Mangrove Squeeze(56)

"Bullshit," said Fred, and sucked so hard on his cigarette that the paper almost flamed. Expelling smoke along with words, he said, "You got a crush on her. That's the only explanation."





Chapter 28


There was something uncanny, witchlike, about the sight of Ludmila the Belorussian housekeeper on her red motor scooter.

She wore square black shoes that looked absurd against the shifter pedal. Her wide coarse skirt was gathered up and bunched between her squat and parted thighs. Beneath a pilled and shapeless sweater, her flaccid breasts quaked with every bump and shiver of the noisy little machine. Random bundles of chopped gray hair poked out of the helmet that framed bulbous cheeks and a fleshy nose as she rode to meet her death.

She pulled into Gennady Markov's curving gravel driveway, cut the engine on the scooter, took her helmet off. She started walking toward the big front door behind its porte cochere, then stopped, unsure whether she should use the main entrance. It was dusk and she scanned the dimness for some lesser portal, a servants' wing maybe. She was still standing there, her square shoes and stocky legs uneasy on the stones, when Markov appeared in the doorway and greeted her.

Tentatively, she greeted him in return.

Moving toward her, he said, "Is beautiful evening. Perhaps we talk outside."

Obedient, the housekeeper nodded, and followed him as he moved around the corner of the house, past trellises and hedges and fragrant citrus trees. To the smell of powdery lemon was added the smarting tang of iodine as they moved closer to the seawall. A table stood very near the water's boundary, a bottle of vodka and two glasses on it. Gennady Markov sidled toward the seat on the landward end of the table. Casually, he motioned Ludmila toward a chair whose back legs stood several inches from the man-made edge of the thirsty Gulf that was drinking deeply of the ocean.

He poured vodka for both of them and then studied her a moment. She had a mole that seemed to bind the edge of her left nostril to her cheek. Her thick forearms were flat on the table and there were creases of fat at her wrists. She didn't touch her glass till he touched his. Then, when Markov tossed his vodka back, she tossed back hers as well, tossed it back in one good swallow.

He refilled their glasses and spoke at last. "You like it here, Ludmila?"

Ludmila was a very cautious person. She hated to answer any question, especially a question she wasn't absolutely sure she understood. "Here?"

"In America," he said. "Key West."

She thought about it. She cleaned houses. She lived alone in a trailer on Stock Island, next to an auto body shop. She did what people told her and she lived in fear. She'd carried the fear from Russia to America and would carry it all the way to heaven because she simply couldn't imagine that things might ever be different anywhere. But the bread was fresh here and the weather was good. "Is better, yes," she said.

Markov drank his vodka. Ludmila drank hers. Her chin shook as she swallowed and then her face regained its doughy impassivity.

He looked past her to starlight on the water. Current was invisible and silent and yet it had a weight and a presence; somewhere very deep people were aware when the tides were running strong. Markov smiled, said, "You go to beach? You swim?"

Maybe it was the vodka or maybe the chance to complain. Ludmila grew briefly talkative. "Beach? Who has time for beach? Swim? No. No place swim in Belorusse."

"Ah," said Markov, and refilled the glasses. Offhandedly he added, "You have more time, now you don't clean for Lazslo."

Ludmila had been waiting patiently, obediently for some indication of why she'd been called here. Now she understood. She said, "So you want I clean for you?"

Instead of answering, Markov said, "Very sad what happened to Lazslo." He emptied his glass.

Ludmila left hers alone. She lowered her flat gray eyes and became aware that the air was cooler at her back than on her face.

"Now you do not drink?" he said.

She didn't answer. Secretly she tried to scoot her chair a little forward. Its legs were pegged in small white decorative stones. It didn't budge.

Markov poured himself more vodka. "Still," he went on, "what Lazslo did, the things he said. .. Ivan Fyodorovich played the tapes for me, of course."

Ludmila reached for her glass, stopped her hand midway. For her there were many kinds of fear and each sent a different flavor climbing up her throat. Ordinary fear, the kind she felt every day, tasted of salt and bile. Now she tasted curdled milk and vinegar. She tried to choke it back then grabbed her vodka after all in an attempt to wash it down.

The liquor was still in her gullet when Markov softly asked, "How did you plant the tapes, Ludmila?"