Martin Smith - Three Stations

A spotlight followed Vaksberg to the stage. On the way Arkady watched the transformation from a defeated man to an energized, take-charge Sasha Vaksberg who bounded up the stairs to the stage and took the microphone. The man had stage presence, Arkady thought. The crowd chanted and he faced them down. He smiled them down.

"Do you want to see the fourth?"

"Yes!"

He shook off his jacket and handed it to the tennis player.

"I can't hear you. Do you really want to see the fourth?"

"Yes!"

"What a feeble choir. You are a disgrace to the city of Moscow. For the last time, do you want to see the fourth position?"

"Yes!"

Vaksberg did it deadpan. Right foot pointed out, left foot tucked behind, left hand on the waist and the right arm raised in triumph or grace.

The reaction was shock and delight. Sasha Vaksberg clowning? Hijacking the joke and turning it around until applause started first from the old lions in the upper tiers and then the young crowd on the floor. "Bravo" s and "Encore" s broke out.

Arkady said, "He's a comedian too?"

"He still has a few surprises. When the guests leave the fair tonight, they might talk about a Bugatti for him and a Bulgari for her, but you can be sure that they'll talk about an unworried Sasha Vaksberg."

"He was lucky he knew what to do."

"Luck had nothing to do with it."

That took Arkady a second to decipher.

"You mean it was staged? The entire routine? The tennis player crying? How could he even come up with the idea like that?"

"Because he's Sasha Vaksberg. Let me see the photo again."

Vaksberg took bows. Anya studied the head shot. Smeared mascara and rouge couldn't hide how beautiful the dead girl was and how unblinking, as if she were watching clouds.

"It's Vera," Anya said in a rush. "It's the missing dancer."

"Vera what?"

"I don't know."

"You're a reporter. Maybe it's in your notepad."

"Of course." Anya flipped through the pad. "Here it is, a list of Nijinsky dancers, starting with Vera Antonova." She gave Arkady a second assessment. "Suddenly you sound like an investigator."

Zhenya and Maya shared a bag of chips at the all-night cafe in Yaroslavl Station while he taught her how to use her new cell phone. She tended to shout because there was no wire.

"I can't believe you never used a mobile phone before. Never texted? Videoed?"

"No."

"Where are you from, anyway?"

"You wouldn't know it."

"Try me."

"There's no point."

"Why not?"

"There's no point. So now that I have a telephone, what do I do? I don't know anyone to call."

"You can call me. I put my name at the top of your speed dial."

"Can you take it off?"

"You don't want my number?"

"I don't want anyone's name or number. Can you take it off?"

"Of course. I'll delete it. No problem."

Still it was an awkward moment. He had overstepped again. It was a relief to see a chessboard at the next table. Actually an electronic chess game. The man hunched over it was about fifty years old, with a red nose peeking out of a gray beard. In a virtually unintelligible British accent he ordered another gin. Zhenya noticed that the game's level of difficulty was set at Intermediate. It was painful to see a grown man bested by a motherboard.

Zhenya dropped his voice and told Maya, "We're running a little low on pocket money. Give me five minutes alone."

"I'll be in the main hall. Don't call your friend the investigator."

"Five minutes."

He waited until she left before he paid any attention to his neighbor. He seemed eccentric, vaguely professorial, pretty much what Zhenya expected in an Englishman.

"Hard game?"

"Pardon?"

"Chess."

"Well, it certainly is when you're playing against open space, a vacuum, so to speak. Very disorienting."

"I know what you mean. I have the same machine. It beats me all the time."

"You do play, then. This is very lucky. Look, if your train is not departing soon, perhaps we could squeeze in a game. Do you know speed chess?"

"Blitz? I've played it once or twice."

"Five minutes' sudden death. The chessboard has a game clock. Are you up for it?"

"If you'd like."

"Your girlfriend wouldn't mind?"

"She's fine."

"Henry." They shook hands as Zhenya switched tables.

"Ivan."

There was an art to barely winning. Henry brought out his queen too soon, didn't protect his rooks, let his knights stagnate on the side of the board. Zhenya made some judicious blunders of his own and didn't corner the Englishman's king until there had been satisfactory bloodletting on both sides.

Henry was good-natured and full of winks. "Youth will be served. However, it's a different game when there's money on the line. Yes, it is. Then there are consequences. Have you ever done that? Faced the consequences?"

"Sure. I won ten dollars once."

"Then you're practically professional. How about it, then? Another game?"

Zhenya won with the stakes at ten dollars, again at twenty.

Henry set up the pieces. "How about a hundred?" Yegor slid into the seat next to Maya and whispered, "I hear you're looking for a baby."

Maya stiffened as if there were a snake at her feet. Suddenly it was reassuring to be surrounded by the waiting hall's army of travelers, sleeping or not.

"Where did you hear that?"

"You've asked half the people in this station. Word gets around. A baby? That's a real shame. That's really sick. I'd kill someone who did that. I really would. If I can help, just say the word. Seriously."

If Yegor had seemed large in the fluorescent glare of the tunnel, he seemed to expand in the dusk of the waiting hall.

"The problem is that people don't believe you. They don't think you had a baby. I know you did because you kind of fucked up my beautiful white silk scarf with your mother's milk and all. It was an accident, I know. Don't worry about it."

She stayed mute although she couldn't say that she was totally surprised to see Yegor. She had half expected him ever since he placed his hands on her in the tunnel.

Yegor said, "I suppose Genius is on the case. Genius is the smartest guy I know. What's the capital of Madagascar? Card tricks? That sort of thing. The problem with Genius is that he lives in a world of his own. I don't think he knows ten people. You couldn't have picked anyone more useless if you tried. You'll never find your baby. But I can."

She had to ask.

"How?"

"You buy her. That's what we do, the boys and me. Protect things or bring them back. Last night with the Canadian, that was more of a romp, like. Unusual. We hear all the rumors, all the news, and we assess and react. For example, you were asking the conductor about Auntie Lena. We'd track her down. We're a network like the police but less expensive. You don't want to end up in the courts, do you? They'd send your baby to America and you'd never see it again."

"What about Zhenya's friend, the investigator?"

"He's a wreck. I wouldn't let him near a baby."

"How much? What would it cost?" She didn't believe a word he said, but it wouldn't hurt to know.

"Well, in this situation every second counts. We'd commit all our resources full-time right away. To start, five hundred dollars. After negotiations and satisfactory delivery, more like five thousand. But I guarantee you'll get your baby."

"I don't have that much money. I don't have any money."

"No friends or family to borrow from?"

"No."

"Last night you said you had a brother."

"I don't."

"That's too bad. Maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe we could work out an arrangement."

"What sort of arrangement?"

Yegor's voice went hoarse and he leaned close enough for his beard to tickle her ear.