Woman Chased by Crows (15 page)

On the far side of Armoury Park, Kasemore Drive curved uphill above the locks. A chain-link fence ran along one side, guarding the top of a wooded slope, and through the trees she caught a glint of water. The fence was sagging and there were many holes. Transients and teens used the cover of the trees for all sorts of things. A sidewalk ran along the other side with parked cars facing downhill along the curb.

It was too bad really, I almost had a life here. Poky little town. A place to live, a place to work — for a while it was almost worth being alive. Well, nothing lasts forever. She had a limited capacity for happiness, anyway. She knew that. No doubt her mother's influence. Mama was a melancholy soul. Sad-happy at the best of times. Happy-sad. And fearful, always. It rubs off. And then there was being Russian. Yes. North. I have decided. I will escape to the ice floes and the snow.

Ahead of her, a car door opened and the man got out. The big man, the one from the park, the one pretending to read the wet newspaper. He came around the back of his car and started toward her down the sidewalk. He looked exactly like what he was.

She spoke to him in Russian. “Who do you represent? Is Sergei still hunting? Are you his big dog?” She dodged into the middle of the road, testing the footing, checking escape routes. The man was forced to squeeze between the front bumper of his car and the rear of a minivan. One of his trouser legs caught on the van's license plate and she heard him curse and stumble forward. She heard the material rip. She laughed at him. “What happened to the others? You running out of money? The last time you found me, there were three of you.” The man was in the road now, moving toward her, arms wide like a farmer herding chickens. “You asking me to dance?” The man scowled. No sense of humour.

Further up the road she could make out a narrow gap in the fence. She'd have to get past him to use it. She bounced lightly on the balls of her feet, flexed her toes inside her shoes, felt the asphalt through the soles, wet but tight, thin rubber, enough traction. She waited for him to get closer. She felt the icy calm and fierce clarity come over her, the peculiar state she entered when she stood in the wings listening for a single note of music, her cue to do what should be impossible, to hear an audience stop breathing as she took flight. And this rolling tank thinks he can catch me? Yuri was the only one who could catch me, enfold me in mid-flight, not this ordinary human with fat legs and clunky leather-soled shoes. Not on a wet street, in the dark. Just a little closer, soon he will lunge, he wants me in a big bear hug, soon, a little closer . . . and . . . my cue.

When he made a grab for her, she ducked under his arms, spun behind him, shoved the small of his back. He stumbled, fell to one knee. She ran for the fence, heard him cursing and scrambling to gain his footing. The gap was narrow, a ragged slit made with bolt cutters, mended with wire, cut again. Just wide enough for school kids, or for a small woman. Halfway through, her buckle caught on a wire thorn and she got hung up as the man slammed into the chain-link making it rattle in both directions. He reached through the gap to grab her coat and pull her face against the fence. She could smell garlic and sweat. She spat in his eye. He tried to hit her and cut his knuckles on the jagged edges of the gap. She yanked the belt free of the buckle and slipped it through the loops, left it hanging on the wire. He lost his grip on her wet sleeve and she stepped back from the fence. She watched him for a long delicious moment, watched him struggle like a rhinoceros in a cargo net, his sleeve caught, his hand bleeding. He pounded the chain-link in frustration.

“You should put a bandage on that,” she said. “But the suit is ruined, you think?”

She was laughing as she picked her way down the slope through the dark trees. Deep delicious breaths. Survival. Nothing like death deferred to amplify the life force, recharge the energy reserves. There was a walkway at the bottom that ran alongside the locks, and further along there was a footbridge she knew, and on the other side of that, a street led to her street. She could still hear the rattle of chain-link fencing above her. The sound elated her. She was triumphant. That is the second time you failed to hold me, she thought. I do not think you are very good assassins at all. I do not think you work for Chernenko, or whoever inherited what was under his mattress. I think you are working only for yourselves. Common thieves, that is all. Is that what you have become, Sergei? You and your thug? Just thieves? How pathetic.

She emerged from the dark trees and checked the footpath. Deserted. Sergei must be close by. Waiting for me. Expecting a delivery. He will not be pleased with you, whoever you are. The thought made her quite happy. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

There were open doors along the fourth floor corridor, curious neighbours, a uniformed policeman taking a statement from the slovenly woman down the hall, evidence of a minor earthquake inside her apartment. That goon had started out energetically, she thought, but he quit in a hurry. The bedroom was almost neat. Drawers pulled open, the mattress flipped. Silly.

“Can you tell if anything's missing, ma'am?”

A handsome young uniformed boy was standing inside her doorway. Still a child, his cheeks were pink. “Nothing missing. I do not have anything to steal.”

“Ms. Daniel?”

The uniform stood aside to let someone in. It was the big man, the police chief himself, filling her doorway. Behind him was the woman from the afternoon, the detective with the stylish boots and the dark eyes. “You are too late,” she said. “They have made off with my three-ply toilet paper.”

“Ms. Daniel. My name is Orwell Brennan. I'm . . .”

“I know who you are.” She faced him. “It is Zubrovskaya.”

“I'm sorry, I don't speak any Russian.”

“Zubrovskaya. That is my name. Anya Ivanova Zubrovskaya.”

“Very well, Ms. Zubrov . . .”

“Practice it. Zu-brov-ska-ya. Go ahead.”

“Zubrovskaya.”

“Bravo. You may call me Anya.”

He smiled at her. She almost believed his smile. It was wicked, like a little boy who just found matches in his pocket.

“Anya. Do you know who did this?”

“What, this?” A slow pirouette amid the wreckage. “This is nothing.”

“It looks like a break-in to me. Your neighbour called the police.”

“How neighbourly of her.”

“Otherwise they might have still been here when you got home.”

“I usually arrive earlier than this, but tonight I decided to drink instead.”

“Are you all right to talk?”

“I am Russian. Vodka is fuel for talk.”

“Fine. Do you have any idea who did this?”

“Certainly. Chernenko did it. Konstantin Chernenko.”

“He's dead, isn't he?”

“Not everyone has been informed of his demise.” She turned on the little clock radio atop her refrigerator and located the all-night classical station.

“And these people are after you?”

“Not me. They do not really care about me.”

“Then what?”

“Bah!” she said. “Schumann. I do not like Schumann.” She lowered the volume, leaned against the refrigerator and looked at him. “You want to hear a story? Do you have time for a story?”

“Yes, I have time.”

“Good. I am drunk enough to tell you a story. Let me see if they left my vodka alone.” There was a small bottle in the freezer compartment. She found two glasses in the cupboard above the stove. “Okay,” she said, “turn the couch back over and we will have a drink and I will tell you some things.”

“Actually, I'm working now,” Orwell said. “I don't drink when . . .”

“Do not be silly. If you do not drink with me, we cannot have a conversation. It is not sociable.”

“All right then.”

“Good. Now you are being sociable. Tell the other ones to leave us alone.”

He stepped into the hall. The young cop came to attention. Roy Rawluck's influence. “Everything sorted out with the neighbours, Constable?”

“Yes, sir. No eyewitnesses. Some noise. Woman at the far end saw a man going out the fire exit, didn't get a look. Said he was big.”

“Okay, see if you can get everyone back in their apartments.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I can go back to the doctor's office,” Stacy said quietly. “Have another look around.”

“And keep checking with the hospital,” Orwell said. “I want to know the minute she wakes up.”

“Yes, sir. I'll stay in touch.”

“You do that,” he said. “You'll have to drive me home. She intends to ply me with alcohol.”

“Watch yourself, Chief. She looks frisky.”

Orwell sighed and closed the door on Stacy's smirk.

“Turn out that overhead light,” Anya said. “I found a lamp that works. I hate overhead lights. Do you?”

“It's a bit glaring,” he said.

“It is punishment,” she said. “Like in jail. Come over here. Take off that big coat and sit by me. Here.” She handed him a small glass half filled with clear liquid.
“Nazdrovya!”
She clinked his glass with her own.

“
L'Chaim
,” Orwell said.

“Yes, that is a nice one. ‘To life.' Drink now, do not try to fool with me.”

Orwell had a sizable bite. Raw Polish vodka, straight. He felt it all the way down to his stomach.

“There now,” she said. “Now we are sociable.”

“How did you come to change your name to Daniel?” he said.

“Do not get ahead,” she said. “I am telling the story. Ah . . . good,” she said, as the music changed. “Borodin. Much better for a Russian story.” She had another drink, and so did Orwell.

“Anya Ivanova Zubrovskaya,” she began, “came from a family of staunch Party members. She was raised to believe without question in the nobility of the Soviet system. She learned to dance from teachers and choreographers who are legends.” She refilled their glasses. “In 1977 she was a principal dancer with the Mariinsky. You know of the Mariinsky? On tour, it was called the Kirov.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. “Well, let's say I've heard of it.”

“Believe me when I say it was the best. The finest ballet company in the world. Nureyev came from there. Baryshnikov, other ones you never heard of who were just as great, believe me, maybe greater. Sergeiev, Dudinskaya, Yuri Soloviev, he was maybe the greatest of them all.”

“I've heard of Nureyev, of course,” Orwell offered.

“Of course you have. But trust me, the Kirov had more than one Rudi.”

“I believe you.”

She drank again. Orwell pretended to.

“Anyway, I must not bore you with ancient history.”

“It's your history I'm interested in,” he said.

“Of course. My history with the Kirov. It ended in 1978. An asshole named Grégor dropped me during the
Swan Lake
pas de deux. Dropped me like a sack, in front of an opening night audience. The Supreme Soviet was there with all their medals. Fucking Brezhnev was there, may he rot forever in the hottest corner of hell. It was supposed to be a big night for me. And he dropped me. I ruptured my Achilles tendon. I made it worse of course. I finished the performance. Artists are so vain, so stupid.”

She drank for a while in silence. Orwell sipped his drink and watched her. A commercial for a package tour to the Bahamas came on, and then one for a funeral insurance plan. Finally, music again. Orwell recognized Mozart. The string quartet seemed to pull her back from some sad place.

“I took a year and a half to recover. But I was not the same. I was good. Do not kid yourself. I was very good. Just not quite Kirov-good. Not yet. So they let me go.”

“That must have been devastating.”

“It happens,” she said. “I would have made it back. I was almost there.” She filled her glass again, topped his up. “You are pacing yourself. That is okay. Keep your wits. This is where it gets interesting.”

She rose and began to move around the room as in a stately dream, no trace of intoxication, light, measured steps instinctively keeping time with Mozart's lacy figures, her head held high, her eyes almost closed.

“It was in 1981,” she began, “late in the year. Brezhnev was going to die soon.” At that she smiled. “And all the shitheads were trying to decide where their loyalties lay. Andropov, the king of the
KGB
, was moving to the head of the table. He held too many secrets to be ignored. And the one with the most to lose was Chernenko, Brezhnev's bum boy from the beginning. He was going to have to watch his back.”

Anya crossed the room and picked up her coat where she had dropped it on the floor. She patted her pockets and took out a bent package of Players and a Bic lighter.

“Have a smoke with me,” she said.

“I quit some years back,” he said.

“Do not be unsociable,” she said. “I'm giving you a great story here.”