Mangrove Squeeze(57)

She said nothing and he stared at her. Her eyes were blank, her cheeks a doughy graceless blur, her mouth weak and loose and stupid. Markov tried to feel hatred for her but could manage no more than a disgust that splattered filthily and stained himself as well. He stared, and fixed her in the stare like an animal in headlights. Behind Ludmila the water was flat, and yet the very starlight seemed swept up by the tide, there was an illusion of reflections stretched and smeared by the current's northward rush.

Moving deliberately, his eyes set now on the water, Markov put the heels of his hands against the corners of the table and pushed as hard as he could.

The far edge caught Ludmila in the chest and she started going over. Her shoulders shot back, the front legs of her chair pulled free of the stones, her chopped gray hair stood on end as it broke the plane of the seawall. For an endless moment she teetered there above the Gulf, thick arms pin-wheeling for balance, squat thighs flailing for the ground.

Terrified she would not fall, Markov bumped her once again.

The vodka bottle tumbled, the glasses clattered to the ground. Ludmila's hardened hands grabbed the table's edge and the absurdest sort of equilibrium was briefly reached. Her feet were kicking inside the square black shoes, she tried to claw and slither her way onto the surface of the table as if the table was a lifeboat. Her tongue stuck out, she grunted, she wobbled like a bowling pin but would not fall, and Markov, straining, sweating, horrified, at length realized that the only way to end the grotesque and ludicrous stalemate was to lift the whole damn table and throw it in on top of her.

He upended it and shoved, and Ludmila, still cradled in her chair, somersaulted backward and entered the water like a scuba diver.

The table landed flat atop her splash, sealed it like a manhole cover. She disappeared immediately.

Then she surfaced a dozen feet away.

Her coarse wide skirt had filled with air, she'd become her own pontoon. She bobbed, she flailed, but the more she struggled, the more her skirt deflated, sea encroaching as air leaked out, until the material began to undulate like the body of a squid, and the fast water grabbed her as if it were armed with hooks, and her single unheard scream ended in a gurgle as she was carried out and down.

Gennady Markov stood at the edge of the seawall, panting and sweating as the body was trundled northward and then submerged. He felt no remorse, but a deep discouragement. If it was this exhausting to murder even a weak old woman, how could he ever hope to equal the efficiency of Cherkassky and his minions?

Ludmila had kicked off one of her square black shoes, it lay derelict and mute against the cool white stones. Markov picked it up, along with the glasses and the uncapped vodka bottle that was lying on its side. There was a shallow pool of liquor that had not spilled out, and he drank it as he strolled back to the house.





Chapter 29


"So Aaron," Suki said, trying to steer the conversation clear of Russians and tactics and dread, "when did you first hatch this dream of owning a guest house?"

The two of them were having dinner—bowls of pasta, finally—in the kitchen of the Mangrove Arms. Aaron had a forkful of fusilli halfway to his face. He thought a moment, then said, "I didn't hatch it. I caught it."

"Caught it?"

The kitchen was not romantic. Its surfaces were mostly stainless steel, per the Board of Health. Outsize pots and pans hung from hooks above the counters; it was hard to stop seeing the big aluminum sink and huge black iron range.

"Dreams are catchy," Aaron said. "Contagious as the flu."

"So who'd you catch it from?"

"I was afraid you'd ask me that. My wife," he said. "Ex-wife."

Suki nodded. Most people, by her age, had an ex-spouse or two. They'd had chicken pox, broken bones, crashed a car, been married. What had Suki had? Some boyfriends who in retrospect were clearly jerks and one measly attempted murder. Just occasionally she wondered what she'd missed. She sipped some wine. "She wanted a guest house?"

"No. She only pretended she did. Very convincingly. That was the problem."

Suki ate some pasta. They'd made it together. Aaron chopped the garlic, she shredded the basil. The kitchen was not romantic but it was nice to be cooking side by side, their elbows close and fingers busy as good smells wafted up between them.

Aaron blotted his lips. He hadn't intended to go on, but he heard himself say, "It's a thing with city people, a safety valve. The fantasy of escape, of change."

Suki sipped some wine. "But most people stay. And stay the same."

Aaron nodded, ate.

Suki said, "You sorry?"

"Sorry?"

"About your marriage. Leaving."

He ran a hand through his hair. Suki watched the curls wrap around his fingers, one by one. "No," he said. "Not at all."