Hard Currency

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  They moved past the young man through a door and into a room in which a black woman of no clear age sat in an unsteady wicker chair cradling a girl of about three. In front of them on a rickety table sat a television set on which a movie with the American actor Tony Perkins was playing. The top and bottom of the screen were black and the image was faint and distorted. There was a small bench against one wall, a wooden chair, and a table whose top had been bolted down to a broad wooden base. A refrigerator, pre-Batista, stood against one wall. There was no other furniture.

  What struck Rostnikov was not only the emptiness of the room but the lowness of the ceiling. Anyone more than six feet tall, like the young man who stood guard outside the door, would have to stoop.

  “There is a room above this one,” said Javier, seeing Rostnikov’s eyes. “Hector and his son built it. They all sleep up there. They have to crawl into their beds.”

  Hector introduced his wife, who took Rostnikov’s hand with limp resignation. The child looked at him and without knowing why, Rostnikov reached for her. She came willingly and put her head against his shoulder.

  Hector motioned to the wooden chair and Rostnikov sat awkwardly.

  “Señor Consequo is not a Santería,” said Javier. “They, the police, the Carerras, they say he is but he is not one of us. We are there for him should he change his mind.”

  Hector looked at his wife, who handed him a lit cigarette, which he took and put to his lips. He inhaled deeply before speaking again.

  “He says Castro gave him an education, a knowledge of the world, and hope he cannot fulfill. Castro also took his faith. He says he cannot believe.”

  Hector raised his hand again as if he were a schoolboy who needed permission.

  On the television, at which Hector’s wife continued to look, Tony Perkins was growing hysterical. Hector Consequo spoke again, quickly, passionately, his eyes moist.

  “He says he wants to tell you something, that he must tell you something that you should tell others. Then he will tell you what you want to know.”

  Rostnikov nodded and felt the breath of the child against his neck. He could tell she was either sleeping or in the stage just before sleep.

  Hector spoke again and Javier nodded his head.

  “He says there is no opportunity here for Negro people. They cannot fish in the sea. They do not hold public office. They do not have enough to eat and they are not allowed to make a living.”

  Still speaking rapidly, Hector rose, and opened his refrigerator. It was empty and he urged Javier to translate.

  “We are allowed only a bit of chicken and barely enough milk for the children. And it was no better before you Russians abandoned us. Before Castro we were oppressed and knew nothing better existed. After Castro we were educated and given a dream which we know can never be achieved.”

  Hector interrupted and pointed around the room as he spoke even more rapidly.

  “He says, can you believe that we are considered the most successful family in the neighborhood?”

  “No zapatos,” said Hector, holding up a finger of his right hand.

  “No shoes,” Javier translated.

  “No vestidos.”

  “No clothes.”

  Hector rattled on, holding up finger after finger, his cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his voice rising.

  “He says that he is given nothing and allowed to earn nothing. He can fix anything, but if they catch him charging for repairs, he will be in trouble. The police come through here whenever they wish to be sure he does not have more food than his quota and that he is not doing work to which he has not been assigned.”

  “Basta,” said Hector with a sigh.

  “Enough,” Javier translated.

  With Javier continuing to translate, Tony Perkins growing more calm on the thin screen, the child sleeping in his arms, and his leg throbbing painfully, Rostnikov listened to Hector Consequo’s statement about the night Maria Fernandez was murdered.

  The possibility existed, though Rostnikov doubted Hector’s dramatic skills, that the man was lying. The possibility also existed that Javier was not translating accurately, but that was highly unlikely since Javier could not have been sure how much of the Spanish Rostnikov understood.

  According to Hector Consequo, on the night of the murder he was in the basement trying to repair a wire when he heard screams above and people on the stairs. He stepped into the stairwell. There were voices above him but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. No one came down the stairs and went out. Then the police arrived and Hector went out through a door in the rear of the building. He returned the next morning when he was sure the police were gone. Among the things he did was go to the roof to reattach a wire. He had no idea there had been a murder. He thought it had been a family argument. To reattach the wire, he had strung it across to the next apartment building. Hector swore that there had been no painter’s plank, no ladder, nothing on the roof of either building.

  “Yo estoy seguro,” Hector said emphatically.

  “He is sure,” Javier translated. “You have any other questions?”

  “No,” said Rostnikov. “Tell him that I know he has risked a great deal to talk to me and I am very grateful.”

  Javier translated and Hector nodded and rose.

  Rostnikov handed the father his limp, sleeping child. The little girl had left a warm, damp impression on Rostnikov’s shoulder. He watched the child being handed to the mother, who rose to take her, and he forced himself up out of the chair. Hector shook hands solemnly with both men.

  “Is it proper for me to give him some money for his help?” asked Rostnikov.

  “He is a proud man,” said Javier. “To offer him money would demean the chance he has taken in talking to you. You can give me money later and I’ll send him two packages of American cigarettes. It is enough.”

  Javier led the way to the door and into the night where Hector’s son José waited.

  “And now?” asked Rostnikov.

  “And now,” said Javier, “we go to see the babalau.”

  “Your father?”

  “My father.”

  Emil Karpo was fully awake and reaching for the lamp next to his bed before the phone actually rang. The initial surge of electricity had set off an almost silent click that had him awake and half seated as the first ring started. The phone was in his hand before the ring had ended.

  “Yes,” said Karpo, looking at the clock and confirming his intuition that it was nearly three in the morning.

  “Do you know who I am?” came the voice.

  “You identified yourself earlier as Igor Polynetsin,” said Karpo.

  “And?”

  “And you are not Igor Polynetsin. There are three Igor Polynetsins in Moscow, or likely variations. You are none of them.”

  “It is a cold night.” Yevgeny Odom shivered as he looked both ways down Sherikpskaya Street from the public phone. Half the streetlights were out and no one was in sight.

  “This was anticipated by the meteorological service,” said Karpo.

  He was seated on his narrow cot with his bare feet touching the cold concrete floor. Karpo slept two ways, in a clean black pullover cotton shirt, short-sleeved or long-sleeved depending on the weather, and a pair of washable black slacks; or he slept nude. Until the last two years, Emil Karpo had always slept clothed and under a blanket even in the musky heat of Moscow summer. Since meeting Mathilde Verson, he had become intolerant of any covering at night.

  “Karpo.”

  “Yes,” said Emil Karpo.

  “Don’t you want to know how I got your home phone number?”

  “No,” answered Karpo. “There are many ways. It is not difficult.”

  Sudden panic filled Yevgeny Odom. The man was too calm. Was his phone monitored? Had he said something in his earlier call that made the detective suspicious? No, there was nothing, but he should hang up. He knew he should hang up. And yet …

  “I know the one yo
u call Tahpor,” said Yevgeny. He pulled the collar of his coat around his neck as a gust of chill wind came off the river and whistled down the street like a searching ghost.

  “Case 341,” said Karpo.

  Yevgeny Odom laughed, but as the laugh echoed down the street, chasing the ghost of the chill wind, he stopped suddenly.

  “Do you believe me?” asked Odom.

  “I neither believe nor disbelieve. If you wish me to believe, you may give me details of some of the crimes in Case File 341.”

  “I don’t like being a number,” said Yevgeny seriously.

  “The decision to assign this crime a number is a matter of investigatory policy. It was not done to please or displease you.”

  “Details,” said Odom, turning around and leaning against the kiosk next to the phone stand. “So many. The girl on the embankment, July 2, 1990. She was bitten on the back of her neck. I selected her because she looked so ripe, so clean. But she was evil. I did it for him.”

  “For him?”

  “For Kola,” Yevgeny explained.

  “For Kola?”

  “I think Kola might be growing fur.”

  “Fur?”

  “On his back. I may throw up.”

  “You said he was evil,” said Karpo quickly.

  “No. You misunderstood,” said Yevgeny with a sigh. Perhaps he had made a mistake. Perhaps he had made contact with a dull-witted policeman with whom he could not talk. “I said she was evil.”

  “You said she was evil,” Karpo corrected himself. “She was a clerk in a government butcher shop. What had she done that was evil?”

  “She was not a clerk in a butcher shop,” Odom said with a smile. “She was a prostitute posing as a student in need of money to help her finish her education. Her name was Anya Profft. All this is on my board.”

  “Your board?”

  “Never mind,” said Odom impatiently. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes,” said Karpo. “So you and Kola killed the girl.”

  In the long pause Karpo could hear the ambient sounds of a street.

  “Yes, I am guilty. But only of finding them. Kola … This is lonely business, Karpo. I have to be strong. I have no choice. No one asked me if I wanted to do this. He was there, waiting, growing, demanding. Do you have any idea what that is like, what it took from me to keep him contained for all these years?”

  “Yes,” said Karpo, and Odom believed that the man with the flat voice on the other end of the line really did understand. “You will have to go underground soon.”

  The pause was long.

  “What do you mean?” asked Odom.

  “Hide.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “If you do not, you will be caught.”

  “Why are you giving me advice?”

  “I am not,” said Karpo. “I’m pointing out that you are a man scheduled for a long dark ride. I think you have no choice but to take that ride even if it leads you to your death.”

  “Everyone dies, Karpo. Do you have a first name?”

  “Yes.”

  Pause.

  “What is it?”

  “I would prefer not to have you use it,” said Karpo.

  “Are you mad, policeman? You are supposed to be friendly to me. Exchange first names, life stories. I’ve read the manuals. Septnekvikov’s biography.”

  “Do you wish to turn yourself in?” asked Karpo.

  “Turn myself … No. I wish … I wish to be understood. Not forgiven. I’ve done nothing to be forgiven for. Kola has killed forty-one people. See, I’m not afraid of the word, killed. I don’t use cowardly euphemisms. I don’t say ‘eliminated’ or ‘removed’ or ‘did away with.’ He meant to kill them. And I helped. Yes, I helped. And I helped well. You’ve never been close to finding us.”

  “We have been very close,” Karpo said. “And we are very close now.”

  The chill of hell ran through Yevgeny Odom and within him Kola whimpered.

  “You lie to me, policeman.”

  “I do not believe in lies,” said Karpo. “You have lied.”

  “No.”

  “Where is Kola now?”

  “Screaming for a victim.”

  “Where is he?” Emil repeated quite calmly.

  “I quiet him by rocking from foot to foot,” said Yevgeny. “I keep him caged inside me, but it is hard. If he is growing fur.” Yevgeny sobbed.

  “You have killed forty, not forty-one,” said Karpo.

  “You didn’t find one of them or you didn’t give me credit. Perhaps you didn’t recognize Kola’s work.”

  “There is no Kola,” Karpo said.

  “Listen, Karpo. Before Kola returned to me, I was considering suicide. Russia is a nightmare now. It was a nightmare before. Only those who are awake and strong, who live by their wits and dine on the bones of the weak, can survive. I needed Kola and he needed me, but now he grows fur. Don’t laugh at me or I’ll hang up.”

  “I never laugh,” said Karpo.

  Yevgeny Odom knew from Karpo’s voice that this was true.

  “Why have you called me?” Karpo asked.

  “Because, I told you, I’m having trouble controlling Kola.”

  The sound of his own voice made him look down the street to see if he had awakened anyone or drawn the attention of a roving police car. Moscow was accustomed to drunks and noise, he told himself, and then returned to the phone.

  “Then come to us. I will meet you. We can take you to doctors who can remove Kola.”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t betray him. I am nothing without him. I know if you take him I will die.”

  “Why did you call?”

  “So someone would understand,” cried Yevgeny in near panic. “Oh God. Shh. Shh. He’s awake again.”

  “Kola?”

  “I will try to make him wait till tomorrow.”

  “We will be waiting.”

  “No,” sobbed Yevgeny. “We will strike where we have never struck before, away from the moon and the sun. I think I may be going mad.”

  His voice was almost imperceptible.

  Another pause.

  “Well,” said Odom. “Aren’t you going to comfort me, put an invisible arm around my shoulder, urge me again to give myself up to be treated, understood, cared for?”

  “No.”

  “What kind of policeman are you?”

  “You called me to confess. I am listening to your confession.”

  “What? I accidentally called a priest?” Odom asked derisively.

  “I believe in no god or gods,” said Karpo.

  “What do you believe in?”

  “Obeying the law and seeing to it that others obey the law. Without the law, there is no meaning. Without the law, there is you.”

  “He will kill again,” Odom said. “And again.”

  “Until we catch you,” said Karpo. “I can talk to you no more. I have work to do, work that is more important than you. I need rest.”

  “More impor—What is more important than what Tahpor has done?” Odom said in disbelief.

  “You do not merit an answer. You are Case 341.”

  Yevgeny Odom hung up the phone and fell back against the kiosk. His hands were trembling. His cheeks were cold and he was truly afraid.

  THIRTEEN

  “DID YOU BELIEVE HECTOR?” asked Javier, looking back at Porfiry Petrovich as George drove them through the dark night.

  “I believe,” said Rostnikov.

  “And?” asked Javier.

  “I believe that he is telling the truth as he experienced it,” said Rostnikov, looking out of the window. He was still clutching the bottle of rum George had given him. “I believe that the truth may have been altered so that he could experience it according to someone’s plans.”

  “Yes, I see,” said Javier, biting his lower lip. “You think maybe I killed Maria Fernandez or had someone do it for me and then got rid of the ladder when Hector came and then put it back after he left and …”

&
nbsp; “It is unlikely,” Rostnikov admitted.

  There was silence for a minute or two before Rostnikov said, “At night your apartment buildings look like those of Moscow. For a moment, I had the sense that I was dreaming.”

  “The same people who built your apartments for Stalin came over here and built ours,” said Javier, glancing out the window at the massive gray high rises set back from the street down which they were bouncing over mounds of gravel and forgotten potholes.

  “I did not kill her,” Javier said.

  The car clattered dreamily into a neighborhood of narrow streets and old two-story houses. The houses were dark, though here and there groups of men and women could be seen watching as the car passed. The people here were almost all black.

  Rostnikov felt himself dozing as they drove into a neighborhood of one-story homes. By the light of the moon he could see that all of the houses were badly in need of repair and paint.

  The car suddenly pulled over a low curb with a jolt that shot Rostnikov forward. His leg hit the seat in front of him, and his dreams went flying. The car stopped and Javier stepped out.

  “Here,” said George over his shoulder as he too stepped out of the car.

  Rostnikov joined them and found himself in front of a one-story once-white house. The lawn was a stretch of gray dirt, and a light shone through the first window they approached. There were voices within the building, perhaps the hushed sound of music.

  Holding the bottle of rum, Rostnikov followed Javier and George down a narrow stone path around the side of the house. In spite of the hour, two old women sat on tree stumps in the yard as the three men passed. They neither paused nor looked up from their conversation. To his right, through the open window of the first room, a young black man lay on a bed. He wore a pair of faded pants and no shirt. His body was lean and muscular and on his knees was a very small child in a dress trying to keep from laughing by pushing her tiny fist in her mouth.

  The path curved around a thick-based, gnarled tree whose roots had long ago lifted the stones on which Rostnikov walked.

  “Here,” said Javier. He opened a door and stood back so Rostnikov could enter.

  The room he found himself in was not large, about the size of the living room-kitchen of his two-room apartment in Moscow. The floors were ancient red terrazzo and the walls faded white stucco. Low, unmatched wood benches ringed the room against the walls. A handsome, light-skinned woman, perhaps in her fifties, sat in a small wicker chair in a corner. She held a bowl on her lap in which she was mashing a mustard-colored paste with her fingers. She wore a colorful dress that reminded Rostnikov of Africa. She looked up at Rostnikov, smiled, and returned to her work. In the center of the room was a white, peeling wicker chair; on it sat the man Porfiry Petrovich recognized as the bass player at La Floridita.