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“It doesn’t matter. It’s only books,” Sophie said. She turned to Masha. “Fine, the gun. Give me the gun. And fine, the trunk. We leave right now for Dr. Parks’s.”
CHAPTER 6
AN HOUR LATER, the three snuck out through the motel back door that led to an alley. They loaded the garbage bags into the Chevy and climbed in front, Sophie in the middle. There was no divider.
Masha pulled onto Pinafore Street to South La Brea, to take the surface streets north through Mid-Wilshire. They were sure no one had seen them leave.
But Boris, with his lackeys, was in his van waiting, and had seen them through his rearview.
At Sunset Boulevard, Masha went left, and Boris followed. They headed west toward the beach, and then at Bellagio, when Masha went right, Boris waited, and a few cars behind them, he took a right, too, up into the hills of Bel Air.
By six, the sun had all but set, and golden light flooded the car windows. It pierced through the trees and dappled the streets.
It was quieter here. Less traffic. Less grit. More green.
Masha pulled into a vacant driveway on Stone Canyon Road, behind a thicket of eucalyptus and old-growth pine. Down the hill and around a bend, Boris pulled over and stopped to watch. He could see the tail of Masha’s Nova.
She rounded the car, popped the trunk, and Sophie and Nikolai got out, too, and followed her around.
“As soon as it’s dark, and as soon as I can, I’ll get you out,” Masha said, and propped the trunk open with one hand. She reached with the other, tipped the spare tire, rolled it out, and lifted it over the bumper.
Nikolai carried it to the back seat.
“I’ll go first,” Sophie said, and stepped up and over the back bumper and into the trunk.
It was more spacious than she imagined.
“We’ll be like this.” She crouched, then tipped her body over and lay on her side, facing back, in the shape of a C.
Nikolai climbed over the bumper after her and did the same in front of his mother. Sophie wrapped her arms around him. They’d slept this way sometimes when he was little.
“We’ll close our eyes and sleep,” she said. “Get in a nap.”
Nikolai did as he was told. He shifted around, made himself comfortable, and closed his eyes.
Sophie looked up.
The trees behind Masha haloed her head in lush green, gray, and silver-blue leaves. Sophie thought of her thatched house in Uglich, surrounded by birch trees and farmland.
The streets of Crenshaw, like most of LA, were hard and gray; cement sidewalks, dirty thoroughfares, low-built buildings, and no green at all.
No grass. No smells. No stars at night.
You have to have money for trees here, she thought as she gazed at the glorious reaching tall branches. Shade is a luxury. You have to have funds. Back home, they were poor, but they had the woods and the Volga River. But here, a person must pay for the nature that should come for free.
“Here we go,” Masha said.
Nikolai opened his eyes.
They watched the window of light collapse as Masha lowered the lid of the trunk until it was perfectly dark inside.
The chill of the hillside breezes ceased, and mother and son were suddenly lulled by the dark moist warmth and sweet smell of cleaning products and brown paper bags.
“Whatever you do,” they heard Masha say from outside the Chevy, “do not panic.”
As she said this, she heard the approach of a car from behind, from down the hill. She turned her head as Boris pulled up and stopped the van. He gazed at her through the driver’s side window. His eyes narrowed, and he nodded and smiled a stupid fake smile. A mean smile.
Masha had never seen him before, but she knew the look. Had he seen her put Sophie and Nikolai in the trunk? She rounded to the front, climbed back in, locked the doors, and started the engine.
