room was divided between a jam-packed dance floor and a raised section filled with minuscule round tables and metal caf泄 chairs. A grid of colored lights pulsed in time with the house music the straw-thin female DJ was spinning. She stood behind a small stand on which was set an iPod hooked up to a number of digital mixing machines.
The dance floor was packed with men and women. Bumping hips and elbows was part of the scene. Arkadin picked his way over to the bar, which ran along the front of the right wall. Twice he was intercepted by young, busty blondes who wanted his attention and, he assumed, his money. He brushed past them, made a beeline for the harried bartender. Three tiers of glass shelves filled with liquor bottles were attached to a mirror on the wall behind the bar so patrons could check out the action or admire themselves while getting polluted.
Arkadin was obliged to wade through a phalanx of revelers before he could order a Stoli on the rocks. When, some time later, the bartender returned with his drink, Arkadin asked him if he knew a Devra.
"Yah, sure. Over there," he said, nodding in the direction of the straw-thin DJ.
It was 1 AM before Devra took a break. There were other people waiting for her to finish-fans, Arkadin presumed. He intended to get to her first. He used the force of his personality rather than his false credentials. Not that the rabble here would challenge them, but after the incident at the winery, he didn't want to leave any trail for the real SBU to follow. The state police alias he'd used there was now dangerous to him.
Devra was blond, almost as tall as he was. He couldn't believe how thin her arms were. They had no definition at all. Her hips were no wider than a young boy's, and he could see the bones of her scapulae when she moved. She had large eyes and dead-white skin, as if she rarely saw the light of day. Her black jumpsuit with its white skull and crossbones across the stomach was drenched in sweat. Perhaps because of her DJing, her hands were in constant motion even if the rest of her stayed relatively still.
She eyed him up and down while he introduced himself. "You don't look like a friend of Oleg's," she said.
But when he dangled the IOU in front of her face her skepticism evaporated. Thus is it ever, Arkadin thought as she led him backstage. The venality of the human race cannot be overestimated.
The green room where she relaxed between sets was better off left to the wharf rats that were no doubt shuttered behind the walls, but right now that couldn't be helped. He tried not to think of the rats; he wouldn't be here long anyway. There were no windows; the walls and ceiling were painted black, no doubt to cover up a multitude of sins.
Devra turned on a lamp with a mean forty-watt bulb and sat down on a wooden chair damaged by knife scars and cigarette burns. The difference between the green room and an interrogation cell was negligible. There were no other chairs or furniture, save for a narrow wooden table against one wall on which was a jumble of makeup, CDs, cigarettes, matches, gloves, and other piles of debris Arkadin didn't bother to identify.
Devra leaned back, lit a cigarette she nimbly swiped from the table without offering him one. "So you're here to pay off Oleg's debt."
"In a sense."
Her eyes narrowed, making her look a lot like a stoat Arkadin had once shot outside St. Petersburg.
"Meaning what, exactly?"
Arkadin produced the bills. "I have the money he owes you right here." As she reached out for it, he pulled it away. "In return I'd like some information."
Devra laughed. "What do I look like, the phone operator?"
Arkadin hit her hard with the back of his hand, so that she crashed into the table. Tubes of lipstick and mascara went rolling and tumbling. Devra put a hand out to steady herself, fingers clutching through the morass.
When she pulled out a small handgun Arkadin was ready. His fist hammered her delicate wrist and he plucked the handgun from her numb fingers.
"Now," he said, setting her back on the chair, "are you ready to continue?"
Devra looked at him sullenly. "I knew this was too good to be true." She spat. "Shit! No good deed goes unpunished."