Requiem For a Glass Heart (35 page)

There was no hesitation. “I understand,” Cate said.

“Good luck.”

It was Cate who broke the connection.

C
ARLO
B
ONTATE HAD SET UP RESIDENCE IN A DARKLY WOODED
section of the city several miles away from the airy domicile of his associate Wei. Unlike his country house on the bright Marineo hillside, the enclave he established in Houston was overshadowed by tall straight pines and heavy-limbed water oaks and was embraced on two sides by the sinuous loops of a muddy bayou which sluggishly flowed southward through the city between weedy, insect-infested banks. It was a sun-dappled world, and the young Sicilians who secured the two-story house and its walled environs for their don were not happy about the coastal summer humidity, which caused them to perspire profusely through their baggy silk shirts.

Irina walked along a brick path behind two dark
palermitani, the
pine needles crunching under her feet as they negotiated between cascades of azaleas to a large courtyard behind the Georgian mansion. Bontate was sitting under a cabana watching several young women swimming in the pool, dusky, lean Italian bodies in the glittery azure water.

He stood as Irina approached and offered her a seat at the table with him. He was in short sleeves, off-the-rack dress slacks, and sandals. He looked like a young man already habituated to an old man’s ways, destined to become a watcher
of slow afternoons from a cafe table on the main piazza in Marineo.

The two young men said something in Sicilian to the three girls, who, without protest, undulated to the edge of the pool and climbed out, dripping and glistening, rearranging their olive buttocks and bosoms to fit strategically beneath the few square inches of bright bikinis.

“I apologize for sitting out here in this goddamn heat,” Bontate said, gesturing with his beefy arm to the hazy lawn, “but I’ve had enough of that shitty air conditioning. It reminds me of morgue air. I’d rather sweat out here with the mosquitoes.”

Two telephones sat on the wrought-iron table near him, and a third one, a portable one, sat beside a little flowerpot on a stand to one side. An ice bucket and a pitcher of icewater sat on the table, along with what appeared to be a pitcher of lemonade and a tray crowded with various liquor bottles and a few bottles of wine. The pool was surrounded by lush flowerbeds and a thick emerald lawn. Tropical flowers and bromeliads rested in colorful clusters among the lower branches of the trees.

“Would you care for something to drink?”

“Just water,” she said.

He poured her a tall glass of water, ice falling into it from the pitcher. She took it and drank.

“Volkov is inside,” Bontate said, lifting his chin toward the house. “He is making some calls to St. Petersburg.”

“Then you have already told him my proposition?”

“Of course.”

“And his reaction?”

“Skepticism.”

“But he was interested.”

Bontate smiled, surprising her. “Of course.”

“And why is he calling St. Petersburg?”

Bontate shrugged. “‘Preliminary inquiries,’ he said.”

Irina felt an adrenaline rush; her abdominal muscles quivered, though she could not be sure whether this was from fear or excited hope. Already perspiration was gathering on the surface of her skin beneath her clothes.

“Here he comes,” Bontate said, his amber eyes narrowed to slits as he looked toward the house through the dappled summer sunlight.

Valery Volkov, stocky, built low to the ground, was walking briskly along a path, with one of Bontate’s young men not far behind. He was carrying his suit coat draped over one arm, and his voluminous trousers, with their long crotch and full-cut legs, bagged limply in the humid heat. His shirt was white, short-sleeved. By the time he got to them, his putty-colored skin was stippled with sweat.

He spoke to Irina as he approached but did not extend his hand. Bontate let him pull out his own chair, throw his suit coat over the back of another, and sit down. Irina noticed that Bontate poured him a lemonade with ice without asking him what he wanted. They must have been talking some time before she arrived.

Volkov drank the lemonade greedily and then put the glass in front of him and crossed his arms on the table. He looked across them at Irina.

“Carlo told me about your proposition. I have doubts,” he said bluntly.

“About what?”

“That you can do it.”

“Why?”

“Have you even talked to him yet?”

“I told you when you came to the suite with Izvarin, I saw him this morning.”

“I thought you were lying.”

“No, it’s true.”

“And what did you talk about?”

She wanted to glance at Bontate but didn’t. The only way this was going to work was if she went all out, didn’t appear to be holding something back from one and not the other. Volkov was probably testing for this.

“He gave me instructions on how to kill Wei. He wants Wei to be first.”

Bontate didn’t move a muscle.

“When?”

“Tonight. I am supposed to meet him at his home.”

“Oh, really? Why?”

“He likes to talk about art,” Irina said pointedly. Volkov nodded. “And how are you supposed to do it?” he asked.

She told them.

Volkov snorted, a kind of laugh at Krupatin’s ingenuity.
“Crazy fucker. And that gives you plenty of time to be somewhere else when the Chinese actually dies.”

She nodded.

“And when are you supposed to hit Carlo?”

“He didn’t tell me. He said he would let me know.”

“But you don’t know how?”

“He said he would tell me.”

“And when will he do that?”

“He said he would get in touch with me.”

“He didn’t set up any system for contacting you?” Volkov asked skeptically.

“No.”

“In other words, you cannot contact him.”

“No, I cannot.” She was not about to give up everything to this man. Not at this point. She had worked alone too long not to hold something back. A secret was only a secret as long as it remained solely within your mind. There it had inestimable value. If you set it loose, it turned to dust in an instant.

Irina took a drink of her water. Volkov studied her.

“How are you going to kill Sergei?”

“I don’t know. How are you going to get my daughter?”

“I’m checking into it.”

He continued to study her. This did not bother her. She knew enough about Volkov not to be intimidated by his aggressiveness. She found it interesting that Bontate was silent. While Volkov was testing her, Bontate was reassuring himself about her by watching her closely. She could feel his brassy eyes.

“Did Sergei tell you why we are all here—Valentin, Izvarin, and myself?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even know anyone was going to be here besides myself until after I arrived.”

Volkov wiped his gray forehead with his hand and looked at his sweaty fingers. “How did you come here?”

She told them of how Krupatin had picked her up at Wei’s house in Paris, of the flight to Mexico and the drive north.

“Now,” she said, “I have done most of the answering. I want you to tell me how you are going to get my daughter out of Russia.”

Volkov drank some of his lemonade. He smacked his lips and then drank some more. By now she knew he and Bontate
had checked out some of the assassinations she had related to Bontate. She knew that some of them could be confirmed quickly, to a degree at least, enough for the men to know that she was either extraordinarily connected—or she had done them herself, as she claimed.

“I must confess,” Volkov said, wiping his mouth with his fingers, “that I did not know you were hitting for Sergei. I personally knew two of your targets. I suspected Sergei was responsible for them, but I could never prove it. I did know too that Sergei had your daughter. I did not know why, naturally. You have been an exceptionally well-guarded secret. This part of your life, I mean. Anyway, to answer your question,” he went on, “I have made inquiries. At this moment I cannot tell you exactly where your daughter is, but I know people who know. The trick for now is to be sure of her location without alerting the wrong people that we are inquiring.”

“How soon can you do it?”

“Quickly.” He flicked his eyes at Bontate and then back to her. “You realize that you cannot make a mistake here. If you try and fail, I will never be able to sleep another night peacefully for the rest of my life.”

As always, she noted, Volkov was thinking only of himself. He would not be the only one who would never be able, to sleep again.

“It is true,” she said, “that you don’t have any assurances. But then, neither do I. I have heard nothing but lies since the day I met Sergei Krupatin. However, if I do accomplish this—when I do—I expect you to do as you promise.”

This was not a threat, only a reminder that she was not without resources. She could not be duped or disregarded without consequences. She knew this was not lost on Volkov.

Volkov nodded. “Sometimes determination can achieve the impossible.”

“I don’t worry about its being impossible.”

“No, I suppose not.”

A bead of perspiration ran down the small of her back.

Volkov wiped his mouth with his bare fingers to remove the sweat that was forming rapidly on his upper lip and chin. His pasty coloring was even less appealing when bathed in perspiration.

He said, “Also, something has to be done about Izvarin— and Stepanov.”

Irina returned his gaze and slowly shook her head. He was fishing. She wasn’t going to take the bait.

“We’ll talk about it,” he said. “They have to be dealt with.”

Irina realized that all the calls Volkov had made to Russia on Bontate’s telephones in the past few hours had probably had more to do with his own coup plans than with locating Félia. After all, he was contemplating the elimination of the top of Krupatin’s huge organization—and she guessed he was planning assassinations in the European cells as well—and he had to put his own people into place immediately to secure His control.

Volkov studied her, but it was Bontate who spoke next. “What about Wei?” he asked her.

“Sergei told me it would take three days for the bacteria to produce symptoms,” she said. “In five days he would be dead. I don’t think Sergei will want to wait to see the symptoms before he gives me the other instructions. So he will never know that I didn’t administer the bacteria.”

Both men looked at her in silence, and she felt something new. Again it was Bontate who spoke.

“We want you to go ahead with it.”

Jesus. She was caught off-guard, but she didn’t let it show. “You want me to give the bacteria to Wei?”

“We see no reason to interrupt Krupatin’s plans—at this point.”

Irina nodded. Inside she was stunned, and frightened. She had offered them a small opening, an opportunity, and in the blink of an eye they had hacked it into a chasm, their eyes glazed red, greedy for the leverage of death. Like hyenas quick to take advantage of even the slightest wound, they already had their snouts buried deep in the entrails. How could she trust people like this? How could she ever hope they would honor this agreement? The answer was a bleak one. She had no choice.

“Then consider it done,” she said.

W
HEN
I
RINA WALKED INTO HER SUITE, SHE IMMEDIATELY SAW THE
red light blinking on her telephone. Unbuttoning her blouse as she picked up the receiver, she punched the button and waited for the voice mail. There were three messages. All three of them were from Catherine.

The first one was urgent, frantic; she sounded like she was crying. Something had happened, she said. Please call as soon as Irina got in. The second one was terse. Please call. The third one, not ten minutes before, was soberer but had an edge of fear about it. Please, please call as soon as possible.

Irina stood by the telephone and looked at the light, blinking, blinking, blinking. She punched the button to erase the messages and put down the receiver. She was growing numb. How many emergencies could she deal with? But why would this woman want to talk to her? What kind of an emergency could she possibly have that would suggest that Irina could be of help? She was suspicious, and now questioned her optimistic feelings that Catherine was exactly who she appeared to be. Should she call her? No, not until she bathed. Her hair was wet with perspiration, and her entire body felt as if it had been in a steambath. She looked at her watch. There wasn’t a lot of time.

She stripped out of her clothes, left them lying in a pile
near the foot of her bed, and went directly to the shower. Leaving the hot water off entirely, she took a cold shower, lathering every inch of her body, shampooing her hair twice. She felt as if she might never wash off the sticky residue of the muggy bayou air.

She was rinsing her hair for the last time when the telephone rang. She turned off the water, opened the glass door to the shower, stepped onto a thick bathmat, and reached for a towel with one hand and the telephone on the wall with the other.

“Irina?”

“Yes, Catherine. I got your messages.”

“Can I come up?”

“Are you all right?”

“Yes—I’m okay. Something’s happened. I’m afraid to talk here.”

“Okay. Yes, come up.”

Irina wrapped one towel around her hair and dried her body with the other. She had barely finished taking the towel off her head and wrapping it around her body when she heard the door chimes.

She went to the door and opened it. Catherine was standing there, her auburn hair falling generously around her face but failing entirely to hide the marks there.

“My God, what has happened to you?” Irina took her arm and pulled her into the room.

Catherine shook her head, unable to speak. It was obvious that she had been distraught, had recovered, and was now holding on as best as she could.

“Could I get something to drink?”

Irina quickly mixed something for both of them, and they sat on the edge of the sofa, holding their drinks in their laps.

“Stepanov did this?” Irina asked. The expression on Catherine’s face was a familiar one.
Mafiya
girlfriends were always being beaten. They were sexual chattel, the recipients of a brutal tradition.

Catherine nodded, dropping her eyes. She wasn’t crying, but there was something else. It was a reaction Irina had often seen. Though the beating was no fault of their own, women were often embarrassed by what had happened to them. It was a demeaning emotion, shame for what another person had done to them, shame at being a victim. But Catherine
seemed furious too, both furious and frightened. The complexity of her emotions was conveyed by small details: the set of her eyes and mouth, the way she held her shoulders, her hands, the way she swallowed.

“He got rough with me before, but never anything like this,” Catherine began to explain after swallowing a mouthful of her drink. “Not often, but he’s been … close to it.” She drank again.

Irina listened attentively to her unsteady syllables and noted her hesitation. The woman was still very agitated.

“He wanted me to sleep with others, men, a man he said was crazy about my type. I said no. He said it would be more money. I said no, that wasn’t the point. He began swearing … and then he hit me. Twice, very fast. I was stunned … I’ve never been hit before. I fell down. He picked me up and threw me against the dresser and … had sex with me, standing there.”

She stopped, resorting again to her drink. Irina did not flinch. She became very calm.

“He said I damn well would do what he wanted,” Catherine went on, swallowing. “He said … he said I didn’t know what I was mixed up in. He said that he knew who was taking care of my daughter, and if I wanted her to stay safe, I would do what I was told to do.”

She stopped, her face crumpling momentarily, but she gained control of herself, and her eyes welled with tears as she stared straight at Irina.

“What is going on here?” she demanded. Her voice was determined but wobbly. “Who the hell is that man?”

“He is a beast,” Irina said steadily. “He always has been a beast.”

“What’s going
on
here?” Catherine insisted again. “This doesn’t feel like … I don’t know. He’s not just a businessman, is he?”

Irina didn’t answer. She stared at Catherine, noting that the scratches on her face were still raw and painful, though no bruises showed. Still, to a woman unaccustomed to this, being slapped around could be just as horrifying as a real beating.

“Why do you ask that?”

Catherine glared at her. “He threatened my daughter. That’s not an ordinary kind of thing. How did he know where she was? Why would a businessman look into something like
that?” Her tears welled, and she had to stop. Again she recovered. She swallowed. “And this afternoon … You said, you tried to warn me about him.”

“I told you, the man is a beast,” Irina said stoically. She paused. “Why don’t you go to the police?”

Catherine shook her head emphatically.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t do that.
NO
, definitely not the police. Stepanov would tell everything, that he paid me to sleep with him. He would say that I was only a prostitute. My ex-husband’s family—they’d have my daughter taken away from me. It’s an impossible situation. I’m afraid they’ll find out anyway.” She grew agitated. “It’s impossible. I may have ruined everything. I’m afraid Stepanov is going to hold this over my head. He’s clever enough. He knows I could lose my daughter because of this. He knows that.”

Irina watched this woman who sat only an arm’s reach from her. A mother. How many times had she seen this kind of agony? These men had taken the purest bond in the world and time and time again had wrenched it into a relationship of hopelessness, plunging their hands into the heart of it and pulling it inside out. Having discovered that a mother would make soul-threatening sacrifices to protect or save her child, they realized that such a fierce love was at the same time a woman’s greatest vulnerability. This knowledge became a dependable weapon, and with it they committed unspeakable cruelties, profaning this, the most tender of all affections.

Cate was rendered almost limp by this performance. Not only was she frightened that she might not be convincing and that Irina would see right through her, but she was shaken when she saw by the expression on Irina’s face that her portrayal had been successful. The look of empathy that slowly grew like a tragic mask on this beautiful woman’s countenance was unnerving. And it was also frightening as Cate realized that she had wrought this—or rather, her story had—and the story was evidently causing Irina genuine anxiety, no doubt recreating in her mind the distancing of her own daughter and the circumstances of that separation, which obviously had been so painful.

“What are you going to do?” Irina asked.

Cate put down her glass, pressed her cool fingers to her
forehead, and looked away. She did not doubt that she conveyed perplexity, for in fact she had no idea what to say. Suddenly again she was frightened.

“Maybe you should leave the city,” Irina suggested. “He is not going to come after you.”

“How do you know that?”

“I think I can assure you he won’t.”

“But I can’t—he knows my name. He’s looked into my private life.”

“You should run, believe me.”

Cate paused. “He hasn’t paid me.”

Irina shook her head, exasperated. “God, you have no idea how insignificant that is. What you risk by staying overwhelms the value of the money he would pay you.”

“Look, I literally don’t have enough money for that. And my ex-husband’s family has visiting rights with my daughter. If I take her away, they’ll charge me with kidnapping.” She looked at Irina. “The laws here—they’re complicated. Leaving is not an option.”

She averted her eyes again, but she could feel Irina’s stare. She couldn’t bring herself to look her in the face. She had no idea what her expression might convey to the woman, but she just couldn’t do it at that moment.

“Why did you come to me?” Irina asked. “This city is your home. You have friends who can help you.”

Cate was already shaking her head.

“No,” she said, “you’re the only one who knows about this … this … No one knows—I told you that. They can’t know about this. Really, you have no idea how … how unacceptable this is, what I’ve done. It … it’s stepping way over the line. I’ve made a tragic mistake doing this.” She began to blink; in fact, she was surprised to find herself actually feeling these emotions, as if she had this daughter, as if she had done this shameful thing with Stepanov. The image of Stepanov’s face only inches away from her bared genitals as she let him look at her tattoo burst into her mind. “This is … this is a nightmare.”

A sob surprised her, caught in her throat. She felt odd, hot, almost as if she were about to be swept up in an out-of-body experience. She almost believed what she was saying. She could feel herself actually waiting for Irina to come up with some kind of solution to rescue her.

“Can you get your clothes out of Stepanov’s room?”

Cate hesitated. “I could, I guess. He’s gone right now.”

Irina nodded. She was holding her iced drink, with her wet hair stringing down, water seeping from it and here and there causing small rivulets to trace down her bare shoulders and into the bathtowel tucked tightly over her breasts. Her green eyes appeared softer now that the emerald dress was gone, jade instead of emerald. Her mouth tended to have a slight pucker at one corner, giving her a pensive air. And she was sexy, with her long legs smooth and shapely, the towel riding high on her thighs, her breasts significant even beneath the cotton towel.

“I can help you, I think,” she said. “But you will have to leave Stepanov and come with me.”

“Go with you? Where? No, definitely not, I can’t leave the city. I—”

“I am not leaving the city.” Irina’s voice was deliberate, unemotional.

Cate looked at her.

Irina set her glass on the coffee table in front of the sofa and ran her fingers through her hair. She sighed heavily.

“Let me tell you something, Catherine.” She paused and spread one of her long-fingered hands out on her thigh, then looked at it as though she were thinking about what she was going to say. “You have become involved in something that is very complicated.”

She paused again, and Cate could almost hear the wheels spinning in her mind. Irina reached out and took one of Cate’s hands and put it on her bare thigh. Her skin was smooth and cool. She covered Cate’s hand with her own and looked at her.

“I am going to tell you things that will change your life,” she said. “Actually, your life has already changed, only you do not yet realize this. It changed when Valentin Stepanov made a request you refused, and when he mentioned your daughter. You are right to fear his long reach. You are wrong if you think there is anything you can do about it … short of killing him.”

Cate flinched and gaped at her.

“No, wait,” Irina said and held her hand, not letting her withdraw it. “Listen to me. You will not have to do that. Of course not. But maybe there is in fact another way.” She
smoothed her hand over Gate’s, caressing it. “I think I can help you, but I will need your help in return. Where is your daughter?”

“With my parents. They’re keeping her for a few days—I said I had a business trip. They like to keep her.”

“Then you do not have to see her for a few days?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You are free to be with me.”

Cate nodded tentatively.

“Valentin Stepanov lives in New York, but he is from St. Petersburg. He is not with the Russian trade commission but is an important figure in organized crime in Europe. He is a member of Russia’s
mafiya, a
very dangerous man.”

“Jesus, what have I done?”

Irina gripped Cate’s hand and held it. “The other men, Nakhimov and Bykov, are also Russian
mafiya.
They have all come to Houston for a meeting with the man who is the head of their organization.”

“And you,” Gate interrupted her, slowly but firmly pulling her hand away from Irina’s thigh. “Why do you know this?”

Irina nodded patiently. “Yes,” she said, “I will tell you my story too, but first we have to get you away from Valentin.”