Red Chameleon

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “When the train jerked into Riga, the people spewed forth as if they were already in America or England. We tried to stay in the middle of the crowd. The Russian soldiers got off, joking about the smell of the people still pushing each other and the crowd.

  “A trio of soldiers and officers forced their way through the confusion and headed right past us. To clear the way, the officers pushed with their sticks and hands, moving against the flow of the crowd. One young officer stood in front of me and prodded me with his stick.

  “The soldier was amused at what looked like a confrontation with a simpleminded Jew, and he turned to his comrades to share the joke. They looked equally amused.

  “We followed the crowd into the darkness to a vast foggy waterfront where thousands of people sat on their luggage, talking, looking at the huge metal boat with peeling paint, a boat that was as big as the entire village of Yekteraslav, maybe as big as two Yekteraslavs.

  “I grabbed the arm of a well-dressed Jewish woman who was talking to another well-dressed woman seated on a trio of matching cloth suitcases. The woman turned on me in anger, but something in my face frightened her, and she stood mute.

  “‘Tell me,’ I whispered, my voice cracking. ‘How do we get on that boat. Where is it going?’

  “‘To America,’ the woman said. She was about thirty, not pretty but womanly.

  “‘You have to get an exit visa,’ the woman said. ‘You go to the end of the dock. If you didn’t get one in your district, you go there and stand in line.’

  “‘And,’ said her friend, an overflowing older woman with a very wide hat, ‘when you get in, you tell them you want to go and you pay them a bribe, and they make you wait a few days. If you don’t bribe, you wait a week or two weeks or ten, but you go, anyway. You go because you are Jewish, and they want to get rid of you as much as you want to go.’

  “‘I know,’ I said.

  “‘Yes,’ said the woman, whose arm I still held. I let her loose, and Abraham and I walked in the direction to the visa’ shack, stepping over sleeping families, couples huddled together. The heavy mist from the sea and the ship drifted over the crowd, a cloud that covered clumps of people, that blanketed but didn’t protect us.

  “Shifting my sack from one shoulder to the next a dozen times, I finally found a long line stretching for what looked like miles. We watched the line for fifteen minutes, but it did not move.

  “‘The office is closed until the morning,’ said a man we were standing in front of. Abraham and I had made the man nervous, and the fellow, a frayed creature in a gray foreign-looking suit, wanted us to be gone. ‘Go to the end and wait till it opens.’

  “We nodded and moved toward the end, a hike almost as long as the one we had taken from the two women to the line itself. We sat at the rear behind two old couples and watched an old man with a long beard hugging himself hard to keep out the cold, though the night was not as terrible as others we had suffered in the last two weeks. I watched Abraham’s eyes turning into the night mist in the direction of Yekteraslav, not expecting to see anything but unable to turn away.

  “‘You want a visa?’

  “The voice was soft, pleading; the words in Yiddish I found hard to understand. I turned my eyes to the voice and automatically put my hand out to protect my jacket and money. The man before me was short, almost a dwarf. He was clean-shaven, and his mouth showed an incredibly jagged line of teeth, distorting his face so that he had a permanent look, which might have been a smile or a grimace of pain.

  “‘You want a visa?’ repeated the little man.

  “‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We need visas.’

  “‘And a passage on that ship?’ the little man said, nodding back toward the dock.

  “‘Yes,’ I said.

  “‘Can you pay?’ said the man.

  “The old man, hugging himself, leaned into the conversation and looked at the little man.

  “‘He’s a shtupper,” said the old man. ‘A pig sticker. He gets people who don’t want to leave to sell him visas, and then he resells them, taking places away from people who should be on the ships.’

  “‘You don’t know,’ hissed the little man. ‘You old cocker. You don’t know.’

  “‘How much do you want?’ I said, grabbing at the possibility of immediately departing from fear and memory.

  “‘Maybe more than you can pay?’

  “I reached out and grabbed the little man by the collar, clapping my hand over his mouth to quiet him. The feel of the wet mouth disgusted me.

  “‘Just tell me.’

  “‘Show me what you have,’ whispered the little man.

  “I turned my back and pulled out my money, but the man had maneuvered to see it.

  “‘I’ll take that,’ said the little man. ‘All of it.’

  “‘Show me the visas and the tickets,’ I demanded.

  “The little man pulled a crumpled package from his pocket and held it out. Inside the package was a folded piece of cardboard.

  “‘That’s only one visa, one ticket,’ I said, looking at Abraham, who had said nothing, only looked like a frightened cow since we had descended into the nightmare of Riga.

  “The old man nodded yes, that he had only one ticket, one visa, that we would have to make up our minds if we wanted it. I said no, and lifted my sack, stepping out of line and back into the mist and the tangle of waiting bodies. Abraham hesitated and followed. He said something to the old man, who nodded, and I called over my shoulder to Abraham to join with me. I’ll tell you the truth. I planned to find two people, get them out of line behind a shack and take their tickets and, if need be, their lives, but I never got the chance. Abraham and I huddled in the chill fog behind a storage shack on the dock, and I dozed. Being hit is supposed to knock you out. It woke me for an instant like a headache, and I found myself looking up at Abraham, who stood over me, my mother’s candlestick in his hand. He brought the candlestick down again on my head. I was stunned, couldn’t move, blood coming into my eyes. I’m sure he took me for dead. I know I was unconscious.

  “When I woke up, it was just dawn. My sack was gone. The money was gone. I lurched to the dock as people were boarding the ship, and I could see Abraham in the crowd. He saw me, too, and fear was in his eyes. I tried to get on the ship, tried to push past the people crowding the gangplank, screamed like a mad bloody fool, and was thrown from the dock by ship’s guards.

  “I had passed out again and lay there, in the crowd gathering for the next ship. People moved around me, waiting for me to die. Some went through my pockets. I could feel it, but there was nothing to take. Abraham, my friend from childhood, had taken everything. Obviously, I did not die. I was too stubborn to die. I crawled away that night, stole some food, and the next day, when I felt strong enough, I washed my face in stinging seawater and found a solitary man who had a ticket and a visa. His name was Vasili Rosnechikov. I became Vasili Rosnechikov, and I got on the next ship with a small sack of food purchased with Vasili Rosnechikov’s money. Two hours later I felt the boat creak and lurch and heard sailors running around and yelling, heard old women crying and being comforted by old men, heard young people laugh with joy, touched with fear of the unknown future, but I sat looking at my filthy hands and the deck of the ship, not back at the shore, at Russia. I was on my way to America to kill Abraham Savitskaya.”

  The story had taken a half hour or more, but Rostnikov had not interrupted. It had been an old man’s story, a story remembered or imagined in vivid detail, the fairy tale of his life, the justification for his existence. In the corner near the door to the restaurant, Zelach had begun to slouch, losing whatever alertness he had managed to muster. Tkach, mindful of recent embarrassment, stood alert. Martin, the gunman, had folded his arms and leaned back, refusing drinks from the bottle shared by the policeman and Posniky.

  “And so,” said Rostnikov, pouring himself and Posniky the last of the bottle and feeling slightly drunk, “you went to America and were unable to find S
avitskaya.”

  “I did not find him,” Posniky agreed, clenching his worn teeth and remembering his frustration. “I found other things while I looked. I found how to take care of myself. I—let us just say that I made a good living. I raised a family. I have grandchildren, even two great-grandchildren. I don’t show photographs anymore. I can’t remember which one has which name. But I kept looking for Abraham. I almost caught up to him in St. Louis.”

  “That is in Missouri,” said Rostnikov with pride.

  “Right,” agreed Posniky. “But he found out I was after him. Then I found he had come back to Russia. He came back here to hide from me, came back with my mother’s candlestick. Through contacts I found that he had a protector who had helped him get back into Russia, to get away from me; at least that’s what they said.”

  “And who was this protector?” asked Rostnikov, knowing that he would have to rise soon or his leg would lock in pain.

  The old man shrugged. “Whoever it was”—he sighed—“he didn’t protect him this time. You can’t imagine the feeling I’ve lived with, the feeling of unfinished business. You wake up with it every morning.”

  “Like finding the last few pages missing from a mystery novel you like and knowing the book is so old that you will probably never know the ending,” said Rostnikov.

  “Exactly,” said the old man, looking up and brushing back his mane of colorless hair.

  “And now?”

  “And now,” said Posniky with resignation, “I am finished. I’ve read you the last two pages of your mystery, and you can close the book. A question: is there some way we can get Martin on the plane? Somehow this reminds me of that day in Riga sixty years ago. Only this time it is me and Martin and an airplane.”

  Martin, hearing his name mentioned, came alert and looked at the two men.

  “We will see,” said Rostnikov, starting to get up. “But not now. I think we must now go to my office for an official statement.” Posniky leaned forward, and for an instant Porfiry Petrovich feared that the tough old man was going to have a heart attack or cry. Instead, he reached under the table and came up with a brown package, which clearly contained the brass candlestick.

  “Let’s go,” he said, but Martin was not prepared to go without trouble. He pushed his chair back, looked to the two doors, chose Tkach’s, and ran toward him. Rostnikov reached out to grab him but was too late. Martin bumped into one table where a couple was eating soup, which went flying.

  Rostnikov could but watch as Martin, a head taller and much more solid, rushed at Tkach, who appeared to step to the side to let him pass. When Martin hit the hinged kitchen door, he threw Tkach a quick warning look that Tkach answered with a solid right fist to Martin’s throat. Martin twisted, clutching his throat, and Tkach hit him again with a nearby chair.

  Customers watched. Women screamed, and Zelach ambled over to help subdue the writhing American.

  “He’s still young,” said Posniky, who was standing at Rostnikov’s side with the candlestick under his arm. “He doesn’t know when he has lost. I was the same. Let’s go, chief inspector.”

  Ignoring the crowd, which seemed to realize that a police or KGB action was taking place, Zelach and Tkach handcuffed Martin’s hands behind him and led him out behind Rostnikov and Posniky, who moved slowly through the lobby and onto the sidewalk.

  “This is the first time I have been in Moscow,” Posniky said, looking around. “When I was a boy, my family wouldn’t let us come to the city. They thought Jews were routinely slaughtered on the streets of Moscow.”

  Rostnikov turned to watch Zelach shove the gasping, angry Martin forward. The turn, as it was, probably saved Rostnikov’s life. A dark car screeched down the street away from the curb. It roared in front of a taxi that was just pulling away from the Metropole, leaped the curb, and hit Posniky, who had no idea that it was coming. The fender of the moving car missed Rostnikov by a shadow as he fell back to the sidewalk. Posniky was sucked under the car and disappeared for an instant, though Rostnikov could hear his body thud against the undercarriage of the automobile. Then the car jerked forward, hitting a young woman, who was lifted into the air. From the rear of the black car Posniky’s twisted, bloody body was spat out toward the seated Rostnikov. The packaged brass candlestick was still clutched tightly in the gnarled hand of the corpse.

  NINE

  AS THE CAR HAD STRUCK Posniky, a thought had struck Rostnikov. The driver’s face had been covered with a scarf even in the hot evening, but Rostnikov was sure of two things about that driver. First, that it was a man and not a woman. Second, that it was not an old man. He was also certain, even as the car deposited the body before him, that it had been no accident. The eyes of the driver had not been shrouded by drink. They had been quite cold, quite firm, quite professional.

  There was a silent fraction of a second when the world stopped and everyone and everything froze, everything but the dark car speeding away down the avenue. Rostnikov knew from experience that the silent moment was so slight, so nearly imperceptible, that only those who had learned to experience it even noticed it existed. He had never discussed that halting of time with anyone, had savored it secretly, wondered at how many thoughts, ideas, insights, came during that hush. And then it was over.

  Women were screaming. The handcuffed American lurched forward and tripped, sprawling hard on his face and smashing his nose. Tkach leaned over to pick him up as Zelach shambled over to the woman who had been hit by the car that had ground the old man to rags. People rushed out of the hotel. One man actually ran down the street after the disappearing automobile. The world, following the silent moment, rushed by, and Rostnikov felt himself moving slowly, letting madness wave past him. He knelt and removed the candlestick from the old man’s dead hand.

  “Call an ambulance,” shouted Zelach from the stricken woman whom he was tending. “You,” he said, pointing to one of the hotel clerks who had rushed out. “Call now.”

  Martin was on his knees, his nose crushed, eyes wide open, and Tkach was using his own handkerchief to stop the bleeding.

  “I must go, Sasha,” Rostnikov said, tucking the candlestick under his right arm.

  Tkach looked up from his prisoner with a question but held it back when he saw Rostnikov’s face. The Washtub was somewhere else. For a moment Tkach thought that the chief inspector might be in shock from the hit-and-run, the crushed body, the near miss, but he was sure that what he saw in that worn face was a disturbing thought.

  “Where can I reach you?” Tkach said. Already down the street a police car was screeching through the night.

  “I’m not sure. I may be at the home of Lev Ostrovsky or at the Moscow Art Theatre, the old one. Old men are dying.”

  That old men were dying seemed perfectly normal to Tkach, who was a young man, but he looked at the pieces of bone and flesh that had once been Mikhail Posniky, and he nodded.

  Five uniformed policemen appeared from nowhere and began to hold the crowd back. Rostnikov and the candlestick moved past the policemen and into the small crowd. He broke through and found himself moving through a traffic jam.

  “What happened?” a fat woman in a gray dress asked him.

  “An old man died,” he said absently, and walked on.

  He had Lev Ostrovsky’s address in his pocket, but he was closer to the theater and decided to head there first. He was probably too late, but he had to try. Of course, he might be wrong. There were many possibilities. The black car could already have visited Lev Ostrovsky. Or it might now be on its way to find him. Or someone else might be taking care of Ostrovsky. Or Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov might be entirely wrong.

  The taxi driver looked at him suspiciously, eyed the heavy package under the arm of the square man with the bad leg, and wondered whether it was a gun or a bar to hit him with and take his money. The driver, whose name was Ivan Ivanov, was very sensitive to the commonness of his name, the anonymity of his existence. There were times when he wondered if anyone would miss on
e more or less Ivan Ivanov.

  “Where?” he said, shifting his roll of rubles from his pocket to the space under the seat cushion.

  “Moscow Art Theatre,” Rostnikov said. “I’m a policeman. Hurry.”

  Ivan Ivanov looked up in his mirror, examined the face of the man, decided that he was a policeman, and hoped that the five bottles of vodka he had under the seat would not rattle as he drove. He did hurry to the theater, not so much because he wanted to please the dour policeman but to get rid of him.

  Rostnikov removed his tie when he got out of the cab and paid the fare. He shoved his change into his trouser pocket along with the tie and headed for the same door through which he had gone before.

  This time a pair of men sat at a table just inside the door. One man, lean and gray, wore a cap on his head. The other man, younger, fine featured, sat against the table, his arms folded.

  “Police,” Rostnikov said, holding up his identification card.

  The gray man shrugged.

  “They’re that way, stage. Remind them there’s a performance tonight and we have to set up,” he said, turning back to the younger man, who looked as if he had been interrupted in the middle of a story he wanted to get back to.

  “Who’s that way?” said Rostnikov.

  “The other policemen.”

  “Maybe it’s a police festival, a cultural evening,” said the younger man, looking away from Rostnikov.

  “How many of them?” Rostnikov asked. “How many policemen?”

  “Two,” said the gray man, rubbing his stubby chin.

  Rostnikov hurried down the narrow hallway, following the turns, remembering the way. Behind him he could hear the sound of the younger man’s voice saying something sarcastic, but he couldn’t make it out. When he made the first turn, Rostnikov ripped the brown paper from the candlestick and threw it in a corner. He hurried as quickly as his leg would allow him to the small door that lead to the stage. He held the heavy candlestick up, imagining Posniky using it before Rostnikov was even born to smash the skulls of his victims on the road, imagining Abraham Savitskaya bringing the brass weight down on Posniky on the dock at Riga.