People Who Walk In Darkness ir-15

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Iosef saw them in the crowd, just about to hurry through the Metro station entrance.

  “Slow, now,” said Iosef.

  It was a command Zelach has happy to hear.

  Iosef was hoping that the two men they were trying to catch would also slow down. They had no reason to believe they were being followed. If the policemen hurried, they might be spotted. If they were too slow, they might well lose their quarry.

  Biko and Laurence had to slow down. They had no magnetic Metro cards. They had to stop at the booth and pay their fares, pointing to the map of stations on the wall. Neither man commanded more than a short supply of Russian.

  “Now what?” they both said at almost the same instant, walking toward their platform.

  They walked through the palatial Metro station, past glittering statues and brightly painted ceilings, unsure of what their next step might be or how they might reconnect with the Russians who had James Harumbaki.

  The loudspeaker announced the arrival of a train in Russian. It meant nothing to the two men, who were trying to decipher the name of the station on the wall. They were heading back to the only neighborhood in the city where they were likely to reach other Africans, particularly Botswanans.

  They looked blankly at the station map and got on the first train that arrived, hoping that they had read the map correctly.

  Their weapons were under their coats in leather and cloth slings designed by James Harumbaki. It was possible to fire simply by reaching under the coat, tilting the weapon, and firing while it was still in the sling. Biko had given serious consideration to doing just that when he saw the insane crowd moving in their direction in the park.

  They were living in a nation of near madness.

  Biko and Laurence sat in the almost empty late evening car of the Metro as far from others as they could. Across from them on a seat lay a German shepherd, asleep. There was no human who looked like an owner nearby. Laurence was particularly fond of dogs and wanted to move across and carefully offer his hand. The dog did not seem to belong to anyone. Maybe they could take it with them. Dogs had a calming effect on him, and he harbored a very slight feeling of guilt about the three times not long ago in Somalia when he had eaten the meat of scrawny dogs.

  Farther down, three Russians were sprawled on the seat. They were drunk. One man had his head in the lap of a second. The third lay by himself, eyes open, about to slip to the floor.

  As the car doors began to close, a large bald man holding a cloth to the back of his head got in, glanced at Biko and Laurence, and sat at the far end of the car.

  The train moved out of the station, and a Russian voice announced the next station.

  The bald man, Pau Montez, did not look directly at the Africans, and in the next car Iosef and Zelach sat doing their best not to be seen by the desperate Biko and Laurence.

  “Do you know why I pace like this?” asked Kolokov without stopping.

  James Harumbaki was not interested in the question but he waited for an answer. He was seated at a table, the chessboard before him. He was not tied, and he considered, since the large bald man was not present, that it might be possible to run across the room, throw open the door, dash through the house, and, once in the open, make a dash over the pile of rubbish and into the partial cover of the trees. He had gauged all this. It might be possible, but it was unlikely to succeed. James Harumbaki’s legs were weak. One eye was almost closed. He felt slightly dizzy. And there were two others in the room, silent Russians, one of whom, though he looked quite out of shape, was close to the door. Better to wait for a more promising opportunity.

  “Do you know why I pace?” Kolokov repeated, smoking as he walked a bit faster across the room.

  James Harumbaki’s lower lip was swollen where Kolokov had punched him.

  The room smelled of sweat, tobacco, and sour dampness. James Harumbaki would have been sick to his stomach even if Kolokov had not punched his belly.

  “No, I do not,” said James Harumbaki.

  “Because, it helps me think, think, think.”

  With each “think” Kolokov had tapped the side of his head with a distinct thwack.

  James Harumbaki nodded his understanding.

  “I am not surrounded by a council of great minds,” Kolokov said, looking at his two cohorts who provided no response. “I would like to have at least one person I can count on to use his head for something besides a battering ram. You know what I mean?”

  James Harumbaki croaked a “yes.”

  As a matter of fact, he did know what it was like to be surrounded by people who could not think. He wondered what resources Patrice, Biko, and Laurence were calling upon to replace his leadership. His life depended on what they were going to do and, while he did not doubt their determination, loyalty, or courage, he had no illusions about their intellect.

  He smiled. Two gangs of incompetents led by a mad Russian and a Botswanan who really wanted to be a baker of fine cakes.

  “This is funny?” asked Kolokov.

  “No,” said James Harumbaki. “I was just thinking that you are clearly correct in your assessment of the situation. We Africans smile at different things than do Russians.”

  Kolokov decided to ignore his hostage’s reply.

  James Harumbaki decided that he would have to control himself to keep from beating the Russian in six or eight moves when the man stopped pacing and decided to play another game of chess.

  “All the great. . ” Kolokov began when the door opened.

  The large bald man entered and said, “You will not believe this.”

  Kolokov had stopped pacing.

  “I would believe that Putin has become a Jew,” Kolokov said. “I would believe that the sun is about to stop shining. I would believe you have seen the ghost of Lenin. What can you possibly say that I would not believe? What are you doing here? You are supposed to be waiting for us at the War Memorial. You are supposed to be looking for the Africans.”

  “There was a demonstration at the War Memorial,” said the bald man. “Faggots were putting flowers on the tomb.”

  “How patriotic,” said Kolokov.

  “Then there were lots of people. Men, boys, old women, priests. They came throwing eggs, water, stones. I got hit. Look.”

  He turned his head to reveal a bloody opening that almost certainly needed stitches and certainly would not be getting them.

  “The police came.”

  “Yes, they beat the queers,” said Kolokov, wanting the bald man to get to the point.

  “No, they beat the others, the men, the women, the priests. .”

  “Yes, yes,” said Kolokov. “Were the Africans there?”

  “Yes, there were two of them. They ran away. I think some of the crowd was chasing them. I followed them. They got on the Metro.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “To a bar, a bar full of blacks. I think they may have noticed me.”

  One of the other two men made a sound that may have been a laugh. The bald man gave him a warning look.

  “How could they possibly notice you?” Kolokov said. “A big, bald white man with a gushing wound on his head. They must have had to employ very keen powers of observation honed from a hundred generations of hunting in the jungle. They will not be coming to the memorial to make the exchange.”

  “I have the phone number of the cafe,” said the bald man.

  Kolokov scratched his neck, and the bald man handed him a torn corner from a newspaper.

  “You know the cafe they went to?”

  The question was addressed to James Harumbaki.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You will call them and I will tell you a new place for the exchange,” said Kolokov.

  James Harumbaki said nothing.

  “There is one more thing,” said the bald man.

  Kolokov had been leaning forward so that his face was only inches from his hostage.

  “And what is that?” asked Kolokov, still looking at Jam
es Harumbaki.

  “There were two other people following them. I think they were policemen.”

  Kolokov clasped his hands together, then clapped once and stood up.

  “Go take care of your head,” he said calmly. “We will all have a drink from the bottle of vodka which Bogdan, who laughs in the corner, will pour for us all. I will then play another game of chess with our valuable guest and decide how we will engage our endgame with his friends and the police.”

  He sat across from James Harumbaki.

  “It will be interesting, and when it is over either we will have millions in diamonds or this will be the last game of chess for our guest.”

  It was at this point, as the mad Russian waited for him to set up the pieces on the board, that James Harumbaki decided that it was not the time or place to beat his captor.

  The bodies of the two Africans had been replaced on Paulinin’s laboratory table by two bodies that had been flown in from some idiotic place in Siberia.

  Rostnikov had called, inquired about the condition and tranquility of his leg, and asked that the examination of the bodies he had sent be done as soon as possible.

  One reason, Rostnikov said, was that the Canadian government wanted the body of the younger man.

  And that was why Paulinin had turned on the CD of Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra, switched on the bright overheads, scratched his head, adjusted his glasses, scrubbed his hands, and made a decision. In the privacy of his laboratory, he would perform a dual autopsy.

  Before doing so, however, he consulted with the two dead men as he laid out his instruments.

  “You do not mind?” he asked.

  “No, why should we,” said the old man, naked on the table. “We are dead. Are you not going to ask who killed us?”

  “Would you tell me?” asked Paulinin, scalpel in hand, bending over the pale corpse of the Canadian.

  “No,” said the old man. “You will have to discover that for yourself.”

  “You agree?” he asked the Canadian as he made an incision to open wide the dark, almost blue, clotted wound in his chest, which had probably been the cause of death.

  “Of course,” said the Canadian in perfect Russian.

  Paulinin paused, long, sharp blade inserted deeply in flesh, as a favorite cello solo called out from the shadows where the speakers rested. The beauty of the passage almost brought him to tears.

  Paulinin knew full well that neither dead man could talk, that the conversation was completely within his mind. Often Paulinin would get carried away by his conversations with the dead and forget for a while that the dead could not really speak. He likened his experience to that of a writer who carries on conversations with characters who do not exist, or of people watching a movie who both believe and disbelieve that what they are seeing is really taking place.

  “Of course,” he said, pushing two fingers deeply into the wound, “one would have to be insane to believe that what was happening in a movie was really taking place, but at the same time, if the movie experience was working, the viewer would. . what have I found?”

  “What?” asked the Canadian.

  “What?” asked the old man on the table behind Paulinin.

  Paulinin took his bloody fingers from the wound, picked up a foot-long instrument with a pincer at the end, and inserted it into the wound where his fingers had been.

  It took him a difficult minute or so of probing before he realized that he had pushed that which he sought into the auricle of the heart.

  Tchaikovsky, orchestra, and plaintive cello urged him on.

  He found what he was looking for and slowly, carefully, to keep from losing it, removed the long, thin instrument and held it up to the light. The object was small-tiny actually-a piece of metal with a determined clot of blood clinging to it.

  He dropped the bit of metal into a kidney-shaped porcelain receptacle.

  “What is it?” asked the Canadian. “It was in me. I have a right to know.”

  “He does not know yet what it is,” said the old Russian.

  “Let us know when you find out,” said the Canadian.

  “I will,” Paulinin promised, “but before I examine it, I must probe the surfaces and recesses of your bodies for more treasures.”

  “We will not stop you,” said the old man.

  “I am certain you will not,” said Paulinin, turning his attention and gleaming instruments on the old man.

  “It is good to have a spotter who knows what he is doing,” said Viktor Panin.

  He was lying on his back on the bench in the well-equipped weight room. His hands were heavily chalked. Over his blue sweatshorts and a matching cutoff shirt that revealed his taut, full muscles, Viktor wore a leather harness pulled tightly to guard against hernia.

  Rostnikov, wearing a full long-sleeved gray sweatsuit, stood at the head of the bench. The bar, with massive black disks weighing more than four hundred pounds, rested in the cradle of the matching upright thick round steel bars that straddled the bench. It was unlikely that Rostnikov, even with a rush of adrenaline, could hold the weight should Panin begin to falter, an eventuality that was quite unlikely.

  “A spotter one can count on,” said Panin, “gives one confidence.”

  Panin was looking up at the bar, gauging it, his strength, and his resolve, not seeing Porfiry Petrovich beyond that bar.

  He placed both palms against the bar and worked his fingers around it. Rostnikov understood the meditative moment, the merging of hands, fingers, arms, body, mind, and the weight of iron-solid iron.

  Viktor Panin closed his eyes, clearing his mind, took a deep breath, held it, and pushed upward, lifting the bar from the cradle and slowly bringing the crushing weight down toward his body. He stopped just short of his chest and exhaled. Then he lifted again, his arms steady, locking over his head.

  Rostnikov had not seen anything quite like this before, though he had experienced something like the much younger man was feeling. It was a universal experience that Porfiry Petrovich was certain all who reached a certain level of truly heavy weights must feel.

  Instead of resting the bar back on the cradles, Viktor Panin took another deep breath and brought the bar to his chest once more, still without a quiver in his arms. Then he slowly pushed the bar back to a locked arm position, exhaled, and placed the bar on the cradles.

  “I’ve never done two repetitions with this much weight before,” Panin said between short breaths, sitting upon the bench. “Your understanding inspires me, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. Your turn now. I’ll change the weights.”

  Viktor Panin got off the bench.

  Rostnikov chalked his hands, beginning his necessary ritual of appeasing and praising his plastic and metal leg as he laid back on the bench.

  “How much weight?” Viktor asked, moving to the bar.

  “I think I will try this weight.”

  Viktor touched Porfiry Petrovich’s arm.

  “Good,” the young man said.

  “You have inspired me,” said Rostnikov.

  “Trust me.”

  “I will,” said Rostnikov.

  This the detective said knowing that Viktor could slip at a crucial moment, letting the four hundred pounds of steel drop, crushing Porfiry Petrovich’s chest.

  This the detective said knowing that he was putting his trust in a man who was still, in spite of an alibi for one of the two murders, a distinct suspect as diamond thief, smuggler, murderer, and keeper of the secret of the ghost girl.

  Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, Chief Inspector in the Moscow Police Office of Special Investigations, had seen far stronger alibis crumble to dust.

  Viktor Panin looked down at him, a smile of encouragement and confidence on the perspiring face of the younger man.

  “When you are ready, Porfiry Petrovich.”

  Rostnikov closed his eyes and imagined the fleeting voice of Dinah Washington singing the first words of “What A Difference A Day Makes.
”

  There were two days remaining until the Yak’s deadline and the possible end of the Office of Special Investigations.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Six-year-old Pulcharia Tkach stood next to the sofa holding her four-year-old brother’s hand. They were dressed in their school clothes, she in a blue blouse and skirt and knee-length white socks, he in a brown shirt and trousers that were slipping. Maya stood behind them protectively. The scene looked posed. It was posed.

  Sasha was immediately depressed. He smiled as broadly and sincerely as he could and stepped forward to embrace his children.

  Pulcharia looked up at her mother to be sure it was all right to hug her father. Maya smiled. Pulcharia let go of her brother’s hand and rushed into the arms of Sasha, who bent to take her in. He could instantly feel the rapid beating of her heart against his chest, and, at least for an instant, his depression was replaced by a deep, painful sadness.

  “Who is he?” asked Sasha’s son, looking up at his mother.

  “Your father,” Maya said.

  “I have a bug bite on my leg,” Pulcharia said, still hugging.

  “Where?” asked Sasha, reluctantly putting her down so she could show him.

  He looked at her as she rolled down the sock on her left leg. She looked painfully like her mother.

  “Here.”

  She pointed at a red bump.

  “It itches,” she said.

  “Who?” the little boy insisted, now pulling at his mother’s skirt.

  “Your father,” Maya repeated patiently.

  “Oh. What does a father do?”

  “What have you put on it?” Sasha asked his daughter.

  “Mother put something on it that Erik gave her,” said Pulcharia.

  The Swede. Sasha could not stop himself from looking at his wife. Did her lips tighten? Yes.

  “Erik is a sweet dish,” said the boy, turning in a circle.

  “Swedish,” Pulcharia corrected.

  “Your father cannot stay,” said Maya. “He has to work, and you must go to school.”

  “School is cruel,” the little boy said, continuing to turn. “I have a new name.”