Blood and Rubles

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “And now?” asked Karpo.

  “And now?” Semionov poured himself coffee. “We will have to find ways to neutralize this information.”

  Karpo nodded. “Bribes? Blackmail? Threats?”

  “Actually,” said Semionov, “you have done us a great favor. You have bought us some time to act instead of surprising us with a series of arrests. Or letting our North Korean partners find out before we do. Have a roll. Fresh. Smell them.”

  Semionov himself smelled one of the rolls, tore it open, and slathered it with butter. He offered it to Karpo, who declined it.

  “She would be alive if you had not murdered the German,” Karpo said.

  “Oh, yes, I see your point,” said Semionov, popping the roll into his mouth and chewing for a few moments. “But there is little more you can do. You’ve turned in the disk. Are you going to start killing us all? There are more than eighty of us,” he said, tapping the printout in front of him. “And you don’t even have the most important names. Kuzen didn’t know them. Look at it this way. Had your system not fallen, we could not exist. If we did not exist, your … What was her name?”

  “Mathilde Verson.”

  “Mathilde Verson,” Semionov acknowledged with a wave of his hand, “would be alive today. Blame Yeltsin. Go shoot Yeltsin. Or if your fucking Revolution had not been corrupted by lunatics like Stalin and the fat thieves and alcoholics who followed him, there would have been no need to overthrow Communism. Go dig up Stalin, and Brezhnev, and … You see my point?”

  “I see,” said Karpo. “Everyone is responsible.”

  Semionov nodded in agreement, chewing amiably. “Now, I’m sorry,” he said, “but I’ve got a lot of work to do to try to contain this. I’m not fool enough to offer you money or to threaten you. You’ve studied me. I’ve learned a bit about you.”

  “Responsibility rests with the one who commits the act and the one who orders it,” said Karpo.

  “Is that a quote?” asked Semionov, reaching for a second roll.

  “Lenin,” said Karpo.

  Semionov shook his head sadly. “Yes, I heard you were one of those. When I was in prison, I read Lenin, Marx, Engels, Gorky, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Moliere, Shakespeare, Nietzsche. I read. I thought. And you know what I concluded?”

  “I do not,” said Karpo.

  Semionov waved the fresh roll in front of Karpo. “I concluded that I had no power, but that power was essential to me. It was as important as the blood that flowed through my veins. I concluded that life is short and meaningless and that killing neither damned me nor made me feel remorse. I concluded that all that would satisfy me was power. Not women, not a big house, not food. Only power. To tell people to act and have them obey without question. There is nothing more worthwhile in life. All else is lies to keep the system working.”

  “Though they could not express it so well,” said Karpo, “that is just what most of the criminals we question believe.”

  “Yes,” said Semionov with a smile. “But they do not understand why they want this or how this need has pervaded human history. I understand.”

  “And therefore,” said Karpo, “you are far more dangerous.”

  “Precisely,” said Semionov.

  They sat silently for a few moments while Semionov ate and drank and thought and looked across the table at the rigid detective.

  “I’ve changed my mind about you,” said Semionov. “I think I shall have to have you killed. I think you are determined to kill me. Am I right?”

  “You are right,” said Karpo.

  “There are tribes, those of New Guinea, who believe that you take on the power of the warrior you kill, especially if you eat his heart and liver. Perhaps I will eat your heart and liver, though I think they will be rather bitter. Leave now. You are depressing me.”

  Karpo turned and found himself facing the man who had followed him. The man was shaking his head no.

  “You know what that shake means?” asked Semionov. “It means no one but Panushkin has followed you. And of this, Panushkin is certain, for it would mean his life if he were not.”

  Semionov placed a gun on the table, a gun that had probably rested in his lap during their entire conversation.

  Karpo slowly put his hand to the lapel of his jacket and turned it over. A metal pin about the size of a kopeck was attached to the back of the lapel.

  Semionov smiled and shook his head.

  “Hubris,” he said. “That feeling of power that makes you miss things. Who is on the other end of what we have been saying?”

  “Does it matter?” asked Karpo.

  Semionov shrugged, lit a fresh cigarette, and said, “If this is still private, we still have room to negotiate.”

  “There was never room to negotiate,” said Karpo.

  The door to the restaurant opened behind Karpo. The man who had followed him turned quickly, and two men came out of the darkness near the kitchen. Semionov sat patiently.

  “We’ve got it,” said Craig Hamilton evenly.

  The men who had come out of the darkness raised their hands above their heads. Karpo turned to face the FBI agent and six heavily armed plainclothesmen.

  “Karpo,” Hamilton cried suddenly, looking past Karpo at Semionov.

  Karpo’s gun was out and he turned in a crouch, aiming at Semionov and firing. The gun still sat in front of the startled gangster, who had started to reach for it when Karpo’s bullet tore into his chest.

  The hands of the other gangsters went up even higher.

  “He was reaching for the gun,” said Hamilton behind Karpo.

  Semionov had bounced back against his chair and then slumped forward, overturning coffee, rolls, butter, and a full ashtray. Hamilton, an automatic weapon in one hand, moved forward quickly to the table and touched Semionov’s neck.

  “Dead,” he said.

  Karpo put his gun away under his jacket and looked at the FBI man, who said, “He was definitely going for the weapon.”

  There was no surge of power for Karpo. No sense of justice. No particular feeling. A man was dead. Mathilde was dead. Karpo turned, brushed past the man who had followed him less than an hour earlier, and walked to the door of the restaurant and out into the early winter.

  There were twenty-seven criminal hearings set that day for this room in the House of Justice. That meant that the hearing boards had about fifteen minutes to decide if each case should go to trial. Eleven of the cases involved murder. The early cases would be heard by a board of three judges, none of whom was professionally trained in the law. By the afternoon wear and tear reduced the number of judges to one or two. The room was barely larger than a closet.

  The eighth hearing took place slightly before noon. It was held before a panel of two men and one woman. The men were both around sixty. One was stoop-shouldered and tall. The other was short and thin and sat reasonably erect. The woman was much younger, perhaps as young as thirty or thirty-five. She was wearing a suit not much different from her colleagues, who sat on each side of her. Though he could not see her clearly, Sasha thought she was good-looking, dark, and a bit too thin for his taste.

  Sasha’s mouth was dry. Upon advice from the Procurator’s Office, he had dressed but not changed the bandage on his head. There was a distinct patch of blood, and it was evident to anyone who looked his way that the nice-looking young man with the bandage was having trouble focusing.

  “Are you all right?” asked Zelach, who sat next to him in the hearing room full of police and the accused.

  “No,” said Sasha, “but I will make it.”

  Two cases were called after Sasha arrived. Both were taken care of quickly. Two resulted in the accused being turned over for trial on cases of assault and vehicle theft. The third, a girl accused of theft and prostitution, was allowed to go because there was no evidence other than the testimony of the policeman. The victim had refused to appear. In the old days the word of a policeman would have been enough. Times had changed.

  The
Chazovs were called forward. They were wearing identical heavy brown trousers, white shirts, and plain brown sweaters. Their hair had been cut and they stood in a row, heads up facing the woman behind the bench. Their faces were clean. Behind the three boys stood the lawyer Lermonov and Elvira Chazova, apparently pregnant and carrying a small, sleeping child in her arms.

  “Witnesses?” the woman justice called, looking at the complaint that lay in front of her. Her colleagues did the same with little interest or enthusiasm.

  “Two,” the man with the stooped shoulders said. “Officers Zelach and Tkach.”

  “Step forward,” the woman said.

  Zelach helped Sasha forward next to the three boys, who kept their eyes focused on the judges.

  “Speak,” the woman said.

  “May I sit?” Sasha asked.

  The justice nodded, and Zelach brought a chair forward.

  “Thank you. We were staking out the apartment building of the Chazov boys. We had reason to believe they had murdered and robbed a man two … no, three days ago. We also had reason to believe they had robbed and murdered others.”

  The justices looked at the Chazovs and their mother and then back at the policeman.

  “My partner was watching from an apartment across the street,” Sasha went on dryly. “It was midnight and I was coming to relieve him. As I was about to enter the apartment building where he was watching from the window, I was attacked by these three.” He pointed at the Chazov boys.

  “You saw this?” asked the woman behind the table.

  “I saw two of the boys in front of me. The other hit me with something. I turned. The boy was holding a piece of wood. It was covered with blood, my blood. Then something hit me again. I tried to turn and pull out my gun, but I went down and was unconscious for a minute or so.”

  “So,” said the woman, “you did not actually see the boy hit you?”

  “There was no one else there but the boy holding a piece of bloody wood.”

  “And then?”

  “When I opened my eyes, the boys were handcuffed around a lamppost, and I thought I heard an ambulance coming.”

  “Officer Zelach, precisely what did you see and do?”

  Zelach tried not to shift his weight from foot to foot as he met the eyes of the three justices behind the bench. It took a great deal of effort, but he managed. He also managed to look extremely nervous.

  “I heard voices outside the window where I was watching for the Chazovs to return. I heard Inspector Tkach’s voice. I ran out as quickly as I could. That boy …”

  Zelach pointed at Boris.

  “That boy held a rock in his hand and was about to bring it down on the head of Inspector Tkach, who was lying on the ground. That other boy held the piece of bloody wood in his hand.”

  “Did you see anyone else but your partner and the three boys?” asked the woman.

  “No,” said Zelach.

  “And what did you do?” she asked.

  “I … I knocked them down. I hit them. I handcuffed them to the lamppost.”

  The full courtroom sat restlessly, thinking about their own cases, trying to determine if there was some pattern, something they should say, some way they should act.

  “Officer Zelach,” said the stooped man. “You are a big man. Much bigger than these boys. Why did you have to hit them to subdue them? Each boy has bruises, even the little one.”

  “I was trying to protect Sasha Tkach,” Zelach said.

  “But,” said the small justice, who was sitting erect and pointing a pencil at Zelach, “they were not beating Inspector Tkach when you arrived?”

  “No,” said Zelach. “But I could see they were going to hit him again.”

  “So you beat and kicked them?” asked the woman.

  “I …” Zelach stammered.

  “You were not just protecting your partner,” said the woman. “You were taking out your anger on the boys who you believed had injured him?”

  “I … They had almost killed Sasha Tkach. I was—”

  “Angry? Out of control?” asked the woman. “Did you ask the boys what had happened before you started beating and kicking them?”

  “No,” said Zelach.

  “Alexei Chazov,” the woman said, turning her eyes to the tallest and oldest of the three accused. “Did you and your brothers beat Inspector Tkach?”

  “No,” said Alexei, firmly shaking his head.

  “Who did?” asked the stoop-shouldered justice.

  “Two older boys,” said Alexei. “Boys I’ve never seen. We saw them hitting this man from behind and we ran over to help. I hit one of the boys with a piece of wood, made him bleed. My brother Boris picked up a rock and threatened to throw it at them. The two boys ducked into the building right behind us. Then the big policeman came out and started to hit and kick us. We tried to tell him about the two boys who had gone into the building. We thought he might still be able to catch them, but he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Mark Chazov,” asked the woman justice, “is this what happened?”

  “Yes,” said the youngest and smallest brother, whose face had been scrubbed almost sore.

  Lermonov patted Mark on the shoulder, and Sasha, through his dizziness, was sure he had seen nearly imperceptible nods exchanged between the lawyer and the woman justice.

  “Any other witnesses? Any more evidence?” asked the woman justice.

  “We are poor but good people,” said Elvira Chazova, rocking her sleeping child. “That policeman would be dead if my boys hadn’t run to help him. They took on killers bigger than they were. Instead of thanks they get beaten and put on trial.”

  “This is not a trial,” the woman justice said. “This is a hearing to determine if there should be a trial.”

  The woman turned to the other justices, and each spoke in her ear. She wrote on the declaration before her and then looked up.

  “There is insufficient reason to hold these children for the attack on Inspector Tkach,” she said. “There will be a notice of reprimand placed in the file of Officer Zelach for his thoughtless attack on these children. There is some reason to believe that these children actually saved the inspector’s life. Instead of trying to get them incarcerated, he should be thanking them.”

  Sasha’s eyes may have betrayed him, but he thought he saw another instant of eye contact between the woman justice and the lawyer.

  “Your Honor,” Sasha said, standing. “These are the boys who beat me. These are the boys who murdered a man only a day before. To let them—”

  “The case has been presented and a decision made. You are out of order, Inspector, but the court will overlook this because of your condition. Alexei, Boris, and Mark Chazov are free to go,” the woman went on. “The justices strongly recommend that their mother enforce a curfew of ten o’clock for her sons to keep them from further trouble.”

  “I will,” said Elvira sincerely.

  “Next,” said the justice.

  Zelach looked down at Sasha in confusion. Sasha tried to focus on the Chazovs as they passed him. Each boy had a touch of a smile on his face. The lawyer grinned and the mother paused, baby in her arms, to whisper something to Sasha.

  The justices were reading the summary of the next case as Zelach helped Sasha to his feet.

  “What did she say?” asked Zelach, looking at the retreating back of Elvira Chazova.

  “She told me my home address,” said Sasha.

  The twenty-first of that day’s hearing took place late in the afternoon. This one was much shorter, and there was but one justice and only a handful of people in the hearing room.

  The single justice was a stout, bullish man in his forties with a short military haircut. He wore a brown suit and a tie that did not come close to matching.

  Anna Porvinovich and Yevgeniy Porvinovich stood to the right of the table. Anna’s dark eyes caught those of the justice and he looked away. Rostnikov stood to the left of the table with Alexei Porvinovich, who, with the help of t
he therapist and drugs prescribed by Sarah’s doctor cousin, had managed to approach a semblance of composure. He was immaculately dressed and his hair perfectly trimmed. His face had an overall discolored puffiness, and his broken jaw had been wired shut so that he could only speak between his teeth like a poor ventriloquist.

  “The wrong people are standing before me accused of a crime,” said the judge. “Facts. Two men kidnap Alexei Porvinovich from the street and take him to an apartment. The two men work in the garage where the Porvinoviches take their automobile for repair. One of the two men, according to the distraught victim, claims that the kidnapping was planned by the victim’s wife and brother and that he was the wife’s lover. Was the kidnapper lying, perhaps to torment his victim? We do not know. Did the victim create a fantasy of his betrayal by his automobile mechanic, his brother, and his wife? This, too, we do not know. It has been known to happen to distraught victims who fear for their lives. We have only the victim’s word for all of this, since he managed to disarm one of the kidnappers, shoot him, and, by his own words, calmly or not so calmly wait till the other kidnapper returned and then shoot him. His next action was to return home in a state of near madness. Had not a police inspector been present, he may well have murdered his wife and brother. What we have here is an unfortunate situation. It is my understanding that Alexei Porvinovich is under psychiatric care, which he certainly needs. There is no case here. All persons who are part of this unfortunate circumstance are free to go.”

  Alexei Porvinovich laughed through his teeth as his wife and brother walked past him and Rostnikov.

  “Porvinovich,” Rostnikov whispered.

  Porvinovich could not stop laughing.

  Rostnikov took his arm.

  “You see how well they have learned from me,” Porvinovich said, trying to control his laughter, his lips barely moving. “They’ve bribed the right people.”

  The justice looked up from his papers and glared at Porvinovich.

  “Clear the hearing room,” the justice said.

  Rostnikov led Porvinovich from the room.

  “You promised me justice,” said Porvinovich.

  “I was wrong,” said Rostnikov.