People Who Walk In Darkness (Inspector Rostnikov)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “We will hold you down for half an hour so the food will be absorbed and can’t be vomited. Then we will remove the tube. Then you get another chance to talk. And if you don’t, we repeat the feeding for as many days as it takes and, according to my father, who went for ten days before falling into a coma, it is more painful each time the pipe goes down the raw passages. I’ve always wanted to see what my father suffered. I may finally be getting my chance. And if you die, we still have your two friends to feed. I would like to be extremely wealthy, rich from diamonds, but I’ll gladly accept the alternate option of torture and, who knows, I may get both.”

  Kolokov held the tubing and a funnel in one hand and the bottle in the other. The Spaniard crossed his arms. George knew which option he wanted.

  In the company of madmen, one’s best refuge is to go mad oneself.

  “Well?” asked the Russian.

  There was no doubt what Vladimir Kolokov wanted. George was not about to grant it to him, even if it meant death. George was shaking now. He could not help it. He was shaking too much to speak but he did make a gesture with his head that left no doubt of his response.

  He shook his head no and tilted it back. Kolokov looked disappointed.

  Oxana Balakona stood near a wall in the North Station of the Kiev Railroad Station. In her right hand was a small suitcase, plain, faux leather, black. People hurried past her—more than 170,000 passengers came through the station every day—but she was not unnoticed.

  Oxana was a model—a beautiful, thin, dark model in demand as a mannequin for sultry clothes, a sly smile on her red lips.

  Women glanced at her. Most men, even the old ones who only harbored the memory of a libido, stared at Oxana as they moved by.

  Train arrivals and departures were announced by a calm baritone voice. Children cried and whined.

  Oxana was aware of the attention she brought, but at the moment it was of no interest to her. In fact, her looks were a threat to the reason she was here.

  She checked the large, modern, metal clock at the second level of the open area.

  The woman was late.

  And then Christiana Verovona appeared, as unimpressive as Oxana was striking. Christiana was about Oxana’s age, no more than twenty-five, but she looked at least ten years older. Oxana had a fair description and an old photograph of the woman, but that was not how she recognized her.

  Christiana Verovona was carrying a suitcase exactly like the one in Oxana’s hand.

  No time to waste. Oxana hurried through the crowd on the polished gray-on-charcoal colored floor toward the bizarre lobby display next to which the other woman stood. The display was encircled by a knee-high polished stone wall topped by a low fence of clear plastic tethered to low posts. In the center of the circle were four fifteen-foot-high palm trees whose trunks were made of see-through plastic and whose fronds at the top were bright green plastic.

  The beautiful woman under the palm trees saw Christiana coming now. Christiana had simply been told that someone would appear by the palm trees, place a duplicate suitcase next to hers, take Christiana’s suitcase, and walk away.

  Christiana, who had come from Moscow, was not totally without the virtue of good looks, but they had been squandered. It made no difference to Oxana who made the exchange, saying only, “Have a nice trip back to Moscow.”

  “Yes,” said Christiana.

  And then the woman who had taken Christiana’s suitcase was gone. Christiana looked up at the clock. She would have to hurry. The new suitcase was about as heavy as the one she had exchanged. She picked it up and hurried toward the long, high-ceilinged, broad walkway that led to the trains.

  Christiana had only a flicker of hope that she would succeed. Not that anything had gone wrong or appeared as if it might go wrong. She told herself, as she hurried through the crowd of jostling people going in both directions, that all would be fine. Georgi had told her that it would be fine and she wanted to believe him, wanted to deliver the suitcase, be handed the money, more money than she had ever made in a year. Then she wanted to go to her room and lie down and sleep curled up facing the wall.

  She held out her ticket showing it to anyone who wore a uniform. Finding the right train was easy, but her car was far down the track. The train was making loud noises as if it were about to leave without her. She held the handle of the suitcase with two hands now and tried to run. The suitcase bounced against her knees, drumming as she walked.

  Christiana was in no shape for running.

  Money. Think of the money. She would put all of it away. Well, almost all of it. She would go off somewhere for a while and give up the drugs. Georgi would not try to stop her. He really didn’t need her anymore, which was good.

  She saw a conductor still far down the train looking toward her.

  She thought of the beautiful dark woman with whom she had switched bags. Was she doing it for the money? She must be. If Christiana looked like her, she wouldn’t be running down a train platform with a suitcase assaulting her. What if it came open? It could. Christiana had not packed it.

  Almost there.

  She had given up the vodka. It hadn’t been so bad. She still had the heroin and the pills. One step at a time. All she needed was a little time away.

  The conductor was motioning for her to hurry. She tried.

  And then she thought about Alaya. She did not mean to, did not want to. Alaya was gone. Christiana did not know where. Georgi had convinced her that he could not afford to raise a child. She was a prostitute, a prostitute who, with the help of a smile and well-applied makeup, could still bring in a reasonable price. And so she had handed over Alaya after being told the infant was headed for the home of a rich candy importer. Georgi had kept all the money. Christiana had not wanted any.

  Christiana showed the conductor her ticket.

  “Compartment four,” he said.

  She climbed up the steps and into the train car pulling the suitcase behind her. It was painfully heavy now. The muscles in each arm were knotted and aching.

  Georgi was definitely not bad, not a pimp like so many of the others. He had linked her up with businessmen, some from Moscow, some from as far as Argentina, and quite a few from China. He did not care about the tips they left her. And most of them were kind. She did her best to please. Georgi was more interested in gambling and business deals than sex. She was now, and for months had been, companionship, nothing more. The few dollars she brought in were meaningless.

  All the seats on both sides of the aisle were full. The train lurched forward. She tried to hold the suitcase high, failed, and apologized when she grazed the shoulder of a dark, fat man with a thin, trim beard. She found the compartment, slid the door open, pushed the lock, and stood for a few seconds catching her breath. Christiana put the suitcase on the seat and looked around. The train rattled forward, heading back to Moscow.

  Georgi would be at the station to meet her. Everything would be fine.

  A knock.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “The door is locked,” came the voice of a man, an almost musical tenor.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “This is my compartment,” said the man through the door.

  The train was picking up speed now, rumbling through the station and the train yard.

  “No,” she said. “You are mistaken. I have the whole compartment.”

  “This is car seven, compartment four?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “That is what my ticket says. You can take a look. We will have to ask the conductor for an explanation.”

  Christiana moved the three steps across the compartment and unlocked the door. The man was about her height, willowy, with a boyishly good-looking face, though he was no boy.

  He wore a long black soft leather jacket, dark slacks, and a white shirt. His thin dark hair was brushed straight back. He smiled apologetically and stepped in, sliding the door closed behind him and locking it.

  “I have been wa
iting for you to get on,” he said, motioning her back toward the window. “You almost missed the train.”

  The smiling man, she was certain, was there to get the suitcase. There was no doubt about that. She would have to explain when she got back to Moscow, and Georgi would know she was telling the truth, but it would make no difference. She looked at the suitcase.

  “You made the exchange. Where is the other suitcase?”

  Christiana had a lifetime of being the object of violence from men. Something about her invited it. But this man was not interested in sex or the pleasure of inflicting pain. Something as cold as dry ice, as white as diamonds was in him and she was afraid.

  “I do not know. A beautiful woman has it, an actress or a model, I think.

  “A model, I think,” she said again feeling her left leg begin to twitch. “I think I’ve seen her before, in magazines or on television.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. That’s it. Believe me.”

  Now there was a knife in the hand of the man’s delicate fingers. He rolled it, spun the blade back and forth.

  “You do not know any more, do you?”

  The train lurched on noisily. Metal screeched on metal.

  “No,” she said.

  “Then, izvi’neete, I’m sorry to say that I have no use for you.”

  He skipped one step forward and twisted her to him by the wrist. Before she could scream, he had a hand over her mouth and the knife blade entered her neck expertly, deeply.

  “Now that did not hurt, did it?”

  He was right. It had not hurt. Christiana would not have to make excuses to Georgi in Moscow now. She would be dead, and, given her life, there were worse things. She slumped forward, and the man guided her falling body into the seat. It was an almost elegant move, balletic, professional. He had not a drop of blood on his shirt, slacks, or jacket.

  He wiped the knife blade on her not-quite-shabby coat, moved her gently so that her head rested on the window, picked up the suitcase, and left the compartment after putting up a DO NOT DISTURB sign. He went back to his coach seat for forty-five minutes, chatting with a young soldier before the train pulled into the first station down the line.

  He said good-bye to the soldier, got off the train with the suitcase he had taken from the dead woman and one of his own. He waited for the train to pull out of the station. As it moved past, he looked up and saw the dead woman, eyes open, mouth open, and contorted against the bloody window. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and quickly aimed it at the dead woman. He clicked off two photographs. Then the train was gone.

  He moved casually toward the depot to buy a ticket back to Kiev.

  After leaving the Yak’s office, Rostnikov sat at his desk reading the information in the folders he had been given. The words that held the three cases together were ‘diamonds’ and ‘nine days.’

  He was reasonably certain that the Yak had told him the truth about almost everything—except his motives. He was reasonably sure that in nine days the meeting would be held to determine the fate of the Office of Special Investigations.

  He called his squad in, and in the cramped office he gave out the assignments. Iosef and Zelach would investigate the torture-murder of two black South Africans whose bodies were found seated in a cemetery. The dead men were both former workers in a Botswanian diamond mine. Both were suspected by Interpol of smuggling diamonds. Both, along with an unknown number of others, were known to have been in Moscow. The South African, Botswanan, and Namibian governments had asked the Russian government to watch the two men. Now they were dead. Now they were the concern of the Office of Special Investigations.

  The other case involved a murdered woman found in a train compartment when it pulled into Moscow from Kiev. The woman was alone in a first-class, two-bed compartment. She was a known prostitute. She had been stabbed once. There was but one mention of diamonds in the report on Rostnikov’s desk. On a yellow Post-it the Yak had carefully printed the word ‘diamonds.’

  The Office of Special Investigations did not normally delve into the murder of prostitutes. Nobody really delved into the murder of prostitutes. But this Moscow prostitute had been found murdered in the most expensive private car on a train. This prostitute, Christiana Verovona, had purchased a ticket to Kiev and another almost immediately back to Moscow.

  Rostnikov gave the case to Sasha Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva.

  Rostnikov said little at the meeting. There was little to say, and whatever was spoken was certainly being listened to by Pankov or the Yak. Rostnikov and the others in his squad knew where the microphones were planted in the wall here in Porfiry Petrovich’s office and in the room where all of them had their desks.

  They met outside of Petrovka when they wanted privacy. They met inside Petrovka when they wanted the Yak to know what they were saying. The Yak knew that all of them were well aware of the microphones. He did not hope to suddenly hear priceless snippets of profitable information. He simply wanted them to be aware of his presence and to have all conversations of even the slightest possible consequence taped and recorded on CDs for his own protection. The Yak was very good at protecting himself.

  “Questions?” asked Rostnikov.

  There were many. All went unasked.

  Sasha Tkach wondered for an instant if he had been selected by Rostnikov because his wife Maya had taken their young daughter and son to Kiev for an indefinite stay. Sasha, the tinge of boyish, innocent good looks now maturing into brooding handsomeness, was on official probation from his wife. Sasha was often selected for undercover work that brought him into contact with women who were available and found him willing in spite of his fragile resolve. The case promised to take him to Kiev. He wasn’t certain how he felt about that. He was certain that he would be happy to get away from his mother, Lydia, with whom he was temporarily living. Lydia was nearly deaf, a retired bureaucrat who held strong opinions on everything from Putin’s smile to the influx of Muslims in Khazakstan. She spoke loudly with a shrill voice and harbored ambitions for her son that had nothing to do with being a policeman.

  Sasha was also certain that he wanted to see his children, particularly Pulcharia, who was now six. He wanted to see Maya and his son very much, but he felt that Pulcharia somehow held the key to his sense of possible salvation, since he had first seen her moments after she was born.

  Kiev was not on the mind of Elena Timofeyeva who had been assigned to work with Sasha. She had babysat Sasha before. She did not look forward to doing it again. She had other things to worry about.

  Elena was the only woman in the Office of Special Investigations. She had gotten the job because she was an experienced police officer, but also because her aunt was Anna Timofeyeva, the former procurator for whom Rostnikov had worked for twenty years. Now, though a sometimes troubled relationship, Elena was engaged to marry Iosef Rostnikov, who sat next to her in the cramped, hot office of her future father-in-law. Elena knew she was a healthy, plump, clear-skinned woman who would, like her aunt, mother, and the rest of the women of her family, be forever destined to battle a tendency to become significantly overweight. To overcome heredity, Elena had to live on a near-starvation diet, which made her irritable. That irritability could easily erupt if Sasha behaved irresponsibly. One thing Elena could be counted on for was a sense of loyalty and responsibility. She would do anything short of death or self-mutilation to avoid disappointing Porfiry Petrovich.

  Iosef and Zelach, on the other hand, were a perfect pair of investigators. The hulking Zelach, who lived with his mother though he was forty-three years old, was devoid of imagination. He had the kind of slouching body on which no clothing ever looked right—no clothing except for the policeman’s uniform he no longer wore.

  Iosef, who’d had a brief career as a playwright, had an abundance of imagination. And all clothing seemed to have been designed for his tall, solid body.

  Iosef was given to irony. Zelach did not recognize it when he heard or encountered it. Zela
ch’s bland courage was recognized and appreciated, as were his occasional revelations, which delighted Iosef. Over the past three years, Iosef had discovered that Zelach’s eclectic talents included tested ESP abilities, a talent for kicking a soccer ball long distances, and an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Russian, Lithuanian, and German heavy metal bands.

  “You will report daily to me or to Emil Karpo,” said Rostnikov. “We, in turn, will dutifully report to Director Yaklovev. Should you require funding for your investigation, I’m certain that the always-cooperative Pankov will supply it instantly.”

  The last, as they all knew, had been said for the benefit of Pankov, who was or would be listening to their conversation.

  “One more thing,” said Rostnikov. “There is an urgency about these cases. It is necessary that closure is achieved within nine days from today.”

  Only Zelach considered asking why there was a nine-day deadline, but there was a great distance between considering and asking. Zelach knew enough not to ask.

  “And,” said Rostnikov, “there is nothing more.”

  That ended the meeting.

  Chapter Three

  The two little girls looked forward to the nightly ritual. Laura and Nina Ivanovna stood solemnly next to each other in the Rostnikov living room as Porfiry Petrovich moved the padded knee-high bench from the corner.

  The girls’ grandmother, Galina, was in the little kitchen off of the living room talking to Rostnikov’s wife Sarah. Galina, the girls, Sarah, and Porfiry Petrovich all lived in the same one-bedroom apartment on Krasnikov Street where the Rostnikovs had lived for more than three decades.

  Laura, nine, and Nina, seven, had been abandoned by their mother, Miriana. Galina had tried to take care of them on her pension and odd jobs. She had endured and then, while working at night at a bakery, she had asked the manager for a stale bread to take home to the girls. He had loudly refused. It had never been clear, but somehow Galina had shot the manager with his own gun during a struggle over the bread. Galina was sixty-four, accustomed to a life of hardship, and reasonably strong.