Terraplane Read Free Page A

offset her blond curls. Neither danced; of good voice, they
sang "One Hand, One Heart." Audience murmur supplanted
audience roar. Looking up I saw Jake's face radiate as if lit from
within. A tear dropped from his dead-coal eye, perhaps fearful that
if seen it might be blown away. His pox-scarred expression fixed
solid; he could have been zooing, watching baby ducks at play, or
viewing that little girl of whom Skuratov spoke tumble as the echo faded. Hypnotized, I watched that tear shuffle along his cheek into
darkness. It was like seeing a tank cry.

    "Ochen krasiva!" Jake, drawn from his mourn, swiveled round;
the commentator was already set upon by the bouncers, who
entwined him like vines strangling a tree. Kidin perked; with
fellow Krasnayaviki, advantaging the sitch, they leapt up to beat the
Kazakhs with their heavy knouts. The room's tension peaked. The
song's last bars were swallowed in curse's roar and crockery's rattle.
    "Khulighani-" Rifles showed, clicked, weren't yet fired. The
performers stepped forward to view the floor show
    "A delicious dinner," said Skuratov, rising. "Shall we?"
    We jostled through the crowd, stamping the fallen when
needed, until we exited. Between interior and exterior one hundred degrees vanished. My lungs rustled like paper when I drew in
air. Snow powdered the long blue line of people awaiting entry.
    "You're staying where?" Skuratov asked, thrusting hands into
furry pockets. Trim as he was, the type of coat he wore, a shuba,
impressioned his look as three hundred kilos heavier. Ten bears
gave their lives to warm his final years.
    "Sheraton Kremlin," I said, "on Kitajski Prospect."
    "Not the Moskva?"
    "My choice." A firetrap; too obvious, besides.
    "Let me offer you warm ride." The wind scarred us. Skuratov's
official car, a Chaika, was curbsided on Chudozestvannogo Teatra
Prospect. Russian limos resembled America's; Gorki-Detroit factories built both and supplied both countries as a rare joint venture.
Chaikas, Krasnaya's preferred vehicle, retained the styling of cars
forty years old. The Czara, the Politburo, leading members of
Krasnaya and old Heroes of the State, all prone to nostalgia in weak
moments, rode Chaikas.
    "Look. Perhaps we shouldn't interrupt such pleasure." The
chauffeur reclined in the back seat, eyeing a movie on the TVC. A
vodka bottle, full only of air, lay next to him. "Out!" shouted
Skuratov, opening the door. "Do your duty." The chauffeur tumbled forth, slinking frontways. "Ten minutes, we're there." But in
vidding time away the chauffeur had drained the battery. Switch ing from idle to drive, he stalled the car. Striving to restart it, he
succeeded in making the engine wail as if it were being beaten.
Even while arrnied I allowed myself to be driven but twice, during
state funerals. I felt safer when I guided the wheel, once another
started the engine.

    "Let us have brisk walk, then," muttered Skuratov, decarring.
"Call for new limo from hotel's comfortable lobby. Leave this zek
here. By morning he'll feel ice below instead of balls. Come."
    Frost ferns sprouted across the windshield as we cruised away
down Gorki. Moscow's streets dichotomized after the sun fell from
daily grace. Krasnaya sealed and patrolled all avenues holding
government Buros, the homes of notables, banks and the larger
business blocks. Gorki Street, so wide as to allow passage of five
tanks tread to tread, was of the secular world, and provided trade's
entertainment nightlong. It might have been noon, so peopled and
trafficked was the boulevard. Most businesses on the main strips
followed the seven/twenty-four plan, forever open to handle
unceasing demand. Citizens passed as if on enforced parade,
many pushing red carts topful with freezers, washers, T'VCs,
copiers; all manner of technologic flotsam. Staring into their puffy,
bloodshot eyes disconcerted. Refugees' faces held similar looks in
every land I'd troubled; the look of these fit