Tom Bradby - The Master Of Rain

“Yes.” Sergei looked uncertain. “Not always in this apartment.”

“Where else?”

“Farther down, with some others.”

“Also musicians?”

“Yes.”

“So why did you move here?”

“I had more money since the Majestic.”

“Where did you play before?”

“The Excelsior.” He shrugged again. “Other places.”

“So when did you join the band at the Majestic?”

“Four months ago.”

“And you’d not met Lena or seen her before then?”

Sergei shook his head. Field was certain he was lying.

“Did you know she was working for Lu Huang and living in one of his flats?”

Sergei sensed danger. “You must understand, we did not talk about her… work. We didn’t talk about anything like that. The ground was always kept neutral.”

“Did you go to her apartment?”

“No.”

“So what was your interest in her?”

He shrugged. “She was not a bad-looking girl… You know, from Kazan. I mean…”

“Did you fuck her?” Caprisi asked.

Sergei smiled, a tight weasel grin, revealing a mouthful of decaying teeth. “Sometimes, you know…”

“No, I don’t know.”

“She liked a bit of Russian meat.” He smiled again. “Liked a man to speak Russian to her.”

“So she never talked about Lu Huang?”

He shook his head.

“She never talked about any other boyfriends or other men that she slept with?”

“No.”

“You knew she was a prostitute?”

He grinned again. “I fuck her sometimes. She likes a Russian who doesn’t pay, then she doesn’t feel like a whore.”

“So you weren’t friends?”

“Sometimes she comes here and cries and I let her, then I fuck her some more.”

Caprisi stood, sensing Field’s anger. “Easy, man,” he whispered, “we’re out of bounds.”

Field breathed out, unclenched his fists, and tried to force himself to relax.

“So,” Caprisi went on, “when you slept together, it was here, in this apartment.”

“Yes.”

“You never went down to Foochow Road?”

The Russian shook his head.

“But you knew that was where she lived?”

Sergei hesitated again. “She may have mentioned it.”

“She may have, or she did?”

“She did.”

“But you never went there?”

“She didn’t want me to.”

“Was she in love with you?”

Sergei smirked again but didn’t answer. “Cigarette?” he asked, offering the packet. They both declined.

Sergei was not wearing socks or shoes, and Field noticed his feet were as long and bony as his hands. Like his forearms, his legs appeared to be hairless.

“Did you know she slept with Lu?”

He shrugged.

“She moved into one of his apartments a few months ago. You knew where she lived, but she never mentioned that she was his woman?”

“I said we never talked about it.”

“You didn’t know she slept with him?”

“I didn’t ask.”

“The question was: did you know?”

Sergei shrugged again. “She liked to talk about Russia. I fucked her sometimes. That was it.”

“So she never mentioned Lu?”

“No.”

“Or any other man she was sleeping with?”

He shook his head.

“So you slept with her, but you knew nothing about her life and weren’t curious?”

“No.”

“Did you know about her family?”

“She mentioned a sister in Harbin. The rest, I don’t know.”

“Do any of them live in Shanghai?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Who were her other friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Natasha Medvedev?”

He began to smirk again.

“What’s so funny?” Caprisi asked.

“Nothing.”

“Do you know her?”

“Sure.”

“Were they friends?”

Sergei sucked heavily on his cigarette. “Sure.”

“Who else?”

“No one else.”

“So.” Caprisi sighed. “Let’s get this straight. You were her boyfriend, but you never went to her apartment, you know nothing about her life in Shanghai.”

“She was a whore.”

Caprisi stared at Sergei for a long time, forcing the Russian to lower his head and study the floor. “What did you talk about, then?”

“We only fucked.”

“Where are you from in Russia, Sergei?”

“Moscow.”

“Your father was an army officer or…”

“A doctor.”

“Did you and Lena ever talk about the revolution?”

He shook his head.

“What do you think of the new Soviet Union?” Field asked.

Sergei looked from Field to Caprisi and back again, suspecting a trap. “Bolshevism is not the answer.”

“And what is?” Field smiled encouragingly at him.

“My views are my views.”

“Were they the same as Lena’s?”

The Russian didn’t answer.

Field smiled again. “You surely don’t believe the current situation here is tolerable.”

Sergei regarded him warily.

“I mean, if there has ever been a case for the redistribution of wealth, this is it, isn’t it? Here, in this city, with so many families sleeping-dying, even-on the streets.”

“I see inequality, but I’m not a Bolshevik.”

“A reformer, then?”

Sergei nodded.

“You’d like better conditions for the workers. Shorter hours, better pay.”

Sergei sucked his teeth nervously.

“Do you think the system can be reformed, or does it have to be changed entirely?”

“I don’t live in the Settlement.”

“Have you attended meetings at the New Shanghai Life?”

The Russian frowned. “No.”

“Can you explain why Lena was doing so? After all, her father was an army officer.”

“I’m not a Bolshevik.”

Field paused. “I never said that you were.”

“Their hearts were not in it.”

“Their hearts?”

“Lena… Natasha.”

“Why were they doing it?”

He shook his head.

“Presumably they were gathering intelligence for Lu?”

Sergei sneered. “No one would ever tell them anything.”

“Then why was Lu paying for their apartments?”

He smiled again. “They are women.”

“So it’s about sex?” Caprisi asked.

“Isn’t everything?”

Caprisi stood. “We’ll want to speak to you again.” He walked toward the door. “And next time, you’re coming down to the Settlement.”

Outside, Caprisi lit up first, inhaling deeply and running his hand through his hair. He paced to and fro by the car, occasionally glancing up at the window above the Siberian Fur Shop. Field scanned the signs in Russian script outside the shops that stretched away down Avenue Joffre. They were all small concerns-one selling Shanghai borscht, another a hairdressing salon, a third specializing in wedding dresses.

“Jesus, you get yourself worked up,” Caprisi said.

Field didn’t answer.

“I thought you were going to hit him.”

Field put his cigarette to his lips. He couldn’t see Sergei in the shadows behind his window, but he knew the Russian was there. “I don’t like it when women aren’t treated right.”

“Then maybe you should go someplace else.”

Field sighed. “My father hit my mother, all right? I don’t like the way Sergei talks.” He tried to change the subject to cover his embarrassment. “Did Lu not know she was coming down here? Is that why Sergei is so nervous?”

Caprisi resumed his pacing, then leaned back against the side of the car. “I can’t see Lena taking that sort of risk.”

“Unless she was desperate to have something-anything-that stopped her feeling like a whore.”

The American looked up at Field. He flicked his cigarette away into the street.

“Is that why Lu killed her?” Field asked.