David Duffy - In for a Ruble

“I’m afraid Dr. Paine is extremely busy, booked all day. Perhaps tomorrow…”

“Tell Dr. Paine to squeeze me in. He has my name from two of your parents, Sebastian Leitz and Taras Batkin.”

She frowned at the tone and the name-dropping. No way, in her universe, I should know such people.

“As I said…”

“Tell him I’m waiting. Now, please.” I put my best Cheka authority, meant to convey inevitability, into my voice. “If you don’t, I will.”

She managed to get up and go into the office behind without spitting.

She came back a half minute later.

“Dr. Paine will—”

A man with shoe-polish brown hair that looked dyed, four to five inches shorter than my six feet, bustled out the door right behind her.

“Mr. Vlost, Philip Paine, pleased to meet you. My apologies if you’ve been delayed. This is all… very irregular. Please, come in.”

He extended a hand and gave me a limp handshake. He wore round tortoiseshell glasses, a Harris Tweed jacket, striped tie, gray flannel trousers, and penny loafers—with pennies. I followed him into his office. The dragon secretary retreated to her perch, still looking for a spittoon.

Paine circled his outsize mahogany desk and pointed me to a seat across.

“How can I help?”

I stayed standing.

“I’m here for Andras Leitz and Irina Lishina.”

“Yes. Dr. Leitz and Ambassador Batkin called. But, as I’m sure you can appreciate, we have rules, procedures, responsibilities. Not to mention classes to teach. I can’t just release… I need to know…”

“What do you need to know?”

“I need… Why do Andras and Irina have to leave school? Clearly there’s some sort of issue. Dr. Leitz and Ambassador Batkin were vague as to its nature. There may be other students involved. There may be issues that affect the school. We need to make sure… Perhaps you could…”

Philip Paine gave every indication of being an insecure man, hiding behind the stature he presumed his office held. A midlevel private school apparatchik who had somehow risen to Politburo power and understood he’d climbed above his station. He was past uncomfortable, not yet panicked, but headed that way. On a better day, I might have worked him with more subtlety.

Today I said, “The issue is this: I’m here to pick up Andras and Irina. They’re in danger. Their parents have told you to expect me. What are we waiting for?”

Paine wrung his hands and tried once more. “I’m sorry. But here at Gibbet, we don’t just release our students into the care of people… when we don’t know.… We have responsibilities. In loco parentis…”

No matter what the system, there’s always some bureaucrat trying to protect his turf. The Communist Party member responsible for overseeing his part of a five-year plan somewhere in the Urals. Philip Paine at Gibbet School. The motivations were the same. Behind them was fear of making a mistake and the loss of position and the privileges that could follow. Paine was frozen in inaction.

I took out my phone and hit redial. Batkin answered on the first ring.

“Turbo. I’m encountering resistance.”

“What kind of resistance?”

“Headmaster.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

Paine looked pained. The dragon put her head through the door. She wanted to breathe fire, but none would come.

“Ambassador Batkin on line one.”

Paine gulped and picked up the phone. While they talked, I dialed Leitz.

“Foos called,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

“No time for that. I’m at Gibbet. Nosferatu’s here. I’m trying to get Andras out of town. I’m getting a hard time from the headmaster.”

“His name says everything you need to know about him. I’ll call right now.”

“He’s waiting to hear from you.”

I pocketed the phone and took the offered seat.

Paine hung up from Batkin, looking like the apparatchik who’s just been told he’s won a one-way trip to the Gulag.

Dragon-lady opened the door. “Dr. Leitz on line two.”

I crossed my legs and nodded at Paine.

“Looks like I’m holding two kings. You?”

It took eight hours to get back to New York. Snow fell for most of the trip. Cars spun out left and right. I kept a steady pace around thirty and tried to maintain as much distance as I could from other vehicles.

The kids were quiet in the backseat. They’d come to Paine’s office, when finally summoned, sullen and nervous. At least Andras was. Irina was impossible to read. Andras wore a sweater over corduroys, like his father. Irina had a turtleneck under her ski jacket and dark jeans. The presence I’d noted in our phone conversation was evident in person. Some Russian women have it, even at a young age, as if she had the world exactly where she wanted it, in the palm of her hand—current circumstances not withstanding. Neither kid’s demeanor improved when informed they were riding back to New York with me.

I introduced myself without explanation and let them stew across Massachusetts until we got on I-84 into Connecticut.

“I’ve been in the playhouse,” I said.

That got no response. I watched through the rearview mirror, and I think they glanced at each other, but they said nothing.

“I’m not going to ask what you thought you were doing, but I am curious about one thing. When you left this morning, a tall man, ugly SOB, spent an hour in there. He’d been watching the place all night. He left behind enough gasoline to blow your little studio to Timbuktu, and he rigged it so the next visitor—maybe one of you—would set it off. Boom, good-bye. How come?”

That got their attention. Andras went wide-eyed and looked at Irina, who slid down in her seat and tried to disappear—not so much from me, I thought, but from him.

“You said—”

She cut him off. “Shut up. Not now.”

“Karp,” I said. “That’s the tall man’s name, I’m told. You know him, Irina?”

Her eyes shot fire into the rearview mirror.

“Who’s Karp?” Andras asked.

“SHUT UP!” Irina shouted.

Andras turned away, chastened.

The dynamics of their relationship became clearer. More Cheka training—when an opening presents itself, drive a wedge through it.

“Karp’s a professional assassin, Andras. A man who enjoys hurting people. I know that from personal experience. He works for Irina’s uncle.”

Burn one bridge to build another. Irina had the same look my ex-wife used to get before she flew into a rage in the last days of our disintegrating marriage. Andras’s eyes got wider.

“Assassin?!”

“Shut up!”

“What’d you guys do to piss Karp off?” I said.

“We didn’t do…” Andras whispered.

“Andras, if you say one more fucking word, I’ll never speak to you again.”

He looked away.

“Karp’s still after both of you,” I said. “Think about that. We have a long drive home.”

I took another shot on the stretch between Hartford and Waterbury. I’d stopped at an exit that featured an array of fast-food options, chose Burger King for no reason other than it was open and empty, waited for the kids to use the bathrooms, passed up the opportunity to do so myself, for fear I’d be solo when I came out, and asked if they wanted anything to eat. They bought Whoppers and fries and Cokes. I passed on that opportunity too. Fast food is one American invention that holds little appeal, and hunger is one more thing Russians learn to deal with from an early age, especially in the Gulag. Standing behind them at the counter, in the bright fluorescent light, I noticed a rough, red, scar peeking out the top of Irina’s turtleneck, marring the otherwise fine skin. I hadn’t seen that before, I was pretty sure, and I’d seen a lot of Irina last night.