggling and fencing to a man named Piotr Romanenko. Do not try to remember these names. They are all dead now anyway.” She smiled at him as she watched him take a deep delicious drag on the cigarette. “I knew you were a sinner in your heart,” she said.

“True,” he said. “All too true.”

“So,” she went on, “this Romanenko had made many profitable trips to the West selling sable skins, caviar, even heavy artillery, but Vystovsky didn't know of Comrade Romanenko's recently acquired addiction to cocaine. It was an unfortunate craving that obliged him, from time to time, to visit a man named Fyodor Kapitsa.

“Anyway, Romanenko was about to leave for the West with certain goods in his possession, and he stopped at Kapitsa's place of business for travelling supplies. Romanenko didn't like to fly, so Kapitsa gave him something that was supposed to make his journey more bearable. Instead, it knocked him unconscious.” She laughed, shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation. “Kapista got worried. He had to carry Romanenko to bed. And while that was going on, an opportunistic little addict named Andrei Kolmogorov made off with Romanenko's suitcase.”

“With the ruby inside.” Orwell butted the cigarette. He had smoked it down to the end.

“Of course, Kolmogorov did not know that. He was in a hurry to convert the suitcase into cash. All he saw inside were silk shirts and high-class toiletries, and he knew someone who liked silk shirts and was willing to receive stolen goods. Viktor Nimchuk.” She drank some vodka. Her eyes were drifting away from Orwell, looking into the past. She was about to go on tour. “Viktor was to leave the Soviet Union, too, the next morning, along with the Volga ballet company.” She bobbed her head as if accepting a prison sentence. “And that is where I come into the story.”

The Volga company. Castoffs, also-rans, close-but-no-cigars, the nearly great and the merely good. But they had one thing in common: they were all trustworthy, loyal and untainted by ‘decadent influence.' Which meant that they were allowed to travel outside the country. There were no Nureyevs, no Baryshnikovs, no incandescent stars who would fly into the welcoming arms of the West. Good solid performers capable of dancing on any stage, under the baton of any conductor. Adaptable, presentable and cheap. They toured places the Kirov did not deign to visit, tolerated marginal accommodations, second-rate orchestras, erratic tempi, borderline lighting and bad floors. And to supplement their negligible remuneration, some of them did a little smuggling on the side.

“We were already in the U.S. when Viktor found the secret compartment. By then it was too late. He had something too big to sell, too big to give back. And who could he give it back to? By then, the others were probably all dead. By then, they would know where the thing had gone. By then, they would already be after Viktor.” She got off the couch. Her glass was empty. She was out of cigarettes.

They went out to buy cigarettes. The liquor store was closed, it was after one in the morning. Orwell could see Stacy's unmarked car following a discreet distance behind as they walked to the 7-Eleven on Vankleek Street. It had stopped raining. The streets glistened and the stars were out. Anya went into the store, Orwell went around the car to Stacy's window.

“How you holding up, Chief?” she asked.

“Woman tells a good story,” he said. “You?”

“Dr. Ruth's had a concussion. They won't know how bad it is until they get some specialist up here to have a look. She probably won't be answering questions for a while.”

“But she's going to live?”

“Hard to get a straight yes or no out of her doctor,” Stacy said. “She's in a coma. Don't know how deep or when she'll wake up. She's alive, for the moment.”

“Goddammit!” said Orwell, who rarely cussed. “Goddammit all!”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about her office?”

“Hard to tell what's gone until she's awake enough to tell us what was in there. Place was trashed worse than that apartment.”

“Two break-ins on the same night? We're way past coincidence now, Detective.”

“How did Ms. Daniel react when you told her about her doctor?”

“Haven't mentioned it yet. She's nervous enough. Besides, I'm enjoying the tale too much.”

“The Staff Sergeant has assigned Constable Maitland to keep an eye on her tonight. He's parked across the street.”

“Good.”

“Want a breath mint, Chief?”

“Give me a couple,” Orwell said. “I'm probably going to have another smoke.”

“You're just going to hell in a handbasket, ain'tcha?” said Stacy.

Orwell walked Anya across the street and into the park.

“You are very married, are you not?” she said.

“Yes I am,” he said.

“You make her feel safe? Your wife?”

“I suppose. She's the kind of person who's always preparing for emergencies.”

“Ha! Good luck to her on that.”

They stopped beside a big maple. Anya ran her hand lovingly across the wet bark.

“How did Nimchuk get the necklace into Canada?”

“That was the easiest part. It was so absurd it looked right at home in a basket full of costume jewels, paste and pewter, glass beads and feathers. Once we were across the border, I defected. I had no choice.”

“Then what happened?”

“Nimchuk took the gems with him and he ran. He sold a few of the diamonds, the smaller ones, and he got enough money to hide for a while. But I could not hide so easily. I was a dancer, if I did not dance, I did not eat.”

She tore open the fresh package of Players, offered him one. He lit hers, and then his.

“I changed my name. I became Anna Vaganova for a while. I was engaged as a guest artist by the Winnipeg Ballet. And for a few years I was okay.”

“And then?”

“And then Chernenko died. Gorbachev took over in the Soviet Union, Glasnost, Perestroika, a new age. I got ambitious again. I wanted recognition. I thought it would be safe. The National invited me to be a guest artist in Toronto. Be careful what you wish for, they say. I got my recognition. Someone saw me and told someone, who told someone, and one night they followed me home to my apartment and they broke in. They were going to kill me.”

“Who?”

“What does it matter? They were hired killers working for another faceless killer. I told them, I do not have what you want, I just do not have it, Nimchuk has it, he took it all, he is selling it, in pieces, I do not know where he is, I do not know where he hid the pieces.” She laughed. “So they threw me off the balcony. They killed me. Or they thought they did. From the fifth floor. They did not know I could fly.”

“What happened?”

“I told you. I flew. There was a tree, a beautiful maple tree, like this one, tall and smooth, with big strong arms. When they pushed me over, I had enough time to bend my legs and propel myself away from the railing. I flew into the top of the tree like a bird, and it caught me. By the time they got down the elevator I was far away. I had cracked ribs, I was black and blue, cut and scratched, my wrist was broken, three of my fingers were hyper-extended and I tore a ligament in my elbow. But I was alive, and strong enough to climb down from my wonderful tree and run away.”

“And you ran up here.”

“Eventually.” She started to walk again, across the wet grass, heading in the direction of the Gusse Building.

“Doesn't sound like much of a life — running, hiding, waiting for the axe to fall.”

“I will tell you something, Mr. Policeman, I have
never
had a ‘life.' When you are a dancer, your life is classes, rehearsals, performing, stretching, recuperating, not enough to eat, not enough sleep, and everything else,
everything
, has to fit in between. If there is a little time left over you can fall in love for a few minutes.” She laughed. “I was getting to like this town,” she said.

“You planning on running again?”

“I do not know,” she said. “I am tired of being chased.”

“I'll have my officers keep an eye on you,” he said.

“Every minute?”

“This isn't a big town,” Orwell said. “If the person who broke into your apartment isn't from around here, we might be able to spot him.”

“To me, everybody looks like an assassin. Except you. Maybe.”

“No, I'm just a poor sinner,” said Orwell, popping a breath mint into his mouth.

They had reached the Gusse Building. She unlocked the front door.

“I will spend tonight in my studio,” she said. “I have done it before. There is a couch, a blanket.”

“I'll come up with you,” he said. “Make sure it's safe.”

“Your wife is a lucky woman.”

“Perhaps. But she'll have questions about tonight.”

“It is good for her.”

“It is?” He followed her up the stairs.

“That you surprise her from time to time.”

“She hates surprises.”

“I know. It will remind her that you cannot prepare for everything.”

The sign on her door read “Daniel Dance Academy.” Orwell took the key from her, unlocked the door, reached inside and flicked a light switch. Fluorescent fixtures pulsed to life illuminating the long room, the wall of mirrors, the tall windows overlooking Vankleek.

“I will be okay now,” she said. “You are a good listener.”