The Doves of Ohanavank (39 page)

At eight twenty his phone rings. It is Carla.

“This is an emergency. Meet me at the park near the Monument in twenty minutes.”

Yuri is at the other end of town. It will take him at least thirty minutes to get there. And he is so close. Anna may appear on the next bus, in just minutes.

“There’s no way I can be there in twenty,” he says. “What is the emergency?”

“Yuri, I have no time to explain. You have to get here, in twenty or sooner. I don’t care how you do it, just do it.” And Carla hangs up. She sounded rushed, but not distressed. If she had been distressed, Yuri would have assumed that she is in some type of trouble and ignored her call. But what could the emergency be? He waits a few minutes, the tension killing him, and then turns to Hov.

“We have to call it off,” he says. “Something’s come up. Go back to Stepanavan tonight, before your colleagues begin to get suspicious. I’ll call you when we can try again. She’s not going anywhere, I assure you.”

Hov is so mad that he punches the dashboard of Yuri’s car and slams the door on his way out. How did I lose so much respect so fast, wonders Yuri. Hov drives away burning rubber. Yuri sits there for a minute and shuts his eyes. There is no reason for so much frustration, he tells himself. We got rid of LeFreak, Anna can wait, Carla finally called and wants to see me, I’ll get my first fifty grand soon, maybe even tonight, so what is so bad about any of this?

When he lifts his head from the steering wheel and opens his eyes, he sees the bus leaving the station. He drives around the corner and sees Anna walking alone to her apartment building. Within minutes, she’s inside the building, and the motion-detector lights at the entrance hallway turn on. He watches her as she calls the elevator and gets in. The elevator doors close, and a few minutes later the entrance hallway lights turn off again. It is total darkness in the building and in the street. Yuri starts laughing out loud and drives toward the Monument.

Carla meets him at the entrance of the public park, where Yuri hasn’t been since his childhood, when his mother used to bring him for the rides.

“Park your car and get in mine.” She is calm, but hurried, giving the impression of a real emergency.

“We may have a little problem,” she says as she drives away on the main road. “His name is Samson.”

“Samson?”

“The police have him. One of my sources tells me that he may be getting ready to talk. He may tell them how LeFreak was killed in exchange for amnesty. Ari is following the situation. In the meantime, I want you to talk to the source yourself.”

“How did they get Samson?”

“Beats me. He was head of LeFreak’s security. Someone has tipped the police off that this was an inside job, so the head of security is the first suspect.”

“Someone has tipped the police?”

“It looks like it. We don’t have all the details yet. But if Samson talks, we’re all in trouble.”

The scheme that Carla has devised is cleverer than Yuri realizes. The story about Samson is a lie, but it makes Yuri feel vindicated that Samson turned out to be a liability, just as he thought, no matter that the liability played out differently than what he had envisioned. He will now look into Ari’s eyes and enjoy seeing him squirm. That is exactly what Carla wants Yuri to think. She cannot have him getting suspicious about where she is driving him.

“I always thought that Samson would be a problem in the long run,” he says. “But I did not think we’ll face it so soon.”

“What kind of problem in the long run?” She has to keep his mind occupied for ten more minutes. They are already almost out of Yerevan. Yuri keeps talking about his suspicions, but she concentrates on the road. She has driven on Azatutyan Avenue until Tbilisyan Highway, and then on Yerevanian street towards the town of Abovian. Before entering Abovian, she takes Kotayk Street towards Nor Gyugh and then Kotayk, and makes a right toward Akunk. She stops the car in the middle of the deserted road between Kotayk and Akunk.

Yuri stops talking, and looks around him. It is dark. There is only a quarter moon, giving just enough light to cast mystical shadows everywhere.
Then, out of nowhere, Ari appears by his side and opens the door of the car. He has a gun in his hand.

“Step outside,” he says.

Carla is out and around the car, standing next to Ari. She also has a pistol, with a silencer.

“What the hell is this?” Yuri’s voice and hands start to shake.

“Step outside,” repeats Ari, and reaches for his arm. Yuri tries to free himself, but Ari yanks him with such force that he stumbles and is nearly thrown onto the road.

“Let’s go for a walk,” says Ari, pushing him forward.

“Carla, what is this all about?” screams Yuri, and, to his horror, wets himself.

“Just walk,” says Carla, adopting Ari’s style of talking in short phrases.

They lead him to a grove of fruit trees. Ari has to push him several times to force him to move forward. Around twenty meters inside the orchard, they stop. Carla approaches him, the pistol primed in her hand.

“You chose the wrong person to mess with, Yuri.” She walks behind him, aims her pistol at point blank range at his head and pulls the trigger. She is amazed at how simple it is. A kick from the pistol, a whoosh from the muffled shot, Yuri drops to his knees and then folds over, his body sprawls awkwardly on the ground, and it is all over. Done. Problem solved, liability removed, hundreds of future headaches averted. Aside from the exhilarating feeling of the kill, she feels nothing. No remorse, no regret, not even a sense of pride for having pulled this off. It is exactly as she imagined it would be when she was practicing.

She nods at Ari. They walk back to their cars and drive away.

Chapter Thirty-Three

E
dik sounds frustrated. “I can’t finish it,” he says. “I have one verse, but I cannot complete it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve had this unfinished poem for seven months now. I have one verse written. I wrote it right before we met in Sevajayr. I can’t finish it.”

“Tell me the first verse,” I say, hoping to be helpful.

“No!”

“If you cannot write it, maybe there isn’t more to write.”

“When did you learn to talk like that? Or have I asked you that before?”

“You’ve asked me that before, and, forgive me for saying this, but it is not the most intelligent question that you’ve asked me.”

“Okay,” he says, and I can hear the disappointment in his voice. “But it was easier for me to write before I met you. You are distracting me.”

The problem is that Edik does not sound like he’s kidding. It is not always easy to tell over the phone, but his voice is not light. He is serious.

“I will call you
Khev Edik
from now on.”

“Then
Khev Edik
it is.”

“I was kidding.”

“So was I, but only a little.”

“My Papa used to say there is a little joke in every joke. Meaning most jokes are meant to say something serious.”

“Your Papa was right, Lara jan. Jokes are just a way to lighten up a serious subject.”

“Okay, what other serious subjects do we need to lighten up with a joke?”

It feels great to hear him laugh. This conversation has been unnecessarily tense, about a subject that, at least for me, should not cause so much stress. I like his laugh.

“I take it that we don’t have any other serious subjects,” I say.

“Not every serious subject can have a fitting joke. Try to come up with one about Carla.”

“If I understand correctly, Carla is a joke in her own right.”

“Then you do not understand correctly,” he says, his voice dead serious. “There is nothing funny about that character.”

“Are we still on for Saturday?” I want to get off the phone and go back to Vartanants Street to look for more paint options. “Either way I need to go to Saralandj this weekend to look at Avo’s plans for the beehives. I’ll give Ahmed an update next time he calls.”

“We’re on. I’ll try to come down on Friday evening, but it may be too late to meet. We’ll leave Saturday morning. We need to confer about the next phase.”

“See you Saturday, Edik jan.”

That evening, he calls back.

“I have to ask again if you’ve seen the news.”

“Now what?” He’s out of breath again like last time.

“Yuri was found dead near Kotayk. I missed the news on TV. But there is a story with his picture on Arshaluys.am. Check it out. I need to talk to Gagik. We obviously need to revise phase two.” And he hangs up.

I turn on my laptop and check the Arshaluys site. There it is. The story is titled “Murder in the Orchards.” There is a picture of Yuri lying under a
tree with a bullet hole in his head. I’m surprised the newspaper could get their hands on something like that. Next to it is another picture of Yuri in a suit, looking like a rich playboy. There isn’t much information in the text. Just one paragraph saying the farmer who owns the orchard found him in the morning and called the police, and that the investigation has started, but so far the police have no leads. There is no mention of Yuri’s association with the Ayvazians, and no information on his family or occupation.

Phase two of our plan was to have Yuri, and subsequently Carla, implicated in the LeFreak murder. We would arrange to give the police an anonymous tip about Yuri, claiming that he was seen with some of LeFreak’s men and had been in the vicinity of the building the day of the murder. The police would have to investigate and bring him in for questioning. It wouldn’t be difficult to uncover his relationship with the Ayvazians. Both Gagik and Edik thought that it would be more credible if the police arrived at the Ayvazian connection themselves.

Now Yuri’s dead and the plan to implicate Carla in LeFreak’s murder is dead with him. I can almost hear the confusion in Edik’s mind.

I get to Edik’s hotel earlier than usual on Saturday morning. We’re out of Yerevan before nine o’clock, which is not easy for either of us, but we have too much to do in Ashtarak and Saralandj.

“Our problem is that we’re in the dark,” he says. “We don’t know exactly how they pulled off LeFreak’s murder. We need to have much better intelligence if we’re going to eventually get to Carla.”

“Or, maybe we should just let things run their course. It looks like a round of score settling has started. I like where things stand. Let the gangs keep each other busy.”

“Not bad,” he laughs. “Just sit back and watch them kill each other. But Lara, the mystery is killing me. Don’t you want to know who killed Yuri? Don’t you want to know how they killed LeFreak?”

“That is one important difference between you and me. I don’t have to uncover every detail. They’re both dead. That’s enough for me.”

“I don’t believe you,” he says turning to look at me. “You must be curious. Maybe not as much as I am, but curious.”

“Sure, I’m a little curious; but I wouldn’t go so far as setting up an intelligence operation just to satisfy my curiosity. One day, we’ll know.”

We arrive in Saralandj around ten-thirty. Avo has moved the dining table out to the wide, covered balcony across the front of the house. It will
be possible to have meals here for at least five months, until the cold hits in mid-October. The removal of the table and ten stools has opened up a lot of space in the second room. They can now cook, do laundry and bathe more freely than before.

It is a beautiful day, sunny, warm, with a mild breeze. All the fruit trees are in full bloom. The cherry and apricot trees at the front of the house are especially heavy with blossoms; it is almost impossible to see the branches through the thick clusters of white and peach flowers.

Sona makes us Armenian coffee and joins us on the balcony, placing a plate of pastries on the table, made by her future mother in law. She looks better than I’ve ever seen her. She has plucked her eyebrows and has put on some light eye shadow. She has a red scarf around her neck, which makes her features stand out. She is pretty, and she looks happy.

“Sona, you’re shining!” I say. “Is that a new scarf?”

“Yes,” she smiles. “From Simon. It’s silk.”

“
Vay
, Sona jan, it’s beautiful.” I am so happy to see her like this, blossoming, content, looking forward to her wedding in just a couple of weeks.

She turns to Edik. “Paron Edik,” she says bashfully, “we’re taking your advice. The wedding will be in Ohanavank. Simon and I hope that you can attend.”

“Your baby sister here calls me Edik. You are older, and are calling me Paron? If you drop the Paron I promise to be at your wedding!”

“
Shat lav
, Edik,” says Sona, blushing.

Arpi and Alisia are inside busy preparing lunch. I walk in to say hello, and they too seem to be excited for Sona.

“Arpi, you’re next, you know,” I say hugging her. She seems even more reserved, shy, and distracted. She gives me a faint smile, but says nothing.

“Are you still reading Raffi?” I want to hear her say something.

“I finished.”

“All ten volumes?”

She nods, and smiles shyly.

Alisia dances around as she goes about doing chores in the kitchen.

“Yeah,” she butts in, “now you better hurry up and find someone who reads like you; I’m not waiting for you very long. What would it look like if your younger sister got married before you, eh? You’ll immediately become an old lady.” Alisia’s laugh is contagious.

I hear Avo’s voice and walk back out. He gives me a hug.

“Where are the boys?” I ask.

“I’ve given them some work to do in the garden. They’ll be here by lunchtime.”

“You have no conscience, Avo,” I say, mocking him, “making your younger brothers work on a Saturday.”

“It’s good for them,” he says. “They work well together. They’ve turned into a real team, and if I try to help them, they ask me to leave them alone!” He laughs.

Avo sits down and puts three sheets of paper on the table, with scribbles and random-looking notes all over them. It is his business plan.

“Is Gagik coming?” he asks.

“A bit later. Why don’t you start,” Edik then turns to me. “After the business plan, we need to talk about other plans. Can’t do that with the family around. Maybe we can go somewhere else.”