Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express ir-14

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  “You mean performing? That was last week. Wednesday, I think. They’re due back on Saturday. Saturday is a big night.”

  “He come in here when he’s not performing?”

  “I’m told,” Karoli said, looking at the ice in his drink. “He likes to be patted on the back, praised. The skinheads buy him drinks and things.”

  “Things?” asked Karpo. “Drugs?”

  “Things,” Karoli answered. “We don’t sell anything but soft drinks and alcohol and a few things to eat. Chips. They love chips. You know how many bags of chips we sell every week?”

  “I do not,” said Karpo.

  “Eight, nine hundred, maybe more,” said Karoli proudly. “We get all kinds from a plant outside the city. They have a deal with some potato farmers in the north.”

  “Misha Lovski,” Karpo repeated. “He was in here two nights ago.

  “Wait, Yervonovich is still here. He doesn’t sleep. Bartender. Knows everybody. Wait.”

  Karoli motioned to one of the nearby cleaning women, who came over, a rag in her hand.

  “Go in the back. Get Abbi,” he ordered.

  The woman looked at the two policemen and moved slowly around the long bar and through a door.

  “Between you and me and nobody else,” Karoli said. “A lot of the skinheads like Naked Cossack because of the girl, the redheaded girl who backs him and pretends to play.”

  “Anarchista,” Zelach said.

  “That is right,” Karoli confirmed. “Crazy business. At another club, the Cossack and the girl pretended to have sex during a song he was singing about wanting to be an American Indian and scalp slaves. Sick stuff. And he is not the worst. Filth. But it is a good living. I like the old stuff. Rock ’n’ roll. Elvis. Bill Haley. Johnny Rotten.”

  A man staggered out through the door behind the bar. He wore no shirt and there was a dark stain on his tan slacks. The man was hairless and looked ancient and hung over.

  “Abbi,” Karoli said. “Cops. They have questions. Answer them. We don’t want trouble.”

  “When was Misha Lovski last in here?” asked Karpo.

  “Naked Cossack,” Zelach explained.

  “Cossack,” Abbi repeated, followed by a cough. “Last here. Yesterday. The day before. The Iron Maidens were on. I remember.”

  “That was the day before yesterday,” Karoli explained.

  “What?” asked Abbi, straining to hear. “I’m going deaf from the damned music. I wear earplugs. Thick ones, but it drives through my head like a sharp nail. What did you say?”

  “Who was he hanging around with?” Karpo asked loudly.

  Abbi scratched his head and searched his pockets. He came up with a crumpled cigarette, looked at it, and threw it on the floor.

  “We just cleaned back there,” a large woman said.

  “Pick it up, Abbi,” said Karoli.

  Abbi nodded, sighed, and leaned over to pick up the cigarette. When he stood on uncertain legs, Karpo repeated the question.

  “Everybody,” Abbi said. “Everybody wanted to touch him or the girl. They didn’t mind. They never do. There were two skinheads who took it on themselves to protect him and the girl, stayed with them. Big guys. Kids.”

  “With whom did he leave?” asked Karpo.

  “Leave? I don’t know. I think it was the skins. The other two guys from the band, Naked Cossack’s band. They weren’t here. I think the girl was here, the crazy one with red hair. Maybe not. The skins. I saw the Cossack with some skins.”

  “Names?”

  “The skinheads? Real names? I don’t know real names. Bottle Kaps and … let me think, Heinrich. That’s it. Bottle Kaps and Heinrich. Tattoos on their arms. Nazi stuff., SS, swastikas. Stupid talk.”

  “Where can we find Bottle Kaps and Heinrich?” asked Karpo.

  “Find them? Here, tonight. Almost every night,” Abbi said. “Tonight especially. Death Times Four is on. Their lead … what’s his name? …”

  “Snub Nose Bullet,” Zelach supplied.

  “Yeah, Snub Nose Bullet,” Abbi confirmed with a smirk, plunging his hands into his pockets. “Loud, very loud. Screeching. Drums. Steel. I need some sleep.”

  “Go in back,” said Karoli. “Get some sleep.”

  Abbi nodded and went back through the door behind the bar.

  “Yes,” said Karoli. “He’s a drunk but an amazing bartender. He’s like an artist. Drunk one second and then when the customers hit the bar he becomes an acrobat. I think he used to be an accountant. Me, I used to sell office supplies.”

  “We’ll be back tonight,” said Karpo. “Tell no one. Not even your partner.”

  “Then don’t tell him you told me you were coming back,” he said. “I’ve got enough grief with him. When I have enough saved, I’m going to buy him out or sell out and start my own place. The hell with my wife. The hell with her sister. A man can only take so much. You know what I mean?”

  The detectives turned, crossed the room, opened the door, and went out into a light falling snow.

  Porfiry Petrovich read the note, neatly printed in ink on a piece of paper that showed the creases of a double fold. The note read:

  Take the green rubles in a simple bag on the Two leaving M. for V. on Thursday. Contact will be made en route. Contact will give you the words Nicholas’s Secret. Give contact the suitcase after contact gives you a package. Do not open the package. Deliver it to Ivan. Collect fee remainder from Ivan.

  The note was unsigned. Rostnikov laid it flat before him and looked up at the Yak, who gave a slight tilt of his head to indicate that he waited for his chief inspector’s response.

  “Two is the number-two train leaving from M., Moscow, on Thursday. Green rubles are not rubles. They are another green currency, probably dollars, half a million American dollars.”

  Rostnikov paused. Today was Thursday.

  “Go on,” said the Yak.

  “There is nowhere to go until you give me more information.”

  Porfiry Petrovich wanted to take off his leg and scratch the stump. The itching was demanding, almost unbearable. He sat motionless.

  “The message was intercepted,” said the Yak. “The sender, who was being watched, was taken into custody. What you have is a copy of a one-sided telephone conversation. The call was from the sender’s apartment in Odessa to a phone booth in Moscow. The Odessa phone line was tapped. The receiver at the phone booth said nothing. By the time a car arrived at the booth, the receiver was long gone. In the course of interrogating the sender-a very old man who unfortunately died under the strain of vigorous questioning-it was determined that the old man had simply been hired in a bar by a woman he could not identify. He was given a handful of rubles to make the call and repeat exactly what is on the sheet before you. Security forces considered it a dead end, possibly drugs, smuggled currency. They lost interest. There wasn’t enough information for them to board the train and search all the luggage for a bag of money. And even if they found such a bag, it would prove nothing.”

  “And I am to board the Trans-Siberian Express tonight, find the person with the bag of money, and? …” asked Rostnikov.

  “I am not interested in the money or the man,” said Yaklovev, suddenly standing. “Though you are to bring both to me. What is more important, I want the package. Look at the next item in the folder before you.”

  Rostnikov opened the folder and pulled out the xeroxed sheet of two pages copied from what must have been an old book.

  “Read,” said the Yak.

  The two pages dealt with court intrigue during the decline of the reign of Czar Nicholas I. There was speculation on the relationship of Russia to Japan, the growing hostility between the two countries over offshore islands in the Sea of Japan. Highlighted in yellow marker were the words: “believed to have been a secret treaty signed by the czar and the emperor of Japan. The document supposedly disappeared or was stolen en route from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg.”

  Rostnikov looked up.

  “
Speculation?” asked the Yak.

  “The person with the suitcase full of money is buying the document?” Rostnikov tried.

  The Yak said nothing.

  “Such a document would have little political or economic significance even if it did exist,” Rostnikov said. “Agreements made by a Czar a hundred years ago would not be honored today and it would do little good to attack the royal family. It is ancient history.

  “Go on.”

  “And there is little reason to see a connection between this intercepted message and the supposed document.”

  “And so you believe the pursuit of this package is not worthy of action?”

  Behind the Yak, through the window, Rostnikov could see the snow beginning to fall. It heartened him. Winter was his season, the season of most Moscovites. A clean white blanket of snow. Crisp chill air. He considered pointing out the falling snow to the director and thought better of it. Instead, he said, “I believe it is worth pursuing.”

  His reasons for making the statement needed no further comment. There was something the Yak was not telling him. There was probably a great deal the Yak was not telling him.

  “Take one of your people with you.”

  “Sasha Tkach,” Rostnikov answered without hesitation. “He has no immediate assignment.”

  That was true, but the chief inspector had other reasons for wanting the less-than-stable detective to accompany him.

  The Yak turned his back and walked to the window, hands folded behind his back. He was looking at the falling snow.

  “It will not be easy to locate the courier,” said the Yak. “But I have great confidence in you, Porfiry Petrovich.”

  “I shall do my best to merit such confidence,” said Rostnikov.

  “Pankov will hand you tickets for you and Tkach on your way out. The number-two train leaves a few minutes before midnight. You are in separate first-class compartments. If the courier is a professional, and it seems that he or she is, then they are likely to be in first class, if for no reason other than to protect the suitcase full of money. You have twelve hours to prepare. Take the entire folder. You have one-way tickets. As soon as you find the package, the courier, and the money, you are to fly back to Moscow from the nearest airport. Pankov will take care of all travel arrangements and provide you with necessary expense money. You will return whatever you do not use directly to him.”

  Rostnikov rose, steadying his leg with both hands as he did so. He picked up the file folder and his notebook and turned toward the door.

  “No one sees the contents of the package,” the Yak said, his back still turned. “It is to be delivered to me unopened.”

  “Unopened,” said Rostnikov. He closed the door gently behind him and stood before the desk of the moist-foreheaded Pankov.

  Without a word Pankov handed Rostnikov a thick envelope, and the chief inspector departed. Three minutes later he was in his office, door closed, behind his desk. He dropped the folder and envelope with the tickets and cash on his desk and quickly removed his artificial leg as he sat. He began scratching the stump as he settled back. Ecstasy. Pure delight. Better than Sarah s Chicken Tabak. Better than walking in the snow. Better than winning the senior weight-lifting title in Ismailovo Park. The itch slowly spread and Rostnikov worked on it as he reached for the phone on his desk with one hand and pushed a number on the keyboard.

  “Come to my office,” he said and hung up.

  The itching slowly departed and Porfiry Petrovich reconsidered the delights of life. Scratching an itch was very good, but Chicken Tabak, sex, snow, and the rush from lifting massive weights had now moved high above it on his list of pleasures.

  He put his legs down, the front of the desk hiding the artificial leg he had not replaced on the chance that the itch would return.

  Rostnikov had believed very little of what Yaklovev had told him, but that didn’t matter. The assignment was clear and probably not as difficult as it appeared to be on the surface.

  A knock.

  “Come in.”

  Sasha Tkach entered. Rostnikov motioned him across the small space and nodded at the chair on the other side of the desk. Sasha sat.

  “How would you like to take a trip?”

  “Where?”

  “Siberia, the Trans-Siberian Express.”

  “To China?”

  “Vladivostok.”

  Sasha brushed the lock of hair from his face. He did not look pleased by the prospect of the journey.

  “When?” asked Sasha.

  “Tonight,” said Rostnikov.

  “Maya is coming back tomorrow,” he said.

  “I am pleased to hear that,” said Rostnikov. “You can call her. Tell her to move in with the children, get resettled, have the apartment to herself. Does Lydia know Maya is coming back?”

  “Yes,” said Sasha. “I should be here.”

  “Perhaps not” said Rostnikov. “Perhaps Maya would welcome a few days or so without the awkwardness of reunion. And you would have time away from Lydia.”

  “That would be good,” Sasha admitted.

  “Can you keep her away from Maya and the children?”

  “No,” said Sasha. “She paid for their return tickets. She wants to see her grandchildren. Maya knows. She understands.”

  “Good. Tonight. Number-two train. I’ll pick you up in a cab around ten. Have you ever been to Siberia?”

  “No,” said Sasha.

  “It can be cold, beautiful,” said Rostnikov. It can also be quite deadly, he thought.

  “Do I have a choice?” asked Sasha.

  “Refusal is always an option, but refusal has consequences,” said Rostnikov. “That is not a threat, Sasha. It is an essential moral essence of life.”

  “I have some work to finish,” said Sasha, standing.

  “Call Maya from here; your office,” said Rostnikov. “It is police business. I’m sure Director Yaklovev will not mind.” He was equally certain that the Yak was listening to the conversation. “Pack enough for seven days,” he added.

  If things went well and they found the courier and the package, they might be back sooner, possibly much sooner, but they had to be prepared to travel all the way to Vladivostok if necessary.

  Sasha nodded and left the office.

  Rostnikov thought the younger detective was in serious need of a change of scenery. It would probably be snowing in Siberia. He could spend hours looking out at mountains, losing himself in a meditation he would not recognize as meditation.

  Rostnikov sat back and turned his chair toward the window so he could watch the snow and plan how he was to find his quarry, on a train full of people, when he had no idea who he might be looking for.

  A bag of half a million American dollars, or deutsche marks or French francs or British pounds, would be reasonably large even if the bills were in large denominations. Starting with the first-class passengers, he would have Sasha make his way through the train, examining every piece of luggage. A passenger who carried a sizeable bag with him or her at all times would be a certain target. Distracting the carrier might be difficult but Rostnikov enjoyed a game of distraction.

  Because of his leg, Rostnikovs task would be the diversion of individual passengers. The agile and innocent-appearing Sasha Tkach would do the search of each compartment.

  It was a reasonable plan, but there had to be contingencies. He would work them out. Later he would work them out.

  But now he began to think seriously about lunch.

  Chapter Five

  There were plainclothes police officers at every one of the twenty-two stops of the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya line, the orange line, of the Moscow metro. Some carried newspapers, pretending to read. Others carried briefcases and wore watches, which they checked periodically as if they were late for an important meeting. A few were more creative.

  Most of the officers, regular users of the metro system themselves, were aware that the more successful businessmen, government officials, and Mafiosi of the city
seldom used the underground. Although there was a clear class distinction, there were still many well-dressed men in the age group of the men who had been attacked.

  One young officer named Mariankyov assigned to the Cheryomushki station dressed up like a gypsy, or what he thought a gypsy looked like. He was the most conspicuous of all the police officers. Gypsy men alone on the platform at a metro station or at a bus stop were open warnings that a pickpocket was present. The truth was that the gypsy pickpockets had long since learned to dress more conservatively.

  People avoided Mariankyov, except for one old man in an overcoat who bumped into him as he rushed to catch a departing train. Moments later Mariankyov discovered that his pocket had been picked.

  By noon, five women had been picked up based upon their resemblance to the drawing each officer carried in his memory and his pocket. The women were brought to Elena Timofeyeva and Iosef Rostnikov, who headquartered in a small office at the Tretyakovskaya station at the center of the line.

  One of the women was the wife of a Portuguese leather buyer. The woman had been in Moscow for only one day and carried no knife. She was released.

  Another woman was an actress with the Moscow Theater Company. Iosef knew her slightly from his theater days. She carried no knife and found the arrest interesting. She was released.

  The third woman did have a small folding knife in her purse, along with a can of Mace. She was terrified of muggers and not particularly at ease with the police. She had once been accosted by a drunk on her way to work as a hotel maid. She was released.

  The fourth woman was Chinese. She was released.

  The fifth woman was not a woman at all but a transvestite prostitute coming home from an unsuccessful morning, which did not surprise either of the detectives since the man was incredibly homely. He carried a razor in his pocket. It was an ancient straight razor. He said the sight of it usually deterred people who did not understand or appreciate alternative life-styles and careers. He was released.

  None of those arrested had a sprained wrist.

  While all this was going on, more than fifty thousand people traveled to work, home, sightseeing, and nowhere in particular on the metro system. The system opened each morning at six and closed at one the following morning. That gave the cleaning crews a little over five hours to clean the platforms, walls, pillars, and tracks, and repair any broken windows or chipped paint. The cleaning crews worked quickly and generally efficiently, depending on who headed each particular crew.