Mazurka (49 page)

Pagan made a noise of sympathy. He saw the exit for Great Neck. “How much further?” he asked.

“A few miles,” Klein replied.

Pagan glanced once more in the side mirror. A large cement-mixer rattled behind, and then tucked at an angle in the rear of this monster was a dark blue van whose windshield glowed golden in the sun. He looked at the greenery along the edge of the expressway, imagining simple pleasures, walking with Kristina Vaska through a meadow or along a sandy shore or lazing by the bank of some stream.
Sweet Jesus, Frank
– had it come to this so soon, these little halcyon pictures, these banal images of romance? He was almost embarrassed by the direction of his own mind.
You've been too lonely too long
.

Klein swung the car off the expressway now. Pagan saw the exit sign for Glen Cove and then the greenery that had bordered the expressway became suddenly more dense and leafy, and white houses appeared to float half-hidden in the trees. Klein slid from his pocket the piece of paper with Mikhail Kiss's address on it, and looked at it as he braked the Ford at a red light. Since he didn't know where Brentwood Drive was located, he said he'd have to stop at a gas-station and ask.

Pagan turned his head, seeing the same cumbersome cement-mixer and the dark blue van behind him, and suddenly, without quite knowing why, he was uneasy, perhaps because he remembered the van outside Sundbach's building, which had been the same make as the one behind him now, perhaps it was because the van hadn't attempted to overtake the slow-moving cement-mixer for the last twenty miles. It's in the air, Frank, he thought, this general wariness, this low-level fear that you'll go a step too far and upset somebody to the point of madness – something you might have done already.

He tried to relax, rolling his window down and smelling the perfume of new-mown grass float across the evening. He had a sudden glimpse of water, a narrow inlet that penetrated the land from Long Island Sound, and then the water vanished behind trees. Klein pulled the Ford into a gas-station and Pagan saw both the cement-mixer and the dark blue van go past, and he felt a quick surge of relief because he'd already begun to construct unpleasant possibilities in his mind.

Pagan took the slip of paper from Max Klein. “I'll get directions,” he said, and he stepped out of the car, glad to stretch his legs. He walked toward the glass booth where the cashier sat. He pushed the paper towards the woman, who was middle-aged and wore her hair in a slick black bun. She had the slightly flamboyant look of a retired flamenco dancer. She started to give directions, then interrupted herself to answer the telephone.

Pagan, staring across the forecourt, past the pumps, past Max Klein in the tan Ford, folded his arms. He could hear the distant drone of a lawn-mower, a summery sound, lulling and comforting, as if the very essence of the suburb was encapsulated in that single familiar noise. There was nothing alien here, nothing extraordinary, just this unchanging placidity.

He shut his eyes a moment, caught unaware by a sudden tiredness, then he shook himself, opened his eyes, saw the dark blue van come back along the road, moving slowly, the windshield still burnished by sunlight. It came to a halt on the side of the street opposite the station. Pagan felt curiously tense as he watched the vehicle.

The van moved again, but slowly still, making an arc in the direction of the gas-station. Pagan put his hand behind him, reaching for his gun in the holster, but not yet withdrawing the weapon because this might be nothing, an absolutely innocent situation, a van driver deciding he needed gasoline and turning back to get it, nothing more than that. Frank Pagan fingered the butt of the Bernardelli, watched the van cruise toward the pumps, and he realised how jumpy he'd become. He saw Klein behind the wheel of the Ford, his head tilted against the back of his seat in a weary manner.

The van kept rolling forward. It was about twenty feet from the station now. It stopped again, hidden somewhat from Pagan's view by the thicket of gas-pumps. The cashier hung up the telephone and said, “Now where was I? Oh, yeah, you take a left at the second light,” but Pagan wasn't really listening. He saw a hand emerge from the blue van and something dark flew through the air, crossing the bright disc of the evening sun a moment, flying, spinning, falling, and it was a second before Pagan realised what it was, a second before he opened his mouth and shouted
Max!

He saw Klein's face turn towards him even as the van hurried away and the driver was briefly visible. Then the Ford exploded and a streak of flame burst upwards, blue and yellow and red fusing into one indescribable tint, and he heard the sound of glass shattering into something less than fragments, something as fine as powder, then a second explosion which caused Klein's burning car to rock to one side. For a moment all light seemed to have been sucked out of the sky, as if the sun had dimmed. Pagan wasn't sure, but he thought he heard Max Klein scream from behind the flames that seared through the car, the burning upholstery, the black smoke that billowed from under the wrecked hood. He rushed forward, thinking he might have a chance to haul Max out, but the intensity of heat and the choking smoke drove him back, scorching his face and hair, blackening his lips. He saw Klein through flame, burning like a straw man, one fiery hand feebly uplifted, as if he might still find his way out of this furnace – and then the flames engulfed him. Pagan, drawing a hand over his face, was forced to step back. The air was unbreathable and the smoke that rose furiously out of the car stung his eyes and blinded him. A mechanic rushed out with an extinguisher but he couldn't get close to the car because of the heat. Besides, it was far too late to help Max Klein. Inside the glass booth the cashier was calling the fire department, also far too late for Max Klein.

Pagan moved back from the sight of the burning car and sat down against the wall of the gas-station, paralysed by utter dismay. He hadn't acted quickly enough, hadn't drawn his gun when the van had first aroused his interest, hadn't done a goddam thing to alert Klein. He listened to the sound of the car flaring and he turned his face to the side because he could still feel the awful blast. The cashier came out of the glass booth and touched him on the shoulder and asked if he was hurt. Pagan shook his head. He hadn't even suffered a superficial burn. The woman pressed a wet cloth into his hand and he covered his face with it. Poor fucking Max Klein, the department handyman. Whoever had tossed the grenade hadn't meant it to be for Klein alone, he was sure of that.

Whoever
. He rose, threw the damp doth away, drew his sleeve across his forehead. For an instant, just before the blast, before the rich, deathly smoke had covered everything, he'd seen the face of the van driver with striking clarity, and he remembered the last time he'd seen that face on a London street. Viktor Epishev, impassive behind the wheel of the van, his expression one of complete concentration, like that of a man who loved control. Pagan wondered bitterly if Uncle Viktor had ever done anything in a spontaneous way. Had he ever seduced a girl? Fallen hopelessly in love? Yielded to a casual whim like rolling up the cuffs of his pants to walk the edge of a tide or gone out and bought a brightly-coloured shirt just for the sheer hell of it?

Control and violence.

Pagan, shocked by the suddenness of things, numbed by his last image of Max Klein behind the screen of fire, wandered inside the men's room and filled the wash-basin with cold water and plunged his head into it, holding it there until he thought his lungs might explode. Gasping, he raised his face up from the water, and grabbed a handful of paper towels, then he walked back out to where the Ford was burning like some awful pyre whose colours kept changing. He shook his head from side to side, wondering if Epishev had mistakenly thought both Pagan and Klein had been in the Ford. Perhaps, blinded by sunlight, he hadn't seen clearly. Perhaps even now Epishev imagined that Pagan was dead in the ruined car. Whatever, it was painfully clear that Pagan was to be prevented at any cost from visiting the house of Mikhail Kiss – whose address he held, scribbled on a piece of creased paper by Max Klein, a name and a number surrounded by half-sketched faces and interlocking circles and three-dimensional squares, the work of the failed artist.

Throat parched, Pagan watched as a bright red fire-engine drew into the gas-station, a flurry of sirens and dark hoses unrolling and men who worked at a speed that suggested the whole gasoline station was going to blow up at any moment. In silence Pagan watched them blast the blazing car with their high-pressure sprays, but then he walked away because he didn't want to be anywhere nearby when they doused the flames sufficiently to pull the remains of Max Klein from the crematorium.

Kennedy Airport, New York

Mikhail Kiss found the bright lights of the terminal painful to his eyes, and he blinked a great deal, although sometimes he wasn't sure if it was the harsh light or the prospect of tears he was struggling against. He watched Andres at the Scandinavian Airlines desk, the check-in procedure, the way the female clerks fawned around him. He didn't have a suitcase, only an overnight bag. There was no luggage to go on board. Andres returned to the place where Mikhail sat and took the seat next to him, saying nothing, just tapping his fingertips on his knees or every so often checking his boarding-pass.

Mikhail Kiss lit a cigarette and for the first time in many years inhaled the smoke deeply into his lungs. He took his eyes from Andres and looked across the terminal floor, seeing two security cops move side by side with vacant looks on their faces. They passed through the glass doors and out into the failing light. Mikhail Kiss examined the departures board. Soon they'd begin boarding the plane that would take Andres to Norway. Mikhail stubbed out the cigarette and sighed. Why was there nothing to say? Why, at the very point he'd worked so long and hard to reach, were words so reluctant to form in his mouth? He laid his hand on his nephew's sleeve, a gentle gesture, perhaps more meaningful than any words could be. But it was a small thing, and it didn't go very far to dispel the feeling of estrangement from the young man that Mikhail Kiss experienced.

Something was wrong, and he couldn't define it. It was more than the goddam dream that kept coming back at him like a bad taste. The face of Norbert Vaska. The music in that white restaurant.
They don't go away
, he thought.
They come back to haunt you, no matter what you do
. What did he feel? he wondered. Was it sorrow? Or resentment at the tenacity of ghosts? But it was more than just the persistent image of Norbert Vaska that troubled him, and he searched his mind fruitlessly.

A bad feeling. Like the one he'd had that night in Edinburgh. That was close to the sensation.

Andres Kiss smiled. For a second Mikhail thought he detected a slight tension in the expression, and he was caught in a memory of when Andres had been a young boy, ten, maybe eleven, stepping into a boxing-ring for the first time, his face hidden behind a protective headpiece too large for him, his hands dwarfed by enormous gloves. He remembered how Andres had turned to him at the last moment and how frightened he'd looked and Mikhail, touched by this vulnerability, had felt needed then – but the moment passed and Andres went inside the ring and demolished his opponent with fierce speed and Mikhail realised that night he'd never
really
be needed in this young man's life, that Andres could achieve everything he wanted on his own, without help. And so it was now.

There was an announcement that the flight to Oslo had begun to board. Mikhail looked at his watch. 9:30. Andres examined his ticket and boarding-pass again, saying, “Round-trip. I appreciate your optimism, Mikhail.”

Was this meant to be a small joke? “I wouldn't send you anywhere one-way, Andres,” and he reached out to embrace the young man, whose body was stiff and unyielding, as if human contact distressed him. It was then Mikhail noticed a scratch on his nephew's forehead, which had apparently been covered by some kind of makeup, a powder of the kind women use, and he was going to ask about it. But now there wasn't time. And he didn't want to know anyhow.

Andres Kiss stood up. “I guess this is it,” he said.

Mikhail Kiss felt moisture forming behind his eyes, but he blinked it away. It was a time for strength, not for useless sentimentality. He wished Carl Sundbach could have been here, because there was a sense of incompleteness, of somebody missing from the circle. Maybe he'd call Carl later, tell him that Andres was on his way to Norway, keep him informed. And maybe by this time Carl would be over his weird paranoia that somebody was following him through the streets and watching his apartment. Old age, Kiss thought, feeling the phantom of it move through him. It rendered men absurd, magnified their fears, expanded their anxieties.

Andres said, “The day after tomorrow, Mikhail. Until then.”

“Until then,” Mikhail Kiss said quietly. He watched Andres walk to the gate, then pass through without looking back. Mikhail had an attack of sudden panic and was filled with the urge to go after his nephew and call him back and tell him that everything was cancelled, there was no need to fly. Even if he'd done so, it would have been a futile gesture because the scheme had a life of its own now, a force that couldn't be halted, not even by the man who'd first set the whole thing in motion. It had grown, and matured, like a child over whom you no longer have dominion.

His work was finished. He walked out of the terminal. He stepped under lamps and signs and moved between taxis and buses. He felt his age again, a decay, a sense of internal slippage. And his memory was surely going. He'd forgotten to say to Andres at the last moment the words
Vabadus Eestile
– freedom for Estonia. But it was too late now even if the unspoken words seemed very important to him. He walked into the parking garage and took the stairs up to the second level, where he'd parked his Mercedes.