Martin Smith - Three Stations

"Miracles are happening. Our luck has changed," she told the baby as the train pulled out. Maya laughed from exhilaration. She had been entrusted with the most precious item in the world and she had successfully protected it. From this point on everything was going to be different.

Katya stirred. Before she started crying, Maya went out to the vestibule at the end of the car and put the baby to her breast. Once the baby's first urgent scrambling settled down, Maya allowed herself a cigarette. She would not have minded if the moment went on forever, watching fields shine in the moonlight, smuggling her baby into the world.

Maya didn't hear a drunken soldier join her until the door clicked shut behind him.

That was ages ago, Maya thought. Two days at least. Well, bitches were as bitches did. She closed her eyes until Zhenya was asleep, then she took the last money in his day pack and left the casino.

Arkady called Victor from the dancers' dressing room and told him that the murder victim they called Olga had been identified as Vera Antonova, age nineteen, a student at Moscow State University, and suggested that since this was the detective's case, he might want to come by the Club Nijinsky and take part in the investigation.

"I can't leave. I'm getting a tattoo."

"Now? At this hour?"

"No problem. The parlor is open all night."

Arkady didn't know what to say. He paced back and forth in the narrow, brightly lit comma of space that was afforded dancers. A makeup counter was littered with used tissues, jars of foundation, powder and rouge, cold cream, lipstick and mascara. It was hard to imagine six women squeezing into the room, let alone changing from one costume to another.

Victor said, "I'm sober, if that's what you're wondering."

Arkady still didn't know what to say. He noticed snapshots of boyfriends and family wedged into mirrors; none seemed to have any connection to Vera Antonova.

"Who identified her?" Victor asked.

"A journalist who writes about the club scene, then several other people. It seems that besides being a student, she was a dancer at the Nijinsky."

"Too bad."

"But why are you getting a tattoo?"

"You can't hang out in tattoo parlors without getting something. By the way, Zurin called looking for you about a letter of resignation that he expected. He said that as far as the prosecutor's office is concerned, you have been suspended. You are no longer an active investigator. Any pretense otherwise and he will have you detained."

"Arrested?"

"Decapitated, if he had a choice."

"When can you get over here? You're the one who always says the detective leads and the investigator follows." As he talked Arkady rapidly opened and shut drawers. He saw Ecstasy in the form of candies, clear capsules and green peas, yes. Clonidine or ether, no. With so many mirrors reflecting each other, he seemed to share the room with multiple desperate men with lank hair and eyes deep as drains, the sort of figure who might wander the streets on a rainy night and cause people to roll up their car windows and jump the traffic light.

Victor was saying, "You can't rush an artist. I'll call you in the morning."

"Does the tattoo hurt?"

"It stings a little."

"Good."

Isa Spiridona was graceful and gray. Arkady remembered her from the Bolshoi, briefly as a prima ballerina before she was injured. He would have thought she might continue as a ballet mistress, teaching young dancers to elevate their leg or their elbow thus and so. Instead she was a choreographer at the Club Nijinsky with a desk crammed between a rack of costumes and stacks of CDs and DVDs arranged around a balsa-wood model of the club interior that showed runways, dance floor and ministages. Arkady poked it with his finger.

"Where are we in this model?"

"I don't discuss any of the club's operations. Please don't touch."

"I've always loved models." He stooped for a better view. "Does the service elevator go up and down?"

"No, it's not a dollhouse. Don't touch, please."

"Where did you say we are?"

"Here." She pointed to the third level; there were five levels altogether. "Have you shown this picture to any of the dancers?"

"Yes."

"Without coming to me first? Dancers are children. I don't want them sobbing before the audience is out the door. Stay away from the girls. If you have questions, call me tomorrow and I'll make some time for you."

Tomorrow had arrived hours ago, Arkady thought. As for time, he only had until Zurin caught up with him.

Spiridona's phone rang and she sat to take the call.

"No, I'm not alone. There's an investigator here, but he's leaving… totally useless and scaring the girls… Wait a second. He's not bright enough to take a hint." She gave Arkady a wave of dismissal. "Can't you see I'm working?"

"So am I. May I have Vera's photograph, please?"

"Oh." Spiridona found it in her hand and thrust it at Arkady. "Now will you go? I can't believe you showed this to my dancers."

"But I didn't show them this."

He dug into his jacket and gave Spiridona a different photograph and watched her gaze swim over the filthy mattress, Vera's half-stripped body, the butterfly tattoo resting on her hip.

Spiridona hung up. "I don't understand."

Arkady said, "Neither do I."

"Dear God, how could this happen?" She dropped the picture as if it were a spider. "Who could do this to her?"

"I don't know." He described the circumstances in which the girl was found: "Dressed like a prostitute, tattooed like a prostitute, on a prostitute's bed, carrying a prostitute's knockout powder."

"I can't explain it. It isn't the Vera I knew."

"Who was?"

"A free spirit, you could say."

"Sexually free?"

That drew a wistful smile. "Everyone is different. In a ballet company there are three or four genders. Vera was popular from the first and men and women were drawn to her like bears to honey. She was ambitious. She could have had any of a dozen millionaires, so why would she be selling herself at Three Stations?"

"Do you know who those men are?"

"I can give you a list but it would be incomplete and out-of-date. She was a fickle girl. She roomed at the university. You should talk to her roommate there."

"What was she studying?"

"Languages. Foreign affairs."

Arkady was impressed. Foreign affairs was usually reserved for the elite. It was hard for Arkady himself to believe but he had once been a member of Moscow's "Gilded Youth," when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

"How did she get on with the other dancers?"

"Fine."

"No particular enemies?"

"No."

"No particular friends?"

"No."

"You interviewed her before taking her on as a dancer?"

"Of course. This is not the Bolshoi. I am more of an ornament than a teacher and the girls do more or less what they want. But this is also the Club Nijinsky. People expect a different wild and crazy theme every week but also, for the amount of money they're paying, a touch of culture. Not too much, maybe ten seconds' worth. Some pirouettes or a tableau vivant. Girls line up to be a Nijinsky dancer, to have all those wealthy men admiring you, enamored of you." She lit a cigarette and dramatically exhaled smoke that twisted into arabesques. "Worshipping you."

"Is her family in Moscow?"

"Her parents died in the terrorist bombing of the Metro. Her brother died in the army. He hung himself."

"Why?"

"He was gay."

Which said quite enough. Hazing new recruits in the Red Army was routine. For "homos," torture.

"When did this happen?"

"Around New Year's. She was upset but nothing unusual. She was a focused person, that's why this"-she indicated the photo of Vera in the trailer-"makes no sense at all."