Sasha felt lucky. This was only the second Mark they had tracked down and he was certain this was the right one. But he also felt depressed. The Chazov boys were only eleven, nine, and seven. The young child he had just seen was just a few years younger than his daughter, Pulcharia. He had a sudden vision of his daughter lying with her head crushed by a rock. He pushed the image away, but it mocked him by coming back even clearer.
“What’s wrong, Sasha?” Zelach asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You work here alone?” asked Rostnikov as he looked around the dark garage, which was about the size of a tennis court.
Three cars were parked in the rear. It was difficult to make out exactly what they were because there were only two lights in the garage, both dim, and two windows, both dirty. But Rostnikov and Hamilton could make out piles of automobile parts. In the middle of the floor was a black BMW hoisted on wooden blocks with four fully extended bumper jacks firmly locked on the undercarriage.
“No,” said Artiom Solovyov, wiping his hands. “I have an assistant.”
The man looked a bit like an ape with a handsome battered face and dark hair in need of a cut. He wore a pair of dark slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt with vertical blue stripes.
“Where is he?” asked Rostnikov.
“Where is he? Boris is home. He is ill,” said Artiom with a sigh, looking around. “And all this work.”
“So you have to do it yourself?” asked Hamilton.
Artiom had tried not to look at the tall black man next to the policeman. The black man had dark, disbelieving eyes.
“What choice have I?” asked Artiom with a shrug.
“Then why aren’t you in work clothes? Why aren’t you covered in grime?” asked Rostnikov.
Artiom Solovyov now looked from man to man in front of him. They had said they had some routine questions about a crime and that he might know the victim. Artiom had emerged from his tiny office with its thin waffle-metal walls. He had smiled and said he had never been involved with something exciting like this before and had pledged his cooperation. But the questions were getting too uncomfortable.
“I just arrived, right before you,” Artiom said. “I was doing some paperwork and-”
“The full name and address of your mechanic,” said Rostnikov.
“Ah … I don’t think I have his address. He just moved. His name is Boris, Boris Ivanov.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to find,” said Hamilton. “How many Boris Ivanovs are there in Moscow?”
“Probably close to two thousand,” said Rostnikov. And then to Artiom, “Alexei Porvinovich.”
Artiom blinked and didn’t answer.
“You know a man named Alexei Porvinovich.”
Fight the panic. How did they find him so quickly? How did they find him at all? They couldn’t have too much on him since they weren’t simply grabbing him right away and hauling him off to the local police station for a “conversation.” Artiom had been the victim of such “conversations” in the past. More than once he had been pulled in to the local station, each time by the same cop, who suggested that Artiom’s garage was a refuge for stolen cars. Each time, Artiom had denied it. Each time, he had been hauled in, placed in a small room, and beaten by the policeman. The last time this happened, Artiom lost part of his hearing in his left ear. He never got it back. The irony was that Artiom did not deal in stolen automobiles. He had insisted, sworn, and endured beatings, but finally he had agreed to pay the policeman a manageable amount each month. The irony had mounted when a local mafia of Chechens also visited him. Artiom had agreed instantly to pay them. If he had not, he was sure, he would have had more than a minor hearing loss. Were he not paying the policeman and the Chechen mafia, he would now have more money. And without the payments and Anna Porvinovich’s demands for him at the oddest of times, he would probably not have considered kidnapping Alexei Porvinovich. And now he had to cope with these two new policemen who knew something.
“Porvinovich,” Artiom repeated, looking up at the rusting ceiling and touching his chin as if deep in thought. “Porvinovich. I think I have a customer with that name. I can check my books.”
“You don’t remember for certain?” the black man asked.
“I have a thriving business. Lots of customers. Some come only once. Some come twice. Some keep coming back.”
“This is the Alexei Porvinovich whose home you called less than an hour ago,” said Rostnikov.
“I made a long list of calls,” Artiom said with a shrug, hoping he was not sweating. He sweated easily. It was something Anna said she liked about him. “You know, with my mechanic out, everything will be running late and-”
“You remember the call?” the black man asked. “You spoke to Mrs. Porvinovich. You’ve met her. You could hardly forget her.”
“Porvinovich,” Artiom pondered. “Ah, yes, that one. A beauty. Not my type.”
“What is your type?” asked Rostnikov.
“Big. Blond. Loud. Not too smart,” he said with a grin.
“Just the opposite of Mrs. Porvinovich,” said the black man.
“I suppose,” said Artiom.
“So?” said Rostnikov. “You called her.”
“Yes, ah, yes. Now I remember,” he said, hitting his forehead with the palm of his right hand. “They were scheduled to bring in their car, a black Buick. I said I couldn’t take care of it. She seemed quite upset that she couldn’t make a new appointment.”
“Mrs. Porvinovich does not strike me as the kind of woman who, if she were upset, would allow herself to display it to a mechanic,” said the black man.
“I’m perceptive,” Artiom almost pleaded. “It’s a gift and a curse from my mother. She was perceptive too. Could see right through to people’s souls.” With this, he laid a palm across his chest in a suggestion of where one’s soul might be found.
“What am I feeling?” asked the black man.
“I never got your name,” said Artiom, extending his hand.
“Craig Hamilton,” said the black man, taking Artiom’s quite moist hand. “What am I feeling?” he repeated.
“I’m sorry. My intuition is hindered by a lack of familiarity with Africans.”
“Then what am I thinking?” asked Rostnikov.
“That I know something or am guilty of something,” said Artiom. “But I tell you, I promise you, I pledge to you: You are wrong. If you’ll just tell me what you want, I-”
“You kidnapped Alexei Porvinovich,” said Rostnikov. “You and your assistant, Boris. If you have killed Porvinovich, you shall be tried and executed, as you well know. If he is alive, life will be hard, but you will at least exist. Look at this bush.”
Rostnikov pulled a notebook from his pocket and opened it to the page with the flowering bush he had sketched earlier.
Artiom looked at the picture. It was not at all badly rendered. “Yes?” asked he.
“Do you know what kind of bush it is?”
“No,” said Artiom. “I know nothing of plants. I know cars.”
“If you have killed Porvinovich,” said Rostnikov, taking another look at the picture of the bush and returning it to his pocket, “then you will never see a flowering bush again.”
“I did not kidnap Alexei Porvinovich,” Artiom cried with sincerity. “I’m an honest businessman. Ask Sergeant Boronov. I run an honest business.”
“And you go to bed with Anna Porvinovich,” said Rostnikov.
“And with her brother,” added Hamilton.
Artiom’s sincerity turned to anger.
“What are you saying? That I’m a homosexual? I am not.”
“Then,” said Rostnikov, “you have had sex only with Mrs. Porvinovich?”
“I haven’t had sex with anybody,” Artiom protested, both hands moving up and down.
“You are celibate?” said Hamilton.
“I didn’t say … What do you want?”
“Porvinovich, now, uninjured,” said Rostnikov.
“How long have you believed in God?” asked Rostnikov.
Artiom shrugged again. “All my life,” he said. “What’s God got to-”
“We are leaving,” said Rostnikov. “You will deliver Alexei Porvinovich before this day ends.”
“I. …” Artiom began, but saw that nothing he could say would convince these two. “It has come to my attention from a source I cannot reveal that this Alexei Porvinovich has been engaged in illegal activities.”
“I thought you couldn’t remember him?” asked Hamilton, who was following Rostnikov toward the door of the garage.
“I didn’t want to get involved in anything,” Artiom said, now sweating profusely and not trying to hide it. “But if someone were to find this Porvinovich and turn him loose and they had information about important criminal activities by this Porvinovich …?”
“It would be interesting,” said Rostnikov, limping toward the door. “We might be appreciative of such information.”
“How appreciative?” asked Artiom.
“That would depend on the information,” said Rostnikov. “And the evidence. Call Petrovka, ask for me. Let us say in four hours.”
Rostnikov pulled out his pad of paper, wrote down his own name and phone number, and handed it to Artiom, who took it and followed the two men through the door into the chilly gray day.
“I don’t know anything,” he said.
“Four hours,” Rostnikov repeated, continuing to walk away, his back to Artiom Solovyov. “That should be plenty of time.”
Artiom gave up, went back into the garage, and slammed the door. Rostnikov continued to walk toward the dark car parked at the end of the street.
“We were lucky,” said Hamilton softly.
“He is an amateur in love with a professional,” said Rostnikov. “An affair made in hell.”
“She would have had Porvinovich killed,” said Hamilton.
“I’m certain.”
“So am I,” said Hamilton. “You think he’ll let Porvinovich go and give you something dirty on him?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov, opening the front passenger door of the car. “He has heard tales of Russian prisons.” He sat and closed the door while Hamilton went around the car and got into the driver’s seat.
“Should we call someone to follow him?” asked Hamilton, starting the engine.
“It will take too long,” said Rostnikov.
“We could follow him ourselves,” Hamilton suggested.
“I have a bad leg and you have a black face,” said Rostnikov. “He would have to be an even bigger fool than he is not to spot us. I think he will give us our kidnap victim if he is still alive.”
SEVEN
Flowers
They sat, as they had planned to, inside the Saint Petersburg Café, formerly the Café of the October Revolution. Normally they would have met at a café less than a half mile away, but that was where Mathilde Verson had been killed.
They had pulled two rectangular wooden tables together. Rostnikov sat at one end of the improvised table, Craig Hamilton at the other. Rostnikov always sat where he could see everyone’s faces without any painful movement of his leg. On his left were Sasha Tkach and Zelach. On his right were Emil Karpo and Elena Timofeyeva. In front of each person was a cup of coffee or tea and two thin wafers that the management called imported biscotti but that Tkach described as sugar-plaster sandwiches.
Several months earlier they had begun meeting informally at a café. There were two major reasons for this. First, the Gray Wolfhound, Pankov, and Major Gregorovich were not present. Second, it was unlikely that anyone had bugged the café, whereas it was highly likely that the Wolfhound’s office was bugged and almost certain that Major Gregorovich was passing information on to people who might be appreciative when the proper time came.
“Pulcharia said what?” Elena asked.
“‘Grandmother gives me a gahlahvnahya bol,’ a headache,” answered Tkach, looking, with a proud smile, around the table. “Three years old, not even three.”
He shook his head. The others were appreciatively silent.
“‘Gahlahvnahya bol,’” Tkach repeated almost to himself.
“And how is your aunt?” Rostnikov asked.
“Anna Timofeyeva has good days and bad,” said Elena, a bit self-consciously.
“She is a bad cook, a stubborn woman, and was the best procurator in all of Russia,” Rostnikov said.
“‘No foundation up and down the line,’” Zelach said.
Everyone looked at him. Zelach did not attend all of these sessions, and when he did, he seldom spoke unless directly addressed.
“William Saroyan,” said Hamilton.
All heads turned to him except for that of Emil Karpo. They had not wanted to be so rude as to examine the black FBI agent who spoke perfect Russian and sat erect in an impeccably pressed blue suit.
“A play, The Time of Your Life,” explained Hamilton. “It’s a favorite of mine. One of the characters keeps repeating that line.”
“Arkady Sergeyevich Zelach,” Rostnikov said with deep interest. “You read American plays?”
Zelach shrugged and didn’t meet Rostnikov’s eyes.
“When I was recovering, I read what was in the apartment,” he said. “My father’s old books.”
Sasha Tkach took some tea. It was strong but not particularly good. Zelach had spent a long convalescence after he had been shot, a near-fatal shooting that, with good reason, Sasha felt responsible for. Zelach had many months of reading behind him.
“We will speak freely in front of Agent Hamilton,” said Rostnikov, looking around the table. “First we all wish to extend our sympathy to and support for Emil Karpo for the loss of Mathilde Verson, a loss that is also ours.”
Karpo said nothing. His head moved slightly to acknowledge the words of condolence.
Later, when he could get Karpo alone, Porfiry Petrovich would invite him for dinner as Sarah had suggested. If necessary, he would order him to come for dinner. Sarah might get him to talk or at least to listen. And normally Karpo appeared to like the company and questions of the girls. But that would be later. Sarah would want a gathering soon of the entire group so that there could be some kind of formal toast, a farewell to Mathilde.
“If there will be a funeral …?” Rostnikov began.
“I’ve spoken to her sister,” said Karpo. “When the autopsy is complete, her body will be cremated and her ashes taken to the sea. I would prefer that this end the discussion.”
With Karpo it was difficult to determine if he was showing signs of cracking. The blank look remained the same as always. When Tkach had suffered a breakdown, it had been easy to spot-increasing irritability, abnormal defensiveness, and a self-pity that easily turned to anger. But Karpo displayed nothing.
“First order of business,” Rostnikov went on. “Does anyone know what this is?”
He grunted and pulled his drawing of the bush in the Petrovka yard from his pocket and passed it around. When it came back to Rostnikov, Karpo said, “It is a vinarium, also called a sure bush or a Russian angel.”
“It endures,” said Rostnikov, looking at Karpo, who met his eyes.
“‘No foundation up and down the line,’” Karpo said. “‘Nothing endures.’”
Karpo had lost himself to Communism and the Revolution. He had believed in it religiously, recognized the faults of those given the task of making it a success, sought to cleanse society of those who would break the law or try to erode the Revolution. That was all gone now. Mathilde was gone. There was no foundation. There was only unfinished business.
“Elena,” Rostnikov said, turning his eyes from those of Karpo. Whether or not Emil Karpo was going to break would be impossible to determine. Karpo’s expression never changed. It always amazed Rostnikov that children loved Karpo; they ran to him and took his ha
nd. Pulcharia Tkach always jumped into his arms, and he held her firmly and spoke to her as an adult, which may well have been where the child picked up her precocious vocabulary.
Mathilde Verson had begun, after more than five years, to bring a sense of life to Karpo, had managed to keep him from falling apart when the Soviet Union fractured. Now she was gone.
“Elena?” Rostnikov repeated. “The electrician’s treasure?”
Elena looked at Hamilton, who had finished his tea and was attempting to eat one of the wafers.
“It all disappeared,” she said. “Every piece. During the night. Natalya Dokorova claims to have burned everything-books, paintings, furniture. There were guards at both doors of the Dokorov house who confirmed that she had a fire going all night.”
“Guards?” asked Rostnikov.
“Teams from different units,” said Elena. “Even so, I checked. No hidden rooms, no secret level below the floor.”
“Walls?” said Hamilton.
“Checked them,” Elena said. “And the roof. Getting them up to the roof would have been more than Natalya Dokorova could have done, and landing a helicopter without being heard or seen would have been impossible.”
“And the old woman claims to have burned everything?” asked Rostnikov.
“Everything. She stayed up all night determined that if she could not keep what her brother had left her, she would not let the government take it.”
“She destroyed everything?” said Rostnikov. “Did you find ashes?”
“Some,” said Elena.
“Many of the items in the collection could not be burned,” said Karpo. “And I do not believe, given the magnitude of the collection, that she could have burned it all in one night.”
The little finger of Karpo’s left hand was splinted and taped. Everyone was curious. No one asked.
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