Stalin's Ghost

by Martin Cruz Smith

  At the Boatman Hotel long-haul truckers maintained the tradition, sleeping on greasy sheets, showering in cold water, dressing in front of a broken mirror. The wallpaper was a mural of stains. A spray can of insecticide stood on the bureau like a bouquet of flowers.

  Arkady set down a duffel and athletic bags and asked the night manager, “Prosecutor Sarkisian arranged this?”

  “Personally.”

  Arkady gave the man a second look. The night manager’s head was shaved and slightly flattened. He carried a plastic sheet. “You’re the elevator operator from his office. You have two jobs.”

  “What the prosecutor wants, I do.”

  Arkady ran his fingers along cigarette burns on the television cabinet. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but I think I’ll look for other accommodations.”

  The night manager had a smile. “Doesn’t matter. You cross the threshold, you have to pay.”

  “How much?”

  “A thousand rubles for a night.”

  “A night of what?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” The night manager spread the plastic on the floor, although Arkady thought it was a little late to be fastidious. “This room was reserved for you.”

  “Not by me.”

  “You crossed the threshold.”

  It was hard to argue with a man of such few words. Arkady wasn’t feeling too bright himself, but a cosmic ray passing through his brain tickled his memory. “I’ve seen you before. You boxed.”

  “So?”

  “The semifinals, International Boxing Tournament, 1998. You and a Cuban. After two rounds you were ahead, but in the third you got cut and the match was stopped. It was a great fight. What was the Cuban’s name? What was his name?”

  The night manager was pleased. “Martinez. His name was Martinez.”

  “He butted you, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah, no one remembers that, only that I lost.”

  There was a general contemplation of the unfairness of life. Arkady thought about his gun, safely locked away in Moscow.

  The night manager had to shake his head. “You have some kind of memory.”

  “Off and on. So this is what you do now, break bones?”

  “Sometimes.” The night manager was embarrassed, like a master carpenter ordered to build a birdhouse. He slipped brass knuckles over his hand. “Arthritis.”

  “Is it painful?”

  “A little.”

  “Well, this may sting.” Arkady picked up the can of insecticide and sprayed the night manager’s face.

  “Shit!”

  Arkady hit him on the head with the can. Blood spread over the manager’s face. He did cut easily.

  “Bastard!”

  The night manager took tentative half steps and got tangled in the plastic sheet.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  From the Boatman Hotel Arkady drove to the railway station, one place where a man waiting in a car would not draw attention. The insecticide’s cloying scent followed him and he rolled the windows down. He didn’t know what the night manager had intended—a mere scare, some rib work, a split lip. Arkady did feel that a threshold had indeed been crossed. In one day he had gone from being a senior investigator in Moscow to homeless in Tver. He had wanted to provoke a reaction and he got his wish.

  The cell phone rang. It was Eva.

  “I don’t believe this,” she said. “You gave the man a towel?”

  “I suppose I did.”

  “You spray a man who is attacking you and then throw him a towel to wipe his eyes? Did it make you feel better?”

  “A little.” He wrote the caller ID in his notebook while he remembered it. The number and “Hotel Obermeier.” “How did you hear about it?”

  There was silence on the other end before Eva said, “The main thing is for you to leave Tver.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Nikolai has promised hands off. It won’t happen again.”

  “Hands off me or hands off you?”

  “You. Until the election, at least.”

  “Do you think he’ll win?”

  “He has to win.”

  “For the glory or the immunity from prosecution?”

  Again a pause.

  “Please, Arkady, go home.” She hung up.

  Immunity would be the icing on Isakov’s cake. Senator Isakov would be bulletproof. The law protected lawmakers from arrest for any crime unless they were caught in the actual commission of, let’s say, a murder or rape. As for old cases like the Kuznetsovs, Ginsberg and Borodin, there would be no sifting through the ashes. Their cases were already closed and would soon be forgotten.

  The cell phone rang. He hoped it was Eva, but the ID panel said Zhenya, the last person Arkady wanted to talk to. He was not in the mood to talk about chess and with Zhenya everything related to chess, chess books or chess tournaments. So he let the phone ring. He did not want to be Zhenya’s chess coach or father or uncle. Being a friend would do. The phone rang. Why was Zhenya so persistent? It was midnight. And rang until Arkady surrendered and picked up.

  Zhenya whispered, “Are you near Lake Brosno?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Find out if you’re near Lake Brosno,” Zhenya said.

  “Okay.”

  “There was a program on television last night that said Lake Brosno was near Tver.”

  “Then it is, I suppose,” Arkady said. “What about it?”

  “Lake Brosno has a monster like the Loch Ness monster but better. They have pictures and all the old people have seen it.”

  “What makes it better?”

  “The Lake Brosno monster comes out on land.”

  “Well, there you are.”

  “During the war it came out and snatched a Fascist plane out of the air.”

  “A patriotic monster.” Not only had Stalin enlisted the Orthodox Church and all its saints, Arkady thought, but the nation’s monsters as well. “How big is it?”

  “Big as a house,” Zhenya said.

  “Does it have legs?”

  “No one knows. Some scientists are going to take some electronic gear out in a boat and test for anomalies.”

  “Anomalies?” A good word.

  “Wouldn’t it be amazing if the monster came out?”

  “And laid waste to the countryside and spread panic and fear?”

  “We’d have to bomb it. That would be so cool.”

  “Zhenya, we can only hope.”

  After the call Arkady was too on edge to sleep. The trams had shut down. He left the car at the train station and walked toward nowhere in particular. There was little point in checking into another hotel; there weren’t that many in Tver, and Sarkisian could alert them in minutes. Or Arkady could drive back to Moscow.

  The street led, as all streets in Tver seemed to lead, to the river. The Volga gathered two smaller rivers in the center of the city and, fed by them, rushed against the embankment in a hurry to a faraway Caspian Sea. It was no wonder why he was drawn. Palace, parks, statues, two illuminated bridges, almost everything in Tver looked toward the river, homely faces gazing at a silver mirror.

  There were two approaches: attack Isakov or pursue Eva. Both were shameless but in different ways. Since he didn’t have the evidence or the authority to go after the detective in any official manner, he would have to provoke Isakov into a misstep. Or he could forget Isakov and justice and concentrate on Eva. She had slept with another man? At his age that meant less and less. People had histories.

  He could keep either his dignity or her.

  His choice.

  18

  Sofia Andreyeva said, “I don’t show nice apartments to just anyone. I always look at their shoes. If they don’t take care of their own shoes, how will they take care of an apartment?”

  “Absolutely,” Arkady said, although he could take no credit for it; any son of an army general automatically kept his shoes polished.

  She winked at Arkady as she drove and hummed to herself. Her car
was the tidiest Lada that Arkady had ever been in. No cigarette wrappers, beer cans, wilted newspapers or rust in the floor. A bit like Sofia Andreyeva herself. What once was a distinguished nose had, with age, become a beak, but she had a fresh bloom of rouge on her cheeks and, wrapped in a black shawl, she looked cheerfully bereaved. She was a real estate agent, meaning she met each train as it arrived at Tver Station and studied the disembarking passengers before offering, “Apartments to let. Best choice guaranteed.” Other real estate agents wore sandwich boards, which she considered déclassé. She liked Arkady at first sight. Clean shaven, no apparent hangover even early in the day. And she was pleased that, although he had his own car, he had gone to the train station instead of some stuffy, overpriced office.

  Sofia Andreyeva showed him a studio apartment with Danish details and wireless connection and took him to a spacious flat on Sovietskaya Street, the city’s central boulevard. For Arkady’s purposes neither would do. As they walked down Sovietskaya, Sofia Andreyeva surprised Arkady by casually, deliberately, spitting at a gate. Before he could ask why, she said, “There’s one more apartment, a dear friend’s. He is taking a leave of absence from the university. He phoned me yesterday to say that with the euro being what it is, he could use some extra income. Anyway, the apartment is not ready to be shown, and his personal effects are everywhere, but with new sheets you could move in today. Do you speak French?”

  “No. Is that a requirement?”

  “Not at all, not at all.” She sighed. “It’s just, well, a shame.”

  The apartment was on the second story of a housing block that flew laundry on the balconies. The lobby was filthy and mailboxes were ripped open. The apartment, however, harbored a fantasy. Posters of Piaf and Alain Delon hung on the walls. Michelin guides filled the shelves. A pack of Gitanes lay on the desk, and the smell of forgotten cheese overpowered all. She had Arkady change into slippers at the front door.

  “The carpets.”

  “I understand.” It was hardly unusual to change footwear if slippers were provided.

  “The professor’s pride and joy.” She pointed to the most threadbare carpet on the floor. “A minor carpet to be sure, but it was on a professor’s salary.” She sniffed. “Such ambience. Perhaps an open window would be a good idea.”

  Arkady looked at a photo of a middle-aged man striking a pose with a beret squashed on his head and a cigarette dangling from his lower lip.

  “Does he have a family?”

  “The professor’s son is an anarchist. He travels the world protesting international conferences by setting cars on fire. Notice the television and videotape player. Two bedrooms, one bath. The carpets, of course. The shower and kitchen have been redone. Gas and electricity are connected. I’m sorry to say that the telephone has been turned off, but you no doubt have a cell phone. Everyone does.”

  Moving into such a completely furnished apartment was like wearing someone else’s clothes, but on the plus side the building directly opposite was commercial, not the roost of curious babushkas. The ground floor offered two exits, a front door to the street and carport and a back door to a courtyard with a playground and bicycle stand. Across the courtyard was a row of small enterprises—an Internet café, a weight-lifting club and a beauty salon. A couple of men loitered in sweat suits outside the club’s back door. Sofia Andreyeva was willing to rent month to month at a fraction of what a hotel would cost.

  Arkady said, “I like it. Is the son likely to pop in?”

  “I doubt it. He’s in jail in Geneva. In case there is a problem…” She tore off a corner of the newspaper and wrote a phone number. “My business cards are still at the printer’s. Just call in the afternoons and ask for Doctor Andreyeva.”

  “A medical doctor? Two occupations?”

  “For the sake of eating.”

  “I’ll see you if I catch a cold.”

  “Let’s hope not, for your sake. Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “You may not know, but men from America, Australia, from all over the world come here to meet Russian brides. I don’t think we really need a written contract. Keys count more than paper. Will you be getting any mail here?”

  “No, that will go to the office.”

  “Much better.”

  Sofia Andreyeva buttoned her coat, ready to fly.

  Arkady said, “Before you go, I didn’t get the professor’s name.”

  “Professor Golovanov. He likes to say that his liver is Russian and his stomach is French. I am, in a sense, midway between Russian and French myself.”

  “Polish?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I saw something. A certain flair.”

  “Yes, yes.” She was delighted but froze at the sound of footsteps in the hall. A piece of paper slid under the door and the steps moved on. “What is it?”

  “A flyer for a political rally.”

  One side of the flyer promised music and clowns, while the other bore a photograph of Isakov in combat gear riding the fender of an armored personnel carrier.

  “Politics.” Sofia Andreyeva treated the word like dirt. “Of course, we must register your new address with the militia. You being a prosecutor’s investigator, I’ll leave that to you.”

  “Of course.”

  Arkady understood perfectly. Sometimes it was better not to ask too many questions. Granted, there was a chance that a resuscitated Professor Golovanov might return from a holiday in the south of France, swilling wine and singing the Marseillaise. All the same, Arkady had rarely seen the law broken with such elan.

  The day was comfortably crisp, more Easter weather than winter, the pastel walls of Lenin Square glowing in the sun. A balalaika ensemble entertained on a stage decorated with the white, blue and red of the Russian flag. Clowns swayed on stilts. Teenagers on in-line skates distributed “I am a Russian Patriot” T-shirts. Volunteers spun cotton candy, pink and blue. Technicians laid cable and every minute or so the sound system erupted with a shriek. A truck-mounted outdoor video screen rose on hydraulic lifts behind the stage while a camera crew worked on a platform facing the stage, Zelensky on the camera, Bora extending a microphone boom. Zelensky was as emaciated as ever. Bora appeared at the limit of his technical abilities. Arkady spotted Petya handling a mobile camera on the ground. Arkady took one of the Patriot shirts being handed out. The photo of Isakov printed on the back was similar to one on a T-shirt he had seen before, except that the hero carried a shovel instead of a rifle and the tiger’s head patch of OMON was replaced by the emblem of a red star, a rose and a third element Arkady could not identify.

  More people than Arkady expected had come. Besides the usual steel-teeth pensioners, the rally had attracted coal miners and veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Miners and veterans were serious men. Some of the veterans were in wheelchairs, driving home the point that Isakov was one candidate who had not weaseled or bribed his way out of serving his country. Speeches had been scheduled to begin at one in the afternoon and last for an hour. At two, the minor candidates began even though the stage crew was still fighting feedback and the screen crew was still adjusting its angle. But a festive atmosphere prevailed. This was a taped event, not live. No one paid particular attention to the time except Arkady. He wanted to buy a car with Tver license plates before the day was out. A white Zhiguli with Moscow plates was too easy to track.

  As the crowd grew, Arkady moved to the side so that he could see backstage as well. Two trailers, the kind afforded actors on a movie set, stood on either side of the video truck. One was for the lesser candidates; the Russian Patriots had a score of them to present to the public, decoys chosen to fill a slate. The party’s only genuine candidate was Isakov, who stood outside the opposite trailer with Urman and two figures that Arkady hadn’t seen since the Metropol Hotel, the American political wizards, Wiley and Pacheco. Isakov was entirely in black. Black was New Russia’s favorite color for German cars and Italian suits, but he also possessed the still
ness of a movie actor resting with his entourage. Wiley’s fine comb-over lifted in the breeze.

  Arkady wondered why the men were outside. Why didn’t they take advantage of the trailer?

  He called Eva’s cell phone and watched the group.

  At the first ring, Urman and Isakov looked at the trailer.

  On the second they looked at each other.

  “Hullo.”

  “It’s me,” Arkady said.

  “Are you in Moscow?” Eva asked. “Tell me that you are back in Moscow.”

  “Not quite. Are you all right?” That seemed to Arkady a question apropos for a woman living with a murderer.

  “Why wouldn’t I be? I just need time to sort this out.”

  “You said we would talk.”

  “After the election.”

  At that moment the stage sound system emitted a squawk. Eva appeared at the trailer window. She had heard what he heard.

  “You’re here?”

  “This is better than the circus.”

  “Go home. You’re safe if you go home.”

  “Who told you that?”

  As Isakov climbed in the trailer, Eva moved out of sight. Words were murmured. Arkady heard Isakov’s “please” and felt the surrender of the cell phone from Eva’s hand.

  “Renko?”

  “Yes.”

  “Stay where you are,” Isakov said.

  Arkady watched Isakov open the door to speak to Urman, who opened his cell phone and punched in a number. Arkady knew whose when Zelensky’s telephoto lens sorted through the crowd and locked on him like the scope of a rifle.

  Arkady’s image leapt onto the video screen, only for a second because Isakov came onstage.

  “You know me. I am Nikolai Sergeevich Isakov from Tver, and I stand for Russia.”

  Fervent applause, as they used to say, Arkady thought.

  Isakov described a nation under siege by religious fanatics and shadowy alliances. Out in the world were nuclear warheads, human bombs, and fair-weather friends. Closer to home was a circle of vampires that had stripped Russia of its treasure and, worse, subverted its values and traditions. It was an ordinary rant, but what did people actually take away from such an event? Arkady wondered. That Nikolai Isakov withstood magnification on a large screen. That he was handsome in a hard-used way. That he was accustomed to command. That he was one of their own, a son of Tver. That they had reached up and touched a hero.