Death of a Dissident

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Would you rather I have you brought to Petrovka for questioning?” Tkach tried.

  Lvov shrugged and smiled.

  “If it pleases you,” he said, filling his pipe and searching for a match. “You will get no more. The problem, young man, is that you can no longer threaten a man who has nothing to lose. I am old. I am sick and possibly dying. I am not permitted to work, and I have no family. What will you take from me, my pipe?” And with this question, Lvov threw the pipe against the wall. Pieces of tobacco rained out and Tkach watched the old man’s shoulders sag.

  He went out the door closing it softly behind him.

  “The toilet is at the end of the hall,” Lvov’s voice came through the thin door.

  It was slightly after noon when Tkach made his way back to Petrovka, which was alive with activity. People with briefcases hurried past, arguing. Dirty men in near rags being hurried along. Shouts heard through thick doors. A typical day for the police. The building restored Sasha Tkach’s confidence, which had been shaken by his experience of the morning.

  When Tkach entered the inspector’s small office at the end of the large bustling room full of detectives, Rostnikov whispered, “Close the door behind you.” Karpo was sitting in one of the two chairs, holding the sickle in his hand. Tkach closed the door behind him and took off his coat, eager for information.

  “Something’s broken?” he asked.

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “I want to eat the pirozhki I bought on the way back.” And with that, he pulled a brown paper bundle from his desk drawer and unwrapped it. “Would you care for some?”

  Karpo didn’t bother to respond. Tkach hesitated.

  “Take it,” sighed Rostnikov. “It’s more than I should have.”

  Tkach took the sandwich and began to eat.

  Karpo reported first. The sickle was a kind no longer manufactured, one made sixty years ago by a small company in Tula. Used by small farms. No fingerprints. Nothing.

  Tkach, between bites, reported his failure with Lvov; he left out the parable, most of the verbal exchange and the information about his weak bladder. He also reported on similarly fruitless interviews with four other friends of Granovsky.

  “One thing,” Tkach added. “As much as they refused to talk, they felt compelled to tell how much they disliked Granovsky as a man. His enemies were not just political. I have eight more names on the primary list. If I exhaust that, perhaps I can get more leads.”

  There was little room to maneuver in the small office, and it had no sense of home or comfort. There were no pictures on the walls. The desk was clear except for a wooden box piled high with reports and memos. There was no privacy either. The walls were thin and confidence was kept only by whispering.

  Rostnikov finished his sandwich and wiped crumbs onto the floor.

  “And?” he asked.

  Tkach chewed, hesitated.

  “Nothing,” he said taking another bite.

  “And what is nothing?” Rostnikov persisted.

  “These people are clever,” the young man finally said trying not to look at Karpo. “They use words better…It might be a good idea to put someone else on this part of the investigation. I’m not afraid of it, but someone more…more able in this line might obtain more.”

  “You are not out there to outthink them, but to seduce them with your apparent innocence,” Rostnikov said. He let out an enormous belch of satisfaction. “You let them talk, let them be clever, let them think you a fool. They will say more to prove their superiority than a clever man could get from them in combat. What do you think, Karpo?”

  “We use what we have,” agreed Karpo. “You must learn to use what you have.”

  “And I,” said Rostnikov, folding his hands on his belly, “had the privilege to interview a true fool. Tell me, Karpo, did you think the K.G.B. had any fools as agents?”

  Karpo’s eyes turned from the sickle to the raised brown eyes of the inspector.

  “It is not impossible,” Karpo admitted. “There are sometimes political reasons there as there are here. It is curious, but the K.G.B. is composed of men. Men are animals. Animals are not perfect. We can only strive.”

  “Yes,” agreed Rostnikov, “but some of us can try harder than others, can they not?”

  Karpo shrugged.

  Once each month, time and duty permitting, Emil Karpo, the Tatar, the vampire, made a pilgrimage to a small café off Gorky Street. In that bar, he met Matilde, a part-time prostitute, part-time telephone operator. It was the only illegal act Emil Karpo engaged in, and he explained it to himself as the only imperfection he could not fully control in his body. A small part of him remained animal. It disturbed him, but he had learned to accept it. What he did not know was that Porfiry Rostnikov was well aware of his monthly outing and fully approved of this “weakness.” If it weren’t for this vulnerability, Rostnikov was sure he would have been unable to work with Karpo. He could not stand saints of any religion. Without weakness, man might no longer be an animal, but he would come close to being a robot.

  There were places to go, things to do. Rostnikov would now have to make a report to Procurator Timofeyeva, and the slow-moving investigation would have to move more quickly. And then the door to the small room burst open.

  Officer Yuri Grishin, a distant relative of a high official in the Moscow police, put his head in the door. It was a huge head with a face that looked as if a wall had fallen on it, but it was the family face.

  “I’m sorry Inspector, but Ludmilla said I should break in and tell you. The vodka hijackers Tkach has been after. They’ve been cornered at a government store on Zvenigorod near the Byelorussian Railway Terminal.”

  Rostnikov and Tkach exchanged glances.

  “Go,” said Rostnikov, and Tkach rose quickly throwing on his coat.

  “I would like to go too,” said Karpo, placing the sickle on the desk before Rostnikov.

  Tkach paused, trying to think of something to say.

  “Go,” sighed Rostnikov. “Go. In two hours, no more, you are to be back here and prepared to work through the night, both of you.” The two junior officers left the office, and Rostnikov picked up the sickle. He looked at it, smelled it, whispered to it, cursed it, and it told him nothing. Somewhere out there was a man who could—and almost certainly would—kill again, a man who had become an animal.

  Rostnikov had a sudden vision of his son Iosef and imagined him being attacked by a trio of robed Arabs carrying broken bottles and rusty sickles. To destroy the image, Rostnikov swung the sickle over his head and into the desk. Instead of sinking into the wood, it skittered along the top, making a deep scratch. At the end of the top of the desk, the sickle caught the phone and the tip of the blade broke off. There are days, thought Rostnikov, where fate denies a man even the most meaningless of dramatic gestures.

  The snow had fallen all through the morning and was still falling when Karpo and Tkach got out of the Volga on Zvenigorod. To Tkach, the scene seemed to be played through gauze. There were vague outlines of brown-clad police with Tete guns pointed across the broad street at an old three-story building which Tkach could barely make out. There seemed to be no life on the street. If people were curious, they were not curious enough to be in range of policemen with Tete guns at the ready. It was a sleepy image of near night though the day was still with them. Tkach knew that traffic had to be rerouted on the streets around, and in the distance he could hear the angry honking of horns, a sound frowned upon and officially forbidden, as forbidden as it was to drive a dirty car in Moscow, though such things were occasionally seen.

  A bundled young man with a hip holster and no machine gun hurried over to the two detectives and eagerly reported, clearly relieved to have the responsibility taken from his shoulders, which were a few years younger than Tkach’s.

  “Sergeant Petrov,” the young man said. His face was cold and freckled. “There are three of them,” he said, addressing Karpo. “They seem to be in their twenties. They are armed and have
fired on us. We have waited for orders before returning fire.”

  “Where are they in the building?” Tkach asked.

  Sergeant Petrov turned his head to the younger detective.

  “We’re not sure, comrade. They were in the store itself, but they may have gone anywhere in the building. They did not get away. We have all windows and the back door covered. Their car is in the rear, parked.”

  “What we can—” Tkach began, but was interrupted by the cracking of the window of the police Volga at his side. The window had been no more than a foot from his stomach and he wondered what structural weakness had caused such an accident. Something inside him answered before his mind could accommodate the information. Sasha Tkach went flat in the snow next to Emil Karpo and Sergeant Petrov. They scrambled behind the car and waited for another shot.

  “Shall we open fire?” asked the sergeant to Karpo.

  Karpo raised an eyebrow and looked at Tkach.

  “It’s your case,” said Karpo.

  “Is there a way into the building with some cover?” Tkach asked.

  “Yes,” said the young sergeant, pointing into the gloom. “Over the roof. The store manager says there is a skylight and a short drop to the floor. It would be possible to get to the roof from the building next door. We can stretch something, and some of my men can go across.”

  “I’ll go,” Tkach said decisively, pulling out his gun to check it. He had never fired at a man before, though he had been outstanding on targets at the academy. “Karpo?”

  Karpo nodded.

  “We’ll need one man with an automatic weapon,” Tkach added.

  “I’ll get one and go with you,” said Petrov.

  “You needn’t…” Tkach said, looking into the freckled face.

  “It offends me to be shot at,” the sergeant said seriously.

  By working their way down the street, the trio managed to cross in five minutes. Petrov commandeered a Tete gun from one of the police, and the three made their way along the buildings on Zvenigorod. In the distance, not too far away, came a sound like a young girl laughing.

  Five minutes later, the three men were on the roof piled high with snow. Their goal was a flat room, which made it easier to extend the ladder they had brought with them from the fire truck which waited below. If the hijackers were on the other roof, the three officers could be picked off as they crossed the small chasm between the buildings. Across the street an officer on the roof signaled to them with a flashlight that the roof of the building looked clear.

  Sergeant Petrov and Tkach held the ladder while Karpo began to cross.

  Neither Jimmy, Coop, or Bobby knew what had happened. Jimmy was sure there had been a burglar alarm in the liquor store. Although they had heard nothing ring, it must have been connected to a local police office or something. Coop was equally sure they had been spotted. The store was supposedly closed for repairs, but someone must have come back and seen them, then run to the nearest cop. Bobby didn’t know or care what had happened. He thought only that it had been a bad idea to rob the store during the day, even a dark day like this. Jimmy, who was the wildest of the trio, had seen it as a special challenge, and Coop had never allowed Jimmy to appear more brave than he, so they had ventured out.

  They had one case of vodka into the car when they saw the first Volga with the flashing light. Coop had run for the back door, but a warning shot from outside drove him back in. They had huddled in the rear room, breathing heavily, when the voice from outside came, telling them to throw out any guns they had and come out the rear door slowly with their hands up.

  Jimmy had responded by shooting out the front window and taking a shot at the Volga parked across the street. Return fire had been brief, and the three had scrambled up a stairway through broken glass and dripping bottles of alcohol.

  Ten minutes later they had no plan.

  “Maybe we should give up,” Bobby said.

  “They’ll shoot us down when we go out the door,” said Jimmy.

  “Why would they do that?” Bobby said. “We haven’t killed anybody.”

  “We shot at the police,” Coop explained, his voice shaking.

  “I don’t think they’ll kill us,” Bobby said.

  “They’ll kill us,” Jimmy said with confidence.

  They could barely make out each other’s faces in the daylight darkness. For minutes they sat waiting.

  “Maybe we could get out over the roof,” Coop suggested.

  “They’re up there,” Jimmy countered.

  Silence again.

  They didn’t know how much longer it had been before the new car had come and the two men without uniforms had jumped out. The three had watched the arrival from the second floor. One of the two new ones, even through the snow, looked like a skeleton.

  “They called that one to kill us,” said Jimmy, pointing at Karpo. “But I’ll get him first.”

  He had fired and jumped back, unsure of whether or not he had hit the man or hit anything at all. The sound of shattering glass suggested he had missed.

  “So,” whispered Bobby.

  “So, we wait,” said Jimmy. “It’s their move.”

  “It’s just like the American movies,” said Coop.

  No, thought Bobby, it’s not like that. It’s happening.

  “I’m scared,” confessed Bobby to the darkness. “Let’s give up. They won’t kill us.”

  “Shut up, shut up,” Jimmy shouted. Bobby thought there was a sob in Jimmy’s voice, but he had never heard such a thing from Jimmy.

  “It’s happening,” shouted Bobby. “If we don’t give up, they’ll kill us, kill us.”

  Jimmy swung out in the darkness at Bobby and missed him.

  “Shut up, I said.”

  Jimmy stood and was ready to find Bobby and beat him, hit him, shut him up. Bobby was confusing things, making him frightened. He didn’t want to die frightened.

  The door through which the three young men had come burst open, and a flashlight struck them like a cold ball of snow.

  “Don’t move!” came a deep voice behind the light, and Jimmy fired at the voice. The room was small and the explosion of fire resounded against the eardrums of the men who were firing at vague impressions between the flashes of shots.

  Then the shots stopped, and someone sobbed.

  Karpo turned on the lights and kept his pistol pointed toward the place where he had first seen the three figures standing. Two thin young men stood shivering, wide-eyed with their hands in the air. One of the two had clearly wet his pants. On the ground in front of them lay a third young man with a gun in his hand. All three were wearing black leather jackets with something written on them in French or English.

  “Are you all right?” Karpo asked Tkach, whose gun was leveled at the two standing young men.

  “Yes. Petrov is hit.”

  Karpo knelt near the young sergeant.

  “Stomach wound. He is alive. I’ll get help.”

  Karpo went out the door, and Tkach moved forward across the small room, his gun leveled at the two young men, who backed away. Tkach kicked the body on the floor. He knew his first shot had hit him. It had been automatic, like hitting the targets at the range, but this one had been so much easier to hit, so much closer. He kicked the body over and looked down at the face.

  “How old is he?” he asked the trembling boys. They said nothing.

  “How old?” Tkach repeated.

  “Fifteen, I think,” said Ivan Belinkin, who would never be called Bobby again.

  “No,” corrected Ilya Nikolaev, who would never again be called Coop. “He was fourteen. Sasha was fourteen.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THERE WERE MANY THINGS ON the mind of Chief Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. Though he might have denied this to others, they were, in order of priority: the safety of Iosef Rostnikov; the possibility that the killer of Granovsky and the cab driver might strike again; the chances of getting in good enough shape to participate in the weight lifting compe
tition in June; repairing the broken toilet in his apartment.

  Rostnikov brushed the hair from his eyes and fingered the scratch in his desk he had made with the sickle. He would simply lie about the broken point of the tool. There was no point in dealing with Procurator Timofeyeva on this point. Outside his office’s thin pressboard walls he could hear the phone calls, the raised voices, the whispers, the movement of furniture that signaled police activity. He knew he should move, act, but unseen heavy hands kept him at his desk. To prove his activity to himself and anyone who might walk in, Rostnikov pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil and wrote the number one.

  “What is one?” he asked himself aloud. Then he wrote, “K.G.B. following Granovsky.” In twenty minutes, he had a list he was rather proud of:

  One—K.G.B. following Granovsky. Agent less than brilliant. On night of murder, Granovsky made several stops, according to agent Khrapenko, at home of Simon Lvov and apartment of Ilya and Marie Malenko. Both Lvov and the Malenkos were known dissidents on Tkach’s primary list.

  Two—Killer apparently man (woman?) in black, who killed the taxi driver about an hour after Granovsky murder, using broken vodka bottle. Both murders very bloody, very personal, unconventional weapons.

  Three—Killer last seen running down Petro Street.

  Conclusions: Murderer known to Granovsky? Murderer mad or very angry and so uses personal (phallic?) weapons on men? Too soon for that observation. Not politically acceptable anyway.

  The part about psychology could not be discussed with others. Freud was not a popular mentor in Petrovka. That was the extent of the writing on Rostnikov’s sheet except for a doodle of barbells.

  Rostnikov was considering what to do next, whether to tell his wife about Iosef in Afghanistan and whether to do another doodle, when his office door opened and Karpo and Tkach stepped in. Tkach looked almost as white as Karpo.

  “What happened?”

  The two men sat.

  “We got them,” said Karpo evenly. “Three young boys. Sasha had to kill one of them who shot a police sergeant.”

  “And?” Rostnikov went on looking at the younger officer, who seemed to be trying to gather words.