Blood and Rubles ir-10

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “That is what she told me,” Elena answered, glancing at the American.

  “And you believe her?” asked Tkach.

  “I … no. But if she’ll talk, I think it will be to me. She seems to like talking to me.”

  “Do you like her?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps I’ll talk to her later in the office,” said Rostnikov. “Perhaps if I can get our colonel to pull some strings, I will talk to the guards on both doors.”

  “Tomorrow?” asked Elena, making a note.

  “Today, five, no … six for your Natalya Dokorova. Same time for the guards, if it can be arranged,” said Rostnikov. “Emil.”

  “We may be dealing with a mafia that is stealing nuclear weaponry or the means of making it,” said Karpo.

  All heads turned to him.

  “The members of the mafia are all former convicts,” Karpo went on. “Each bears the prison tattoo of an eagle clutching a large bomb. The tattoos are generally on their buttocks or back. Two of these men were killed in the street battle this morning. I found another convict with a tattoo and interviewed him. In spite of my most zealous interrogation and persuasion, I was unable to get him to reveal more about his gang than that they are called the Zveri, the Beasts. He seemed particularly proud of that.”

  There had been a message on Rostnikov’s desk when he and Hamilton had stopped by the office. He had called the major in charge of the district station where Karpo had interrogated the giant, Stanislav Voshenko. The major was an old acquaintance of Rostnikov’s. The major thought it would be nice to have Rostnikov owe him a favor. Rostnikov made the call and discovered that Karpo had broken both of the prisoner’s thumbs and was methodically twisting Voshenko’s ear, which was beginning to tear, when the policeman in charge of the lockup had finally responded to Voshenko’s shouts of pain and anger.

  “I will report this possible breach of national security to Colonel Snitkonoy,” said Rostnikov. “However, until we have some evidence that these people actually have nuclear weapons or access to them, we shall continue our investigation. Do you have a plan?”

  “Yes,” said Karpo.

  “Would you like to share it with us?”

  It was clear that Karpo wanted to say no, but he answered, “I will interview members of Voshenko’s family and continue the search for others with the tattoo,” he said.

  “You wish assistance?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Alone,” said Karpo.

  Rostnikov nodded.

  “Sasha?”

  “There are desperate people in Moscow living like animals,” said Sasha as he brushed aside his hair and caught the eyes of Elena Timofeyeva, who was paying particular attention. “There are small children murdering people for a few kopecks.”

  They knew all this, and Sasha was quite aware that they did, but no one stopped him or spoke.

  “Progress?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Several possibilities,” said Sasha. “I don’t think it will take more than a few days to find our children who murder.”

  “In Buenos Aires,” said Zelach softly, “there are policemen who go out and murder the homeless children. I read it in the newspapers.”

  “In the United States?” asked Rostnikov.

  “There are children who commit crimes,” Hamilton said slowly. “As yet there are no bands of homeless children murdering in the street, at least not on a statistically meaningful level.”

  “Statistically meaningful level?” Sasha asked, looking at the American.

  “I have children,” said Hamilton calmly in precise Russian. “I have a family. I have seen murdered children and children who have murdered. I deal in kidnappings and serial killings. Like you I can still see the faces of the killers of babies and the babies who kill. Statistics are not the enemy. They are a means of determining where we should put our efforts.”

  Sasha folded his hands.

  “So,” said Rostnikov, looking down at the tea leaves in his empty cup. “Agent Hamilton and I hope to free a kidnap victim, Alexei Porvinovich, shortly and take his kidnappers into custody. Anyone need anything, want anything, have anything else to say?”

  All eyes with the exception of Zelach’s met those of Rostnikov. Rostnikov assumed the slouching man with his mouth partly open was pondering some passage from the playwright Saroyan or the philosophy of Camus. The effort seemed to be straining the poor man’s brain. He would have to ask Hamilton, given his limited exposure to the members of Rostnikov’s team, which one he felt most likely to crack. It was a near certainty in a world gone mad that the police who dealt with the madness would also go mad. Rostnikov would vote for Zelach. He would have bet an extra dozen seventy-five-pound curls tonight that everyone else around the table would vote for Karpo.

  “Then I do,” said Rostnikov, nodding at the waiter, who was only too glad to cooperate with the police.

  The waiter brought a tray of wineglasses and a bottle of red wine. He poured the wine and handed the glasses to the people around the table. When he had finished, Rostnikov raised his glass and said, “To the memory of Mathilde Verson. Her laugh will be remembered. Phrases, words, and the touch of her hand will be upon us when we least expect them. We drink to her with love.”

  They all touched glasses. Karpo showed no emotion but drank deeply from the glass though he had never been known to drink anything alcoholic.

  They finished their drinks, and all except Rostnikov and Hamilton left the café after stopping to pay for whatever they had consumed.

  “The slouching one,” Hamilton asked before Rostnikov could ask his question.

  Rostnikov smiled.

  “What about him?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Most likely to crack,” said Hamilton. “That’s what you were going to ask me, I think. I watched your eyes, your body language.”

  “Body language?” Rostnikov repeated.

  “Am I wrong?” asked Hamilton.

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “And you, you were thinking about your children, worrying about them, wondering how quickly you could get to a phone without appearing to be concerned. Am I right?”

  It was Hamilton’s turn to smile.

  “Body language?” he asked.

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “You are the very model of perfect posture and professionalism. But your eyes fell most frequently on Sasha, and it was that in part that made him respond. Ironic that your empathy with Sasha should be misread by him as cold indifference.”

  “Perhaps he has a lot to learn,” said Hamilton in English.

  “He is young,” said Rostnikov, also in English. “I should read this Saroyan?”

  “He is quirky and haunting,” said Hamilton.

  “An Armenian,” said Rostnikov. “As a people they are quirky and haunting.”

  “Allow me to pay for your tea and wafers,” said Hamilton, rising.

  Rostnikov nodded his acceptance of the offer and slowly, painfully, rose from his chair and silently spoke to his twisted leg to soothe it.

  “And now?” asked Hamilton.

  “I get the Wolfhound to pull those strings we discussed. Perhaps we will pay an unexpected visit on the wife and brother of Alexei Porvinovich.”

  It was early afternoon when they left the café. The sky was gray. A chill wind was blowing.

  “I like Moscow like this,” Rostnikov said, hands plunged into his coat pocket, old fur hat pulled down on his forehead.

  “Reminds me of Chicago,” said Hamilton.

  “You are from Chicago?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Yes,” said Hamilton. “West Side.”

  “A difficult neighborhood?” asked Rostnikov in English.

  “A very difficult neighborhood. I didn’t like weather like this. It made people irritable knowing the hard winter was coming.”

  “Odd,” said Rostnikov as they walked. “Almost all Russians love the winter. We long for the snow, the clean cold.”

  Hamilton shrugged and went back to Russian.
“Shall we pull some strings and save the world?”

  “I’ll consider the day well spent if we save a life,” responded Rostnikov.

  Hamilton looked at the limping man at his side and knew that he was telling the truth.

  “You are the sister of Stanislav Voshenko?” Karpo asked the woman who sat at a table in McDonald’s on Pushkin Square eating some meat on a bun.

  The woman was young, no more than twenty-five. Her face was plain but clean and the McDonald’s uniform she wore, complete with little cap that covered most of her short, dark hair, gave her an aura of neatness she shared with the other two similarly uniformed young women at her table. The place was crowded, and people with trays jostled one another. Outside, there was only a short line to get in. It was nearly three in the afternoon. It should have been busier.

  “I am Katerina Voshenko,” the young woman said.

  Karpo showed his identification card.

  One of the uniformed girls with Katerina stood up, gobbled down the last of whatever she was eating, and left quickly, making her way through the crowd. Someone jostled Karpo and said something in a foreign language.

  Karpo sat in the vacant seat. He was, as always, in black. He wore a jacket, no coat, and a look of unblinking determination that made the young woman think this policeman might be more than a bit mad.

  “Most of the people who come here are tourists or visiting businessmen,” Katerina Voshenko said, picking up a long, limp french fry.

  Karpo looked at the other young woman at the table, a pretty blond girl with good teeth. She tried to avoid his eyes but failed. Her right cheek was filled with whatever she was eating.

  “Back to work,” the blonde said through a mouthful of food.

  The girl gathered her food and a plastic cup with a straw in it and plunged into the crowd of people carrying food trays and looking for tables.

  “Smells like another country,” Karpo said.

  Katerina Voshenko shrugged and said, “America. I’m used to it. Ever have a burger?”

  “I came here once.”

  The woman looked at the pale, straight-backed man before her and wondered what would bring a man like this to stand in line to buy a Big Mac and fries.

  “Alone?”

  “With a friend,” he said.

  “A woman?” asked Katerina as she downed a fry and selected another.

  A lone man in a dark business suit spotted the empty seat at their table, took two steps toward it, hesitated when his eyes met Karpo’s, and lost the spot to a very big young man in a leather jacket and an almost shaved head.

  “You are Stanislav Voshenko’s sister?” Karpo repeated.

  “No,” the young woman said, chewing on a french fry. “I’m his daughter. He had one sister, my aunt, who raised me. I do not see my father often. He denies that he has a child.”

  The girl looked at the young man with the nearly shaved head. He looked back, his mouth turning just a bit in what was probably his best attempt at a smile.

  “Your father is in prison,” said Karpo, his voice penetrating the noise of the crowd.

  “I’m not surprised,” she said. “He hurts people. He kills people. He killed my mother. Beat her. She was small. I watched sometimes. And then …” She shrugged and stuffed another fry in her mouth. “One day she was dead. I’m not surprised.”

  “When did you last see him?” asked Karpo.

  “Kahk dyihlah? How’s it going?” asked the large young man who was now sharing their table. He had a thin face, poor teeth, and wore a tight blue T-shirt under his leather jacket, showing lean muscle.

  “Khurahshoh, spahseebuh. Fine, thanks,” said Katerina with a smile.

  “Go away,” said Karpo, turning to the young man.

  “What?”

  “Go away now,” said Karpo.

  The young man grinned, avoided the eyes of the gaunt vampire, and went on eating. Karpo reached over, took the sandwich from the young man, and placed it on the tray. The man started to rise. A few people were looking. Most of those nearby managed to ignore the confrontation or pretended to do so. The young man stood to his full height and looked down at Karpo with both fists clenched.

  “Your food grows cold,” Karpo said. “Take it elsewhere, or you will find yourself humiliated.”

  The man cocked his shaved head to one side like a parrot and saw determination and maybe even madness in the eyes of the lean ghost. He had friends to meet, cars to steal. He gathered his food and stalked into the crowd, bruising ribs and arms and even sending a tray flying.

  “When did you last see your father?” Karpo went on.

  A woman in a fake-fur jacket took the vacated seat. She was about seventy and looked as if she had a great deal of experience at minding her own business.

  “I saw him at my aunt’s apartment,” Katerina said, looking in the direction the young man had gone. “A few weeks, maybe a month ago. He needed a place to sleep. He was drunk. Said he couldn’t go to his own apartment, not that night. He has done this before, and my mother’s sister has never been able to say no.”

  “Your father has a tattoo,” Karpo said. “An eagle with a bomb in its claws.”

  The girl nodded. She was running out of french fries and had only a bit of Coca-Cola left in her cup.

  “He showed it to us. He took off all his clothes and showed it to us,” she said. “Then he talked. He sat there with nothing on. Before, when I was little, he was full of hair, a great bear. Now he is shaven to show his tattoos. He is proud of them, especially the one with the eagle and the bomb.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “I don’t remember,” the young woman said, looking again to where the leather-coated young man had gone. “Something about being an eagle and swooping down for a bomb full of gold. He was drunk.”

  “He looks a little like your father,” Karpo said.

  “Who?”

  “The young man in the leather jacket.”

  “No,” she said. “A little, maybe.”

  “Your father has friends,” Karpo said.

  “People who are like him,” she said. “Who in his right mind would want my father as a friend? I’ve got to get back to work.”

  She began to gather the cup and paper.

  “Names,” Karpo said. “Did he ever mention the names of any of his friends?”

  “He was very drunk,” she said. “Kept saying that he was a personal friend of Kuzen’s, that Kuzen was an eagle, that he had been in Kuzen’s apartment on Kalinin and at his dacha more than once for dinner.”

  “Did he give Kuzen’s first name?” Karpo asked as the young woman started to rise.

  “Igor,” she said with certainty. “Is my father in prison for killing someone?”

  “Yes,” said Karpo.

  Katerina Voshenko rose from her chair and looked blankly at the passing people and at the long counter behind which she would soon be standing.

  “Will he ever get out?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Karpo.

  The girl nodded her head.

  “Igor Kuzen,” Karpo said. “Did your father say anything more about him?”

  As Katerina stood there, Karpo could see a hint of her father in her pose.

  “He said Igor Kuzen is a famous scientist. But my father was drunk. He is a liar.”

  “Could he have made up this Igor Kuzen?” Karpo asked, rising from his chair.

  A pair of men eyed the soon-to-be-vacant spaces but did not advance.

  “My father has no imagination,” she said. “It is one of the things I inherited from him, that and some of my looks. The uniform helps overcome that. Sometimes it turns a man on. Some men like to say they went to bed with a girl who works at McDonald’s.”

  Her eyes sought the young man in the leather jacket. When she turned back to the ghostly detective, he had disappeared. The two businessmen took the empty seats and she hurried to dump her garbage and get back to work. Then she saw the young man move toward her
through the crowd. He was smiling. She smiled back and checked her watch. She had about a minute left before she’d have to resume her shift. She pushed back the thought that this young man did remind her of her father, then she allowed herself to consider it. She did not like what she saw, but that did not stop her from smiling at the young man who stood before her, wiping his hands on his work jeans.

  “You will be all right?” Sasha asked as they stood looking across at the battered apartment building.

  People came and went. Mostly old people, but also a few young boys.

  Sasha had listened at the Chazovs’ door and heard nothing. Now they had stood in this doorway for over an hour. No boys fitting the description they had of the three Chazovs had come either in or out. There had been no usable fingerprints on the items Zelach had taken from the apartment. Now they had to do this the hard way-the usual way.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Zelach.

  They had decided to watch the apartment building in shifts. It was certainly possible that the Chazov boys would come through some rear entrance, but eventually they would use the front door.

  The night was growing cold. A wind wailed down the corridor of beaten tenements.

  Zelach had volunteered for the first shift so that Sasha could have dinner with his family and get two or three hours’ sleep. Sasha had promised to call Zelach’s mother or, rather, to call the apartment of the man from the Water Bureau, who lived down the hall and had a phone. The man was proud of his phone and had made it clear that having a policeman in the building was something he appreciated.

  Sasha tried the door behind them. The cold would keep Zelach awake for a few hours, but then it would dull him into frozen lethargy. The door was locked. He had no problem opening it with his pocketknife and an identification card. He entered and motioned for Zelach to follow.

  They were in a small, far-from-clean hallway with a narrow band of concrete steps leading upward.

  Sasha knocked on the door to his left and waited. He knocked again. No answer. Then they moved across the hall, heard a voice behind the door, and knocked.

  “Who?” asked a woman.

  “Police,” said Sasha.

  “Police, there are all kinds of police,” she said. “All kinds of people who say they are the police.”