“I’m to catch a ham thief?” said Iosef.
“Who also took thirty thousand dollars,” said the Yak.
“I am being punished,” said Iosef.
“No, you are being given an assignment.”
“I would like to offer …” Iosef began.
“No,” said the Yak, still not looking up. “I want you to leave now, talk to the chief inspector, and then consider the offer you were about to make. Iosef Rostnikov, I have learned that our work follows a simple principle. We take one step forward and one step back. We are always in the same place we started. Our hope for success is to plan carefully, taking what we might be able to use, as we step forward and back in a simple two-step.”
Iosef nodded and left the office.
The Yak opened his desk drawer and removed the tape containing the voices of Pleshkov and the others telling what really had happened. He sat for the next hour making two copies, using the two tape recorders he kept in his desk. The copies would not be perfect but they would be clear enough. He would keep one copy in his desk and place the others in separate, safe places. While his office was reasonably secure, the Yak knew that someone in Petrovka could be bribed to break in when he was away and remove the tape from the desk drawer. The Yak almost welcomed the possibility. He began to imagine the conversation that would take place with Pleshkov. The Yak would produce another copy of the tape, and Pleshkov would be in a very awkward position from which the Yak would help him to escape … at a price. But Pleshkov was probably too intelligent. He would realize that there would be other copies. He would not make that mistake. Still, he had been witness to other, even worse mistakes from people supposed to be intelligent and capable.
While the copies were being made, the Yak contemplated the future of Iosef Rostnikov. The young man would either be made aware of reality by his father or the Yak would have to find a way to transfer Iosef to another department.
Director Yaklovev had great confidence in Porfiry Petrovich’s powers of persuasion and his understanding of the need for compromise.
They had not yet cut Sarah’s hair. She lay in a bed in a preparation room waiting. There were no other patients in the room. Rostnikov sat at his wife’s bedside, holding her hand.
“What have they done so far?” asked Rostnikov.
“Tests. They put me on the machine. The same one as before, the one with the lights that hums. Leon and the surgeon are looking at the results.”
“I brought you something,” he said, taking out the triangular pastry with his free hand. “You can have it when you wake up after the surgery.”
“It looks good,” she said. “Hold on to it for me, Porfiry Petrovich.”
“I will,” he said.
“The last time we were in a hospital room,” she said, “a big naked man came in.”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“You handled him perfectly,” she said. “I hadn’t seen you acting in your job before, except for the time when you were a uniformed officer and we ran into the two drunks on the street harassing a young woman. You were wonderful.”
“Thank you,” said Rostnikov.
“You know what I hate the most about this surgery?” asked Sarah.
“Yes,” he said. “The loss of your hair.”
“Yes,” she said. “And what do you hate most?”
“That I might lose you,” he said.
“You would survive, Porfiry Petrovich,” she said, patting his hand.
“Yes,” he said. “But it would be a lonely and less than meaningful survival. I am being selfish.”
“No,” Sarah said. “You are being honest. I …”
The door opened and Leon came in holding an X ray.
“The growth is smaller,” he said. “Much smaller. The pressure on your brain is gone.”
Leon showed them the X ray.
“We have canceled the surgery,” he said. “We’ll keep checking you, but you can go home. This kind of spontaneous remission is uncommon but not unheard of.”
Sarah and Porfiry Petrovich looked at each other, stunned and only in the first stage of understanding what was happening.
“Could it come back?” Sarah asked.
“It could,” said Leon, “but the decrease in size in just a few days is remarkable. It could have been the blood thinner I gave you.”
“It could be a miracle,” Sarah said.
“I don’t believe in miracles,” said Leon. “You both deserve good news. I’m happy to be the one who brings it to you. How about a celebration? Would you like to come to a chamber music concert tonight? I think you might enjoy it. All Mozart.”
“I would very much like that,” said Rostnikov, smiling at Sarah and holding her delicate hand in both of his thick, heavy ones. “A celebration. But I have to attend a dogfight. There is, however, a chance that the dogfight will be over early. What time is your concert?”
“Ten,” said Leon.
“Perhaps I can do something to make the dogs decide to retire early so that we can make the concert.”
“I’d like that,” said Sarah, reaching for Leon’s hand.
He took it and Rostnikov could see that Leon was very much in love with his cousin. It was a condition that Porfiry Petrovich fully understood. He too loved Sarah very much. He would do his best to end the dogfight early.
Iosef knocked at the door of the apartment of Anna Timofeyeva. He had called Leon’s home in panic because he had not been at the hospital before his mother’s surgery. He had been talking to Yaklovev. When he had reached Leon, he had been told the good news.
“Shall I come there now?” Iosef had asked.
“Your mother is on her way home,” said Leon.
Iosef had expected the worst and had been feeling great guilt. What if his mother had gone into surgery and not come back? But she was fine. Something, the most important thing, had gone well this day. Perhaps another thing would now go well.
The door was opened by Elena, who had her right arm in a sling.
“I got here as quickly as I could,” he said.
Elena stepped back to let him in. Anna Timofeyeva sat at the window, her cat, Baku, in her lap, her puzzle before her.
Elena closed the door.
“How are you?”
“Alive,” said Elena. “Thanks to Porfiry Petrovich.”
“How are you, Anna Timofeyeva?” he asked the woman at the window.
“There was a time when even if I were in the throes of a heart attack, I would answer ‘fine.’ Ever the stoic Communist bureaucrat. There were other times when I welcomed the question so I could complain about my condition. It was a very short period. I quickly learned that few cared for details and few would accept a simple answer. You ask me now and I answer as I am answering you, fine.”
“That’s good,” Iosef said.
“It’s not true,” said Elena, cradling her injured arm with her healthy one. It looked to Iosef as if she were cradling an infant. “My Aunt Anna had words with Lydia Tkach last night. Sasha’s mother demanded that she find him immediately, that … well, it was a domestic issue. Anna Timofeyeva said she could do nothing. And …”
“I banished her from these two rooms,” said Anna, looking out the window, stroking the cat, whose eyes were closed in ecstasy. “Now I’m feeling like an irritable old woman who sees from her window the wife of a fugitive hiding from a charge of armed robbery. I should make calls, ask if she is using her real name, let the police take over. But what do I do? I decide to watch her, wait for her fugitive husband to appear, then call Porfiry Petrovich. The hero in the window.”
“Like Rear Window,” said Elena.
“What is Rear Window?” asked Anna Timofeyeva.
“A movie about what you are doing,” said Elena. “The man watching is almost murdered by the killer.”
“Was he a policeman?” asked Anna.
“The killer?” said Elena, hiding a smile.
“The man watching,” said Anna.
&
nbsp; “No, a photographer.”
“That explains it. Come, look.”
Iosef and Elena went to the window. The curtains were drawn back as they were always during the day. In the large concrete courtyard, children played, chasing each other, riding tricycles, hiding behind the concrete blocks that were supposed to be decorative. Five young women sat on the concrete seat with a concrete table between them. The sky promised rain, but it had for almost a week and had not delivered.
“The one with the baby,” said Anna. “Her child is the little blond boy chasing the girl.”
“He’s cute,” said Elena.
Elena stood up, wincing. Bending to look out the window had brought blood rushing painfully to her wound, which began to throb. She would have to take one of the pills Sarah Rostnikov’s cousin had given her.
“He is presentable,” Anna went on, changing quickly into the deputy procurator she had once been. The transformation was dramatic. The block of a woman who had begun her career as a factory worker and loyal Communist who believed in the revolution was now sitting up. Her voice had grown stronger, deeper, official.
“The woman is using the name Rosa Dotiom. Her real name is Rosa Dodropov. Her husband is Sergei Dodropov. Two years ago he robbed a bank. He was positively identified. He got away with lots of money. No one knows how much. The bank lied. The money was illegal business money from gangsters. He is wanted by the police. He is wanted by the bankers, who are afraid he will be caught and talk. He will come back here. She is waiting for him. See, she waits.”
“How can you tell?” asked Iosef, who was still looking out the window.
“By how often she glances around in anticipation,” said Anna. “It is not a look of fear. It is a look of hope. She has been looking like that for more than a week. He will show up soon. Do you want to be the one to call or should I?”
“Call my father, Anna Timofeyeva.”
“You believe me?”
“I have been taught by my father that you were a great procurator, one who did not act rashly.”
“Good,” she said. “But I’ll give you a demonstration of my training. You are angry, Iosef, very angry. And you are nervous and determined.”
“Yes,” said Iosef.
“You realize, Elena, I have just done more talking and shown more emotion that I believe I have done in the rest of my adult life.”
“Yes,” said Elena.
Anna looked down at the cat, which may have been asleep in her lap. Anna sighed.
“You want privacy?” she said.
“Well …” Iosef began.
Baku awakened as Anna rose.
“I am required to take a nap,” Anna said. “I do not like wasting the time, but I cannot avoid it. Give my regards to your father.”
Anna stood straight and walked without any hint of her problem to the bedroom, where she closed the door behind her.
Elena moved back to the window and looked out.
“She has me doing it,” said Elena with a smile. “I feel I have to take her place on the vigil.”
“You are really all right?” he asked.
“I will be fine,” she said. “I will be in pain for an undetermined period of time, but I will then be fine.”
“Elena,” he said, “I don’t have much time and I don’t know why I am doing this again now. It is probably not a good time. Maybe it is my fear of losing you.”
“I am not yours to lose,” she said, standing straight and facing him.
“But I would like you to be,” he said.
“You are proposing again.”
“I am proposing again.”
“It is not a good idea,” Elena said. “You will worry about me on the job, and I will worry about you, and I will worry about you worrying about me, and … you see?”
“I worry about you now,” he said.
“Then I will accept your proposal,” she said.
“You will?”
“You expected rejection again,” she said, stepping in front of him.
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know how to react to acceptance.”
“Start by very gently kissing me and avoiding contact with my arm,” she said. “And continue by taking a seat, so we can discuss what this means.”
Iosef was dazed. Elena came into his arms and he was very careful as he kissed her. It was a long, open kiss that Iosef did not want to end.
Elena sat in her aunt’s chair. Iosef sat across from her in the chair that visitors were often directed to.
“You’re not on some pain medication that is causing this reaction? You are not going to change your mind in a day or two?”
“No, Iosef, I will not. But there are things I must tell you about my past, about …”
“And I have things too,” he said. “Unless you must, I would prefer that you tell me nothing about you that would cause either of us pain.”
“And you do the same,” she said, reaching forward to touch his hand.
“And I will do the same,” he said.
“Do you believe in signs?” Elena went on.
“Mysticism?” he said, adding perplexity to his emotions of the moment. “God? ESP?”
“Perhaps,” she said, looking out the window again.
“Not really,” he said.
“Look out the window, Iosef,” Elena said. “Less than a minute after you propose and I accept, Aunt Anna’s bank robber appears. It is a sign for policemen.”
Iosef leaned over to look out the window. A small blond boy was running toward a young man who stood next to one of the concrete blocks that surrounded the courtyard. The woman Anna had been watching said something to the other women and got up.
“I’ll call for backup,” he said, picking up the phone. “Elena, I love you.”
“I’ll lose some weight,” she said.
“No,” he said, “don’t. You are beautiful as you are and … this is Inspector Rostnikov … no, the other one. I need backup, quickly.”
Elena and Iosef smiled at each other. Iosef’s anger was gone, the Pleshkov situation of minor interest compared to the beauty of this moment.
He hung up the phone.
“They’ll be here soon,” he said.
“Meanwhile,” she said, “we can watch and talk. We have plans to make.”
It was dangerous. It was stupid, but Sasha was frantic. When the meeting with the Frenchmen was over, hands were shaken, drinks downed, and talk was almost nonexistent.
“At some point, if we are to work together,” said the rugged youngest man, “you will both have to learn a little French, come visit us in Marseilles.”
“I am very bad with languages,” said Sasha.
“And I am not interested in any language but the one of my people,” said Nimitsov.
More amiable silence. A few toasts to the future. The old men showed nothing.
When the rugged Frenchman looked at his watch and said, “Time to go,” Sasha followed Boris and Nimitsov into the entry hall. The door closed behind them.
“I have to make a call,” said Sasha.
“No time,” said Peter Nimitsov.
“There’s plenty of time,” said Sasha.
“Who are you calling?” asked Nimitsov.
“A woman,” said Sasha, flashing a huge false and leering smile.
“No time,” Nimitsov repeated. “We must get back, prepare.”
“I could have had the call finished by now,” said Sasha. “I must make the call.”
Nimitsov played his teeth against his lower lip and nodded at Boris. “There’s a phone in the kitchen. Boris will show you. Be quick.”
There was no doubt that Nimitsov was suspicious. There was no doubt that making this call was madness. There was no doubt that Sasha didn’t care.
Boris led Sasha through an arch, down a stone-floored hallway lined with cabinets containing dinnerware, large serving bowls, service for dozens.
They entered the large kitchen. There was an oven, a refrigerator, a f
reezer locker, a stone table in the center of the room and knives, pots, and pans hanging on hooks along the wall.
“There,” said Boris.
Sasha went to the phone on the wall, picked it up, and dialed his home. After three rings, Maya answered.
“Maya,” he said, trying not to betray himself to Boris. “It is me, Dmitri.”
“Dmitri? Sasha, are you drunk in the middle of the day?”
“No,” he said with a laugh.
“Someone is listening to you?”
“Of course,” Sasha said, grinning hugely.
“They could … maybe someone is listening on an extension?” she said.
“It’s possible,” he said, winking at Boris.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“Dmitri,” she said, using his cover name, “you are mad.”
“It’s worth the risk. Don’t leave.”
“Your uncle Porfiry came to talk to me about our problem,” she said.
“And?” he said, knowing that his mother had certainly interfered again.
“Are you going to be home soon?”
“Late tonight,” he said. “Will you be there?”
“You are in danger.”
“Of course,” he said.
“Be careful. We will be here.”
“I have to go now,” he said, looking at Boris. “Wear your silk nightgown, the clinging one.”
“If I had such a thing, this would not be the night I would wear it. Be careful.”
Sasha hung up and sighed deeply. “It’s good to keep them happy,” he said.
“Till you tire of them,” said Boris.
“True,” said Sasha. “Let’s go.”
One hour later Sasha was in a dogfight arena, definitely upscale compared to the one where he thought he would be, the one he had been in the night before. This room was air conditioned and immaculately clean. There were fewer seats, but the men in them were better dressed and the betting in the first fight had been handled by men in matching dark suits. Drinks were served. If there were a shooter present to control any dog that might go wild, that shooter was not immediately visible. It was all very respectable, and the noise level, except when the fights were taking place, was relatively low and conversational, with much laughter.
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