Blood and Rubles

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  The plan had been to demand the ransom. Alexei’s wife and brother would gather it and get it to Artiom. The police would know all about it. Alexei Porvinovich would be found dead on the street.

  For this Artiom would keep the money and continue his affair with Alexei’s wife. But the plan had troubled him from the first. Anna’s interest in him was waning. Artiom knew this, knew that he was just a novelty for her, knew that another novelty would appear. He wasn’t even certain that she would let him survive to be a possible witness against her.

  But then again, Alexei Porvinovich, who sat before him clutching a tea mug, was certainly not to be trusted either.

  This had all been a mistake. Anna had insisted that it had to be done quickly. She had given him a genuine Rolex and an hour of passion in his bedroom.

  Artiom was not smart, but he was not a fool. When he worked honestly, he repaired automobiles. The man at the door was a half-wit named Boris who worked with him on cars. Boris was a genius with cars. Boris would also do whatever Artiom told him, including murder. Artiom had met Anna and Alexei when they brought in their Buick to be repaired. The next day Anna had come alone to pick up the car and Artiom.

  Artiom’s wife had left him almost a year ago and taken their son, Kolya, with her. She had had enough of his women, his gambling, his indifference, and his outbursts of rage and brutality. She lived now with another man whom she said was her cousin from Sverdlovsk. She called Artiom often, demanding money. He would send what he could when he could.

  Artiom had never before committed a major crime. He had been in jail for two weeks for hitting a policeman when he was drunk, and he had been questioned about a stolen car on which he had worked, but they had let him off on that one.

  And now he was a kidnapper, and people were offering him millions to murder each other, people he did not trust.

  “Work on your plan, Porvinovich,” Artiom said. “When I come back, we will make a call to your family. You will cooperate and you will tell me more about your plan.”

  Alexei Porvinovich nodded. His legs were weak. His stomach was still upset, but he had something to scheme about now and he was a champion schemer. If he played it carefully, there was just a chance that he could survive.

  Artiom moved to the man at the door, who slid over to let him pass.

  “I am in pain,” Alexei said.

  “Toilet is through that door on your side of the rug,” Artiom said. “Tell my man you have to use it and go in. There are no windows. There may be something you can use in the cabinet. You will have two minutes each time you use the toilet. You will be allowed three visits to the washroom each day. I’ve brought you newspapers and magazines.”

  “I’ll need paper and a pen to write drafts of our agreement.”

  “I’ll bring them,” Artiom said, thinking that it would not hurt to keep his captive hopeful.

  When Artiom left, Alexei looked at the seated man in the ski mask. “Boris, I wish to go to the washroom.”

  Alexei was sure that the seated man was Artiom’s assistant, a creature even more slow-witted than his boss.

  The man did not answer. Alexei knew that Artiom was his wife’s lover. He knew that his brother Yevgeniy, though barely capable of an erection, had also been lured into Anna’s bed. There was hardly a man of their acquaintance whom Anna had not seduced or tried to seduce, particularly the odd or different man—the mechanic, the apparently sexless Moscow University history professor they had met at a party. Anna knew her husband was aware of most of the names on her long list, but the names were not important to Alexei. Neither, he was beginning to think, was Anna.

  The idea of getting his captor to murder Anna and Yevgeniy had come to him in an instant. Anna had to have planned all this. Yevgeniy had to know. They planned to kill him and make it look like a botched kidnapping.

  Alexei did not feel safe. Far from it. Nothing was certain, but he had dealt masterfully with bureaucrats all of his life. He had dealt masterfully and patiently. He smiled at the man at the door. He doubted if the man even recognized that the broken, purple face had smiled.

  FIVE

  The Silence of Children

  ROSTNIKOV’S WIFE OPENED THE DOOR to their small apartment on Krasikov Street when she heard her husband’s key in the lock.

  She was wearing a black dress with an artificial pearl necklace. Her still-red hair was cut short, and she looked, thought Rostnikov, quite beautiful. She had lost a great deal of weight during a long bout with a brain tumor. Her recovery had been slow, but now, with her moments of dizziness fewer, she had gone back to her job at the music store and lately seemed even radiant.

  “This is Craig Hamilton,” Rostnikov said.

  Sarah took the black man’s extended hand.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Hamilton said.

  “Does Emil know?” Sarah asked, closing the door behind the two men. “About Mathilde?”

  “I have assigned him to the case,” said Rostnikov.

  “The officer whose friend died in the street killing?” Hamilton asked.

  “Yes,” said Rostnikov.

  “In the United States, if an officer is involved with a victim, we rarely assign him or her to the case,” said Hamilton. “Too close. Too emotional.”

  “In Karpo’s case,” said Rostnikov, moving toward the cubbyhole near the window that served as a kitchen and pantry, “emotion will not be a visible factor. But he will be on the killers like a piranha on the carcass of a dying cow.”

  Sarah was bustling to a wardrobe in the corner. She took out a lightweight dark overcoat and said, “I’m late. The girls are at school. There’s some bread and herring and a little rice pudding.” She picked up a small handbag from the sofa. “And bring Emil Karpo here tonight. Order him to come.”

  She hurried over to Rostnikov, her heels clicking on the tile floor. Rostnikov and their son, Iosef, had done the tiling themselves after a lucky purchase on the black market several months ago. Sarah gave her husband a kiss on the cheek as he searched the cupboard. He turned and hugged her, lifting her easily from the floor.

  “If you feel dizzy …” he said.

  “I will sit down,” she said.

  He put her down, and she hurried to the door, pausing to take Craig Hamilton’s hand again and say, “It was nice to meet you. May we meet again soon.”

  And she was off.

  “Lovely lady,” said Hamilton, following Rostnikov into the kitchen alcove. “Didn’t even ask who I was.”

  “She knows I’ll tell her later,” Rostnikov said, rummaging for something. He found it and said, “Yah.”

  He turned triumphantly with a tall jar of French strawberry preserves. “Coffee, bread and jam or bread and herring?”

  “The bread and jam,” Hamilton said, sitting at the small table not far from the window.

  “So, what do you think?” asked Rostnikov as he prepared the meal.

  “Think?”

  “About the apartment.” Still focused on the components of the meal before him, Rostnikov absently waved the knife in his hand.

  Hamilton had taken in the room without looking around. Now he looked. A faded, flower-patterned sofa was positioned between two solid-colored peach wingback chairs that almost coordinated with the sofa. A bookcase lined an entire wall, its shelves filled with not only books but old LP records and what looked like small dumbbells. There was a large painting on the wall with a woman in the foreground, her back to the viewer, her red hair and green dress billowing forward as she held her left hand up to keep the hair from her face. She looked out along a vast green field toward a house in the distance, a modest farmhouse with a small barn. The sun was going down behind the barn. Hamilton assumed that the painting was of Rostnikov’s wife or that he had bought it because it resembled her.

  “The painting was a gift from Mathilde Verson,” said Rostnikov. “That is Mathilde in the painting, a self-portrait in a way, a birthday gift from one redhead to another. Mathilde gave it to Sarah whe
n my wife was recovering from surgery.”

  “Mathilde Verson was an artist?” Hamilton asked.

  Rostnikov looked at the American and smiled.

  “What’s funny?” asked Hamilton.

  “You know that Mathilde was a prostitute. I’m sure you read all the reports.”

  “She was a talented painter,” said Hamilton, looking at the painting. “Did she do any other work like this?”

  “As far as I know, this is the only painting she had done in more than twenty years. As a young girl she studied art briefly.”

  “And Karpo was … ?”

  “It is my hope that her death does not destroy him. As long as he is seeking her killers, he will function. Later, who knows.” Rostnikov looked over at the American. “Real coffee,” he asked, “or decaffeinated?”

  “Real,” said Hamilton. “And black.”

  “You know Dinah Washington?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Personally? No. I think she’s dead.”

  “Pity,” said Rostnikov, setting the small table. “She makes me weep. ‘Nothing Ever Changes My Love for You.’ Wonderful song.”

  “I’m not terribly familiar with her work,” Hamilton admitted.

  Rostnikov paused, a jar of herring in one hand, a half loaf of bread in the other.

  “She is the most famous singer in America,” Rostnikov said.

  “No,” Hamilton corrected. “She is not even well known.”

  Rostnikov pondered this for a moment, shook his head, and continued serving. When the water had boiled, he made the instant coffee.

  “Black,” said Rostnikov, setting the cup in front of Hamilton.

  “For me, sugar, cream, anything,” said Rostnikov, sitting awkwardly. “I don’t like this fake coffee.”

  Hamilton nodded. He had a grinder at home in his apartment in Bethesda. His selection of coffee beans was large, and ranged from the standard to the exotic, all purchased from a nearby shop that dealt exclusively in coffee and coffee products. Craig Hamilton was an early riser. He always had coffee ready for his wife and breakfast plates set out before he woke her and his daughters.

  “We are settled now?” Rostnikov asked, adjusting his leg and cutting off a thick slice of dark bread for his guest.

  Hamilton nodded.

  “Then,” said Rostnikov, “tell me what it was that you put under the coffee table in the Porvinovich apartment.”

  Hamilton had been sure no one had seen him make the move.

  “Voice-activated recorder,” he said. “Six-hour capacity. When we go back, we can retrieve it.”

  “And you were going to tell me about this?” asked Rostnikov, carefully making a lopsided herring sandwich.

  “If there was anything on the tape that would either implicate or clear them,” said Hamilton, drinking his coffee.

  “So small.” Rostnikov shook his head. “It was so small. We have nothing like that. I mean the police. Internal Security has. They have devices that can hear through walls, as I am sure you do. I do have a recorder taping all phone calls to the Porvinovich apartment, however.”

  Hamilton hungrily chewed the rough bread.

  “It is possible that in six hours of tape we will be lucky,” said Rostnikov. “On the other hand, we may hear conversations about Madame Porvinovich’s wardrobe.”

  Hamilton smiled, and Rostnikov rose, still working on his herring sandwich. The phone was across the room, on a shelf of the bookcase. He checked his notebook and called the Porvinovich apartment. Yevgeniy answered with a tentative “Yes?”

  “Is Mrs. Porvinovich there? This is Inspector Rostnikov.”

  “Yes …” He paused.

  Rostnikov could tell he was putting his hand over the speaker. Rostnikov knew that he was asking her what to do.

  “This is Anna Porvinovich,” she said with irritation.

  “This is Inspector Rostnikov. I have good news. We have a definite lead on the people who kidnapped your husband. We expect even better news, possibly his very location, within the hour. As soon as we know just a bit more, we will come and see you.”

  “Very good,” she said evenly.

  “That is how we view it,” said Rostnikov. “Ah, my other phone is ringing. It may be that information about your husband. Please excuse me.”

  With that, Rostnikov hung up and started back to the table.

  “Now she will either discuss the situation with the brother,” he said, “or …”

  “She will call the kidnappers,” Hamilton said, wondering whether it was polite to ask for more bread and jam.

  Rostnikov recognized the signs of the FBI agent’s unsatisfied appetite and sliced another piece of bread, then pushed the jam in his direction. He would, as soon as possible, make a stop to see Luba Lasuria, an old woman from Armenia whom he had once kept out of jail. Luba lived a short walk away on Garibaldi Street, a few doors from the Ceremuski Cinema. Luba was an extremely successful dealer in black-market food. She never revealed her source, but it was said to be three nephews who regularly crossed over into France and Germany by paying bribes to border guards. The three nephews would return with suitcases full of food that could be sold for ten times what they’d paid for it.

  When they had finished the meal and cleaned up the dishes, Rostnikov returned to the phone and made a call while Hamilton openly examined the books that lined the wall. There were books on art and music, a few on Russian history, a great many well-worn mystery paperbacks by Ed McBain, Susan Dunlap, John Lutz, Lawrence Block, Marcia Muller, Bill Pronzini, and many others. A far smaller number of books—in both Russian and English—dealt with plumbing.

  “Report,” Rostnikov said to the person on the phone. Then he listened, watching the American move to the small assortment of dumbbells and metal weights in the corner of the bookcase. Still listening to the person on the other end, Rostnikov opened the lower shelf of the bookcase to reveal far more weights, lifting bars, seventy-pound dumbbells, and a portable weight bench with a well-worn gray plastic covering.

  “Good,” Rostnikov finally said, and hung up the phone. “You lift weights?”

  “Machines,” Hamilton said.

  “You lift machines?”

  “I use weight machines, and I run on a track.”

  “I’ve seen those weight machines,” Rostnikov said. “In the Olympic gym where the great ones train. I think I prefer the old iron. Let’s go.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Hamilton.

  “To an automobile repair shop,” said Rostnikov. “Anna Porvinovich just placed a call to an automobile repair shop and asked for an Artiom Solovyov. Between us, we will soon have all her secrets, including the answer to the question ‘Why does the woman whose husband has been kidnapped call an automobile repairman moments after being told that the criminals are on the verge of being caught?’”

  “I can think of many reasons,” said Hamilton, following Rostnikov to the front door. “But only one of them particularly appeals to me.”

  “Come, let us have a pleasant talk with this Artiom Solovyov,” said Rostnikov.

  They were almost out of the door when Hamilton could not resist asking, “Why do you have all those plumbing books?”

  “Do you meditate?” Rostnikov asked, stepping into the hall.

  “No,” said Hamilton.

  “Do you do anything to take brief vacations from reality?” Rostnikov closed the door to the apartment.

  “Jigsaw puzzles,” Hamilton confessed. “All black, all white, three-dimensional, thousands of pieces.”

  “Your meditation,” Rostnikov said. “Plumbing is mine.”

  The old man held up his cane, pointed it at the two detectives like a gun, and said, “Boom, boom, boom.” Then he tucked the cane back under his arm and smiled with satisfaction.

  “You are saying that Oleg Makmunov was shot and killed in the doorway across the street?” asked Sasha.

  The old man nodded sagely and said, “Tall man, loud gun. All the rest around here will be afraid
to tell you, but I saw it all.”

  The old man was wearing a postman’s cap and a coat too warm for the weather. He needed to decide whether to shave or grow a beard. Beards had not returned to fashion yet except among some highly successful businessmen and mafia leaders.

  “You saw a man shoot down a drunk last night in that doorway?” Sasha asked, pointing to the doorway. The crushed body of Oleg Makmunov had been removed hours ago.

  The old man on crutches shook his head firmly. People passed. A few older ones with string bags or a small child in tow glanced at the three men and moved on.

  “It was Zorotich,” said the old man firmly.

  “Someone named Zorotich shot the man in the doorway over there?” asked Sasha.

  Zelach was somewhat bewildered by the exchange since he knew that Makmunov had been beaten and kicked to death, not shot.

  “Svet Zorotich shot him,” the old man said decisively. “With an American tommy gun, an old one with one of those cans wrapped around it.”

  “Where can we find this Zorotich?” Sasha asked politely.

  “Right up there,” the old man said, pointing above him with his crutch and almost knocking off his postman’s cap. “He lives right over me, makes noise all night. I heard him go out, saw what he did. I’ll say so before any judge, any judge.”

  “Thank you,” said Sasha, brushing back his hair, putting away his notebook, and shaking the old man’s trembling hand.

  “Others around here are afraid to talk.” The old man looked up and down the street with contempt. “But someone’s got to stop this lunatic. Am I right?”

  “You are right,” said Sasha, moving past the old man and motioning for Zelach to follow.

  Sasha entered the building and started up the stairs with Zelach behind him. Outside, the old man watched them for a moment, then looked up and down the street, wondering which way to hobble.

  “What are we doing, Sasha?” Zelach asked, panting as he climbed the narrow, dark stairway.

  “We are going to talk to Mad Dog Zorotich,” Sasha answered. “He mows people down in the street for daring to look at him or utter his name in vain.”

  “Seriously, Sasha.”