“You let them cut her up,” said Tolya over the phone late that night. I was sitting in Tolya’s library, the TV tuned to some Euro sports channel, the sound muted, when he called.
“They sliced her open, Artemy.”
“I couldn’t stop that.”
He didn’t speak, but I could hear him breathing hard.
“Tolya? You there? I’m coming home,” I said.
“No. I want you to go to my party tomorrow night, I want you to see who comes, who doesn’t come, who cries real tears for Valentina. Many people will not know you, which is good.”
“Of course.”
“But my cousin Larry will know you. He’ll know who you are. You’ll meet him at the party.”
“I met him.”
“I see. He sent his guy to follow you around?”
“Yes. What’s with him?”
“He thinks he’s going to change the world, Artemy, he thinks he’s going to fix things in Russia, him and a bunch of other guys. He’s okay, but anything you want to tell him, anything he asks, call me first.”
“Sure.”
“I left something for you in the closet. In the guest room,” he said, his voice dry and affectless, his language formal, no swearing, no affectionate barbs, nothing at all that reminded me of my friend.
Valentina’s room was on the top floor, I climbed the stairs and stood outside the door. I didn’t want to go in. The house was silent. There was only the noise of a party out in the garden, but in here it was silent.
I opened the door gently. The room smelled of Val, it smelled of her perfume, her shampoo. It was an empty space. The bed and the rest of the furniture remained. The drawers and closets were empty, as if she had barely used them, as if she had left this room long ago.
I hate what London does to him, my dad, ever since he opened his club there. Valentina had said this to me at Dubi’s bookshop. I don’t want to ever go back.
What did I expect to find?
I looked through the desk drawers, in the bathroom. Nothing. I got down on the floor and felt I wanted to stay there, wanted to just lie down on the soft rug and sleep for a while.
Under the bed was a long flat box, probably something that had been forgotten by Val, by Tolya, by the people who cleaned. I pulled it out, sat up and opened it.
Inside were freshly laundered sheets wrapped in tissue paper that smelled of sandalwood, nothing else as far as I could see at first.
Again, I searched the room. I tried to look with the eye of a cop, of a guy who had come in fresh, not knowing anything, not the place or the people who had inhabited it. Eventually I found the box on a shelf in the bathroom.
Inside were a few pieces of jewelry Val had obviously forgotten. There was a thin gold chain with a Victorian locket on it, a pair of small diamond earrings, and an antique bracelet made out of amber. There was also an envelope where somebody—Val, somebody else—had placed some stray beads, a single earring that had no mate, a gold charm resembling a Russian Easter egg. Nothing else.
I took out the envelope. Val’s name was on the front. On the back was a return address. Wimbledon, it said. Wimbledon, I thought. They play tennis there.
It didn’t mean anything, but I put the envelope in my pocket.
What else did Val say about London?
I sat on the edge of her bed now, and tried to remember. We had talked a little about it the night she stayed with me. I had tried not to think about her. It was all I wanted to think about.
It was about one in the morning, and we were in my bed and Val leaned on her elbow and said, “I’m starving,” and giggled, though she almost never giggled. Her laugh, the low husky rising chuckle that exploded at the end, belonged to a grown-up. But now she giggled, and said, I’m hungry, and I said I’d make her a sandwich, and we both got out of bed, and she saw me looking at her.
“Stop staring,” she said.
“Why stop?”
“I don’t know, I just feel suddenly shy,” she said, and loped into the kitchen, me in some pajama bottoms I found; her wearing a ratty old bathrobe I had hanging on the bathroom door.
In the kitchen, I put bread and some cheese and a spicy sopressata on the counter. I got a bottle of red wine out of the cupboard, and poured it out. Val sliced up the sausage and ate a piece, and I made sandwiches.
“Are you happy, Artie, darling?”
“Yes.”
“Do we need to talk about anything?”
“Only if you want to,” I said.
“I don’t want to, I want you to put on some music and I want to eat and then I want to go back to bed,” she said.
I put Ella on the stereo. Ella singing Gershwin, and Val put her elbows on the kitchen counter, drank the wine and listened.
“I love this stuff,” she said. “I love this music. It makes me think of New York, even when I’m here, you know?”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to leave, Artie.”
“New York, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Me either.”
“I can feel good here,” said Val, pouring more wine in her glass while Ella sang “Someone To Watch Over Me”. “That’s you, isn’t it, you’ll watch out for me?”
“Yes.” I held her hand.
I didn’t know how the hell I’d tell Tolya but I wasn’t giving her up, not unless she wanted me to give her up. Most of me knew it wouldn’t go on, couldn’t, I was too old, she was Tolya’s kid, but a little part believed.
“Let’s go back to bed,” she said, and smiled a smile both wicked and sweet. And we did.
In Val’s room in London now nothing was left of her except her smell.
In the kitchen I found a bottle of Scotch and did something I almost never did anymore: I drank too much of the stuff, I carried the glass through the house, I drank three, four, five shots, and I kept on drinking.
In the guest room, I opened the closet. On a wooden hanger was a garment bag and inside a tux. My size. A box on the shelf contained shirts and ties. Beside it were fancy shoes.
I tried on the clothes, and they fit beautifully. Tolya must have swiped one of my jackets to get the measurements. He had planned it all, he must have planned it before I got to London, long ago, hoping I’d come for his birthday party. Before Val was murdered, he had planned it.
In the tux and the shoes, with Tolya’s watch, I looked in the mirror. Looking back was a well-heeled guy, a rich Russian, maybe, with an expensive glass of whisky in his hand, a big gold watch and plenty of dough. Nobody except Larry Sverdloff would make me for a New York cop at the party, for sure not Greg, the boyfriend.
Was I obsessed because he had been with Val? If he didn’t kill her, why didn’t he show up or get in touch with Tolya? He was Valentina’s guy, what was stopping him? The part of me that was functioning like a cop knew the other part was jealous as hell and it was clouding my judgement and making me stupid.