Stuart Kaminsky - Hard Currency

Then, suddenly, he saw one of those Kola had killed, pack on his back, hair in his eyes, slouching. The young man looked miserable. He sneezed, blew his nose with a much-used handkerchief, and got on the train.

Process. Sound of doors sliding closed. Computer silent. Lurch. Forward into tunnel semidarkness.

Yevgeny was sure Kola had killed this one recently. But when? A few days ago? Last week? A year? He needed his notes, his board, to be sure. They all looked somewhat alike, that was true, all the young men, all the young women. He had been careful to seek out variety, but he knew now that he had also chosen the same. He knew that he had always known.

The collar of his uniform was tight. Its frayed edges prickled the rough edges of the hair at the back of his neck.

It was not the young man Kola had killed. This one looked a little older, more solid, angrier.

A choked voice within Yevgeny wanted to tell him who his victims had been, but he wouldn’t hear it.

“I want to tell you,” the voice said to the soothing rhythm of metal wheels against metal track. “I want to tell you.”

He could not escape the melody. “I want to tell you.”

He recited a poem he had memorized as a child. He remembered his mother prompting, his sister smirking.

When a forest of night hid shadows of our heroes standing alone as the enemy advanced …

“I want to tell you,” the singsong voice insisted playfully like a small child.

The spirit of those who had fallen laid hands upon their brows and shielded them from fear.

A station. An orange-haired boy. A blue-and-white-haired girl. They got on.

Doors closed.

“I want to tell you.”

And as they stepped from shadow into moonlight

To stand armed with Lenin’s courage and Stalin’s power, the enemy grew pale …

“I want to tell you. It is you, you, you, you, you.”

the enemy grew pale …

“I want to tell you. It is you, you hate and kill. You. You as boy. You as girl. You alone.”

the enemy grew pale …

“You.”

“No,” said Yevgeny as the train pulled into the next stop. “No.” He spoke to the distorted image of a tall, pale man in black, a vampire from nightmares and childhood memories who looked at him and looked away. “No.”

the enemy grew pale knowing they could but slay men and not the Revolution which would rise in many bodies, with many faces till each pale enemy was crushed to dust and forgotten.

Anatoli Xeromen sat on a bench next to one of the red marble columns on the Mayakovskaya platform. His eyes rose and examined the cartoon mosaics or scanned the arriving and departing passengers. He sat patiently as reports were brought to him by his sunglassed soldiers, though his stomach strangled with the wish to act. After two hours he considered ordering the Capones to rob everyone they could see and then head back to the Gray Blocks. Anatoli had a Moscow apartment with a bath, a CD player, a television, and a VCR with movies about rich Americans, monsters from space, gangsters with ancient guns, and his own secret favorites, the sad ones with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Bette Davis that made him weep. But he would go home to the Gray Blocks if there was no action today.

Anatoli hated the subway, though he told no one. He hated the deep feeling of the damp grave. He feared that some lunatic’s bomb would send millions of pounds of rock and dirt down on him, burying him forever.

But he waited and he was calm. He had his reputation. Sooner or later one of the Capones, possibly Dmitri, or Leonid, or Lev, would step forward and dare to ask how long they were going to keep it up. Anatoli knew just how he would smile and wave his hand to show that he could wait a week, a month, forever that no one who had ever lived had the patience of Anatoli Xeromen.

But that moment never came. After four hours had passed a girl hurried toward him like one who had urgent news.

As soon as Yevgeny had finished his shift, he checked out with the night duty officer and got back on the Green line carrying his night bag.

There were very few people on the train, and he stayed as far from them as he could until fortune offered him his prey. He had seen the victim earlier-an angry lost lover, a wandering student, or possibly even a police decoy sent to trap him.

The enemy grew pale, he thought, and when a dozing woman looked up at him he knew that once again he had spoken aloud.

He watched the victim take out a handkerchief. He was willing to take a chance tonight to still Kola and to laugh at the policeman named Karpo. He would call him tomorrow and taunt him, but now, now …

Inside his night pack were a folded pair of socks, a book, and a short, black, very heavy hammer with a flat, shiny head and a sharpened claw.

The train stopped. The woman who had looked at Yevgeny got off without looking at him. Then his prey rose and stepped to the door. No one else got up. The victim looked around, then got out. There was no one on the platform. Yevgeny hurried off the train. He was twenty feet behind his prey.

The rush of air and the grinding of the departing train covered Yevgeny’s first ten feet.

Ten feet more.

Each pale enemy was crushed to dust and forgotten, he recited, looking up through the past at the beaming reflection of his mother in the mirror.

His hand went into the bag. His fingers circled the handle. He looked around. No one. Even if the victim turned, there would be no reason to fear a uniformed Metro man.

He had to decide quickly. Claw or hammer. Claw or hammer. Kola roared. Yevgeny could not control him. The pale enemy heard or sensed someone behind and began to turn. The claw, Kola decided, and he struck.

“Pack,” said Rostnikov, “and meet me back here in the lobby. Twenty minutes. I’ll arrange for the flight to Moscow.”

They had found a taxi waiting in front of the station when they came out. Elena doubted it was a coincidence. Rostnikov had gotten in and looked out the window. Elena had given the driver the name of the hotel.

Rostnikov had not spoken and she had not been willing to speak. At one point, when they passed a block of stained ancient buildings, Rostnikov had muttered something. She thought he said “Atlantis,” but she was not sure.

Only when they had reached the hotel and gotten out of the taxi did he speak and that was only to tell her to pack. When she got to her room, the bed had been made and her bag had been packed for her.

She did not want to look at the bed or wait in the room. She was back in the lobby five minutes after Porfiry Petrovich had left her. She stood, too nervous to sit, and watched the thin KGB agent, who sat in the middle of a sofa near the bar, looking at her and her bag.

Ten minutes later Rostnikov emerged from the elevator carrying his bag. His limp was more pronounced now than it had been since they had arrived in Havana. Elena wanted to ask about his pain, about why he had slapped Shemenkov, about why they were hurrying, possibly even about Sanchez. She wanted to know and she wanted to confess at the same time, but Rostnikov’s face was distant.

“Your bag was packed?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Mine too. Get a cab. I’ve arranged for a flight.” Elena nodded and headed for the door, her bag in hand. She looked back to see Rostnikov, who had dropped his suitcase, walking directly toward the KGB agent.

Elena found a cab, told the driver to open his trunk, and waited for Rostnikov. She got in the cab and then got out again. On the curb across the street a child with short dark hair played with a tiny black-and-white dog that looked seriously ill.

The dogs of Moscow still looked cared for. Elena wondered how long it would be before they looked like the dogs of Havana.