Die for Me Read online

  “Exactly. We’ve got to find a solution that doesn’t involve killing the bodyguards or any of the other soldiers. Dasha will never be able to keep the gang’s trust and loyalty if they know she’s been responsible for the death of their colleagues. Basically, we’ve got to get the Pakhan alone, and eliminate him without anyone seeing.”

  “He’s alone in the banya, we know that. And defenseless.”

  “And how do you suggest that I, or we, get into the bathhouse? On the days he goes it’s men only.”

  “There must be a way.”

  Oxana frowns. “I spent hours in there on one of the women’s days. I know the layout of the entire place. I checked out cupboards, ceiling cavities, ventilation ducts, everything like that, and there’s literally nowhere to hide. The place is well over a hundred years old, built in Tsarist times, with mosaics and classical statues. And there are customers everywhere.”

  “Naked guys with towels around their waists.”

  “Well, women on the day I was there. But yeah.”

  “So no guns.”

  “It’s next to impossible to conceal a gun in a bathhouse.”

  “Tell me the routine again.”

  “Why?”

  “Oxana, please, just tell me.”

  “OK. You go in through the street entrance, pay your money at the ticket desk, and go into a big changing room with lockers, where you leave your clothes and collect your towel. Then you go through to the steam rooms. These have fireboxes in them, like giant ovens with hot rocks inside, and wooden benches round the walls where you sit. There’s a bucket, which you fill from a tap and pour into the firebox through a hole. This produces the steam which raises the heat.”

  “Like a sauna?”

  “Same. Except everything’s bigger. And it’s more sociable than a European sauna, where everyone just sits in silence. Then there’s a kind of cooling-off room with steel pillars and marble slabs where you can get a massage, and people smack each other with birch twigs, which is supposed to be good for the circulation.” Oxana folds her arms. “Eve, you know all this, I’ve described it to you before.”

  “I know you have. Tell me again. I’m just trying to figure something out.”

  “OK, there’s also a room with a small plunge pool.”

  “Hot or cold?”

  “Cold. You go there from the steam room.”

  “How big is it?”

  “It’s just for one person. About a meter and a half deep.”

  “What else does the place offer?”

  “There’s a tea room with a samovar. You can get cakes and blinis and stuff.”

  “Good quality?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “What did you have?”

  “A slice of Napoleon cake.”

  “Just one slice?”

  “OK, two.”

  “So you wouldn’t mind necessarily going back there? And taking me?”

  “No. But since we’re never going to get in there on a men’s day, I don’t see the point.”

  “Bear with me, OK? I’ve got an idea.”

  “I’m listening.”

  So I tell her. Afterward she sits there for a minute, unmoving. Then she walks slowly but agitatedly to the window, making fluttering gestures with her fingers.

  “What do you think?”

  She turns round. “It could work. If Dasha can get us everything we need, it could definitely work.”

  “But?”

  “But it would take both of us. You’d have to be part of it. So…”

  “So?”

  “Are you ready to do it? Killing’s a one-way door. There’s no going back.”

  “I’m ready.”

  She stares at me for a heartbeat, and nods. “OK.”

  “Oxana?”

  “Yes?”

  “Try not to be such a bitch. We could be a good team.”

  “Fine. Run that bath.”

  With the plan finalized, and the arrangements made, Oxana and I suddenly have time on our hands. We go for long walks together, especially in Kupchino, the outlying district from which Dasha’s gang gets its name. It’s a tough place, a wilderness of deteriorating concrete housing blocks intersected by motorway viaducts and frozen canals. Cut off from the city by an industrial sprawl to the north, the windy streets resemble an abandoned moon colony, but with little sign of a police presence or CCTV cameras we feel safe here. This is Dasha’s fiefdom, and when the monolithic gray outlines of the housing blocks soften in the rose-pink twilight at the end of the day, it’s almost beautiful.

  Much of our walking is done in silence. Sometimes we don’t speak for an hour, just march side by side beneath cold skies criss-crossed with power and tram cables. We are learning each other. Sometimes I look at her and she’s there with me, fully present; sometimes she’s blank-eyed, in a dimension all her own. She’s trying hard to be considerate, even though it doesn’t come at all naturally to her. So she’ll suddenly stop beside me on the pavement and gently wipe the snow from my face with her gloved hand, or ask me odd, sweet questions like whether I’m happy, or want a cup of tea. Seeing the determined, slightly perplexed look in her eyes at these moments I want to hug her, but I know that this would infringe her rules about attracting attention in public. So I tell her, truthfully, that I’m happy. I don’t think about the killing that lies ahead. I think about now, and the two of us, and the tiny, elusive glimmer of her kindness.

  It’s Monday, nine days later, and Dasha has just learned that the Pakhan has ordered his driver to take him from the apartment on Malaya Balkanskaya directly to the Elizarova banya. This works well for Oxana and me. We have everything we need in place, and it’s already snowing heavily this afternoon, which will compromise the effectiveness of the CCTV cameras in the streets surrounding the bathhouse.

  We leave the apartment at midday for Kupchino station, and take the Metro two stops northwards to Moskovskaya. Our vehicle is waiting for us outside Alfa Bank, as agreed. It’s a Gazelle ambulance, about ten years old, with the interior fixtures stripped out but with emergency lights and siren still in place. According to Dasha, “ambulance-taxis” like this one are regularly hired by wealthy business types who want to beat St. Petersburg’s traffic jams and get to meetings on time. With their sirens blaring and their lights blazing, they can thread their way through the worst gridlocks.

  Pulling on latex gloves we take the keys from the top of the rear wheel, where the owner has left them, and open up the Gazelle. After checking the equipment, we change into official blue ambulance-crew uniforms, and pull on our wigs and cotton caps. Oxana’s wig is a garish henna-red, mine peroxide blond. Oxana drives. We’ve left ourselves plenty of time, so she takes the slow lane on the eastbound motorway, impassively negotiating the busy traffic. She radiates calm, her eyes betraying nothing except anticipation. As for me, I’m all over the place. One moment I’m intensely focused, with my surroundings vibrant and pin-sharp. The next everything is flat and two-dimensional, and I’m so distanced from events it’s as if my life is being lived by someone else.

  We’re in position by quarter to two. Oxana parks in the narrow street that runs alongside the Elizarova banya, thirty meters from the entrance, and we put our feet up on the dashboard and wait for the Pakhan’s arrival. My heart is slamming in my chest, and I feel weightless and nauseated. He arrives just two minutes before two o’clock, climbing from a black Mercedes SUV, and I switch on my phone to access the app controlling the microcamera that we planted in the bathhouse three days ago. The motion-activated camera is the size of my thumbnail, and it’s held in place by a blob of chewing gum the size of a cherry stone.

  To my horror I get a low-battery warning on the phone. Three percent charge remaining. Fuck. I tell Oxana, my heart sinking. She doesn’t waste time getting angry with me for forgetting to recharge it, but just nods, all focus. The seconds and minutes crawl past, agonizingly slowly. Two percent battery charge left. The Pakhan will not visit the plunge pool, where the cam
era is hidden, until he has been through all the steam rooms. I touch the app icon, and a grainy image of the pool fills the phone screen. There’s someone in the pool, a big guy, wallowing like a whale, and definitely not the Pakhan. He hauls himself out and vanishes. His place is taken by two older men who descend the ladder one by one, briefly immerse themselves, and leave.

  There’s now one percent of the battery charge remaining, and the pool’s empty. Another few minutes and the phone’s going to die. I feel sick with dread. Fear of letting Oxana down has eclipsed all thought of our real purpose here. We stare at the tiny screen. Oxana’s breathing is steady. Her wig, which smells of ancient sweat, tickles my cheek. A figure enters the microcamera’s field at the same moment that the screen goes black.

  “Go,” says Oxana, grabbing the first-aid pack and the medication bag. “Go, go, go.”

  I take a firm grip on the defibrillator unit. It’s the monophasic type, at least twenty years old, and heavy. Oxana pushes open the side door of the Gazelle, we hit the pavement running, and seconds later burst through the entrance of the banya. There are two male reception staff sitting at a desk behind a low pile of folded towels. Seeing us they half-rise, and Oxana yells at them to stay where they are. They look uncertain, but our uniforms represent officialdom, and they obey.

  Oxana leads the way, marching briskly through the changing room, ignoring the half-naked figures who freeze with surprise at the sight of us, and into the wet-floored steam rooms. Here, again, everyone stares and no one moves. The choking heat makes my scalp run with sweat, and my glasses steam up so that I can’t see where I’m going. Grabbing my arm, Oxana drags me into the cold plunge area, I wipe my glasses on my shirt, and there’s the Pakhan, alone and naked, submerged up to his chest in the small marble pool. He has an impressive range of faded tattoos, including a knife through his neck, eight-pointed stars on his collarbones, and epaulets on his shoulders.

  “Are you all right?” I ask him breathlessly. “We had a 112 call.”

  He gapes at me, understanding neither the situation nor, probably, my shaky Russian. Oxana, meanwhile, drops everything she’s carrying, and attends to the defibrillator.

  “I’m fine,” the Pakhan says, smiling. “There’s been some mistake.”

  “Our apologies,” Oxana murmurs, and touches the defibrillator paddles to the surface of the water. The Pakhan shudders, his eyes widen, and he slips sideways onto his back, his legs trailing underwater. His face turns the color of putty, and his lips bluish-gray. His fingers twitch and grasp feebly at the water. His hands, I notice, are quite small for a man who has killed several people with an ax.

  “Bit more?” I suggest.

  “Stand back,” Oxana says, and gives him another jolt of electricity.

  Still Dzabrati doesn’t die. Instead he lies there open-mouthed, pillowed by water, staring at me sadly as if disappointed by my choice of wig. So I kneel, take Oxana’s wrist with one hand to steady myself, and hold his head underwater with the other until the bubbles stop coming. It’s nothing much. I don’t even have to push very hard.

  I’m still kneeling there when, with a wet slap of plastic sandals, the two reception staff arrive. “I think he’s had a heart attack,” Oxana explains. “We’re trying to get him out. Can you help?”

  One of the men descends the ladder into the water, and between them they manhandle the Pakhan’s naked body onto the tiled floor. As they do so Oxana discreetly reaches up and removes the micro camera from the top of the door frame. Kneeling beside the wet body of the Pakhan, I go through the motions of attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation. To no one’s surprise, it doesn’t work.

  An hour later, Oxana and I are walking away from the ambulance, which we’ve left outside Alfa Bank in Moskovskaya, where we found it. We’re back in our own clothes. The ambulance service uniforms, the wigs and the medical equipment have been tossed into the back of one of the city’s garbage trucks, and are now on their way to a landfill site.

  “I’m really sorry about the phone…” I begin, but Oxana is in an affectionate, almost light-headed mood. I’m wearing my black and yellow sweater under my leather jacket and she calls me pchelka, her bee. “You were so good,” she says, slipping her arm through mine and dancing us down Moskovsky Avenue toward the Metro. “You really kept your shit together. I’m super-proud of you.”

  Deciding that she’s hungry, Oxana steers us into a half-empty McDonald’s, where we order Happy Meals. “People think that there’s this hard border between life and death,” she says, cramming fries into her mouth. “But it’s not like that at all. There’s this whole area in between. It’s fascinating.”

  I unwrap my burger. Our faces are inches apart. “Did Dasha say when she could get us the papers and the money?”

  “Yes. This week.”

  “So do we have a plan?”

  “Yes, we absolutely do.”

  “What is it?”

  “You have to trust me, pchelka.”

  “No, you have to trust me, remember?”

  “Oh yes, so I do. OK, well… Can we talk about it this evening?”

  “Why not now?”

  I feel a hand slip under my sweater, and fingers tweaking my waist.

  “That’s not an answer. And stop pinching my fat.”

  “I love your fat.”

  “What about the rest of me?”

  “Hmm…” She half-turns. “Oh my goodness, look at that face. I’m teasing you.”

  “Funny girl. So what shall we do?”

  Her hand continues its exploration. I feel the tip of a finger probing my belly button. “Let’s go back to the apartment.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  I take a bite of my burger. The greasy smell hangs in the air between us. “It’s not really about me, though, is it? It’s what we did in the banya that’s making you want sex.”

  “Honestly? It’s both.” She wipes her chin with a paper napkin.

  “So what is it that excites you about killing that nasty old fucker? I mean, it was pretty disgusting.”

  “This hamburger’s pretty disgusting, pupsik, but sometimes that’s exactly what you want. You can’t live on beluga caviar.”

  “Go on.”

  “Killing people like the Pakhan makes me feel powerful. Konstantin always used to say: ‘You’re an instrument of destiny.’ And I loved that. I love that I’ve changed history, and that if it wasn’t for me the world would be a different place. Because in the end, that’s what we all dream of doing, isn’t it? Making a difference?”

  Half a dozen blue-uniformed Politsiya officers swagger in, give a cursory glance around the restaurant, and start eyeing up the women at the serving counter. “Don’t look at them,” murmurs Oxana, surreptitiously sliding her hand from under my sweater, and I transfer my gaze to a copy of Izvestia that someone’s left on the table. The lead story is about the upcoming New Year summit talks in Moscow between the Russian and U.S. presidents.

  One of the cops saunters over. “Afternoon off work?” He’s a mean-looking type with a bad shaving rash.

  “Tourists,” says Oxana in English. “Ne govorim po Russki.” Her accent is comically awful.

  “Vy amerikanki?”

  “British.”

  “Pasport?”

  “At the hotel. Four Seasons. Sozhaleyu. Sorry.”

  He nods and joins the others.

  “Motherfucker,” Oxana whispers. “We shouldn’t have come in here. I think they bought the tourist story, but that could have ended badly. We’ve got to be more careful.”

  The Politsiya officers mill around for a few minutes, attempt desultory banter with the female staff, pull out their phones and take selfies, and leave.

  “What were they doing in here?” Oxana mutters. “What the fuck were they doing, taking those photos? Did you notice that they didn’t get any food? Or even a drink?”

  “They were just getting in out of the cold for a minute, and checking out the girls.�
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  “Maybe. I hope so.”

  “You know what I’d really like to do?” I tell her. “I’d like to go into the city center. St. Petersburg has got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and I’ve dreamed of visiting it for ages, especially in winter. The palaces, the art galleries… Just to walk down the streets, and see the frozen Neva river. It must be so magical.”

  “I know. I’d love to see it all too. And one day we will. But right now the center’s too dangerous. There’s mass-surveillance tech everywhere—CCTV, facial recognition scanners, all that stuff—and we have to assume the Twelve are monitoring it and have flags out for us. And that goes for every big city in the world. For now, we’ve got to stick to outlying areas.”

  “Promise me we’ll come back one day, and explore it together. Promise me that.”

  “OK.”

  “Say it. I promise…”

  “I promise that we’ll come back to St. Petersburg, and walk together by the Neva—”

  “In winter, in the snow.”

  “Yes, in winter. In the snow.”

  “You really and truly promise?”

  “I really and truly promise. But you have to promise me something too.”

  “What?”

  “You have to trust me. I mean really trust me, despite the…”

  “Psychopath thing?”

  “Yes, despite that. Even if things get really bad.”

  “Villa… Oxana, you’re frightening me. What do you mean?”

  “I mean trust me. That’s all.”

  “I’m scared now.”

  “Don’t be. Let’s do what we should have done an hour ago, and go back to the apartment and have sex.”

  “My silver-tongued girlfriend.”

  “What’s that about my tongue?”

  “It’s an English expression. It means you have a way with words. You know how to talk a woman into bed.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So what would you have done if I’d said no. If we’d run away together and all that and then I’d refused to do it.”

  “Do it?”

  “Sleep with you. Have sex. Be your girlfriend.”

  “I always knew you’d do all of those things.”