Thegunshot came just as Rostnikov pushed open the door to the seventh floor of the high rise on Lenin Prospekt about four blocks from the New Circus. In spite of his leg, he had purposely taken a circuitous route to the address of Katya Rashkovskaya. It had been a year or more since he had roamed this neighborhood. So Rostnikov had wandered up Lenin Prospekt, watching the people shop, looking into the windows of the elegantly decorated shops, passing the Varna (which specialized in products from Bulgaria), the Vlasta (with goods from Czechoslovakia), and the Leipzig (with exports from the German Democratic Republic). Rostnikov bought nothing. He had limped along without putting words to his thoughts, paused to examine a window of shoes that would cost at least a month of his salary, ignored a quarrel between two men over a parking space near Lumumba Friendship University, and gradually made his way to the second of three white-concrete high rises.
He had trudged his way up the stairs in the elevatorless building, moving slowly to minimize perspiration. On the seventh floor he had paused for breath before opening the hallway door. That was when he heard the shot. It wasn't that Rostnikov didn't believe in coincidence. If one lived long enough, particularly in Moscow, one encountered all manner of coincidence. Cases were often closed through coincidence rather than hard work. An officer happened to see a car thief breaking into a car when it looked as if a particular ring of thieves would never be caught. The officer was not staking out the street, was not even on duty, but had taken a wrong turn looking for a movie theater that, as it turned out, was on the other side of Moscow.
In this case, however, when he heard the shot, Porfiry Petrovich did not assume that he had been fortunate or unfortunate enough to step onto the scene of a crime at the coincidental moment. He hobbled as quickly as he could in search of apartment 717. Here a door opened and a cautious eye peeped out. There a door opened quickly and closed. Beyond, a man in a robe, who looked as if he slept days and worked nights, stepped into the hall rubbing his eyes and almost running into Rostnikov, who barreled past him and found apartment 717.
There was a voice behind the door, a hysterical voice that might have been wailing wordlessly or might have been saying something. Rostnikov turned to the sleepy man in the robe, who looked puzzled, and said, "Call Petrovka thirty-eight. Tell them Inspector Rostnikov told you to call. Say it's a possible shooting."
The man nodded and hurried back into his apartment, where, Rostnikov hoped, he had a phone and was not simply going back to bed. Rostnikov pounded on the door once, hard. The door vibrated.
"Police. Open die door," he said, loud but calm.
Nothing happened inside, though he thought he heard the sound of something, an appliance, something, above the wailing voice.
"Open or I'll have to break the door," Rostnikov said, still calm.
Footsteps moved quickly inside and the door opened to reveal a thin young man in a blue T-shirt. His straight blond hair looked bleached and was combed back from his smooth and wide-eyed face.
"I told her not to," the young man said, stepping back to admit Rostnikov. "I told her it was stupid. That there were other things she could"
"Where?" said Rostnikov, grabbing the young man's arm. "Where is she?"
The young man groaned in pain, twisted his body, and pointed toward a closed door across the room. Rostnikov let him go and hurried to the door. Behind the door was the sound he had heard in the hall, the appliance sound. He pushed the door open and found himself facing a quite beautiful woman of about thirty with a pistol in her hand. Her straight black hair was long, and tied behind her head with a yellow ribbon. She was wearing a yellow skirt and blouse and white sneakers. The gun was aimed directly at Rostnikov and looked none too secure in her grip.
"Who?" she shrieked, backing up.
"Police," he said, keeping his voice down but still audible above the rushing mechanical sound in the small bathroom. "You'd better give me the gun."
Katya Rashkovskaya looked down at the gun in her hand as if she had not expected to see it there. She handed it instantly to Rostnikov, who dropped it into his pocket. Behind him, Rostnikov could hear the young blond man move to the open doorway of the small room.
"What did you try to do?" Rostnikov asked, gently reaching out to touch the young woman's arm. He had dealt with attempted suicides before, both those who succeeded and those who failed. His theories were different from the party line. His theories were based on experience. It was Rostnikov's belief that all but a very small, insignificant number meant to kill themselves, even the ones who later said and believed that they had only been acting out or pretending. It was, he guessed, like childbirth as Sarah had described it. When it is happening, it is terrible and real. When it is over, it is like a dream. A similarity between the bringing of life and the taking of it.
"She shot the toilet!" the young man cried behind him.
Rostnikov turned and looked at the nearly hysterical young man and then at the young woman, who looked as if she had been hypnotized. And then he looked at the toilet, and, indeed, there was a crack in the porcelain, starting with a hole the size of a blintz and zigzagging out into a series of tributaries. Behind the hole, the toilet gurgled loudly and angrily.
"It's true?" Rostnikov asked, moving closer to the young woman.
She nodded her head slowly, indicating that it was true. Rostnikov nodded back and led her out of the bathroom past the young man, who backed away.
"Close the door," Rostnikov ordered. The young man closed the bathroom door, which cut back on but did not end the noise. After leading the woman to a chair and being sure she sat, Rostnikov pulled a straight-backed chair over and sat facing her. He took her hand and said, "I understand."
She looked at his face, expecting to see a lie, but saw instead that this man, whoever he was, this clothed trunk of a man with a flat face, did seem to understand, which puzzled Katya Rashkovskaya, who wasn't at all sure whether she understood what she had done. One minute she had been sitting in grief and anger over the deaths of Oleg and Valerian. Eugene, her brother, had been talking about himself. She had been drinking tea. And then the idea had come. No, it was not quite an idea. She hated the toilet. It had caused them, the three of them, nothing but trouble. Oleg had tried to get the building supervisor to fix it, had gone to the neighborhood party deputy in charge, had tried to bribe, beg, threaten, but nothing had helped.
And so, sitting there, vaguely hearing the voice of her brother suggest that now that she was alone in this large apartment he could move in, she had suddenly risen, gone to Valerian's drawer, moved the shuts he would never again wear, and pulled out the gun. The next thing she knew this sympathetic man with the face and body of a bear had gently told her that he understood.
"She's gone mad!" the young man cried, pacing back and forth. "All this death has driven her mad."
"Are you mad?" Rostnikov asked Katya. She shook her head no.
"She says she is not mad," Rostnikov reported.
"She says!" the young man cried in disbelief.
"I believe her," said the inspector.
"You…"
"Who are you?" Rostnikov asked, still holding the woman's hand but looking at the man.
"I, I don't have to tell you who I am," the young man said.
"Yes, you do," Rostnikov said sadly. "I'm the police."
The word police did nothing to the woman, but it froze the young man.
"I'm Eugene Rashkovsky, Katya's brother. I came to help her in her grief. She"
"He's a nakhlebnik, a parasite," Katya said. "He came to move into the apartment. He was afraid to come here when Oleg was… here. Oleg would throw him out. Oleg didn't like young men who"
"You've no reason to start that again!" Eugene screamed. "No reason." He looked at Rostnikov in fear and hurried to his sister. "That has nothing to do with the police, nothing."
"Go," Katya said, reaching up with her free hand to wipe away hair that had not fallen in front of her eyes.
"I…"Eugene began.
"Go," Rostnikov repeated, and Eugene stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
When he was gone, Rostnikov said, "I know a lot about toilets."
"Yes," Katya said, a sad smile touching her mouth. "You are the police."
"No, I don't mean that metaphorically. I'm not talking about crime. I'm talking about toilets. I could never get the apparatus to fix my toilet, so I learned to do it myself, to fix it myself. I was determined. I borrowed tools, found people who knew people who knew people who could get me parts. I learned. I think I even know a place where you can get a toilet bowl. You want to learn to repair your own toilet, I'll let you borrow my books."
Katya pulled her hand away slowly and folded both hands on her lap.
"I thought that was forbidden. That you could not repair your own plumbing. You're a policeman."
"Fixing a toilet is a challenge," Rostnikov said, sitting back to give her a bit more room. "It is something that gives you a sense of triumph when you get it done in spite of what it takes to do it."
"Maybe I'll borrow your books," she said. "Would you like some tea?"
'Tea would be nice," Rostnikov said. He watched her stand up and move across the large room to the open kitchen. He turned in his chair to watch her.
"I'd like" he began, but was interrupted by the door's bursting open. An MVD officer in uniform leaped in, gun in hand, unsure of whether he should aim his weapon at the young woman who seemed to be making tea or at the older man sitting in the chair. He chose the man in the chair.
"Don't move!" the officer shouted.
"I'm Inspector Rostnikov." Rostnikov sighed, glancing at Katya, who went on making the tea. "And you are?"
"Vadim Malkoliovich Dunin," said the young man, who appeared to Rostnikov to be no more man twelve years old.
"How old are you?"
"How? I am twenty-four," the policeman answered.
"Vadim Malkoliovich, put away your gun and leave. Wait in the hall. Let no one in unless I allow it."
"But I was told"
"A mistake. I have everything under control. Leave. And close the door behind you if it will close. How long have you been in uniform?"
The young officer looked confused as he bolstered his gun. "Four months."
"Advice," said Rostnikov. "Always knock. It often happens that the worst part of a domestic problem results from the attempts by people involved to get repairs done for the damage caused by the police who had come to help them."
"I'm sorry, Comrade Inspector, but… If there is anything I can do?"
"Can you fix broken doors?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Then learn to do so or stop breaking them."
"Yes, Comrade Inspector," the young man said, backing out. He closed the door behind him and it stayed reasonably closed.
Katya returned with the tea: a cup for Rostnikov, one for herself. She sat, gave him sugar. They said nothing for a few minutes as they drank and listened to the muffled sound of the toilet.
"I have been assigned to investigate the deaths of your partners," he said, finishing his tea and placing the cup and saucer on a white cloth on a little table nearby. "I was with Valerian Duznetzov when he died this morning."
Katya looked up from her tea and bit her lower lip.
"You were, you were there when he fell?"
"He didn't fall, Katya. He jumped. It was suicide. He was drunk. I think he had been drinking a bit to get up his courage. But it was suicide."
"Oleg didn't commit suicide," she said evenly, looking into his eyes for the first time.
"It doesn't seem so," Rostnikov agreed.
And he saw an awareness cross her face like a slap.
"You think, you think someone might have killed him?"
"My superior, Colonel Snitkonoy, thinks it is a curiosity, a coincidence, two performers in the same act falling to their death in the same morning."
"It could be a terrible coincidence," Katya said, putting down her cup and leaning forward urgently.
"Yes," he said and considered telling the story of the policeman and the car thief.
"What would convince him that it wasn't just a coincidence?" she asked, as if there were an answer she wanted Rostnikov to give but she did not want to hear. Since the idea of something beyond accident had been introduced, Katya Rashkovskaya's pretty face had been touched by fear.
Rostnikov shrugged, puffed out his cheeks, and blew.
"If the third member of the same act died in the same day, is that what you were thinking?" she asked, searching his eyes for an answer.
Her eyes were a magnificent blue. Rostnikov did not really want to frighten her, but it was the fastest way to get information. He could comfort her later, let her borrow his plumbing books, provide her with protection.
"Duznetzov said some strange things before he died," said Rostnikov. "He talked of birds and people flying over walls, of men seeing thunder. He was afraid."
"You said he was drunk," Katya countered, clearly growing afraid herself.
"Drunk and afraid and brave. I liked him."
"He could be very funny," Katya said, folding her arms in front of her and turning her back to Rostnikov.
"Who would want to kill your friends?" he asked.
Her head went down, as did her voice.
"I don't know."
But it was clear to Rostnikov that she did know, or thought she knew.
"You know," he said.
She turned defiantly, ready to argue, her arms still folded closely to her breasts. But her defiance faded as she looked at Rostnikov.
"You think I might be…"
"Since I don't know what is happening, I don't know what might or might not happen to you." He got up awkwardly, as he always did when he sat for more than a few minutes, but he managed not to wince in pain. "I don't know what to do to protect you with certainty other than to locate and punish the person who might be responsible for what happened to your friends today."
"But an accident, a suicide, there's no crime," she said as he walked past her toward the door.
"There is a crime before these crimes, a crime sufficient to justify murder. Katya Rashkovskaya, I think you may be in danger. Do you remember my name?"
"Rostnikov," she said. "Inspector Rostnikov."
"When you want to talk to me, call Petrovka thirty-eight or tell the officer who broke your door. He will stay with you for a few days and find a way to fix your door. Can he sleep in here somewhere?"
"I've two extra beds now," she said. "Thank you. Are you, are you really a policeman?"
"Yes," he said.
"You don't talk like a policeman," she said.
"Ah," replied Rostnikov, "the genre is not dictated by the expectation. Each individual within the genre defines it. I am a policeman and, therefore, I must now be incorporated into your concept of a policeman."
"You don't talk like a policeman," she repeated emphatically.
In the hall, Rostnikov found the young policeman, who snapped to attention.
"Vadim Malkoliovich Dunin," he said, "you are to remain with the young woman in this apartment until you are relieved. Find a phone on this floor, call in, and tell your commander that you have been placed on special assignment by me. Do you live nearby?"
"Well…" began Dunin.
"Is there someone who can bring you a toothbrush, a change of socks, shorts?"
"My father works at the Ail-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, which"
"Good, good. Have him bring you clothes in the morning. Pay Comrade Rashkovskaya for any food she gives you and put in for reimbursement. I'll sign your accounting. You understand all this?"
"No, Comrade," Dunin said.
"You don't have to. Most police work is doing what you are told and not worrying about what it means. Someone may be trying to kill that very pretty young woman and we don't want that to happen."
"No, Comrade."
"Keep yourself busy by trying to fix the door you broke and call me immediately if she says she wants to talk to me. Call me and find me. You understand?"
"I understand," said Dunin. "Fix the door, don't let anyone kill her, and call you if she wants to speak to you."
"Excellent," said Rostnikov, who limped slowly down the hall as he reached back into his pocket for his notebook.
Someone had to be found to replace the aerialists, Pesknoko and Duznetzov, and, possibly, something would have to be done about Katya. That could wait, but not for long — If she met with an accident too soon the police, that barrel-shaped inspector, would not easily accept the possibility of coincidence. There might, however, be no choice for him. There was much to be done and too much to lose. It was now very dangerous for him to have Katya alive. He could do it without her.
He had worked all of this out, had found the list of replacement acts sent by the Soyuzgostsirk, the Central Circus Administration, and had decided to make a visit to the Moscow Circus School, officially called the State University of Circus and Stage Acts, where all three of the new acts in which he was interested were currently training. He had called the school and had been assured that all three acts would be at the school that afternoon, that all three were being reviewed, and that a decision would be made within an hour or two so that the New Circus could continue its present show without a break.
He crossed in front of Petrovka Park and hurried down Yamskoipola Street and into the lobby of the school, where the sounds of acts in preparation and rehearsal came through the open gym door across the lobby. Built in the early 1920s immediately after the revolution, the Circus School remained the single most prestigious source of circus performers. The building itself, however, showed distinct signs of mildew and decay. The floorboards in the lobby were warped, the wallboards were sagged and buckled.
He passed through the museumlike arcade of pillars covered with historic photographs and moved down the corridor of classrooms. Ten black-uniformed children sat in one classroom with the door open. The instructor, a woman with thick glasses, was writing something on the blackboard.
He strode on past the rows of photographs of circus performers from almost every country in the world without pausing. He had seen them before, hundreds, thousands, of times. He had been a student here, one of eighty twelve-year-olds accepted his year from three thousand applicants. He had been accepted because his father had been one of the original performers in Lunacharsky's first official Soviet Circus. It wasn't that he wasn't talented, capable, but he knew that he was no more so than hundreds who had been turned down. At the age of twelve he had been given the guarantee of a job for life.
At first he had enjoyed the attention, the prestige. But as the years passed, he began to resent, resent the tricks he was taught, resent the act the teachers decided was right for him. His father had been a magician, an honored magician. The son had begun as a magician, had been moved into developing an act as a magician clown, and ended as an acrobatic clown in an act with three others. It was clear before he left the school that he would never be a star, a truth that was unacceptable to him.
He hurried up the stairs to the second level. Classrooms and offices ringed the outside of the second floor, while the middle of the building was open, looking down on the noisy gym where music played, acts rehearsed, and the retired performers who served as faculty urged students on to hurried perfection. He had arrived in time. He stepped back into the shadows to watch the three acts that were being given a final review by the headmaster and staff. The death of a performer in one of the Soviet circuses was not unusual, and the call for a quick replacement was part of the routine. Lists were constantly being revised, acts reviewed, decisions made based on location of the circus, political interest, the kind of act that might be needed, and the possible competition. While the most prestigious acts came from the Circus School, nothing prohibited a circus from taking acts that had been developed privately, usually by families of circus performers.
The gym was quieted by a pair of ballet teachers who had been around die school for years. Random rehearsals were stopped, but the hum of voices and clanking equipment continued. In the comer where he couldn't see, the pianist practiced while the first act set up.
The performers were all young, all good. The first was a trio of ladder balancers, two women and one man. The man was powerful, teeth showing in a confident grin. The women were slim, smiling, an interesting contrast: one dark, one light. The piano clanked a British rock song, badly played but recognizable. The act was excellent but a bit automatic, mechanical, lacking flair.
The second act performed to something by Mozart, which the pianist played a bit better. The performer was also better, a unicyclist with a round steel cage that he controlled, rolling it by riding his unicycle inside it. He looked a bit like a hamster in a plastic bubble, but he played clever variations on movement, near-disasters, and speed riding.
The third act was a slack-wire clown, excellent but too reminiscent of the early Popov routine.
It would take time, a year perhaps, to get to whichever act was selected. Perhaps he would never get to the performer and would have to go the route of dealing with one of the old acts. All of the old acts, however, would be dangerous prospects.
It wasn't as easy to corrupt circus performers as it would have been with some other professionals. Circus performers had prestige, good living conditions, a guaranteed lifetime of work. It would be a challenge, but as he stood in the shadows he looked for the signs of weakness in the faces of the young people below, the signs that had probably been in his own face when he had been down there. How quickly did the stage smile drop when the act was finished? Did the performer hurry the hug of approval from other students and back away? Was there a touch of uncertainty and a masked lack of confidence in the stride?
He looked for these things and saw his greatest hope in the slack-wire clown. It would be hard to influence the decision, perhaps impossible, but the clown had the most promise for corruption. Yes, there was a future, a way out, with but one loose end: Katya Rashkovskaya, a most dangerous loose end. He went back to the first floor and found the office of a teacher who had once been in the New Circus. The teacher had a known drinking problem and debts. He could use money and Dimitri Mazaraki had plenty of money. He paused and examined himself in the glass of the office door, adjusted his mustache, parted down his hair, and stepped through the door.
Yuri Pon had not brought his knife. He was not planning to execute a prostitute on impulse. He had made that mistake once, on the subway, and had regretted it. Everything had gone wrong that time. The prostitute had worn a uniform and had turned out not to be a prostitute at all. He had worked too quickly. He had even been seen. No, he had to be careful, precise. He knew how deeply his emotions ran, and for mat reason he forced himself to be cautious and methodical.
He would identify a prostitute, be absolutely sure that he was correct, follow her, and, if possible, observe her in the act. He would find out where she normally went, prepare himself, and, on the night chosen, execute her.
He took the metro to the Mayakovsky Station and made his way to the Byelorussian Railway Station, where he was sure to find what he was looking for if he were a bit patient. It didn't take long. He bought a coffee from an old woman at a stand in the station, sat with a copy of Izvestia in his hand, adjusted his glasses, and pretended to be waiting for a train. Occasionally, he would look up at the posted schedules to suggest to anyone who might be watching him that he had legitimate business.
In the course of the next two hours he saw three prostitutes attempting to pick up travelers coming in. He rejected two of the prostitutes immediately. They were not pretty enough. A third was a distinct possibility. She was blond, about twenty-five, and wearing a gray dress and a white top. She looked healthy, confident, not defiant. And she was not afraid to approach an occasional soldier. The fourth soldier she approached picked her up, and the two of them walked toward the massive front entrance of the station. Yuri gulped down his coffee, tucked his newspaper under his arm, and got up to follow them. He arrived at the entrance a step before they did and even held the door open for the couple to walk out. It was then that he got his first clear look at the woman. She was pretty but she was flawed. A dark purple birthmark about the size of a baby's hand ran from below her right ear down her neck. It didn't touch her face but it was there. He imagined the soldier kissing her in the dark, kissing her neck.
Yuri Ron did not follow them. He felt ill. His stomach was sour and the acid taste snaked into his mouth. The evening was hot and he had had a hard day. Nikolai would probably have passed out by now, so it would be safe to go back to the apartment. Tomorrow or the next night Yuri would try again. It would be hard to wait. He would try someplace else. He would be patient, careful, efficient. He would.control his emotions. He would make his contribution. Tomorrow or the next night.
When Rostnikov walked down Krasikov Street toward his apartment that evening, he had a plan for the night. First, he would engage in small talk with Sarah. Before they ate, he would spend his forty minutes lifting weights in the comer of the room and she would read or watch television. During dinner he would suggest that they go for a walk and Sarah would accept. She would also know that he had something serious to say. On the walk he would tell her about Josef's posting to Afghanistan, try to comfort her, and hope she would have some words of comfort for him. They would stop for something, maybe an ice cream, and come home early to talk or read. It would, he thought, be a slow, perhaps sad, night in which he would not think of the KGB, of the Gray Wolfhound, of the man who had dived off Gogol's statue. He hoped it would not be one of those nights when bad news angered her, turned her against him, transformed him into the evil cossack of her imagination. These outbursts were always brief and regretted, but they lingered in his memory and he feared that frequent setbacks would increase the periods of anger. Her anger made him feel helpless. Rostnikov could deal with murderers, pompous superiors, scheming KGB officers. He could play their games, even gain a satisfaction from small triumphs, but his wife's emotion swept him away. He never considered joining her in anger. Rostnikov had learned even as a boy not to be angry. It wasn't that he controlled his anger. It was simply that he didn't feel it. The world was strange, sad, ironic, comic, even terrible, and, yes, there were people who were monsters. It wasn't that he forgave them. He often thought that anger might be far more satisfying than the frequent state of amused melancholy with which he felt most comfortable.
When he reached the apartment and stepped in, Porfiry Petrovich saw and accepted that the night he had planned was not to be. At the wooden table that had been given them by Sarah's mother sat his wife and two men. Sarah, hep red hair tied loosely back, looked up at him with a small smile. Rostnikov moved to her and kissed her moist forehead. The warm evening brought out her distinct, natural smell, which always came back to him as a nearly forgotten pleasant memory.
He shook hands with Sasha Tkach and then reached out with both hands to shake the left hand of Emil Karpo. Karpo's grip was firm.
"The hand is strong," said Rostnikov, sitting at the last unoccupied chair and reaching for the bread in the center of the table. Tkach had a teacup in front of him.
"It is better than it was yesterday, and yesterday it was better than the day before," Karpo said.
"Cousin Alex is a good doctor," said Sarah with pride.
"He's a good doctor," Karpo agreed.
Rostnikov looked at his two unexpected guests, who looked at each other to determine who would speak first. When Porfiry Petrovich was chief inspector in the Procurator's Office, the three of them had been an unofficial team.
Rostnikov had used their strengths, worked around their weaknesses, encouraged their initiative. In turn, they had given him loyalty. It was not the first night they had sat around this table, and Rostnikov hoped that it would not be the last. From his pocket, Rostnikov removed the pistol he had taken from Katya Rashkovskaya and placed it carefully on the table.
"It is no longer loaded," Rostnikov said, turning to Sarah.
"Did someone…?" she began.
"Just to shoot a toilet," said Rostnikov.
"A TK," Karpo said quietly, looking at the weapon. "A six-point-three-five-millimeter blowback automatic of good quality. The pistol was supposedly designed by a man named Korovine in 1930. There is a mystery about Korovine. He designed weapons in Belgium during the First World War and took out a patent for a double-action internal-hammer lock for automatic pistols, though there seems to be no evidence that it was ever actually manufactured. Then, after disappearing for almost ten years, he designed the TK in the Soviet Union and was never heard of or from again."
"So you can tell me nothing about this weapon?" Rostnikov asked with a smile.
"On the contrary, Comrade Inspector," said Karpo. "It is striker fired and… You are making a joke of some kind?"
"A poor one, Emil," said Rostnikov with a sigh, looking at Tkach, who stared into his empty teacup.
Rostnikov caught his wife's eye and nodded at Tkach.
"More tea, Sasha?" Sarah asked, getting up.
"A little," he said, pushing back the wisp of hair mat fell over his eyes.
"Sasha was saying that the baby is outgrowing her clothes," Sarah said, moving to the teakettle on the stove hi the kitchen. "She'll be ready for the suit I knitted for her when the first cold days come."
Rostnikov removed the pistol from the table, placed it back in his pocket, chewed on his bread, and waited. Sarah came back with a cup of tea for him and poured more for Tkach, who thanked her.
"Today I went to the circus, the New Circus," Rostnikov said after swallowing a mouthful of bread.
"I was near there this morning, near the university," Tkach said. He seemed about to add something but stopped.
"All right," Rostnikov said with a sigh. "Emil, you begin."
Karpo looked at Sarah and then at Sasha before fixing his eyes on Rostnikov and saying, "You were principal investigator on the murder of Sonia Melyodska, a soldier, in the Vdnkh Metro Station last year. You filed a report."
"In November, the third week," Rostnikov said, reaching for another piece of bread.
"Precisely," Karpo agreed.
"And?"
"And why did you file the report with those of the serial killer of prostitutes?" Karpo asked.
The normal question at this point might have been Why do you want to know? or What's going on? But Rostnikov had learned to be patient with Emil Karpo, whose own patience was infinite and whose sense of humor was nonexistent.
"I did not file it with the reports on the serial killer of prostitutes," Rostnikov said. "It never entered my head that there could be a connection. I investigated for two weeks, relatives and friends of the murdered woman, the possibility of a random killing by a subway thief. I worked with Zelach searching for witnesses. Nothing. I submitted the report to open file."
"I found it in the file of murdered prostitutes," Karpo said.
Rostnikov was well aware that the prostitute killer was not Karpo's responsibility. It might be reasonable to ask why he was even reading the file. Rostnikov didn't ask. Instead he looked at Sasha Tkach, who didn't appear to be listening.
"Sasha," Rostnikov said, rubbing the stubble on his own chin. "How would you account for this puzzle?"
"I, I wasn't…" Tkach stammered as if awakened from sleep.
"You should," Rostnikov said.
Sarah asked if the two guests were staying for dinner. Both said they were not. She excused herself and began working in the kitchen while the three men continued.
"Emil has found a report on a murder I investigated in the wrong file," Rostnikov explained.
"A misfiling." Tkach shrugged. "Someone pulled your report and accidentally placed it in the wrong file. It happens."
"The number on Inspector Rostnikov's report is in the three hundred series. The number of the serial killing file is in the two hundred series. They are not close," said Karpo. "In addition, the original number on Inspector Rostnikov's report has been lined out and the new number written neatly in its place. There are no initials to indicate who did this or why."
"So?" asked Tkach, looking at Rostnikov.
"Someone must think my killer and the serial killer are the same," said Rostnikov. "But who thinks so and why? Why would anyone besides me even pull the report? Why would they refile it without talking to me and to the investigator in charge of the serial murders? I gather that"
"I called Inspector Ivanov," said Karpo. "No one spoke to him about the report. He did not make the change. He suggested that I simply pull it out and return the report to the proper file."
"No doubt he also wanted to know why you were reading the file of a case assigned to him," Rostnikov said.
"I told him it seemed to be tied in to a case on which I was working," said Karpo.
"Well, Sasha?" asked Rostnikov, reaching for the last of the bread. The smell of boiling rassolnik rybny, noodle soup, had reminded Rostnikov of his hunger.
"A joker
"The risks associated with such a joke make that unlikely," said Karpo, who had obviously thought about this possibility.
"A lunatic in the file room?" Tkach tried again. "Sabotage? The KGB? A test?"
"All possible," said Rostnikov. "But there is another possibility."
"I don't see it," sighed Tkach.
"That there is a person, possibly an officer, who has access to the files and knows something but is unwilling or unable to come forward and say it. Perhaps he knows of KGB involvement in the murders, or mat a prominent figure or the relative of a prominent figure, possibly even a member of the Politburo, is involved in die murders. It has happened before. This officer is suggesting that someone else pick up the pieces."
"There is another possibility," said Karpo.
"That the murderer is a police officer who wanted the reports of his killings kept together," said Tkach.
Rostnikov smiled in appreciation and reached over to pat the younger man's back.
"Stay for soup," he said. "Sarah, is there enough soup?"
"Enough for all. More than you and I can eat," she called back.
Tkach nodded and Karpo said nothing for an instant and then nodded his agreement. Rostnikov got up and moved into the kitchen to get another loaf of bread. Sarah looked at him as she cut a cucumber.
"Don't look like that, Porfiry Petrovich," she said quietly.
"Look? Look like what?" he answered, reaching over her for the day-old black bread in the cupboard.
"We'll talk about it later," she whispered.
"Talk about?"
"Josef," she said. She cut the cucumber into smaller pieces, turning her head from him. "I got a call at the shop today to tell me that he had been, had been transferred to Afghanistan. They said they had already told you."
"That was kind of them," Rostnikov said, putting his arm around her shoulder.
A FEVERED RAIN "No, it wasn't," she said, holding back the tears.
"No, it wasn't," he agreed. "It was a warning to me, to us."
She said nothing.
"We'll talk later," he said and returned to die other room to pass the bread around and pour fresh tea.
For the next half hour they worked out a plan to deal with Karpo's case. Only after they had finished their dinner did Rostnikov turn to Tkach.
'This morning I located, and obtained evidence against, two black marketers dealing in video recorders and videotapes," he said. "I turned my report in to Deputy Procurator Khabolov, who said that he would personally investigate. I believe he may plan to profit by and from these black marketers."
"And this surprises you?" Rostnikov said, looking at Karpo, whose thin lips were even more pale and tight than usual. Corruption was accepted by most Soviet citizens, but to Emil Karpo every act of corruption was an attack on the system to which he had dedicated his life. Corruption by a member of the police was especially painful. Karpo's impulse, Rostnikov was sure, was to confront and punish, to punish severely.
"No," sighed Tkach. "I'm afraid that I will be used to cover for whatever he plans to do, that I will be blamed if he is found out."
"A reasonable conclusion, from what we know of Deputy Khabolov," said Rostnikov. "And you'd like some help in protecting yourself?"
"Yes," said Tkach.
"And the black marketers?" asked Rostnikov.
Tkach shrugged.
"One of them has a daughter, a young girl," Tkach said softly. "She's about nine or ten."
Rostnikov looked at Karpo, who betrayed his feelings only by meeting the inspector's eyes.
"Emil Karpo thinks that the existence of the child is not relevant, mat we do not excuse corruption for any cause, that the child might well be better off as a ward of the state. Am I right, Emil?"
"You are right, Comrade," Karpo said.
"I don't know," said Tkach.
"Well," said Rostnikov, standing to ease the strain on his leg, "let's see what we can work out."
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Osip and Felix Gorgasali sat in their trailer, the blackened curtains down, and talked quietly so they would not wake Osip's wife and daughter. They talked about, wondered about, feared, what they would have to face the next morning. A uniformed policeman had arrived late in the evening at the trailer to inform them that they were to be in the office of Deputy Procurator Khabolov at exactly eight the next morning. The policeman had given no explanation, and they had been too stunned to ask for one.
From time to time, Felix muttered nichevo, the Russian word for "nothing," which conveyed resignation, stoicism, the idea that whatever might be the problem, you shouldn't let it get to you. Life is too full of explosions. One cannot allow oneself to be destroyed by fear of them.
"Nichevo," Osip agreed, wondering which shirt to wear the next morning, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep.
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Sasha Tkach rubbed his wife's back as they lay in bed. They didn't speak. Maya loved to.have her back rubbed, and let out a soft, appreciative purr as he moved his hands up from her spine to her shoulders.
The book of fairy tales was propped against the table near the baby's bed. Pulcharia turned and gurgled in harmony with her mother's hum, and Sasha smiled in the darkness, forgetting his anxiety.
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Yuri Pon considered smashing a chair over Nikolai's head. Nikolai, the filthy dwarf, was snoring, snoring as he never had before.
Yuri went to Nikolai's bed and prodded him. The sleeping man snorted, spewed forth an alcoholic belch, turned on his side, and snored much more quietly. Nikolai had not changed clothes, had not shaved, had simply taken off his shirt and shoes and fallen asleep.
The prodding by Yuri would be effective for about ten minutes while Nikolai approached wakefulness and then gradually retreated to the depth of whatever dreams he had, dreams that quickened his heartbeat and made him snore like a wounded cat.
Yuri wanted to sleep, had to sleep. He had to get up early for work. There was so much to do. But going to sleep with this snoring and the feeling of incompleteness was impossible. It was as if Yuri were hungry, but he had eaten ravenously when he got home that night, had eaten and eaten as he had as a boy, a fat boy. The eating left him still hungry, but hunger wasn't quite what he now felt. Unfulfilled. That was it. There was only one thing that would make that feeling, that near-pain, go away. He would have to do more work for the state, for the people, for Russia. He would have to find a prostitute soon. He would have to find her and kill her. If he lived long enough, he might have to find and kill every prostitute in Moscow inside the Outer Ring Road. There might be hundreds. They might be replaced by others. He might be caught. That would be the worst of all, to be caught and sent to jail knowing that they were still out there. It would be like forever living suspended over a jigsaw puzzle with one piece left to put in and never being able to place the piece where it belonged. As he lay in the darkness of the room, he imagined himself standing over a table with a jigsaw puzzle laid out before him. He couldn't see the puzzle but he knew he held the final piece in his hand. He couldn't quite see the piece, either, but he knew it was heavy, too heavy to keep holding. He also knew that he could not put it down, and he struggled to stay awake, not fall into mis dream, a dream he had created. His eyes wouldn't open. In his near-dream he looked down at the puzzle and suddenly knew the puzzle was very important.
It was more than just a thing to pass the time. The solution to the puzzle would be the solution to something about himself.
He forced himself to look, forced himself to pull the image that lay flat and unfinished before him into perspective. It was a woman, the head and shoulders of a woman, but he could not make the image hold still, become sharp, and the piece in his hand made his muscles ache with pain. He turned his eyes to his hand. He turned slowly in fear and saw that his upraised right hand clutched a human eye, a pulsating human eye with a nerve dangling between his fingers like a red worm. Yuri wanted to scream, drop the eye, but he knew he couldn't. The eye in his hand looked down at the puzzle, and Yuri followed its gaze and saw that the woman in the puzzle was missing an eye. For an instant, less than the time it would take to be sure, he thought the woman in the puzzle was his mother and then it was a woman he sometimes saw at the grocer's and then it was no one he knew and then it was the face of the uniformed woman he had killed in the subway, the one on the stairs, the one who had said something to him, called him a name, when he accidentally bumped into her. He had seen mat she was nothing but a prostitute in a uniform. Even if she were really in the army, she would be a prostitute when she got out, as she had surely been before she went in. She had called him a name, had called him a perverted fat pig. After all he had done, all he planned to do. He who was always so careful, so neat. She had called him a pig and he had lost control, had pulled out his pocket knife, had shown her what a pig could do. And now he stood holding her eye. Had he cut out her eye? He didn't remember. He didn't think so. He couldn't remember the report. Perhaps he could check it in the morning. He didn't want the eye that squirmed in his hand, squirmed wet like petroleum jelly as his arm turned to stone. Yes, he would return the eye. Oh, please, let him return the eye, he begged whatever gods might be, begged his hand, but neither the gods nor his body answered.
At eleven o'clock 'that evening, Emil Karpo finished his aim exercises, clenched his teeth to keep from making a sound, and felt the thin drops of perspiration on his forehead. He wiped the moisture away with his sleeve and moved to his desk, where he had laid out three pages of names. After his meeting with Rostnikov, Karpo had returned to Petrovka, gone to the records room, and told the night clerk that he needed a copy of the complete list of those who had access to the files, who were authorized to go beyond the desk.
If the clerk had any thoughts of withholding the list from the gaunt specter before him, he did not voice or show them. He dutifully supplied a copy of the current authorization list and hoped that Karpo would take it and leave. Instead of leaving, the Vampire had asked the clerk a series of strange questions about how long he had been night clerk, where he had been at certain times of the year, and where he lived. The inspector was obviously mad, as quite a few investigators seemed to be, and the best thing to do was humor him. The clerk answered the questions, and Karpo left without explanation.
And now Karpo stood over his desk looking down at the list of eighty-six names including inspector-level personnel in the MVD and the Procurator's Office plus clerical personnel. At least fifteen on the list were KGB, though they were not identified as such. They would be the most difficult to check out, but it could be done. Some of the checking could be done without the knowledge of the individual. Work schedules might well clear a good number by showing that they were in a specific place or ill or accounted for at the time of any of the murders. It would not be easy and might take a great deal of time, but the expenditure of time did not bother Emil Karpo. He would methodically go through the list and check them all. Then he might have to check them again. In the end, it might turn out to be none of them, in which case he would have to find another way to deal with the killer. It was just a matter of time and of his ability to make his mind and body continue to function.
He sat at his desk and ordered his healing left arm to move, and it moved to pick up the pen.
At eleven o'clock that night, Dimitri Mazaraki stood alone in the near-darkness of the ring of die New Circus. The night lights cast shadows that merged with die darkness. Beneath his feet, Mazaraki felt the hardness of the concrete floorbelow which was the ice level, which could be raised in a few minutesand below that die water pool, which could be brought forth almost instantly. Layers below layers below layers. Nothing quite what it seemed, just as the circus wasn't quite what it seemed.
Mazaraki liked standing alone looking out at the empty seats and the further darkness, where he knew the empty seats continued. The night sounds didn't frighten him: die creaking, the warping. He felt powerful knowing he was impressive and tall, his mustache fine. He resisted die impulse to put his hands on his hips, but he didn't resist die urge to grin. He would sleep in his office this night. He had done it before. He would sleep in his office and wake up to finish the plans for the next circus tour, which he was to have ready when die director returned. He would suggest die acts at the circus school he thought might replace die Pesknoko troupe. He would praise die slack-wire clown. Dimitri Mazaraki could be patient about most things, but there were things that did not allow one to exercise patience. One of those tilings was Katya Rashkovskaya. He decided that she would have to be killed very, very soon.
At eleven o'clock that night, after Sarah had gone to sleep in the bedroom, Porfiry Petrovich sat in his underwear in die living room of there two-room apartment and read the end of his current 87th Precinct novel. He had read it too quickly, had failed to savor it as he always promised himself to do. He would make up for it by reading die book again, though he wasn't sure he liked die grisly ending with die Calypso woman… No, he wasn't sure he liked it, though he had enjoyed being with Meyer and Carella and Kling and die others. As he put down the book it reminded him mat he had met someone that day who had looked like one of the Isola policemen. Yes, the assistant at the New Circus who had a white streak in his hair like Hawes. That memory triggered another, and Rostnikov got up to return his book to the shelf in the corner and remove two plumbing books to bring to Katya Rashkovskaya. To get to the books, Rostnikov had to move his small trophy, the bronze trophy he had won in the Moscow Senior Weightlifting Championships three years ago.
Each night, as be had done an hour ago this night, Rostnikov had rolled out his mat, removed his weights and bars from the lower shelf, and put on his sweatshirt to work out within a few feet of the trophy. Tonight he had worked out far later than he had in years. With no carpet on the floor he knew that he was making considerable noise for the Barkans in the apartment below, even though he was as quiet as he could be. The Barkans would not complain, not because they were so understanding, but because Rostnikov was a policeman and it did not pay for citizens to complain about the police. Nonetheless, Rostnikov tried to work out early whenever possible. The workout was essential. He could lose himself in the weights as he could in nothing else, and each day for almost an hour it was necessary to engage in that meditation with weights. Tonight had been no different in spite of the long talk with Sarah.
They had walked for an hour and talked in the park after Karpo and Tkach left. They had talked of Josef, reassured each other about the news from Afghanistan, remembered that Josef had only four months left of his army service. They did not talk about leaving the Soviet Union. Sarah had realized and finally accepted that there was nothing to be done that could get them out, mat her husband had risked his career and possibly their lives to try to get exit visas and had failed. She accepted. Even Josef's new assignment she accepted with pain and fear, but she accepted. Rostnikov had put an arm around her and hugged her awkwardly in the park, and she had allowed herself to crybut just for an instant. And then they had returned to the apartment.
After he had put the plumbing books by the front door, Rostnikov turned out the light and made his way to the bedroom, where he got into bed as quietly as he could without waking Sarah. Rostnikov had to be up early for the dreaded morning meeting with the Gray Wolfhound. He hoped he could avoid any new assignment of substance. He wanted to return to the circus. The memory of the smell of the circus came to him suddenly, elusively, like the scent of some flower or candy or young girl smelled once in childhood. And as he went to sleep he knew, as certainly as he knew that smell, that Katya Rashkovskaya would have to tell him the secret she guarded or her life might be as brief as that remembered scent.