Hidden Prey

Marsha Spivak’s a Svoboda, so maybe it was just more pressure. They can’t talk to Anton because of the lawyers, but they talk to the Svobodas, figuring it will get back to the Spivaks . . .”
    “We hope,” Carl said. “So what do we do? Hide out?”
    “No, no. We confuse, delay, run around.” He took another quick lap of the living room, twisting his gnarled fists together. Not frightened, Carl thought: excited. “I’m thinking that we should send you out again.”
    Carl glanced at Grandma, but she seemed to be asleep. “Who?”
    “Kalin. The Russian,” Grandpa said. “If we get her, there’ll be a question: Where does this come from? Is this more retribution for Oleshev? Make it seem even more as though there are two Russian groups fighting it out.”
    Carl said, “I can’t do it tomorrow night. We’re singing.”
    “The woman is at the Radisson Hotel in Duluth. What room, I don’t know. If you were there at eleven o’clock tonight, when she would be there, and if you could figure out which room she’s in . . .”
    “I could buy a pizza at Domino’s and get my old pizza hat and deliver a pizza to her.”
    Grandpa shook a finger at him. “That is excellent, if we can find out her room number.”
    “How do we do that?”
    “We think. We think. We will find a way . . . but.” Grandpa paused, then said, “I want you to tell me what you think about the whole idea. Of taking out Kalin. Can you do it? Does it make sense?”
    Carl had no other ideas, and nodded. “Makes sense to me. Especially if we could be sure that they are confused. Like, we call them, you could speak Russian, maybe call the embassy, tell them to stay out. If the Russians are working with the FBI . . .”
    “Another phone call,” Grandpa said. “That could work . . . We need confusion, we need . . . something to make them go away. To look somewhere else. Something. Something.”
     
    G RANDPA GAVE G RANDMA two sleeping pills, and she was gone. “She’ll wake up at two o’clock in the morning and she’ll be up all night, crying half the time,” Grandpa said. “I think she just hurts sometimes.”
    “Maybe the pills screw her up,” Carl said. He looked at her face; if anything, it looked more tense asleep than it did when she was awake.
    “So many pills; I’m sure you’re right, but who knows which ones to stop, eh? Anyway, let’s work this out . . .”
    They’d had their idea; Grandpa’s eyes twinkled when he outlined it to Carl, and though Carl was doubtful, Grandpa thought it might work. “Russia is forever from these people in Duluth. What do they know about Russia? It’s a million miles away, that’s what.”
    They made the call from a shopping center telephone. They wanted a busy place, inside, but not one with loud announcements. Carl had brought an old battery-powered radio, tuned to a nonstation, so they got a noisy dead-air hiss. Grandpa dialed the number with a prepaid card, nodded when he got an answer, and Carl held the radio close to themouthpiece. Grandpa said, with a growly, put-on Russian accent, “Hello? Hello? One moment. Radisson.”
    Carl took the phone. “Yes, this is Foreign Ministry calling from Moscow for a Nadya Kalin. Could you forward us to her room?”
    A woman at the other end said, “Yes. Just a minute.”
    “Wait, wait. This is five o’clock your time, correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “Middle of the night here,” Carl said. “Is she still in five sixty-two?”
    “No, no, she’s on the seventh floor, but, uh, we can’t give out the room number on the telephone.”
    “What? I’m in Moscow, what . . .”
    “I’m sorry, but you can get that number from Ms. Kalin. I’ll put you through . . .”
    The operator disappeared from the line, and a moment later, the phone started ringing and Carl hung up. “Shit.”
    “What?” Grandpa asked.
    “Got the floor, but she wouldn’t give out the room number. She’s on the seventh floor.”
    Grandpa thought for a moment, then said, “We’ve got to go to Duluth.”
    “You’re coming? What about Grandma?”
    “She’s asleep. We’ll be back before she wakes.”
     
    T HE DRIVE TO Duluth took forever. Grandpa had another plan for finding the room, but it would only work if Kalin were out. “We should try to get there when she would be eating,” Grandpa said. But when Carl drove over the speed limit, Grandpa would say, “Slow, slow, we can’t afford a ticket. Look at the clock, remember the