A Fine Red Rain ir-5

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  "May we ask? I mean you are going to do… something with these tapes and the machines," said Felix through a close-toothed smile.

  Khabolov adjusted his glasses and gave the man a withering glare, a glare over his nose that he had spent nearly twenty years developing, a glare that said, "How dare an insignificant bit of cheese like you ask a question like that of someone as important as I?"

  "I just…" Felix whispered, backing away.

  Khabolov took a step toward him, his eyes meeting the frightened, watery eyes of the elder Gorgasali brother.

  "The white Chaika outside is mine. The trunk is open. Put it all in the trunk," he said.

  Felix gulped and nodded to his brother. Khabolov did not remove his eyes from Felix's, but he heard Osip clumsily open cabinets, move, find.

  "What I do with this," Khabolov said, patting the notebook in his pocket, "and with you, is entirely up to me. I can use you, your equipment, your tapes, in any way I choose. To catch economic traitors to the revolution"- with this he paused to make it clear who two such economic traitors might be" to give to my friends, or to use myself. Each day of freedom for the two of you is one more day than you should have."

  Felix closed his eyes, opened his mouth, opened his eyes, and in a voice filled with fear croaked, "But you would be in trouble if you used any of this for your own profit and Osip and I told about it during an inquiry."

  Khabolov smiled, a small rodent smile that he thought made him look like the villain in a decadent French play he had once seen. He enjoyed a small display of rebellion, one that could easily be crushed.

  "I would call you a liar," Khabolov said, grabbing Felix's tie. "I would call you a liar and accuse you of the most obscene of crimes, crimes for which I would produce great mounds of evidence, sacks and boxes of evidence. You would both choke on the evidence. Do you understand? Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, yes, yes," croaked Felix, his white hair falling over his eyes.

  Khabolov let go of Felix's tie, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his palms to cleanse them from the contact, and replaced the handkerchief without removing his eyes from the cowering peddler. Khabolov was proud of his performance and thought of how nice it would be to have someone witness it who would really appreciate his artistry.

  "Ready," said Osip, his voice even more broken and frightened than that of his brother.

  Khabolov turned and looked at the two video machines and the box on top of one of them. The box was filled with tapes. A television set's dead white eye peeked out from behind the machines and tapes.

  "Good," said Khabolov, looking at his watch. "I've got to get back to my office. I'll return when I need information or more material. Meanwhile, you prepare a detailed inventory."

  "Yes, Comrade," said Felix.

  "Yes, Comrade," agreed Osip, who bent to pick up a machine and the box of tapes.

  Five minutes later, the load safely locked in the trunk of the car, Khabolov was on his way back to Petrovka. A caseload awaited his careful eye.

  "He's gone," sighed Osip from the curtained window as he watched the white Chaika move into traffic and hurry away.

  The curtain at the end of the trailer parted and Sasha Tkach stepped out.

  "I hope I did it correctly," Sasha said.

  "If you did what we showed you, it was fine, fine," whispered Osip, finding a bottle in his drawer and pouring himself a large glass with trembling hands. "It has to be fine. I would rather go to Lubyanka than go through that again."

  "I wouldn't," said Felix, reaching for the bottle.

  "You did well," said Sasha, "very well."

  "You'd like a drink?" Felix asked, turning to the detective with an outstretched hand containing a drink.

  "No," said Sasha. It wasn't that he didn't want the drink. Not at all. What he didn't want was the Gorgasali brothers to see that his hands were trembling every bit as much as theirs.

  Sarah wasn't home when Rostnikov arrived. He didn't expect her to be. She would be working late, till seven. He would simply go to the second-hand foreign book store on Kachalov Street and wait for her outside. He would smile and tell her that they were going to the circus. She would give him a look that told him she was not going to be able to think about circuses and clowns, that all she could think about was their son, that Josef was in Afghanistan, that madmen were shooting at him, trying to kill him. Her eyes would show that, seek the same fear in his, and he would let the fear show. Then things would be Tall right. She would nod. They would go to the circus and eat later, afterwards, talking about the acts, about their memories as children. And then she would remember, if she had not by then, the times Porfiry Petrovich had taken the family to the circus. She would remember the little boy's cackling laughter, open-mouthed awe. Then she would weep just a little and they would go to sleep.

  There would be no time later to lift his weights. He made himself a plate of cheese, cold meat pie, onions with vinegar, and a slice of bread. There was a half bottle of white wine in the cabinet over the sink. He poured himself a full glass and placed plate and drink on the table near the window, where he could see them while he lifted. Then he changed into his sweatpants and the T-shirt with the words "Moscow Senior Championship 1983," set out his mat, chair, and weights, and began his routine.

  He worked, as always, slowly, deliberately, curling with both hands as he sat, pumping with both hands as he lay on the floor. He was not conscious of the smell of cheese as he began to sweat, but he sensed it. His concentration went to the bar, the weights clanking. He saw nothing, thought nothing. The smell of the food flowed through him as he rolled, moved, lifted, grunted. His T-shirt was soaked through in ten minutes. In twenty minutes his face and neck were itching. He hardly noticed. He was one with the moving weights, the routine. It was at times like this that Rostnikov often lost count, did too much, and only caught himself when his eyes happened to fall on the ticking clock next to his trophy. But this time he did not lose himself. He came out slowly on the last series of repetitions, let himself feel the tension in his stomach as he sat forward with the 150-pound weight behind his back, let himself feel the rivulets of sweat weave their way down his stomach and through the hairs of his crotch. He gave himself a final count, though he knew, could feel, that he was almost finished. He made the sit-ups, eased the weight back to the blanket, and lay back, looking up at the ceiling and the rivers of cracks he could never remember but that came back to him familiarly and clearly each time he was in this position. Rostnikov listened to himself breathe, tightened his stomach, and sat up. The early afternoon light through the window fell on the plate of food and the wineglass, turning them into a still life that pleased Porfiry Petrovich as he put his towel around his neck and lifted himself up awkwardly. The leg was still a bit stiff from Drozhkin's punishment, but it was coming back. A few minutes in the shower and the food would help greatly.

  Rostnikov moved slowly still, put the weights back in the cabinet, rolled up the blanket and put it over the weights, and closed the cabinet doors. Then he moved to the bathroom immediately inside the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, examined his dark, solid, and quite hairy body, noticing that even his navel hairs were turning gray, turned on the shower, and waited for the water to turn warm. Hot was too much too expect. Hot had never happened. Warm was a luxury and, as it turned out, a luxury Rostnikov would have to forgo. The water remained cold.

  "Yahmm," hummed Rostnikov as he stepped into the stream of cold water, letting it hit his back, his chest, bounce off his head. He took the soap out of the soap box, rubbed himself from head to foot, including his hair, and continued to "Yahmm," pausing only to catch his breath. The soap was a luxury, tooFrench soap, purchased by Sarah for a price and from a source she preferred not to discuss with her policeman husband. Rostnikov didn't care. He smelled the soap and hummed. Rinsed himself off and hummed. Turned off the water and continued to hum for the few seconds it took to reach the towel. As soon as he touched the towel he stopped hum
ming and thought of his mother at their kitchen table. She smiled, a thin woman with yellow-brown hair, and then the thought was gone.

  Rostnikov was brushing his teeth when the phone rang. He wrapped the towel around his ample middle and moved as quickly as he could to the phone in the other room. The phone was both a luxury and a reminder of how near the nearest order was. The phone was his because he was a policeman. The phone was his because sometimes police inspectors had to be reached quickly.

  "Rostnikov," he answered, picking up the receiver.

  "Karpo," came the familiar voice. "I'm at Elk Island. A row of tree stumps cut for chess players. You know it?"

  "I know it," said Rostnikov.

  "If you catch a cab, you can get here"

  "In twenty minutes, if I frighten the cabdriver," said Rostnikov, throwing off the towel and reaching for his undershorts as he spoke.

  "We may have to move," said Karpo.

  Perhaps only Rostnikov would have noticed the very slight change in that monotone, a change so slight that perhaps a dog could not pick it up, but a change he sensed. Rostnikov said nothing. He struggled into his pants as Emil Karpo added, "I have found the prostitute killer but I cannot arrest him."

  Rostnikov tried to buckle his belt with one hand but couldn't.

  "He has Mathilde," Karpo said. "And he knows I am here."

  "I'm coming," said Rostnikov, and hung up the phone. Although Rostnikov had known about Mathilde Verson for several years, he had finally met her in the hospital a few months ago when Emil Karpo was stubbornly refusing to allow surgery on his arm. She had helped Rostnikov convince the stubborn zealot to agree to let Sarah's cousin Alex perform the operation in his office. Karpo had tried to hide it, but Rostnikov had seen the eyesnot the face, but the eyesreveal an appreciation, a willingness to respond to the life force of the woman. And now that woman was in the hands of a killer of eight women.

  As soon as the phone was down, Rostnikov buckled his pants and put on his shirt. He slipped on his socks, knowing that at least the right one was inside out. The shoes went on without tying. He took four steps to the table, put the cheese and onion on top of the cold meat pie, held the combination in his right hand, and downed the glass of wine with his left. On the way out the door, Rostnikov took his first bite of pie-cheese-meat and found it dry and not nearly as satisfying as he had hoped it would be.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Around two in the afternoon Yuri Pon had become quite ill, quite ill. It might have been something in the herring he had packed for lunch; the herring did not mix well with the information the computer had given him and then taken away.

  "Comrade Pon," Ludmilla Kropetskanoya had said, a slight puckering in the corner of her razor slash of a mouth indicating that she found it distasteful to say what she had to say, "you do not look well."

  "I don't feel very well," Pon agreed and let himself feel even worse. He touched his brow and his hand came away moist with sweat.

  "I think you have a temperature," she said, reaching over to touch his head. He backed away so quickly he almost fell out of his chair.

  "No, don't," he squealed. She had never touched him. The idea of her touching him with those cold steel fingers made him retch.

  "I'm…" she began and then shook her head. "Go home. You're sick. Fill out your sheet and go home. Things are slow. We have the extra help. Go take care of yourself. You've been behaving, I have to say this, like a man about to fly to the moon."

  "How does a man who is about to fly to the moon feel?" he said, looking down to hide the hatred he was feeling toward her.

  "Frightened," she said calmly.

  "I wouldn't be afraid to go to the moon," he said, looking up at her defiantly. "I would not be afraid to go to the moon."

  This look on her face was a new one, one he had never seen before, and it frightened Yuri Pon. Ludmilla's eyes opened wide and her mouth went slack as she looked at him. Then the tight rubber face returned to near-normal. It had been a look of surprise, possibly even fear.

  "I'm sorry," Yuri said, touching his own forehead. "I must be feverish, a bit feverish. I've been working hard on the computer. It's"

  "Go home," she said. "Now. Go home and take care of yourself. That is an order, Comrade."

  Orders, he thought. This woman gives orders. I could give her orders. I could get my briefcase, get my knife. Then I would give the orders. But he knew he would do no such thing. The knife wasn't for withered goat tails like Ludmilla. It was for young, filmy women. On Ludmilla he would have to use something mat didn't bring him close to her, didn't force him to touch or smell her. A club, a chair. He thought of the statue of a Greek goddess in his mother's room, a cheap copy his mother had purchased at a market, a cheap replica with a small chip in the base. He could bring mat down on Ludmilla's face again and again and again.

  Yuri forced himself to stand up. It was difficult. He tried not to tremble with rage, confusion, and that aching, longing feeling.

  "Home, now," Ludmilla repeated. "If you still feel like this tomorrow, you go to the clinic and have them look at you and fill out a report."

  "Yes, Comrade," he whispered. "Thank you. I do feel…"

  She had already turned her back and was marching toward a uniformed officer at the desk. Yuri shut his mouth and moved to the small closet near the door where he kept his jacket and briefcase. Behind him he heard Ludmilla take a file from the officer, heard them speak, but he could not make out the words. As soon as Yuri's fingers touched the handle of his briefcase, he found it difficult to breathe. He needed air, desperately needed air. He took in large gulps of air and looked back over his shoulder at Ludmilla, who continued to talk to the officer but looked at her departing assistant as if he were a disfigured beggar.

  Yuri didn't stop to make out an early departure report. He knew he would never make it if he did. As it was, he barely got to the main entrance, where the uniformed and armed guard on duty watched him emotionlessly as he puffed and grunted to the door and out into the afternoon sun. Two men and a woman he recognized from the Procurator's Office moved past him, eyeing him as he gulped in air and loosened his tie. An efficient-looking woman in a dark suit whom he didn't know asked him if he needed help. Yuri couldn't speak, but he shook his head no and stumbled down the steps into the square. He looked across the street toward the stern statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky.

  He stumbled across Kirov Street and was almost hit by a Volga whose driver leaned out the window and shouted something at him before speeding on. The steps of the Dzerzhinsky Metro Station were in front of him. He went to the rail and looked down into the darkness of the station and decided mat he could not go down there, not now. A familyfive or six people, probably foreignwas coming out of the Mayakovsky Museum to his left. They were talking loudly, arguing about something. They headed toward the metro, and Yuri clutched his briefcase and stumbled away, crossing Serov Passage, managing to avoid traffic. He began to walk aimlessly down the street. At the entrance to the museum, Yuri stopped, adjusted his glasses, and looked around as if he were lost. Then he turned around, headed back to the square, looked up at the sun, and crossed New Square Street in front of the Detsky Mir children's shop. He passed the store entrance and moved up 25th October Street.

  Yuri was in the wrong area for what he needed, wanted. His moist fingers tightened on the worn handle of the briefcase as he wandered. He looked only forward, not back, and had he looked back in his present state it was doubtful that he would have seen the tall, gaunt man and the woman in the red hat who were following him.

  "He's sick," said Mathilde, hurrying to keep pace with Karpo.

  "Yes," agreed Emil Karpo, following Pon through the afternoon crowd, trying to stay far enough back to keep from being seen. Karpo was well aware that he did not melt well into a crowd. Mathilde's new red hat did not add to the possibility of their successfully blending into the pedestrian traffic, but Pon was not a man to notice. He had stumbled out of Petrovka, and they followed him simply
because he was the first of the three possible suspects to leave that day. They would have pursued any of the three who came out first. The plan would have been the same in any case.

  They had, however, almost missed Pon. One of the suspects was an investigating officer who might come out any time on assignment. Pon was an office worker. It was hours earlier than his normal departure time.

  "I don't like the way he looks," said Mathilde as they walked.

  Karpo shrugged. He didn't care how Pon looked as he staggered around the streets of Moscow.

  "Do you think it's him?" Mathilde asked. Pon stopped suddenly, clutched his briefcase to his chest, and looked across the street toward the elevated parkway where the statue of Ivan Fyodorov, the first Russian printer, stood. Karpo put out a hand to halt Mathilde.

  "Wait," he said.

  Pon seemed to be about to cross the street, changed his mind, and continued walking. Across from the Slavyansky Bazaar Restaurant five minutes later, Pon adjusted his slipping glasses once more and turned his head back toward Karpo and Mathilde. Mathilde was about to stop but Karpo reached out, grabbed her hand, and kept walking behind a young couple.

  "Don't stop. If we stop, we stand out," he said. "If he doesn't start walking again, we turn in to the first doorway."

  But Yuri Pon did decide to walk again. He walked and walked. For almost an hour he wandered almost aimlessly, and as he walked he sweated, and as he sweated he began to recover a bit from whatever was ailing him.

  "I'm tired," sighed Mathilde.

  Karpo looked at Pon, who had paused in front of the Cosmos Hotel and moved toward the entrance. The Cosmos lobby was not exactly the place where one might encounter a prostitute, but Mathilde was tiring and Pon showed no signs of ceasing his wandering.

  "Now, in the lobby," Karpo said.

  "Aren't you going to tell me to be careful?" she asked playfully.

  Karpo looked down at her, at the thin layer of perspiration on her slightly protruding upper lip.