The Death of Achilles (37 page)

In the restaurant at the hotel Dusseaux all the tables were taken, but Achimas’s domesticated porter had kept his word and saved the most convenient one for his newspaperman — in the corner, with a view of the entire hall. At twenty minutes to nine, three officers entered with a jangling of spurs, followed by the general himself and then another four officers. The other diners, who had been strictly cautioned by the maitre d’hotel not to pester the general with any unwanted expressions of esteem, behaved with appropriate tact and pretended they had simply come to the restaurant for dinner, not to gawk at the great man.

Sobolev took the wine list, failed to discover Chateau d’Yquem on it, and ordered some to be brought from Levet’s shop. His retinue elected to drink champagne and cognac.

The military gentlemen talked among themselves in low voices, with several outbursts of general merriment, in which the general’s lilting baritone could be clearly distinguished. The overall impression was that the conspirators were in excellent spirits, which suited Achimas very well.

At five minutes past nine, when the Chateau d’Yquem had been delivered and duly uncorked, the doors of the restaurant swung inward as though wafted open by some gust of magical wind and Wanda appeared on the threshold, poised picturesquely, her entire lithe figure leaning forward. Her face was flushed and her huge eyes glowed like midnight stars. The entire hall turned around at the sound and froze, entranced by the miraculous spectacle. The glorious general seemed to have turned to stone, the pickled mushroom on his fork suspended halfway to his mouth.

Wanda paused for just a moment — long enough for her audience to admire the effect, but too brief for them to stick their faces back in their plates.

“There he is, our hero!” the miraculous vision declared resoundingly.

And with a loud clattering of heels, she rushed impetuously into the hall.

The claret silk rustled and the ostrich feather on her wide-brimmed hat swayed. The maitre d’hotel fluttered his hands in horror, recalling the prohibition on any public displays of feeling, but he need not have been alarmed: Sobolev was not in the least bit indignant. He wiped his glistening lips with a napkin and rose gallantly to his feet.

“Why do you remain seated, gentlemen, and not pay tribute to the glory of the Russian land?” the ecstatic patriot cried, appealing to the hall, determined not to allow the initiative to slip from her grasp even for a moment. “Hurrah for Mikhail Dmitrievich Sobolev!”

It was as if this was what the diners had all been waiting for. They jumped up from their chairs and began applauding, and the thunderous enthusiasm of their ‘hurrah’ set the crystal chandelier swaying beneath the ceiling.

Reddening most fetchingly, the general bowed to all sides. Despite being famous throughout the whole of Europe and loved throughout all Russia, he still seemed unaccustomed to public displays of enthusiastic admiration.

The vision of beauty dashed up to the hero and flung her slim arms open wide.

“Permit me to embrace you on behalf of all the women of Moscow!”

She cried and, clasping him firmly around the neck, she kissed him three times in the old Moscow manner — full on the lips.

Sobolev turned an even deeper shade of crimson.

“Gukmasov, move over,” he said, tapping the Cossack captain on the shoulder and pointing to an empty chair. “Please do me the honor, madam.”

“No, no, what are you saying?” the delightful blonde exclaimed in fright. “How could I possibly? But if you will permit me, I would be glad to sing my favorite song for you.”

And with the same impetuous abandon, she launched herself toward the small grand piano standing in the middle of the hall.

In Achimas’s view, Wanda’s approach was too direct, even a little coarse, but he could see that she was quite sure of herself and knew perfectly well what she was doing. It was a pleasure to work with a true professional. He was finally persuaded when the first notes of that deep, slightly hoarse voice set every heart in the hall quivering:

Why do you stand so weary, My slender rowanberry, With murmurs sad and dreary Bowing down your head?

Achimas stood up and walked out quietly. Nobody took any notice of him — they were all listening to the song.

Now he could sneak into Wanda’s suite and switch the bottles of Chateau d’Yquem.

The operation went so smoothly that it was almost boring. All that was required of him was a little patience.

At a quarter past twelve three droshkys pulled up outside the Anglia: Wanda and the mark were in the first and all seven officers were in the other two.

Achimas (wearing a false beard and spectacles, quite unmistakably a university lecturer) had earlier taken a two-room suite at the hotel with windows facing in both directions — onto the street and into the courtyard with the annex. He turned the light off so that his silhouette wouldn’t give him away.

The general was well guarded. When Sobolev and his female companion disappeared behind the door of Wanda’s suite, the officers prepared to stand watch over their leader’s recreation: One remained in the street, at the entrance to the hotel, another began patrolling the inner courtyard, while a third quietly slipped inside the annex and evidently took up a position in the hallway. The other four set off to the buffet. They were evidently going to keep watch by turns.

At twenty-three minutes to one the electric light in the windows of the suite was extinguished and the curtains were illuminated with a dull red glow from within. Achimas nodded approvingly — the chanteuse was playing her part with true Parisian virtuosity.

The officer strolling about in the courtyard glanced around stealthily, walked over to a red window, and stood on tiptoe, but then recoiled as if he were ashamed and resumed his striding back and forth again, whistling with emphatic cheerfulness.

Achimas gazed intently at the minute hand of his watch. What if the White General, so famous for his coolness in battle, never lost his head and his pulse never raced, not even from passion? That was unlikely, for it contradicted the laws of physiology. In the restaurant he had blushed violently at Wanda’s kisses and more than mere kisses would be involved now.

A more likely possibility was that he would not touch the Chateau d’Yquem. But the laws of psychology said that he should. If lovers don’t throw themselves into each other’s arms in the first instant — and a good twenty minutes had passed before the lamp in the boudoir was extinguished — they had to amuse themselves with something. The best thing of all would be for him to drink a glass of his favorite wine, which happened quite fortuitously to be close at hand. And if he didn’t drink it today, then he would drink it tomorrow. Or the next day. Sobolev would be in Moscow until the twenty-seventh and there could be little doubt that from now on he would prefer to spend the night here instead of in suite 47 at the Dusseaux. The Ryazan Commercial Association would be only too glad to pay the cost of a season ticket for their compatriot — Monsieur NN had provided more than enough money for expenses.

At five minutes past one Achimas heard a muffled woman’s scream, then another, louder and more prolonged, but he couldn’t make out any words. The officer in the courtyard started and set off toward the annex at a run. A moment later bright light flooded the windows and shadows began flitting about on the curtains.

That was all.

Achimas walked unhurriedly in the direction of Theater Lane, swinging his cane as he went. There was plenty of time. It took seven minutes to reach the Dusseaux at a leisurely pace — that afternoon he had walked the shortest route twice, timing himself with his watch. The fuss and panic, the attempts to bring the general around, the arguments about whether or not to call a doctor to the hotel or first take Sobolev to the Dusseaux for the sake of appearances — these would take at least an hour.

His problem lay elsewhere: What was he to do with Wanda now? The elementary rules of hygiene required him to clean up after the job was done, to leave no loose ends behind. Of course, there wouldn’t be any inquiry — the officers and gentlemen would make certain of that — and Monsieur NN wouldn’t allow it in any case. And Wanda was extremely unlikely to have noticed that the bottle had been switched. However, if the subject of the bearer of gifts from Ryazan should come up, if it should be discovered that the real Nikolai Nikolaevich Klonov had never set foot outside his own fabric warehouse, there would be unnecessary complications. And in the words of the old saying: God helps those who help themselves.

Achimas frowned. Unfortunately, his line of work did have its unpleasant moments.

It was with these gloomy but unavoidable thoughts in mind that he turned off Sofiiskaya Street into the opening of an entryway that led most conveniently to the rear courtyard of the Dusseaux, directly beneath the windows of Sobolev’s suite.

With a quick glance at the dark windows (all the hotel’s guests had been asleep for a long time already), Achimas set a crate that he had spotted earlier against the wall. The bedroom window opened at his gentle push with only a quiet jingling of its latch. Five seconds later Achimas was inside.

He clicked the spring of his pocket flashlight and it sprang to life, slicing through the darkness with a narrow, faint beam that was still quite strong enough for him to make out the safe.

Achimas pushed a pick into the keyhole and began methodically twisting it to the left and the right in a regular rhythm. He regarded himself as an amateur in the art of safecracking, but in the course of a long career you learn many different things. After three minutes there was a click as the first of the lock’s three tumblers yielded. The remaining two required less time — only about two minutes.

The iron door squeaked open. Achimas put his hand inside and felt some papers or other. He shone the light in: lists of names and diagrams. Monsieur NN would probably have been very glad to get his hands on these papers, but the terms of Achimas’s contract didn’t specify the theft of any documents.

In any case, just at that moment Achimas wasn’t interested in documents.

He was pondering a surprise: The briefcase was not in the safe.

Achimas spent all Friday lying on his bed, thinking hard. He knew from experience that when you find yourself in a difficult spot, rather than giving way to your first impulse, it is best to stop moving, to freeze the way a cobra does just before its deadly, lightning-fast strike. Provided, of course, that circumstances permit a pause in the action. In this particular case they did, since the basic precautions had already been taken. Last night Achimas had checked out of the Metropole and moved to the Trinity, a collection of cheap apartments in the Trinity Inn. The crooked, dirty alleyways around Pokrovsky Boulevard were only a stone’s throw away from Khitrovka, and that was where he would have to search for the briefcase.

When he left the Metropole, Achimas had not taken a cab. In the hours before dawn he had circled through the streets for a long time, checking to see if he was being tailed, and he had signed into the Trinity under another false name.

His room was dirty and dark, but it was conveniently located, with a separate entrance and a good view of the courtyard.

He had to think over what had happened very carefully.

The previous night he had searched Sobolev’s suite thoroughly and still failed to find the briefcase. But he had found a small pellet of mud on the sill of the end window, which was tightly closed. When he raised his head, he had noticed that the small upper window was open. Someone had climbed out through it not long before.

Achimas stared intently at the small window as he thought for a moment and drew his conclusions.

He brushed the dirt off the windowsill and closed the window through which he had climbed in.

He then left the suite via the door, which he locked from the outside with a skeleton key.

It was quiet and dark in the hotel foyer, with only a single candle guttering on the night doorman’s counter. The doorman himself was half-asleep and failed to notice the dark figure as it slipped out of the corridor. When the little bell on the door jangled, he leapt to his feet, but the stealthy visitor was already outside. I’ll never get any sleep, God help me, the doorman thought. He yawned and made the sign of the cross over his mouth, then went across to close the latch.

Achimas walked briskly in the direction of the Metropole, trying to work out what to do next. The sky was beginning to turn gray — at the end of June the nights are short.

A droshky appeared from around a corner. Achimas recognized the silhouette of Sobolev’s Cossack captain, sitting with his arms wrapped around a figure in white. The figure was supported from the other side by another officer. Its head swayed loosely to the clattering rhythm of hoof-beats. There were two other carriages following behind.

Interesting, Achimas thought absentmindedly, how will they carry him past the doorman? But they’re military men, they’re bound to think of something.

The shortest route to the Metropole lay through an open courtyard, a route that Achimas had followed more than once during the last few days.

As he was walking through the yard’s long, dark archway with his footsteps echoing hollowly on the flagstones, Achimas was suddenly aware of someone else’s presence. It wasn’t his vision or even his hearing that detected this presence, but some other, inexplicable, peripheral sense that had saved his life several times in the past. It was as if the skin on the back of his neck sensed a movement behind him, some extremely faint stirring of the air. It might have been a cat darting by or a rat making a dash for a heap of rotten garbage, but in such situations Achimas wasn’t afraid of making himself look foolish — without pausing to think, he threw himself to one side.

He felt a sudden downward draft of air sweep past his cheek. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the dull glint of steel slicing through the air close beside his ear. With a rapid, practiced movement, he pulled out his velodog and fired without taking aim.