A Fine Red Rain

CHAPTER TWO

The baby was crying. Sasha Tkach rolled over and looked at the small crib next to his and Maya's bed. Then he groped on the nearby table for his watch. His right hand touched it and knocked it to the bare wooden floor, where it hit with a thunk barely heard over the baby's crying.

"What time?" Maya mumbled sleepily.

Sasha found the watch and tried to turn it so that he could read its face by the dim street light coming through the open window.

"I think it's two-twenty or maybe three-twenty," he said.

This revelation, or the sound of its parents' voices, made the baby cry a bit louder.

"She's hungry," said Maya, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"Hungry," agreed Sasha, flopping back on the bed.

He watched Maya rise, her full brown hair uncombed, the white American T-shirt she slept in clinging to her. Sasha smiled and closed his eyes. He could change Pulcharia's diaper, and was quite willing to do so, but he could not produce milk. Besides, Maya was on maternity leave and could sleep late if the baby let her.

In the weeks before the baby was bom, Sasha's mother, Lydia, who slept in the next room, had loaded the pregnant Maya with old wives' tales and reasonable advice.

"Long walks, every day," Lydia had repeated, and Maya had agreed, walking to work in the early days of the pregnancy. "And no sweets. Sweets make the skin itch."

Maya had nodded with a tolerant smile at Sasha. Before the pregnancy, Maya had begun to show signs of irritation with her mother-in-law. Sasha well understood. During the day they were all at workLydia at the Ministry of Information, Sasha at Petrovka, and Maya at her most recent job, a day-care center for the workers at the Ts.U.M. department store on Petrov Street. But in the recent mornings and evenings, Lydia, who was growing increasingly deaf and increasingly irritable, made it difficult for the expectant parents to keep smiling. With only two rooms in the apartment, it was difficult to get away from each other, especially difficult to get away from Lydia's loud voice.

Sasha, eyes still closed, heard Maya pick up Pulcharia, coo to her. He opened his eyes and saw the dark silhouette of Maya, cross-legged on the floor, lifting her T-shirt to offer her full breast to the tiny girl named for Lydia's own mother, a concession Sasha thought was more than Maya should accept but to which Maya had readily agreed. She liked the old-fashioned name and really had no one in her family or in history or in literature that she particularly felt like naming her child for. Pulcharia seemed perfect to her.

Before the birth, Lydia had also announced, from her own experience and that of her few friends, that oxygen was essential to pregnant women. "So breathe deep when the contractions come and rub your stomach in circles like this. The pain will be like no other you have imagined."

"Thank you," Maya had said, smiling at Sasha.

When the baby did come, it was in the hospital, in a large delivery room from which Sasha was barred. Two other women were having babies at the same time. Maya had remembered the pain abstractly even when she told Sasha about it. She remembered the white, loose gown they had put on her and tied at the neck. She remembered the screaming women on either side of her, the white-masked, white-gowned, white-capped quartet of doctors and nurses who helped her, and she remembered the pain. There was no anesthetic. Though the Lamaze method was developed largely through Soviet research, there was no encouragement to practice natural childbirth methods that might lessen pain. Pain was assumed to be a natural part of bearing a child. Pain, the doctor at the clinic had told her, was a reminder of the cost and responsibility of bearing a child. It was not supposed to be easy.

After the birth the baby had been kept from Maya for more than a full day to avoid infection. And though there was nothing wrong with mother or child, Sasha had been unable to see them for ten days. That, too, to avoid infection.

Sasha lay with his eyes closed, trying to remember the time he had seen on his watch. The watch was notoriously unreliable, a recent replacement for the pocket watch he had inherited from his father. The new watch was Romanian and tended to lose a minute every few days.

The baby was cooing now, and Maya was whispering, "Krasee' v/iy doch, beautiful daughter."

In another hour Sasha would have to get up, get dressed like a student, and hurry to a bookstall near Moscow State University that was reported to be a contact for the illegal sale of videotapes and videotape players. Sasha was a junior investigator in the Office of the Procurator General. He looked far younger than his twenty-nine years and was frequently used in undercover operations because of the innocence of his features. He looked nothing like a policeman. He also knew, and didn't like, the fact that among the investigators at Petrovka he had earned a nickname: the Innocent. Still, it was better to have a nickname, a reputation, a future, than to be where Rostnikov was nowdemoted, for some reason, and under the eye of the Gray Wolfhound.

When next he opened his eyes, Sasha would get up quietly, check on the baby, brush his teeth in the tiny bathroom that had no bath and a shower that infrequently worked, shave, dress, and grab a slice of bread and a drink of cool tea from the bottle in the small refrigerator. Then he would walk to the metro and head for the bookstall, where he would pretend to be a student wanting to buy a foreign videotape machine. His reports, which up to now had had little of substance in them, were not only being reviewed by Khabolov, the assistant procurator, butbecause of the economic implications of the case, Sasha Tkach was surewere also being examined by someone in the KGB. No one had told him this, but because the black market was involved it was obvious, and Khabolov's special interest in the case had made it clear that there was an urgency involved that was encountered only when pressure was being put on the assistant procurator.

Sasha felt Maya get back into the bed, cover herself with the thin sheet, and move close to him. The' baby was quiet. Somewhere far away through the open window a drunken voice laughed once and then was silent. Sasha reached over and put his arm around his wife. She moved his hand to her belly and for a moment there was a soft silence. But only for a moment. The door to Lydia's small bedroom shot open and Sasha's mother's voice squealed out in exasperation.

"Can't the two of you hear the baby crying?" With that, of course, Pulcharia woke up again and began to cry.

"Details, routine, vigilance," the Gray Wolfhound announced, holding up one finger of his slender hand to emphasize each word.

Two men sitting at the table in the meeting room at the Petrovka Station looked up at Colonel Snitkonoy and nodded in agreement. The third man, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, was barely aware of the words at all. He was aware of the standing colonel,the tall, slender man with the distinguished gray temples whose brown uniform was perfectly pressed, whose three ribbons of honor, neatly aligned on his chest, were just right in both color and number. The colonel was impressive. And that, indeed, was his primary function: to impress visitors and underlings; to stride, hands clasped behind his back like a czarist general deep in thought about an impending battle. So successful was the Gray Wolfhound at his role that it was rumored that a Bulgarian journalist had returned to Sofia and written a novel with Snitkonoy as the very evident model for his heroic policeman hero.

"Your thoughts, Comrades," Snitkonoy said, waving his hand before again clasping it behind his back. He was the only one standing, poised in front of a blackboard on which he had occasionally been known to make lists and to write words that he wanted those with whom he met to remember.

Two of the men at the table looked at each other to determine which of them might have a thought. They ignored Rostnikov, who doodled on the pad in front of him.

One of the men at the table was the Gray Wolfhound's assistant, Pankov, a near-dwarf of a man with thinning hair who was widely believed to hold his job because he made such a perfect contrast to the colonel. Pankov was a perspirer, always uncertain. His clothes were perpetually rumpled, his few strands of hair unwilling to lie in peace against his scalp. When he stood, Pankov came up to the Wolfhound's chest. In appreciation of Pankov's flattering inadequacy, the colonel never failed to treat his assistant with patronizing respect.

Opposite Pankov sat the uniformed Major Grigorovich, a solid, ambitious block of a man in his early forties who saw himself as the eventual heir to the Wolfhound and took pride in his ability to keep Snitkonoy from feeling threatened while making clear to his colleagues that he, Major Andrei Grigorovich, was no fool. On his second day with the Wolfhound, Rostnikov had commented to his wife, Sarah, that Grigorovich looked a bit like a slightly overweight version of the British actor Albert Finney. Occasionally during these briefing sessions, Rostnikov would draw little caricatures of Grigorovich, Pankov, Snitkonoy, or one of the others who sometimes joined them to give reports.

It was believed among all who attended the sessions that the Washtub, Rostnikov, was taking detailed notes on everything everyone said. Rostnikov's reputation as a criminal investigator added an air of intimidation to the morning meetings, and much speculation existed over why he had been assigned to basic criminal investigation. Pankov, who shared his views with everyone who would listen, was convinced that Rostnikov was there to evaluate the Gray Wolfhound. Pankov knew that if the Wolfhound fell, so would he. Therefore, Pankov was ever alert to undermine suggestions Rostnikov. might make, while at the same time trying to keep Rostnikov from knowing what he was doing because Rostnikov might well later hurt those who had given him trouble. This difficult position resulted in Pankov's seldom speaking at the meetings for fear of offending anyone. Grigorovich was convinced that Rostnikov was being considered to replace the Wolfhound, or at least to be tested against Grigorovich to determine which man should, either soon or in the distant future, move up a notch.

Snitkonoy, on the other hand, simply assumed that Rostnikov had been assigned to him so that he, Rostnikov, could learn the nuances of leadership that he lacked so he could return to the Procurator's Office at some point in the future with a new sense of purpose and the inspiration provided by his association with Snitkonoy.

And that was the situation that prevailed in the room when the three men at the table were asked for their thoughts. It was evident to all of them that their real thoughts were the last things they would give in this room. It was also evident to Rostnikov that none of them had really been paying attention to the Wolfhound.

"We must continue to tighten up on our efficiency," Pankov said, taking the easy, abstract route and pounding his small fist into his palm for emphasis.

"Yes," said the Gray Wolfhound with tolerance but no enthusiasm. "Major?"

"We must have an adequate termination of a greater percentage of our cases, our responsibilities," said Grigorovich, looking at Rostnikov, who continued to frown at the pad of paper on which he was doodling.

"Paperwork, evidence, must be more complete, investigations better documented, before we turn each case over to the Procurator's Office for prosecution or further investigation," Grigorovich went on.

"Yes," Pankov agreed.

"Comrade Inspector," the Wolfhound said, snapping the pointing finger of his right hand at Rostnikov. "Your views? You have had time to gather your thoughts. Perhaps your delay this morning was due to your diligence in preparing for this meeting?"

"This morning," said Rostnikov slowly, his eyes coming up from the poor copy of Gogol's statue he was working on, "a man leaped to his death from the new Gogol statue."

The silence was long as they waited for Rostnikov to continue. Outside and below them, in the police-dog compound, a German shepherd began to bark and then suddenly went quiet. When it became evident that Rostnikov had no thoughts of continuing, Snitkonoy prodded as he stepped back and tilted his head.

"And the point of this, Comrade Inspector?"

Grigorovich and Pankov turned their eyes to Rostnikov, who sighed, shrugged, and looked up.

"I wondered what would so frighten a man that he would do a thing like that," Rostnikov mused. "Leap headfirst to the pavement. Crush his skull like an overripe tomato."

"Was there some evidence of intimidation, some suggestion of murder?" Pankov asked, wondering if this were some kind of test by Rostnikov.

"It's not important," Rostnikov said, pushing the pad away. "Might I suggest that we proceed to the case list and make the assignments?"

The Wolfhound was puzzled, but the Wolfhound was better than a professional actor. His eyes fixed knowingly, sympathetically, on Rostnikov, as if he knew exactly what was on the inspector's mind. Then he turned his eyes to the neat black vinyl folder in front of him. The colonel opened the file, now anxious to go through the routine and get the brooding Rostnikov out of the room. He had hoped for a concluding half hour or more of philosophical musing and teaching, but Rostnikov had poisoned the atmosphere.

Snitkonoy flipped open the folder and scanned the list of new cases for the morning. All had already been assigned to the investigators who took the initial calls, except for three that had been appropriated by the KGB. Those cases had thick black lines through them, lines so thick and so black that one could make out no trace of a single letter designating the case. The Wolfhound's gray eyes scanned the list and then he grinneda private, knowing grinas he passed out copies of the new case list to the three men in the room.

"Comrades, do you see anything of special concern on this list? Any cases you would like transferred to other investigators? Concentrated upon?"

It was the routine morning speech, but the list was not routine for Rostnikov, who had expected simply to be assigned to an additional case or two without great consequence or meaning. And then his eye caught the description of Case Number 16. He let his head come up lazily, hiding his reaction. A show of enthusiasm or real interest might doom his chances. The very fact that he wanted the case might be reason enough for the Wolfhound to demonstrate his power and assign it to someone else.

"Number five," Grigorovich said. 'The increased activity of assaults on old people near the war memorial suggests…"

It went on like that for twenty minutes. Rostnikov made a point about reexamination of the evidence from a family murder the week before. He supported Grigorovich's interest in the assault case and, though he thought it was idiotic, nodded in agreement when Pankov suggested a consolidation of four cases, all of which dealt with reports of illegal sales of vodka. There was clearly no relationship among the cases other than the recent interest in alcoholism that Gorbachev had been pushing for the past year. It was fashionable to denounce alcoholism.

Now that Grigorovich and Pankov each owed him something, Rostnikov made his move.

"Number thirty-four," he said. "The report of several assaults in parks. It may be a pattern. Other than that, nothing seems to need further attention, though there are a few cases that might be worth a minor review of initial investigation. Numbers" he scanned the list casually "three, twelve, sixteen, and twenty-four."

The other three men scanned the list and nodded, not seeing anything worth checking in any of the cases, but not wanting it to seem as if they had missed something.

"Fine," sighed the Wolfhound, closing his vinyl file, placing it on the table, and slapping his palm against it. "If you have time, Comrade Inspector, you can review initial investigations on those cases. Number thirty-four, the assaults, I think should be supervised by Sergei Pankov."

Pankov smiled in triumph, and Rostnikov and Grigorovich nodded in agreement.

"Good," said the Wolfhound. "I have a report to give at the People's Court in Podolski this afternoon. Since we got started a bit late" and with this he paused for less than a breath to let his eyes fall on Rostnikov before he continued — "there will be no time for progress reports on continuing investigations. We will, therefore, meet tomorrow morning at six for progress reports. Inspector Rostnikov, this note is for you."

The Wolfhound produced an envelope from behind his back and handed it to Rostnikov. Without waiting for comment, the Wolfhound.turned and strode out of the room, his shiny black boots clapping against the tile floor.

Grigorovich and Pankov placed their various papers into folders, tucked the folders under their arms, and uttered a clipped "Good morning, Comrades" as they exited.

Alone, Rostnikov looked up at the single window for the first time since he had entered the room. His leg had grown stiff, his clothes were still wet, and he knew it was still raining. The envelope the colonel had handed him was grayish-white, unmarked. Nothing was written on it. Rostnikov slit the top flap with his fingernail. The note was brief, typed. He looked out at the rain, sighed, and stood up. He would have to take the metro, but he should still make it by the time indicated in the letter.

Before he left the building, he went to the central desk and said that he wanted a copy of the report on Case Number 16 for that morning.

"Case Number?" the short-haired woman behind the desk asked, looking at the stack of files in front of her.

"Oleg Pesknoko, the circus performer who died this morning," Rostnikov said.

"Ah," said the woman triumphantly, locating the file and handing it to Rostnikov. "The accident."

"Yes," Rostnikov said, tucking the file under his arm. "The accident."

The man who had killed eight prostitutes in the past six years had no idea on that Monday morning that Investigator Emil Karpo of the Procurator's Office was looking for him. Yuri Pon really didn't worry about the police at all, because he was well aware of, the official status of the investigation of his activities. He was aware of the progress, or lack of it, because he worked in the central records department of the Office of the Procurator General of Moscow.

Pon had not even checked the files for the possibility of any recent activity. No one really cared about the prostitutes. There were too many other priorities: murders, mannings, crimes against the state. Since prostitutes did not officially exist any longer, the file referred to the victims as "women of questionable character." Pon referred to them, and only to himself and his diary, as the snakes.

Since he was a boy, Pon, who was nearing his forty-first birthday, had seen these women and had sensed, knew, what they were. He had seen them, been fascinated by the prostitutes who hung around the railway stations and the others who sat in hotel lobbies or restaurants on Gorky Street. He had seen them, dreamed of them, even wanted them, though he was repulsed by the idea. There was no possibility that Yuri Pon would actually go to bed with a prostitute.

As he sat at his desk, stamping the folders in front of him with an official seal, he shook his head to confirm his determination. He would never go with a prostitute. It would be like… like wrapping a snake around your most private parts, the way he had wrapped a cloth in the tub when he was a child. But it would be more smooth and scaly. Yuri Pon shuddered. The shudder ran through his puttylike body. Nausea made him lift his eyes and peer through his glasses toward the washroom. But the feeling passed and he sat back, furiously stamping, stamping, stamping.

And why had mis come on? He had been drinking the night before. That was true. But that wasn't unusual. Had he been drinking the night before it had happened the other times? He didn't remember. Perhaps he had, but there had also been many nights when he had consumed far more vodka, felt far more the pull and repulsion of the prostitutes, especially the one at the restaurant on Gorky.

"Comrade Pon," a voice broke in.

Pon shook and almost dropped the seal in his hand.

"Pon," the woman repeated.

"Yes," Pon answered, adjusting his glasses and looking up at Ludmilla Kropetskanoya, the assistant files supervisor, who always wore black and looked like a light pole.

"File these." She handed him a half dozen files and strode away from his desk toward the stairs. "And try to hurry with this busywork and get back to the computer."

Pon watched her leave, feeling nothing but a vague dizziness from the drinking of the night before. As he rose he continued to wonder why he was thinking about the prostitutes once more. Was he going to start having those nights again? The nights when the feeling wouldn't go away? Night after night after night, feeling his body in the darkness, responding to the memories of those women, responding but never satisfied. The killings had given him relief, great relief. But the feeling had always come back.

Pon tucked the sheets of new information and reports under his left arm and pushed the odd pieces of paper back into the files as he walked slowly to the rows of drawers behind him. He paused at the white plastic table, stacked the files, and began to sort them by case number.

It had been almost a full year since he had last needed to find a prostitute. Though he was too cautious to be certain, still he hoped that it might mean that the feeling was gone for good. He liked his job, liked the two-room apartment he shared with Nikolai. He enjoyed filing. It took little thought and gave him a feeling of accomplishment and plenty of time to think. These were his filesneat, not a report sticking up, not a file frayedand soon, within months perhaps, he and the others would have everything fully transferred to the computers. Though he had a limited supply of new file

It was with this thought that Pon froze and stared at the file in his hand. Number 1265–0987. It was the only file number in the whole system he had memorized, because he felt it was his, the file detailing all of his dispositions of prostitutes. He had kept it even more orderly than the rest. He wanted it to remain untouched, perfect, safe.

And now, almost a year after anyone had looked at it, someone had come, probably during the overnight shift, and pulled the file. Yuri had mixed feelings. Fear and excitement made his hands tremble, and he had a shiver of something almost mystical. He had thought little about that file, about those feelings, about what he had had to do, for months. But this morning he had come in sensing, feeling, the echo of it all again. The reason was clear.

He had somehow known that someone was thinking about him. It was uncanny and frustrating, for there was no one he could tell about this.

Nikolai had once said that when he had the pains in his side he had awakened during the night and had seen a huge, clear letter C embossed on his skin at the point of the greatest pain. The C had been formed by a pebbly ridge of flesh. "I was sure, I knew, that in spite of the impossibility," Nikolai had said, leaning forward as if he were telling a great secret, "my body was informing me that I had cancer. Only it was stranger than that. I did not have cancer, only dyspepsia. I had told myself "and with this Nikolai pointed a dark finger at his head" that I had cancer. My mind had been strong enough to generate a change in my skin. Amazing."

Perhaps, somehow, this was what had happened to Yuri Pon this morning, but he could never tell Nikolai or his mother or anyone. Then a horrible half image came to him, a half image of himself telling not only of this uncanny incident but of everything he thought and felt, telling all this to a gaunt man who looked like a dark priest.

Yuri blinked his eyes, put down the files, and adjusted his glasses before he felt strong enough to open his file. The name of the person who had checked it out this very morning was written in a tall, firm hand that kept the letters neat and within the lines: Emil Karpo. Yuri Pon knew the name. Karpo had checked the file out sixteen times in the past eight years, far more than any other investigator, though Karpo was not even the principal investigator on the case.

Perhaps, thought Yuri the file clerk, Yuri the killer of prostitutes, there is some new piece of evidence, but what could there be that was new? What could Karpo know?

Yuri knew who Karpo was, had seen him frequently, had seen his name on hundreds of files. Karpo the Vampire, that was what he had heard an investigator named Zelach call him. Yuri Pon tried not to think about the image of a vampire. He tried to force himself to review everything that was in the file. He had done it a thousand times and never had he been able to follow any trail that would lead to him. He had been too careful. Knowing how the investigators worked, he had avoided mistakes, controlled his emotions each time. He was proud of that, proud of that control.

Coincidence, just a coincidence. Karpo was reviewing files, randomly reviewing files. Yuri would check, see what other files the Vam, no, what other files Inspector Karpo had recently pulled out. There was nothing to worry about, nothing. Yuri put his file and the others away and spent the next two hours before lunch neatly typing new file numbers into the computer for the cases that would come in. Thought almost disappeared as he typed, and when his watch told him that he could stop and eat he smiled. It was under control. And then as he sat at his desk and lifted the small round bread from the sack in the drawer, a horrible thought sickened him.

What, he thought, if Karpo knows? What if he knows and is playing a game with me? What if he was watching when the file was returned, is watching right now? Yuri turned quickly from this corner to that, down the row of files, toward the stairway leading up to the next level, to the ceiling where, perhaps, someone had planted a camera.

Yuri Pon couldn't swallow. He was afraid he would choke. He clutched for the bottle of kvass in his sack, unscrewed it, and drank deeply, almost choking.

Madness, he thought. No one is watching me. No one. But that was not the problem. A new one had come. He was sure now. Absolutely sure that the feeling was back, that this very night it would begin again, that the memory of the prostitute in the restaurant would be with him, driving him mad until he dealt with it. Karpo couldn't be watching him. No, but Yuri Pon would certainly be watching Emil Karpo. He finished the small bottle of kvass, let out a small burp, and wondered how he would get through the rest of the day.

The rain had almost stopped when Rostnikov arrived and stood across the street in front of the building to which he had been ordered. The four-story building had no sign on its door to mark its function or purpose. It looked like a small factory, perhaps a complex of offices. There were eleven windows on the street side, each covered so that no one could see in. The concrete facade was smooth, gray, and very common. If one stood across the street where Rostnikov then stood one could see on the roof of the third floor a patio and a series of canopies that looked as if they belonged at the beach in Yalta.

Officially, this building had no name. It didn't exist. Unofficially, and to almost every Muscovite who passed it, it was the Kremlin Polyclinic, where the nation's "special" people went for medical care. Rostnikov crossed the street slowly, glanced at a man with a thick shiny leather briefcase who was reading the copy of Pravda posted on the corner bulletin board, and walked past the single car parked at the curb. It was a long, black four-door Zil, a monster of a car that needed only teeth. Only members of the Politburo were issued Zils. It was estimated that no more than fifteen of the custom automobiles were made each year.

Rostnikov glanced at the car and at the man behind the wheel in the front seat, a young man in a dark suit and a firmly knotted tie, a young man who looked as if his nose had been smashed with a hammer. The young man glanced at Rostnikov and then looked resolutely out the car's front window.

Rostnikov entered the building and found himself facing a pair of burly men in identical blue suits. Both men were in their forties and had close-cropped hair. Beyond them in the small lobby was a desk at which a man and a woman sat. The man was talking quietly on the phone. The woman was looking over her glasses and appeared to be copying something. Only their heads were visible over the level of the desk. Rostnikov imagined for an instant that both of them had been beheaded and were on display at the Poly-clinic to prove how capable and experimental the staff was. Perhaps, he thought, the two heads will even sing a folk song in unison. The image brought a small smile to Rostnikov's face, which, hi turn, brought a look of suspicion to the face of the slightly older of the two burly men, who stepped in Rostnikov's path.

"You have business here, Comrade?" the burly man asked.

Rostnikov gauged the two. Certainly KGB. Both were younger, bigger, more agile than Rostnikov, and both, as evidenced by their slightly bulky jackets, had weapons hidden but handy. Still, Rostnikov was sure that if they attempted to throw him out, he would probably have little trouble getting past them. It was only whimsy, however, for Porfiry Petrovich had no real urge to force his way past the KGB. He didn't even want to be here. Rostnikov reached into his pocket and handed the older of the two men the note Snitkonoy had given him less than an hour earlier. The KGB man ran his right palm over the top of his bristly hair before taking the offering. Rostnikov and the second man looked at each other silently while the first man read the note quickly.

"This way," the reader said, handing the note back to Rostnikov and turning toward the desk. Rostnikov followed him slowly, sandwiched between him and the other burly men. Rostnikov had followed the KGB before. His leg didn't permit him to keep up the pace of these younger men eager to show that everything was urgent. Rostnikov was in no hurry. He had nowhere he wanted to go other than the circus and home. So he walked slowly past the desk where the decapitated head of the woman whose hair was tied back in a bun looked up at him over her glasses.

The parade of three went through a darkly stained wooden door and into an elevator that stood open. They entered silently and faced front, and the younger man pressed a button that closed the doors. He then pressed a button for the third floor and they rode up smoothly. At three, the elevator stopped with a small bounce, the doors opened, and the older KGB officer stepped out. Rostnikov followed, with the younger man behind him.

To the right was a corridor with closed doors. At the far end of the corridor was a desk behind which stood a pair of men clad in white. Talking, they paid no attention to the three men who moved about twenty feet down the corridor and went through a door.

Rostnikov found himself on an outdoor, wooden-floored patio. There were a series of chairs and a scattering of white metal tables on the long patio, as if someone had thrown a party and neglected to take the last step of putting back the furniture.

In one of the chairs, under a canopy, sat a very old man in a dark robe. He was the only one on the patio, and he seemed to be asleep, his eyes closed, as the three men approached.

"Comrade," the older KGB man said softly as they stood in front of the dozing old man. The old man didn't answer.

"Comrade," the older KGB man repeated, perhaps a little uncertain if he should pursue this or simply wait.

"Yes," said the old man, his eyes still closed.

"The man you sent for has arrived," said the KGB man, looking at his partner for some kind of support.

The old man opened his eyes, blinked at the sun, ran his heavily veined hands through his crop of billowy white hair, and sat up. He was small, his face deeply lined, with little broken blood vessels under the eyes that might indicate vodka or age, or both. He didn't look up, but groped in the pocket of his robe for his glasses, found them, placed them on his nose, and looked at the polished wooden floor, shaking his head once. Only then did he look up at Rostnikov. Rostnikov met his eyes and showed nothing.

"You two," the old man said. "Get back downstairs."

The KGB men nodded, turned, and departed.

When they had left, the old man, still sitting, bit his thin lower lip gently and watched Rostnikov, who stood solidly, resisting the urge to rock.

"You may sit, Inspector,"isaid the old man.

"Thank you, Colonel," Rostnikov answered and made his way to a chair, turning it to face the old man. They were perhaps ten feet apart and Rostnikov felt decidedly uneasy. Rostnikov had dealt with this old man before, had sparred with him, tried to trick him, had blackmailed him, and had earned his enmity. That Colonel Drozhkin had offered him a seat was a very bad sign. Drozhkin normally preferred to have Rostnikov stand on the leg the colonel knew would ache painfully after four or five minutes.

"You are getting along in your new duties, Inspector?" Drozhkin asked, this time looking away to show that the question was not a sincere or meaningful one, that Rostnikov would have to play, appear uncurious, till Drozhkin was willing to get to the point, a point he would probably not come to directly.

"I am doing my best," Rostnikov said.

"But," said Drozhkin with a falsely sympathetic smile, "it is a bit less… responsible than your former duties, and Colonel Snitkonoy has methods that are" he held up his withered hands in a gesture of resignation" you know what I mean."

"I believe I do, Comrade Colonel," said Rostnikov. "But I find Colonel Snitkonoy an inspiration, and my duties, no matter how inconsequential they appear, to be a meaningful part of the state's efforts to bring an end to all criminal activity."

The old man shrugged his shoulders as if a cold wind had cut through him.

"Not many months ago your desire to aid in preserving the ideals of our nation were less compelling than your desire to seek your fortune hi a Western country, a decadent country," said Drozhkin. "Would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you, Comrade," Rostnikov said. "I am convinced that my interest hi departing was a brief incapacitation brought on by a heavy work schedule."

The two men sat silently for a moment, having restated the stalemate they had lived under for almost a year. Rostnikov had thought he had sufficient evidence of a KGB conspiracy to murder dissidents, a conspiracy that would have embarrassed the government at a time when the official policy was one of overt reconciliation, of placating the non-Soviet-aligned nations. Rostnikov had managed to get his evidence out of the country with a German tourist. He had approached Drozhkin with the suggestion that he, Rostnikov, his Jewish wife, Sarah, and their son, Josef, be allowed to emigrate under the Jewish quota.

Rostnikov had underestimated the KGB's resolve and possibly the value of his own information, especially after two premiers had died and the possibility existed that Gorbachev could simply accept the truth of the charges and blame them on Andropov or even Brezhnev. The result had been a stalemate. Rostnikov could live. His wife could work. His son could remain in the army without fear of "special" treatment. And Rostnikov could go on working under close supervision. It was the best that either side could do, and Rostnikov was confident that the KGB had agents in Western Europe trying to find the evidence he had smuggled out. If they ever found it…

"Life is complicated," Drozhkin said, as if reading Rostnikov's thoughts.

"Yes," agreed Rostnikov. "We must learn to accept and live with complication."

"Live with it carefully," Drozhkin corrected.

"Very carefully," Rostnikov said.

Drozhkin smiled, but it was a smile Rostnikov didn't like.

"I'm dying," Drozhkin said, his dark eyes fixed on Rostnikov's face. Rostnikov had been expecting something and showed no reaction. He was certain that this was not the news Drozhkin had brought him to hear. He and the KGB colonel were far from friends. This was a distraction to set him up, weaken him, throw him off balance before he learned the real reason for the summoning. However, Rostnikov had no doubt that the colonel's announcement of his coming death was true.

"I'm sorry to hear this, Comrade," Rostnikov said flatly.

"You should be," said the old man. "My protective interest in you will be turned over to my assistant, Major Zhenya. You remember Major Zhenya?"

"I remember Major Zhenya," Rostnikov acknowledged.

Zhenya was not one to forget. Rostnikov called up the image of the tall, lean, straight-backed man who had led him to Drozhkin's office the few times Rostnikov had been summoned to Lubyanka. Zhenya had taken pleasure in staying far enough in front of Rostnikov to make the inspector limp in embarrassment after him. Only Rostnikov had not hurried to keep up with him the second time this happened. Rostnikov had instead slowed down, knowing that Zhenya would not risk failing to deliver the visitor to the quite crotchety old colonel. Zhenya did not like Rostnikov. There may have been a reason, but Rostnikov had no idea what it might be. It was not peculiar to the KGB to take a sudden and lifelong dislike to someone. It was common in the Soviet Union. It was, however, particularly dangerous to have a KGB man dislike you. The dying old colonel's face remained placid, but Rostnikov was sure he had enjoyed passing on the information about Zhenya.

They sat quietly for a moment or two, and then the door beyond the canopy behind Rostnikov opened and a young man with rimless glasses stepped out. He was wearing white and carrying a tray on which rested a steaming pot and two white cups. The man put the tray down on the table and poured a cup of tea.

"Perhaps the sun and air have changed your mind?" asked Drozhkin.

"Perhaps," said Rostnikov. "A cup of tea would be refreshing."

The young man poured a second cup of tea and handed it to the inspector. The two men sat in silence under the sun and sipped tea till the young man in white left.

"Would you like to know what I am dying of?" Drozhkin said, making a slightly sour face and putting down his tea.

Rostnikov didn't answer. He sipped his tea.

"I am dying of many things, impending mandatory retirement is the most vivid to me, but to the doctors it is a cancer that has decided to inhabit the organs of my body. If a cancer could be given intellect, one might reason with it, suggest to it that it live a careful, parasitic existence so it would not destroy its host, but cancers are self-destructive. I am almost seventy-four, not a very old man, but not a young one. I am not well educated, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, but I have managed to survive many changes in leadership, to retain my rank, and barring a disaster, to die with dignity for myself and my family."

The point, Rostnikov was sure, was now being approached.

"You have had a long and distinguished career, Comrade Colonel, and I'm sure you have been an inspiration to your friends and family."

"Your son has been posted to Afghanistan," Drozhkin said, sipping the tea again and finding it no more acceptable.

This was it. Rostnikov wanted to get up, take the five paces across the roof, and hurl the withered old man over the edge of the roof to the street below. Instead he picked up the tea, willed his thick hands to be steady, and sipped. The tea was no longer hot, but he drank it all, knowing that Drozhkin's eyes were on him.

"The decision was not mine," Drozhkin said. "I suggested that he remain in Kiev, within the Soviet Union, but there are others above me. And considering recent events in Kiev, it may be that Afghanistan is not the worst place he could be."

Still Rostnikov said nothing. Josef was his and Sarah's only son. This threat had hung over them since Rostnikov had first run afoul of the KGB. Posting his son to the dangers of Afghanistan was a challenge, a test on which not only Josef's but also his and Sarah's lives were at stake. Rostnikov had one other piece of information about a KGB department head, a piece of information he knew he could never use. He also knew that he was now being tested to see if he were foolish enough to even hint that he might make use of such a secret. The KGB, through this dying old man, had raised the stakes, used Josef as the pawn, and Rostnikov had no choice but to back down.

"If my son is needed in Afghanistan, or any other place where the Soviet Union might be called, I am sure he will be honored to be chosen, as my wife and I will be honored to have him serve."

It was Drozhkin's turn to say nothing. He watched Rostnikov drink his tea, met his eyes. He saw neither fear nor hatred in the eyes of the burly inspector before him, but Drozhkin had survived by distrusting the evidence of his own eyes.

"That is all," Drozhkin said. "I must rest now."

Rostnikov put down his cup carefully, resisting the urge to drop it and apologize. He stood up quite slowly.

"I hope you feel better, Comrade," he said to the old man, "and that the doctors make your final days as comfortable as you deserve."

There was no derision in Rostnikov's tone, nothing but apparent concern. Drozhkin knew better and approved. Some small token of rebellion or anger was necessary. Drozhkin would not accept complete capitulation by Rostnikov. Rostnikov, however, understood the same thing and had quickly calculated the level of affront and the delivery essential to create the proper impression. They were both experts at the game.

"This hospital has all the best," Drozhkin said, nodding over his shoulder. "There's not a piece of equipment in here manufactured in the Soviet Union, not one piece. American, Japanese, Swedish. Even the doctors are imported. Romanians, Poles, even a Frenchman. I get the best of attention here, which means I'll live a few days longer than I would have and I'll not die in agony. I accept what must be."

"As do I," said Rostnikov with a slight bow of his head.

When Rostnikov hit the lobby of the hospital he did not look at the two KGB men. He did not look at the two heads on the desk. He did not look at the old woman being led through the door by two men in white. Rostnikov put down his head and limped across the floor and out the front door. On the street he breathed deeply and looked around. Nothing had changed. Of course not, nothing but his life. He would have to go home later, have to tell Sarah, have to live in fear for his son, have to do his job, have to control his frustration, his anger. And then he remembered the circus, the Old Moscow Circus. His father had taken him to the Old Circus on Tvetnoi Boulevard when he was a boy. He remembered the lights outside, the two prancing horses above the entrance, the smell of animals. Then he remembered taking Josef to the New Circus on Vernadsky Prospekt, the new round building of steel and glass topped with multicolored pennants waving through a shower of searchlights. And inside… Yes, he decided, it was definitely time to get to the circus.

Sasha Tkach got off the train at the Universitet Metro Station almost an hour to the minute before Rostnikov would come to the same station. Rostnikov would walk one block down Vernadsky Prospekt in the direction of the Moscow River and find himself in front of the New Circus. Sasha, however, went up the escalator, left the station, and moved down Lomonosov Prospekt in the direction of the new building of Moscow State University. This massive building, completed in 1953, with its tall, thirty-two-story central spire, looked like a cathedral, standing high above any other building in the Lenin Hills area. Atop the spire was a golden star set in ears of wheat. On the flanking eighteen- and twelve-story buildings alongside the central structure were a giant clock, a thermometer, and a barometer that students, faculty, workers, and visitors could glance up at as they moved down the long pathway, the Walk of Fame, to the central building, a pathway decorated with inspirational busts of Russian scientists and scholars.

The university covered forty blocks with research facilities. There were botanical gardens, a sports stadium and a huge park. There was a fine arts assembly hall that could seat 1,500, a student club, 19 lecture theaters, 140 auditoriums, dozens of teaching and research laboratories, the Museum of Earth Sciences, a swimming pool, sports facilities, and 6,000 rooms for students.

To be a student at Moscow State University. Tkach knew as he hurried in the direction of the spite, was to be admitted to the elite. The trick was to do well enough to make it to the university, to pass the lots, to have the connections in the Party, to say the right things, be in the right places. The attrition rate of students entering the university was very small. The reasons were both simple and not so simple. First, the students who got in were selected carefully, though politically. They were good, well suited for the education they would receive. Second, the future of the faculty was dependent on how well students performed.

Students were protected once they entered to insure that they would succeed and reflect well on their departments, their teachers, the university. Students at Moscow State University and the other major Soviet universities were well treated and had comfortable rooms, good food, and access to cultural and leisure opportunities that were paralleled only by the politically elite in the Communist Party.

Sasha Tkach knew all this as he hurried down the street, clutching a briefcase filled not with lecture notes and textbooks but with his lunch and a war novel. He saw real students pass him, felt resentment and fear that someone, perhaps the dark, short-haired girl then in front of him, would stop and say, "That is no student. That is a fraud, an undereducated fraud."

On Lomonosov Prospekt, behind the university, he saw the bookstall. It looked ordinary enough, a large table in front of a fairly large white trailer in need of a painting. Sasha shifted his briefcase from his sweating right hand to his left, pushed his hair out of his eyes, and made his way through the small crowd to the table. Information on the bookstall as a possible outlet for black market video equipment had come from a small-scale dealer in black market records, Tsimion Gaidar, who claimed to have traded a supply of Beatles records for a videotape machine through the bookstall. Gaidar's information was suspect, since he was trying to save himself from black market charges and the KGB. In addition, Gaidar had been known in the past to try to turn in anyone in his acquaintance, including his own brother, to escape prosecution.

However, Deputy Procurator Khabolov had decided that Sasha's mission was worth a try.

Sasha gently elbowed his way next to a man in a blue hooded sweatshirt. The man was wearing a cap and looked like a cab driver, but he could have been a professor or just a maintenance worker at the university. The rest of the crowd was a bit easier for Sasha to placestudents, smiling more than most Muscovites, smiling as if they had a secret for success.

Tkach asked the small woman behind the table if she had anything for children. The woman, a dumpy, dour creature wearing a dark dress too warm for the weather, nodded, meaning that he should go farther down the table, and Sasha muscled and apologized his way along to follow her. The books were all covered by glass to prevent theft. Each customer had to ask- to examine any of the books, guides, or maps, and the woman kept a careful eye on all to whom she granted the right to touch the precious pages.

"That one," Sasha said, pointing at a thin book of Lermontov fairy tales with a colorful cover. The dour woman nodded, gently pulled the book from under the glass, and handed it to Sasha. A customer farther along the table called to the woman, who paused to examine Sasha, decided to take a chance on leaving the book with him, and shuffled over to the caller.

Tkach, clutching his briefcase, flipped through the pages but looked over them at the trailer. A pretty but unsmiling little girl of about eight years stood next to the trailer. She was dressed for school, her dress short for the summer, her dark hair tied with two yellow bows. She stood on one leg, swinging her other leg back and forth. She was looking at Sasha and the book. He held it up toward her. The girl glanced at the woman dealing with another customer and quickly shook her head no at Sasha, who nodded. Sasha pointed down at a series of books under the glass. To each one the girl shook her head no while checking to be sure the woman did not see her. As he pointed to the fifth book, the girl gave a small but emphatic nod of yes.

When the woman moved back down to Sasha, he handed her the book of fairy tales and pointed at the book the little girl had approved. The dour woman quickly turned her head toward the little girl, but the child was looking beyond the scene toward the Lenin Hills.

"I'll take it," he said. "Sko'l'ka sto'eet? How much?"

"One ruble," the woman said.

Sasha had not intended to buy anything, knew he would not be reimbursed by the Procurator's Office. He did have an advance for enough money to purchase a record album as evidence. There was a procedure for reimbursement, but it was complicated and required anticipation of one's expenditures, the filling out of a form, and long waits. The woman took the book and wrapped it, and Sasha felt a sudden feeling of pleasure. His smile was sincere. He had purchased his first book for his daughter, for Pulcharia. He was about to tell the woman when he thought better of it. He was a student. What was a young student doing with a baby daughter? He wasn't sure how common such a thing was. So instead of a thank you or an explanation, when he reached over to take the book he said softly to the woman, "Do you carry records?"

The woman looked at him as he took the book and shook her head in a decided no, but she did not hide the touch of caution in the corner of her large mouth. As she started to turn away, Tkach added conversationally, "A man from whom I purchased a record said you might have one I wanted. And I want it very badly."

The woman ignored him, or appeared to, and began to wait on a young woman with long blond hair and glasses. The young woman, who carried several books, glanced at Sasha and smiled, which marked her immediately as a student even if her youth and the books had not. He looked back at her but didn't smile.

"The man who recommended you is named Gaidar, Tsimion Gaidar," Sasha went on. "I've purchased several recordings from him."

The dour woman behind the table moved over to him quickly, ignoring a man with a gray beard who called to her impatiently and looked at his watch. The dour woman looked at Sasha's open, boyish face, and he did his best to look open, innocent, the Innocent.

"Behind the trailer," the woman said, leaning forward. "Knock at the door."

With this she backed away. Sasha glanced at the little girl at the trailer and held up his wrapped book. She nodded in approval, and Sasha backed through the dozen or so people at the table, opened his briefcase, and put the book inside. He hadn't even checked to see what the book was.

The back of the white trailer looked much like the front. There was an emergency door. A few people walked by on the street, but no one seemed to pay any attention to him. He knocked. There was no answer, though he heard a shuffling inside. He knocked again, and the door opened to reveal a short, muscular, dark, hairy man in an undershirt. The man was probably in his late thirties and definitely needed a shave and a bath. His dark hair was thinning rapidly.

"Tsimion Gaidar sent me," Sasha said with a smile.

The man didn't smile back. He examined Tkach, looked at his briefcase, paused, and then backed into the trailer. Sasha ducked his head and followed him. When he got inside, the dark little man pushed the door closed.

The inside of the trailer was one large open space with cabinets along both walls blocking the windows. A bit of light came in from the front and rear windows of the trailer. Both windows were heavily curtained. The metal cabinets, Tkach could see, were padlocked. There was a desk at the rear of the trailer with a chair behind it so the light from outside would come over the shoulder of whoever sat at the desk.

Behind the desk was a second man, who sat with folded hands as if that were the way he contentedly spent all his time. The man behind the desk, wearing a green turtleneck sweater far too warm for the weather, was older man the man who had let Sasha in, but they were obviously related; they had the same sagging face, the same eyes. The older one's hair was white and there was far less of it than there was on the head of his younger relative.

The two men looked at Tkach and waited.

"I'm a student at the university," Tkach said. "I'm a collector of records. Tsimion Gaidar said that you might have one of the Beatles records that went on sale a few months ago at the Melodia record store on Kalinin Prospekt, a Saturday. I waited in line all day. They said there were a hundred thousand of them, but thousands of us were turned away."

The two dark men exchanged glances. The younger

one, standing with his arms folded over his undershirt, shrugged.

Tkach knew far more about the records. Melodia, the Soviet Union's only recording company, had contracted with British EMI to produce 300,000 copies of two Beatles albums originally made in the mid — I960s. Only a few thousand albums were actually made by Melodia, and more than two hundred of those were stolen by a delivery truck driver who was a distant relative of Tsimion Gaidar.

"We might know where to get one of these albums," the older man behind the desk said. His voice was slightly raspy, as if he had just been awakened from a long, deep sleep.

"But," said his younger partner, "it is not cheap."

"I want it very badly," said Tkach.

"Thirty rubles," said the older man.

"Or fifty dollars American," said the younger man.

The older man behind the desk sighed and said, "You must forgive my brother. Osip has American money on the mind. We had a customer, a student like you, a few weeks ago who had some American money. Who knows how he got it? You don't have American money, do you?"

"No," said Sasha. "I don't."

"See?" said the man behind the desk. "You ask dumb questions sometimes."

"But," said Osip in his undershirt, "I sometimes make us a profit with these dumb questions that don't cost us anything to ask."

"What am I to do with such a partner?" the older man asked Sasha, who had no answer. "He tried, my brother, but… You want the album?"

"I want it," said Sasha.

"You've got thirty rubles with you?" asked Osip.

"Yes," said Sasha. Actually, he had almost fifty rubles, the price Assistant Procurator Khabolov thought the album would be.

"Where does a student get money like that to carry around?" asked the older man.

"My father is an architect in Tblisi. I'm studying to be ah architect," said Sasha.

"Felix, what's the difference where he gets the money? He's got it," said Osip.

"Ignorance," said Felix with a sigh behind the desk, looking at Sasha for understanding. "I promised our mother I would take care of him, but ignorance is hard to overcome."

"Ignorance," grunted Osip. "Without my ignorance we'd still be sewing women's handbags for a few kopecks."

"You hear that?" Felix asked, shaking his head and pointing a hairy finger at his brother. "You hear that? That is not gratitude."

"I've got to get to a class," Sasha said as the brothers glared at each other. He reached into his jacket pocket, took out his wallet, stepped to the small desk, and began to count out rubles.

The rubles sat on the desk and Sasha opened his briefcase. Felix nodded to Osip, who moved to one of the metal cabinets near the front of the trailer, took out a key chain, and opened the cabinet. Sasha couldn't see inside the cabinet from his angle. Osip removed something from the cabinet, tucked it under his sweating arm, and locked the cabinet.

When he returned to the back of the trailer, he handed the album to Sasha, who took it, smiled as if he had obtained a treasure, and tucked it into his briefcase, closing the clasp carefully.

"Thank you," he said. "Perhaps in the future you might be able to obtain other albums for me?"

"We might," said Felix.

"Yes," agreed Osip. "We might."

"Or videotapes. Do you know someplace where I might be able to get videotapes, or even a machine? Tsimion Gaidar thought you might have some idea."

"No idea," said Felix, looking at his brother, who had seemed about to speak.

"Well," said Sasha with a shrug. "I'll keep looking."

Sasha turned toward the emergency door through which he had come. He was sure the brothers were exchanging glances behind him, making a decision.

"Wait," said Felix.

Sasha turned. Felix was standing now.

"As it happens," he said, "we do deal a bit in videotapes, operate a kind of videoteque, quietly, for special customers, special friends."

"I could use a machine," Sasha said, looking at Felix. "My father gave me an Electrokina VM12, but it isn't very good."

"The Soviet factory is, unfortunately, inferior to those of the West," Felix sighed sympathetically. "Given a bit of time we can get a Korean machine or even American Magnavoxes."

"Five thousand American dollars," Osip said quickly.

"He doesn't have American dollars," Felix rasped.

"And tapes?" Sasha asked before the brothers could launch into another argument.

"American or Japanese blank tapes, sixty rubles," said Felix.

"And that's a bargain," added Osip. "Foreign movies, American, one hundred and twenty rubles. We're not talking about Potemkin and Ivan the Terrible or biographies of admirals."

The trailer was hot. Sasha felt the sweat under his arms.

"I'm very interested," said Sasha, "but I've got to get to class. I can come back later."

"Show him," Felix said to his brother and nodded at the metal cabinet beside him.

Osip moved to the cabinet, took out his key, and opened the cabinet. On shelves, tightly stacked, stood hundreds of videotapes.

"You understand English?" Osip asked Sasha. Sasha nodded that he did.

"All English and American in this cabinet. Your choice," said Osip proudly. "Everything from Bambi to Blue Thunder." Sasha felt his smile disappear just when it should be expanding. He thought of the book in his briefcase and of the little girl near the trailer, the little girl with the two yellow ribbons who had guided him to the book, the little girl who was probably the daughter of one of these men, both of whom were about to be arrested for an economic crime considered by the Soviet Union to be punishable by death.