“Go right in,” said Zhenya.
“Thank you,” replied Rostnikov, reaching down to massage his leg. Zhenya watched him for a second and then turned and left. Rostnikov knocked and entered the room before waiting for an answer.
“Rostnikov,” said Drozhkin, without rising. Rostnikov decided that the colonel resembled the dead branch of a birch tree. The image pleased him and gave him a secret to sustain him through the conversation.
“I called you here to say that we appreciate the speed with which you conducted the Granovsky investigation,” said Drozhkin, looking up with a pained look on his face that Rostnikov took to be a smile.
“Thank you, Colonel,” said Rostnikov. He was not offered a seat, and Drozhkin seemed not to have noticed. Then the colonel realized the situation and said, “Please sit down.”
Rostnikov sat and nothing was said for a few seconds.
“This Vonovich will be given a quick trial,” Drozhkin said, fixing his eyes on Rostnikov, who returned the look while holding a gentle smile on his face.
“That,” said Rostnikov, “is up to Procurator Timoteyeva.”
“Of course,” said Drozhkin, standing nervously. “I was not asking a question. I was making an observation. I understand that you are already on another murder, an entirely unrelated murder.”
“I am on another murder,” said Rostnikov.
Drozhkin paced to a corner nervously, looked out of the window behind him and turned to face Rostnikov with hands behind his back.
“Neither of us is a fool, Inspector.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Good,” Drozhkin said, returning to his desk. “I understand that troops are being rotated in Afghanistan this very day. I know this because we have direct contact with agents who are there. We can get information and relay orders instantly. While our relations with the military have been strained in the past, this is a new era, especially where political matters are involved. It is hypothetical, of course, but we could have individual soldiers transferred or even recalled from the front if we thought it necessary.”
“I see,” sighed Rostnikov.
“Good,” said Drozhkin. “Well, I hope you catch your new murderer as swiftly as you caught your last one. And I hope you will be hearing from your son very soon.”
Drozhkin started to rise again but changed his mind, and Rostnikov moved slowly to the door.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Rostnikov said.
The K.G.B. officer did not answer.
Zhenya was waiting outside the door to escort Rostnikov out, but Rostnikov had no intention of rushing after him. He walked slowly, and Zhenya was forced to stop and wait twice.
At the door, Rostnkov said “Thank you, comrade,” to the retreating back of Zhenya and moved to the waiting car.
“Next time you wait for me,” Rostnikov said, sinking back into the seat, “turn off the engine. You waste petrol.”
“Yes, sir,” said the driver.
A blanket of heat lay on Sonya Granovsky like a wet cat, as she tried to read by the light of the single bulb in the apartment on Dimitry Ulanov Street. She was as far from where her husband’s body had been as she could be. The police had tried to keep her from returning, but she had threatened to go to the housing board. The apartment was hers. If they had completed their investigation, she wanted to return with her daughter. Apartments were not easy to get and she didn’t want this one picked cold by some policeman who wanted to move his family in over the body of her husband. She would fight them at every step. She didn’t know why the apartment was so warm. Perhaps it wasn’t warm at all. Perhaps she was feverish. It was possible.
It was almost dawn. In the hall two tenants were arguing about something. She could make out few of their words and didn’t want to listen to them. She had been unable to sleep. In the other room, her daughter Natasha lay dreaming fitfully, tossing and moaning. There was nothing Sonya wanted to do, but what she wanted least was to sit alone in that smothering dark room. It had, she admitted, been terrible here when Aleksander was alive. They had never been happy and she had never liked him, though she had loved him and respected him. He had provided the focus of meaning in her life. She knew no other.
The voices in the hall grew louder, a man and a woman. It had something to do with using hot water. Sonya wanted to go to the door and shout at them to be quiet, but she couldn’t bear to be part of what would follow such an act. She couldn’t rise. Moist hands of heat pushed her down trickling wet under her print dress, between her breasts and thighs, into the hair between her legs, making her shudder and whimper. She closed her eyes again and opened them to her daughter standing in the door to the second room.
“What’s the noise?” she asked sleepily.
Sonya thought there was contempt in the girl’s eyes as she looked down at her, as if she knew her thoughts and feelings, as if she probed her mind and body and shame. Sonya had seen this look in Aleksander’s eyes.
“Just some neighbors fighting, arguing,” Sonya said. “Go back to sleep for a while. Are you warm?”
Natasha, whose hair was wound in braids, was wearing long-sleeved flannel pajamas that had been Sonya’s.
“No,” said the girl, heading back into the dark room.
The fight stopped abruptly in the hall, and a door closed. Footsteps went down the corridor, and there was silence. Sonya pushed herself from the chair, her back soaked with sweat and her bare lower legs sticky. The wooden floor boards creaked when she crossed the room and went to look out the window into near darkness.
The knock at the door was firm and insistent. Sonya started and wasn’t sure that it had been a real sound and not just something in her head. Then it came again.
“Coming,” she said. It was probably her brother Nikolai, stopping to see her on the way to work.
Before opening the door, Sonya paused at the wall to look at the photograph of her and Aleksander on the day of their wedding. She knew that it would soon become a ritual, a requirement. She would have to look at the photograph every time she passed. There were no words to give to this sensation, but it was welling in her nonetheless.
Sonya opened the door, not to the pale sad face of her brother, but to the figure of a young man in a black coat.
“Ilyusha,” she said softly. “What are you doing here?”
He moved quickly past her.
“Is Natasha here?” he said, looking around.
“Yes,” Sonya said confused. “What is wrong?”
He paused for a moment and looked at her. He looked as if he had not slept in days. Certainly he had not shaved.
“Don’t you know about Marie?” he asked, his hands plunged deeply into his pockets.
“Marie? No. What?”
“She’s dead,” he said, taking a step toward her. Sonya Granovsky stepped back.
“Dead?”
“Dead, dead, dead,” he repeated. “And so is Aleksander. ”
“I know,” said Sonya softly. “Please, Ilyusha, sit down. I’ll make some tea and we’ll talk.” She moved toward the kettle, but Malenko stepped in her way.
“Do you know who killed Aleksander?” he whispered.
“A man named Vonovich,” she said. “I know you’re upset Ilyusha, but you’ve got to keep quiet. Natasha is sleeping. It’s been very hard for her.”
Malenko shook his head and ran his hand through his hair.
“Hard for her,” he chuckled.
“Ilyusha, are you sure Marie is dead?” Sonya Granovsky said softly. “Maybe you’re just upset by what happened to Aleksander and-”
Ilyusha Malenko’s sudden move forward sent her staggering back. Panic was in his eyes.
“Oh no,” he said, holding his hand out while the other remained in his coat pocket. “That’s what happened before. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I proved it with the cab driver. I proved it. It did happen. She is dead. I hit her and hung her up. I killed her and the cab driver and Alek. I did. You aren’t going to convince me t
hat I didn’t.”
His hand came out of his pocket slowly, holding a large, heavy pair of rusty scissors.
“Ilyusha,” Sonya started to scream.
“But it’s not enough,” he said, stepping toward her. “Simon convinced me, showed me, it’s not enough. He’s the one I should have listened to all the time. I’m going to make things even.”
Sonya was paralyzed with fear. She imagined herself turning to run, feeling the thud of a heavy blow to her back, and knowing that filmy thing in his hand was plunging into her. There was nowhere to run. She stood in confusion and terror as he moved to her.
“I’ll explain,” he said, holding his free hand up to his lips. “Let’s be quiet and not wake Natasha yet. I’ll explain and you’ll understand why I will do what I must do.”
At the moment Ilyusha Malenko had entered the Granovsky apartment on Dimitry Ulanov Street, Porfiry Rostnikov was on his way back to his office from his meeting with Colonel Drozhkin. He weighed in his mind the possibility of trading what he knew for the safety of his son. The deliberation was brief. He would do what he could to protect Iosef. He would trade with the odious colonel. What difference did it make if Malenko went to Siberia for killing his wife or for killing Granovsky and the cab driver too? The K.G.B. wanted it finished so the political crisis could end. Then so be it, it was ended. Of course it meant that Vonovich would go to trial and be quickly convicted of murders he did not commit, but Rostnikov was also convinced that Vonovich had murdered some unknown human in his past. It didn’t matter to Rostnikov who murdered whom as long as the killers were all caught, stopped, and punished. What nagged Rostnikov was something much more basic than that. The “who” was no longer important. What was important was “why.”
“Wait,” he called to the driver as they turned down the street less than a block from Petrovka. “We have someplace else to go.”
The driver made a broad U-turn and headed back where he was told without comment. There was no time to waste. Rostnikov would confront Lvov directly and see what he could discover. Tkach had had two chances, but there was a limit to the amount of time he could give the young man when the issues were so important. There was a chance, Rostnikov realized, that he had given Tkach too much authority, had relied too heavily on him, had treated him and viewed him as a substitute son, a hedge against the possible loss of Iosef. If it were true, it may have jeopardized this investigation, for Tkach was not yet worthy of the responsibility he had been given.
When they pulled up to the apartment building where Simon Lvov lived, Rostnikov told the driver to turn off the engine.
It was easy to find the apartment of Simon Lvov. What proved to be more difficult was getting the old man to open the door.
“Lvov,” Rostnikov shouted, after knocking loudly. “I can hear you in there. This is the police. I’ll give you fifteen seconds to open the door, and then I call my man in to shoot it down.” Rostnikov knew he would do nothing of the kind, but he was not worried about losing face in front of this old dissident who had some information he might be able to use.
“You have ten seconds,” he said, not knowing if five, ten, or thirty seconds had passed.
Behind the door he could hear the shuffling of furniture, something heavy being moved and then the padding of footsteps to the door. A chain was pulled and a latch thrown before the door creaked open.
Rostnikov pushed his way in and turned on the tall, thin grey man in a worn purple robe that failed to cover his white boney knees.
“You are Simon Lvov?” Rostnikov barked.
“Yes, I…”
“I am Chief Inspector Rostnikov. You will sit, and I will sit, and you will answer some questions.”
Lvov sat dutifully across from the policeman, who stared at him. Rostnikov felt a stirring in him to back off. The old man before him was a pathetic, drifting creature, showing none of the elusiveness of tongue or mind that Tkach had reported. Either something had changed him, or Tkach had badly misjudged the man, which was unlikely.
“What did Malenko tell you?” he asked.
“Malenko?”
“Ilyusha Malenko. You saw him, met him. You know where he is hiding, what he is going to do. You can be put on trial for aiding a murderer.”
Lvov pushed his glasses back on his nose, and a spasm rippled across his face.
“He was going to kill me,” Lvov said. “I thought I didn’t care, but when the moment came, I cared very much.”
“What did he say? Why didn’t he kill you? Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” said the old man. “He said he had to even things with Granovsky. That killing me would not do it.”
“Even things?” Rostnikov asked. “What quarrel did he have with Granovsky?”
“I don’t know,” said Lvov. “They were friends, more like-I don’t know. Ilyusha worshiped Alek, would have done anything for him. Then this.”
“There has to be a reason,” Rostnikov insisted. “Why kill his friend and his own wife? Why-was there something between Granovsky and Malenko’s wife?” The idea seemed obvious and yet elusive. It depended totally on the association of the two murders for a motive. It meant, as Rostnikov was certain anyway, that Malenko was the sole murderer.
“Perhaps,” shrugged Lvov.
“Only perhaps?”
“It is quite likely,” said Lvov quietly. “Aleksander was an articulate and brave leader, but he was in many ways less than an honorable man.”
“It makes no sense,” said Rostnikov almost to himself. “If he caught them, why didn’t he kill them together, or her first? If she confessed, why did he kill Granovsky first? You see?”
“No,” said Lvov, who clearly did not see.
“Who told him about his wife and Granovsky, the man he worshipped like a father?”
“I don’t know,” said Lvov. “Would you like some tea?”
“No,” mused Rostnikov. “He said he had to make it even. That there were two of them. Perhaps he means to murder his father and stepmother.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Lvov, rising and moving slowly across the floor on thin white legs to prepare some tea.
“Two of them,” Rostnikov repeated and then the image came into his mind. It was a pair of thin shadows, and then the light touched them, and they had faces and the faces were those of Sonya and Natasha Granovsky.
He was back in the car in less than twenty seconds. The driver started the engine as soon as Rostnikov got in and shouted for him to hurry to Dimitry Ulanov Drive.
The driver turned as if to speak, saw Rostnikov’s pale face, and said nothing.
“Hurry, hurry,” urged the police inspector, and the driver hurried.
He was the best driver Rostnikov had ever seen. They took corners, even still icy ones, without a skid and without a slowdown. His hands remained steady and he anticipated lights and pedestrians as he sped through the streets. The trip took no more than ten minutes.
“Listen,” he told the driver as he got out. “We are looking for a man named Malenko, Ilyusha Malenko. He is twenty-eight and probably wearing a black coat. You don’t let anyone out of that door who even vaguely might be Malenko. You understand?”
“I understand,” the driver said, getting out and unbuttoning his holster.
“Good. I think he has killed three people and is quite dangerous. I would like him alive, but if that is not possible…You understand.”
Rostnikov hurried into the hall and to the elevator, but a sign was hung on it, indicating that it was out of order. Rostnikov began the climb up the stairs. He tried to hurry, but his leg denied him. At the third floor, he had to rest. Two young teen-age boys hurried past the exhausted man and fell into silence until they were a floor below him, where they said something about him being drunk. Rostnikov forced himself up. By the sixth floor he was in pain and dragging his foot. It struck him only then that he had no gun with him. He seldom used one. It was not that he was against the use of weapons, but the need came up so seldom that he
left his gun locked in a drawer in his office.
There was no time to worry about it. He plunged down the hall, found the door, and knocked.
“Mrs. Granovsky. Sonya Granovsky,” he cried.
There was no answer. Rostnikov wasn’t sure of how strong the door was. In truth, at the moment, he wasn’t sure of how strong he was, but he planned to try. There was little room in the narrow corridor. He pushed himself against the wall opposite the door, placed his palms against the wall behind him, braced his bad foot and lifted his good one for a kick. He had taken two deep breaths and was about to kick, when he heard something behind the door. A movement. Something. He hesitated, stood up, and leaned forward to listen.
“Is someone in there?” he called. Silence. “Is someone in there?”
The door began to open, and the face of Sonya Granovsky appeared.
“Yes?” she said.
“It is me, Inspector Rostnikov. You remember me from the other night?”
“I remember you.” She looked thin and ill, as if she were about to collapse.
“May I come in?” he asked gently.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid I…”
“I’ll have to insist,” he said as kindly as he could. She backed away and he entered carefully, ready.
“Where is your daughter?” he asked.
“Sleeping in the next room,” she said, folding her hands over her thin breasts and hugging herself as she sat in a wooden chair and failed to meet his eyes. There was something like the attitude of Simon Lvov about her.
“Late to be sleeping, isn’t it?” he asked, taking a step toward the closed door.
Sonya Granovsky stood up quickly and nervously, her right hand out to stop him.
“No,” she said, her voice breaking. “She’s been upset since…all this. Please let her sleep.”
Rostnikov turned from the door and supported himself on the edge of the sofa where he had first seen the two women. If something was in that room with which he had to deal, it would be best dealt with when his strength returned.
“Have you seen Ilyusha Malenko recently?” Rostnikov tried.
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