Black Knight in Red Square ir-2

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  She carefully removed the backbone, flattened the bird and fried it under a heavy metal plate weighted down still further by a hand iron. She would then serve it with a prune sauce and pickled cabbage. At that point he would be most vulnerable, and that’s when she would speak.

  Rostnikov moved to the weights, and Sarah stopped talking, knowing that she would not get through his concentration. Rostnikov turned on the radio, opened the cupboard, rolled out the thin mat, carefully removed the heavy weights, and, enjoying the music of Rimsky-Korsakov and the smell of chicken tabaka, began his routine. He had one more day to prepare. No one but Sarah knew that he had entered the annual weightlifting competition in Sokolniki Recreation Park. The competition was for men and women over fifty, and the participants, he well knew, were often remarkable. He had seen the competition every year for the past seven years, with the exception of 1977 when he was being held at gunpoint by a pyromaniac in the basement of the Moscow Art Theater.

  This year, Alexiev was to give out the trophies. Rostnikov imagined standing next to his idol, accepting a trophy from him, clasping his huge hairy hand. The fantasy was overpowering. Rostnikov had never entered the competition before, because his leg would make it nearly impossible for him to participate in many of the events. To clean and jerk 200 pounds, he had to move in a strange swoop, and this put him at an immediate disadvantage. To win the event, he would have to do far better than the other competitors. Even the dead lift would be a problem, since he could bend only one knee. He would have to do on one leg what others did on two.

  In moments, Rostnikov was happily sweating and straining. The music danced around him. He counted without having to think about counting. His body, arms, legs, and chest told him how close he was to exhaustion, and when that exhaustion came he would strain through it, his face turning red, his veins mapped along his furry arms, his breath coming in short puffs. Sarah always turned away from him at this point. In spite of his assurance that this was natural, she was convinced that he was doing terrible things to his body. She never tried to talk him out of it, for she realized how much he needed those weights. But still, she would not look.

  Rostnikov had spoken on the phone to the partner of the dead Japanese filmmaker. The partner had spoken no Russian but could get along in English, so Rostnikov had conducted the interview in a language that was awkward for both of them.

  The dead Japanese, Yushiro Nakayama, knew no one in Moscow. He had been in town only two days when he died. His film production company was small and produced soft-core pornography as well as one general release film each year. This year’s film, Green Days in Kyoto, was an entry in the film festival. Nakayama and his partner, however, were less interested in the chances of winning a prize than in finding markets for their other films.

  The partner might have been lying, but Rostnikov didn’t think so. Like most Russians over forty, Rostnikov harbored a deep suspicion of the Japanese. The Japanese had been one of the few nations to clearly defeat Russia in a war. Of course that had been under the czarist regime, but it was a crushing defeat nonetheless. The Russians had done their best to avoid conflict with the Japanese during the Second World War, Rostnikov’s war, leaving them to the Americans and the British. Rostnikov didn’t trust the Japanese, though he grudgingly admired them. In fact, from his reading he had decided that the Japanese were clearly the most intelligent people in the world, which made him even more suspicious. Thus, though he felt confident that the dead Japanese film producer was the victim of an accident, still he decided to assign a junior officer to continue investigating his death.

  He was waiting for reports on the two dead Russians. Neither one seemed likely to have been the intended victim. But, just in case, Rostnikov had called the home towns of both men and asked for a local inquiry and investigation.

  No, he thought, transferring a weight to his right hand, the American journalist was the most likely target. Karpo’s report had led him to that conclusion. Karpo’s prostitute had said that Aubrey, the American, spoke of a frog bitch. Rostnikov remembered that Americans and Englishmen used the word “frog” in a pejorative sense to mean French. He had read that in one of his American detective novels. So the drunk and dying American in the back seat of a Moscow taxi had referred to a Frenchwoman. According to Aubrey’s notebook, he had interviewed a Frenchwoman the day before his death. After the encounter outside the elevator, Rostnikov had dispatched Tkach to interview this Frenchwoman, Monique Freneau.

  Yes, Rostnikov thought, he had done the right thing. Now the investigation could wait till morning when he would talk to Tkach, interview the German, and have Tkach interview the Englishman.

  Rimsky-Korsakov and Rostnikov finished at almost the same time. Rostnikov reached over, panting, turned off the radio, put his weights away, and went to the kitchen table.

  The food was excellent. They drank the borscht slowly, dug into the chicken with gusto, drank the wine with approval. Then it came.

  “Porfiry,” Sarah said, playing with a piece of chicken on her plate. “What do you think about France?”

  The question was startling since he had, in fact, just been thinking about France. Her blue eyes suddenly met his.

  “I am not overly fond of the French,” he said, pouring the last of the wine from the small bottle. “In their assumed superiority they have little tolerance for any other people. They find Russians particularly barbaric. I think it has something to do with Napoleon’s inability to-”

  “No,” Sarah interrupted. “I mean what would you think about living in France. Or England, or Israel, or even America or Canada.”

  That was it, then, Rostnikov thought. The idea had remained unspoken for so long, but now it was out. Sarah was a Jew. She could apply for immigration. It would not be easy, but it could be done, and Porfiry, as her husband, could apply with her. The problem, as they both knew, was that as soon as they applied, they would become objects of abuse. Their lives would be made miserable. They might well lose their jobs and be given tasks of no responsibility or merit. Their son Iosef would suffer, and, worst of all, they probably would never be given permission to leave. But it was something Rostnikov had been considering seriously since his job had grown more political and since his knowledge had become a potential danger to the state.

  “Sarah,” Rostnikov sighed, “I’m a policeman. They would never let me go.”

  “You know people,” she said. “People who could help us.”

  Whom did he know? Anna Timofeyeva? What influence did she have? And as a loyal Party member, what would she think of his wanting to leave, to desert the cause when she was giving her life to it?

  “I don’t know anyone who would be willing to help us,” he said.

  Their eyes met, and he could see something in hers that she had been careful to conceal before, if it had been there.

  “Porfiry,” she said. “We are more than fifty years old. It is worth trying.”

  Insanely, the name Isola came to mind. Isola, the city of Ed McBain, where the police behaved so differently from those in Moscow. Now, if he could go to Isola…

  “Sarah,” he said, “it cannot be.”

  She nodded, got up, and began to clear away the dishes. An observer might conclude from this that the matter was ended, but Rostnikov knew better. He knew that it had only begun and that Sarah was much more patient and even more intelligent than he was. Besides, Rostnikov had been more than toying with the idea for some time.

  The knock at the door was gentle. They thought the sound was coming from across the hall. Then it was louder. Rostnikov grabbed the table and pushed himself up, feeling the tug of the conversation and the nip of the wine.

  At first when he opened the door, he didn’t recognize the man before him.

  “Yes?” said Rostnikov, wiping his moist brow with the hem of his shirt.

  “I’m from upstairs,” said the thin Bulgarian.

  “The toilet,” Rostnikov suddenly remembered. He had dismantled the toilet early
in the morning, and the Bulgarians had been waiting for his return.

  “Ah,” sighed Rostnikov, “I have consulted an expert, the chief plumber at the Metropole Hotel. I’ll have it fixed in a few minutes. Never fear.”

  He pushed the Bulgarian gently into the hall.

  “I’ll just get my tools and be right there,” he said softly, not wanting a neighbor to overhear and call the dreaded Samsanov.

  Sarah looked up at him when he closed the door. In her eyes was the unspoken question, Would this happen in Paris or Montreal or Chicago?

  Rostnikov shrugged, believing that it would, but thinking it unwise to raise the issue again.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said. “This will take me no more than fifteen minutes.”

  It was, in fact, nearly two hours before Rostnikov returned. There had been unforeseen complications. The tools had been inadequate, and the book he had been using was far out of date. He had eventually managed to get the pipe repaired, but he feared that the repair was temporary.

  “Toilet is now fixed,” he told Sarah, who was sitting at the table writing a letter, probably to her sister or Iosef.

  “That’s good,” she said, looking over the top of her glasses and smiling, her mind in Odessa or Kiev or San Diego.

  Rostnikov was washing at the sink when the phone rang. Sarah answered it and held it out to him.

  “I don’t know who it is,” she said with a shrug.

  He crossed the room and took the phone. “Rostnikov,” he said.

  “In the morning,” came the man’s voice, “at precisely seven, you are to be at the office of Colonel Drozhkin.”

  Rostnikov said nothing.

  “Do you understand?” came the voice.

  Rostnikov recognized the man as Zhenya, Colonel Drozhkin’s assistant.

  “I understand,” Rostnikov said evenly. “I will be there at seven.”

  They hung up, and Rostnikov turned to his wife. “Business,” he said. “I have an appointment early in the morning.”

  That was all he said. He reread a mystery by Lawrence Block and went to bed wondering what the KGB wanted from him this time.

  In the evening right after the incident with the gang of rapists, Sasha Tkach took a bus to the Rossyia Hotel. He went through the huge glass doors and across the vast lobby whose walls were covered with film posters and blowups of movie stars, mostly Bulgarians, and advanced to the desk. He gave the name of the woman he was seeking, Monique Freneau, identified himself, and waited while the clerk at the long desk looked up the name. He couldn’t find it. Normally, the clerk would have given up, but this was a policeman with a determined look in his eyes, so the clerk tried the rosters for the other towers and eventually found the Frenchwoman’s name.

  The Hotel Rossyia is a sharp contrast to the Metropole. It is massive and new and official comments in tourist books and publicity call it “the Palace.” Muscovites, looking up at the gigantic structure on the Moskva River, refer to it as “the box.” The twelve-story hotel has thirty-two hundred rooms, nine restaurants, two of which can seat a thousand diners each, six bars, fifteen snack bars, and the world’s largest ballroom. It also houses two movie theaters for eight hundred spectators and one larger cinema hall, the Zaryadye, which can comfortably accommodate three thousand people.

  Sasha found Monique Freneau’s room with no difficulty. He knocked, and the door opened on a woman who quite dazzled him. He was sure he had seen her before. She wore a thin pink blouse made of some silky material; her jeans were tight and certainly Western. But it was her face and hair…Yes, she looked like the French actress Brigitte Bardot, but Bardot must be older than this woman. Perhaps this was a younger sister.

  “Yes?” the woman said in Russian.

  Tkach didn’t know that many young women in France capitalized on their resemblance to the famous star and adopted the Bardot look.

  “You are Monique Freneau?” he said in French.

  She smiled. Tkach wasn’t sure whether she was pleased that he was speaking to her in her native language or amused because he was doing it so poorly. Either way, her smile made him uncomfortable. In fact, Monique Freneau made him quite uncomfortable as she gestured for him to enter the room, but gave him little space to get through the doorway without brushing against her.

  He glanced around the room. It was far bigger than the apartment he and Maya shared with his mother.

  “I am from the police,” he said immediately.

  “I’m surprised,” she said, sitting in one of the two chairs in the room and crossing her legs. “I thought a requirement of nonuniformed Russian policemen was that they be over fifty, solid, sober, and shaped either like a lamppost or like an American mailbox.”

  Her description fit Rostnikov quite well, Tkach thought. He also was aware that the woman, who might be anywhere from twenty-five to forty, was looking at him with amusement and employing what must have been her formidable sexuality.

  “I have, I am sorry to say, another appointment,” Sasha lied. “So, I will have to ask you some questions rather quickly. You probably have much to do, too.”

  “No, not really,” she said, putting a finger to her chin.

  “You are a maker of films?” he asked, taking out his notebook.

  “I am a producer of films,” she said. “There is quite a difference. Actually, I am the assistant to a producer, and I’m representing him at the festival.”

  “I would have thought you were an actress,” he said, and immediately regretted it.

  “I was,” she said. “But I found it more…rewarding to be the assistant to Pierre Maxitte. You’ve heard of him?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Tkach said seriously.

  “You have a name,” she added disarmingly.

  “Inspector Tkach,” he said. “On Monday-”

  “A first name?” she cut in.

  “Sasha,” he said.

  “That is a nice name,” she mused. “Fun to say. Sasha. Sasha.”

  “Warren Harding Aubrey,” Sasha threw in. It stopped her, but didn’t seem to disturb or upset her.

  “The writer?” she asked.

  “I imagine there would be few with such a name,” he said seriously, “though I must admit I know little about American names.”

  “Aubrey interviewed me a few days ago,” she said.

  “Monday,” Sasha said. “What did you talk about?”

  “Why?” she asked. “What has he done?”

  “He has gotten himself killed,” explained Tkach. “It may well be an accident, but we are trying to trace his movements up to the time of his death yesterday morning.”

  “Dead,” she said, looking at Tkach more seriously.

  “Quite dead,” he said. “Why did he interview you?”

  “About Pierre,” she said. “The movie we’re showing at the festival, The Devil in the Wind. I had the impression that it was not a serious interview, that he was looking for gossip, perhaps about Pierre. Who knows? He even hinted that he might look favorably on our film if I was friendly to him. You understand?”

  “Yes,” said Tkach, writing down far more than he needed in order to keep from looking at her. Now he thought perhaps he understood why Aubrey had referred to her as the frog bitch. But as a lead, this looked like a dead end.

  “What was the essence of his interview?” he asked.

  “The essence. Let me see.” She tapped her even white teeth with a neat fingernail and seemed to be thinking. “He wanted to know if Pierre and I were lovers, if I had ever made any nude films, if we were thinking of bribing or trying to bribe judges. He was not a particularly nice man.”

  “Any other details of the interview? Did he seem…”

  “Aroused?” she asked.

  That was enough. Tkach closed his notebook and looked at her. She looked back. There was certainly intelligence in the brown eyes, intelligence and amusement and something else.

  “I haven’t been much help, have I?” she said, rising slowly.

/>   “You’ve told me what was necessary.”

  “If you’d like to come back tonight after dinner and ask more questions,” she said, taking a step toward him, “I’ll be right here.”

  Now Tkach smiled, and his smile stopped her. The game-playing halted, for she had seen something that told her things had not gone as she had guided them. That smile was quite knowing and much older than the face of the good-looking young detective.

  “I have to work tonight,” he said, stepping past her. “But I may have more questions. And perhaps next time you will answer with the truth.”

  Without looking at her he crossed the room, opened the door, and stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him. At this point, he had no idea whether or not she had told the truth. He’d had no reason to be suspicious until he gave her the knowing smile he had been working on for four years. He thought of it as the Russian police smile, which says, I know what you are hiding. Tkach didn’t know that it was the smile of all detectives from Tokyo to Calcutta to San Francisco to Moscow. He had seen her play her scene out, then had given her the knowing smile, and for an instant she had broken, showing that there was something more behind those eyes and that lovely facade. He had no idea what she might be hiding or why. He would simply give the information to Rostnikov and let him worry about it.

  Meanwhile, Sasha knew of a store that supposedly had received a shipment of coffee. If he was lucky, and if he hurried, he could get there while there was still some left. It would get him home late and cost more than he should really spend, but it would be a welcome treat for Maya and his mother.

  The coffee was indeed there. The wait was long, and Sasha arrived home late but quite content at a few minutes after eight, precisely at the moment that the dark-eyed foreigner had put the third and final bomb in place behind the screen in the Zaryadye movie theater in the Hotel Rossyia.

  SIX