Dancing with Bears (17 page)

Finally, Zoësophia lay down alongside Surplus, with one hand around his root, so that he could not awaken without her knowing of it. The first thing in the morning, she would dictate terms. For now, she could enjoy her beauty sleep with a clean conscience and a sense of a job well done.

The carriage climbed toward the estate’s hedge-wall, swaying on its springs so that the manor house behind it seemed to dance in the starry night sky. Gentle strains of music could be heard in the distance, for the baronessa’s guests were dancing now, their eyes still afire with the divine Spirit and their souls at peace with all humanity. Arkady had climbed into the carriage with the warmth of the drug dying down within him and his back stinging from the comradely slaps of the men. He could still feel the swift farewell kisses and furtive squeezes of his stones bestowed on him by the women. The carriage cushions were soft, and there was a bucket of iced champagne, should he feel the urge for a drink on his way home. By slow degrees the last embers of indwelling sanctity were fading gently to ash.

How stupid of him to have taken the rasputin immediately after dinner, rather than waiting for the orgy to begin, as the others had! Had it only been otherwise, Arkady would even now be laughing, dancing, gossiping about the ways of angels with his erstwhile comrades in lust. He would be engaged in the pleasant après-sex social activities with which the aristocracy customarily eased the transition from ardor back to everyday life.

He would not now be alone with his thoughts. With his memories. With the images that, try though he might, he could not dispel from his mind. He would not be tormented by the horrific knowledge of what he had done.

In the carriage’s dark interior, Arkady wept bitterly.

...8...

T
he merchant from Suzdal strolled down Teatralny proezd, tapping his cane on the sidewalk in time with a hummed tune. Idly, he noted a string of posters pasted one after the other on the lantern-poles lining the street:

LOST

Diamond Necklace with Gold Leaf Clasp

in the vicinity of Red Square

5000 SILVER RUBLES REWARD!!!

Apply to A. Kozlenok, Hotel New Metropol

Five thousand rubles was good money for whatever lucky soul found the bauble and was honest enough to return it—more, indeed, than the merchant normally earned in a month. However, this business trip had been an exceptionally profitable one; he had sold all the house-gourd seeds he had brought at a considerable markup—word had not yet reached Moscow of the fast-spreading blight that would attack and kill the gourds before they reached bungalow size—and so he could contemplate the necklace without suffering too greatly the pangs of avarice.

Nevertheless, he could not refrain from peering into the gutters in the furtive hope of seeing a diamondy glitter.

He was thus occupied when, abruptly and without warning, a street urchin slammed into him, almost knocking him to the ground and sending his cane clattering onto the sidewalk.

Clapping one hand to his wallet (for he was well acquainted with the tricks of pick-pockets), the merchant snatched up his cane and rounded upon the young rascal, prepared to thrash him soundly for his insolence. But the face that the child lifted to him was streaked with tears and his expression so distraught that the merchant stayed his wrath and asked, “Are you in pain?”

“Mister, you got to help me.” The waif pointed to the Hotel New Metropol. “The doorman there won’t let me in.”

The merchant, who was himself staying at that very hotel, could not help feel a twinge of amusement. “I should hope not. You’d track mud on the carpets and leave stains on everything you touched.”

“But I
gotta
get in!”

“Oh? And why is that?”

To the merchant’s astonishment, the boy reached into his jacket and pulled out a diamond necklace. It was only exposed for an instant before being stuffed back away, but that was long enough for him to see the leaf-shaped gold clasp. “I found the necklace fair and square. But I can’t get in to see the guy what’s offering the reward. That bastard doorman won’t even let me tell him what I want.”

“Yes, well, naturally he—”

The boy’s face twisted, as if he had just come to a desperate decision. “Look, mister, get me in and I’ll split the reward with you, fifty-fifty. That’s fair, ain’t it? Twenty-five katies for me and twenty-five for you. That’s an easy day’s work. C’mon, waddaya say?”

The merchant contemplated the boy solemnly. “There is no way that one such as you would be allowed into a decent hotel under any circumstances whatsoever. However, if I may suggest it, I can take the necklace in for you and bring you back your half of the reward.” He stuck out his hand.

But the urchin skittered back from him, eyes glittering with alarm. “Hey, what’re you trying to pull? I’m not stupid. If I give you the necklace, that’s the last I’ll ever see of you. I made you a good offer. You ain’t got no reason to rip me off.”

Affronted, the merchant said, “I was merely trying to help.”

“Yeah, right!” the boy sneered. “Trying to help yourself. I know your kind.” With each retort, he moved a little further away. His body was so tense it quivered. At any moment he would break and run, and the merchant would never see the necklace again.

“Wait, wait, wait a moment,” the merchant said soothingly. “Let’s see if we can’t settle this contretemps amicably.” He thought furiously. “Suppose I were to give you your half of the reward in exchange for the necklace up front? Then you wouldn’t have to trust me. I’ll bring the necklace to its owner and collect the full reward, and we’ll both be ahead by two and a half thousand rubles. Twenty-five ‘katies,’ as you called them.”

The boy’s face worked suspiciously. “Let’s see the color of your money.”

The merchant positioned himself with his back to the nearest building and looked around carefully before withdrawing his billfold from an inner pocket of his coat. Then he counted out two thousand-ruble notes and five hundreds. “Here.” He extended the bills, then pulled them back as the child made a grab for them. “We’ll exchange the money and the necklace simultaneously, if you please.”

Warily, the boy held out the diamond necklace in one hand and reached for the money with the other. Each of the two moved suddenly, hands striking like snakes, and when they stepped apart, the merchant held the necklace and the boy the banknotes. Both grinned with relief.

“You treated me square, mister,” the urchin said. “I guess you ain’t such a bad sort after all.” Then, shoving the money deep into his pocket, he turned and ran. Within seconds he was nowhere to be seen.

His good mood restored, the merchant headed toward the New Metropol. But as he did, he could not help reflecting on the original owner’s carelessness. Five thousand rubles was surely a mere fraction of the necklace’s value—so the greatest profit today would be made by the man who cared so little for his valuables that he flung them into the streets of Moscow without a second thought. The more consideration he gave the matter, the more monstrous this fellow became. Such a man’s wealth was surely inherited, for one who had earned it himself would, as the merchant knew from experience, keep the tightest of grips upon it. So. This self-centered profligate, this despoiler of his father’s hard-earned fortune, sauntered about Moscow, doubtless drunk (for otherwise he would not have been so haphazard with a possession worth so much), simply flinging his property away. Did such a man deserve such riches?

The question answered itself.

Thus, when he came to the hotel, the merchant kept right on walking. He was not far from the jeweler’s district. There would be pawn shops there that would offer him a better percentage of the thing’s value than he was likely to get from its former owner.

“He did everything like you said he would,” Oleg, the smallest of Kyril’s gang of bandits, said. “As soon as Kyril’s out of sight, he goes straight to a pawnshop.”

“Then he comes out cursing and calling the pawnbroker a crook,” Lev interjected.

Stephan shoved Lev aside. “And, and, and then he goes into a second pawnshop. And, and then a third.”

“So finally he goes back to the New Metropol and when he comes out, he’s so mad he rips one of the posters off the lantern-post and throws it on the ground and stomps on it,” finished Dmitri.

“Did he throw away the necklace?” Darger asked. “Did you pick it up?”

“Naw,” Oleg said. “He just goes back into the hotel and don’t come back out.”

“A pity.” Darger put down the book he’d been reading and without rising from his chair said, “All right, Kyril, it’s reckoning time. Let’s see how much you took him for.”

Kyril presented him with a thick stack of banknotes. Darger ran a thumb down one corner and then snapped his fingers three times briskly. “All of it.”

With obvious reluctance, Kyril produced several more bills.

Darger neatened the edges, and then peeled off five hundred-ruble notes from the top. “This much goes to repay me for the necklace. It may have been paste, but it was of excellent quality for its sort.” He placed them in his billfold. “That leaves two thousand rubles. Since you ran the operation and took the lion’s share of the risks, Kyril, you are entitled to half. The rest of it will be doled out in equal shares to your confederates. All right, lads, line up.”

Grinning and elbowing each other, Oleg, Lev, Stephan, and Dmitri formed a short line and received two hundred fifty rubles each. When the last had been paid, the bandits ducked under the fallen girder that had made a breach in one wall, anxious to be on their way to the surface where they could squander every kopeck of their new-won wealth. Leaving the library empty save for Darger and Kyril.

Darger picked up his book, adjusted the oil lamp, and said, “Listen to this:

“Summer will be ours, if you but say you love me,

Night-hawks flitting under the stars

And jasmine perfuming your skin.

If not, winter. And I—”

“I don’t see why I had to pay them so much. They didn’t do nothing but put up a bunch of posters, and keep an eye out for the goats. I did all the fucking work.”

With a sigh, Darger shut his book again. “Admittedly, my paraphrase from Sappho’s impeccable Greek was a touch rough. But you had the opportunity to hear a poem that was long believed to be lost forever, and you brushed it aside simply to whinge that your comrades weren’t pulling their weight.”

“Well, they ain’t.”

“I promised to show you how to live by your wits, and here are the first fruits of my teachings.” Darger tapped the stack of bills with his fingertip.

“More money than you’ve ever had in your entire life, earned in less than an hour. A wise young man would take this as a sign that his mentor was worth listening to.”

Angrily, Kyril said, “Maybe you know a few good tricks, but that don’t mean you’re any smarter than me.”

“Oh? Then how did I trick you into bringing me
here?
” Darger waved a hand to take in all of the library: the shelves of books—stacked sideways in the Medieval manner—that stretched from floor to ceiling and dwindled into the gloom, and the honeycombs of scrolled parchment and papyrus texts, as well as the solid wooden tables, chairs, and other library furnishings, beneath which the children had made their beds.

“What? You already knew all about it…didn’t you?”

“I did not. But when we first came here, you may remember that I kept a hand on your shoulder in an avuncular manner.”

“I thought you was just keeping me from running away.”

“Of course not, you had nowhere to go. No, I was reading you. Whenever we came to a turn and your muscles tensed up, I would say, “We turn here.” Then your eyes would dart in the direction you normally went, and in that direction I would go. By such small shifts and stratagems, I allowed you to lead me right here.”

The boy spat out an unfamiliar word. Doubtless slang, and doubtless obscene.

“Exactly. Now, you want to know why I insisted you be so generous to your friends. And, though you have not asked, you are wondering why I directed you to have the thousand-ruble notes converted to small bills.”

“Yeah. The bastard at the bank made me give him twenty rubles for doing it, too. So why?”

“As for your friends, simply because they
are
your friends. The man who lives by his skill and his wits must be able to trust his business associates and they him. When the swag is swept up at the end of the game, and everyone scatters, they all must know that their share of the take is as safe as houses. Otherwise your plans will fall apart in your hands. You see?”

“I… guess so. What about changing the bills?”

“Watch and learn.” Darger picked up the stack of bills and placed them in his billfold. “Now the game you just played, the Pigeon Drop, is a reliable money-maker in skilled hands, which works well with a necklace, a painting, or any similar prop. It can also be used with a lost wallet. Simply fan out the money like this, with the thousand-ruble note on top, and it will look like a fortune. Indeed, the other notes can be cut from newspaper, if you like. Though that requires that you wrap up the wallet like a package with your handkerchief and string before handing it over, to prevent the mark from examining the bills himself. Luckily, by that point he will be so blinded by avarice that he will not be thinking clearly. You can tell him it’s to keep him from stealing the money, and he won’t argue.” He extracted the money again and rolled it up into a wad. “For other games, it’s best you keep the money in a roll. It looks eye-popping”—he put it into a pocket and then pulled it out, giving Kyril only a brief glimpse before hiding it away again—“and, like a well-proportioned woman giving a mark the merest flash of forbidden flesh, wrests control of his thoughts away from the rational parts of his mind.”

From an inner pocket of his jacket, Darger extracted a small sewing kit. He measured out a length of black thread, bit it off, and tied it around the wad. Sternly, he said, “You must not spend this. It is a tool which, properly employed, will bring you in much more money. And
that
you may then spend.”