Martin Smith - Three Stations

Mr. Big said, "If Yegor was out of the picture, where would she go?"

"I truly wish I could help you." Ali was calm. He'd been beaten by Russians before and suffered broken ribs just for walking down the street. They would find out that he could take punishment.

"From the kiosk you see everything, don't you?"

"No one can keep track of everything. People come and go all the time. It's Three Stations."

Mr. Little and Mr. Big communicated with a look that made Ali suck up his testicles.

"As I said before, I am not totally without funds. If you give me a figure to start with…" Ali's voice died off as Mr. Little took a box of see-through food wrap from the shopping bag and pulled off the opening strip. He fed plastic wrap through a slot in the lid, which he tucked next to a strip of saw-toothed metal. Where was the food? Ali wondered.

"Have you been wrapped before?" Mr. Big asked.

"Wrapped?"

"I'll take that as a no. It's simple. I am going to ask you where to find this girl and her baby. If you give us no answer or a wrong answer, we will wrap your head."

These were all scare tactics, Ali thought. Nobody did such things.

"We'll demonstrate. Are you claustrophobic?"

"No, sir."

"We'll see."

It took two people, one to hold the first turn of food wrap and another to circle with the box and unreel more. The tape was clear plastic. Ali could see through it and witness the whole operation in the reflection of the office window. Air was totally cut off. He nodded to indicate he got the idea but they continued to wrap until he was covered from his neck to the top of his head.

"It's important not to panic," said Mr. Little. "The faster your heart rate the faster you use up oxygen."

The wrap got tighter and molded itself to Ali's face. He wanted to protest that this was more than a demonstration, but his mouth was wrapped and muffled. In the reflection of the window he wore a silver helmet and rocked from side to side.

"Ali, relax! You have five minutes to go."

Five minutes? They misjudged! They must have thought they'd leave a little air! No, no, no, no! He rocked hard enough to lift himself and the chair clear of the floor. Banged his chin against his chest. Felt his lungs and chest begin to cave, a roar rise up in his ears and his vision go dark.

When Ali was conscious again, he was still handcuffed to the chair but the plastic wrap had been removed, rolled into a ball and tossed into a wastebasket.

"Disposable," said Mr. Little.

Mr. Big asked, "Who needs the rack or the Spanish Inquisition when there's a roll of food wrap in the kitchen?" It was a philosophical proposition, not a question.

"Would you like some vodka?" Mr. Little poured vodka into Ali as if he were filling a gas tank. Ali drank in gulps, eager to be stunned.

"Back to business," said Mr. Little. "Where did the girl go?"

"Please, I have a family, small children and aged parents in Pakistan who have no other means of support."

"You putrid shit. What were you doing with your little whore, writing letters home?"

"I was weak. I was tempted and fell."

"Where would the girl go?"

"I swear I don't know."

"Last chance."

"Please."

Mr. Big ripped off a section of plastic wrap and at its touch to Ali's cheek, he jumped, chair and all.

"Genius. Everybody calls him Genius but his real name is Zhenya. I don't know his last name but he is often in the company of a prosecutor's investigator, Renko."

"Where?"

"The boy is always around Three Stations. You can't miss him; he hustles chess in the waiting rooms. I'll point him out to you. You don't need to wrap me anymore."

"Wrap you? Like what, a leftover piece of cheese? You must think we're fucking barbarians."

"No, not really but… I didn't know what to think."

Mr. Big slapped Ali on the back. "You should have seen your face. Come on. We'll take you down in the service elevator."

Ali laughed. He was unsteady after the handcuffs were removed and he dressed clumsily because of the vodka. And because when the elevator came he had to step over Yegor's body. The screw-off pool-cue butt that had been Yegor's scepter and cudgel was stuffed into his mouth. Ali couldn't stop laughing.

"Why did you wait so long to call?" Arkady asked Zhenya.

"She didn't want to involve the police."

"Why not? Three days ago we could have turned the city inside out. Today? No one would lift a finger. Is she deaf?"

"No." Although for all the attention Maya gave Arkady, she might have been. The windows of the car were fogged with condensation on which she drew a happy face.

The longer they waited for Victor, the more questions Arkady had for Zhenya.

Who was this girl?

How old was she?

Where was she from?

How could she lose a baby?

Did Zhenya ever actually see a baby?

Did anyone besides the girl ever see a baby?

Maya was mute. She hated Zhenya's so-called friend, Arkady. Zhenya may have lied to her, but he was the only one who had the nerve to walk into a building in search of her and lead her down the stairs while the two men in the elevator were busy stuffing Yegor into a body bag. It took her a moment to realize that the investigator was asking her directly, "Did you recognize the yellow station wagon?"

"No."

"From where?"

"I told you. Nowhere."

"Did you recognize the two men?"

They were the men she called the Catchers.

"No."

"They seemed to know you." He passed back the poster of her that the two men had been circulating. She let her forehead rest on the coolness of the backseat window and answered in a dreamy tone that she had never seen them before.

"And the Pakistani?"

"No."

"You never bought anything at his kiosk?"

"No."

Zhenya said the last they saw of the kiosk clerk, he was being dumped in the Volvo and covered with a tarp.

"Did they see you?"

"On the street," Zhenya said. "That's how I found her, by following their car."

"Did they get a good look at you?"

"Yes."

"What did they look like?"

"Average. Average everything."

"Nothing else?"

The word Zhenya came up with was "Brothers."

Victor climbed into the Lada and said the office site was microscopically clean.

"Anyway, who is going to report that a runaway like Yegor is missing, or give a damn about a Pakistani? Not to mention, the age of consent is still sixteen. Do you think men who have sex with children are going to report suspicious activity?"

Arkady said to Zhenya, "You know better. You should have called."

It wasn't until they reached the richly dressed shop windows of Tverskaya Street that Maya realized the investigator hadn't taken her and Zhenya to the police.

Arkady remembered that his cupboard was bare and sent Victor and Zhenya dashing through the rain into a food emporium. Also, Arkady wanted a private word with Maya. He had not appreciated at first how close to the edge the girl was. He wasn't prepared for her. The streets of Moscow were lined with Viking women. Maya was small and graceful and her shaved head added vulnerability. He could see why Zhenya was senseless around her.

"You want to talk?" Maya said.

"That's right. Just you and me."

"Okay. Let's hear what kind of bullshit you come up with."

He thought she might be a good judge of character. He wondered what kind of self-justification had been poured into her ears by men paying for sex with a child.

"If you love your baby so much, why won't you try to find her?"

"Won't look for her? All I've done for the last three days is search the stations again and again."

"I know. But that's punishing yourself, not searching for the baby anywhere but Three Stations. There's much more to Moscow. It confuses me because I believe you're a good mother."