Ken Follett - Fall of Giants

Lev’s street-fighting instincts would not let him stop while his assailant was upright, and he kept after Josef, punching his body and head, until the older man fell backward over a dining chair and hit the carpet.

Olga’s mother, Lena, came rushing into the room, screamed, and knelt beside her husband. Polina and the cook came to the doorway to the kitchen, looking scared. Josef ’s face was battered and bleeding, but he raised himself on his elbow and pushed Lena aside. Then, when he tried to get up, he cried out and fell back.

His skin turned gray and he stopped breathing.

Lev said: “Jesus Christ.”

Lena started to wail: “Josef, oh, my Joe, open your eyes!”

Lev felt Josef ’s chest. There was no heartbeat. He picked up the wrist and could not find a pulse.

I’m in trouble now, he thought.

He stood up. “Polina, call an ambulance.”

She went into the hall and picked up the phone.

Lev stared at the body. He had to make a big decision fast. Stay here, protest innocence, pretend grief, try to wriggle out of it? No. The chances were too slim.

He had to go.

He ran upstairs and stripped off his shirt. He had come home from the war with a lot of gold, accumulated by selling Scotch to the Cossacks. He had converted it to just over five thousand U.S. dollars, stuffed the bills into his money belt, and taped the belt to the back of a drawer. Now he fastened the belt around his waist and put his shirt and jacket back on.

He put on his overcoat. On top of his wardrobe was an old duffel containing his U.S. Army officer’s-issue Colt.45model 1911 semiautomatic pistol. He stuffed the pistol into his coat pocket. He threw a box of ammunition and some underwear into the duffel, then he went downstairs.

In the dining room, Lena had put a cushion under Josef ’s head, but Josef looked deader than ever. Olga was on the phone in the hallway, saying: “Be quick, please, I think he may die!” Too late, baby, Lev thought.

He said: “The ambulance will take too long. I’m going to fetch Dr. Schwarz.” No one asked why he was carrying a bag.

He went to the garage and started Josef ’s Packard Twin Six. He drove out of the property and turned north.

He was not going to fetch Dr. Schwarz.

He headed for Canada.

Lev drove fast. As he left Buffalo’s northern suburbs behind, he tried to figure out how much time he had. The ambulance crew would undoubtedly call the police. As soon as the cops arrived they would find out that Josef had died in a fistfight. Olga would not hesitate to tell them who had knocked her father down: if she had not hated Lev before, she would now. At that point, Lev would be wanted for murder.

There were normally three cars in the Vyalov garage: the Packard, Lev’s Ford Model T, and a blue Hudson used by Josef ’s goons. It would not take the flatfoots very long to deduce that Lev had left in the Packard. In an hour, Lev calculated, the police would be looking for the car.

By then, with luck, he would be out of the country.

He had driven to Canada with Marga several times. It was only a hundred miles to Toronto, three hours in a fast car. They liked to check into a hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Peters and go out on the town, dressed to the nines, without having to worry about being spotted by someone who might tell Josef Vyalov. Lev did not have an American passport, but he knew several crossings where there were no border posts.

He reached Toronto at midday and checked into a quiet hotel.

He ordered a sandwich in the coffee shop and sat for a while contemplating his situation. He was wanted for murder. He had no home and he could not visit either of his two families without risking arrest. He might never see his children again. He had five thousand dollars in a money belt and a stolen car.

He thought back to the boasts he had made to his brother only ten months ago. What would Grigori think now?

He ate his sandwich, then wandered aimlessly around the center of town feeling depressed. He went into a liquor store and bought a bottle of vodka to take back to his room. Maybe he would just get drunk tonight. He noticed that rye whisky was four bucks a bottle. In Buffalo it cost ten, if you could get it at all; in New York City, fifteen or twenty. He knew because he had been trying to buy illicit liquor for the nightclubs.

He returned to the hotel and got some ice. His room was dusty, with faded furniture and a view of the backyards behind a row of cheap stores. As the early northern night fell outside, he felt more depressed than ever in his whole life. He thought of going out and picking up a girl, but he did not have the heart for it. Was he going to flee from every place he ever lived? He had quit Petrograd because of a dead policeman, he had left Aberowen literally one step ahead of people he had cheated at cards; now he had fled Buffalo a fugitive.

He needed to do something about the Packard. The Buffalo police might cable a description to Toronto. He should either change the plates or change the car. But he could not summon the energy.

Olga was probably glad to get rid of him. She would have her inheritance all to herself. However, the Vyalov empire was worth less and less every day.

He wondered if he could bring Marga and baby Gregory to Canada. Would Marga even want to come? America was her dream, as it had been Lev’s. Canada was not the fantasy destination of nightclub singers. She might follow Lev to New York or California, but not to Toronto.

He was going to miss his children. Tears came to his eyes as he thought of Daisy growing up without him. She was not quite four: she might forget him altogether. At best she would have a vague recollection. She would not remember the largest sandwich in the world.

After the third drink it struck him that he was a pitiable victim of injustice. He had not meant to kill his father-in-law. Josef had struck first. Anyway, Lev had not actually killed him: he had died of some kind of seizure or heart attack. It was really just bad luck. But no one was going to believe that. Olga was the only witness and she would want revenge.

He poured another vodka and lay on the bed. To hell with them all, he thought.

As he drifted into a restless alcoholic sleep, he thought of the bottles in the shop window. “Canadian Club, $4.00,” read the sign. There was something important about that, he knew, but for the moment he could not put his finger on it.

When he woke up next morning his mouth was dry and his head ached, but he knew that Canadian Club at four bucks a bottle could be his salvation.

He rinsed his whisky glass and drank the melted ice at the bottom of the pail. By his third glassful he had a plan.

Orange juice, coffee, and aspirins made him feel better. He thought about the dangers ahead. But he had never allowed himself to be deterred by risks. If I did that, he thought, I’d be my brother.

There was one great drawback to his scheme. It depended on reconciliation with Olga.

He drove to a low-rent neighborhood and went into a cheap restaurant that was serving breakfast to workingmen. He sat at a table with a group of what looked like housepainters and said: “I need to trade my car for a truck. Do you know anyone who might be interested?”

One of the men said: “Is it legitimate?”

Lev gave his charming grin. “Give me a break, buddy,” he said. “If it was legit, would I be selling it here?”

He found no takers there or at the next few places he tried, but eventually he ended up at an automobile repair shop run by a father and son. He exchanged the Packard for a two-ton Mack Junior van with two spare wheels in a no-cash, no-papers deal. He knew he was being robbed, but the garageman knew he was desperate.

Late that afternoon he went to a liquor wholesaler whose address he had found in the city directory. “I want a hundred cases of Canadian Club,” he said. “What’s your price?”