Death of a Dissident

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “We want him because we have good reason to believe he murdered someone,” said Rostnikov softly.

  Sergei Malenko’s face went white.

  “No. That could ruin me,” he said almost to himself.

  “It won’t do him much good either,” added Rostnikov.

  Malenko looked up sharply.

  “You either fancy yourself a wit or are foolish,” Malenko said between his teeth. “In either case, I suggest you tread softly, Inspector. Whom is he supposed to have murdered?”

  “So far,” sighed Rostnikov, “his wife, Aleksander Granovsky, and a cab driver.”

  The information struck Malenko like the blow of a tire iron. He sank back heavily and looked suddenly much older than his years.

  “Is it possible,” he said so softly that Rostnikov could barely hear him, “that he would go so far to ruin me?”

  “It is possible,” said Rostnikov, finishing his coffee. “It is also possible that his actions have little or nothing to do with you.”

  “Then why did he do this?” demanded Malenko, his hair falling over his brow as he reached forward to pound on the table.

  “I thought you might have some idea,” Rostnikov tried, “but I gather you have not, or the only one you have is of no great use to us. Did you know your son’s wife?”

  “I met her once,” whispered Malenko, “on the street with him. She was a pretty girl who wanted to be friendly, but Ilya made a sarcastic comment and led her away.”

  “Comment?” tried Rostnikov shifting his leg weight.

  “Personal, political,” said Malenko. “Not relevant.”

  “Perhaps—”

  “Not relevant,” insisted Malenko, and Rostnikov nodded his agreement, though he could guess the content of the brief meeting between father and son on the street.

  “You have no idea of where he could be, who he could go to?”

  “None,” said Malenko. “We were never close. He no longer has the friends he had when he lived here. And before here we lived on a small farm beyond Kurkino. It has had two owners since.”

  “I see,” said Rostnikov, rising slowly. “Then I believe that is all. Your first wife, Ilya’s mother. She died?”

  “No,” said Malenko. His mind was elsewhere, planning his protection from his son’s reputation, but he answered, “We were divorced three years ago.”

  “I see,” said Rostnikov. “And where can I find her?”

  “It will do you no good to find her,” said Malenko, brushing his hair back with a broad brown hand. “She is in the Vilna Rehabilitation Institute.”

  “Perhaps I can see her there,” said Rostnikov.

  “You can see her if you insist,” said Malenko, guiding the policeman to the hall and toward the door, “but she will provide you no information. She is quite mad. She hears and sees no one but whoever might exist within her head.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Rostnikov.

  “There is reason to be,” Malenko said, opening the front door. Over his shoulder Rostnikov could see the second Mrs. Malenko looking apprehensively at them from what must have been the kitchen door. “Your records will show that she attained this ultimate escape after she murdered our infant son, Ilyusha’s brother, for no reason that anyone ever discovered.”

  “I—I’m sorry,” Rostnikov repeated.

  Malenko closed the door, and Rostnikov found himself facing his car and driver. He considered turning around and making another assault on Malenko. There was much to be said, much he might learn if he could get him to talk about his son, but it was likely he could not be goaded into such talk. Malenko was a shrewd man and one who very likely contributed to making those close to him go mad. But Rostnikov would not, could not accept the simple explanation for murder that one was mad, even madness had its own logic. Ilyusha Malenko had apparently murdered three people, and he had a reason for doing so. The reason might make little sense, but it was a reason, and if Rostnikov could figure out what that reason was, he might be able to anticipate the young man’s next move.

  “Sir,” said the driver as Rostnikov got back into the rear of the car and closed the door.

  “Back to Petrovka. Wait. No, the hospital. I want to stop by and see one of the inspectors.”

  “Sergeant Karpo,” supplied the driver, pulling away from the house.

  “You are well-informed,” said Rostnikov.

  Sasha Tkach had been sitting in Inspector Rostnikov’s office with a pad of lined paper in front of him and several sharpened pencils. He did not sit behind the desk because he did not know how Rostnikov would take it if he found a junior officer there. Sasha Tkach felt more comfortable working with Rostnikov than with any other senior investigator, but it was wise to be cautious and not overly familiar. There was too much to lose. So while he waited for reports on the telephone taps and hoped that Malenko would be spotted by a uniformed officer or that he would make some mistake, Tkach sat on the wrong side of the desk unable to put his feet under it, made notes, and tried to complete his report on the discovery of the body of Malenko’s wife. That is what he did with the front of his consciousness. Deeper, but not much deeper, he wondered. One murder with a sickle, another with a hammer. Was the madman mocking the symbols of the Soviet Union? He was a dissident or a potential one. Was this some elaborate, ghastly joke? Then what about the cab driver? A broken vodka bottle didn’t fit. It was too much to worry about.

  Tkach had spent five hours at the desk, unwilling even to leave for a drink to have with his sandwich, afraid to tie up the phone with a call to check on Karpo’s condition. It was shortly after two when the call came. It was Maxim, the expert who was monitoring all of the phone taps through a central unit he manned alone.

  “I think we have something,” Maxim said with great excitement. “A call a few minutes ago to one of the people being monitored. A young man’s voice said only, ‘Meet me at four at the spot where I broke the window.’ ”

  “That was all?” asked Tkach.

  “That was all.”

  “Can you play that part of the tape to me over the phone?”

  “Yes,” said Maxim. “Give me just a few seconds.”

  And, in fact, in no more than thirty seconds, Tkach heard a hum and a voice repeating the words, “Meet me at four at the spot where I broke the window.” Even with the distortion of the telephone line, Sasha recognized the voice of Ilyusha Malenko. He had not been sure that he would be able to do so, but as soon as he heard the first words he saw before him the young man and before the short sentence had ended, Sasha was again seeing the dangling body of the young woman.

  “That’s him,” said Tkach. “Who was the call to?”

  “Lvov, Simon Lvov.”

  Tkach hung up and considered his alternative. He could wait for Rostnikov and chance missing Lvov, or he could go on his own and, assuming Lvov had not yet left his apartment, follow the old man to his meeting. Since Sasha knew both Lvov and Malenko by sight, it seemed reasonable not to wait. He scribbled a message to Rostnikov on the lined sheet and hurried out the door.

  Emil Karpo was awake but his eyes were closed. He was aware that someone stood next to his bed. He was also aware that it was Rostnikov. The slight drag of the leg had given the older man away. There was a low level of conversation in the twelve-man ward, but no noise.

  “Inspector,” said Karpo, opening his eyes.

  “How do you assess your progress, Karpo?”

  Something approaching a sad smile played on Rostnikov’s face. His coat collar, the left side, was awkwardly tucked under while his right stuck out at an angle. He was, Karpo knew, not a man dedicated to appearances.

  “My eyes were closed not because of particular pain,” explained Karpo softly, “but because I am making all necessary efforts to allow my body to recover. I wish to get back to duty within a week.”

  “The possibility exists,” said Rostnikov, sitting on the edge of the bed to ease the pressure on his leg, “that you will lose that arm.”

&
nbsp; “I do not intend for that to happen,” said Karpo without emotion.

  “Emil Karpo, you may have no choice,” Rostnikov responded masking quite distinct emotion. “The doctors are not going to consult with you.”

  “It is out of the question,” Karpo said.

  “There have been one-armed inspectors,” Rostnikov said, leaning over.

  “That was during the war against the Germans, and only Baulfetroya in Kiev,” said Karpo, closing his eyes.

  “I’m glad you came up with that. I had no examples in mind,” Rostnikov answered. The thought chain had struck like lightning. Kiev, where his son Iosef had been stationed. Now Afghanistan. The murder of one child and murder by another.

  Karpo sensed the change in his visitor and opened his eyes to see Rostnikov looking at a spot of nothing on the brown woolen blanket.

  “I’ll not lose the arm,” Karpo said. “You have work. I’ll be all right.”

  “Are you dismissing me, Sergeant Karpo?” Rostnikov rallied.

  “I am relieving you of responsibility,” said Karpo.

  “I accept,” smiled Rostnikov.

  “What has happened to Kroft?” Karpo added as Rostnikov rose to leave.

  “Imprisoned. The trial will wait till you are well enough to testify. So the faster you recover, the faster you can return to battling enemies of the state like Kroft.”

  “He saved my life,” said Karpo, his eyes closed again.

  “So?”

  “I think that might be taken into account.”

  “Do you want it to be? In another sense, you might not be here if it were not for him.”

  “It was not his fault that I got out of bed with a bad arm to pursue him. He could have waited another day or two,” said Karpo. “He is a confusing criminal in some ways.”

  “I’ve seen many like him,” said Rostnikov, “but he did tell me something that may help.”

  “In the Granovsky murder?” Karpo said, trying to reopen his eyes and failing.

  “No, about the proper grip for a dead lift. Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  By the time Rostnikov got back to his office in Petrovka, Tkach had been gone almost forty minutes. The young officer had been wise enough to put the time in the right-hand corner of the message. Rostnikov called Maxim and asked if there was any other information. He had the impulse to get back in his car and race to Lvov’s apartment, but he checked himself. He could not really help. With his leg he was too slow and conspicuous to follow anyone around Moscow. Tkach would have to handle this himself.

  At 5:15 a call came. Rostnikov then decided that he would have to tell Sarah that Iosef was in Afghanistan. It was her right to know and worry, and if he did not tell her and she found out that he knew all along, she would hold it against him. She would try not to, but it would be there. It had happened before for things of much less importance. The call had been brief. Colonel Drozhkin wanted to see him at K.G.B. headquarters at seven the following morning.

  Tkach had arrived in front of Simon Lvov’s apartment just in time. He had been standing in the doorway of an apartment building across the street from Lvov’s for no more than five minutes when the figure of a tall old man in a long dark coat emerged. Although Tkach was more than one hundred yards from Lvov, the old man was unmistakable. His tall, stooped form and his thin face with horn-rimmed glasses were clear from the distance, and traffic was very light so that nothing stood in the way.

  It seemed quite early to Tkach. Lvov was giving himself a full hour. The place must either be quite far, or Lvov was planning to make a stop first. It was also possible that Lvov, who had been a known dissident, was well aware of the possibility of his being followed and wanted to give himself ample time to lose his follower.

  Keeping up with Lvov proved to be no great problem for Tkach, at least at first. Lvov boarded a bus and Tkach, his face covered as if to keep out the chill wind, boarded behind him. Lvov rode without looking about and got off not far from Red Square. The crowds were thick on the relatively pleasant sunny day, and Tkach had to close the distance between himself and the old man. In the crowd in front of the Lenin mausoleum, Tkach confused a pair of tall, dark clad figures before him but managed to select the right quarry with little trouble. Lvov walked slowly to the Lobnoye Mseto, the four-hundred-year-old white stone platform where the Tsars had performed their executions. From there Lvov crossed Kuibyshev Street and entered G.U.M., the State Department Store, the biggest and most crowded store in Moscow. In Stalin’s day it had been a massive office building, but in 1953, with Stalin’s departure, it had been returned to its commercial use, a huge department store with curved display windows on the main floor, many small shops and a massive press of 350,000 customers each day. Tkach muscled his way past afternoon tourists and old women with white babushkas to keep up with Lvov, who moved slowly but steadily through the crowds without really pausing to look in any windows.

  It became clear to Tkach that the old man was diligently and intelligently trying to lose him. The moment of truth came at one of the first level overpasses between the store’s sections. Lvov paused at the dark metal railing to look up at the arcade’s glass ceiling several stories above. He seemed to be in no hurry. Tkach stopped and leaned against a wall on one side of the overpass. A crowd of people surged out of a store and moved onto the bridge toward Tkach, coming between himself and Lvov who remained along the rail and moved quickly to the other side. Tkach considered forcing his way over the overpass but realized that he would surely lose Lvov if he did so. The alternative was to anticipate where the old man was going. He could see Lvov’s thin figure above the crowd moving away and Tkach guessed and acted. He went back into the store behind him, found the stairway and ran to the lower level. On the main floor of the arcade he ran through the window-shopping crowds and headed to the far exit. A tall, thin figure was just touching the bottom of the steps, and the panting Tkach slowed down for an instant, but only for an instant. The figure was not Lvov.

  He looked around frantically and headed for the stairs pushing people out of the way. A very fat man said something in an angry hiss that might have been English, but Sasha didn’t pause. He didn’t even care now if he ran headlong into Lvov as long as he could catch sight of him, but he could not find the thin figure he sought.

  There was no help for it. He would have to return to Petrovka and report to Rostnikov. He assumed the next step would be for Rostnikov himself to pay a visit to Lvov after Lvov’s meeting with Malenko.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IT WAS NO MORE THAN two minutes after four when Simon Lvov returned to his apartment, the apartment where, no more than a month before, Ilyusha Malenko, quite drunk, had accidentally broken a window. Lvov had led the young policeman away, easily lost him, and had returned almost on the dot. He had left his door open and the lights off.

  “Where were you?” Dyusha Malenko’s voice came from the corner near the window.

  Lvov slowly took his coat off and hung it on a hook near the door.

  “Ilyusha, my phone is probably monitored by both the police and the K.G.B.” He moved slowly and wearily from his recent outing and sat in his chair. “I had to get them away from here, lose them.”

  “They are after me,” Malenko said, stepping away from the window.

  “I advise you to remain right where you were,” said Lvov reaching for his pipe. “I shall leave the light off and we shall talk quickly. Then you shall leave. If you do not, they will surely catch you.”

  “You know why I’m here?” whispered Malenko from the dark.

  “You killed Aleksander,” said Lvov without looking back.

  “Yes,” replied Malenko, his voice quivering. “And I killed Marie too.”

  Lvov dropped his pipe and couldn’t resist turning to the voice.

  “You—”

  “You know why,” Malenko said. “You know why. You were part of it. Part of making a fool of me.”

  “Ilyusha…” Lvov began tr
ying to get up but finding himself trembling.

  “Don’t say Ilyusha to me,” Malenko’s voice broke. “I trusted Aleksander. I trusted you, but you are no better than anyone else. No better than, than—”

  “Your father?” Lvov supplied. “And Marie was no better than your mother?”

  “Shut up,” Malenko hissed, taking a step away from the dark shadow of the wall.

  Lvov shook his head.

  “So you’ve come to kill me?”

  “Yes. I’ll smash you. I’ll smash all the liars and cheats who have made me into a fool. I’ll not be a fool. You hear. I’ll not be a fool.”

  “You came at the right moment,” said Lvov, his voice regaining control. “I think I have no great interest in remaining alive. Had you come an hour later I might have struggled and argued and wept, but I don’t want to argue with you. If you kill me it will be meaningless.”

  “It’s not meaningless,” cried Malenko taking another step forward. In his hand he held a scissors, a heavy pair of tailor’s scissors. Lvov saw the object and choked back a sob of fear.

  “No, it is not meaningless,” he agreed. “You kill me and someone else and someone else and someone else till the police catch you. You know why you are doing this? Because it is over for you and you won’t admit it to yourself. When you admit it to yourself you will stop running, stop killing, stop having meaning. You will be the nothing you fear you are.”

  “Shut up,” shouted Malenko, raising his scissors.

  “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thy heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it and it displeases Him and He turn away His wrath from him.”

  “What are you talking about?” Malenko cried, pausing.

  “Proverbs 24:17-18,” said Lvov. “I’ve been sitting in this room for years with nothing to do but listen to hopeful young men and read. In the process, I remembered that I am a Jew. When you forsake one God, the God of communism, or it forsakes you, you search for another. I have read the words, but I have not accepted them. I’ve lost my belief in anything and so have you, but I am an old man who needs no father and you are a young man lost in the wilderness.”