Martin Smith: Three Stations

She asked, "How old are you?"

"Sixteen." He added a year.

"Sure."

"My name is Zhenya Lysenko."

"Zhenya Lysenko, Zhenya Lysenko." She found the name uninspiring.

"What's yours?"

"Maya."

"Just Maya?"

"Maya."

"I saw you outrun the lieutenant. That's typical. You go to them for help and almost get arrested."

"I don't need them."

"Do you have family in Moscow?"

"No."

"Friends?"

"No."

A train arrived on the other side of the platform and the din of passengers made speech impossible. By the time the train closed its doors and drew away from the platform, Zhenya had added it up. All she had was him.

Zhenya and Maya pushed through the amorphous mass that was a Russian queue, past biznesmen whose business fit into a suitcase, Uzbek women swathed in color, babushkas draped in gray, soldiers on leave sucking their last beer dry. Most of the trains were elektrichkas, locals with overhead cables, but some were destined to cross mountains and deserts to exotic locales thousands of kilometers away. An express left Platform 3. Halfway across the station yard the train met heat waves, entered a lagoon of semaphores and signals, sank and disappeared. The Platform 3 conductor, an energetic woman in a blue uniform and running shoes, fanned herself with her signal paddle and thought that if the two teenagers coming her way had missed their train there was nothing she could do about it now.

Zhenya and Maya had switched. She wore his sweatshirt open but with the hood up to conceal her red hair and he, in turn, had pulled on her leather jacket, even though the sleeves rode high on his skinny forearms. Out the corner of his eye he admired the way Maya boldly marched up to the conductor.

"You're not the conductor who was here this morning."

"Of course not. Her shift is over."

"And this morning's trains?"

"Back in service. Why? Did you lose something?"

"Yes."

The conductor was sympathetic. "I'm sorry, dear. Anything you leave on a train is probably gone for good. I hope it had no sentimental value."

"I lost my baby."

The conductor looked from Maya to Zhenya and back.

"Are you serious? Have you been to the Search Department?"

"Yes. They don't believe me."

The conductor lost her breath all at once. "Good Lord, why not?"

"They want to know too much. I just want my baby. A girl three weeks old."

"Is this true?" the conductor asked Zhenya.

"She thinks it was stolen by someone called Auntie Lena."

"I never heard of her. What is your name, dear?"

"Maya."

"Are you married, Maya?"

"No."

"I understand. Who is the father?" The conductor gave Zhenya a significant glance.

Maya said, "Not a chance. I just met him."

The conductor thought for a moment before asking Zhenya, "Have you seen the baby?"

"No."

"Then I'm so sorry. It's a criminal matter if a baby has been abducted. The Search Department is the proper authority. I wish I could help."

"She has a faint birthmark on the back of her neck. Almost like a question mark. You have to lift her hair to see it."

Zhenya thrust a piece of paper into the conductor's hand. "This is my cell-phone number. Please call if you hear anything."

A man with a suitcase in one hand and a toddler in the other arrived at the platform to find that their train was gone. As the man slowed to a standstill the toddler slipped to the ground and cried.

Tears escaped from Maya's eyes. Worse, to her fury, was how her breasts ached.

Zhenya steered her off the platform. Now that the crying had begun, she couldn't stop, as if at that moment her baby were being wrested from her hands. Not sobbing but bent over and racked. Zhenya prided himself on his lack of emotion and it was frightening how her crying knotted his throat.

He said, "This is fucked, this is really fucked."

"My baby."

"I know an investigator in the prosecutor's office. He's a decent guy."

"No prosecutors, no police."

"Just talk to him. Whoever took the baby could have gone a hundred different ways. Two people can't cover them all."

"No police."

"He'll help privately."

The suggestion mystified her. "Why would he do that?"

"He's got nothing else to do."

By Kazansky Station was a two-story building with a militia sign so discreet it might have been a public toilet. Over the years Arkady had visited a dozen times to take a suspect for interrogation or to save a suspect from interrogation and the risers of the stairs were appropriately faced with cracked tiles that looked like broken teeth. He climbed the steps to a squad room with the residue of pizza boxes, grease boards, dusty photos of forgotten heroes, old bulletins curled into yellow scrolls, new bulletins in the wastebasket and desks marked by cigarette burns and coffee stains, much the way Arkady felt.

In a corner office Colonel Malenkov, sunburned and slathered with cream, was hanging a certificate on the wall. Every movement looked painful. His bald spot looked painful.

"Enough of fucking Crete and its fucking sun. It was full of Russians anyway."

The certificate stated that Colonel Leonid N. Malenkov had attended a "Tenth Annual International Conference on Counterterrorism." Similar certificates from Tunis, Amsterdam and Rome were already hung.

Arkady said, "They're tilted."

"They shift. It's the vibration from the trains. Sometimes the whole building shakes."

Arkady read the motto that appeared in English on each certificate: "Vigilance Keeps Us Free. What does that mean?"

"Terrorists cooperate on a global level. We must do the same."

"Good. You can cooperate with me."

"You've got some brass."

"The dead girl in the trailer. She was in your precinct. Why didn't you respond to the dispatcher?"

Malenkov moved stiffly to his desk and settled gently on his chair. "Renko, you tried to have me up for running a prostitution ring. Fortunately the prosecutor didn't think you had a case. Justice was served and you went home to chew on your dick. Why would I talk to you?"

"You have no one else to talk to. This place is empty."

"That's right. They're all out on cases. Real cases."

"Do you mind if I smoke?"

"I wouldn't mind if you blow it out your ass. I can't believe you have the balls to walk in here."

"How would you like to do it again?"

"Do what?"

"Go through another investigation."

"You'd lose again."

"But it was expensive, wasn't it? As I remember, you had lawyers."

"Fucking leeches." Usually Malenkov employed physical threats; the sunburn had obviously affected him. "I heard you were in some kind of deep freeze."

"Yet here I am."

"What are you after? You're always after something."

"A little conversation."

"Well, you're a little ahead of yourself. An investigator only takes over when the detectives are done."

"It's not my case. I happened to be riding with Lieutenant Orlov when the call came in."

"The last time I saw Victor Orlov he couldn't piss straight enough to hit a barn."

"His aim has improved."

"Good. Then he ought to be able to handle a simple overdose."

"We're not certain that it was simple."

"One dead skank is pretty much like another."

Arkady handed his cell phone to Malenkov. Olga filled the screen. Death gave her a quiet that only made her youth more poignant. Arkady let the colonel's eyes have their fill.

Malenkov shrugged. "Okay, she was a pretty girl. Moscow is full of pretty girls."

"She wasn't in your string?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. A precinct commander doesn't have much contact with the general public unless they're murdered or torched."

"Torched? That happens often?"