She didn’t seem to care. Then one day he came to the door. She was packed. Off they went.”
“Where?”
“Oh, God,” Katerina said. “An apartment on Kalinin. One of those with a doorman. I heard them talking. I heard them talking about how Yulia was going to be some kind of Marta Herring.”
“Mata Hari,” Iosef corrected.
“Yes. She would be a spy. She would seduce secrets from Russians. She would be rich. I heard these things through the door. I did not let them know what I heard. I like Yulia. She was protective, as if I were her sister, and she had lived a difficult life, even more difficult than my own. As beautiful as she was, it was not enough to protect her from the streets. I didn’t like the German. I was afraid for her, but she seemed so excited and she kissed my cheek, hugged me, gave me some money, and promised to stay in touch. I never heard from her again, and when they left, the German stepped back inside this room to put a finger to his lips to let me know that I should be quiet. I have been quiet. It’s getting late.
I can’t be late.”
“You have a photograph of Yulia?” asked Iosef.
Another sigh. Katerina put her cigarette out in a small ashtray on a good-sized glass-top coffee table with chrome legs. “Yes,” she said and moved into the other room of the small apartment.
Iosef looked around and then at Zelach, who had his head down in thought. Iosef wondered what kind of thoughts the man beside him had.
“Here,” Katerina said, hurrying out of the other room.
She handed Iosef a small photograph.
“This was taken just before she left,” said Katerina. “She was all made up for a party. She forgot to take it with her when she left. I meant to give it back when she called, but. .”
Iosef looked at the color photograph, a waist-up picture of a slender, beautiful woman with long dark hair brushed straight back. She wore a dress that revealed her shoulders and a knowing smile that revealed even, white teeth.
“Even when she had little money, Yulia took care of her teeth,”
said Katerina. “She always said, ‘As long as I have good teeth and take care of my face and body, I have a chance to escape from this life.’ She escaped. Keep the photograph. I must leave.”
“You have the address of the apartment building on Kalinin?”
asked Iosef.
“I’ve written it on the back of the photograph,” Katerina said.
“Yulia also spends time at the bar in the Metropole and at the Cafe Royale. The German likes it there.”
Katerina held up her hand to show them the door. She plucked a lightweight coat from a rack in a corner. Iosef pocketed the photo and went through the door with Zelach.
“Please do not come back,” she said softly. “I am afraid of the German; afraid for my son, afraid for me.”
“We won’t come back,” said Iosef, reaching into his pocket, taking out his wallet and removing several bills, which he handed to Katerina. “Take a cab.”
She gave him a long look to determine if he thought this enti-tled him to a return, unofficial visit. She was a good judge of such things. This time she was almost certain that she saw nothing but sympathy in his eyes.
She stuffed the money into her purse and hurried ahead of them, closing the door and putting on the coat. Without glancing back she entered the dark stairwell and went down. The policeman could hear her shoes clapping against the concrete.
“Kalinin Prospekt?” asked Zelach.
“Kalinin,” Iosef answered.
Fifteen minutes later they were at the address of the apartment on Kalinin. The building was tall, relatively new, and sported a uniformed doorman, who was large, pleasant looking, and carrying a weapon which bulged under his gold-buttoned coat.
Iosef and Zelach showed their identification. The man examined the cards carefully and handed them back.
“This woman,” Iosef said, showing him the photograph.
The doorman nodded.
“Miss Yalutshkin,” he said. “She’s not in now. She left less than ten minutes ago.”
“Does she have a guest staying with her now?” asked Iosef. “A man?”
“Miss Yalutshkin entertains a great deal. She also tips well,” said the doorman. “It is my belief that she tips well to insure privacy.
However, if you are asking if anyone is in her apartment now, the answer is no.”
“Do you know this man?” asked Iosef, taking out a photograph of Yevgeny Pleshkov.
The doorman took the picture, looked at it, and said, “Yes, I’ve seen him on the television.”
“Has he ever visited Miss Yalutshkin?” asked Iosef.
“Perhaps,” said the doorman. “I try to mind my own business.”
“So you wouldn’t remember a German who visited her?”
“A German? So many people,” said the doorman. “So many people and such long days. You know it can be very boring being a doorman? I’m not complaining. Except for buying my own uniform, the money and tips are good. But people, tenants, want privacy.”
“Don’t tell her we were looking for her,” said Iosef pleasantly.
“I won’t,” said the doorman.
Another ten minutes later Iosef and Zelach were at the Metropole Hotel directly across from the Bolshoi Theater.
The Metropole was designed in 1898 by an English architect.
Its reputation for elegance has been maintained for a century, and shortly after the revolution, Lenin and his top lieutenants moved into apartments in the one-block-square, four-story stone edifice with its stained-glass windows and marble fountains.
Today the Metropole is part of the Russian-Finnish Inter-Continental Hotels and Resorts. The large rooms were renovated in 1991, but the workmanship and materials were cheap and the rooms are already looking a bit shabby. The suites, however, are well maintained for rich Russians and visiting foreigners drawn by the hotel’s reputation. The suites feature genuine antiques and Oriental carpets.
Iosef was well acquainted with the Metropole. He had attended endless rounds of discussions and parties in the Artists Bar, downstairs off of Teatralny Proyezd. The purpose of one of these discussions was to convince a rich Englishman to produce one of Iosef ’s plays in London. Iosef found the bar dismal and the food mediocre even in the hotel’s main restaurant, the Boyarsky Zal.
Nothing had come of the meetings. The Englishman had simply disappeared one day, and Iosef was left with memories of the stuffed bear in the hotel restaurant.
The desk man to whom they spoke did not seem to be the least impressed by Iosef ’s and Zelach’s police identification cards, but, on the other hand, he was not uncooperative. What he was, was busy-sorting registration forms, credit-card receipt copies, and bills charged to the rooms.
“Yes, I know Miss Yalutshkin,” the frail man said. He wore a neatly cut French suit and a very sedate blue tie in addition to a look of harassed distress.
“Do you know if she has been in the hotel today?” asked Iosef.
The man shrugged, examining what appeared to be a barely leg-ible signature on a small yellow sheet.
“Can you read this?” he asked in exasperation, handing the sheet to Zelach, who took it and frowned.
“It says ‘Fuad Ali Ben Mohammed, room three forty-three,’ ”
said Zelach, looking at the sheet.
“The amount?” the clerk asked hopefully.
“Two million and sixty rubles,” said Zelach, handing the yellow sheet back to the clerk.
“Thank you,” the clerk said gratefully. “I saw her going into the bar about an hour ago. I don’t know if she is still there. I would prefer if you did not mention that I told you her location.”
“We will not mention,” said Iosef, moving in the direction of the bar with Zelach at his side.
“Zelach,” Iosef said, “your skills are a constant source of surprise to me. First you kick a ball like a professional, and now I discover you can decipher obscure handwriting.”<
br />
“I have always been able to read poor handwriting,” said Zelach.
“I don’t know why. That bill I just looked at, I think the writer purposely made it difficult to read.”
“I would guess that was not his only bill,” said Iosef, opening the door to the darkness of the bar.
There were only a handful of people at this hour. A CD unit in the corner with two dark square speaker boxes was playing Louis Armstrong, singing “Wonderful World.”
“There,” said Iosef, looking at Yulia Yalutshkin alone at a table against the wall.
There was no doubt even at this distance that she was a very rare, pale beauty, far too thin, however, for Iosef ’s taste. Elena would never be a model, but she had a solid beauty that Iosef far preferred to the butterfly appearance of the Yulia Yalutshkins of modern Russia.
She saw them coming, hesitated for only a fraction of an instant, and went on slowly drinking.
“Yulia Yalutshkin?” Iosef asked.
The woman didn’t answer.
“May we sit?” asked Iosef.
The woman shrugged her slight shoulders. The two policemen sat.
She had still not looked at them. She seemed to be fascinated or hypnotized by something beyond the far wall.
“We are the police,” Iosef said.
A smile touched Yulia’s perfect, full red lips.
“You couldn’t be anything else,” she said in a throaty voice that reminded Iosef of the American actress-Zelach would know her name. Yes, Lauren Bacall.
“I used to be a soldier,” said Iosef.
“Now,” she said taking another sip from the glass of amber liquid before her, “you look like a policeman, and your partner could be nothing but a policeman. It is the curse of being a policeman.”
Zelach shifted uncomfortably. He slouched.
“Do you know what we want?” asked Iosef.
“No,” she said. “How much do you weigh? In pounds.”
“Slightly over two hundred,” said Iosef.
“You work out?”
“My father has passed on his passion for lifting weights.”
“I am very light,” she said. “And I like being picked up gently.
Especially by big men.”
“Yevgeny Pleshkov,” said Iosef.
Yulia didn’t respond.
“We can continue this discussion at Petrovka, if you would find it more comfortable,” said Iosef.
Yulia sighed. “What do you want?”
“We want to know where Yevgeny Pleshkov is,” said Iosef, wanting to order a drink but certain that he could not afford one, especially after having given Katerina taxi fare.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said. “Would you like a drink?
My treat. It won’t compromise you.”
Iosef nodded and Yulia lifted one thin hand with long dark fin-gernails and a waiter appeared.
“I’ll have a beer,” said Iosef. “Dutch, if you have it.”
“We have it,” said the very ancient, jowly waiter whose thin white hair was brushed and gelled straight back.
“Pepsi-Cola,” said Zelach.
“Coca-Cola?” asked the waiter.
“Coca-Cola,” Zelach agreed.
“Thank you,” said Iosef.
“Yes,” said Zelach, definitely uncomfortable in the presence of this distant, beautiful woman.
“We must find Yevgeny Pleshkov,” Iosef said when the waiter had shuffled away.
Yulia looked at her drink. “I don’t know where he is,” she said.
“I saw him yesterday. He was drunk. Yevgeny is usually drunk when he sees me. He is also usually very generous. When he is drunk he is absolutely incapable of having an erection, no matter what I do.
He was gone this morning when I woke up.”
Zelach was definitely uncomfortable now.
“It doesn’t matter,” she went on. “His interest in me is always how I look and carry myself. He wants me at his side, holding his arm, smiling as I look into his eyes. He has always paid well for this service. Other male friends pay well for other services. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Where is Yevgeny Pleshkov?” Iosef repeated as the waiter brought drinks for all three of them, though the woman had not ordered for herself.
“I have no idea,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. “He will turn up again. Maybe tonight. Maybe weeks from now. I have no idea.”
They drank. Iosef questioned and Zelach watched and listened.
Yulia Yalutshkin revealed nothing more.
“Well,” said Iosef with a sigh as he finished his beer and stood,
“I would suggest that you call me if he turns up. It could mean his career. Our job is to help him.”
“To help him get sober and go home?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And if he does not wish to get sober and go home?”
“Then he may become a very minor footnote in Russian history when he could be a significant figure,” said Iosef.
“You sound like an amateur playwright,” Yulia said.
“Very insightful. But I was a poor one. That is why I’m a policeman. Here is a card. Call our office, ask for me.”
“It wasn’t insight,” she said. “Half the young men who approach me have written a play. The older ones claim to be wealthy or powerful. I can tell which ones are.”
Iosef wrote his name on the back of the card and handed it to the woman, who placed it on the table without looking at it. Then he and Zelach left.
Outside the Metropole, rain was still threatening. A warm breeze blew and the two detectives walked.
“She was lying,” Iosef said. “She knows where Pleshkov is.”
Zelach grunted. He had no idea the woman might have been lying. “She bears watching?”
“And looking at,” said Iosef with a smile.
Zelach blushed. He had done his best at the table not to reveal that he could not keep his eyes from Yulia Yalutshkin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever been this close to. Zelach hoped that Iosef would assign him to be not only one who looks but one who watches.
Chapter Six
The room off the entrance to the health club was small, a cubby-hole passing as an office. On the walls were signed black-and-white photographs of athletes. Emil Karpo stood behind the desk, hands together in front of him. He was almost at attention, a fact which disconcerted the night health club clerk, Sergei Boxinov.
Sergei, at Karpo’s insistence, had sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. Sergei was a former Mr. Universe contender. He had never finished among the top five, but once, in Helsinki, he had finished sixth. That was where a Danish businessman had seen him and offered him the job he now held, night manager of the hotel health club. The Danish businessman had been gay, but not obviously so. He had let Sergei know his preference for men during their conversation. Sergei was not gay, but Sergei had a family and needed a good job. The experience with the Danish man had not been at all as unpleasant as Sergei had expected. Now, all that Sergei wanted to do was cooperate with the pale unsmiling policeman in black and get back home for a few hours’ sleep.
“What happened last night?” asked Karpo.
“Happened? Nothing unusual. I left about one in the morning.
Mr. Lashkovich was here. And the other man.”
“Other man?”
“He came in when I was adjusting the weight machines. I check them every night before I leave. I heard the door open and heard Lashkovich’s voice. He was not a quiet man. I never really got a good look at the other man. But Raisa did.”
“The cleaning woman,” said Karpo.
“Yes, she got a good look, I think.”
“You left at one.”
“About one,” Sergei said. “Lashkovich and the man were still here. It wasn’t unusual for him to be here alone and lock the door when he left. He was a very influential man and I was told to do what he wanted done.”
“So R
aisa and the two men were here alone for a while?”
“Yes, but Raisa was almost finished and probably left shortly after I did. Am I going to lose my job?”
“No,” said Karpo. “Unless you have done something wrong.
Have you done something wrong?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“In that case, you may leave. Send in Raisa.”
Sergei rose quickly, almost tipping the wooden chair over. He was out of the office in seconds.
The door opened again but it wasn’t the cleaning woman. It was Paulinin, distraught, his hair Einsteinian wild, his glasses slipping dangerously. He had come to the hotel at Karpo’s request to examine the pool and the shower and anyplace else where he might find even a trace of evidence.
Though he far preferred to work in his subbasement in Petrovka, the challenge of a crime scene intrigued him almost as much as the viscera of a corpse.
“I just called Petrovka,” Paulinin said, breathing quickly.
“They’ve taken the body, Lashkovich, turned it over to the. . the Tatar gang. I wasn’t finished with it. They’re going to bury him tomorrow. How can I check the evidence I gather here against the corpse if I have no corpse?”
“Who ordered the release of the corpse?” asked Karpo.
“Rostnikov, Porfiry Petrovich himself,” said Paulinin. “Is he mad? How can he take my corpse before I’m finished with it? There was so much more to learn. I was just getting to know him. He was just really beginning to speak to me.”
“Learn what you can here,” said Karpo. “Then we will take time for tea and biscuits. If Chief Inspector Rostnikov gave them the body, I am sure he had good reason.”
Paulinin calmed a bit, brushed back his hair, and adjusted his glasses. Tea and biscuits with the man he considered his only friend was calming, but not quite enough. “Porfiry Petrovich has gone mad,” Paulinin said, leaving the room with a shake of his head.
“That is the only explanation.”
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