Free Red Square by Martin Cruz Smith Page A

black as little coals.
        'Excuse me,' Makhmud said. 'I had this operation. The wonder of Soviet science. They fix your eyes so you don't have to wear glasses anymore. They don't do this operation anywhere else in the world. What they don't tell you is from then on you only see at one distance. The rest of the world is a blur.'
        'What did you do?' Arkady asked.
        'I could have killed the doctor. I mean, I really could have killed the doctor. Then I thought about it. Why did I have this operation? Vanity. I'm eighty years old. It was a lesson. Thank God I'm not impotent.' He held Arkady steady. 'I can see you right now. You don't look very good.'
        'I need some advice.'
        'I think you need more than advice. I had them keep you down there while I asked some questions about you. I like to have information. Life is so various. I've been in the Red Army, White Army, German Army. Nothing is predictable. I hear that you've been an investigator, a convict, an investigator again. You're more confused than I am.'
        'Easily.'
        'It's an unusual name. You're related to Renko, that madman from the war?'
        'Yes.'
        'You have mixed eyes. I see a dreamer in one eye and a fool in the other. You see, I'm so old now that I'm going around a second time and I appreciate things. Otherwise you go crazy. I gave up cigarettes two years ago for the lungs. You have to be positive to do that. You smoke?'
        'Yes.'
        'Russians are a gloomy race. Chechens are different.'
        'People say that.'
        Makhmud smiled. His teeth looked oversized, like a dog's. 'Russians smoke, Chechens burn.'
        'Rudy Rosen burned.'
         For an old man, Makhmud changed expression quickly. 'Him and his money, I heard.'
        'You were there,' Arkady said.
        The driver turned. Though he was big, he was almost as young as the boy beside him, with acne clustered at the corners of a pouty mouth, hair long at the back, short at the sides, bangs a spray-painted orange. It was the athlete from the Intourist bar.
        Makhmud said, 'This is my grandson Ali. The other is his brother Beno.'
        'Nice family.'
        'Ali is very fond of me, so he doesn't like to hear this sort of accusation.'
        'That's not an accusation,' Arkady said. 'I was there, too. Maybe we're both innocent.'
        'I was at home asleep. Doctor's orders.'
        'What    do    you    think    might    have    happened    to Rudy?'
        'With this medication I have and oxygen tubes, I look like a cosmonaut and I sleep like a baby.'
        'What happened to Rudy?'
        'My opinion? Rudy was a Jew, and a Jew thinks he can eat with the devil and keep his nose from being bitten off. Maybe Rudy knew too many devils.'
        Six days a week, Rudy and Makhmud had taken Turkish coffee together while they bargained over exchange rates. Arkady remembered seeing the fleshy Rudy across the table from the bone-thin Makhmud, and wondering who would eat whom.
        'You were the only one he was afraid of.'
        Makhmud rejected the compliment. 'We had no problem with Rudy. Other people in Moscow think the Chechens should go back to Grozny, back to Kazan, back to Baku.'
        'Rudy said you were out to get him.'
        'He was lying.' Makhmud dismissed the idea like a man used to demanding belief.
        'It's hard to argue with the dead,' Arkady noted as tactfully as he could.
        'Do you have Kim?'
        'Rudy's bodyguard? No. He's probably looking for you.'
        Makhmud said to the front of the car, 'Beno, could we have some coffee?'
        Beno passed back a thermos, small cups and saucers, spoons and a paper bag of sugar cubes. The coffee came out of the thermos like black sludge. Makhmud's hands were large, fingers and nails curved; the rest of him might have shrunk with age, but not the hands.
        'Delicious,' Arkady said. He felt his heart fibrillate with joy.
        'The