The Ice Curtain Read Online Free Page B

very convenient.”
    â€œConvenience is important,” said Nowek, earning him a dirty look from Volsky.
    Everyone knew the Rossiya. Built in 1967, the concrete monster was proclaimed the world’s largest hotel, eight hundred seventy-five rooms on eighteen floors. Now the Rossiya was famous for being the very worst place to stay in Moscow. Its endless corridors and gloomy halls had become a kind of vertical slum.
    â€œChairman Petrov uses the Rossiya for foreign visitors of a different rank. . . .” Gavril let his words trail off into a cloud of implication.
    Volsky said, “Which?”
    â€œVisiting diamond men from Angola, Botswana. You know . . .”
    â€œAfricans,” said Nowek.
    When Gavril nodded, his ponytail slithered up and down his leather-clad back like a puppet’s string. “I hear the restaurant on the top floor still has a great view.”
    â€œWe’ll be sure to look.” The radio was tuned to Radio Orfee, the best classical music station in Moscow. Nowek recognized one of the Bach “English Suites,” though he wasn’t sure which one. A violin was individual, full of character and innuendo. A piano was a machine made from hammers, pulleys, wires. A piano dominated. A violin insinuated, seduced. A violin sang.
    They turned onto the highway, heading southeast. The Chaika slowly gathered speed. It might be a derelict, but it still moved with exaggerated dignity, as though it were carrying a Politburo member to an important meeting. The announcer identified the piece as the Suite Number 6 in D Minor.
    â€œ
Look
at all this traffic,” Gavril chatted. “And a Saturday. Did you know there are more cars in Moscow now than in all of Siberia?”
    â€œIn Siberia,” said Volsky, his voice like rocks rumbling down a steel chute, “we say the same thing about thieves.”
    Through the outer MKAD Ring Road, by the giant tank trap sculptures commemorating the defense of Moscow, they rolled by the sparkling new IKEA furniture store, marooned in a muddy field.
    â€œThe Swedes should have known better,” Gavril chatted amiably. “They built their store just outside city limits so they wouldn’t have to pay off the mayor. No one told them all the roads came from the Moscow side. The mayor said if the Swedes want customers, they can fly them in by helicopter.”
    Volsky gave Nowek a look that said,
Moscow
.
    They crossed the inner Garden Ring. The Chaika lumbered on into the heart of the capital. Coming out onto Ulitsa Varvarka, the windshield filled with an extraordinary sight: a cluster of attractive sixteenth-century stone buildings dwarfed by an overhanging tidal wave of cracked, filthy concrete: the Hotel Rossiya.
    Across the street, partially blocking the view to the domes of St. Basil’s, a billboard advertised an American cigarette with A TASTE OF FREEDOM!
    â€œHere we are,” said Gavril.
    Nowek peered up at the hotel’s stark facade. There were windows missing, smashed, covered over with plywood sheets.
    Gavril docked the old limousine under the Rossiya’s swooping concrete canopy, scattering a few prostitutes out working the afternoon shift. “The Chairman is expecting you at six-thirty. He’s booked a private room at
Ekipazh
. It’s the best club in the city. What time would you like me to pick you up?”
    Volsky looked at the Rossiya’s forbidding entrance. “Early.”
    â€œGood idea. It’s safer in daylight. We’ll say five-thirty. And one piece of advice about the elevators . . .”
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Nowek. “We’ll walk.”
    Outside, the rain had settled into a spitting mist. Inside, the Rossiya looked depressingly normal to Nowek. It could be any one of a hundred hotels scattered across Siberia, only bigger.
    Their rooms were on the fifth floor. They took the stairs.
    â€œSo,” Volsky huffed as they climbed the stairwell. The