Val Karren - The Deceit of Riches

I hung up the telephone, collected my bag and sauntered into the station’s hall and up to the ticket window with a walk that told people who may have been watching that I don’t have any place to be, and I don’t give a damn about what you think about me. I had gotten good at the walk and thought I was doing it quite well behind my sunglasses and week-old beard. On the inside, I was shaking like a leaf. I feared if I received any resistance I would crack and start crying a guilty confession. I waited in line impatiently behind two others at the ticket window. Finally, my turn.

“Third class on the afternoon train to Moscow please,” I muttered half eating my words like I had practiced.

There was no response from the ticket window. A small digital sign of greenish number flashed behind the thick plastic barrier. I shoved my money under the window in wads, nothing too neat and tidy and out of character. In return, I got a third-class ticket to Moscow for two o’clock departure that same day. I couldn’t believe my luck! Such a wave of relief went through me that I almost said “thank you” to the woman behind the window, but caught myself and walked away like I was disappointed that I hadn’t been upgraded for free to first class.

It was imperative that I stayed in character as I hadn’t yet had time to scan the passengers’ hall for any risks. I loped over to the perimeter of the hall, next to the newsstand and tobacconist kiosk, took off my sunglasses, leaned my back up against the wall and watched those passing by, and those waiting, like me, for a train to go when I realized that I should probably be smoking, not watching everybody like a hawk. I reached for the smoke behind my ear only to find it missing. I cursed under my breath afraid I was missing a vital piece of my disguise. I quickly stepped up to the kiosk next to me to buy a pack of cigarettes for the first time in my life, but before I could even point to what I should have already decided was my favorite brand of smokes, there was Mr. P’s face right in front of me! My heart jumped out of my chest and my mouth turned completely dry. I picked a newspaper from the top of the pile and read the headline above his picture: “Local businessman murdered in Nizhniy Novgorod!”.

“Hey, punk, you gonna pay for that?” bellowed the salesman, “Can you even read?”

I looked up at him and blinked and asked with a blank expression of amazement, “He’s dead?”

“Yes, why? Was he your boss? You here to collect his money for him? Well he’s dead today and I ain’t payin’ no more!” the newspaper man continued. I handed the man five hundred rubles and wandered back to the wall where I had been standing and read the article slowly.

The newspaper was short on speculation and told only the facts. What was very clear is that he had been shot at a very close range in the side of his head while sitting in the driver’s seat of his Mercedes. The window had been down, the motor still idling when he was found. He was found on the edge of town on the river bank, but the article didn’t say exactly where. He had not been robbed, therefore the police suspected an underworld liquidation similar to what was going on in Moscow and Vladivostok in recent months.

Reading this news sent electricity through my system, I was almost elated to see his face and death on the front page of the newspaper. Could it be that all my troubles had been resolved in a split- second flash of gunpowder, brass, and lead? The circumstance of Mr. P.’s death, his murder, didn’t concern me even though the gruesomeness, the cold-blooded element should have chilled my blood. The man had ordered his thugs to rob me, beat me as necessary, break in and destroy my home, set fire to my school and if they had caught me again last week I could be the one floating face down in -I needed friends to celebrate with! I needed a pretty girl to kiss! I wanted to cry with the release of my worry and anxiety. I had been given a second chance. What was I going to do with it?

I found my address book in a backpack and quickly stepped outside again to the public pay phones. I found Lara’s telephone number. Yes, she should have been home already. The dial on the phone took an eternity to stop its ticking and clicking to connect us.

“Halloa?” her sweet voice was music to my ears.

“Hello — this is Pyotr!” I said with great anticipation.

“Pyotr? Are you in Moscow already?” she sounded surprisingly relieved.

“No, no. Lara, did you hear the news this morning? Did you read the newspapers?” I couldn’t help but want to shout the news to her.

“No, Pyotr. I just arrived home from the boat. What is happening?” she sounded worried again.

“He’s dead, Lara! He’s dead! Somebody shot him on Friday night,” I was hissing into the telephone with my hand over my mouth and the mouthpiece, unable to contain my excitement.

“Who? Who is dead?” she was understandably confused at my delight at such a horrible crime.

“Him! The one I was running from! The mobster boss!” I reiterated.

“What? Really? Are you serious? How could that happen?” she was taken fully off guard.

“I don’t know, but it’s all over the newspaper,” I reconfirmed slapping my folded-up copy in my hands like an over enthusiastic Bible thumping preacher.

“Pyotr, where are you?” she asked cautiously.

“Moscovskiy station. I am thinking that I might go back to my apartment and carefully slip into my normal life again. Can I come see you tonight?” I was elated at the thought of seeing her again after already reconciling myself that we would never meet again.

“Pyotr, No! Please don’t be foolish and reckless. Go to Moscow and wait there. Call me soon and I will try to keep you informed of the news here locally. Maybe you can work on the Zhukov again with your friends if this is all over, but please don’t go back to your apartment. Remember that they burned down your school. Why couldn’t they throw a Molotov cocktail through your window too?” she pleaded.

“OK, you’re right. I will go to Moscow on the train now and will call you tomorrow from there. Talk soon!” and with that I hung up and moved to the departure platforms to board the train.

In the excitement of the news and the chance I saw of getting my life back to normal, I forgot to act the roll of an apathetic street punk and nearly sprinted across the hall to the platforms with excitement in my smile. As I waited in a short line to have my ticket and documents checked, I looked behind me into the nearly vacant hall and pledged in my thoughts that I would be back again soon and the story about Lara would have a sequel. Perhaps all the pain and worry would pay off for me. I just had to go lay low for another week in Moscow and I could come back quietly in time for the language exams. Maybe I could go back to work on the river for the summer as Lara had suggested.

“Documents!” snapped the officer at the control station.

I handed the blue uniformed agent my train ticket and passport with my student visa and student card. He looked at the photos of me and looked at me again and did a double take. Of course, I had completely changed my appearance in the last week. My hair was short, my beard thicker every day. I was dressed like a street urchin, as Lara called it. I removed my sunglasses so he could see my eyes. The eyes always matter! I smiled. He looked down to his hidden desktop and looked over a secret list that all of us hope and never expect to be on. With nothing more than a grunt, he handed all the papers back to me and waved me through to the platforms with a nod of his head. I tucked my documents away in my backpack and passed through to the waiting train.

The conductors were busy preparing to open the doors of the third-class compartments, checking lists and handing papers back and forth to each other. I stood away from the gathering throngs waiting to board. I had learned that waiting in a line in Russia can be a long wait for usually nothing and so I avoided them as a matter of habit. I stood back and watched the old ladies elbow their way forward to be able to board first. The prerogative of a grandmother I observed. As the carriage doors opened and the conductor’s shrill whistle blew to alert the waiting crowds that their cars were now open, I felt something strike the back of my knees and launch me falling forwards to my knees. I watched my backpack skid out in front of me, sliding quickly from my shoulder to the floor as my hands instinctively moved to brace my fall. As I fell to my hands and knees, just stopping short of planting my face on the station floor, I looked behind me to see the rushing, clumsy traveler who had hit with a baggage cart in the rush to get a seat in the third-class carriage. Expecting to find an old man with thick glasses and a deeply wrinkled face I was surprised to get hit again across the top of my back with a tommy club by a man in a tacky polyester suit. My face hit the concrete floor. I could smell the grime and grease next to my nose. Before I could catch my breath and gather my wits, I had a knee in my back and my arms and hands were being pulled behind me. A hard edge of metal slapped on each wrist that gave way but circled back again to pinch painfully the bones on both arms. Handcuffs!