Siren of the Waters: A Jana Matinova Investigation, Vol. 2 (21 page)

Only they had killed poor Pavel. He was wrong: His knowledge hadn’t protected him. And it wouldn’t protect her.

Sasha waited until the Rolls drove off and she was sure none of the three who had gone into the hotel were suddenly going to emerge before she’d walked a safe distance away down the Promenade. She tried to hum a song to keep her spirits up, but all she could think of was the Russian national anthem. It gave her courage. Strange, she hadn’t sung it since childhood.

Sasha picked up her pace. The clouds passed, the sun came out, washing the street with its light. Everyone on the water-front responded, becoming more animated, more cheerful. Except Sasha, who no longer noticed.

No reason to hurry, Sasha repeated to herself like a mantra. Keep calm. She still had her hole to hide in. They would not find her today. She put tomorrow out of her mind.

O
n the plane ride to Nice, Levitin had immediately gone to sleep. Jana admired the facility with which certain people, no matter what the circumstances, could curl themselves up, put reality behind them, and rest. Jana tried, then gave up, instead using the time to go over the phone numbers in Foch’s address book one more time. The telephone numbers stared back at her. Most she failed to recognize, while others like Jeremy’s and Moira Simmons’s waved at her in recognition. When she had the time, Jana would probably have to call the unknown numbers, one by one, perhaps see some of the owners, doing the one-step-after-another drudge work so much a part of solving cases. She then pulled out a copy of the coded book she and Seges had found taped to the underside of the couch in the dead pimp’s apartment. She browsed through it, hoping to see an item, a number, anything that would have make sense to her.

Each of the pages had a different number on the right side, each number written as if it were a continuation of the name corresponding with the telephone number first entered at the top of the page. But the numbers on each of the pages were not in order and did not correspond to the correct page in the book. On the left side of the page, again corresponding with the first name on the page, appearing to be the beginning of a name, but, written smaller than the other letters in the name, there was a letter. Again, they were not in alphabetical order, but like the numbers, did not repeat themselves, and did not appear to reflect a page number.

On the lower portion of each page, again on the same line as the last name and telephone number, the process was repeated, letter on one side, number on the other, each of them not corresponding to a page or to each other, and not in any order. They did not repeat the same patterns at the tops of the pages.

Jana tried to make sense of the letters and numbers placed as they were. She spent time going over them backward and forward, up and down, crossing the pages, letter to letter and number to number. They did not relate to the entries they were juxtaposed with. No logical relationship presented itself, either internally or externally.

The numbers, words, letters had to have a meaning, not necessarily with each other but by reference to an object outside themselves. Codes had to have a method that could be used to decipher them, a program, an Enigma decryption machine, a decoding book. The man who wrote the book found in the apartment would need a key in order to write in code, and so others in the organization would be able to decode it. It would be easy to decipher the book if you had the key. Unfortunately, if you were untrained, and didn’t have the key, you might never be able to do it.

There was a key somewhere, a Rosetta stone allowing the message to be read. Names? Dates? Left to right? Front to back? Where did you start? On even days one set; on odd days the other? The key would tell her.

She snapped the book shut. Now a code expert had to work on what they had, without a key. Maybe the Slovak code expert or the Americans could do it. Or maybe even Levitin, who’d boasted of his gift for numbers. She’d have to think about that.

She tucked the book away, trying to doze, unable to stop mulling over the subject. She was sure that whoever had planted it in the apartment had wanted it found. Why? To suggest that the pimp was part of a large, complex organization? If so, who were the other people? A rival gang? A part of the organization the person who killed the pimp wanted to destroy? Was it evidence that could be used against them? Again, why? To have the field to himself? More conjecture without any real hope of reaching an accurate conclusion.

She tried to make herself comfortable, concluding that airline seats give a promise of comfort that they never keep. She was forced to put a pillow behind the small of her back, and sit upright. Again, no rest. She began picking at the facts in the case.

Foch? What part did he play in this series of events? Foch had been in Vienna, which was close to Bratislava. Was Foch involved directly in the murder of the pimp? Was Foch a member of the organization to be destroyed? Or a destroyer?

Dead Tutungian of the slicked-back hair, the “reformed” gangster who was to give testimony at the meeting. Obviously he had not been reformed enough to prevent himself from being murdered. Was it because of his pending testimony?

Jana was still thinking about Tutungian when she finally fell asleep. Not even the jarring of the aircraft when it landed at the Nice airport woke her. Her sleep was so deep that Levitin had to shake her awake.

M
ikhail Gruschov hailed a taxi. The taxi driver shocked Mikhail when he pulled over. The driver wore a wolf’s mask that covered half his face, a jovial wolf who was laughing at his own appearance when he beckoned Mikhail inside. Were French cab drivers crazy? Mikhail wondered what kind of lunacy he had gotten himself into.

Even as he kept the driver at arm’s length, Mikhail pointed at a small map he had picked up. Using gestures, grunts, vivid exclamations, and muttered imprecations, they reached an understanding that Mikhail wanted to be dropped off at Chemin du Bois. When they arrived, Mikhail pulled out a handful of Euros, holding them out, allowing the driver to pick through the money to pay for his services. Better to remain safe, far away from the man’s teeth. The amount the driver counted out for himself seemed reasonably related to what the meter read, so Mikhail pocketed the rest and gladly eased his bulk out of the taxi, into the street, taking his small bag from the driver.

Mikhail wore his wool winter suit. The mild climate of Nice generated uncomfortable warmth, and he wished that he had listened to Adriana and worn light clothes. The radical change of geography, and its weather, was still hard for him to credit. In less than one day he had come from zero-Centigrade ice and snow to a climate where plants were green and flowering.

Despite his relief that the driver was gone, the taxi’s departure left Mikhail feeling deserted. Mikhail was like Yuri Gagarin coming in from outer space and landing on the wrong planet. He pushed his feeling of alienation away and studied the building before him. Unlike the rest of the city, it was one of a cluster of high-rise flats, concrete slabs displaying little French flair or design sensibility. It might have looked sleek and new at one time, but Mikhail doubted it.

The occupants’ washing hung out to dry on every one of the balconies that ran up the sides of the buildings, just like in ugly Ukrainian high-rises. Mikhail decided the buildings in France, like those in Kiev, must have been designed by local communists who had struggled to build at the lowest possible level of human habitation. Their dreary construction truly represented the proletariat.

Mikhail walked toward the entrance of the building. The kids playing in front were awed at his enormous bulk. Some of them wore outlandish masks and partial costumes.

“Are you here for Carnival?” one of them yelled. Mikhail couldn’t understand them, so he ignored the question, walking on. Not a French giant, the kids concluded. Maybe a freak on leave from a circus? Clothes too drab to be French, his hair tousled, not in the careful uncombed look of the French males, he must be from some other place where style did not mean anything. A foreigner. They watched until he was inside, making unkind comments that it was fortunate Mikhail did not understand.

He checked the mailboxes inside the vestibule. Boyar, his cousin, was listed; Mikhail pressed the bell for admittance. He waited for a voice to demand his name. No response. Mikhail eyed the confines of the little hall, wondering how to get to Boyar’s apartment. He thought of ringing another bell. That would never work. He spoke no French, and sign language would be an absurdity over a building intercom.

A good ten minutes later, a little old lady walking a tiny dog on a leash came through the inner door. Mikhail stopped the door from closing, his huge arm reaching like a bridge over the woman’s head. Her little dog yipped once, rolling its eyes so you could see the whites, a warning to Mikhail to watch where he stepped. The woman, never noticing that Mikhail had stopped the door from closing, continued on her mission: allowing her dog to relieve itself by fouling the sidewalk with its waste.

Mikhail went to the door marked
ascenseur
and, miracle of miracles, it worked, creaking its objections to the weight it carried all the way to the eighth floor. Mikhail stepped out, checking apartment numbers until he came to 809, then knocked. As expected, there was no answer. His cousin had had the bad grace to be out when Mikhail arrived. Boyar, as Mikhail remembered, had never been a considerate man.

There was no choice. Mikhail sat down on the welcome mat, his back braced against the door, leaning an elbow on his knee, his head on his hand. With his massive head and shoulders he looked remarkably like Rodin’s
The Thinker,
except he was not stone, and, unlike the statue, he was truly thinking.

Mikhail had to get to Jana, and get to her quickly. She had gone to Strasbourg, and he had made an attempt to contact her by calling her department. Then he’d become fearful about trying again. The telephone lines were suspect and the police were corrupt. Mikhail himself was one of the prime examples.

Adriana and he had argued when he had told her about his concern for Jana’s safety. Jana was too smart, too dedicated. When she went to Strasbourg, she would soon realize she had to go on to Nice. The others would become aware of her arrival; they would then make her disappear. A magician with a wand would put her in a box, and poof, the lady vanishes!

A small skiff, a fishing boat would put out to sea, and the captain of the boat would suddenly have new equipment, maybe even a new boat, one that he had always wanted.
C’est la vie,
he would shrug. He had a family to support, and the fish needed to be fed. So did his children. The box he would put overboard? Who cared what it contained?

Adriana had listened to Mikhail’s tale of his own corruption, the car they now had, the apartment they now owned, the jobs for his brothers. When she called him to task for being so weak, he had agreed. The organization had made it so easy for him, and for the others. Mikhail had not counted on Jana being put at risk. He finally went to Adriana: Give me your advice. What shall I do?

His wife had hesitated only for a moment, then handed him the phone to call Jana’s department. Which was why he loved her. He had her trust. She was his moral compass, and always had been. She made his life worth all its problems. It was decided: When the call to the Slovaks failed, he had to do what he most wanted to do when he first became a police officer: save lives, make the world better, keep the lions from eating the lambs.

As long as Adriana thought he was okay, that was all Mikhail needed. She would continue to love him. His private world was safe. Everyone believed in him. It made everything he did, and had to do, so much easier. And here he was, waiting for his cousin.

T
he events of the last few years had required Jana to compartmentalize. Initially, after the formal end of her marriage, she tried to keep focused on the successes she’d had at work, her unique ability to see things that others missed in cases that brought her departmental acclaim. That was the plus for her. Then the others, the minuses, began to mount again. Her mother finally died. That was a hard blow. Jana had come home at noon when her mother failed to answer her cell phone. Her mother had been feeling better that last week, even taking a walk through the neighborhood, chatting with a few old friends. That morning her breathing, always labored now, had appeared to soften and ease; her mother’s energy level went up and she had looked forward to the day. So death was unexpected, though expected. Then who really believes your parents are going to die?

She found her mother sitting in front of the window, a book on the floor beside her. Nothing spectacular in her death, not like so many of the deaths Jana investigated. She could be thankful it wasn’t one of those. On the other hand, there was a basic difference in the two types of mortality. This one was also emotionally different from those that were work-related. Jana had learned to steel herself against those public horrors she encountered at work; this one she felt.

Jana and Katka, and the few old friends her mother had left, attended a brief service, and her mother was buried in a small rocky grave. Jana had cried during the ceremony; Katka had been dry-eyed. It was later that Katka became despondent.

Katka had been rejected by those near and dear. She had obviously failed to live up to their expectations. Her father had left her, which meant she had not pleased him enough for him to stay at home. With Katka’s grandmother, the same pattern had developed. To make up for her father’s loss, Katka turned to her grandmother. She had made sure the old woman took her medications, forced her to eat, cleaned the house. She had done all the little things for the old woman.

Katka and her grandmother had tiffs, her grandmother cranky because of her semi-invalid status. Katka let it all roll off her back, even enjoying the little arguments. When her grandmother “left,” as Katka put it, the emotional trauma Katka suffered from her grandmother’s death mixed with what she’d suffered from Dano’s departure. She withdrew from her friends and from Jana. She began to hate Slovakia, to dream of going to America and never returning home.