“I don’t deal with blackmailers,” Khabolov said defiantly, but there was no backbone in his defiance. As he spoke, he pulled the sash of the flannel robe tightly around his waist as if he were suddenly cold.
“Then, perhaps, those are the only criminals with whom you do not deal,” sighed Rostnikov. “Or at least have not dealt with till now.”
“Say what you have to say and then get out,” Khabolov said, looking from one man to the other with his sternest glare. It seemed to have no effect. “I’ll decide what to do with you.”
“The terms are simple,” said Rostnikov. “May I sit? My leg …”
“Sit, sit, sit, sit,” said Khabolov with irritation.
Rostnikov moved to a straight-backed wooden chair against the wall and sat.
“Keep your video machine, the tapes you have,” said Rostnikov. “Destroy all records of your dealings with the Gorgasali brothers and never visit them again. No investigation of them was made. Inspector Tkach did not visit them. He did not talk to you about them.”
“I’m listening,” said Khabolov.
“Good,” said Rostnikov. “If Sasha Tkach is mentioned in a report or involved in any way with your dealings in this or any other illegal matter, the tape goes to the Chief Procurator.”
“And for yourself, eh?” Khabolov asked, shaking his head. “You want to be transferred back to the Procurator’s Office.”
“No,” said Rostnikov. “You haven’t the power to grant such a transfer. The decision was made above you and I have no desire to return. But a request for permanent transfer of Inspectors Tkach and Karpo to MVD investigation under Colonel Snitkonoy may be coming through and we would appreciate your doing your utmost to see to it that it is approved.”
“Tkach?” Khabolov snapped.
“I have nothing to add,” said Sasha, meeting Khabolov’s eyes.
The deputy procurator bounced once on his bare feet and decided that he could live with this. It would be better, under the circumstances, to get rid of Tkach and Karpo, two spies for Rostnikov. Maybe someday in some way he would be able to get the original tape. The terms were ridiculous. They could have had much more, but, Khabolov realized, that was precisely why Rostnikov had asked for no more. It would be very easy to grant this, easy and relatively painless.
“I’ll think about this and decide what to do with you two,” he said sternly. “Now get out.”
“Be quiet out there,” his wife shouted from the bedroom. “I’ve got to get up in an hour.”
“Yes, my krasee’v/iy, my beauty,” Khabolov called, and then he turned to the two men.
Rostnikov stood and walked across the room on the silent carpet with Sasha close behind. Khabolov marched ahead of them to open the door. They exited and Khabolov closed the door quietly behind them without another word.
“I think—” Sasha began, but Rostnikov put his finger to his lips to quiet him.
Sasha nodded in understanding and looked at the door. He was tempted to turn around and knock in the hope that Khabolov had his ear pressed to the other side. The two men walked to the stairway and did not speak till they were down the two flights and out onto Zubovsky Boulevard.
“We won,” Tkach said softly.
“More or less,” Rostnikov agreed with a shrug.
“He won’t destroy the Gorgasali file,” said Tkach.
“Would you?”
“No,” Sasha agreed as they walked. The morning sky was quickly darkening, and rain had been predicted by both the radio and Sasha’s mother earlier that morning.
“It gives him the feeling that he has a secret, something with which to hold us at bay,” said Rostnikov. “He won’t destroy you if it means destroying himself. And besides, in a few weeks, a month, someone might pay a visit some afternoon to the deputy procurator’s office or his home and the file on the Gorgasalis might disappear.”
Sasha looked at Rostnikov as if seeing a madman for the first time. He was grateful to the chief inspector but this was all very risky, very dangerous, and Rostnikov seemed so matter-of-fact.
At the metro station they parted, going in different directions. Sasha was about to say something, to thank the chief inspector, but Rostnikov slapped Tkach gently on the cheek, grinned warmly but sadly, and walked away.
Twenty minutes later Sasha Tkach was at Petrovka checking his assignment file and deciding where he would take his family that night to celebrate.
Rostnikov got to the meeting room almost half an hour early, but he did not beat the Gray Wolfhound, whose brown, bemedaled uniform clung to him without a single wrinkle as he stood examining something he had written on the blackboard for the morning meeting.
“Good morning, Comrade Colonel,” Rostnikov said, taking his seat.
Colonel Snitkonoy turned, standing erect, hands behind his back, to face the early arrival. On the board behind him Rostnikov could read, written in white chalk, “Surprise, Strength, Strategy,” the lesson for the day.
“Early?” the Wolfhound observed without consulting his watch.
“I have a request,” said Rostnikov.
“A request,” Snitkonoy repeated with a smile, as if he were prepared for whatever surprise, strength, and strategy Rostnikov might display.
“That you consider the possibility of requesting the transfer of two more investigators from the deputy procurator’s office,” explained Rostnikov.
“Your men?” Snitkonoy asked, beginning to see the ploy.
“In a sense, but only in a sense,” agreed Rostnikov. “Two outstanding men who would contribute greatly in their investigative skills to the success of your department.”
“My staff size is limited by certain … considerations,” the Wolfhound said with an eaglelike lifting of his perfect white-maned head.
The size of the staff was limited, Rostnikov knew, by the low esteem in which the Wolfhound was held. His staff was, simply, large enough to make it ceremonial.
“I have reason to believe that, because of certain considerations, the deputy procurator would be most cooperative in such a request,” Rostnikov said, looking not at the Wolfhound but at the paper and pencil before him.
“An addition of two experienced investigators to my staff,” Snitkonoy said, looking back at what he had written on the board. “I’ll consider it.”
Rostnikov reached for the pencil and began to draw.
His back still turned to the chief inspector, the Wolfhound said, “You had two messages waiting for you this morning. I have taken the liberty of placing them on the tray.”
Rostnikov’s eyes moved up from the pencil to the tray in the center of the table and found a single sheet of paper with a message neatly printed in the hand of one of the clerks. The time of receipt was early that morning, about the moment he and Tkach had entered Khabolov’s apartment. The message read: “Major Zhenya called to inform you that Colonel Drozhkin died during the night. Major Zhenya requests that you come to Lubyanka this morning to discuss with him the unsatisfactory conclusion to the Mazaraki situation.”
Rostnikov smiled and plunged the note into his pocket.
Back still turned, the Wolfhound said, “Trouble?”
“A bit,” agreed Rostnikov.
The Wolfhound tapped the blackboard with the long piece of chalk in his hand. “Remember, surprise, strength, strategy.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Rostnikov said, sketching something that looked like a book.
“I said there were two messages,” Snitkonoy reminded him.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Your wife called and asked that one of the clerks tell you that your son will be home on leave in two days.” With this Snitkonoy turned abruptly and faced the seated inspector, looking for a change in expression. Rostnikov satisfied him by putting down the pencil and letting the smile lose its sense of irony.
“Thank you, Colonel,” Rostnikov said.
“And you say,” the Wolfhound asked, tapping his cheek with a long, immaculate finger, “tha
t I can add two men to my staff by simply requesting it?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Is one of them tall?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “Quite tall.”
“Good,” said the colonel as Pankov came running into the meeting, a look of morning fear on his face. “We can use a bit of height on the staff.”
When the Gray Wolfhound’s official morning meeting began, Rostnikov’s grin showed white, uneven teeth to the puzzled Pankov, who wondered and feared where this morning would end.
For Rostnikov the morning ended a few hours later in Arbat Square. When he entered the metro, the sky had been threatening and dark, with the rumble of thunder from the northwest in the direction of the town of Klin. When he climbed to the square on the steps of the Arbatskaya Metro Station, the rain had already begun, a fine, thin rain with a hint of red in it from the heavy traffic on Suvorov Boulevard. He stood in the shelter of the station next to one of the pillars facing Gogol Boulevard. Beside him a woman hesitated, looked at the dark sky, looked at him, covered her head with a magazine, and dashed toward the nearby Khudozhetvenny Cinema. The sky rumbled and Rostnikov looked toward the statue of the smiling Gogol, about the distance of a soccer field away. He shivered with a sudden slap of cool air and had the uncanny feeling that no time had passed since he had last stood in this same place, in a similar rain, looking toward that statue. He knew he had not dreamed the man on Gogol’s head, but at the same time there was the feeling of a dream about the past few days, just as, to a lesser degree, there seemed to be the feeling of a dream to his life, as if he were not within his vulnerable body but an observer who could not be affected by the outside world, could not be affected in spite of the reminder of his leg, which even now throbbed a bit in the dampness, in spite of the vulnerability of the people he knew and touched and who touched him.
The rain eased a bit and Rostnikov left the small group of people who were waiting under the cover of the metro station’s roof. He limped slowly to the boulevard, found a break in the traffic, and crossed to the small park in front of Gogol’s statue. The rain was now at that point where one cannot tell if it is still raining or one is only imagining it. The street was wet, puddled with reflections of people, traffic, sky, and it smelled the smell of city he remembered as a boy. When Josef came in on leave, he would bring him here, bring him to the sad Gogol a few blocks away in the courtyard of the building where Gogol had lived. He was not sure what he would say to Josef when they came, but he was sure his son would understand.
Rostnikov sighed deeply and looked at the clearing sky. Morning was over and he could put off no longer his trip to Lubyanka. Major Zhenya was waiting. If he hurried just a bit, he knew he could catch the bus that was just turning in at Arbat Street. As he crossed the street, he was certain that the rain had now stopped.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Epigraph
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
A Fine Red Rain Page 20