Seconds went by. Platonov looked like a man trying to hold a gate closed against a greater force. Arkady wondered whether the grandmaster was trying to find, in the hundred thousand games stored in his mind, a similar position. His precious pawn was an isolated pawn but it was his only winning chance and he assigned a rook to protect it, which opened a hole that Zhenya’s knight immediately filled. Platonov covered up like a hedgehog, which was effective in chess. Blitz, however, was not meant for hedgehogs because moves had to be made at once, at once, at once. He fended off one threat after another and, at the same time, nursed his pawn toward the eighth rank and possible transformation into a second queen. The black king took up the hunt, angling across open squares toward the pawn. The white king was smothered by its own defenses.

While Platonov paused again someone sneezed and Zhenya glanced at the rows of seated spectators. He drew his head in between his shoulders and looked again. The grandmaster was still studying the board when Zhenya laid down the black king.

Platonov was astonished. “What are you doing? You have the advantage.”

“I counted moves. You’d win.”

The teacher in Platonov was outraged. “You counted wrong. How could you do that?”

“You win.”

“Hit me,” said a parrot.

The television van was gone. The tournament participants and their supporters had left. The girl who played Zhenya had waited for half an hour in the cold but, shivering, had given up. Arkady waited by his car at the street end of the casino parking lot and Victor and Platonov stayed with him. They’d tried sitting in the car but the windows fogged up.

“The little shit gave me the game,” Platonov said. “It’s insulting. Then he goes to the restroom and disappears.”

Victor wiped his nose and regarded the minarets of the Golden Khan. “Does it snow in Samarkand? Sounds like the title of a song, doesn’t it? ‘When It Snows Again in Samarkand.’”

In spite of his throat, Arkady had to ask Victor, “Did you sneeze? When Zhenya looked up, was it at you?”

“I have allergies.”

“To what?”

“Things. Certain colognes.”

Which begged the question, wearing or drinking, Arkady thought.

“Anyway, Zhenya did not see me,” Victor said.

“I don’t need charity,” Platonov said. “And they never did let me talk about the chess club.”

“That would have made gripping television.” Victor stamped his feet to stay warm. “Oh, look. Someone actually has to do some work. Front door security has been issued snow shovels. Work beneath their station. So sad.”

The throat was closing Arkady down to a whisper. He asked Platonov, “How good is Zhenya?”

“You saw.”

“Really?”

“Complicated.”

“Speak of the devil,” Victor said.

Zhenya came out of the Golden Khan in the grip of a man who hustled him past security, who bent over their shovels and gave him no more than a glance. At fifty yards Arkady could see that one side of Zhenya’s face was deep red. The man wore a mismatched canvas work coat over suit pants and pointed shoes.

The scene was wrong. Zhenya’s face was starting to swell and turn one eye into a slit. Arkady had never seen him cry before. It was hard to believe no one at the door asked why. Halfway to Arkady, the man reached into a trash can, took out a dirty hand towel, and unwrapped a gun. Security cameras topped poles all around the lot; someone was bound to notice. Victor and Platonov stayed by Arkady’s side.

The man had a thin face, long nose and stringy blond hair. Exactly what Zhenya would grow up to look like, Arkady realized. This was the missing father, Lysenko pere. The man’s eyes were different, charred, as if he’d looked too long at the sun and at close range his canvas jacket gave off the acrid smell of tar. He was the Tar Man, the foreman of the road crew that had labored so futilely all week on the street that ran before Arkady’s building. Zhenya tried to squirm free and the man shook him like a goose held by the neck.

The Tar Man shouted as he marched up to Arkady, “He tore up the check. He saw me and quit the game and when they gave him the check he tore it up. Part of that thousand dollars is mine. I’m the one who taught him.”

“Then the money is yours. Fifty-fifty?” Arkady was agreeable. He wanted to negotiate before too much help showed up.

“Five hundred dollars, right now.”

“Give me the gun.” It was another antique Nagant, like Georgy’s.

“First the money.”

“First the gun,” Arkady insisted. “We have to go to the bank for the money.”

“I need it now.”

Then he needs it now, Arkady thought. He heard shouts from the casino. The last thing he wanted was Zhenya in the middle of a standoff between a madman and heavily armed guards.

“We’ll leave the boy here and you and I will go directly to the bank. I’ll vouch for you.”

“I know who you are. You’re the one that hid him.”

Hid him? Arkady had thought Zhenya was trying to find his father. Anyway, this was not a direction Arkady wanted to take.

“You and I will get the money and then we’ll have some vodka.” Arkady moved closer.

“I looked for a year.”

“First give me the gun because the guards are coming, and if they see you waving it, you know how they’ll react.” Arkady reached out. “You don’t want to be shot down in front of your son.”

“A son who runs away?”

“It’s not working,” Victor said.

Zhenya’s father pressed the gun against Arkady’s head. The muzzle tickled his hair.

Platonov tried to make himself as small as possible, perhaps the size of an atom. This was the difference, Arkady thought, between reality and chess. No next game. Traffic tore blindly by. His car, a couple of meters away, was too far for cover. Victor’s hand snaked forever to his holster.

“Give me the gun.”

“This is bullshit,” Zhenya’s father said after consideration, and fired.

Arkady had the sensation of a ripple on a lake, but one expanding at incredible speed, on and on and on.

13

The brain is intact, but it’s bleeding. Massively.

We can drain it, but we can’t stop it. As simply as I can possibly put it, the brain is a gelatinous mass and the skull is bone. The brain expands, the skull does not. Right now, our patient’s tender brain is trapped and compressed against the sharp ridges of the interior of his cranium. Which is the least of his problems, because pressure alone brings more bleeding, which only increases the pressure and brings yet more bleeding until his brain physically shifts to one side or herniates, in which case the game is pretty much over. We can keep his head up, pump in oxygen, drain and mop, but we won’t know more until he reaches the peak of the bleeding in, we estimate, twelve hours. If he survives that, then we can start worrying about his faculties. He may be the man he was or he may not be able to count to ten. While I probe, Natasha, take the drill, please, and give me the fiber optic.”

“Can he hear?”

“Yes, but it will mean nothing to him. He is in a void. No doubt he is losing brain cells. As the brain deconstructs, who knows what is uncovered? Greatest joys, worst fears? He was not conscious when he came in, and that is not a good sign. The vitals?”

“Heart rate seventy-five. ECG normal. Blood pressure one sixty over eighty.”

“When will the neurosurgeons arrive?”

“They are all occupied. Children, you are the team. With brain trauma we do not wait for anyone or anything. Seek and you shall find. Here inside the entry wound, between the occipital bone and the dura, a bullet, bone fragments and a good-sized clot. Gauze, please. This is not a hopeless case. Maria, now that you have the tube in, please keep this man asleep.”

“I have no halothane. I’m using ether.”