Siren of the Waters: A Jana Matinova Investigation, Vol. 2 (30 page)

When the toasts ended with the crowd’s roars of approval and the smashing of glasses, the more decadent phase of the party began. There was erotic dancing, sexual games in the corridors and on the stairways, behind the drapes and anywhere there was a nook where bodies could come together. No one was abashed enough to stop, and nobody was offended enough not to look on, to see if there was anything new to learn or be entertained by.

It was very late. The diehards who still refused to leave the ballroom floor were being serenaded by the remnants of the orchestra, three musicians whose notes creaked out of their instruments sounding even more fatigued than they were.

Jana continued to watch the proceedings from the stairs. Levitin leaned against the wall, his eyes never leaving Sasha. When Katka attacked Jana, Jeremy had frantically pulled his wife away, quieting her, making embarrassed gestures and noises at Jana, none of which made up for the terrible moment. The other ball guests attributed the scene to too much alcohol, and the event was passed over.

Jana retreated to the stairs. Moira ignored her. Jana continued looking at the table where Katka, Jeremy, and, particularly, Moira Simmons sat. There was an inconsistency in the personality the woman projected. Jana was aware of it now. It was the reason Jana had not taken her advice to stay away from Katka. In fact, it had goaded her on.

A picture kept coming back to Jana. Grisko had seen Koba kill a man by driving an ice pick through his eye. Grisko himself could do nothing, not even arrest Koba, after the event because, as he described it, a pretty woman had been holding a gun to his head.

Moira Simmons kept flashing through her thoughts. The pretty young woman holding the gun to Grisko’s head? No evidence; just a feeling. People like Koba and the woman who had held the gun to Grisko’s head always found each other.

Jana pushed the idea away. There was no proof at all. There was nothing about Moira Simmons that suggested the ability to commit terrible crimes and not feel a qualm. Koba’s accomplice would have to be like that. The woman who had come to Jana’s room, huddled in her bed, crying, was not like that. Although there was the story of her past. . . . Jana repressed her speculation about Moira. Now that she had destroyed the possibility of reconciling with her daughter, she was looking for someone else to blame. This was not right.

Katka and her husband were absorbed in quiet conversation at their table. Moira sat slightly apart from them. Abruptly, her cell phone rang, startling everyone.

It would have been muffled in the great press of people in the ballroom earlier in the evening, but now its theme song could be heard across the room. Moira listened briefly, then put the phone away. The three of them stood and walked out. The women had not even checked their appearance. The sudden departure after the call suggested to Jana that they had been given a signal to leave.

This was a cue for her and Levitin to depart as well. “Time for us to move.”

Without responding to Jana, Levitin started toward Sasha, passing the few remaining dancers, stopping just short of the dais where Sasha was enthroned just as one of the liveried servants approached to hand her a small envelope.

Levitin talked to her while she was opening the envelope. “I’ve come to help, Sasha.” He stopped, struggling with his voice, which threatened to break from too much emotion. “I am so glad you are alive and well. We have looked for you everywhere. I love you; everyone loves you.” He stopped, shaking his head, trying to find words. When he began again his voice was husky, soft, a whispered plea. “We can go back. We will find you a secret place, a safe place. I beg you to forgive me, to forgive the family for what you think we may have done. All of us.” He gathered himself. “No. I, particularly, want you to come home. Come back with your big brother.”

Sasha finished reading the note, let Levitin finish his plea, then stepped down from the small platform to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“I love you, Brother. No matter what, I will always love you.”

The orchestra used the princess’s descent from the throne as the signal to stop playing. Management took the opportunity to blink the lights signaling the end of the evening. The ballroom took on a deep after-party hush. The ball was over.

Levitin tried to hug Sasha, but she held the envelope out, stopping him. He took the note and read it. “Go back to the Negresco. Levitin later.”

“You were sweet to look for me, Brother. I remember all your kindnesses and all your affection. Now, you have to leave me.”

“Sasha, come with me. You can’t go on like this. We can protect you.”

He tried to take her hand. She looked him in the eye for a brief second, then used her other hand to push his away.

“Obey the note.” There was no questioning her tone. The matter was closed. Sasha walked off. A footman brought her coat and scarf, the last of the guests bowing to her, and with a majestic flourish, she swept out of the doors, the last of the royal Romanoffs.

Levitin stared after her, dejected, wondering what to do. Jana took the note from his hand. After she’d read it, she stuffed it in the breast pocket of his tuxedo.

“The note is clear. We meet her at the hotel, later. This is not the time to grieve.”

Levitin stared at Jana blankly. Jana made a fist and punched him hard on the chest. He gasped, but his eyes focused on Jana.

“Later! She’s still out there dangling like a piece of fruit for someone to pick. I think that’s what he wants,” Jana said.

“Who wants?”

“Koba wants to see who tries to pluck the lady. Then he plucks them. That’s his game.”

Levitin considered. “Is he expecting to pluck Moira Simmons?”

“Maybe; then again, maybe not. She kept staring at Sasha. That is something to conjecture about.”

“I was too busy looking at Sasha myself to notice.”

“Your sister is the one everybody seems to be hunting. She’s the reason for the murder of the little old lady.”

Levitin thought about his sister being in danger.

“Sasha’s been through too much already in her life. How can we help?”

“We need to think. But I’m too tired to exercise my mind.”

Jana looked toward the grand entrance to the ballroom. There were two large but nondescript men, dressed very unlike the celebrants, standing by the entrance. The men could have been hired for the night as bouncers to take charge of too-aggressive guests. Except that there was no reason for them to remain at the ball when virtually all of the celebrants had departed. Jana’s police instincts stirred.

She led the way as she and Levitin walked into one of the anterooms. A champagne bottle was on the floor next to a pair of stockings. Levitin pointed to the stockings. “She’ll wonder what happened to her silk hose in the morning.”

“She’ll know exactly what happened to them, and probably be very happy that it did.” The French doors to a small balcony at the end of the chamber were open. The two of them stepped onto it.

“I think there is someone we don’t wish to meet waiting for us at the main entrance,” Jana suggested.

Levitin nodded agreement. “The two men at the front.”

“You feel the same undercurrent I do?”

Levitin nodded.

“We’ll leave a different way,” Jana suggested.

She examined the wall at the end of the railing. A thick plastic-covered electrical conduit ran down the building. Jana removed her pumps, put them in the inside jacket pockets of Levitin’s tuxedo, then climbed onto the balcony railing, grasped the conduit, and quickly, hand over hand, worked her way to the ground. Levitin was right behind her.

T
he streets were empty. It was too late to be out even on a Carnival night except for the occasional drunk or the married man hurrying home from the wrong woman’s bed. Vacant as it appeared, the city loomed as a single dark body, an uneasy, inhuman shape that was amorphously threatening. Directions were lost, north became south; there were no familiar landmarks, and all shadows were enemies. The two of them felt the urgent need to find even the smallest recognizable guidepost.

Jana and Levitin scurried along the Rue de la Buffa. The stores that had earlier been so full of life now were dead-eyed, closed. They finally passed a pair of glowering street cops who pointed the way to the Palais de Justice area and the approximate location of the nearest police station. Jana reasoned that there was nothing like a short stay in a police station to discourage even a persistent street thug. If necessary, under Inspector Vachon’s aegis, they could remain until the late morning, then head over to the Negresco to find Sasha.

“We’re going in the right direction.”

“Why would they have men waiting for us at the main entrance?” Levitin asked Jana.

“I think we have been placed in the ‘dangerous’ category by one or more of the generals in this battle. Basically, they are all thugs. Thugs always respond the same way when they see a threat: Kill or maim.”

“Maybe we misread those men at the ball?”

“It would be nice to be wrong about them. Unfortunately, there is a small part of my mind that keeps telling me to hurry and get to a safe place before they catch up with us.”

Jana surveyed the area, no longer sure they had correctly followed the cops’ directions to the police station. “I think we go down here.”

Jana pointed; Levitin hesitated. “I don’t know, so that way is as good as any,” he concluded.

They trotted in the direction Jana had pointed.

“Multiple competitors are fighting over Koba, a corpse that may very well not be dead.”

“Everyone is jockeying for position.”

They reached Place Messina, and Levitin heaved a sigh of relief. “I know this place.”

“The main Carnival area.” They cut diagonally across the square.

“We have talked about the book that I took from the apartment in Bratislava that was hidden, but not really hidden, under a couch. Ask yourself one additional question: Whoever left the book wanted someone to find it. Why?”

“Must there be some logical answer?”

“Why us? We’re the police. Why the police? Maybe we acted too quickly in Slovakia. Maybe it was left for one of these people to find.”

“What for?”

“To mislead.”

“He saw everyone as a possible enemy. He would never let anyone get close to the book.”

“Remember, we may be dealing with Koba. He has reasons within reasons.”

They had reached the Carnival structures. Now darkened for the night, huge cut-out figures loomed over the grandstands, squatting at the edge of the
Place,
waiting for something dreadful to begin. Then they saw the men. Four of them were spread out in a chain facing them.

As one, Jana and Levitin turned in the direction they’d come from. Three more men were coming up behind them, closing rapidly. Levitin reached down to his ankle, quickly unstrapping a very small automatic from its holster.

“Levitin, that pop-gun is not going to stop anyone. If they see you with it, they will kill you first.” She looked around for instant aid, finding none, then saw Galeries Lafayette, the upscale department store, on the opposite corner. It reminded her that there was something she had always wanted do when confronted with opulence of that sort.

She lengthened her stride, grabbing one of the garbage cans for Carnival debris stacked on the corner. Jana threw it at the window of the store as hard as she could. The can bounced back, the window unbroken.

“They’ve made the panes extra-thick to stop hooligans like us. Shoot the window,” she ordered Levitin.

He gaped at her.

“We need to weaken the window. That little pistol of yours can at least do that.” He was still unsure. “Shoot the window, damn it!”

Levitin pointed the gun at the window, pulling the trigger four or five times, creating surprisingly tiny holes, even for such a small weapon.

“Grab a can,” she yelled. The two of them smashed the cans against the window, which finally buckled as a sheet, crashing to the ground in a cascade of glass shards. At the same time, the burglar alarm attached to the window went off with a continuous clanging noise. Other alarms, apparently wired to the same window, added their cacophony to the din. The noise was deafening.

They checked out the thugs who had been coming after them. They were hesitating, no longer sure what to do. The wail of approaching sirens made their minds up very quickly. Almost as one, the men turned, bolting back into the darkness.

An hour later, they were in the police station they had been trying to find. Inspector Vachon was not elated about having to awaken from a deep sleep to get them out of a jail cell. Fortunately, his French sense of hospitality stopped him from showing his anger, and he had one of the other
flics
bring them both coffees in his office.

“You have caused a fair amount of damage.”

“We were about to be either killed or kidnapped, Inspector,” explained Levitin.

Vachon looked at the small automatic that had been taken from Levitin. “You are not supposed to have a gun in this country, Mr. Levitin.”

“I know.”

“We may charge you.”

Levitin gave a very good imitation of a French shrug. “Unfortunate for me if you do.”

“Convince me why I shouldn’t keep you in jail.”

Levitin thought about it. “For one thing, we have information on the Lermentov killing.”

Vachon’s eyes went from Levitin to Jana. “Ah, I sense you are about to avoid having charges filed against you.”

Jana picked up where Levitin had left off.

“The men who were coming after us last night, I think they were the same men who killed Mrs. Lermentov.”

“And who are they, Commander Matinova?”

“We don’t know yet, Inspector.”

Vachon had taken a small pad from his jacket pocket, prepared to write names in it. Disappointed, he laid the pad down. “So, we will have to sacrifice Mr. Levitin after all. Our jails in France are almost as bad as the jails in Russia, Mr. Levitin.”