“Perhaps,” said Sasha, glancing at the woman, whose eyes were fixed upon him.
“It is sometimes good to remember that the things we believe are important have little ultimate meaning,” said Rostnikov.
“One might be depressed,” said Svetlana.
“One might,” Rostnikov agreed. “But one might also be relieved. Like the Hindus we are free, if we choose, of earthly connection. There is the immediate moment, the likely short-term present, and the distant possible future. And in the immediate moment, it would be a good idea to find Pavel Cherkasov.”
Sasha had finished his breakfast. Svetlana Britchevna rose. So did he. They left Rostnikov sitting at the table.
At the end of the car she turned to Sasha and said, “Does he often talk like that?”
“Often,” he said.
She took his hand. He considered pulling away but did not.
“We are lovers, remember,” she said, turning her face to his.
Sasha would find it difficult to forget.
Pavel Cherkasov was awake and dressed. He had several jokes he wanted to try out on whoever might be fortunate enough to be seated with him for breakfast.
Pavel had a well-honed sense of imagined smell. He considered food first as a remembered savory odor, followed by recalled taste. Confirmation came in seeing the food, and taste was an ecstasy that surpassed sex.
He was alone. The old Americans and the one-legged Russian were gone. The old men, Pavel knew, needed little sleep at night and many naps during the day. Perhaps they had all gone to lunch early and saved him a seat at their table. He would listen patiently to their stories of a war long past, eat modestly in anticipation of a very important day, and try out his jokes. He had retrieved his suitcase and would keep it at his side until the moment came to exchange it for the smaller package on the railway platform. He would explain, if anyone asked, that he carried the duffel bag because he had papers inside it he would be needing, that he would be spending much of the day working. They would not question him. The bag was not large. The bills were packed tightly. People, Pavel knew, displayed little curiosity about such things.
Satisfied that he was properly dressed for the day, he stood up and looked out of the window. In the vast plain, he did not imagine wandering dinosaurs or a dying sun.
Soon, he thought, I can head back to civilization. Soon I can be on an airplane heading for Paris or Vienna or New York. Soon.
The compartment door opened. Pavel turned from the window and smiled. “I was just heading for the dining car,” he said, duffel bag in hand.
The watcher stepped forward, covered Pavel’s mouth with one hand, and plunged the long pointed awl deep into his heart. Pavel tasted the moist unpleasantness of the watcher’s hand. Gone was the imagined odor of food. His final taste was of dirt and human flesh.
There must be a joke to fit such an occasion, but Pavel could think of none. The pain was brief and then Pavel was dead. He sank to the floor.
The watcher picked up the duffel bag, leaving the awl where it was.
A man and woman carrying their suitcases and arguing in Russian, their son of no more than eight or nine trailing behind them, wedged past Sasha and Svetlana. They were the, family Sasha and Porfiry Petrovich had gotten onto the train behind.
“It is too soon,” the woman said.
“It is better to be first in line to get off,” the man said. “How many times are we going to talk about this? We are getting to the door. We can sit on the bags.”
“For two hours?” the woman asked.
The little boy dragged a bag, listening to his parents. He looked up at Sasha and Svetlana apologetically, embarrassed by his parents.
“You fight with your wife like that?” Svetlana said as they moved forward. She held his hand.
“Not like that,” Sasha said.
“But you fight,” she said.
“All couples fight,” he said. “Porfiry Petrovich says it goes in cycles. Honeymoon, fights, truce, shorter honeymoon, fights, truce, crisis, tentative peace agreement, followed by comfort and only minor conflict.”
“Always?” she asked, playing with his hand.
“No, not always,” said Sasha.
“My vision is different,” she said. “Brief honeymoon and it is over. Next honeymoon. Stop before the first fight.”
“The relationship never gets, what is the word?…”
“Deeper?” she supplied. “No, depth requires commitment and effort. My need for male contact, sexual and romantic, is very much alive, but I reserve my depth for myself, my work, my ambition.
They were glancing into compartments now just in case Pavel Cherkasov might be inside of one, though they both knew that his own compartment was in the next car.
“You feel the need to confess all this to me?” he asked.
“It is not a confession,” she said, turning to him. “It is a proposal which may or may not come to fruition. Consider it.”
“I think not,” he said.
“I think you will,” she said. “But when and where will depend on what takes place in the next two hours or so.”
What took place next put Svetlana’s proposition far from either of their minds. They reached the compartment of Pavel Cherkasov. The door was closed, the curtains drawn.
Svetlana did not hesitate. Sasha had known her for only a few hours but he was sure she would have a bold and plausible excuse if someone was inside. She slid open the door.
The bloody body of Pavel Cherkasov lay on the floor, the long awl protruding from his chest. That he was dead was without doubt. His eyes were closed. His mouth was open. His face was white and his shirt and jacket a deep, dark, and bloody red.
Sasha closed the door. Svetlana began a quick search. It took moments.
“No money,” she said.
Neither expected to find it.
“I’ll stay here,” she said. “You get Rostnikov.”
Sasha said nothing. He went through the door and heard her lock it behind him. What she would say to the old Americans if they returned would, he was sure, be most inventive and bold.
Rostnikov was seated in the lounge, talking, in fact, to the two old Americans.
“Yes,” the tall one, Allberry, was saying. “We were First Army. You lost your leg on this side of the front. I lost the hearing in my left ear on the other, and Jack lost his mind for two years.”
“Three years,” the other old man, Susman, said. “Don’t even remember what it was I saw that put me into cuckoo land, but I spent almost three years in a basket. Hell of a war.”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov in English, looking up to see Sasha motioning to him. “Hell of a war. Please excuse me. I have to tend to my leg. You understand.”
“Perfectly,” said Jack.
Rostnikov rose and the two men continued to talk.
“He is dead,” Sasha whispered when Rostnikov was at his side. “Cherkasov.”
Sasha led the way through the cars. People passed. They stepped around the luggage of the man, woman, and child Svetlana and Sasha had encountered minutes earlier. The family was at the end of a car in the small alcove near the door. They were not speaking. The man was eating a piece of cheese. The woman sat sullenly. The little boy dozed.
When they reached the car, Sasha knocked and said, “It is us.”
The door slid open. They moved in and Svetlana slid it closed and locked it.
“The Americans are in the lounge car,” Sasha said.
She nodded and said, “He has been dead no more than ten minutes.”
It was awkward for Rostnikov to kneel. He did not try. He accepted her word. Rostnikov eased himself down into a seat. Svetlana and Sasha stood, waiting, swaying with the movement of the train.
Rostnikov was taken by the fact that the sunlight cast a broad bright beam across the dead man. Rostnikov imagined the sun intensifying, an amazing heat that touched only what fell within the beam, consuming the body without smoke or fire, absorbing it, tak
ing it, making it a part of timelessness. But the body did not disappear.
“Why did he kill him before he made the exchange in Ekaterinburg?” he asked himself aloud.
“Panic. Perhaps he just wanted the money,” answered Sasha.
“Our assassin is a professional,” Svetlana said. “He would not panic.”
“Then he has a plan,” said Rostnikov.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Rostnikov looked up at them. Svetlana understood immediately. It took Sasha a beat longer and he said, “He is going to take Cherkasov’s place. He is going to make the transaction. The person he is to make the exchange with does not know Cherkasov.”
“But he knows something that will identify him,” Svetlana said.
“The bag,” said Rostnikov. “Whoever is carrying the bag with the money when we reach the station is our assassin.”
“What is he doing?” asked Sasha. “He is not going to turn over the money.”
“He wants the person with the valuable prize to identify himself,” said Svetlana. “Then he will take whatever it is he has and keep the money.”
“Kill him on the train or the platform?” asked Sasha.
“Possibly,” she said. “Maybe he will wait, follow him. Once he knows who the bearer is by sight… but he will probably kill him or her immediately.”
“Why?” asked Sasha.
“Because of him,” said Rostnikov, looking at the dead man. “The train will be in a panic when the body is discovered. He will want to get everything done quickly. At least that is what I would do.”
“And I,” agreed Svetlana.
“So, what do we do?” asked Rostnikov.
“Watch to see who gets off with the suitcase,” said Sasha. “Stop him.”
“Armed killer on a train platform,” said Rostnikov. “I think it would be better to catch him before we get to the station.”
“How?” asked Svetlana. “We are not even sure what the suitcase looks like.”
Rostnikov looked down at the body again. It showed no sign of becoming one with the universe. He got back up slowly.
“So how do we find him?” asked Sasha.
“We get the suitcase, inform him that we have it, and wait here for him to come and claim it,” Rostnikov answered.
“And where is it?” Svetlana asked.
“A little boy is sitting on it at the end of the last car we came through,” said Rostnikov.
Sasha and Svetlana looked at each other.
“The duffel bag the little boy is sitting on belonged to Cherkasov. It was on that shelf,” said Rostnikov. “Cherkasov took a pair of pajamas and a robe out of it. My guess is that under the pajamas and robe was and still is a great deal of money. He was hiding it in plain sight. Our killer took it and has persuaded or paid the boy’s parents to take it off the train when we stop. Your killer will get off carrying nothing, drawing no suspicion. He will pick up the bag from the little boy and wait for the person he intends to get the package from.”
“You cannot be sure of this,” Svetlana said.
“I cannot,” Rostnikov agreed. “But that family had no duffel bag when we saw. them board the train. In any case, it is easy to find out. I will go talk to the happy family. You two wait here.”
Rostnikov left the compartment and slowly made his way through the car and into the next one where the three people sat.
“My name is Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov,” he said to the man and woman. He had his wallet out and showed them his identification card. “Someone has asked your boy to carry that bag off the train.”
The couple said nothing.
“He told you not to tell anyone. I understand. He paid you already?”
“Yes,” the woman said.
“Olga,” the husband warned.
“I do not want trouble with the police,” the woman said. “Do we have to give, you the money he paid us?”
“No,” said Rostnikov. “Keep what he gave you. In fact, I will add this to it.”
He took several bills from his pocket and handed them to the woman, who gave them to the man.
“I take the bag and you go find the man who gave it to you. Find him and tell him that it was taken by the man with the bad leg.”
“And we are in no trouble?” the man asked warily.
“None,” said Rostnikov. “You are heroes of the new Russian Confederacy. If you wish to give me your address, I will send you a medal.”
“I have four medals,” the man said. “Worthless. Bata,” he said to the boy. “Go find the man. Tell him the man with the bad leg took the bag.”
The boy got quickly to his feet, not sure of which direction to go.
“That way,” said Rostnikov, pointing, and the boy hurried away.
Rostnikov picked up the duffel bag and moved back to the car where one dead person and two live ones waited for him.
Chapter Six
Before the crocus cloaked the steppe
Before the tadpoles and the nests
Jack Frost screamed, his voice so hoarse
The signalmen were blown off course
They passed Attila on his horse
Passed the Visigoths and the Norse
Villages with Viking forts
And knew not where they were
THE KOLOMENSKAYA, KASHIRSKAYA, AND Kantemirovskaya stops were in a row on the Gorkovsko-Zamoskvoretskaya Line, the green line. Iosef had spent the first two hours of his morning moving from one of these stations to the other, getting off, standing on the platform, pretending to be absorbed in a report in his hands. The report was a six-page memo from the Yak’s sweaty assistant, Pankov, on proper procedures and terminology for filling out case reports.
Iosef had chosen his attire carefully, duplicating, as best he could, what Toomas Vana had been wearing when he was murdered. Iosef even carried Toomas Vana’s briefcase. At each stop he positioned himself near a post or pillar in the same position witnesses had said Vana had been standing.
The odds of the woman’s next attack coming at one of these three K stations were, according to Paulinin, three to one against. However, if she were to appear, he was making himself the ideal target.
Now he stood against a post at the Kashirskaya station. Nine o’clock in the morning. Traffic moderate at this station outside the central ring of the Koltsyevaya line. No one appeared to notice him. No woman fitting the description appeared.
Elena had agreed to the plan on one condition, that she accompany Iosef to each stop at a discreet distance and watch the crowd for anyone who might be the woman they sought. They had been at this for two hours and had not once made eye contact with each other.
A number of women in the crowds rushing to work or shopping or who-knows-where generally fit the description, but the only one who had come very close to Iosef had been wearing thick glasses and appeared to be searching for someone in the crowd. She was also carrying a heavy black-plastic shopping bag in her right hand, the hand Paulinin said had been seriously sprained or possibly broken.
Elena, hands plunged into the pockets of her coat, kept checking her watch to give the impression that she was in a hurry. The act had begun to bore her, but she kept it up, watching Iosef without staring.
He really did look the part: tall, good-looking, wearing his best suit, his only suit other than the one in which he sometimes worked. Over his suit he wore a serious black coat he had borrowed from a friend. All of the previous victims had been about ten years older than Iosef. So Iosef had touched his temples with gray and brushed his hair straight back.
Their discussion early in the morning over coffee and rolls had been a reprise of their discussions of the day before.
“We cannot be sure we will see her in time if she moves quickly,” Elena had said.
“We will both be watching,” he said.
“But…”
“Her right hand is probably useless,” he said. “She will have to attack with her left. She should not be difficult to stop and, unlike the ot
hers, remember, I will be ready.”
“Porfiry Petrovich would not approve if he were here,” she said.
“We can ask him what he would have done when he returns,” said Iosef, “but we may be able to save a life or two before we wait for my father’s opinion.”
He was determined, stubborn. She knew that, had known it from the first time they had met. She too was stubborn. Kindred diverse spirits on this issue and many more positive ones.
She watched. People passed. Trains roared in, stopped, doors slid open, people moved in and out. The smell of bodies, food. Coughing, talking, echoes in the tunnels off of the ceiling.
Everyone could not be watched.
They kept it up for almost forty minutes. Iosef appeared to be just as absorbed in the report as he had for the past several hours. Elena, however, thought it might be time to move on, not that any other metro platform was more promising but simply because she was both bored and concerned.
They were dealing with a madwoman. Maybe this time she would have a gun. Maybe this time, left hand or not, she would plunge the blade of her knife into his stomach, between his ribs, into his neck or eye before he could react.
Enough. Elena slowly made her way across the platform and stepped directly in front of Iosef, who lowered the report. He smiled. She was breaking his cover.
“Can I help you?” he asked, as if they were strangers.
“Enough, Iosef,” she said.
He let the smile go and nodded.
“Perhaps it was not such a very good idea,” he said.
“It was not bad. We had nothing better. Now …”
“Now,” he said, “we wait till we catch her in the act or right after she attacks her next victim or the one after that or the one …”
He shrugged and picked up the briefcase, clicking it open so he could drop the report into it. “You know, according to Pankov, Form four five three four is supposed to be done with five printed copies and a computer-disk copy.”
“Fascinating,” she said. “Let us go.”
Inna Dalipovna saw the man and woman talking. At first it looked as if they were strangers, but the conversation kept going and for some reason the man had put away the papers he was reading.
Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express Page 19