Arkady Renko - 07 - Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel by Martin Cruz Smith

Author:Martin Cruz Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Thriller
ISBN: 9780743276740
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2010-08-15T07:00:00+00:00

15

At 5 a.m., while diehards stayed for the last dance, the last toast, the last laugh of the night, Arkady emerged from the Club Nijinsky to find the city in the path of a thunderstorm. Gusts of wind stirred litter on the street and fat drops of rain pinged off car roofs and windshields

Arkady had parked blocks away rather than submit the Lada to the gibes of parking attendants. Victor had put pots and pans inside the car in case of rain.

A man and woman hustling to beat the storm brushed by. Another couple ran past, the woman in bare feet to spare the high-heeled shoes she held in her hand. One pair of footsteps synchronized with his and he found Dima the bodyguard at his side. The Glock hung openly on Dima’s shoulder.

While Dima gave Arkady a pat-down, a Mercedes S550 limousine caught up. A side window slid down and Sasha Vaksberg begged a few more minutes of Arkady’s time.

Arkady was flattered but now he wished he’d brought a gun.

Vaksberg and Anya shared the rear seat with a red-and-white Spartak athletic bag. Arkady and Dima took jump seats facing rear in a conference arrangement. As the car pulled away Arkady felt its extra weight and stiffness of armor, bulletproof glass and run-flat tires. The driver must have pushed a button because the doors had silently locked.

“Could we have some heat back here, Slava? Our friend is a little damp from the rain.” Vaksberg turned to Arkady. “So, what did you think of our Club Nijinsky?”

“Unforgettable.”

“And the women?” he asked. “Did you find them tall and beautiful enough?”

“Amazons,” Arkady said.

Anya said, “It’s not by chance. Girls flock to Moscow with romantic ambitions of being models or dancers and Moscow turns them into escorts and whores. We wax them and pluck them and inflate their breasts like balloons. In short, we turn them into freaks of beauty.”

“Where are we going?” Arkady asked.

“An excellent question,” Vaksberg said. “We could go to my casino on the Arbat. No, that’s been closed. Or the casino at Three Stations. No, that’s been closed too. In fact, all my casinos have been closed. I was taking in a million dollars a day. Now, thanks to our judo master in the Kremlin, I’m just paying rent.”

Arkady appreciated how Vaksberg avoided saying Putin’s name. “Are you down to your last five hundred million?”

“You don’t have much sympathy.”

“Not a great deal. So we’re just going to drive?”

“And have a conversation. Am I correct, Anya?”

“I hope so.”

Rain drummed on the roof. Sitting backward, looking through heavy rain and tinted glass, Arkady lost track of where he was.

Vaksberg said, “I may be many things but I am not a hypocrite. When the dear old Soviet Union broke up, I made a great deal of money. It was like creating a new jigsaw puzzle out of old pieces. Granted, we took advantage where we could. What great fortune did not at the start? The Medicis’, the Rothschilds’, the Rockefellers’? You don’t think they all had bloody hands at the beginning?”

“So you’re aspiring to the elite.

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