The Black Marble (30 page)

“I understand, Mrs. Rosenfeldt,” Valnikov nodded, gravely. His runny blue eyes were sad. Earl Scheib Lopez, II years old, and Ida Schwartz age 83, San Quentin cellmates.

“Well, what can you do, Sergeant Valnikov?” the old woman demanded.

“It's very hard to put people in state prison,” Valnikov explained. “Especially for …”

“Adultery!” she cried.

“Yes, especially for adultery. You see, it's not a crime.”

“What is it coming to, this world, Sergeant?” Mrs. Rosenfeldt said.

“Now now, Mrs. Rosenfeldt,” Valnikov said, leading her over to one of three folding chairs placed for the convenience of aged customers like Mrs. Rosenfeldt. “Just sit down, and my brother will fix you a nice cup of tea.”

“Tea. That would be good, Sergeant,” Mrs. Rosenfeldt said, with a gummy smile. A wet star slithered from her lashless eyes and followed a jagged course through the creases of her cheeks.

“Did I ever tell you about the samovar we had when I was a boy, Mrs. Rosenfeldt?” Valnikov said, sitting in a folding chair next to the fragile old woman. “Well, my parents carried that samovar and an ikon of St. Sergius and a picture of Nicholas the second across Siberia, all the way to Vladivostok. That's one-fourth of the world, Mrs. Rosenfeldt!”

“Imagine,” the old lady said, forgetting about Myer banging that stinking harlot, Ida Schwartz.

“Finally they arrived at the sea, Mrs. Rosenfeldt. Can you imagine how it was then? All the Whites escaping with their families? And at last, with the help of other army officers, and mostly with the help of a fleeing nobleman my father had befriended, they crossed the great Pacific Ocean …”

“On a Canadian vessel!” she cackled triumphantly.

“That's right,” Valnikov smiled, his sad runny eyes wet not from tears but Stolichnaya runoff. They'd be clearing at about 2:00 p.m. if he could judge by his vodka intake.

“They landed in Seattle!” Mrs. Rosenfeldt reminded him.

“Yes, that's right,” Valnikov nodded.

“Is that true?” Natalie Zimmerman asked Alex Valnikov while Mrs. Rosenfeldt picked up the story of the Valnikov odyssey and told it to Valnikov.

“Sure,” Alex Valnikov grinned. “They carried one other thing besides an ikon and samovar, and a picture of Nicholas Romanov. They carried
me
. I was two years old when we sailed from Vladivostok in 1922. And I was a one hundred percent, gum-chewing, Los Angeles teenager by the time that baby over there was born in the Depression. Mrs. Rosenfeldt's heard the story a hundred times or so, that's why she's doing the telling. Keeps her mind off her sex problems with Myer. Who died five years ago.”

“You mean she doesn't accept that he's dead?”

“In a way she does,” said Alex Valnikov, wrapping the cabbage rolls and pumpernickel. “Sometimes she seems to know for sure, then other times …”

“Does she come in every day?”

“Just about. And every time she sees my brother it sets her off to telling about how Ida Schwartz should be arrested. I imagine Ida Schwartz is dead by now too. We don't mind it. In fact Iosif looks forward to her stories.”

The Molokan heard his name and grinned. One tooth was missing in front. Whack! went the cleaver.

“It's kind of a continuing soap opera,” said Alex Valnikov. “My brother has a way with old people. Look at her. She's telling him about his own family who she never met. Have some tea.” He served the tea in a glass. “Russian style,” he explained.

“Tastes good,” Natalie Zimmerman said, sipping the hot tea carefully.

The big man lowered his voice and said, “How long you been working with my brother?”

“Not long.”

“What do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“My brother drinks all the time. He didn't used to do that. Even after his divorce. My brother wasn't a drunk even after the divorce. Now my brother's a drunk. Do all the other cops talk about it?”

“No, I don't think so,” Natalie Zimmerman said, putting her glass of hot tea on the meat counter. “Lots of veteran detectives are known to take a drink. I don't think he's known as a particularly heavy drinker.”

“My brother started acting different a few months ago.” Now he was whispering. “He had a partner, Charlie Lightfoot.”

“I know about that,” she nodded.

“About the time Charlie died, he started acting … different. Sort of absent-minded. Sort of like his mind wanders. Then the
heavy
boozing started. Hell, we never see him anymore! I'm not his only family. We got a cousin lives in San Pedro and we got a cousin in Sylmar. Nobody sees him. We were a close family once. I worry about my brother. I got four kids that can make you stay up nights, all the crap they step in, but I worry most about my little brother.”

“I don't think he's a real heavy drinker,” Natalie Zimmerman lied, unable to look in the passionate blue eyes of Valnikov the elder. No, he's not a heavy drinker. Just a 14 karat alcoholic, is all. And a 21 karat dingaling to boot. And
I'm
the one fate elected to dispatch the clown with my terrible swift sword.

“Come get your tea, kid,” Alex Valnikov said, and the detective got up, patted Mrs. Rosenfeldt's hand, and joined them.

“That's very sad,” Natalie Zimmerman said, looking at the old woman who was now telling the Molokan butcher about Myer the whoremonger. That's what philanderers deserve. A cleaver. Whack!

“Well, we don't mind sadness,” Alex Valnikov grinned. “Haven't you seen Russian plays? We're only happy when we're sad.” He turned to his younger brother and said, “You changed your mind? Staying for some borscht, right?”

Valnikov smiled apologetically and sipped the tea from his glass and his elder brother sighed and handed the heavy paper bag to Natalie Zimmerman.

“It was nice to meet you, hon,” the big man said. Then he leaned over and gave her a friendly hug which didn't roll up her bra this time.

“I'll be seeing you, Iosif,” Valnikov said to the butcher, who by now was caught up in Mrs. Rosenfeldt's story of sex and depravity in the Jewish Home for the Aged.

“I see you, Andrei Mikhailovich!” the Molokan said, waving his cleaver.

Then Valnikov stopped at the door, where Natalie was taking money out of her purse to pay at the register.

“Don't be silly, honey,” the elder Valnikov said. Then he turned to his brother and said, “You come for dinner. Soon. You and me haven't had a talk in a hell of a long time, boy.”

“Bye, Alex. Thanks for the eats,” Valnikov said, putting an arm around his brother. Then the bears danced for another moment and the elder Valnikov kissed him on the mouth. “You take
care
, Andrushka. You hear me?”

When they got back in the car, Valnikov took the wheel again and headed downtown. “Now comes the best part,” he said to Natalie Zimmerman, who was lost in unhappy contemplation of black marbles.

He surprised her by parking at the Music Center. “Follow me,” he said with that grin of his. She was sure now after meeting his brother. It was childlike. On Alex Valnikov the big grin didn't look so dumb.

She'd go along with anything on this, the last day. It was the least she could do before … before she went to see Hipless Hooker.

He parked on Hope Street and led her up the steps between the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Mark Taper Forum. There were a few people roaming around, mostly coming from the restaurant on the Grand Avenue level. There were tourists taking pictures of the three neoclassical buildings which make up the Music Center complex, and of the enormous contemporary sculpture called
Peace on Earth
. Some decided it was a totem, no, a
pyramid
of bodies, animals and people, piled one on top of the other like a Hollywood orgy.

Valnikov led Natalie past the Mark Taper Forum with its quiet, asexual reflecting pool. It was windy and the snow-capped San Gabriels were visible from Bunker Hill today. Across the avenue was the county courthouse and a sculpted relief of a hopeful knight in chain mail brandishing the Magna Charta.

Then Valnikov beckoned Natalie toward a small cluster of people: tourists, downtown civil servants, pensioners, students, who were gathered around a young man with a full black beard and a war-surplus, navy peacoat, playing “Midnight in Moscow” for all he was worth. He was only worth a few bucks.

“They call him Horst,” Valnikov whispered when they were sitting on the steps. “He's a fair musician. Plays here in the afternoons. I've heard he's a medical student.”

The bearded young violinist had an old top hat upside down on the pavement. There were a few dollar bills and some change inside, but clearly, today's session was a bummer. Horst Vanderhoof was getting set to trip on home when he opened his eyes and saw that the small audience had grown by two.

“Charlie and I used to listen to him sometimes in the afternoons and have lunch like this. For a while, Charlie wanted to learn something about music.”

Valnikov unwrapped a mound of hot cabbage rolls and set the paper plates, plastic forks, and paper napkins in front of Natalie on the concrete steps as though he were waiting on a table.

“Is your brother a caterer?” Natalie asked.

“The best,” Valnikov smiled. “That's a big part of his business. He caters Russian weddings and parties. There's always an excuse for a celebration. If it isn't Pushkin's birthday it's Tolstoy's. Or it's the jubilee of the Bolshoi Ballet. Or the jubilee of the day somebody's cousin became an American citizen. Or somebody graduated from barber college. Anything.”

“Cabbage rolls,” she said. “I had a Polish grandmother made these.”

“Oh, you're Polish!” said Valnikov, unwrapping the black bread and little cartons of whipped butter.

“I had a grandmother from Poland and I think a great-grandfather from Germany. Hell, I'm an American. What's that stuff?”

Valnikov held a paper plate stacked with golden pastries and said, “
Piroshki
. They're very light and filled with cheese or meat. My brother usually makes them both ways. And these others are fruit pastries.”

“Looks good,” Natalie said, as Valnikov presented the array of homemade Russian food.

“I think you'll like this black bread, Natalie,” he said. “My mother used to make white bread only on Christmas or Easter. Sometime I'll bring some plastic containers and we'll get some borscht. My brother makes the best borscht you'll ever taste. The secret's in boiling the beef beforehand. And you add
dusha
last. That means soul. Oh, this is lamb, marinated and barbequed. He doesn't have it every day. We're lucky.”

“It smells fantastic,” Natalie Zimmerman said.

Then Valnikov noticed the music had stopped and he saw Horst packing up his violin case and emptying out the top hat. Most of the onlookers had strolled off.

“Wait, wait!” Valnikov yelled, putting down his plate and scurrying up the steps toward the reflecting pool.

Then Natalie Zimmerman saw him reach in his pocket and give some money to Horst. The kid nodded, took off his top hat again, put down the violin case and opened it up.

When he returned, Valnikov said, “The best part is having music when you eat.”

And then came the
pièce de résistance
. Valnikov drew from the bag a half bottle of Bulgarian wine which Alex had uncorked and capped.

“Wine too? I can't believe it!” Natalie Zimmerman said, as Valnikov chuckled and poured into styrofoam cups.

“There's a Russian toast which says, ‘If we must die, let's do it with music'” And then Horst burst forth with five bucks' worth of Rimsky-Korsakov. Horst could burst forth much better for a tenner, but Valnikov was satisfied.

Then Valnikov said, shyly, “Well, this is the surprise. How do you like it?”

And Natalie Zimmerman pushed terrible thoughts from her mind and concentrated on the wonderful food and the reflecting pool, and the clear sky and the mountains in the distance. She said, “This is the loveliest lunch I've ever had.”

“
Na zdorovye!
” he grinned happily, toasting her with the styrofoam cup.

Jesus, he had fine table manners. The poor doomed bastard. Jesus. Then for the first time, it occurred to her she had never called him by his first name. She didn't even
know
his first name! Sergeant A.M. Valnikov. Val.

“Andrei something, the butcher called you.”

“Andrei Mikhailovich,” he said, careful to swallow and dab his lips with the paper napkin before speaking.

“But what did your brother call you when he kissed you good-bye?”

“Silly, isn't it? Kissing like that. My brother never really escaped the old ways. He's still an
émigré
in his heart. He's saving to make a long vacation in Leningrad someday. I think this might be the year. Business is pretty good now.”

“But what did he call you?”

“Andrushka,” Valnikov said softly. “My mother always called me that.”

“That's a nice name,” Natalie Zimmerman said, looking at Horst the fiddler, who struggled a little, then got hot with Tchaikovsky.

“Do you mean it?”

“Sure. And what would be the Russian equivalent of my name? Of Natalie?”

Valnikov put down the cup and listened to the music for a moment. “The equivalent would be Natalia.”

“Natalia,” she said. “I've never liked Natalie.”

“How about Natasha?” he said, looking deep in her eyes. “It's more endearing. Like Andrushka.”

“Natasha,” she said, pushing her drooping glasses up. “I like that better.”

“Natasha,” he whispered. Then he concentrated on buttering his black bread, but his Russian heart was advancing fifteen beats a minute.