A Fine Red Rain ir-5

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  "No, I don't mean that metaphorically. I'm not talking about crime. I'm talking about toilets. I could never get the apparatus to fix my toilet, so I learned to do it myself, to fix it myself. I was determined. I borrowed tools, found people who knew people who knew people who could get me parts. I learned. I think I even know a place where you can get a toilet bowl. You want to learn to repair your own toilet, I'll let you borrow my books."

  Katya pulled her hand away slowly and folded both hands on her lap.

  "I thought that was forbidden. That you could not repair your own plumbing. You're a policeman."

  "Fixing a toilet is a challenge," Rostnikov said, sitting back to give her a bit more room. "It is something that gives you a sense of triumph when you get it done in spite of what it takes to do it."

  "Maybe I'll borrow your books," she said. "Would you like some tea?"

  'Tea would be nice," Rostnikov said. He watched her stand up and move across the large room to the open kitchen. He turned in his chair to watch her.

  "I'd like" he began, but was interrupted by the door's bursting open. An MVD officer in uniform leaped in, gun in hand, unsure of whether he should aim his weapon at the young woman who seemed to be making tea or at the older man sitting in the chair. He chose the man in the chair.

  "Don't move!" the officer shouted.

  "I'm Inspector Rostnikov." Rostnikov sighed, glancing at Katya, who went on making the tea. "And you are?"

  "Vadim Malkoliovich Dunin," said the young man, who appeared to Rostnikov to be no more man twelve years old.

  "How old are you?"

  "How? I am twenty-four," the policeman answered.

  "Vadim Malkoliovich, put away your gun and leave. Wait in the hall. Let no one in unless I allow it."

  "But I was told"

  "A mistake. I have everything under control. Leave. And close the door behind you if it will close. How long have you been in uniform?"

  The young officer looked confused as he bolstered his gun. "Four months."

  "Advice," said Rostnikov. "Always knock. It often happens that the worst part of a domestic problem results from the attempts by people involved to get repairs done for the damage caused by the police who had come to help them."

  "I'm sorry, Comrade Inspector, but… If there is anything I can do?"

  "Can you fix broken doors?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  "Then learn to do so or stop breaking them."

  "Yes, Comrade Inspector," the young man said, backing out. He closed the door behind him and it stayed reasonably closed.

  Katya returned with the tea: a cup for Rostnikov, one for herself. She sat, gave him sugar. They said nothing for a few minutes as they drank and listened to the muffled sound of the toilet.

  "I have been assigned to investigate the deaths of your partners," he said, finishing his tea and placing the cup and saucer on a white cloth on a little table nearby. "I was with Valerian Duznetzov when he died this morning."

  Katya looked up from her tea and bit her lower lip.

  "You were, you were there when he fell?"

  "He didn't fall, Katya. He jumped. It was suicide. He was drunk. I think he had been drinking a bit to get up his courage. But it was suicide."

  "Oleg didn't commit suicide," she said evenly, looking into his eyes for the first time.

  "It doesn't seem so," Rostnikov agreed.

  And he saw an awareness cross her face like a slap.

  "You think, you think someone might have killed him?"

  "My superior, Colonel Snitkonoy, thinks it is a curiosity, a coincidence, two performers in the same act falling to their death in the same morning."

  "It could be a terrible coincidence," Katya said, putting down her cup and leaning forward urgently.

  "Yes," he said and considered telling the story of the policeman and the car thief.

  "What would convince him that it wasn't just a coincidence?" she asked, as if there were an answer she wanted Rostnikov to give but she did not want to hear. Since the idea of something beyond accident had been introduced, Katya Rashkovskaya's pretty face had been touched by fear.

  Rostnikov shrugged, puffed out his cheeks, and blew.

  "If the third member of the same act died in the same day, is that what you were thinking?" she asked, searching his eyes for an answer.

  Her eyes were a magnificent blue. Rostnikov did not really want to frighten her, but it was the fastest way to get information. He could comfort her later, let her borrow his plumbing books, provide her with protection.

  "Duznetzov said some strange things before he died," said Rostnikov. "He talked of birds and people flying over walls, of men seeing thunder. He was afraid."

  "You said he was drunk," Katya countered, clearly growing afraid herself.

  "Drunk and afraid and brave. I liked him."

  "He could be very funny," Katya said, folding her arms in front of her and turning her back to Rostnikov.

  "Who would want to kill your friends?" he asked.

  Her head went down, as did her voice.

  "I don't know."

  But it was clear to Rostnikov that she did know, or thought she knew.

  "You know," he said.

  She turned defiantly, ready to argue, her arms still folded closely to her breasts. But her defiance faded as she looked at Rostnikov.

  "You think I might be…"

  "Since I don't know what is happening, I don't know what might or might not happen to you." He got up awkwardly, as he always did when he sat for more than a few minutes, but he managed not to wince in pain. "I don't know what to do to protect you with certainty other than to locate and punish the person who might be responsible for what happened to your friends today."

  "But an accident, a suicide, there's no crime," she said as he walked past her toward the door.

  "There is a crime before these crimes, a crime sufficient to justify murder. Katya Rashkovskaya, I think you may be in danger. Do you remember my name?"

  "Rostnikov," she said. "Inspector Rostnikov."

  "When you want to talk to me, call Petrovka thirty-eight or tell the officer who broke your door. He will stay with you for a few days and find a way to fix your door. Can he sleep in here somewhere?"

  "I've two extra beds now," she said. "Thank you. Are you, are you really a policeman?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "You don't talk like a policeman," she said.

  "Ah," replied Rostnikov, "the genre is not dictated by the expectation. Each individual within the genre defines it. I am a policeman and, therefore, I must now be incorporated into your concept of a policeman."

  "You don't talk like a policeman," she repeated emphatically.

  In the hall, Rostnikov found the young policeman, who snapped to attention.

  "Vadim Malkoliovich Dunin," he said, "you are to remain with the young woman in this apartment until you are relieved. Find a phone on this floor, call in, and tell your commander that you have been placed on special assignment by me. Do you live nearby?"

  "Well…" began Dunin.

  "Is there someone who can bring you a toothbrush, a change of socks, shorts?"

  "My father works at the Ail-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, which"

  "Good, good. Have him bring you clothes in the morning. Pay Comrade Rashkovskaya for any food she gives you and put in for reimbursement. I'll sign your accounting. You understand all this?"

  "No, Comrade," Dunin said.

  "You don't have to. Most police work is doing what you are told and not worrying about what it means. Someone may be trying to kill that very pretty young woman and we don't want that to happen."

  "No, Comrade."

  "Keep yourself busy by trying to fix the door you broke and call me immediately if she says she wants to talk to me. Call me and find me. You understand?"

  "I understand," said Dunin. "Fix the door, don't let anyone kill her, and call you if she wants to speak to you."

  "Excellent," said Ro
stnikov, who limped slowly down the hall as he reached back into his pocket for his notebook.

  Someone had to be found to replace the aerialists, Pesknoko and Duznetzov, and, possibly, something would have to be done about Katya. That could wait, but not for long — If she met with an accident too soon the police, that barrel-shaped inspector, would not easily accept the possibility of coincidence. There might, however, be no choice for him. There was much to be done and too much to lose. It was now very dangerous for him to have Katya alive. He could do it without her.

  He had worked all of this out, had found the list of replacement acts sent by the Soyuzgostsirk, the Central Circus Administration, and had decided to make a visit to the Moscow Circus School, officially called the State University of Circus and Stage Acts, where all three of the new acts in which he was interested were currently training. He had called the school and had been assured that all three acts would be at the school that afternoon, that all three were being reviewed, and that a decision would be made within an hour or two so that the New Circus could continue its present show without a break.

  He crossed in front of Petrovka Park and hurried down Yamskoipola Street and into the lobby of the school, where the sounds of acts in preparation and rehearsal came through the open gym door across the lobby. Built in the early 1920s immediately after the revolution, the Circus School remained the single most prestigious source of circus performers. The building itself, however, showed distinct signs of mildew and decay. The floorboards in the lobby were warped, the wallboards were sagged and buckled.

  He passed through the museumlike arcade of pillars covered with historic photographs and moved down the corridor of classrooms. Ten black-uniformed children sat in one classroom with the door open. The instructor, a woman with thick glasses, was writing something on the blackboard.

  He strode on past the rows of photographs of circus performers from almost every country in the world without pausing. He had seen them before, hundreds, thousands, of times. He had been a student here, one of eighty twelve-year-olds accepted his year from three thousand applicants. He had been accepted because his father had been one of the original performers in Lunacharsky's first official Soviet Circus. It wasn't that he wasn't talented, capable, but he knew that he was no more so than hundreds who had been turned down. At the age of twelve he had been given the guarantee of a job for life.

  At first he had enjoyed the attention, the prestige. But as the years passed, he began to resent, resent the tricks he was taught, resent the act the teachers decided was right for him. His father had been a magician, an honored magician. The son had begun as a magician, had been moved into developing an act as a magician clown, and ended as an acrobatic clown in an act with three others. It was clear before he left the school that he would never be a star, a truth that was unacceptable to him.

  He hurried up the stairs to the second level. Classrooms and offices ringed the outside of the second floor, while the middle of the building was open, looking down on the noisy gym where music played, acts rehearsed, and the retired performers who served as faculty urged students on to hurried perfection. He had arrived in time. He stepped back into the shadows to watch the three acts that were being given a final review by the headmaster and staff. The death of a performer in one of the Soviet circuses was not unusual, and the call for a quick replacement was part of the routine. Lists were constantly being revised, acts reviewed, decisions made based on location of the circus, political interest, the kind of act that might be needed, and the possible competition. While the most prestigious acts came from the Circus School, nothing prohibited a circus from taking acts that had been developed privately, usually by families of circus performers.

  The gym was quieted by a pair of ballet teachers who had been around die school for years. Random rehearsals were stopped, but the hum of voices and clanking equipment continued. In the comer where he couldn't see, the pianist practiced while the first act set up.

  The performers were all young, all good. The first was a trio of ladder balancers, two women and one man. The man was powerful, teeth showing in a confident grin. The women were slim, smiling, an interesting contrast: one dark, one light. The piano clanked a British rock song, badly played but recognizable. The act was excellent but a bit automatic, mechanical, lacking flair.

  The second act performed to something by Mozart, which the pianist played a bit better. The performer was also better, a unicyclist with a round steel cage that he controlled, rolling it by riding his unicycle inside it. He looked a bit like a hamster in a plastic bubble, but he played clever variations on movement, near-disasters, and speed riding.

  The third act was a slack-wire clown, excellent but too reminiscent of the early Popov routine.

  It would take time, a year perhaps, to get to whichever act was selected. Perhaps he would never get to the performer and would have to go the route of dealing with one of the old acts. All of the old acts, however, would be dangerous prospects.

  It wasn't as easy to corrupt circus performers as it would have been with some other professionals. Circus performers had prestige, good living conditions, a guaranteed lifetime of work. It would be a challenge, but as he stood in the shadows he looked for the signs of weakness in the faces of the young people below, the signs that had probably been in his own face when he had been down there. How quickly did the stage smile drop when the act was finished? Did the performer hurry the hug of approval from other students and back away? Was there a touch of uncertainty and a masked lack of confidence in the stride?

  He looked for these things and saw his greatest hope in the slack-wire clown. It would be hard to influence the decision, perhaps impossible, but the clown had the most promise for corruption. Yes, there was a future, a way out, with but one loose end: Katya Rashkovskaya, a most dangerous loose end. He went back to the first floor and found the office of a teacher who had once been in the New Circus. The teacher had a known drinking problem and debts. He could use money and Dimitri Mazaraki had plenty of money. He paused and examined himself in the glass of the office door, adjusted his mustache, parted down his hair, and stepped through the door.

  Yuri Pon had not brought his knife. He was not planning to execute a prostitute on impulse. He had made that mistake once, on the subway, and had regretted it. Everything had gone wrong that time. The prostitute had worn a uniform and had turned out not to be a prostitute at all. He had worked too quickly. He had even been seen. No, he had to be careful, precise. He knew how deeply his emotions ran, and for mat reason he forced himself to be cautious and methodical.

  He would identify a prostitute, be absolutely sure that he was correct, follow her, and, if possible, observe her in the act. He would find out where she normally went, prepare himself, and, on the night chosen, execute her.

  He took the metro to the Mayakovsky Station and made his way to the Byelorussian Railway Station, where he was sure to find what he was looking for if he were a bit patient. It didn't take long. He bought a coffee from an old woman at a stand in the station, sat with a copy of Izvestia in his hand, adjusted his glasses, and pretended to be waiting for a train. Occasionally, he would look up at the posted schedules to suggest to anyone who might be watching him that he had legitimate business.

  In the course of the next two hours he saw three prostitutes attempting to pick up travelers coming in. He rejected two of the prostitutes immediately. They were not pretty enough. A third was a distinct possibility. She was blond, about twenty-five, and wearing a gray dress and a white top. She looked healthy, confident, not defiant. And she was not afraid to approach an occasional soldier. The fourth soldier she approached picked her up, and the two of them walked toward the massive front entrance of the station. Yuri gulped down his coffee, tucked his newspaper under his arm, and got up to follow them. He arrived at the entrance a step before they did and even held the door open for the couple to walk out. It was then that he got his first clear look at the woman. She was pretty but she was flaw
ed. A dark purple birthmark about the size of a baby's hand ran from below her right ear down her neck. It didn't touch her face but it was there. He imagined the soldier kissing her in the dark, kissing her neck.

  Yuri Ron did not follow them. He felt ill. His stomach was sour and the acid taste snaked into his mouth. The evening was hot and he had had a hard day. Nikolai would probably have passed out by now, so it would be safe to go back to the apartment. Tomorrow or the next night Yuri would try again. It would be hard to wait. He would try someplace else. He would be patient, careful, efficient. He would.control his emotions. He would make his contribution. Tomorrow or the next night.

  When Rostnikov walked down Krasikov Street toward his apartment that evening, he had a plan for the night. First, he would engage in small talk with Sarah. Before they ate, he would spend his forty minutes lifting weights in the comer of the room and she would read or watch television. During dinner he would suggest that they go for a walk and Sarah would accept. She would also know that he had something serious to say. On the walk he would tell her about Josef's posting to Afghanistan, try to comfort her, and hope she would have some words of comfort for him. They would stop for something, maybe an ice cream, and come home early to talk or read. It would, he thought, be a slow, perhaps sad, night in which he would not think of the KGB, of the Gray Wolfhound, of the man who had dived off Gogol's statue. He hoped it would not be one of those nights when bad news angered her, turned her against him, transformed him into the evil cossack of her imagination. These outbursts were always brief and regretted, but they lingered in his memory and he feared that frequent setbacks would increase the periods of anger. Her anger made him feel helpless. Rostnikov could deal with murderers, pompous superiors, scheming KGB officers. He could play their games, even gain a satisfaction from small triumphs, but his wife's emotion swept him away. He never considered joining her in anger. Rostnikov had learned even as a boy not to be angry. It wasn't that he controlled his anger. It was simply that he didn't feel it. The world was strange, sad, ironic, comic, even terrible, and, yes, there were people who were monsters. It wasn't that he forgave them. He often thought that anger might be far more satisfying than the frequent state of amused melancholy with which he felt most comfortable.