Karpo had been unable to find Rostnikov, who was, at the moment he called, out watching Paulinin examining the body of the dead cosmonaut. And so Emil Karpo took it upon himself to make the decision. Not only did he take the shoes of all those who had signed in to work when Sergei Bolskanov had, but those of all the people in the building. Everyone in the building except the police were walking around in stockinged feet.
“Dignity is lost but comfort may offer compensation,” said Karpo.
Zelach nodded and blinked. He had not only rounded up all the shoes, which were contained in three cardboard boxes at the front door of the center, but he had obtained the addresses of everyone and, starting with the signins, was about to go to each house and collect every pair of shoes he could find.
“Emil Karpo,” he said, standing in the doorway, looking down at the boxes, “what if the murderer has thrown the shoes away?”
“Unlikely but possible. It makes no difference.”
“It will take days,” said Zelach.
“I have ordered a car and driver with the approval of Director Yaklovev, to whom I have just spoken. The driver will help you. If you move quickly you can get to all thirty-seven locations before six.”
“They will have to go home barefoot in any case,” said Zelach.
“I will send an officer out to buy thirty-seven pairs of very cheap sandals,” said Karpo. “Now, I think you should begin your collection.”
Zelach adjusted his glasses. They had begun to hurt just behind the right ear but he was afraid to fool with the thin wire. There was no chance now that he would get to the lunch on his desk in the damp brown bag.
When Zelach had left, Karpo motioned to one of the two uniformed men. “No one comes in. No one goes out.”
The officer, who was twenty-three, very large and undertrained, knew the Vampire by reputation. He said nothing as he stood before the door. Even if Putin himself or the mayor of Moscow would appear, the officer, whose name was Dimitri, would not let him pass. He had no intention of using the Kalishnikov rifle in his hands on anyone of real importance and he was confident that he could handle most who tried to pass him, but he decided instantly that faced with the possibility of failure he would either have to shoot himself or the person who was giving him trouble. He could not imagine telling Inspector Karpo that he had failed.
Nadia Spectorski caught up with Karpo in the hall. She was clearly excited, breathing quickly.
“Where is the other officer?”
“Akardy Zelach?”
“Yes, I must speak to him,” she said.
“Whatever you might wish to tell him, you can tell me. I am the senior officer.”
“This is not about Sergei’s murder,” she said. “It is far more important.”
“More important?” asked Karpo, wondering if the barefoot woman before him had gone mad.
“Follow me,” she said. “Come.”
He followed her as she hurried down the corridor to her small office. The offices had windows. None of the rooms upstairs had windows, though there were windows at the ends of the corridor. The view from this window was of a small concrete square with bolted-down wooden fences facing each other.
She went behind her desk, where Karpo saw six decks of cards, a pad of paper with many notes, and a small electronic instrument.
“You remember when I said that the other officer had no guesses that were correct? And I said that was very odd?”
“Yes,” said Karpo.
“Do you have an open mind?” she said, looking up.
“Yes.”
“Good. I was wrong about your friend.”
“Colleague.”
“Colleague then, fellow officer, what does it matter? He guessed forty-eight out of fifty-two cards correctly when I looked at each card, but all forty-eight were exactly two cards after the card I looked at. He had no connections when I did not look at the cards.”
“You said …”
“Yes, yes, yes, but I remembered the farmer in England,” she said.
Karpo refused to be confused, and he refused to sit. He was not here to talk about cards. He was here to find a murderer.
“A farmer in England. Koestler wrote of him in his book The Roots of Coincidence. The farmer appeared to guess none of the cards, but a researcher went back and checked the deck. He was curious. The farmer had guessed not the card the researcher was looking at but two cards later. No, he had not guessed. The farmer knew. Do you know what that means? We are not even dealing with telepathy here. We are dealing with … I’m not sure. He must come back for more tests.”
Karpo’s expression, as always, remained the same. “If he so chooses,” he said.
“He will choose,” she said. “He will be afraid. He will talk to his mother and she’ll tell him to cooperate.”
“What do you know of Akardy Zelach’s mother?”
Nadia looked up.
“I’ve seen her in her room,” she said. “I know what she believes. Remember, I’m a subject here too. Is your mind still open to what you do not understand?”
Karpo did not answer for a long time, and the excitement in Nadia faded at the sight of the ghostly figure looking down at her, deep in thought.
“You claim you can see Akardy’s mother. You claimed you saw Mathilde Verson. Did you see the murder of Sergei Bolskanov?”
Nadia met his eyes and started to say no, but she could not. Instead she shook her head.
“Would you like something to eat or drink?” he said. “I can accompany you someplace nearby where we can talk, outside these walls.”
“I have no shoes,” she said. “And I want to work on this data, this amazing data which …”
“I will find you shoes,” he said.
Defeated, she nodded.
It would take much more to convince Emil Karpo that people could move objects with their minds, see through cards, or talk to the dead, but it took no more at the moment to convince him that the woman before him might well be mad and might well be capable, in a state of excitement, of a raging murder.
Chapter Five
THE GOOD-LOOKING YOUNG MAN with Yuri Kriskov had been a policeman, not a French investor. Valery Grachev was certain of that. He had expected no less. What pleased him, however, was that an attempt was being made to hide the fact that the police were involved.
Valery had been dismissed soon after Kriskov and the policeman left. There really wasn’t much to do, and so Svetlana had sent him into the city to pick up a package, a simple hand splicer to replace one that had lost its sharpness and was out of alignment. He had taken his scooter with the usual promise of reimbursement for gasoline, a promise that had led him to keep a small notebook of how much the company owed him.
He drove carefully toward the heart of the city inside the Inner Ring and planned two moves ahead. It would be what seemed like a bold gambit but would turn his opponent—no longer Yuri but the policeman who used the name Sasha—looking in the wrong direction. Already Valery had set the offense moving, very carefully.
He had kept his eyes open, planning for this day as he would for a tournament. It was never his intention to simply take the negatives, make the demand, collect the money, and walk away. That was what he wanted them to think, that it was simple, direct.
Valery had gone through the garbage for weeks, listened to phone calls, watched and mapped the house and neighborhood of Yuri Kriskov.
There was almost no chance that Kriskov could raise the two million American dollars in two days.
Valery parked, locked his scooter, and headed for the film-equipment warehouse near the Moscow Film School.
The police would begin checking the background of everyone in the company. He would not escape the scrutiny, but their search would yield nothing about him that would rouse suspicion. He had never committed a crime, never been arrested.
But they would find much to be suspicious of in Svetlana’s history. Mental illness, a massive breakdown two years earlier. A maj
or confrontation with the producer of the last movie on which she worked. Wild shouting matches on two occasions with Yuri Kriskov. Complaints about being underpaid and even outbursts in front of Valery and others about not caring if the damn negative burned if she did not get what she deserved. Many years earlier, Valery had discovered, Svetlana had been arrested for firing a pistol in a department store. Were she not the famous editor, she would probably have been filled with drugs and sent into the streets to wander like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead.
And now the police would be watching her, certain that she had the negatives, waiting for her to make a mistake and lead them to the stolen reels. They would know from the voice of the man that Yuri had reported that she had an accomplice, but that was easy. They would deduce that the man was Svetlana’s common-law husband, a former screenwriter who had not worked in almost a decade. Even when he had worked, it had been in the days of the Soviet Union and he had made less than an old street-sweeper.
Valery picked up the new splicer, signed for it, put it in his backpack, and went back to his scooter.
He wondered if they had found the note yet. They probably had. If not, they soon would.
He wondered if the policeman would go running after Svetlana. He surely would.
The plan was nearly perfect, but the danger in a good game was overconfidence. Like the fat old man, Yuri had almost made the mistake of luring his opponent into early vulnerability by a seemingly innocuous one-space move of his bishop’s pawn. He had underestimated the fat man, though Valery had eventually won the game, but it was a lesson to be learned.
Perhaps he should not have left the note. It was a bold touch. He had twice crumpled it up and thrown it in a wastebasket. And twice he had retrieved it. It was dangerous to sneak into Kriskov’s office, but he had been unable to resist, to lure the police farther away from the truth. He had not been caught in the office or seen outside of it. He was not sure how good the police really were at tracing a note like this to a particular typewriter. He hoped they were very good. He had used the one in Svetlana’s little office.
Box under his arm, Valery moved to the nearby phone and made a call. When the phone on the other end was picked up and he recognized the voice, he gave the code, “Amlady?”
“No,” came the answer. “You have the wrong number.”
“I’m sorry,” he said and hung up.
Perfect, he thought. By this time tomorrow Yuri Kriskov would be quite dead, and Valery would be on the verge of being a very wealthy young man.
“I’m certain,” Kriskov had said, handing the sheet of notepaper to Sasha.
It had been in the middle of the conference table. No envelope. Thumbtacked and sure to leave a small scar in the polished wood.
Yuri had smoked and paced. Sasha had wanted to tell him to sit down.
The note was simple:
You have told too many people about this. This is between you and me. It must be settled tomorrow or I will do as I have told you I would. I know you have the money. Let us keep this between ourselves. I …
Sasha and Elena sat in the office of Porfiry Petrovich, who looked at the sheet of paper and ate a radish-and-tomato sandwich with butter on thick, dark bread from the bakery of Sasha’s mother. He had offered to cut the second sandwich in half and share it with them. Sasha had accepted. Elena had politely declined. There would have been a third sandwich, but Rostnikov had eaten it hours earlier.
Rostnikov had excused himself for eating while they talked and was sharing his bag of overly salty potato chips with the two detectives. Rostnikov looked at his watch, a birthday gift from his wife. The face of the watch was large and simple.
“And Kriskov is certain that the note was written by his editor, Svetlana …”
“Gorchinova,” said Elena.
Rostnikov took another bite and continued to look at the note. “Why,” he asked, “does the note appear to have been crumpled up? Is this the way you found it, open?”
“Open and flat,” said Sasha. “A thumbtack through it. Perhaps the thief had it crumpled in his pocket and flattened it when he came in.”
Rostnikov took a large satisfying bite. Elena did her best not to reach for the open bag of chips. She didn’t even like chips, but the tempting fat called out to her.
“No,” Rostnikov said, reaching down to scratch his itching artificial leg. “It is a small note. It could simply have been folded once and put in a pocket. And why does the note stop with the word I?”
“I do not know,” said Sasha. “Kriskov says that Svetlana Gorchinova has a history of mental illness.”
“Apparently an attribute that does not interfere with her ability to edit films,” said Rostnikov, eyes on the note, chewing.
“Perhaps it contributes to her creativity,” said Elena. “Freud believed that the most creative people were neurotic or even borderline psychotic.”
Rostnikov thought of the house of Lermontov and wondered if the great poet had been neurotic. He would have to get a biography.
“Was Lermontov neurotic?” he asked.
“Lermontov?” asked Elena.
She did not fully understand this washtub of a man who was going to be her father-in-law in the not-distant future. She respected him, admired him, but found it difficult to follow his leaps and musings.
“Lermontov,” he repeated. “Have you ever visited his boyhood home?”
“No,” said Elena, puzzled but trying not to show it.
“I have,” said Sasha. “Maya wanted to see it. It is bleak.”
“This is an old note, probably crumpled and thrown into a wastebasket,” said Rostnikov. “It is unfinished. The I is the beginning of another thought.”
“So,” said Elena, “she kept the note, brooded, and decided to send her message to Kriskov after she took the negative. If Kriskov and Freud are right, she may be a bit mad.”
“She would write a new note, I think,” said Rostnikov. “But who knows? Madness has its own reasons. Did anyone see someone enter the room where the note was found?”
“No,” said Sasha. “But I really couldn’t make inquiries. I’m a French film executive from Gaumont. Kriskov asked a few people.”
“Conclusions?” asked Rostnikov.
“Someone is trying to make it look as if Svetlana is the thief,” said Elena.
“And I would guess that this note was written on her typewriter, if she has one,” added Sasha.
“Our thief thinks he is very clever,” said Elena.
“Playing a game,” said Sasha.
“More chips?”
“No, thank you,” said Sasha.
Rostnikov shrugged and finished off the last few salty pieces.
“I’ll take a few,” said Elena.
Why was the sight of the chips making her feel suddenly fat? Why was she worrying about her weight? Before Iosef had besieged her, Elena had lived in relative culinary contentment, aware of her weight and mildly cautious, exercising each morning till she worked up a sweat, checking the scale in the corner of her aunt’s bedroom. But now …
“Do you agree, Elena Timofeyeva?” Rostnikov asked.
She had been aware that Rostnikov had said something after he finished his final bite of sandwich but she wasn’t quite sure of what it had been. Her mind had wandered to her waistline.
“I’m sorry, I …”
“If the thief is someone trying to put the blame on Svetlana Gorchinova, then he or she is someone inside the company. The thief would very likely know that Kriskov cannot raise two million American dollars in one day.”
“Then why? …” Sasha began.
“Ah, yes, a puzzle, a conundrum,” said Porfiry Petrovich, handing the note to Sasha. “Work on it. I think the solution may lead you to a thief with an agenda we do not yet know. And now I must clean my desk and turn my thoughts to outer space and distant villages.”
Elena and Sasha went into the hall. They stood silently for a moment and then looked at each other and the note in S
asha’s hand.
“You know what we must do,” he said.
“Yes.”
The trip was brief, four flights down to the ground and two below that to Paulinin’s den. Neither of them looked forward to it, but it was the quickest way to get an answer.
Sasha knocked. They thought they heard someone behind the door and in the distance answer, but the words were unclear. Sasha opened the door. At the end of the room, Paulinin looked up over the naked male body before him. The dead man was an almost bleached white, young, handsome.
The two detectives wended their way through the maze of tables, benches, specimens, debris, and books. Paulinin was wearing rubber gloves. His hair was in desperate need of attention.
“What?” he asked impatiently, eyeing Elena. Paulinin did not welcome living women visitors. “I’m busy. Two corpses. Seven boxes of shoes to examine. I’m busy.”
Sasha had dealt with Paulinin before, had watched Rostnikov deal with him. “This should take you but a minute, perhaps a few seconds,” said Sasha with his best smile. “You are the only one who can help us.”
“Quick then,” Paulinin said. “Quick, quick, people are waiting. Shoes are waiting, and I haven’t had my lunch.”
Sasha reached across the corpse and handed Paulinin the note. Paulinin looked at it and placed it on the chest of the corpse of Vladimir Kinotskin.
“What about it?” he asked.
“How long ago was it written?”
“Weeks, maybe months,” said Paulinin. “One need only look at the absorption of the ink, the small flecking, the … This does not even require magnification. Is that all?”
“That is all,” said Sasha. “Thank you.”
Elena and Sasha exchanged a look which made it clear that both now knew the theft of the negative had been planned long ago.
Paulinin returned the note and, ignoring his visitors, whispered something to the corpse.
Sasha and Elena left quickly.
On the way out, they had to avoid the seven cartons of shoes Paulinin had mentioned.
Vera Kriskov would be thirty-seven years old next month. She was looking forward to the day. She felt like celebrating. Her mirror told her she was still capable, if she chose, of returning to modeling for catalogues, magazines, perhaps even on television, but she really didn’t wish to do so and Yuri would not have permitted it. The bedroom mirror, in front of which she stood quite naked, told her clearly once again that having children had not destroyed her figure, though it had taken enormous exercise and diet restraint to remain the way she looked now. Her trademark long, soft, natural amber hair was as flowing and bright as ever.
Fall of a Cosmonaut Page 9