Last Snow Read Online Free PDF

Jack said to the blonde, whose hands tentatively fingered her throat.
    “Yes, thank you.”
    He nodded, about to move away, when she added: “My name is Annika, and this is Jelena. We were about to go clubbing. Why don’t you join us?”
    “It’s been a long day and I was just on my way up to my room.”
    “Please. I’d like to repay your kindness.” She gestured at the empty stool beside her. “The least I can offer is a drink.”
    Jack really wanted to get back to his room and prepare for the assignment he’d been given, but it would be rude to refuse. “One drink.”
    She nodded. “One drink only. Then, if you like, I myself will escort you to the elevators. I’m staying here, too.”
    “Yeah, I couldn’t help hearing the shouting match earlier this evening.”
    She made a face. “Jelena said that everyone in the hotel must’ve heard Ivan and me.”
    He sat on the indicated stool and nodded after the departing figures. “I guess we’ll need to give statements to the police.”
    At this, both women laughed. “I see you haven’t been in Moscow long,” Jelena said. “The police are too busy shaking down businesses and taking American dollars from people like Annika’s boyfriend—”
    “Ex-boyfriend,” Annika interjected. “
Very
ex.”
    “Whatever.” Jelena shrugged. She spoke English with no foreign intonation at all, unlike Annika, whose English was freighted with a heavy Russian accent.
    “I see you have no trouble talking to strangers.”
    “If I did, I’d be out of a job,” Jelena said. “I handle the hotel’s overseas bookings.”
    Annika signaled the bartender. “What will you have . . .”
    “Jack,” he said. “Jack McClure.”
    Annika nodded. “What’s your poison, Jack McClure?”
    “Single malt,” Jack said to the bartender. “Oban, please.”
    “Right away, sir.” The bartender went to retrieve the bottle of scotch.
    “I hope you have a strong constitution, Mr. McClure.”
    “Shut up, Jelena.” Annika shot her friend a daggered look before turning back to Jack. “Ignore her. She’s developed a lurid imagination from reading too many American thrillers.”
    “I have no idea what the two of you are talking about.”
    The bartender set his drink in front of him, then backed away as if they were all radiating plutonium.
    “You might as well tell him, Annika.”
    “That seems like a good idea,” he said, taking a sip of his Oban.
    Annika sighed. “My ex—his name is Ivan Gurov—is a minor—and I stress
minor
—member of a Russian
grupperovka
.” Her eyes locked on his. “You know this word?”
    Jack did. “He’s part of the Moscow mafia.”
    “He’s a fucking criminal,” Jelena said with more emotion than she’d shown up until now.
    “As you can see, Jack, Jelena didn’t approve of my involvement with Ivan.”
    “He’s a bloodsucker,” Jelena said, clearly warming to the topic. “He’s trash washed up in the gutter, who’d as soon slit your throat as look twice at you. He gets more pleasure out of blood than vodka, that’s for sure.”
    “My friend needs to learn to have an opinion,” Annika said with a good-natured laugh.
    “And you need to watch out behind you,” Jelena said soberly. “You, too, Mr. McClure. I saw the look Ivan gave you.”
    “I take it that means he won’t be thrown in jail.”
    “His friends would see he got out in a heartbeat,” Annika said, “which is why the police won’t bother pursuing the matter.”
    “More likely they don’t want to wind up in an alley with a bullet in the back of the head,” Jelena said. “They have a serious aversion to being taken out with the garbage.”
    Jack took another sip of his scotch. “Count me in on that group.”
    “Don’t worry,” Annika said. “Jelena tends to overstate the case when it comes to Ivan. He’s pretty far down the
grupperovka
food chain.”
    Jelena made a derisive sound. “That doesn’t stop him from killing people.”
    “You don’t know that