Death of a Dissident ir-1

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “Kroft,” he said. “I want to talk to you. Police.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” insisted the frightened voice inside.

  “We’ll talk about it when you open the door.” Karpo heard a shuffling sound on the other side of the wooden door and something that sounded like the opening of a window. He took a step back in the narrow hall, lifted his foot, and kicked at the door. It gave as if it had been sucked in by a vacuum, and Karpo skidded across the floor of a room even smaller than his own. His eyes saw two things immediately: a police uniform laid neatly on the small bed and a frightened little man in his underwear standing next to it. The frightened little man, in turn, saw the angel of death that had broken down his door, and he turned and leaped out of the window.

  Karpo hurried across the room and to the window to look down for the body, but there was no body. There was no impression in the snow three floors below. Then the answer came. Snow fell from above onto Karpo’s head, and he looked up. The overhang of the roof was inches over his head, and he could hear the scuttling of feet on the roof.

  With just one hand, he knew he could not follow Kroft, but he was equally determined that he would not let the criminal get away. He went back in the room and out the door, looking up and around. He began kicking down doors.

  The first room was unoccupied at the moment except for a huge photograph of a naked woman. The photograph looked very old. In the next room whose door he kicked down, an old woman was talking to a small child. The woman screamed without sound, and the child-Karpo could not tell if it was a boy or girl-looked at him blankly. He paid no attention to them but leaped to the ladder nailed to the wall. He banged his sore arm against the wail and made his way awkwardly up, having to let go at each step and grab for the wooden rung above. He took splinters in his hand, but fortunately there was a very low ceiling and the rungs were few. He forced open the trap door covered with snow by pushing his head against it. It gave slowly, struggling with him for supremacy, but Karpo was a stubborn man with a strong head. He worked his way up on the sloped roof and looked around for Kroft.

  “Kroft,” he called. “Give up. There is no place to escape.”

  “I could have killed you,” a voice came from behind Karpo. As he turned to face it, his feet gave way in the snow, and Karpo began to fall toward the edge of the roof. He went down on his arm and immediately felt an agonizing pain and heard something crack. Suddenly a sure hand grabbed his sleeve and pulled him.

  “Are you all right?” said Kroft, looking into his face.

  “Yes,” said Karpo struggling to get up. “You are under arrest.”

  “I know,” said Kroft, who stood shivering in his underwear, “but all the same, I could have simply pushed you off the roof. You shouldn’t be climbing around with an arm like that.”

  “That is my concern,” said Karpo, unable to resist the help of the man in underwear. “Now go ahead of me down the ladder, and don’t try anything or I’ll have to shoot.”

  Kroft shivered and shrugged his shoulders.

  “There’s a little boy in that room,” he said. “You think I’d want you to shoot? For a policeman you don’t think much about the people you’re supposed to be helping.”

  “I don’t need lectures from a criminal,” said Karpo. “Now down.”

  And Kroft went slowly down the ladder with Karpo struggling behind him, but the struggle was in vain. The policeman fell to the floor dropping his gun beneath him. He tried to roll over and extract the weapon from the weight of his own body but found the pain in his arm nearly unbearable. When he finally did retrieve the weapon and looked around, he saw Kroft on a small bed in the corner with a blanket wrapped around his legs. The old woman and the boy looked at Karpo expressionlessly, as if they were now quite accustomed to people in their underwear and wounded men with waving pistols going through their little room.

  Karpo was drenched in sweat and unable to come to a sitting position.

  “Don’t move,” he warned Kroft.

  Kroft touched his nose with his hand, clutching the blanket to him tightly for warmth, not modesty.

  “If I wanted to move, I could have run while you were squirming around down there like a turtle on its back. I’ll help you up.”

  He got up and started to hobble toward Karpo who waved him back.

  “Don’t move, I said.”

  “If I don’t help you, you will sit there till Moscow turns capitalist, and I will wither away,” Kroft said reasonably.

  “Why didn’t you run?” Karpo demanded, trying to find a reasonable way to at least come to a sitting position.

  “Where would I run? I could grab my pants and go out the door. Where would I sleep? Who do I know well enough to hide me? The circus people would turn me in. My relatives are two thousand miles away. Why should I make you even angrier than you are with me? This way I go to trial. I say I’m sorry. I repent. I tell the judge I don’t know what got into me. Maybe I’ll even blame decadent French novels and magazines for my folly. Confession is a marvelous tool. Maybe my sentence will be light.”

  “You are a parasite,” hissed Karpo bewildered by his predicament.

  “Perhaps,” agreed Kroft. “But would I be less of a parasite if I didn’t work at all? No one wants to hire a sixty-year-old arielist with a bad leg and a prison record.”

  “You are sixty-two,” Karpo corrected.

  “Look at him,” Kroft appealed to the old woman and the boy. “He lies there in helpless agony and he can’t help arguing with me about a few years. What is your name?”

  “Deputy Inspector Karpo, but that is not meaningful at present. You can help me up, but do so carefully.”

  “Thank you, Mister Detective Inspector Karpo,” Kroft said with sarcasm and a deep bow. “It will be an honor to help such a fine fellow as you. Perhaps you will bear in mind my consideration when you testify at my trial, if I am to have one.”

  With Kroft’s help and the watchful eyes of the old woman and boy, Karpo stood on wobbly legs. He almost fell, but Kroft helped him.

  “Are they so short-handed that they send wounded police out to catch criminals?” Kroft asked as he helped Karpo to the door. “Or am I so insignificant a criminal that I merit only the lame for my pursuer?”

  “Parasite,” repeated Karpo.

  “I didn’t rob a single Russian,” Kroft insisted helping Karpo down the hall to his room. “Not a single Russian, only Africans and Indians. If I had not done this, I would have indeed been a parasite on the state, which would have fed and clothed me. Look how I live. You think I get rich being a criminal? What about the real criminals who take government contracts to make one thing and make something else more profitable instead?”

  “Dress,” said Karpo, leaning against the door as Kroft reached for his pants.

  “Not the uniform,” Karpo had to bark. Kroft shrugged and laid it aside, saying, “It’s the only decent clothing I own.”

  In a few minutes, Kroft was dressed, and Karpo was ready to pass out from the pain.

  “Public enemy number two, as the Americans say, is ready,” sighed Kroft.

  His coat was indeed badly frayed and his hat a worn cloth affair.

  “Perhaps it is better I look like this,” sighed Kroft. “You know, play for sympathy, though I far prefer dignity even at the price that must be paid for it.” He looked at Karpo for an answer but got none, so Kroft went on. “I know. I know. Muscovites are all philosophers. Let’s go, if you can make it.”

  It took them almost four minutes to get down the three flights of stairs and another ten minutes to find a taxi. The driver didn’t want to stop, but Kroft had leaped out in front of him.

  “This is a policeman,” he shouted at the red-faced driver. “A policeman. We are both policemen. Take us to Petrovka.”

  Along the way, Karpo passed out twice, regaining consciousness in a kind of dim twilight. He had no recollection of ever reaching Petrovka or being helped in and up the stairs by his prisoner.

 
; “It is a brochure, a pamphlet advertising an English aftershave lotion, a kind of perfume for men,” Rostnikov told Inspector Vostok. Vostok could not read English and had brought the odd piece of paper into Rostnikov’s office. It was well known that Rostnikov read English well though it was not generally known that this familiarity came primarily from reading black market American mystery novels.

  “A perfume for men,” the burly Vostok repeated incredulously. “For men to wear, like the aristocrats before the Revolution?”

  “Yes,” agreed Rostnikov.

  “Like women in France?” Inspector Vostok continued.

  “Something like that,” agreed Rostnikov. “Where did you get it?”

  “In the room of one of those three boys, the ones who were caught robbing the liquor store,” Vostok said, staring at the paper in his ruddy hands.

  “The dead boy’s room?” asked Rostnikov.

  Vostok shrugged. “I don’t know.” And then he was gone.

  This was the point at which Tkach had reached Rostnikov by phone, after which Rostnikov called and missed Karpo. He immediately ordered a car and headed for Petro Street. The driver was the same one who had taken him to Granovsky’s two nights earlier. He said nothing, which suited Rostnikov.

  Tkach was standing in the door of the Malenko apartment, transfixed by the bloody figure of the dead woman. It was still morning, and the bright light of day made every detail of the scene clear and repulsively beautiful.

  “Three in two days,” Rostnikov said easing past the younger man. “Did you call the evidence people?”

  “Yes, immediately after I called you,” said Tkach.

  “Good, have you looked around?”

  “Yes,” said Tkach. “The murder weapon appears to be a hammer found on the floor. No good fingerprints on it. I can find no picture of Ilyusha Malenko but I will find one and get it out to the uniformed…”

  Rostnikov looked up at the corpse and wondered at the fury that had caused such an assault.

  “You think the husband did this, then?” he said.

  “Yes, of course. He killed Granovsky, the cab driver, and his wife.”

  “Hmmm,” said Rostnikov. “You don’t think the poor man could simply be wandering around Moscow or at school or visiting, unaware that someone has done this?”

  “No,” said Tkach. “It is so unlikely as to not be reasonable. He lives on Petro Street, and his wife and friend are both killed within a day’s time.”

  “Maybe he is scheduled to be the next victim,” Rostnikov tried.

  Tkach was confused but convinced of his observation.

  “No, I talked to him yesterday. He was strange. I can see that now. When we find him, I’m sure we will find the murderer.”

  “His motive,” said Rostnikov opening a dresser drawer. “Why?”

  “He is clearly mad,” Tkach almost laughed.

  “Yes,” nodded Rostnikov, “but even a madman has reasons, even mad reasons. He didn’t kill you yesterday. There are certainly others he has met in the last two days whom he has not felt the need to murder with some tool at hand.”

  “I don’t know,” said Tkach. “We can find that out when we find him.”

  “Yes,” said Rostnikov, “but if we know why he did these things, the possibility would exist to prevent him from doing even more.”

  “I see,” said Tkach.

  “Then, while we are trying to find Ilya Malenko, it might be a good idea to see some more of his and Granovsky’s friends to try to puzzle this out. Take your list and go.”

  Tkach went and Rostnikov stood alone. He had avoided staring at the corpse with Tkach present. Now he felt himself compelled to do so, not for professional reasons, but for reasons he could not fully understand. He felt the need to reach up and take her down. He could do it easily. Her weight was nothing. There was so little of her, but it was a weight he could not lift. She was an accusing weight.

  An hour later he was back in Procurator Timofeyeva’s office, in the same black chair, the same cold room. He watched the square of a woman eat a sandwich and drink some tea at her desk. She looked as if she had not slept. She had offered him tea, but he had refused. His task would not be easy.

  “So,” he said. “There is reason to believe that Ilya Malenko killed Granovsky.”

  “Not necessarily,” she said, holding up a finger to which a large bread crumb adhered. “He could have killed his wife and Vonovich have killed the others.”

  “Possible,” said Rostnikov. “Very coincidental. We don’t have that many murders in Moscow. Even if Malenko didn’t kill his wife it is certain that Vonovich, who was with us, did not do it. There is a connection.”

  Procurator Timofeyeva removed her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger never putting down the sandwich of stale bread, and savoring every bit of gastronomical discomfort.

  “Not necessarily,” she said.

  “As you say, Comrade Procurator,” Rostnikov agreed. “However, I may assume that I can pursue the murderer of Marie Malenko?”

  Procurator Timofeyeva rose, her face a sudden crimson, and threw her sandwich on the desk. The sandwich crumbled, confirming Rostnikov’s belief that it was stale.

  “Rostnikov, it is not that simple. There are political ramifications that go beyond-”

  “Beyond catching the right murderer?” Rostnikov continued.

  “Perhaps even that,” she shouted, retrieving the parts of her scattered cheese sandwich. “Perhaps even that. The state and its needs go beyond the justice of one particular murder. We are not naïve Swedes or Americans who place such simple concepts up as truths which will rule the world and make men just, true, and honorable. Choices must be made. There are few absolutes. There are just situations.”

  “Am I to ignore this last murder, then?” he asked as innocently as he could.

  Procurator Timofeyeva sipped some tea and looked at him.

  “No,” she said. “Go ahead, but report what you find to me. At the moment the Granovsky murder is solved, the murderer has been caught. If we find that this Malenko killed his wife, it is another matter, another crime. You are not to connect the murders in any way without first discussing the situation with me. You understand?”

  “Yes, Comrade Procurator.”

  “Then you may get back to work,” she said, looking up to Lenin for inspiration. “And Porfiry, heed my words. Be careful.”

  He closed the door behind him and went back to his office. The barking of the police dogs coming off of another shift came to him from afar. Back in his office, he found his two guest seats occupied. In one slumbered Emil Karpo, his bandaged arm dirty. In the other sat a ragged, docile, little man.

  “I think he needs a doctor,” said the man as soon as Rostnikov entered.

  Rostnikov went to his phone and barked an order into it and then hung up.

  “He insisted on coming here,” the man said looking protectively at Karpo.

  “And you?” asked Rostnikov. “Who are you?”

  “An actor,” said Kroft.

  “Then thank you actor and you may go after you fill out a report on what happened,” said Rostnikov, who moved to examine Karpo.

  “I’m an actor first and a criminal second,” the man said. “He was arresting me when he got hurt. I greatly respect the police, but don’t you think you should be more careful of those you send out on such assignments?”

  Karpo seemed to be more in a coma than asleep, and Rostnikov went back to his chair. He and Kroft looked at each other.

  “You remind me a little of Ibiensky, the strong man in the circus,” Kroft observed.

  Rostnikov woke from his thoughts and examined the man, who suddenly seemed much wiser and more perceptive.

  “I lift weights,” Rostnikov answered.

  “I could tell,” said Kroft with satisfaction, rubbing the grey stubble on his chin. “I was with the circus for almost thirty-five years. I learned all of Ibiensky’s tricks.”

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nbsp; Rostnikov’s eyes lit with interest, and he leaned forward.

  “You did?” he asked.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Where is the other driver?” Rostnikov asked settling into the rear of the police Volga. The temperature had crept up to nineteen or twenty degrees fahrenheit, with no snow falling. He could have taken a train, but he would have spent a good part of his day in transportation, and Procurator Timofeyeva had urged him to conclude his investigation swiftly.

  “He is ill,” said the new driver pulling into the street and looking over his shoulder.

  This one, thought Rostnikov, has an intelligent face. Let us hope the face does not hide a talkative personality.

  “What is his malady?” Rostnikov asked, going over the notes in his notebook.

  “American flu,” said the driver.

  “I understand they call it Russian flu in the United States,” Rostnikov replied.

  “I know little of American prejudices,” said the driver. Rostnikov examined him further. He was young, with close-cut brown hair under his fur cap. He looked like an athlete in some track or field sport.

  “I know of them through occasional reading of American novels,” said Rostnikov, looking out of the window into the glaring sun.

  “I cannot read American novels,” said the driver. “I can’t keep the names straight. Americans have so many strange names, so many variations and diminutives. I can never keep it straight. For example, an American can have the names John, Jack, Jonathan, Johnny-and all be the same person.”