As he moved along the white fence toward the entrance, he sensed a movement behind him. He started to turn. He felt no more than the sting of a bee, the prick of a pin. It was in his lower back, somewhere near his liver. An irritation. He finished turning and found himself looking at a bare-headed man with curly black hair. The man was walking away from him. The man was carrying an umbrella.
Vladimir turned back toward the house and wondered why the man had come up behind him and then turned away when Vladimir turned. The sting. No, he told himself. It couldn’t be. But he knew that it could. He felt fine, but that meant nothing. It wouldn’t end like this. They wouldn’t … but he knew they could.
He made it as far as the front door and then he fell to his knees. No one was around. It would, he knew, make no difference. It was too late. The ground was moist from the morning rain. He didn’t want to die here.
The door of the house opened and an old woman stepped out, covered her mouth with her hand, and leaned over to him. She had a look of horror in her eyes. Vladimir did not know that his eyes and mouth were streaming blood. He felt nothing but weakness. He was suddenly very sleepy.
Maybe he should try to say something to the woman, write something in the dirt, but he couldn’t think what he might write or say. He fell forward on his face before the woman, who screamed and ran back into Lermontov’s house.
When an ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later they found the body of the young man, whose head was encircled by a large pool of deep-red blood. The two men who had come out of the ambulance had seen sights like this before. They could take the vision. What they couldn’t grow accustomed to was the stench of the dead man, who had befouled himself in a last spasm of indignity.
Since Elena was to play the niece, she could not return for the tour of Yuri Kriskov’s editing facility. The chances were more than good that the negative-napper worked for Kriskov. The trip from the office to the production center just outside the outer ring on Durova Prospekt, not far from Mira Prospekt, was taken with Yuri Kriskov, who drove, explaining the list he had prepared of employees who had access to the negative.
Though Kriskov maintained an office in the heart of the city, the production facility, including a small studio, was a long, traffic-jammed ride away. On the way Kriskov said, “Normally I go to the production building from home. I live not far away, but sometimes …”
“Stop,” shouted Sasha.
Kriskov hit the brake and Sasha lurched forward, hands against the dashboard. Kriskov had come very close to ramming into the rear of a very large, rusting blue truck.
“I am more than a bit upset,” Kriskov explained.
You are more than a bad driver, Sasha thought.
Traffic was slow. It usually was, but Yuri Kriskov wove his blue Volga with tinted windows through the narrow, momentary spaces between buses, trucks, and cars.
The list Kriskov had prepared was long and, Sasha decided, probably useless at this stage. Besides, he couldn’t concentrate on it with Kriskov, who chain-smoked and challenged sanity as he sped past cars, trucks, buses, and an occasional bicycle. There wasn’t enough time to check out each name. Yuri had done his work. There were forty-two names on the list and it was possible none of them was the right one. If the thief was not trapped tomorrow, Sasha and Elena would go to Porfiry Petrovich and ask for additional help in checking the people on the list.
The car was thick with smoke. Yuri made no effort to apologize or open a window more than a crack. The car was specially equipped with air conditioning, but it did little and was noisy.
Sasha had the list in his lap.
“I trust everyone on that list,” said Kriskov between nervous puffs. “And, at the same time, I don’t trust anyone on the list. This is maddening. How can I look at them. Kolya I have known since we were children in Rostov. And his sons I have known since they were babies. Forfonov, Blesskovich, Valentina Spopchek nursed me through the flu, and … I may reach out and strangle one of them if they show the slightest hint of deception.”
“You won’t,” said Sasha, opening his window as they nearly missed a rickety little yellow Yugo whose driver cursed and managed to get out of the way, almost hitting a pickup truck in the next lane.
Yuri paid no attention. “We are almost there,” he said.
A few minutes later Yuri turned off the highway, sped down Mira Prospekt, made a sharp left onto Durova Prospekt, and drove until they came to a newly paved narrow road. At the end of the road stood a five-story building, white with a dome that looked as if it had been designed for a science-fiction movie. The structure stood alone in an open field of tall weeds. Yuri drove to the building and parked in a space marked by a black-on-white sign nailed to the concrete wall, stating that this was the space, of “Y. Kriskoff.”
Kriskov threw away what remained of his latest cigarette and got out of the car. Sasha followed him to the large gold-painted double doors.
“My name,” Sasha reminded him, “is Sasha Honoré-Baptiste, from Gaumont.”
“I remember. I remember,” said Yuri impatiently. “I know my lines. I started as an actor. What if someone says something to you in French?”
“My French is fine.”
They were passing the empty reception desk in the tiled lobby and heading for a door with a red light over it. The light was on.
“You speak it like a native?”
“I have been told. Relax, Yuri Kriskov,” said Sasha. “I know what I am doing.”
“Of course,” said Kriskov, looking at the young man at his side, decidedly unconvinced at this point in his life of the wisdom of this or any enterprise.
They paused at the door and the light went off. The producer opened the door.
“This is a re-recording studio,” said Yuri. “The director works with the actors and sound people to go over lines, repeat, change, make them clearer, or just put them in. In this case they appear to be working on a film that may not exist.”
Three people were in the small, tile-walled room. A bearded man, in jeans and a gray T-shirt that displayed a picture of Michael Jordan smiling, was introduced as Peotor Levich, “the famous director.” Sasha had never heard of the famous director but he shook his hand warmly and said, “I very much admire your work.” Sasha did his best to speak with a French accent.
Levich was big-shouldered and going to fat. He was perhaps forty at most. “Sasha Honoré-Baptiste,” he said and they shook hands. “I know you.”
“Impossible,” said Yuri Kriskov quickly. “Monsieur Honoré-Baptiste has been in Moscow for only a few days and …”
“From the movies,” said Levich, examining Sasha with a knowing grin. “Policeman. Policeman. Ah, you are an actor. I remember you played a policeman in those two movies with the actor. What is his name? What is his name? Sad face he has. But his name …”
“I’m an investor now,” said Sasha. “The hours are shorter but it pays better.”
“Where did you learn Russian?” asked Levich.
“My mother is Russian. She taught me. My father is a jeweler. He has traveled to Russia many times.”
“I saw you in those movies,” Levich said. “I greatly admire French movies. What was it? Something about some stolen drugs. You played Belmondo’s son and there was that actor.”
He looked at Sasha for an answer and then supplied his own.
“Philippe Noiret. I would have loved him for Tolstoy. I would have traded my arm. Both arms.”
Sasha smiled and shrugged, unable to deny the man’s fantasy.
Levich stepped back, examined Sasha, and said, “Yuri, he is our Montov when we do Beyond the Steppes. We change the character’s name to Montaigne. He speaks with that accent. The women will love him. Handsome, a touch of fading boyishness, and a look of having been through more than we will ever know.”
“He is not an actor any longer,” said Yuri, showing his impatience. “He has told you.”
“You would play opposite Leonora Vukolonya,” Levich went
on. “It’s not a huge role. You could do it in a week. You would make love to Leonora Vukolonya. Do you know how many men would cut off their right testicle to make love to Leonora Vukolonya?”
“Six,” said Sasha to the director, who seemed to have a penchant for cutting off appendages. “And they would all be lunatics.”
Levich laughed. “A sense of humor. Think about it.”
Yuri introduced Sasha to the other people in the small room, an older man and woman who stood before a dark machine. Behind them was a movie screen. Before them was a glass panel with a projector behind it.
Yuri introduced them and then moved out of the room with Sasha in tow.
“Think about it, Honoré,” said Levich as they left.
“Levich is a Jew,” said Yuri. “Very talented. Would he be talking about making another movie if he were about to destroy the entire company? He is not that good of an actor … we can’t smoke in here. Too many things here, film, burn too easily. Too volatile.”
Sasha had no intention of smoking then, there, or anywhere.
The tour moved quickly. The editor, who sat working in a narrow room with a wall-to-wall table filled with machines, looked up when they entered. She was a bit dumpy, with dirty-blond hair a bit unkempt, probably nearing fifty. Two young men were in the room with her. All three were hovered over machines with cranks on which reels of film hung. Strips of film hung from clips all over the room, like black decorations to fit the clearly somber mood.
“We can’t work, Yuri,” the woman said. “We can’t pretend. We have nothing to work with here. Bits, pieces. I hold you responsible.”
Yuri put a finger to his lips behind Sasha’s back and said, “This is Sasha Honoré-Baptiste from Gaumont in France. They are thinking of investing in us. Monsieur Honoré-Baptiste, this is Svetlana Gorchinova, the deservedly honored editor, the greatest editor in all of Russia.”
Yuri beamed. Svetlana did not.
“We are busy,” she said after shaking Sasha’s hand with a quick jerk. “We are busily engaged in the task of putting together enough pieces of film to make a trailer for a movie that doesn’t exist.”
“Perhaps you could just introduce Monsieur Honoré-Baptiste to your assistants and we can leave you.”
She turned in her high swivel chair and looked at the two young men behind her. The taller and younger of the two had long hair, a large nose, and very crooked teeth.
“Nikita Kolodny,” she said.
The young man tried to grin but the mood of the room was too funereal.
“And this,” she said, pointing to the very short, stocky young man in the back of the room, “is Valery Grachev.”
Grachev nodded.
“Any news?” Svetlana Gorchinova said.
“I think we should not talk business before our guest,” said Yuri.
The woman shrugged. She made no effort to hide her depression. “No news,” she said.
“We must go now,” Yuri said, touching Sasha’s arm.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Sasha said.
The two young men nodded. Svetlana turned back to whatever she was editing or pretending to edit and said and did nothing to acknowledge the departure of a possible investor.
Back in the hall with the door closed, Yuri whispered, “She did it. I can tell. You could see. She is not just eccentric. Everyone says she is eccentric because she is a great editor. But she is really just a crazy woman. Crazy women do anything. Believe me. I have known women as crazy as that one. She will do anything.”
“She plans to destroy her own work?” asked Sasha.
“For two million dollars,” Yuri said, fishing out his cigarettes and lighting one in spite of his earlier warning about not smoking in the building.
“She is well paid? She is in demand?”
“Very much so.”
“Then why? …”
“She hates me. Can’t you see? She hates me. And two million American dollars. Maybe she’ll just pretend to destroy the film and then she’ll keep it to herself, treasure it like those Japanese who buy Renoir originals and then hide them in vaults.”
“Where do we go next?” asked Sasha.
“Deeper into the hell over which I have lost all control,” said Yuri Kriskov.
Rostnikov stood, hands behind his back, feet apart, twenty feet away from Paulinin, who leaned over the body of Vladimir Kinotskin, which still lay in front of Lermontov’s home. Uniformed guards were at work keeping the inevitable crowd away. It wasn’t a large crowd but it was large enough to require half-a-dozen officers. Iosef directed the crowd control while Paulinin, his fishing-tackle box open, his hair wild, looked at the body, ignored the stench, and grumbled.
Paulinin took the dead man’s temperature, touched his ankles, took samples of blood and liquid feces, and examined the body as best he could. Finally, he closed the tackle box, picked it up, and moved toward Rostnikov.
“You know what Kaminskov or Pashinski or one of the other dolts who call themselves pathologists would say?”
“No.”
“They would say your young man had a stroke and a seizure,” said Paulinin. “It would all be over. They wouldn’t have looked for the small puncture in his lower back, even though the hole, grant you it is very small, went right through his shirt. All the symptoms of a massive stroke and seizure, and in one sense they would be right, but the cause of the stroke and seizure they would miss. I will need to talk to the young man in my laboratory.”
“Murdered,” said Rostnikov, who had fully expected this finding.
“Just as clearly as the other one I looked at this morning with his head crushed by a hammer,” said Paulinin. “And I could tell you more, much more about the killer, if the ground were not so trampled by the usual idiots. The ground is perfect, perfect for prints, but … look at it. It looks as if a World Cup game has been played here.”
“Thank you for coming, Paulinin,” said Rostnikov.
“Uhh,” said Paulinin, looking back at the body. “You can bring him to Petrovka now, down to my laboratory. Don’t let the idiots clean him. I don’t care how he smells. He comes as he is. I will clean him when it is right. I will apologize to him for the indignities he is suffering and will have to suffer further. I have, as you know, learned to talk gently to the dead.”
“I have observed,” said Rostnikov. “I’ll have you driven back to Petrovka.”
“Good. My lunch is waiting.”
When Paulinin was gone, Rostnikov waved to his son and Iosef walked over to him.
“What do we conclude from this?” asked Porfiry Petrovich.
“That three cosmonauts were on that mission,” said Iosef. “Two are dead and one is missing.”
“And?”
“Three cosmonauts relieved them,” said Iosef. “Perhaps we should talk to them about what they saw and heard, since Mikhail Stoltz appears unwilling or unable to provide answers.”
“So you are convinced that Tsimion Vladovka’s disappearance and the murder of Vladimir Kinotskin are connected to the Mir flight,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes.”
“I am inclined to agree. Then perhaps we should move quickly before someone tells us that this murder belongs to MVD and not to our office.”
“Or before the Yak tells us to mind our business.”
Rostnikov touched his son’s arm and nodded his head. “Come, let us break the bad news to Stoltz, though I feel it will not come as a great surprise. Are you hungry?”
Iosef looked at the body. “No. We had cheeseburgers only an hour or so ago, remember?”
“Then later, perhaps. Your mother made me sandwiches. I wonder what it must be like to be weightless in a metal sphere circling in silence,” said Rostnikov, looking at the body and then at the sky as they walked away from the scene. “It must be difficult to remind oneself that one is not dreaming, floating, awake but asleep.”
“‘A giant will come in the darkness under a cloud,’” said Iosef as they reached the
street and stamped their feet to remove some of the mud.
“Lermontov?” asked Rostnikov, looking back at the scene of death behind them and at the gawking, silent little crowd.
Iosef nodded. “More or less.”
“Go on,” said Rostnikov.
“‘You will know him and the sword he carries,’” Iosef continued. “‘Your doom has come. You beg and weep. He laughs. And then he will stop laughing and will be a sight of horror, a sight as black as his cloak and eyes.’ Shall I go on?”
“No,” said Porfiry Petrovich. “That is enough.”
“The curse of having been in the theater,” said Iosef. “One thinks of lines, passages, monologues, the poetry of Lermontov usually distorted by one’s needs and memory. Lermontov was only twenty-seven when he died in a duel. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“According to the papers in his wallet, Vladimir Kinotskin was twenty-seven when he died today,” said Iosef.
“Perhaps he was making a pilgrimage.”
“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov, glancing over his shoulder at the crowd behind them.
A man in the crowd, one of several carrying umbrellas, watched not the dead man and those now moving the corpse into a black plastic bag but the two detectives who talked on the street. The man was lean, well dressed, and looked foreign, perhaps English or Dutch. His eyes were quite blue. That morning he had nicked himself shaving. His hand went up to the healing wound, and as the detectives walked away, the man with the umbrella moved through the small crowd to follow them at a very safe and professional distance.
Karpo had been unable to find Rostnikov, who was, at the moment he called, out watching Paulinin examining the body of the dead cosmonaut. And so Emil Karpo took it upon himself to make the decision. Not only did he take the shoes of all those who had signed in to work when Sergei Bolskanov had, but those of all the people in the building. Everyone in the building except the police were walking around in stockinged feet.
“Dignity is lost but comfort may offer compensation,” said Karpo.
Zelach nodded and blinked. He had not only rounded up all the shoes, which were contained in three cardboard boxes at the front door of the center, but he had obtained the addresses of everyone and, starting with the sign-ins, was about to go to each house and collect every pair of shoes he could find.
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