I reached through the rip in the underside of the bedframe — thank you, Jesus! I untaped the loaded revolver. Guns are heavier than they look, and colder. I put it in my handbag and left. I came back for my passport, and left again.
It’s true, it’s harder to get a taxi when you need one, and if you’re desperate, forget it. I walked. I shoved whatever it was that I mustn’t think about back upstream, but it kept floating down. I focused on the little things around me. I remember the cobbles on Gorokhovaya Street. I remember the smoothness of the girl’s skin, as she kissed her boy on the steps of the bronze horseman. I remember the heads of the flowers in cellophane around St Isaac’s Cathedral. I remember the tail-lights of the planes as they took off from Pulkovo airport, bound for Hong Kong or London or New York or Zurich. I remember the mauve silk of a laughing woman. I remember the maroon of a leather flying jacket. I remember the crunched-up form of a homeless person, sleeping in a coffin of cardboard. Little things. It’s all made of little things that you don’t ordinarily notice. My jaw muscles were killing me.
Jerome’s door was bolted from the inside. I banged it so loud that I set off a dog in another part of the building.
Jerome flung it open, pulled me in, and hissed. ‘Shut up!’ He locked the door and ran back over to where he was packing the picture with sheets of cardboard and brown tape and string. A suitcase was already packed, lying open on the sofa. Socks, underpants, vests, cheap vodka, a Wedgwood teapot. There was an empty bottle of gin on its side in his jukebox drinks cabinet.
I stood perfectly still. What should I do? What did I want? ‘I’m taking the picture.’
Jerome barked a laugh. He didn’t even bother to look up. ‘Are you indeed?’
‘Yes. I’m taking the picture. You see, it’s Rudi’s and my future.’
I don’t even think Jerome heard me. He was crouching over the package with his back to me. ‘Make yourself useful, my dear, and put your thumb on this bit of string while I tighten it up.’
I didn’t move. ‘I’m taking the picture!’ When Jerome turned round to ask me again he found himself looking straight into the eye of my gun. His face lost its composure and then regained it.
‘This isn’t the movies. You’re not going to use that on me. You know you’re not. Not without your puppetmaster pimp to tell you what to do. You couldn’t even shoot it straight. Now be a sensible lady, and put it down.’
I had a gun. He didn’t. So. ‘Stand away from my picture, Jerome. Go and lock yourself in your studio and you won’t get hurt.’
Jerome looked at me gently. ‘My dear, what we have here is a reality gap. It’s my picture. I painted the forgery, remember. My talents have allowed us to get this far. All you did was get undressed, lie back and open wide. Let’s face it, that’s par for the course in your line of work.’
‘Nemya died.’
‘Who’s Nemya?’
‘Nemya! Nemya, my little cat!’
‘I’m very sorry that your cat died. Truly, I’ll weep buckets for your kitty when the time comes to pay my respects, but if you will kindly put that nasty little toy away and piss off so I can finish packing my picture — do you hear me, my dear? My picture — and catch a plane out of your squalid, lying, violent, sub-zero anus of a country for which not so long ago I traded in my entire damned future—’
‘I don’t know what a reality gap is. But I know what a gun is. It’s my picture. And another thing, my name is not “My Dear”. My name is Margarita Latunsky.’
‘Evidently, my words have failed to penetrate your make-up and hairdo, you encrusted tart—’ He strode towards me, hand outstretched ready to grab—
‘It’s MY picture!’ banged the gun. Jerome’s head flipped back with enough force to lift him off his feet. Beautiful red blood splattered the ceiling. I heard it. Splatter. Jerome was still spinning, as though he’d slipped on a banana skin.
‘Margarita Latunsky,’ insisted the silence, without raising its voice.
Jerome thumped to the floor, half his face missing. Killing is a sensation, like abortion or birth, that you can never accurately imagine. Odd. What next?
‘My compliments, Miss Latunsky,’ said Suhbataar, shutting the kitchen door softly behind him. ‘Straight through his eye. Something else we have in common.’
Suhbataar?
‘Where’s Rudi?’
‘Near by.’ He smiled, and I saw dark gold. I hadn’t seen his teeth until now.
‘Where?’
‘In the kitchen.’ Suhbataar jerked his thumb over his shoulder.
It’s going to be all right! Tears of relief welled up. We’ll be in Switzerland by tomorrow night! ‘Thank God, thank God, I — I didn’t know — I — Nemya’s dead — Mr Suhbataar, I hope you understand about Jerome...’
‘I understand, Margarita. You did Rudi a favour, too. The English are a devious race. A nation of homosexuals, vegetarians, and third-rate spies. This one—’ Suhbataar shunted Jerome’s half-head over with the tip of his boot — ‘was planning to sell you, me, Rudi, even Mr Gregorski, all up the river.’
Rudi was safe! I ran to the kitchen, and pushed open the door. Rudi was slumped over the kitchen table, still in his cleaning-company overalls. Drunk at a time like this! I love him with every minute of my life, but this is not a good time to hit the vodka!
‘Rudi, darling, wake up now—’
I shook his shoulders and his head tipped up and over at an impossible angle, just like Jerome’s had. I saw his face. My jagged scream ended as abruptly as it had begun. It broke over the city. Yes, it has been falling for a long time. The rumble in my head will never die, until earth kisses my ears and eyes shut. Frothing tapeworms of blood were wriggling free from my lover’s eyes and nostrils. White as suet, white as suet.
Suhbataar spoke from the living room in an unhurried tone. ‘You will have to postpone your sojourn together in Switzerland...’
Gravelly vomit had completely caked up Rudi’s mouth.
‘...permanently. I’m sorry about your boudoir, your chalet and your children.’
Me, this... Rudi, and Suhbataar’s voice, nothing else existed.
‘Rudi!’ Somebody else was speaking for me.
Suhbataar’s voice shrugged. ‘Regrettably, Rudi was planning to sell us up the very same river. Mr Gregorski couldn’t let that happen. He has his reputation to protect. So he called me in, to test everyone’s honesty. The results were less than satisfactory.’
‘No. No.’
‘Mr Gregorski’s suspicions were aroused when your boyfriend “lost” a wall of money he was laundering through a reputable Hong Kong law firm, and the only excuse he could come up with was that his contact there suddenly dropped dead of diabetes! Dishonesty coupled with a lack of invention is fatal for little crooks.’
Something crunched under my shoe. Bits of a syringe.
Hell is tiled. The fridge motor shuddered off.
Logic shrieked in. Maybe there was time. ‘Ambulance!’
‘An ambulance isn’t going to help Rudi, Miss Latunsky. He’s dead. Not just a little bit dead. He’s extremely dead. It would seem that the embittered traitor-forger Jerome laced his celebratory heroin with rat poison.’
His dear eyes. Rudi slid, and slumped off the chair onto the floor. I heard his nose snap. I fled back into the living room, tripped over something and fell to my knees, trying to claw back to yesterday through the pattern in the carpet. It was all too horrible for tears. Something dug between my knuckes. The gun. The gun.
Suhbataar was buttoning up his long leather coat.
Jerome was lying on his back doused in his own blood, just a few paces away.
And Rudi in the kitchen, with a broken nose.
How had all this come about? Only one hour ago we were in the back of a van and I had wanted Rudi inside me.