Rostnikov vacation ir-6

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Karpo knocked once, firmly, at the gray metal door of the laboratory and waited.

  Before opening the door, Kostnitsov's high voice said, "Inspector Karpo. I know that knock."

  Then the door opened, and Karpo found himself facing Kostnitsov, a man of no particular distinction, medium height, somewhere in his fifties, a little belly, straight white hair brushed back, bad teeth, and a red face. Kostnitsov was wearing a bloodstained blue laboratory coat. His left hand opened the door so Karpo could step in. His right hand held something white and fleshy about the length of an adult finger.

  Kostnitsov pushed the door closed and held up his prize.

  "Well?" he asked, head turning just a bit to the side, a knowing hint of a smile on his lips.

  "Intestines, small intestines," said Karpo. "Recently removed, human."

  Kostnitsov beamed.

  "The stomach, the intestines. These are the organs that give the easy answers, that paint the clearest pictures. My favorite organ remains the little-appreciated spleen, but the stomach is the pathologist's friend. That which it contains can reveal much. That which it does not contain can reveal even more. Did you know that each of us eats at least a pound of insects each year? Not the gnat that flies in as we yawn or speak but the bits trapped in drinks, canned foods, meats, fish. And the irony, Comrade, is the pound of insects you eat each year is the most nutritious part of your diet. This intestine. Look. Diseased?" he asked.

  "Impossible to determine without close examination," Karpo responded.

  Kostnitsov handed the fleshy piece of intestine to Karpo, who took it in his palm and turned it over.

  "Discoloration," said Karpo. "Diminution of blood supply. Possibly disease, possibly poison, possibly-"

  "Drug," Kostnitsov said, taking his prize back and placing it gently in a white china teacup balanced precariously on top of a pile of thick books towering up from the floor. Dangerously close to the books danced the single flame of a Bunsen burner.

  "You got that from the body of the young woman, Carla Wasboniak?''

  Kostnitsov moved around his cluttered laboratory tables to his even more cluttered desk and lifted a sheet of paper, which he scanned and put back before making his way back around the tables to Karpo, who waited patiently.

  "You want some coffee, tea?" asked Kostnitsov.

  "No, thank you, Comrade," said Karpo.

  "Why can't they send you down here all the time?" Kostnitsov complained, reaching for the teacup that contained the piece of Carla's intestines and then realizing only at the last instant, as he put it to his lips, that it was not the cup containing tea.

  He put the cup down and continued. "Tkach is a child. He poses, and his mind is always somewhere else. That sack Zelach is worthless. Rostnikov, now Rostnikov is not bad, but he has no love of the tangible. The fact is a means, not, as it is to you and me, an end. You understand? '' "I believe so," said Karpo, whose pulsing head told him that precious time was passing. He could, however, do nothing but play out the scene with Kostnitsov or risk losing the man's cooperation. Not even the threat of death could make this man do or say what he did not wish to do or say. Kostnitsov found his teacup and held its charred ceramic bottom over the flame of a Bunsen burner.

  "I'll tell you about the bullets first," said Kostnitsov, looking at Karpo. "The ones you brought in."

  Karpo said nothing.

  ' 'They came from an interesting weapon, West German, adjustable for rapid fire or single action," said Kostnitsov, tasting his tea and deciding that the temperature was acceptable. "The same weapon was used to kill the businessman two weeks ago. German. Special forces, government controlled, but they get out.

  A Walther RA 2000, but you know that, don't you?" ' 'Yes,'' said Karpo.

  "Yes. Doesn't matter. The weapon is outside my area of primary concern. The woman died of trauma suffered an instant after contact with the blue-enamel surface of the car she hit. Would you like to know the precise cause of death, the damage to organs from the trauma of impact?"

  "If it might be relevant to my investigation," said Karpo. There was no denying it now. The migraine was coming. He would have to work through it. There was no time for retreat to the cool darkness of his small room.

  "It is not," said Kostnitsov, tilting his head to the side again, examining Karpo as they spoke and he drank. "However, it may be relevant that the young lady would have been dead in a matter of weeks even had she not been thrown, for she was thrown, unless she leaped up and backward through the window.''

  Kostnitsov juggled his teacup as he turned around and demonstrated the turn. His sloped shoulders lifted, and he went up on his toes like an egg attempting to perform ballet.

  "Glass in the shoulders, back of the neck, scalp," he explained.

  ' 'She would have been dead in a matter of weeks,'' Karpo reminded him.

  "Ah," Kostnitsov replied, finishing his tea and putting the cup down next to the one containing the intestine, which he now picked up again. ' 'Cocaine with strychnine. Judging from the layers of both substances in the intestines, she had been ingesting increasingly high levels of cocaine mixed with strychnine for several weeks. Even if she took no more, there is enough throughout her body to cause death in two to three weeks. Similar cases, almost undiscovered, took place last year in Paris. Both victims were high-ranking foreign service officers. French Journal of Pathology, spring issue last year, had an article."

  "Conjecture?" Karpo said as the pulsing on the right side of his head began in earnest. Recently, the headaches had begun to come more frequently and without the warning odors and occasional flashes of light he had experienced since childhood. Now the headaches were suddenly there, without warning, as if his brain were independent, playing a new game with him.

  "…an American association because of the weapon and the drug," Kostnitsov was saying as he now rummaged through one of the drawers of a laboratory table against a wall.

  "Please repeat that," Karpo said.

  Kostnitsov returned and held out a glass pill bottle containing six blue capsules with yellow dots. The capsules were cushioned by a small wad of cotton on the bottom of the bottle.

  "Take one," he said. "That's all I have now. I'll try to get more, but who knows when. Got them from the pocket of a Canadian vacationer who was killed by a drunken cabdriver. Wasted three of them discovering what they were." ' 'What are they?'' "Something," said Kostnitsov, "that will control your migraine headache so you can function while you do whatever your headache wishes to prevent you from doing."

  Karpo looked at the bottle.

  A wave of nausea curdled up from his stomach. He opened the bottle, shook out two capsules, and downed them with a gulp. Kostnitsov watched Karpo. The pain did not stop, at least not immediately. The two of them stood for perhaps a minute. First, Karpo's stomach relaxed, and then the throbbing in his head slowed like a steam locomotive coming to a gradual stop.

  "I have no more time for this, Inspector," said Kostnitsov, moving back to his desk and searching for something under a mound of coffee-stained journals and papers.

  Karpo moved to the door to leave and was taken by an impulse that he did not fully comprehend.

  "I will be leaving Moscow for a vacation tomorrow night," Karpo said, hand on the door, resisting the urge to touch his temples. "Perhaps when I return you can join me for lunch."

  "Lunch? Lunch? What day?" asked Kostnitsov without looking up from the sheet of paper he was examining.

  "At your convenience," said Karpo, who, in his forty-two years, had never issued an invitation to a meal to anyone.

  '"Tuesdays are best," casually answered Kostnitsov, who had never, since his mother's death twenty years ago, been asked to join anyone for any meal.

  Karpo left.

  SIX

  The pear-shaped KGB agent with the bald head was Misha Ivanov.

  Once it had been made clear that he could not get away with the pretense that he was simply a carpenter on vacation, he had calmly volunte
ered the information to Rostnikov, who had not looked directly at the man.

  Instead, Rostnikov's eyes were on the concertina lady and her captive tourist.

  Occasionally, Rostnikov would glance at Sarah and the two Americans. The American policeman with the name that sounded Irish or Scotch appeared to be absorbed in the conversation of the two women, but Rostnikov knew his attention was really on him and the bald man.

  "You are from Moscow?" asked Rostnikov.

  "Yes," said Misha Ivanov, deciding to attack a soggy tart of unknown berries before him.

  "I've never seen you."

  "Transferred from Odessa two months ago,'' the man said.

  "You are watching me," said Rostnikov.

  "Do you wish confirmation? If so, I am unable to give it," said the man.

  "The food is not good here," Rostnikov said, looking at the tart.

  Misha Ivanov shrugged and kept eating.

  "Did you know Georgi Vasilievich?"

  "By reputation," said Ivanov. "I saw him with you on several occasions during the past week and obtained identification."

  "Do you know he is dead?" Rostnikov asked.

  "Yes," Ivanov answered evenly, continuing to eat.

  "Did you kill him?" Rostnikov asked.

  "No," said Ivanov.

  The man was not impressive looking, but he was, Rostnikov had decided, both formidable and professional, which meant it was almost impossible to tell when he was lying.

  "He was murdered," Rostnikov said as Ivanov finished his tart and wiped his chin.

  "So it would seem," said Ivanov, shaking his head, not for the death of Georgi Vasilievich but the poor quality of the tart, for which he had apparently had great expectations.

  For the first time since Rostnikov had sat at the table, Ivanov turned to face him. The bald man's face was white, with red cheeks. There was something of the potential clown in Misha Ivanov, but Rostnikov did not make the mistake of giving in to the facade. Rostnikov had learned that in his professional life there was very little room for mistakes.

  "The woman plays the concertina very badly. Perhaps we should meet in the morning," said Ivanov. "For breakfast. The table outside, if weather permits."

  "Are you sure you don't want a less observable meeting? The possibility exists that someone is also watching you, Comrade Ivanov.'' "A definite possibility," Ivanov said. "I would say a likelihood. If so, I have already been compromised by your sitting here, but I'm sure you have already considered this and come to the same conclusion. May I rise now?"

  Rostnikov folded his hands on the table in front of him, and Ivanov rose.

  "Tomorrow," said Ivanov. "Shall we say nine?"

  "Tomorrow," agreed Rostnikov, rising. "Nine."

  The two men did not shake hands. Accompanied by the whine of the concertina, Misha Ivanov left the dining room, and Rostnikov limped back to his table. He decided he would try to reach Emil Karpo early the next morning.

  It was just after three when Sasha Tkach awoke in Tamara's bed. He was not sure what woke him, Tamara's snoring, guilt, the uncomfortable lumps in the mattress, but wake he did, and rise he did. Tamara stirred and stopped snoring.

  "My little Jew," she moaned sleepily, her eyes closed.

  "I must go," he said, finding his underwear and pants.

  "No," she groaned, turning on her side. And then: "Later. Tonight."

  "Yes," he said. "Tonight," he said, but he meant, No. Never.

  She was snoring again before he finished dressing and went for the door. The small apartment smelled sweet, too sweet. If he stayed much longer, he would be ill. Perhaps that was what had awakened him. It was a smell he remembered, associated with someone, a woman from his childhood. It didn't matter. Sasha had no trouble leaving puzzles unfinished.

  He went out as quietly as he could into the hall, took a deep breath of the stale but unsweetened air, and found that he had to lean back against the door.

  His legs were trembling. Stupid, he had been stupid. He should sort out what he did, why he had done it. He knew he would try later and that something within him would distract him.

  In a few moments his legs felt a bit stronger, so he took a few steps and touched his face. He would need a shave, a clean shirt, before he packed up the computer and went back to the subway and made his way to the work cubicle of Yon Mandelstem. He dreaded going back to that cubicle. He dreaded going on with his masquerade as computer expert and Jew. And now he would need a lie for Zelach.

  Since it was Zelach, it would not be difficult.

  On the darkened stairwell he could hear the sound of foot steps echoing off the walls. He moved up slowly and almost bumped into a young man in a suit carrying a briefcase and with a cautious look in his dark eyes.

  They almost collided, and the man let out a sudden "Uhh" of surprise.

  "Prastee't'e. I'm sorry," the young man said, clutching his case suddenly to his chest and trying to move past Tkach. One of those unintentional games began.

  Sasha tried to get out of the man's way by moving left, but the man moved right and was in front of him. Sasha and the man moved in the opposite direction, and a look of panic filled the man's eyes.

  It was not that Sasha looked formidable, though it was early, he did need a shave, and his clothes were rumpled. There was certainly a look of anguish on the face of the detective that may well have been taken for something else.

  "I have nothing," the young man said in panic, assuming robbery. "Look in my case. Nothing. Just papers."

  "No," said Tkach, putting out a hand to touch the man's arm, to reassure him, short of confessing, that he was a policeman.

  The man opened the case and held it out for Sasha to see. He was having trouble catching his breath.

  "See, nothing," he said with a trace of a sob. "This can't keep happening. I have nowhere to go."

  "I'm not a robber," said Tkach. "I live upstairs. I just want to get to my apartment and change for work."

  Without another word, the young man closed his briefcase and hurried past Tkach and down the stairwell.

  He would shower when he got to the room. It was early, before dawn. Maybe there would be warm water left. It should take no more than a minute or two to give Zelach a story. He would begin by calling him Arkady. No one called Zelach Arkady. Then he would say, "I was followed last night and had to hide." Or, "I followed a suspicious pair of men. Turned out to be nothing."

  He was almost at the door when he caught the slightest odor of Tamara's sweetness. It was probably on his clothing. The clothes would have to be cleaned. He didn't want to wear the same clothes when he went home to Maya and the baby. He should throw them away, wanted to throw them away, but he couldn't afford to. He reached for the door to the apartment and decided that if Tamara insisted on pursuing their relationship, he would have to alter the persona he had developed for Yon. Yon would now suggest violence and the possibility that he was more than a little mad, a person to be avoided.

  Sasha reached into his pocket for his key but couldn't find it. No, no, no. He had probably dropped it on the floor of Tamara's apartment when she took off his clothes. And that thought reminded him of his glasses, which were also missing.

  What if she looked through them, saw they were plain glass? He would have to see her, to get the glasses back, to get his key. He had planned to knock gently, identify himself to Zelach and unlock the door. Now he would simply have to knock on the door. He raised his hand to do so and realized that the door was not fully closed.

  Thoughts came quickly. Was it possible that he had simply forgotten to close the door completely when he left? No. Zelach had gone out, perhaps to look for him, and accidentally left the door slightly ajar either when he went out or came back. Those were hopes rather than likelihoods. Sasha had no gun, no weapon, or he would have taken it out now as he pushed open the door.

  The lights were on.

  "Zelach," Tkach said softly, leaving the door open behind him.

  The first thin
g he noticed was that the table across the room was empty, that the computer was missing. He stepped into the room cautiously, being certain no one was behind the door, and then he saw the trail of blood across the linoleum.

  His eyes followed the trail to Zelach's body, on the floor, halfway into the little bedroom. Zelach was on his stomach, the back of his shirt dark with blood.

  And then there was no thought, only action, and Tkach's awareness that he was making sounds, perhaps even speaking but not knowing what he said as he moved quickly to Zelach, knelt at his side, and turned him over. Zelach's left eye was an almost closed purple balloon from which blood curled down his cheek and chin.

  The chin was split across as if someone had tried to carve a second mouth in the wrong place. The cut was still wet. A thick, almost circular cake of blood with one pod pointing down his forehead lay in Zelach's hair like a recently dead amoeba. Sasha's hands moved quickly from Zelach's neck down, searching for bullet wounds front and back. He found none. That didn't mean there were none, only that they were not in the most dangerous, most obvious places.

  Tkach leaned over, touched Zelach's chest, detected beating, and then put the back of his right hand less than an inch below Zelach's nose. He was sure, at least he hoped, that the fine hairs on his hand moved with the faintness of the fallen man's breath.

  "Arkady," Sasha whispered, "eeveenee't'e, pazhah-a 'Ista. Please forgive me."

  Tkach's next instinct was to call for help, but he was sure no one would come running to help a shouting man in Moscow at three in the morning. He got up, went into the hall, and knocked on the door to the apartment directly across from the one in which he had briefly lived as Yon Mandel-stem.

  "What?" a man called in a quivering, frightened voice.

  "Police. Do you have a phone?"

  "Yes, no," came the man's voice.

  ' 'Open the door now,'' said Tkach, knowing that his voice was cracking, "or I will have you charged with obstructing a police officer in the line of duty."

  ' 'You are the police?'' the man beyond the door said, coming closer.

  "Yes," Tkach shouted.