The young man finished with his taping; Ivan Cherkassky rose and moved toward Sam.
"Mr. Katz," he said, "we are hoping very much to find someone. We think that you know where she is."
"What?" said Sam. He could sort of hear, he was mainly stalling.
The Russian moved in closer; Sam became fascinated by the bumps and craters of his lumpy face, it was like a close-up of the moon. "Suki Sperakis," said Cherkassky. "Where is she, Mr. Katz?"
Sam heard her name and his adventure stopped being any fun at all. He rocked on his stool. Suki Sperakis. She worked with Aaron in the garden. Side by side, knee to knee they planted things. Maybe they were gardening right now. No, Sam remembered. Now it was nighttime, and his legs were trussed up like a roasting chicken, and, no matter what, he was not supposed to mention Suki Sperakis. Instead he looked toward Tarzan Abramowitz, bare-chested as always, whorls of damp hair escaping from his thick suspenders. Sam said to Cherkassky, "All these shirts, you couldn't give this boy a shirt?"
Cherkassky fell back a step, walked a little circle. Then, like a crow returning to a bit of carrion, he dove in once again. "You have relations here, Mr. Katz?"
"Relations?"
"Brothers? Nephews? Children maybe?"
Sam didn't like it that he mentioned children. That scared him. Aaron. He shouldn't make trouble for Aaron. He tried to shift on the stool. He couldn't really move. His tailbone poked down between his wizened haunches. It was starting to hurt. Then he remembered his cover. "Children?" he said. "No. Me and Bert ... remember? Forty years already."
Abramowitz was doing laps among the leaning stacks of cardboard boxes. "You and Bert are shpul na cacavyov" he said.
"We are not," said Sam.
"What?" Cherkassky said.
Sam realized his mistake, backpedaled. Right back he said, "What?"
Cherkassky stepped away. He nibbled his thumbnail, rubbed his chin. Against the blasting music from the T-shirt shop on the far side of the double-locked door, he said, "That seat, Mr. Katz, it's going to get uncomfortable."
Sam, uncomfortable, squirmed a little. "What?"
"Tape his mouth," Cherkassky said, and went back to the cot on which Tarzan would be camping.
Abramowitz bounded over, ripped tape from the roll. Sam didn't close his lips in time. He tasted bitter glue and felt a puckering draw that pulled the moisture from his tongue.
Chapter 46
Aaron Katz longed for the cover of shadow as he scampered low toward the garage. But Gennady Markov's yard was lit up like a carnival, and the only shadow was the one that Aaron's leaning body threw. Gravel crunched beneath his feet and his heart rode up his gullet.
Inside the garage he paused, heard the hum of electricity and the torrent of blood in his ears. He looked around and nothing made sense. A red wagon. A damp shovel placed separately from the other gardening tools. In one corner, a motor scooter covered with a tarp. He walked over to the car. Its hood was still warm and Aaron had no idea what that meant.
He moved to the door that led into the house, put his ear against it. He heard nothing. Not his father's rising, falling, ending-with-a-question voice; not anything. He paused. He dried his palm against his pants. He tried the knob. It didn't turn. He gently pushed the door. It moved a fraction of an inch before the bolt collided with its frame.
Stymied, Aaron now had the misfortune of a little time to think. He had no weapon; he had no plan. He was armed with nothing more than caring. He could leave now. He'd tried the door, flirted with heroics. A retreat would not be shameful.
But once he'd thought about it, calculated it, Aaron could not retreat. He needed to find Sam or to persuade himself beyond a doubt that Sam wasn't there.
He left the garage but didn't head back down the driveway. Instead, he crouched low against the shrubbery and began to work his way around the house.
The thorns of bougainvillea scratched at his arms; his knees complained at their unnatural bend as he sneaked past the pretentious entryway. In the bushes on the far side, spider webs stuck to his face, their makers seeking refuge in his hair. He smelled salt and citrus, and now and then he dared to raise himself just high enough to peek through a brightly lit window.
He saw luxurious and empty rooms. The waxed mahogany of the silent feasting table. Leather armchairs with no one in them; a fireplace holding cool dead ash.
He skulked around a corner of the mansion and found the vacant master bedroom, saw corruption in the swollen mounds of pillows, a sensuous perverseness in the satin quilts defiant of the climate.
He moved on toward what appeared to be a guest wing, its dimmer rooms illumined from a central hallway, its single rank of windows stretching toward the Gulf. Spying through oleanders and buttonwoods, Aaron saw neat beds, uninhabited; reading lamps unread by. Nothing was rumpled; no one was there.