Red Chameleon ir-3

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Zelach,” Rostnikov had called, throwing his jacket over his arm and going into the long, dark room outside his office. The room was modern, clean, filled with desks and men working behind them.

  Zelach had looked up as if awakened from a mildly pleasant dream. He was reliable, slow of mind and foot, and the only help Rostnikov had been allowed since his informal demotion.

  Zelach stood and followed. He had no curiosity and thus asked no questions as he followed Rostnikov down the aisle of desks past men at their solitary task of filling out reports. None of the actual interrogation was done out there. Interrogation, which could take hours or days if necessary, was normally carried on in small rooms down another corridor. The rooms could be made extremely warm or extremely cold, depending on the investigating officer’s assessment of the suspect or the witness.

  Rostnikov did not try to divert his eyes from the third desk, the desk of Emil Karpo, who had nearly died a month earlier in an explosion in Red Square. Since his return to duty, his right arm lying limp in a black sling, Karpo had been even less communicative than before. Karpo, he thought, had a look of death in his eyes. It was, Rostnikov knew, an old man’s thought, the thought that things were better in the past and would only get worse in the future.

  “What?” said Zelach, now at his side as he passed the desk.

  “I said nothing,” said Rostnikov, though he was not at all sure that he had said nothing.

  In front of Petrovka they hurried to the metro. Zelach had not, in the past month, appeared to notice that Rostnikov no longer had access to a car and driver or that the cases he was assigned were far below the level of social and political import of those in the past. In some ways, Rostnikov envied his lumbering assistant. If you do not let the world in, if it seems unchanged, it can cause you no pain. Nichevo, he thought, nothing. Never let anything bother or surprise you. Be resolved to accept anything and nothing.

  As he dropped his five kopeks into the metro’s turnstile slot, Rostnikov turned to Zelach. “What would you say if I were to tell you that you have been deemed a political liability and that I would have to shoot you in the next ten seconds?”

  Zelach, instead of looking puzzled at the question, let a frightened-looking man in a workman’s cap squeeze by them and then answered, “Good-bye, Comrade Rostnikov.”

  “As I thought,” said Rostnikov, hearing a train rumble below them and rise to a roar that ended conversation.

  On the escalator ride down, Rostnikov reflected for the thousandth time that he had been the victim of terrible timing and overconfidence.

  The plan had been dangerous but simple, but chance, which should always be reckoned with, had laughed at him. Chance and accident had always played a part in the life of Steve Carella and the 87th Precinct, the American novels purchased on the black market that Rostnikov loved and kept hidden in his apartment behind the Russian classics and the collected speeches of Lenin.

  Chance had failed to crown Rostnikov’s plan. He had set up an elaborate blackmailing of a KGB senior officer named Drozhkin that involved Rostnikov’s silence concerning the cover-up and the KGB assassination of a well-known dissident and Rostnikov’s assurance that the official reports, which were with a friend in West Germany, would not be released if exit visas for Rostnikov and his wife were issued. It was to have been processed as a routine exit visa for a dissident Jew and her husband with special permission for a police officer to depart based on his years of loyal service in both the military and the government.

  However, Brezhnev had died, and Andropov had taken over. Andropov had been a friend and admirer of Drozhkin’s and when Andropov took over, Drozhkin had been promoted, which meant he spent more quiet days on his dacha in Lobnya. And then Andropov had died, followed quickly by Chernenko’s death, which confused the situation even further. It had all gone wrong. Drozhkin had simply refused to deal with him. Rostnikov could have committed suicide by having the papers released in Germany to the Western press. As it was, there was still the threat of release, and at some level of the KGB apparently a decision had been informally or formally made. A stalemate existed. Rostnikov would not be allowed to leave the Soviet Union. However, he would not lose his job or be driven to complete despair, which might make him release the embarrassing report. It was a chess game in which the police officer had been outmaneuvered by the KGB. In this case, the stalemate had been a victory for the KGB.

  In the rumbling metro Rostnikov looked over at a woman with an avoska, a string sack on her lap, and wondered briefly if his case had actually made it to the desk of Andropov. It was possible but not terribly likely. It would have made the situation more bearable for him to know that it had reached such a level.

  More painful, however, was the knowledge that Rostnikov’s son, Josef, who was serving his time in the army and stationed in Kiev, would certainly be part of the continuing stalemate. Were the papers to be released to Stern or the New York or London Times, Josef would be on the next plane to Afghanistan. That threat had been made explicit by Drozhkin.

  “We’re here,” Zelach said, shouldering past a pair of young men with paper sacks under their arms. One of the younger men considered a look of anger, let his eyes take in the two disgruntled policemen, and changed his mind.

  Rostnikov dragged his leg behind him and just managed to get through the door of the train and onto the platform of the Prospekt Vernadskogo station behind Zelach as the door closed. He glanced back into the passing train and caught a look of clear hatred from the now-safe young man within. Had the young man been within reach, Rostnikov probably would have lifted him off the ground and shaken him like a sack of grain.

  “Zelach,” he said as they rode up the escalator, “do you think of me as a violent man?”

  “No, chief inspector,” said Zelach indifferently. “There’s a stand on the corner. I have not eaten. Would it be all right if I bought some blinchiki?”

  “It would be all right, Comrade Zelach,” Rostnikov said sarcastically, but the sarcasm was lost on Zelach. “Do you want to know where we are going?”

  Zelach shrugged as they pressed through the morning crowd.

  “In that case, we will let that be your surprise for the day.”

  In almost any country in the world, the knowledge that a murder had taken place would draw a crowd. In Naples, it would be almost impossible for the police to make their way through the crush of curious onlookers speculating on who had done what to whom and for what reasons. The situation would have been the same in Liverpool, Tokyo, Cleveland, or Berne, but in Moscow the sidewalk in front of the tenement was clear. Curiosity was there, but it was overcome by the fear of becoming involved, questioned, asked to remember and comment, to be made part of an official report.

  The building was one of the Stalin postwar blocks that looked like pale refrigerators. The apartments were usually dark, small, and far too hot in the summer. One could be easily disoriented by the sameness of such structures all over the city. Since Rostnikov’s own apartment on Krasikov Street was from the same period and in the same style, although in a slightly better neighborhood, he was filled with a weary sadness as he followed Zelach through the door and into the small lobby.

  There was no one there, no children, no old people. The building seemed deserted for a Wednesday evening, but both Rostnikov and Zelach were accustomed to this. Later, Zelach would wearily knock on doors and cajole, threaten, or force statements from people who insisted that they had seen and heard nothing.

  “Floor?” Zelach asked.

  “Three,” said Rostnikov, moving to the stairwell. The trip up the concrete steps was slow due to Rostnikov’s leg, and since their voices echoed unpleasantly, as in Lenin’s tomb, they said nothing.

  When Rostnikov opened the door on the third floor, a small girl, no more than four, stood staring at him. Her hair was braided behind her, and she sucked her thumb. Rostnikov smiled.

  “Oo menya temperatoora,” the little girl said, indicating that she had a t
emperature.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Rostnikov.

  “They killed the man with the beard,” she said round her thumb.

  “So I understand,” said Rostnikov.

  “Who are they?” the little girl asked, now taking her thumb from her mouth.

  “We will see,” said Rostnikov. Zelach stood, hands behind his back, patiently waiting for his superior to finish interrogating the child.

  “Will they come back?” said the girl. Her eyes were so pale blue that they almost blended with the white and reminded Rostnikov of his own son as a child.

  “They will not come back,” Rostnikov assured her. “Did you see them?”

  The girl shook her head no and glanced down the hall at a door that was now creaking open. An old woman dressed in black came out of the open door, looking quite frightened and stepping as if the floor were made of the shells of eggs.

  “Elizaveta,” the babushka whispered, not looking at the men. “Come now.”

  “No,” the child said, looking coyly at Rostnikov.

  “I think you should go, Elizaveta,” Rostnikov said. “You have a temperature.”

  The girl giggled and ran to her grandmother, who snatched her in by the arm after giving an apologetic and very guilty look in the general direction of the two policemen. The door closed, and the men were alone again.

  “You’ll talk to the old woman later,” Rostnikov said.

  Zelach nodded, and they strode to the door of number 31. Rostnikov knocked and was answered almost immediately by a woman’s voice.

  “Yes,” the voice said, strong, familiar, and in command.

  Rostnikov knew who it was, and the knowledge drained him further.

  “Inspector Rostnikov,” he said, and the door opened to reveal the uniformed presence of Officer Drubkova, her face pink and eager, her zeal oppressive and tiring.

  “Comrade inspector,” she said, stepping back to let him in. “This is the victim’s daughter and son, Sofiya and Lev Savitskaya. The victim is Abraham Savitskaya, eighty-three years. His body is still in the bath down the hall.” She nodded with her head as Rostnikov and Zelach came in. Rostnikov caught the eyes of the no-longer young woman standing in the corner with one arm around a boy whose frightened eyes tried to take in everything at once, to keep everyone and all things in view so they could not get behind him. There was something about the woman that struck Rostnikov. It was like seeing for the first time a relative known only in childhood. If she were the victim’s daughter, then she was at least half Jewish, and so, he thought, there may be some reminder of Sarah, but it went beyond that, and when she moved, he knew what it was.

  The woman stepped forward as if to ask a question, and her limp was pronounced, quite similar to Rostnikov’s own. Perhaps she had seen him move into the room and made the connection.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  Officer Drubkova, ever efficient, moved to the woman, probably to guide her back to the corner until the inspector was ready for her. Drubkova’s firm hands took the woman’s shoulders, but Sofiya Savitskaya did not turn away. The boy stayed back, eyes darting.

  “It is all right, officer,” Rostnikov said, shifting his coat to his other arm.

  Zelach asked, indelicately, “You want me to go look at the corpse?”

  Rostnikov nodded first at Zelach, who lumbered back into the hall, and then at the woman, who had limped forward.

  “They killed my father,” she said.

  “We know,” Rostnikov answered, and realized that he had one of the dazed ones, the ones for whom the trauma had been so great that they viewed violent events of the immediate past as if they were of no time, no place, just vague images they were trying to get to stop shimmering long enough to ask questions about their reality.

  “The two men shot him,” she said. The boy moved forward, frightened, to hold his sister’s arm. If she were lost in madness, he would have no one.

  “She will be all right,” Rostnikov assured the boy. “This is one of the natural reactions. Why don’t we all sit down. …”

  “Lev,” the boy said, holding his sister’s arm firmly. “My name is Lev.”

  “Why don’t we all sit down after you get me a drink of water,” Rostnikov said, finding a kitchen chair and lowering himself into it. Lev considered whether there might be a trap in the request and then cautiously moved to the sink in the kitchen section of the room. Officer Drubkova watched the boy suspiciously, as if he might grab the glass of water and make a mad escape with it into the hall.

  “Officer Drubkova,” Rostnikov said, taking the glass of tepid water. “Find a phone and be sure the evidence truck is on the way. Comrade-”

  “Her name is Sofiya,” Lev said, leading his sister to a chair.

  “Sofiya,” Rostnikov said, sipping the water, “where is there a phone in this building?”

  “There’s one-” Lev began, but Rostnikov put a finger to his lips, and the boy stopped.

  “Comrade Sofiya?” Rostnikov repeated to the staring woman. “A phone. I need help here.”

  Sofiya made an effort to refocus, came back into the world temporarily, and said, “Thirty-three, Vosteksky has a phone.”

  Officer Drubkova nodded and went in search of the phone, closing the door behind her.

  “Your father is dead,” Rostnikov said to the two in front of him. The boy was now standing, holding his sister, his hands on her shoulders. “And we should like to find out who killed him and why. Do you have an answer to either question?”

  “Two men,” said Lev. “A young one and a very old one like-”

  “Like me,” finished Rostnikov.

  “No, older, like my, my-”

  “And you have never seen them before?” Rostnikov said, finishing the water and putting the glass on the table, which was covered with a slightly worn flower-patterned tablecloth made from some oilclothlike material.

  “Never,” said Lev.

  “And you, Sofiya? You have never seen them before?” Rostnikov said gently.

  “I’ve seen the old one,” she said, looking through Rostnikov into eternity.

  “Good.” Rostnikov sighed with a gentle smile, thinking that perhaps he could wrap all this up and get home before ten for a decent dinner. “He is a neighbor, a friend, an old enemy?”

  Sofiya glanced around the room as if looking for someone or something and then brought her puzzled glance back to Rostnikov. Her answer made him revise his plans for a reasonable dinnertime and the possibility of an hour of weight lifting before the hockey match on his little television.

  “I don’t know where, but I’ve seen him, but it wasn’t quite him. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Exactly,” Rostnikov said reassuringly, though he had no idea of what she meant. “Try to remember where you have seen him. Now, your father, what was his business, his work?”

  “He didn’t work,” Lev said, and Rostnikov thought there was a touch of something, perhaps resentment, in the words.

  “He was ill,” Sofiya jumped in. “He used to be in the Party, but when my mother died, I don’t know how long ago, he became ill and didn’t work. I work. I teach children at the Kalinina School. I teach reading, shorthand, and-”

  “Did your father talk about enemies?” Rostnikov put in before she could launch into an irrelevant discussion of the Soviet educational system.

  “He imagined many enemies,” Lev said. “Mostly the police, the KGB, others.”

  “Imagined?”

  “He claimed he had an old friend in the government,” Sofiya said. “Someone who was having him watched.”

  “And you think that might have been true?” Rostnikov asked.

  “No,” Sofiya said. “He lied a lot.”

  She seemed on the verge of crying, which was all right with Rostnikov, but he had information to get, and he would prefer to get it before she began. Then he would even help her to cry, throw her some cue that would set her free to moan and rejoin the world, but he wanted to
do that as he left, after he had drained her of information. Anything else was wasteful.

  “Did these men take anything?” Rostnikov asked, turning his attention to Lev, whose hand had come to his mouth as if to hold back a cry. The eyes continued to scan, but more slowly now. He was becoming a bit more calm.

  “I don’t know,” the boy said, looking around the not very spacious and not overly filled room. “Sofie?”

  The woman shook her head to indicate that she did not know.

  Rostnikov stood up with some difficulty. “Why don’t you look around and let me know. I’ll go down the hall and come back.”

  “How did you injure your leg?” the woman asked.

  “War,” answered Rostnikov, draping his jacket over the chair he had vacated to make it clear to them that he was coming right back. “When I was a boy not much older than your brother. And you?”

  “I was born with it,” she said, shuddering. “My father and mother gave it to me as a birthday present. You know I loved my father?”

  “I can see that,” Rostnikov said, moving as quickly as he could to the door.

  “I did, too,” said Lev, a bit defiantly.

  “Did you?” asked Rostnikov, opening the door. He suddenly felt hungry and cursed the fact that he had not joined Zelach in a quick blinchik or two.

  “No,” said Sofiya, her eyes challenging. “I did not love him. I hated him.”