Tender Death Page 13

  “Vetski? You are Russian?” Delight spread over Misha’s face. A gold tooth glinted in his red mouth. Was he wearing lipstick? He was still holding her hand.

  “No.” Wetzon smiled at him.

  “No, she’s not Russian, Misha, and that’s quite enough of your Continental charm. She’s my girl and we’re hungry.”

  Damn, Teddy was getting on her nerves. First she was a yuppie, now my girl.

  “Oh, of course, of course, forgive foolishness. Come in, come in. I take coats.”

  The revolving door deposited three ladies in moth-eaten fur coats and sequinned and tulle evening gowns and a bearded man in a fur hat and a bulky raincoat, who carried a folded newspaper under his arm. The little lobby had suddenly become crowded.

  Misha was energized. “Follow, please, mesdames et messieurs.” He winked at Teddy and Wetzon and did a little bob and dance before moving forward. “Coat check, coat check!” he boomed. “Come, come, everyvon.”

  The poignant strains of an accordion drifted out at them. Wetzon, looking down at her ski pants, bulky turtleneck sweater, and boots, felt conspicuously underdressed. They followed the new arrivals down the short passageway which opened into a large room jammed with white linen-covered tables, round and rectangular, of which a surprising number were occupied and glutted with food. There was a modest dance floor and a raised platform at the far end of the center of the room for a bandstand. A few empty metal music stands were scattered about and a huge silver grand piano took up half the platform. A lone accordionist in a shabby black tuxedo, a red silk scarf around his neck and over one shoulder, sat on a chair playing a mournful melody. Several women’s voices full of sorrow and somewhat off-key accompanied him from the tables out front.

  Around the outer edge of the room were semiprivate banquettes covered with red velvet. Very few of these were occupied.

  A tall, thin waiter in a black suit, white shirt, and black bow tie took charge of the man and the three women who had come in behind Teddy and Wetzon.

  They were in a tacky 1940s-style nightclub. The ceiling held three concentric circles of theatrical lights which danced in opposing directions. A hallucinogenic haze hung like a smoky saucer over the room. Everyone seemed to be smoking except Wetzon and Teddy. Large brass coatracks loaded down with coats stood in various spots around the perimeter of the room, sharing space with a dozen palm trees, real or artificial.

  The Baltic was a curious mixture of tacky and old-world Continental. Silverware clattered on heavy white commercial china, tables were candlelit. A grandly proportioned woman, wearing a long black skirt, a glittery sweater, and high-heeled silver sandals, was dancing stiffly to the accordion music with a small bald man, who bulged in a tight brown suit with wide lapels. Every once in a while he would spin his immense partner around into a graceful whirl.

  Wetzon closed her eyes and smiled, picturing herself and Carlos when they had done the revival of She Loves Me!, dancing in just such a cafe set. She looked around to see what Teddy was thinking. He was gone. She was standing quite alone. Misha had also disappeared.

  She felt invisible, discombobulated, as if she were in the midst of one of her dreams. The room was sweltering ... Where was Teddy? Tuxedoed waiters rushed by, precariously balancing huge platters of food for the horde of diners in gaudy finery who crowded the room.

  “Come, Vetski,” Misha said, reappearing at her side. He touched her elbow lightly, trying to steer her to a banquette. She resisted politely but firmly. “Teddy is coming right back. I think I’ll wait for him.”

  “I take coat, then. So varm, here, no?” His dark eyes watched her. She couldn’t read them.

  “No, thank you.” She was sweltering, but what if they had to make a fast getaway? Where the hell was Teddy?

  “You are okay, Vetski?” Misha brought his face close to hers. He smelled of cigarettes. Everyone did. “Ah, here is Tuvya now.”

  About fucking time, Wetzon thought. Teddy, carrying his coat over one shoulder, came out of swinging doors to their left, followed by a tiny, plump woman, her hair in a heavy braid like a tiara on her head. She was swathed in burgundy satin, just short enough to show well-shaped calves and tiny feet in spiky high heels that matched her dress. Large diamonds glittered in her ears and on her surprisingly delicate wrists and fingers.

  The woman’s high-cheekboned face was flushed crimson from the heat in the kitchen, and she was a little short of breath, but her dramatically black-rimmed eyes were bright and perceptive. Her hair was a dye job somewhere between brown and red, having settled at a pale rust. There was something about the way she held her head and neck that made Wetzon think she might have been a dancer a long time ago.

  “Ilena, my dollink, this is Tuvya’s friend, Vetski—”

  “You are Russian?”

  “Give up your coat, my little Russian princess,” Teddy said, grinning at her. “Vetski.” He looked completely recovered from their flight. “Let’s sit down. I could eat a horse.” He took her coat and gave both to Misha. “Maybe you can help my friend Vetski here. She has a problem with one of your ... comrades ...” He laughed. Misha and Ilena joined in, but to Wetzon’s eyes it was wary laughter and their faces showed no emotion. Why was Teddy being such a klutz? She made a small pass with her boot at his foot, which he ignored.

  “Come, vee sit down, vee eat, vee talk,” Ilena said. She raised her long hand with its narrow wristbone and long elegant fingers high in a sort of flourish, and two waiters shot into the kitchen and came back with trays of food, preceding them to one of the rectangular tables in front of the banquettes. The table was already set with china, silver, and glassware. When they finished laying out the spread of derma, stuffed cabbage, baked fish, caviar, and slabs of roasted meat from the giant trays, it was almost impossible to see the tablecloth. Two fifths of Absolut vodka and an enormous bottle of seltzer stood among the platters. As Wetzon watched, another waiter, dwarfed by an oversized tray laden with food, set a bottle of Hennessy cognac on the table.

  “So vhat is problem then?” Ilena said as soon as they were seated, Ilena and Misha on the outside, Teddy and Wetzon on the banquette. “Wodka for everybody,” she shouted to the hovering waiter, who came over and filled the large shot glasses. “Come, vee drink, dollinks, and vee vish ourselfs good health, long life, and God bless America.”

  Wetzon laughed. The vodka in her glass had tiny dark specks floating in it. She dipped the tip of her finger in and tasted it. Pepper.

  “L’chaim.” Teddy tipped his head back and downed the entire shot glass.

  “L’chaim.” Misha and Ilena did the same.

  “Come on, Vetski,” Teddy said, teasing her, knowing she never drank anything but beer.

  She made a face at him and took a cautious sip. A cold pool of heat warmed her mouth and burned her tongue. She held the cold-hot liquid, savoring the flavors, then let it run down her throat, where it exploded. “Help, fire,” she gasped, taking the glass of seltzer Teddy had ready for her.

  “Eat, eat,” Ilena urged, pushing a plate of pelmeni at her and dousing them with vinegar and sour cream. “Must eat with wodka. Is essential.”

  “So, Vetski, tell us—” Misha gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “It’s a long story—” Wetzon skewered a pelmeni and placed it in her mouth. The taste was exotic, tart, oddly soothing.

  “Ida Tormenkov.” Teddy interrupted her with an impatient wave of his hand.

  Misha’s face turned pale. “Ida—”

  Ilena’s silent gesture with her head was so small anyone could miss it. Wetzon, however, did not. Darn. Why had Teddy done that? It was not her style to plunge right in and it was her story. She had caught that quick exchange between Misha and Ilena and nudged Teddy’s knee under the table with less force than she wanted to.

  A violinist joined the accordionist and the two began to wander among the crowded tables, playing a spirited melody that everyone seemed to know. Patrons were clapping in time to the music.


  “Misha, Ilena, you know everyone here.” Teddy just blasted forward like a bull in a china shop. There was a long pause. Wetzon’s fingers played with the fog that had formed on her cold glass.

  “Is for us strange name,” Misha said finally, with a studied blankness.

  Ilena rose, unfolding herself like a dancer, and shouted in Russian to a waiter, who came scurrying over with a platter of pumpernickel. When she tilted her head, Wetzon noticed Ilena had a large raised red mole near the corner of her mouth. There was something about her—”Wait, you are Ilena Milanova, aren’t you?” Wetzon remembered the dancer with the Kirov—she had actually seen her dance once when the Kirov had toured the United States years and years ago. That Ilena, a sylph of a creature, had been their star. When she had applied with her husband to emigrate because they were Jewish, her career had ended abruptly. It had taken them years to get out of Russia.

  “Ah yes, my dollink,” Ilena said, beaming, her face softening. Her blue eyes filled with tears. “See vat happens ven vee stop dancing.” She patted her heavy bosom, then tapped Wetzon’s hand sharply with her index finger. “Must never stop dancing.”

  “Me? How—”

  “Can alvays tell. Hair, head. Is like clothing vee vear. Is in blood. In soul. Mine ... yours.” Her hand fluttered on her breast.

  Wetzon was overwhelmed. “I was never like you, Ilena. I danced on Broadway—in the chorus. I was just a gypsy.” She buttered a slice of pumpernickel, which was slightly stale. She took another sip of vodka and ate a big bite of pumpernickel. The last thing she wanted to become was woozy.

  “Is all family,” Ilena said.

  “Vetski finds jobs for stockbrokers now.” Teddy tipped his head back and drank another full shot of vodka. Wetzon glared at him. It would be terrible if Teddy got drunk.

  The waiter with the small, neat beard, who had brought the pumpernickel and was now refilling their glasses with vodka, stopped and stared intently at Wetzon. Wetzon stared back, then looked away. Nervous, she took a large swallow of vodka, choked, and broke out into a sweat. “Ladies’ room,” she gasped, staggering to her feet.

  Ilena smiled and pointed across the dance floor. “Is healthy sveat. Wodka sveat.”

  Teddy laughed too loudly. “Can’t take you anywhere, Vetski.”

  Oh shut up, Teddy, she thought.

  “Is nothing.” Ilena’s eyes darted around the room.

  “Is piece of work,” Wetzon said, fixing Teddy with a tough look because he was howling with laughter. She headed for the ladies’ room.

  “Vat is piece of work?” she heard Ilena ask. The music had picked up and diners were jumping to their feet and dancing in circles. The extravagantly dressed women far outnumbered the men. Wetzon wove her way through and around the dancers and into a small dark corridor which ended in two doors. Mesdames on one and Messieurs on the other.

  She entered Mesdames. Red-flocked wallpaper, gold moldings. A Formica counter with flecks of gold. She pushed back her sleeves and wet her wrists with cold water. Sweat was coming from every pore. Jesus. Her lips tasted salty. She used the bathroom, came out, and splashed her cheeks with cold water, patting them dry with a paper towel. She rummaged in her backpack for the small tube of Nivea she always carried and rubbed some into her hands and face.

  She was furious with Teddy. He was about as subtle as a ten-ton truck. Some reporter. They’d accomplished nothing. She hadn’t found Ida. She’d terrified a poor shopkeeper and his wife who probably thought she was KGB ... but imagine meeting Ilena Milanova in a place like this. She smiled coldly at herself in the mirror and touched up her lipstick.

  A pudgy middle-aged woman in a short, pale blue taffeta dress which exposed a lot of fleshy thigh in sheer hose with black floral designs came into the small room. “Excuse, please,” she said. She was wearing a light blue picture hat and looked like a hooker playing a Southern belle. Her eyes were heavily outlined, the lids blue-shadowed, and she squeezed by Wetzon, checking out Wetzon’s costume with distaste. Wetzon looked at herself in the mirror. Ah yes, she was definitely the misfit in this group.

  She smiled at the woman and went back out into the dark hall, slipping the backpack strap over her shoulder. Someone came out behind her, the woman. Wetzon did not look back.

  Something—thick and woolen—came across her throat, choking her. Pulling, fighting the arm, she smelled a sharp cigarette odor. She couldn’t breathe ... her throat ... Her hands tore at a face, a beard. She tried to scream. The world swirled deep, deep blue. She was blacking out. They’re killing me, she thought. She began the slide on a long sliding pond.

  23.

  IDA WAS WAVING at her. “Go avay ... go avay ... you make trouble ...”

  “Poor thing,” someone said.

  Wetzon opened her eyes and saw floating blue and yellow spots. She blinked. Her throat ... she had a terrible lump in her throat she couldn’t seem to swallow away.

  “Poor zing.” The woman in blue taffeta rustled, bending over her, fanning her with the large blue hat. “You must have faint.”

  Wetzon was lying on her back on the floor in the dark, narrow hallway to the bathrooms. “No ... no ... where is he? Did you see him?” Her voice came out in a croak.

  “See who, dollink?” The woman rearranged her spectacular hat on her heat and stabbed it in place with a long pointy hatpin. “Vas no vun here but you on floor.” She smelled of face powder and Poison.

  Wetzon pulled herself upright. God, her throat was raw. The floor was filthy. She brushed cigarette butts off her hands and clothes. Ugh.

  “Okay?” the woman asked. “You vant I should bring someone to help?”

  “No.” Wetzon stood up uneasily. Her backpack was at her feet. This wasn’t a robbery. “I’ll just go ...” She pointed to the ladies’ room. She shook herself. Her shoulders were tender where he’d gripped her. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone?”

  “No vun, belief me.” The woman shrugged her fleshy shoulders. She was lying and she knew Wetzon knew it. Her bosom billowed. “I tink, dollink, you vear too much clotink. Body must breathe. No air ... faint.” She smoothed her puffy dress on her broad hips. “You okay now. I see that.”

  A man, cigarette stuck in one corner of his mouth and a bottle of vodka in his hand, turned into the short dark hallway, and the woman in blue taffeta brushed by him quickly. He made a leering remark in Russian that sounded suggestive to Wetzon’s ear, and the woman cackled.

  Wetzon picked up her backpack by the strap and went into the ladies’ room. She saw with relief as she slammed the door that the man in the hallway was clean shaven.

  Her face in the mirror was pale and her eye shadow was smeared gray on her right cheek. Her throat felt awful. Gingerly, she rolled down the high neck of her sweater. Her neck was bruised red. She knew she was in over her depth now, but it was too late to wish she had never come here. Hazel was right. She should have left it to the police.

  The woman in blue had lied. Was she part of a mugging team with the man who had attacked her? Or did she just not want to get involved? Maybe the woman had recognized him ... Oh hell. Her swallow was pain-filled, forcing tears to her eyes. She wet her face lightly and dabbed at her eyes with a Kleenex, wiping away the smeared gray shadow. She redid her makeup as well as she could, thinking only about how long it would take them to get home.

  When she came out into the restaurant, the dancers were stamping their feet and clapping. A balalaika had joined the other instruments and someone in a white tuxedo was sitting at the silver grand piano. Around the floor were a multitude of bearded men, short beards, long beards, curly beards, red beards, brown, black. It was bizarre. She had not seen the man’s face, so she would never be able to identify him.

  “Miss ... miss ... vait!” It was the waiter who had stared at her. Instinctively, she shied away from him. He caught her by the arm. “No, vait ... please.” She wanted to scream, but there were so many people around her, she felt foolish being frightened. “You maybe help my br
other,” he said in a menacing tone.

  “What?” She tried to back away.

  “He stockbroker.”

  Wetzon stared at him. He didn’t look menacing at all. She stopped a nervous laugh. My God, Wetzon, you’re getting as batty as they are. “I’m sorry. What firm is your brother with?” She felt the pain in her throat as she spoke.

  “Hoffman, Parker.” It was a penny stock firm of poor repute. “No so good place. Maybe you help him?”

  “I’ll try.” She fished in her backpack for her card case and gave him her card. “Tell him to call me.”

  “Tank you, tank you.” He put her card in his pocket and started away.

  “Wait”—Wetzon touched his sleeve—“His name?”

  “Roman Grodsky.”

  Smith would laugh, Wetzon thought. She wished she could see and talk to Smith right now. Wherever Wetzon went she always seemed to meet a stockbroker. It was a standing joke with them that if Wetzon were shipwrecked on a desert island, a stockbroker would come out of the jungle and ask her to place him. For godsakes, Wetzon, someone just tried to kill you and a minute later you are politely handing out your business card.

  The smoke in the noisy room was stupefying. She could just barely swallow. She wanted to scream, Someone tried to kill me, but she was a stranger in a foreign land.

  As she made her way back to the table, she saw Teddy was hunched over, talking to Misha. Ilena stood several feet away, shouting and waving a white silk chiffon scarf, directing her waiters. She turned to Teddy and Misha once and said something, shaking her head emphatically. Misha was gesticulating angrily, the ubiquitous cigarette that every Russian seemed to smoke attached to his fingers.

  Wetzon slipped onto the banquette next to Teddy and he patted her knee, acknowledging but not looking at her. He was engrossed in his conversation with Misha. She could not hear what they were saying. The din was deafening. But she didn’t care about anything right now except her throat. Teddy seemed to be pleading with Misha. “ ... protect my sources,” she heard him say at one point.