Blood and Rubles

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  In the other room Anna turned on the radio. Her hearing was excellent and the music was low, but Elena could hear it through the thin door. She rolled over, found her rubber earplugs in the night-table drawer, and put them in.

  The Gray Wolfhound sat in his office in full uniform, back straight, hands resting before him on his perfectly polished desk. He looked to Rostnikov as if he were posing for a portrait.

  “Chief Inspector,” the Wolfhound said, “you are filthy.”

  “Major Gregorovich said there was no time for me to wash and change.”

  Major Gregorovich stood at Rostnikov’s side thoroughly enjoying this encounter.

  “Major,” said the colonel, “you are dismissed. Please wait outside.”

  Gregorovich nodded and marched out. The Wolfhound looked at the handprint on the major’s back and turned to Rostnikov when Gregorovich had gone.

  “Why are you so filthy?”

  “I have been plumbing,” said Rostnikov. “It is a hobby of mine.”

  “Plumbing?”

  “Plumbing.”

  Thoughts of the rattling sound in his pipes at home came to the colonel, who shook them off. He had both an impression to make on the chief inspector and a problem to be addressed. He spoke in his measured baritone. “Emil Karpo, with your approval, is pursuing a gang that is dealing in stolen nuclear materials, materials they plan to sell to a foreign government.”

  “There may be nothing to it,” said Rostnikov.

  “But there may,” Colonel Snitkonoy countered. “And I should have been informed.”

  “I planned to do so as soon as we had some solid evidence that there actually was a theft of nuclear materials.”

  The colonel rose from his chair and leaned forward, hands on the table, knuckles up. “It is essential that I be informed,” he said.

  “You have been informed,” said Rostnikov.

  “Yes, but not by you. By a foreign government, by the Americans, by the FBI.”

  “Hamilton,” said Rostnikov.

  “It was Hamilton’s superior who reported it to me,” said the colonel. “Agent Hamilton is now in charge of this investigation. He will work closely with you and Karpo. He is an expert in such matters. That is why he is here. Porfiry Petrovich, we cannot afford to insult the Americans at this crucial time when our government needs their financial support and investigative expertise. Is this all clear?”

  “Perfectly,” said Rostnikov.

  “Consider yourself reprimanded,” said the colonel sternly.

  “Am I on unpaid leave?”

  Snitkonoy shook his head. His mane of perfectly groomed white hair vibrated with annoyance. “You know and I know that you are too valuable for me to give you time off. I ask you to be more mindful of the delicacy of my position.”

  “I will endeavor to do so,” said Rostnikov.

  Snitkonoy sat again and looked at his chief investigator. “I have a pipe somewhere in my house that is making a terrible noise when I turn on a tap,” said the colonel. “Can you fix that?”

  “Yes,” said Rostnikov.

  “Wash up, get some sleep, and be back on the job in the morning. We’ll talk tomorrow of my noisy pipe. Go.”

  Rostnikov moved to the door as quickly as his leg would permit.

  “And send in Pankov as you leave.”

  An instant after Rostnikov had departed, the tiny mass of quivering nerves named Pankov entered the office.

  “Rostnikov has left a trail of dirt in here. See to it that it is cleaned up before morning. Supervise it yourself.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” said Pankov, knowing that there was no way he could find a custodian who would clean the office. It was Pankov who would do it. “Anything else?”

  “Tell Major Gregorovich that he may go and that I say he has done a good job.”

  “Yes,” said Pankov.

  When he was gone, the colonel moved to the window to look out at the chill night sky. He looked down at the single flowering bush in the garden. In the broad beam of a streetlight it seemed to have far fewer flowers today.

  TEN

  Footsteps

  IT WAS MOMENTS BEFORE MIDNIGHT. The street was empty. Somewhere above him in one of the rooms of a building, someone coughed. Sasha couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. The cough sounded decidedly unhealthy.

  A new wind had come with the night. Sasha’s hands were plunged into the pockets of his jacket. He hoped the police widow had coffee. It would be difficult to stay awake through the entire night. He had failed to get any sleep at home. After Lydia’s shower, he and Maya had talked softly together, listening until Lydia began to snore. Then they waited to see if Pulcharia would come out to complain about her grandmother’s snoring. They waited twenty minutes. The girl did not come out of the bedroom.

  And then, in the near darkness, a lone candle lit for the occasion, they had made love a second time, something they had not done since well before the baby was born. Sasha had been filled with passion, which surprised him. His day had been long and he had to get up in a little while. Yet he had felt powerful, and she had met him with lust.

  They took a long time, and then Maya wanted to talk some more. He couldn’t simply turn his back on her and sleep.

  “I think we should hire someone,” she had said.

  “We can’t afford it,” Sasha reminded her, his head turned to her. Candlelight flickered on his wife’s dark face, and her breasts peeked over the blanket.

  “I don’t know how much longer I can live with her,” Maya said softly. “I don’t know how much longer the children can live with her.”

  “I understand,” he said. “We can’t afford someone to watch the children. And she would never speak to us again if we made her leave and hired a woman to stay with the children.”

  “You could convince her,” said Maya. “Tell her how she could get back to work, have some privacy and freedom. Make it sound like we were doing it for her.”

  “She wouldn’t believe it,” he said.

  “I know,” said Maya, chewing on her thumb and trying to think of some new approach to keep her sanity and get rid of Lydia.

  The discussion had continued for almost an hour and concluded with Sasha agreeing to go over their budget during the day and see what he could do. By the time they had finished the discussion, Sasha had to get up, get dressed, and relieve Zelach. Before he had reached the front door, Maya was breathing the sound of sleep. She was amazing. She could fall asleep in an instant and be up at the slightest sound from one of the children. Sasha had trouble getting to sleep but heard nothing once he got there.

  And now he slouched wearily down the dark street, his steps a bit uneven, lost in thought of how he could get more money. The only way he could do so with little effort was to accept the bribes he was sometimes offered. These were usually bribes from petty criminals. On occasion he had been tempted, and twice he had accepted “gifts” from grateful shopkeepers whose stolen goods he had recovered. He could probably make a great deal of money by selling his services as an informant to one of the Moscow mafias. He could imagine seriously considering an illegal act if the lives of Maya or the children were at stake. After all, what had the state become? Where, as Gorky’s Mother shouted at the court, is justice?

  Sasha had a sense that he was only a few doors from the house where Zelach was sitting at the window. He glanced across the street, not expecting to see the three boys, not expecting to see anything.

  He was certainly not expecting the sudden, solid pain in his head, a pain that dropped Sasha to his knees. Had he suffered a stroke? He was a young man. But his father had died of a stroke. Another blow came, and this time with it came the taste of blood and the sound of soft voices.

  “Again, Boris, again.”

  Sasha raised his arm and felt the next blow crack against his elbow. A figure appeared before him, the vague shape of a boy looking directly at him, judging how much more it would take to kill this stubborn victim.

 
“Again, Boris,” the boy before him said.

  Now, as he rolled back on the sidewalk, he tried to curl into a ball and find his gun under all of his clothes. He could see three children, all boys, one with a plank of wood in his hands, the one who had been in front of him with his hands plunged into his pockets, and the third, the youngest, advancing with a brick in his hands.

  Sasha struggled to shout, and perhaps he did. He tried to get back onto his knees, certain that the boys meant to kill him. He blinked his eyes to clear away the blood and got up on one elbow, still groping for his gun. Above him the young one raised the brick over his head and looked down at Sasha with no sign of emotion. Sasha was certain that he could not get the gun out in time. His other thought was of Maya, who would be doomed now to live with Lydia forever.

  Sasha closed his eyes. There was a scuffle of feet. The blow did not come, or perhaps Sasha was too numb to feel it. There was a greater scuffling and the grunt of a man, followed by the pained, high, angry groan of a child.

  Sasha opened his eyes. A man, Zelach, was kicking at the boy with the wooden plank. The young one who had hovered over Sasha with a brick was huddled against the wall, brick gone. He was holding his head. Zelach’s kick was true. He caught the boy in the stomach. The boy dropped the plank and fell to his knees. The last boy, the one who had ordered Boris to hit Sasha, had begun to run across the small street, toward the apartment building the two policemen had been watching. Zelach looked down at Sasha, who had finally managed to pull out his weapon. Sasha nodded, and Zelach took off after the fleeing boy, who had a good start.

  The next few seconds were miraculous. The usually slouching, recently ill Zelach caught the boy before he got through the door to the apartment building. He grabbed him by the neck and turned him back across the street, where the two other boys nursed their wounds and showed no inclination to run.

  Methodically Zelach handcuffed the boy he had caught to the one who had hit Sasha with the plank. Then Zelach held out his hand to Sasha, who in confusion started to hand him his gun.

  “No, Sasha,” Zelach said softly. “Your handcuffs. I’ll get them.”

  Zelach reached under Sasha’s jacket and removed the fallen policeman’s handcuffs. A moment later the three boys were handcuffed in a circle around a lamppost.

  “Are you all right?” asked Zelach, kneeling in front of Sasha.

  “I don’t know,” said Sasha, but he was reasonably certain that the words came out so softly that Zelach couldn’t hear them.

  Zelach touched his partner’s arm and said, “I’ll be back in an instant.”

  Sasha tried to nod and looked at the boys, small, angry-faced children around a dark maypole. The two older ones glared at Sasha with hatred, and the oldest one said, “Why didn’t you say you were a cop?”

  Sasha didn’t answer. He fumbled to put his weapon back in its holster and thought he succeeded. He felt himself passing out.

  “The widow is calling for an ambulance,” Zelach called, coming back to Sasha, who nodded, eyes closed.

  “He’s dying,” said the oldest boy.

  By now faces were appearing at windows. People looked out of their dark little caves at the sight below them.

  Zelach rose, stepped to the three boys, and hit the oldest one with the back of his hand directly in the face. The boy’s nose began to bleed, and blood appeared in his mouth, covering his teeth. He looked like a pale-faced vampire, and worst of all he did not cry. He did not even look angry. He simply glared into the face of the policeman, who considered hitting him again but changed his mind. The first blows he had struck against the children had been to protect Sasha. This blow had been in anger. Zelach had no blows left in him, and at this point he was sure they would do no good.

  “Stay awake, Sasha Tkach,” Zelach said, moving quickly toward his fallen friend. “I think I already hear the sound of a police van. Stay awake.”

  Sasha tried.

  He failed.

  Karpo made what proved to be the mistake of stopping at his office. It should have been safe. It was well after midnight. The lights were out in the Office of Special Investigation, but before his finger finished flipping the switch, Karpo knew that he was not alone, that someone had been sitting in the darkness.

  The man was seated in Karpo’s cubicle, at Karpo’s desk. It was Hamilton, the FBI agent. He looked dressed for the day, suit pressed, clean-shaven, the faint smell of aftershave lotion on his face.

  Karpo stood in front of the man, who handed him a sealed envelope. Karpo opened the envelope and read the message, which was signed by both Chief Inspector Rostnikov and Colonel Snitkonoy. The message was brief. Karpo was ordered to surrender to the FBI agent all the information he had gathered on the gang called the Beasts and possible nuclear-weapons dealers. He was then to follow all of Hamilton’s orders in pursuit of the investigation. In short, he was working for the American on the search for Mathilde’s killers.

  Hamilton pointed to the seat next to the desk.

  “Are you ordering me to sit?”

  “No,” said Hamilton. “Inviting you.”

  “I decline the invitation.”

  Hamilton nodded his head in acceptance, took a small tape recorder from his pocket, and said, “I understand you had a relationship with the woman who was murdered.”

  Karpo did not respond. He had not been asked a question and felt no willingness to cooperate, though he would do what Rostnikov ordered.

  “I talked to the man whose thumbs you broke,” said Hamilton. “I assume it was he who broke your finger.”

  Karpo said nothing.

  “If he ever gets out of prison, he’ll be coming after you.”

  Karpo didn’t think the man would come out of prison alive, but still he said nothing.

  “Assuming you do find some individual or individuals you think are responsible, what do you plan to do? Break their thumbs?”

  “No,” said Karpo, at near attention. “I plan to execute them.”

  Hamilton shook his head and said, “No. You will not execute them.”

  Karpo said nothing.

  “You will not execute them,” Hamilton repeated. “That is an order.”

  Karpo did not respond. He had little imagination, but he was suddenly aware of the fact that a Russian police officer was under the direct command of an American FBI agent, who was no longer the enemy but rather was now his superior.

  Hamilton pushed a button on the tape recorder and said, “Tell me everything you know about this case.”

  It had been a bad day and was about to be a far worse night for Artiom Solovyov. A few weeks ago he had been an automobile mechanic with a small but successful business. He had, with Boris, his one assistant, catered to the newly rich, mostly the Chechen mafia and their associates, who referred him to others. Business was growing, and one of his customers, who looked something like an American Indian, told him that if Artiom ever needed particular auto parts, he could help him.

  Artiom worked every day. He liked cars. Cars seemed to like him. At night he would go home, get out of his greasy overalls, shower, and change. Artiom liked to go out. He had a few favorite bars, knew a few women. Sometimes he just liked to stay home in his robe, feet bare, watching television. He had been a happy, slightly heavy, dark man with a weary, handsome face and a perpetual and not entirely assumed look of stupidity, the result of heredity principally but not exclusively. It was that very appearance of open, dark good looks and stupidity that made his customers trust him.

  From time to time a female customer would catch his eye, give him a smile. Nothing had ever come of it. Nothing was meant to. And then she happened, Anna Porvinovich. He was completely unprepared.

  He was taking a shower after work, singing an American song about purple skies, when he heard a loud knock at the door. He turned off the shower, threw on his robe, and stamped the water off his large feet onto the carpeted floor as he walked. He had checked his peephole first and could tell only that it was a woma
n. He opened the door and stepped back, trying to comb back his hair with his fingers.

  “Mrs. Porvinovich,” he said as she moved past him into the room.

  She had been dressed, he remembered, in a red and white, very tight dress, and her mouth matched the red in the dress. She smelled like vanilla and something he did not recognize. She pushed the door closed behind her, surveyed the mess of a room, and turned to him. Standing only a few feet in front of him, she seemed a bit older than she had appeared earlier, when she’d stood a car-length away. In fact, Artiom was sure, she was almost certainly older than he, which instead of calming him, gave him an immediate erection.

  She looked at the bump in his robe, smiled, and reached down to touch it. He stepped back and she followed.

  “I see the way you look at me,” she said.

  Artiom said nothing.

  “And you,” she continued, “see the way I look at you.”

  “How did you find me?” he asked.

  She shook her head as if he were a foolish little boy. Then she unzipped her dress and kicked off her shoes. She was magnificent. She removed her bra and panties and stepped forward to unwrap his robe.

  She tasted of heat, vanilla, and smoke. They made love on the floor by the front door, and when they were through, she coaxed him back to life with her mouth and they did it again. She smiled and made soft cooing sounds during what turned out to be less than half an hour. And then she rose and began to dress. He got to his feet, vertiginous as a result of what had happened. She put on her shoes and kissed him, tickling his tongue with hers. Then she was gone.

  Artiom picked up his robe, then looked at the door and around the room, wondering if he had imagined the miracle. Artiom was not a man of great imagination, and he took no drugs that could account for such a vivid vision. He still smelled her in the room and on his body. He did not even consider getting back into the shower.