Wolves Eat Dogs

3

Inn the black-and-white videotape, the two Mercedeses rolled up to the street security camera, and bodyguards-large men further inflated by the armored vests they wore under their suits-deployed from the chase car to the building canopy. Only then did the lead car's driver trot around to open the curbside door.

A digital clock rolled in a corner of the tape. 2128. 2129. 2130. Finally Pasha Ivanov unfolded from the rear seat. He looked more disheveled than the dynamic Ivanov of the apartment photo gallery. Arkady had questioned the driver, who had told him that Ivanov hadn't said a word all the way from the office to the apartment, not even on a mobile phone.

Something amused Ivanov. Two dachshunds strained on their leashes to sniff his attaché case. Although the tape was silent, Arkady read Ivanov's lips: Puppies? he asked the owner. When the dogs had passed, Ivanov clutched the attaché to his chest and went into the building. Arkady switched to the lobby tape.

The marble lobby was so brightly lit that everyone wore halos. The doorman and receptionist wore jackets with braid over not too obvious holsters. Once the doorman activated the call button with a key, he stayed at Ivanov's side while Ivanov used a handkerchief, and when the elevator doors opened, Arkady went to the elevator tape. He had already interviewed the operator, a former Kremlin guard, white-haired but hard as a sandbag.

Arkady asked whether he and Ivanov had talked. The operator said, "I trained on the Kremlin staircase. Big men don't make small talk."

On the tape, Ivanov punched a code into the keypad and, as the doors opened, turned to the elevator camera. The camera's fish-bowl lens made his face disproportionately huge, eyes drowning in shadow above the handkerchief he held against his nose. Maybe he had Timofeyev's summer cold. Ivanov finally moved through the open doors, and Arkady was reminded of an actor rushing to the stage, now hesitating, now rushing again. The time on the tape was 2133.

Arkady switched tapes, back to the street camera, and forwarded to 2147. The pavement was clear, the two cars were still at the curb, the lights of traffic filtering by. At 2148 a blur from above slapped the pavement. The doors of the chase car flew open, and the guards poured out to form a defensive circle on the pavement around what could have been a heap of rags with legs. One man raced into the building, another knelt to feel Ivanov's neck, while the driver of the sedan ran around it to open a rear door. The man taking Ivanov's pulse, or lack of it, shook his head while the doorman moved into view, arms wide in disbelief. That was it, the Pasha Ivanov movie, a story with a beginning and an end but no middle.

Arkady rewound and watched frame by frame.

Ivanov's upper body dropped from the top of the screen, shoulder hitched to take the brunt of the fall.

His head folded from the force of the impact even as his legs entered the frame.

Upper and lower body collapsed into a ring of dust that exploded from the pavement.

Pasha Ivanov settled as the doors of the chase car swung open and, in slow motion, the guards swam around his body.

Arkady watched to see whether any of the security team, while they were in the car and before Ivanov came out of the sky, glanced up; then he watched for anything like the saltshaker dropping with Ivanov or shaken loose by the force of the fall. Nothing. And then he watched to see whether any of the guards picked up anything afterward. No one did. They stood on the pavement, as useful as potted plants.

The doorman on duty kept looking up. He said, "I was in Special Forces, so I've seen parachutes that didn't deploy and bodies you scraped off the ground, but someone coming out of the sky here? And Ivanov, of all people. A good guy, I have to say, a generous guy. But what if he'd hit the doorman, did he think about that? Now a pigeon goes overhead and I duck."

"Your name?" Arkady asked.

"Kuznetsov, Grisha." Grisha still had the army stamp on him. Wary around officers.

"You were on duty two days ago?"

"The day shift. I wasn't here at night, when it happened, so I don't know what I can tell you."

"Just walk me around, if you would."

"Around what?"

"The building, front to back."

"For a suicide? Why?"

"Details."

"Details," Grisha muttered as the traffic went by. He shrugged.

"Okay."

The building was short-staffed on weekends, Grisha said, only him, the receptionist and the passenger elevator man. Weekdays, there were two other men for repairs, working the service door and service elevator, picking up trash. Housecleaners on weekdays, too, if residents requested. Ivanov didn't. Everyone had been vetted, of course. Security cameras covered the street, lobby, passenger elevator and service alley. At the back of the lobby Grisha tapped in a code on a keypad by a door with a sign that said staff only. The door eased open, and Grisha led Arkady into an area that consisted of a changing room with lockers, sink, microwave; toilet; mechanical room with furnace and hot-water heater; repair shop where two older men Grisha identified as Fart A and Fart B were intently threading a pipe; residents' storage area for rugs, skis and such, ending in a truck bay. Every door had a keypad and a different code.

Grisha said, "You ought to go to NoviRus Security. Like an underground bunker. They've got everything there: building layout, codes, the works."

"Good idea." NoviRus Security was the last place Arkady wanted to be. "Can you open the bay?"

Light poured in as the gate rolled up, and Arkady found himself facing a service alley wide enough to accommodate a moving van. Dumpsters stood along the brick wall that was the back of shorter, older buildings facing the next street over. There were, however, security cameras aimed at the alley from the bay where Arkady and Grisha stood, and from the new buildings on either side. There was also a green-and-black motorcycle standing under a No Parking sign.

Something about the way the doorman screwed up his face made Arkady ask, "Yours?"

"Parking around here is a bitch. Sometimes I can find a place and sometimes I can't, but the Farts won't let me use the bay. Excuse me." As they walked to the bike, Arkady noticed a cardboard sign taped to the saddle: don't touch this bike, I am watching you. Grisha borrowed a pen from Arkady and underlined "watching." "That's better."

"Quite a machine."

"A Kawasaki. I used to ride a Uralmoto," Grisha said, to let Arkady know how far he had come up in the world.

Arkady noticed a pedestrian door next to the bay. Each entry had a separate keypad. "Do people park here?"

"No, the Farts are all over them, too."

"Saturday, when the mechanics weren't on duty?"

"When we're short-staffed? Well, we can't leave our post every time a car stops in the alley. We give them ten minutes, and then we chase them out."

"Did that happen this Saturday?"

"When Ivanov jumped? I'm not on at night."

"I understand, but during your shift, did you or the receptionist notice anything unusual in the alley?"

Grisha took a while to think. "No. Besides, the back is locked tight on Saturdays. You'd need a bomb to get in."

"Or a code."

"You'd still be seen by the camera. We'd notice."

"I'm sure. You were in front?"

"At the canopy, yes."

"People were going in and out?"

"Residents and guests."

"Anyone carrying salt?"

"How much salt?"

"Bags and bags of salt."

"No."

"Ivanov wasn't bringing home salt day after day? No salt leaking from his briefcase?"

"No."

"I have salt on the brain, don't I?"

"Yeah." Said slowly.

"I should do something about that."

The Arbat was a promenade of outdoor musicians, sketch artists and souvenir stalls that sold strands of amber, nesting dolls of peasant women, retro posters of Stalin. Dr. Novotny's office was above a cybercafe. She told Arkady that she was about to retire on the money she would make selling to developers who planned to put in a Greek restaurant. Arkady liked the office as it was, a drowsy room with overstuffed chairs and Kandinsky prints, bright splashes of color that could have been windmills, bluebirds, cows. Novotny was a brisk seventy, her face a mask of lines around bright dark eyes.

"I first saw Pasha Ivanov a little more than a year ago, the first week in May. He seemed typical of our new entrepreneurs. Aggressive, intelligent, adaptable; the last sort to seek psychotherapy. They are happy to send in their wives or mistresses; it's popular for the women, like feng shui, but the men rarely come in themselves. In fact, he missed his last four sessions, although he insisted on paying for them."

"Why did he choose you?"

"Because I'm good."

"Oh." Arkady liked a woman who came straight to the point.

"Ivanov said he had trouble sleeping, which is always the way they start. They say they want a pill to help them sleep, but what they want me to prescribe is a mood elevator, which I am willing to do only as part of a broader therapy. We met once a week. He was entertaining, highly articulate, possessed of enormous self-confidence. At the same time, he was very secretive in certain areas, his business dealings for one, and, unfortunately, whatever was the cause of his…"

"Depression or fear?" Arkady asked.

"Both, if you need to put it that way. He was depressed, and he was afraid."

"Did he mention enemies?"

"Not by name. He said that ghosts were after him." Novotny opened a box of cigars, took one, peeled off the cellophane and slipped the cigar band over her finger. "I'm not saying that he believed in ghosts."

"Aren't you?"

"No. What I'm saying is that he had a past. A man like him gets to where he is by doing many remarkable things, some of which he might later regret."

Arkady described the scene at Ivanov's apartment. The doctor said that the broken mirror certainly could have been an expression of self-loathing, and jumping from a window was a man's way out. ''However, the two most usual motives of suicide for men are financial and emotional, often evidenced as atrophied libido. Ivanov had wealth and a healthy sexual relationship with his friend Rina."

"He used Viagra."

"Rina is much younger."

"And his physical health?"

"For a man his age, good."

"He didn't mention an infection or a cold?"

"No."

"Did the subject of salt ever come up?"

"No."

"The floor of his closet was covered with salt."

"That is interesting."

"But you say he recently missed some sessions."

"A month's worth, and sporadically before then."

"Did he mention any attempts on his life?"

Novotny turned the cigar band around her finger. "Not in so many words. He said he had to stay a step ahead."

"A step ahead of ghosts, or someone real?"

"Ghosts can be very real. In Ivanov's case, however, I think he was pursued by both ghosts and someone real."

"Do you think he was suicidal?"

"Yes. At the same time, he was a survivor."

"Do you think, considering everything, he killed himself?"

"He could have. Did he? You're the investigator." Her face shifted into a sympathetic frown. "I'm sorry, I wish I could help you more. Would you like a cigar? It's Cuban."

"No, thank you. Do you smoke?"

"When I was a girl, all the modern, interesting women smoked cigars. You'd look good with a cigar. One more thing, Investigator. I got the impression that there was a cyclical nature to Ivanov's bouts of depression. Always in the spring, always early in May. In fact, right after May Day. But I must confess, May Day always deeply depressed me, too."

It wasn't easy to find an unfashionable restaurant among the Irish pubs and sushi bars in the center of Moscow, but Victor succeeded. He and Arkady had macaroni and grease served at a stand-up cafeteria around the corner from the militia headquarters on Petrovka. Arkady was happy with black tea and sugar, but Victor had a daily requirement of carbohydrates that was satisfied best by beer. From his briefcase Victor took morgue photos of Ivanov, frontal, dorsal and head shot, and spread them between the plates. One side of Ivanov's face was white, the other side black.

Victor said, "Dr. Toptunova said she didn't autopsy suicides. I asked her, 'What about your curiosity, your professional pride? What about poisons or psychotropic drugs?' She said they'd have to do biopsies, tests, waste the precious resources of the state. We agreed on fifty dollars. I figure Hoffman is good for that."

"Toptunova is a butcher." Arkady really didn't want to look at the pictures.

"You don't find Louis Pasteur doing autopsies for the militia. Thank God she operates on the dead. Anyway, she says Ivanov broke his neck. Fuck your mother, I could have told them that. And if it hadn't been his neck, it would have been his skull. Drugwise, he was clean, although she thought he had ulcers from the condition of his stomach. There was one odd thing. In his stomach? Bread and salt."

"Salt?"

"A lot of salt and just enough bread to get it down."

"She didn't mention anything about his complexion?"

"What was to mention? It was mainly one big bruise. I questioned the doorman and lobby receptionist again. They have the same story: no problems, no breach. Then some guy with dachshunds tried to pick me up. I showed him my ID to shake him up, you know, and he says, 'Oh, are they having another security check?' Saturday the building staff shut down the elevator and went to every apartment to check who was in. The guy was still upset. His dachshunds couldn't wait and had a little accident."

"Which means there was a breach. When did they do this check?"

Victor consulted his notebook. "Eleven-ten in the morning at his place. He's on the ninth floor, and I think they worked their way down."

"Good work." Arkady couldn't imagine who would want to pick up Victor, but applause was indicated.

"A different subject." Victor laid down a picture of two buckets and mops. "These I found in the lobby of the building across from Ivanov's. Abandoned, but the name of the cleaning service was on them, and I found who left them. Vietnamese. They didn't see Ivanov dive; they ran when they saw militia cars, because they're illegals."

Menial tasks that Russians wouldn't do, Vietnamese would. They came as "guest workers" and went into hiding when their visas expired. Their wardrobe was the clothes on their back, their accommodations a workers' hostel, their family connection the money they sent home once a month. Arkady could understand laborers who slipped into the golden tent of America, but to sneak into the mouse-eaten sack that was Russia, that was desperate.

"There's more." Victor picked macaroni off his chest. The detective had changed his gray sweater for one of caterpillar orange. He licked his fingers clean, gathered the photos and replaced them with a file that said in red: not to be removed from this office.

"Dossiers on the four attempts on Ivanov's life. This is rich. First attempt was a doorway shooting here in Moscow by a disgruntled investor, a schoolteacher whose savings were wiped out. The poor bastard misses six times. Tries to shoot himself in the head and misses again. Makhmud Nasir. Got four years-not bad. Here's his address, back in town. Maybe he's got glasses now.

"Second attempt is hearsay, but everyone swears it's true. Ivanov rigged an auction for some ships in Archangel, got them for nothing and also bent some local noses out of shape. A competitor sends a contract killer, who blows up Ivanov's car. Ivanov is impressed, finds the killer and pays him double to murder the man who sent him, and shortly after, supposedly, a guy falls in the water in Archangel and doesn't come up for air.

"Third: Ivanov took the train to Leningrad. Why the train, don't ask. On the way, you know how it is, someone pumps sleeping gas into the compartment to rob the passengers, usually the tourists. Ivanov is a light sleeper. He wakes, sees this guy coming in and shoots him. Everyone said it was an overreaction until they found a razor and a picture of Ivanov in the dead man's coat. He also had some worthless Ivanov stock.

"Fourth, and this is the best: Ivanov is in the South of France with friends. They're all zipping back and forth on Jet Skis, the way rich people carry on. Hoffman gets on Ivanov's Jet Ski, and it sinks. It flips upside down, and guess what's stuck to the bottom, a little limpet of plastique ready to explode. The French police had to clear the harbor. See, that's what gives Russian tourists a bad name."

"Who were Ivanov's friends?" Arkady asked.

"Leonid Maximov and Nikolai Kuzmitch, his very best friends. And one of them probably tried to kill him."

"Was there an investigation?"

"Are you joking? You know our chances of even saying hello to any of these gentlemen? Anyway, that was three years ago, and nothing has happened since."

"Fingerprints?"

"Worst for last. We got prints off all the drinking glasses. Just Ivanov's, Timofeyev's, Zurin's and the girl's."

"What about Pasha's mobile phone? He always had a mobile phone."

"We're not positive."

"Find the mobile phone. Ivanov's driver said he had one."

"While you're doing what?"

"Colonel Ozhogin has arrived."

"The Colonel Ozhogin?"

"That's right."

Victor saw things in a different light. "I'll look for the mobile phone."

"The head of NoviRus Security wants to consult."

"He wants to consult your balls on a toothpick. If Ivanov was pushed, how does that make the head of security look? Did you ever see Ozhogin wrestle? I saw him in an all-republic tournament-he broke his opponent's arm. You could hear it snap across the hall. You know, even if we did find a mobile phone, Ozhogin would take it away. He answers to Timofeyev now. The king is dead, long live the king." Victor lit a cigarette as a digestif. "The thing about capitalism, it seems to me, is, a business partner has the perfect combination of motive and opportunity for murder. Oh hey, I got something for you." Victor came up with a plastic phone card.

"What's this for? A free call?" Arkady knew that Victor had strange ways of sharing a bill.

"No. Well, I don't know, but what it's great for…" Victor jimmied the card between two fingers. "Locks. Not dead bolts, but you'd be amazed. I got one, and I got one for you, too. Put it in your wallet."

"Almost like money."

Two young men settled at the next table with bowls of ravioli. They wore the jackets and stringy ties of office workers. They also had the shaved skulls and scabby knuckles of skinheads, which meant they might be office drudges during the day, but at night they led an intoxicating life of violence patterned on Nazi storm troopers and British hooligans.

One gave Arkady a glare and said, "What are you looking at? What are you, a pervert?"

Victor brightened. "Hit him, Arkady. Go ahead, hit the punk, I'll back you up."

"No, thanks," Arkady said.

"A little fisticuffs, a little dustup," Victor said. "Go on, you can't let him talk like that. We're a block from headquarters, you'll let the whole side down."

"If he doesn't, he's a queer," the skinhead said.

"If you won't, I will." Victor started to rise.

Arkady pulled him back by his sleeve. "Let it go."

"You've gone soft, Arkady, you've changed."

"I hope so."

Ozhogin's office was minimalist: a glass desk, steel chairs, gray tones. A full-size model of a samurai in black lacquered armor, mask and horns stood in a corner. The colonel himself, although he was packaged in a tailored shirt and silk tie, still had the heavy shoulders and small waist of a wrestler. After having Arkady sit, Ozhogin let the tension percolate.

Colonel Ozhogin actually had two pedigrees. First, he was a wrestler from Georgia, and at wrapping opponents into knots Georgians were the best. Second, he had been KGB. The KGB may have suffered a shake-up and a title change, but its agents had prospered, moving like crows to new trees. After all, when the call went out for men with language skills and sophistication, who better to step forward?

The colonel slid a form and clipboard across the desk.

"What's this?" Arkady asked.

"Take a look."

The form was a NoviRus employment application, with spaces for name, age, sex, marriage status, address, military service, education, advanced degrees. Applying for: banking, investment fund, brokerage, gas, oil, media, marine, forest resources, minerals, security, translation and interpreting. The group was especially interested in applicants fluent in English, MS Office, Excel; familiar with Reuters, Bloomberg, RTS; IT literate; with advanced degrees in sciences, accounting, interpreting/translation, law or combat skills; under thirty-five a plus. Arkady had to admit, he wouldn't have hired himself. He pushed the form back. "No, thanks."

"You don't want to fill it out? That's disappointing."

"Why?"

"Because there are two possible reasons for you being here. A good reason would be that you've finally decided to join the private sector. A bad reason would be that you won't leave Pasha Ivanov's death alone. Why are you trying to turn a suicide into a homicide?"

"I'm not. Prosecutor Zurin asked me to look into this for Hoffman, the American."

"Who got the idea from you that there was something to find." Ozhogin paused, obviously working up to a delicate subject. "How do you think it makes NoviRus Security look if people get the idea we can't protect the head of our own company?"

"If he took his own life, you can hardly be blamed."

"Unless there are questions."

"I would like to talk to Timofeyev."

"That's out of the question."

Besides an open laptop, the sole item on the desk was a metal disk levitating over another disk in a box. Magnets. The floating disk trembled with every forceful word.

Arkady began, "Zurin-"

"Prosecutor Zurin? Do you know how all this began, what your investigation of NoviRus was all about? It was a shakedown. Zurin just wanted to be enough of a nuisance to be paid off, and not even in money. He wanted to get on the board of directors. And I'm sure he'll be an excellent director. But it was extortion, and you were part of it. What would people think of the honest Investigator Renko if they heard how you had helped your chief? What would happen to your precious reputation then?"

"I didn't know I had one."

"Of a sort. You should fill out the application. Do you know that over fifty thousand KGB and militia officers have joined private security firms? Who's left in the militia? The dregs. I had your friend Victor researched. It's in his file that on one stakeout he was so drunk, he went to sleep and pissed in his pants. Maybe you'll end up like that."

Arkady glanced out the window. They were on the fifteenth floor of the NoviRus building, with a view of office towers under construction; the skyline of the future.

"Look behind you," Ozhogin said. Arkady turned to take in the samurai armor and helmet with mask and horns. "What does that look like to you?"

"A giant beetle?"

"A samurai warrior. When Japan was opened up by the West, and the samurai were disbanded, they didn't disappear. They went into business. Not all; some became poets, some became drunks, but the smart ones knew enough to change with the times." Ozhogin came around the desk and perched on its corner. For all his grooming, the colonel imparted the sense that he could still wring a bone or two. "Renko, did you happen to see The Washington Post this morning?"

"Not this morning, no. Missed it."

"There was a considerable obituary for Pasha Ivanov. The Post called Pasha a 'linchpin figure' in Russian business. Have you considered the effect a rumor of homicide would have? It would not only harm NoviRus, it would damage every Russian company and bank that has struggled to escape Moscow 's reputation for violence. Considering the consequences, I think a person should be careful about even whispering 'homicide.' Especially when there isn't the slightest evidence that there was one. Unless you have some evidence you'd like to share with me?"

"No."

"I didn't think so. And as for your financial investigation of NoviRus, didn't the fact that Zurin chose you as investigator suggest to you that he wasn't serious?"

"It crossed my mind."

"It's laughable. A pair of worn-out criminal detectives against an army of financial wizards."

"It doesn't sound fair."

"Now that Pasha is dead, it's time to let go. Call it a draw if you want. Pasha Ivanov came to a sorry end. Why? I don't know. It's a great loss. However, he never asked for any increase in security. I interviewed the building staff. There was no breach." Ozhogin leaned closer, a hammer taking aim on a nail, Arkady thought. "If there was no breach in security, then there's nothing to investigate. Is that clear enough for you?"

"There was salt-"

"I heard about the salt. What sort of attack is that? The salt is an indication of a mental breakdown, pure and simple."

"Unless there was a breach."

"I just told you there wasn't."

"That's what investigations are for."

"Are you saying there was a breach?"

"It's possible. Ivanov died under strange circumstances."

Ozhogin edged closer. "Are you suggesting that NoviRus Security was, to any degree, responsible for Ivanov's death?"

Arkady picked his words carefully. "Building security wasn't all that sophisticated. No card swipes or voice or palm ID, just codes, nothing like the security at the offices here. And a skeleton crew on weekends."

"Because Ivanov moved into an apartment meant for his friend Rina. She designed it. He didn't want any changes. Nevertheless, we staffed the building with our men, put in unobtrusive keypads, fed the surveillance cameras to our own monitors here at NoviRus Security and, any hour he was home, parked a security team in front. There was nothing more we could do. Besides, Pasha never mentioned a threat."

"That's what we'll investigate."

Ozhogin brought his brows together, perplexed. He had pushed his opponent's head through the wrestling mat, but the match went on. "You're stopping now."

"It's up to Hoffman to call it off."

"He'll do what you say. Tell him that you're satisfied."

"There's something missing."

"What?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know, you don't know." Ozhogin reached out and tapped the disk so it fluttered in the air. "Who's the boy?"

"What boy?"

"You took a boy to the park."

"You're watching me."

Ozhogin seemed saddened by such naiveté in a Russian. He said, "Pack it in, Renko. Tell your fat American friend that Pasha Ivanov committed suicide. Then why don't you come back and fill out the form?"

Arkady found Rina curled up in a bathrobe in Ivanov's screening room, a vodka bottle hanging from one hand and a cigarette from the other. Her hair was wet and clung to her head, making her appear even more childlike than usual. On the screen Pasha rose in the elevator, floor by floor, briefcase clasped to his chest, handkerchief to his face. He seemed exhausted, as if he had climbed a hundred stories. When the doors parted, he looked back at the camera. The system had a zoom capacity. Rina froze and magnified Pasha's face so that it filled the screen, his hair lank, his cheeks almost powdery white, his black eyes sending their obscure message.

"That was for me. That was his good-bye." Rina shot Arkady a glance. "You don't believe me. You think it's romantic bullshit."

"At least half of what I believe is romantic bullshit, so I'm not one to criticize. Anything else?"

"He was sick. I don't know with what. He wouldn't see a doctor." Rina put down her cigarette and pulled the robe tight. "The elevator operator let me in. Your detective was going out as I came in, looking pleased with himself."

"A gruesome image."

"I heard Bobby hired you."

"He offered to. I didn't know the market price for an investigator."

"You're no Pasha, He would have known."

"I tried to reach Timofeyev. He's not available. I suppose he's picking up the reins of the company, taking charge."

"He's no Pasha, either. You know, business in Russia is very social. Pasha made his biggest deals in clubs and bars. He had the perfect personality for that. People liked to be around him. He was fun and generous. Timofeyev is a lump. I miss Pasha."

Arkady took the seat beside her and relieved her of the vodka. "You designed this apartment for him?"

"I designed it for both of us, but all of a sudden, Pasha said I shouldn't stay."

"You never moved in?"

"Lately Pasha wouldn't even let me in the door. At first I thought there was another woman. But he didn't want anyone here. Not Bobby, no one." Rina wiped her eyes. "He became paranoid. I'm sorry I'm so stupid."

"Not a bit."

The robe fell open again, and she pushed herself back in. "I like you, Investigator. You don't look. You have manners."

Arkady had manners, but he was also aware of how loosely tied the robe was.

"Did you know of any recent business setback? Anything financial that could have been on his mind?"

"Pasha was always making deals. And he didn't mind losing money now and then. He said it was the price of education."

"Anything else medical? Depression?"

"We didn't have sex for the last month, if that counts. I don't know why. He just stopped." She stubbed out one cigarette and started another off Arkady's. "You're probably wondering how a nobody like me and someone as rich and famous as Pasha could meet. How would you guess?"

"You're an interior designer. I suppose you designed something for him besides this apartment."

"Don't be silly. I was a prostitute. Design student and prostitute, a person of many talents. I was in the bar at the Savoy Hotel. It's a fancy place, and you have to fit in, you can't just sit there like any whore. I was pretending to carry on a mobile-phone conversation when Pasha came over and asked for my number so I could talk to someone real. Then, from across the bar, he called. I thought, What a big ugly Jew. He was, you know. But he had so much energy, so much charm. He knew everybody, he knew things. He asked about my interests-the usual stuff, you know, but he really listened, and he even knew about design. Then he asked how much I owed my roof-you know, my pimp-because Pasha said he would pay him off, set me up in an apartment and pay for design school. He was serious. I asked him why, and he said because he could see I was a good person. Would you do that? Would you bet on someone like that?"

"I don't think so."

"Well, that was Pasha." She took a long draw on her cigarette.

"How old are you now?"

"Twenty."

"And you met Pasha…"

"Three years ago. When we were talking on the phone at the bar, I asked if he preferred a redhead, because I could be that, too. He said life was too short, I should be whatever I was."

The longer Arkady stared at the screen, at Pashas hesitation on the threshold of his apartment, the less he looked like a man afraid of a black mood. He seemed to dread something more substantial waiting for him.

"Did Pasha have enemies?"

"Naturally. Maybe hundreds, but nothing serious."

"Death threats?"

"Not from anyone worth worrying about."

"There were attempts in the past."

"That's what Colonel Ozhogin is for. Pasha did say one thing. He said he had once done something long ago that was really bad and that I wouldn't love him if I knew. That was the drunkest I ever saw him. He wouldn't tell me what and he never mentioned it again."

"Who did know?"

"I think Lev Timofeyev knew. He said no, but I could tell. It was their secret."

"How they stripped investors of their money?"

"No." Her voice tightened. "Something awful. He was always worse around May Day. I mean, who cares about May Day anymore?" She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "Why don't you think he killed himself?"

"I don't think one way or the other; I just haven't come across a good enough reason for him to. Ivanov was clearly not a man who frightened easily."

"See, even you admired him."

"Do you know Leonid Maximov and Nikolai Kuzmitch?"

"Of course. They're two of our best friends. We have good times together."

"They're busy men, I'm sure, but can you think of any way I could talk to them? I could try official channels, but to be honest, they know more officials than I do."

"No problem. Come to the party."

"What party?"

"Every year Pasha threw a party out at the dacha. It's tomorrow. Everyone will be there."

"Pasha is dead and you're still having the party?"

"Pasha founded the Blue Sky Charity for children. It depends financially on the party, so everyone knows that Pasha would want the party to go on."

Arkady had come across Blue Sky during the investigation. Its operating expenses were minute compared to other Ivanov ventures, and he had assumed it was a fraud. "How does this party raise money?"

"You'll see. I'll put you on the list, and tomorrow you'll see everyone who's anyone in Moscow. But you will have to blend in."

"I don't look like a millionaire?"

She shifted, the better to see him. "No, you definitely look like an investigator. I can't have you stalking around, not good for a party mood. But many people will bring their children. Can you bring a child? You must know a child."

"I might."

Arkady turned on the chair's light for her to write directions in. She did it studiously, pressing hard, and, as soon as she was done, turned off the light.

"I think I'll stay here by myself for a while. What's your name again?"

"Renko."

"No, I mean your name."

"Arkady."

She repeated it, seeming to try it out and find it acceptable. As he rose to go, she brushed his hand with hers. "Arkady, I take it back. You do remind me of Pasha a tiny bit."

"Thank you," said Arkady. He didn't ask whether she was referring to the brilliant, gregarious Pasha or the Pasha facedown on the street.

Arkady and Victor had a late dinner at a car-wash café on the highway. Arkady liked the place because it looked like a space station of chrome and glass, with headlights flying by like comets. The food was fast, the beer was German and something worthwhile was being attempted: Victor's car was being washed. Victor drove a forty-year-old Lada with loose wiring underfoot and a radio wired to the dash, but he could repair it himself with spare parts available in any junkyard, and no self-respecting person would steal it. There was something smug and miserly about Victor when he drove, as if he had figured out one bare-bones sexual position. Among the ranks of Mercedeses, Porsches and BMWs being hosed and buffed, Victor's Lada was singular.

Victor drank Armenian brandy to maintain his blood sugar. He liked the café because it was popular with the different Mafias. They were Victor's acquaintances, if not his friends, and he liked to keep track of their comings and goings. "I've arrested three generations of the same family. Grandfather, father, son. I feel like Uncle Victor."

Two identical black Pathfinders showed up and disgorged similar sets of beefy passengers in jogging suits. They glared at each other long enough to maintain dignity before sauntering into the café.

Victor said, "It's neutral ground because nobody wants his car scratched. That's their mentality. Your mentality, on the other hand, is even more warped. Making work out of an open-and-shut suicide? I don't know. Investigators are supposed to just sit on their ass and leave real work to their detectives. They last longer, too."

"I've lasted too long."

"Apparently. Well, cheer up, I have a little gift for you, something I found under Ivanov's bed." Victor placed a mobile phone, a Japanese clamshell model, on the table.

"Why were you under the bed?"

"You have to think like a detective. People place things on the edge of the bed all the time. They drop, and people kick them under the bed and never notice, especially if they're in a hurry or in a sweat."

"How did Ozhogin's crew miss this?"

"Because everything they wanted was in the office."

Arkady suspected that Victor just liked to look under beds. "Thank you. Have you looked at it yet?"

"I took a peek. Go ahead, open it up." Victor sat back as if he'd brought bonbons.

The mobile phone's introductory chime drew no attention from other tables; in a space-age café, a mobile phone was as normal as a knife or fork. Arkady went through the call history to Saturday evenings outgoing calls to Rina and Bobby Hoffman; the incoming calls were from Hoffman, Rina and Timofeyev.

A little phone, and yet so much information: a wireless message concerning an Ivanov tanker foundering off Spain, and a calendar of meetings, most recently with Prosecutor Zurin, of all people. In the directory were phone numbers not only for Rina, Hoffman, Timofeyev and different NoviRus heads, but also for well-known journalists and theater people, for millionaires whose names Arkady recognized from other investigations, and, most interesting, for Zurin, the mayor, senators and ministers, and the Kremlin itself. Such a phone was a plug into a power grid.

Victor copied the names into a notepad. "What a world these people live in. Here's a number that gives you the weather in Saint-Tropez. Very nice." It took two brandies for Victor to finish the list. He looked up and nodded to a truculent circle of people at the next table. In a low voice, he said, "The Medvedev brothers. I've arrested their father and mother. But I have to admit, I feel comfortable with them. They're ordinary thugs, not businessmen with investment funds."

Arkady punched "Messages."

There was one at 9:33 p.m. from a Moscow number, and the message did not sound like a businessman's: "You don't know who this is, but I'm trying to do you a favor. I'll call you again. All I'll say now is, if you stick your dick in someone else's soup, sooner or later it's going to get cut off."

"A man of few words. Familiar?" Arkady handed the phone to Victor.

The detective listened and shook his head. "A tough guy. From the South, you can hear the soft O's. But I can't hear well enough. All the people talking here. Glasses tinkling."

"If anyone can do it…"

Victor listened again, the mobile phone pressed tight to his ear, until he smiled like a man who had identified one wine from a million. "Anton. Anton Obodovsky."

Arkady knew Anton. He could imagine Anton throwing someone out a window.

The tension was too great for Victor. "Got to pee."

Arkady sat alone, nursing his beer. Another crew in jogging suits pushed into the café, as if the roads were full of surly sportsmen. Arkady's gaze kept returning to the mobile phone. It would be interesting to know whether the phone Anton had called from was within fifteen minutes of Ivanov's apartment. It was a landline number. He knew he should wait for Victor, but the detective could take half an hour just to avoid the bill.

Arkady picked up the mobile phone and pushed "Reply to Message."

Ten rings.

"Guards room."

Arkady sat up. "Guards' room? Where?"

"Butyrka. Who is this?"

By the time Victor returned, Arkady was outside in the Lada, which proved unredeemed by soap. A wind bent the advertising banners along the highway and snapped the canvas. Each car that buzzed past rocked the Lada.

Victor got behind the wheel. "I'll drive you back to your car. You paid the whole thing? What a friend!"

"You know, with the money you've saved eating with me, you could buy a new car."

"Come on, I'm worth it, getting the mobile phone and sharing my repository of knowledge. My head is a veritable Lenin Library."

Mice and all, Arkady thought. As Victor pulled onto the highway, Arkady told him about the return call to Anton, which amused the detective immensely.

"Butyrka! Now, there's an alibi."