Martin Smith - Three Stations

Euphoria and warmth flowed over the boys. Forgetting that he was in a railway repair shed, Leo remarked on the fading light. Fading but profound in a pre-Creation way. Because in that emptiness was, well, everything. The entire universe fit into the palm of his hand.

Peter said he was going to get his shit together. He had a plan to get off of the streets, study the martial arts, join the army, win some medals and become Putin's bodyguard. He would need his parents' consent to enlist early. That should be no problem; they would sign anything for a bottle of vodka.

A power sweeper rolled into the shed. The rider was a Tajik from the station chasing paper cups and soda cans. He not only had a headlight; he aimed a flashlight into the corners of the shed.

What the boys saw was a Mongol on a shaggy horse, a warrior of the Golden Horde in plate armor traveling from another time with arrows of blinding light. He maneuvered around the trench and approached the trailer and played the beam over Leo and Peter, over the bags and cans loose in their hands.

Tito the dog had been trained not to bark. He approached to the limit of his leash with his ears back and eyes burning while the warrior floated to the stack of fruit crates that Itsy's group had been breaking up to use as firewood. The pile was halfway down. He lifted a crate and examined a taut plastic sack of brown Afghan heroin. He removed and counted every sack, then replaced each sack and crate as it was.

When he was done he returned to the trailer. He lifted Peter by his forelock as if he were lifting a rat by the tail and slid open the blade of a box cutter. Peter's eyes rolled back. The Tajik's gaze only happened to follow and catch Emma at the window before she ducked down. Jostled, the baby began to cry.

Emma didn't need to think what to do next. It was as if a devil took over her body and she found herself functioning with cold selfishness, placing the baby as bait at one end of the trailer and crouching behind cots at the other. She was astonished and horrified at herself, but there was no stopping. While the Tajik entered the trailer and went to the baby, Emma slipped out the door and hid in the trench. The baby cried and cried. Emma closed her eyes, held her breath and clamped her legs together tight to keep from peeing.

The baby's crying abruptly stopped. Emma was sure she was next. Any second the devil would find her in the trench and slit her throat. Eventually she became aware that the sweeper was gone and Leo and Peter were drowsily comparing hallucinations.

"Tough. You missed out," Peter told Emma.

"It was wild," said Leo.

Emma said nothing. She rushed to the rear of the trailer. There the baby was sucking on a small, leather amulet like those worn by Tajik women passing through Three Stations. Inside the amulet would be a quotation from the Koran as protection for the bearer.

The cafe at Kazansky Station was becoming a regular haunt for Arkady and Victor. Arkady wondered how many times in a row Victor could escape paying the check.

"At this point you're not just challenging Zurin, you're taking on the apparatus of the state, and the state may have the brain of a sea slug but it reacts to threats and it protects itself. Certain people will come to your apartment and they won't be boys with stage fright and they will break some bones. And what do you do? You pick a fight with Zurin. By the way, when is your billionaire friend, Vaksberg, going to pick up his car? I got a call from the evidence clerk. It's pretty shot up."

"He'll probably just buy himself a new one. I'm not going to drive all the way to the highway to look at holes in a car. Is that your eau de cologne I smell?"

This was a twist; Victor used to drink eau de cologne.

"It's for men," Victor said.

"Some, maybe."

Victor lit a cigarette and played with a matchbox.

"May I?" Arkady took the matchbox away.

Although the box was yellow with age, a portrait of a young Anna Furtseva on the cover was unmistakable. All that was missing was the combustible wolfhound.

"You went back."

"She called and said she had found a photograph she wanted me to have. That's it in your hand. It was a joke, just a means of invitation. When I got there she had made borscht and put out smoked fish and bread and beer. Then she gave me a corduroy jacket barely worn. Some toiletries that were never used. It was like visiting Granny."

"A granny who wants you to shoot her downstairs neighbors. And the jacket fit?"

"Yes. She knew my size."

"It sounds that way." Arkady got in the car, turned on the engine and realized that he had no place to go. He was a former senior investigator. He could try to pursue the killer of Vera but he had no authority. The case would turn into the hobby of a harmless eccentric.

He had parked in the ranks of official cars in front of the station, one of the small perks that would be denied him in the future. He would also have to surrender his blue roof light and the right to use the official lane.

Brooding, it took him a minute to notice that Anya was arguing with a militia officer at the station's Oriental double door. On one side, a militia officer; on the other, a dozen kids in cloth caps and ragged sweaters, their wrists and necks ringed with dirt. They gathered around Anya like cats at a bowl of milk. The militia officer pushed them aside to get at the athletic bag. Arkady got out of the Lada as a tug-of-war over the bag developed. It was the sort of thing, he thought, that could end badly. Half of him wanted to walk away. Instead, he waded through the crush and whispered in an official tone, "Let her go or I will have your balls on a plate."

The officer automatically stepped back because people who spoke softly in such situations were used to giving orders.

Arkady followed up by asking Anya, "What's the problem?"

"I only asked to look in the bag," the officer said.

"He wants to steal my bag."

Arkady said, "I will open the bag."

Anya burned, but she handed over the bag. He unzipped it to display energy bars, medical kits, condoms, soap and woolen socks.

"Satisfied?" Anya asked.

"You're going to sell these," the officer said.

"No, it's for children, homeless children. The Vaksberg Foundation gives them clothes, blankets, bedrolls. It's hardly going to improve the welfare of homeless children, but it shows them that somebody cares."

"To give away."

"Yes, to give away."

The officer went off disappointed, already searching for fresh prey.

Arkady pulled Anya into the station.

"What are you doing out of bed?"

"You think I should lie there all day long?"

"Yes," said Arkady. "Bed rest is the standard treatment for almost getting killed. Why are you acting this way? What happened?"

Street children filtered back in and she tried to say nothing, but the words came out: "Vaksberg has been skimming."

"You just found this out?"

"This morning. He's bankrupt."

"But he's a billionaire."

"Billionaires go bankrupt all the time. This morning I was trying to write. I read a Vaksberg Group memo I was never supposed to see. That's the danger of giving a writer total access. It was from Sasha to the chief financial officer instructing him how to inflate the valuation of the company as if all his casinos were operating. He's bankrupt."

"Then how did he fund the luxury fair?"

"There's only one way. He paid out what he took in. He's been skimming for months."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing. Nobody would give to any children's fund again. They want a reason not to."

"What can I do?"

"Oh, yes. You can advise ten-year-old girls how to put a condom on a grown man's dick." Louder she said, "Everyone wave to Uncle Arkasha because he's going away." At first Arkady simply drove to escape Anya's scorn. Then he drove aimlessly because he didn't want to be anywhere.