A Whisper to the Living

3

The Zaray Hotel on Gostinichnaya Street was Iris Templeton’s favorite hotel in Moscow. It was a short walk to both the Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Vladykino Metro station. Iris knew her way around Moscow.

The last time she had been here Iris had done a freelance story for The Globe on Putin’s tightening of the flow of gas through the Ukraine. She had interviewed the managing director of Gasprom, the largest natural gas company in the world and possibly the largest corporation in the world. The story had earned her two prizes, one in England and one in Denmark. It had also earned her several enemies in Moscow.

This time Iris was on her own, fully freelance. She intended to do a story on the wealthy and powerful of Moscow who take advantage of and are even complicit in the beatings and deaths of prostitutes. Iris had already done much of the groundwork and probably could have enough information from the Internet to do a satisfactory job, but that wasn’t the way of Iris Templeton, armed with her compact computer in a briefcase that never left her side when she was in any country other than her own.

She did, however, frequently leave Philip, her husband, who was a quite successful London barrister. They were good friends, and occasional lovers and independent souls.

Iris was not a fool. That there was some degree of danger in her pursuit was without question. Therefore, she did not reject the offer of police protection, though she decided that she would examine those assigned to guard her to be sure that they did not simply offer another possible danger. She didn’t really think the Moscow mafia or the government would risk killing her and setting off a new international outrage. Better to let her probe, see to it that she obtained nothing too embarrassing, and let her sell her tale. Besides, she could use a chauffeured ride in her pursuit.

She sat in the bar of the Zaray Hotel drinking coffee, computer in its case on the table, while she waited for the arrival of her promised protectors.

Sasha and Elena had not spoken all the way from Petrovka to the Zaray Hotel. She had driven. They were not arguing. They simply had nothing more to say right now. Sasha was, as he had been for months, lost in thought about Maya, his wife, who now lived in Kiev and showed no signs of wanting to return to him or to Moscow. He had tried, but his frequent infidelities had been too much for her. Now she said she wanted a divorce and had a good man who wanted to marry her. When Sasha went to Kiev to try to retrieve his family he had met the man. Sasha had liked the man. Sasha had admitted to himself that Maya would be better off with the man. But still Sasha had hoped that would not be dashed by his mother, who haunted his apartment and shouted the shouts of the deaf.

Elena had a wedding to worry about and something Iosef had to be told. It was time to tell Iosef.

“Yes,” she said emphatically.

“What?” asked Sasha.

“Nothing. Just thinking aloud.”

“Dangerous.”

Elena parked in front of the hotel, adjusted the police identification on the dashboard, and got out, locking the doors after Sasha.

She wore a clean dark suit and white blouse. He wore trousers and a jacket neatly ironed by his mother. His tie was unwrinkled, his face shaved, and his hair trimmed. He had been warned gently but firmly by Rostnikov that he must overcome his brooding or risk the ever-present possibility for any policeman that he would not be ready when the need arose. Sasha made a very conscious effort to heed the warning. To lose his family was a tragedy. To lose his job would be a horror.

They entered the lobby and strode side by side to the bar where they had agreed to meet the English journalist.

Only one person sat in the bar at this morning hour, a woman of about forty in a black dress with a jacket draped over the chair next to her and a computer on the table.

The woman was dark with very pale, clear skin and blue-gray eyes. She was also decidedly pretty. She looked up at the detectives as they approached and removed her glasses. At first her look was probing and cautious, and then she examined Sasha Tkach and smiled.

“Iris Templeton?” asked Elena.

“Yes,” answered Iris, holding out her hand.

“Inspector Elena Timofeyeva.”

Elena took the hand, relinquished it, and watched as the woman extended it to Sasha. She gripped his hand firmly and looked directly into his eyes.

“Inspector Sasha Tkach,” he said, and added in halting English, “We have been assigned to serve as your escorts.”

“I speak your language,” Iris said in only slightly accented Russian.

Much might come of this visit besides another prizewinning story.

The decision to kill Iris Templeton was not arrived at lightly. No vote was taken by the three men in the office of Daniel Volkovich overlooking Red Square. It was one of three offices in which he worked throughout Moscow. This office was in the center of the city and was intended to impress visitors and business associates.

The second office was in a rotting neighborhood beyond the Outer Ring Circle surrounding the city. This office was used for dealing with the sordid but necessary day-to-day running of Daniel’s less-than-legal businesses, primary among which was the running of the prostitution ring. This was not a simple matter. Locations had to be procured and maintained. Bribes and threats had to be made. Street pimps had to be kept in line and paid and watched carefully and punished for theft if necessary. Bookkeeping was a nightmare. The easy part was finding and keeping the girls. Once they were recruited they were kept in line with threats of disfigurement or death.

The third office was not really an office at all but a three-room apartment not far from the Moscow river. It was in this office that prostitutes were lured, secured, tried out, and rated after undergoing a complete physical examination, including X-rays and blood work. Only then did Daniel try them out, rate them, and assign them to a pimp. The best of these women and girls went onto the list of those catering to visiting and domestic diplomats, businessmen, military, MVD, and high-ranking drug dealers.

The next level down catered to tourists and out-of-town Russians who stayed in the second-level hotels and were directed to the prostitutes by desk clerks, cabdrivers, and policemen, all of whom also had to be paid. The lowest level of prostitutes simply stood in groups in tunnels and basements in lineups for street trade.

Most girls came willingly offering their bodies readily hoping to make a good living for five years or so and return to the towns and farms far from Moscow.

Daniel prided himself on his principles. The girls had to be examined every two weeks by a physician who was also on the payroll. If one was found to be ill or have a disease, she was given a bonus commensurate with her level and sent home, never to return. If a client abused a girl, he would, depending on his station in life, be warned or punished. Street trade customers were beaten and warned. Upper-level customers were informed that their abuse had been recorded on tape, which it had.

Daniel Volkovich was very successful at his profession, and at the age of forty-two he was a very wealthy and important man. Daniel was a tall man with the smiling clean-shaven face of the kind of movie or television actor who plays a policeman or an earnest politician. His well-groomed prematurely white hair was brushed back. Daniel always wore a knowing smile that suggested he could read your thoughts. Daniel’s mother had been a prostitute, as had his grandmother. He learned the business as he learned to walk and talk.

Now, his enterprise and his good name were threatened by the Englishwoman. It was not the first time a reporter or the representatives of some international do-good organization had posed a threat. Such people from the West were not easily dissuaded or deceived. Such people on occasion had to be eliminated.

“I can discern no pattern,” said Emil Karpo.

He and Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov were seated in the Chief Inspector’s office in Petrovka and had been for the past five hours. Records, forensic reports, calendars, weather reports, a chart of phases of the moon, photographs of the Maniac’s victims, and much more were piled in front of them.

“Review,” said Rostnikov reaching for the tea in his Eighty-seventh Precinct mug. It would be their third review of the morning, none of which had suggested a new approach. They spoke slowly so that Pankov or the Yak, who would be listening either now or to the tape, could take notes.

The dogs in the kennel across the courtyard were barking. In the years of listening to them, Porfiry Petrovich had learned to discern the different barks. There was a slow bark with a slight catch deep in the throat that indicated hunger. A rapid higher-pitched bark indicated tedium. A moaning bark suggested that someone had hit one of the dogs who had called out in fear and sympathy. Later in the day the dogs would not be barking as they sniffed through Bitsevsky Park pulling a uniformed officer behind, searching for the dead.

“He kills on any day of the week,” said Rostnikov. “No pattern. It might be two Tuesdays in a row and then a Saturday and then a Friday. He can kill for three straight days and then wait a month before taking another victim. Phases of the moon show no consistency. There is no pattern of holidays or birthdays or days of historical or newsworthy significance.”

He leaned back and took a sip of his no-longer-hot tea.

“The positions of the bodies seem random,” Karpo went on. “Nothing about the clothing of the victims or their health informs us. He seems to prefer men over the age of fifty-eight, but he has also killed two young women.”

“One of whom he decorated with wooden spikes in her eyes,” said Rostnikov, holding up a photograph to look at the grisly work of the Maniac.

“All of the killings seem to have been done at night, and he is drawn to Bitsevsky Park.”

“Emil Karpo, are we missing something?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Rostnikov scratched the stump of his leg thoughtfully. Then he turned his chair and looked out the window.

“The weather is breaking,” he said. “The temperature is supposed to reach forty-five degrees.”

Karpo nodded.

Rostnikov reached into the top drawer of his desk.

“I have never heard you whistle, Emil Karpo.”

“I have never felt the need.”

“To make music,” said Rostnikov, gently placing an odd squash-shaped instrument on the desk in front of him.

“The appeal of music is unknown to me. I feel no need for it. It is a functionless distraction.”

“You are a true romantic,” said Rostnikov.

“I do not believe I am.”

“I was engaging in irony.”

“I see.”

Rostnikov picked up the ocarina he had taken from his desk drawer, placed it to his lips, and blew, slowly working his fingers over a line of small holes. A piping of music emerged.

“Here,” said Rostnikov, handing it across the desk. “It is yours. When you feel the inclination, make music.”

Karpo took the ocarina and placed it in front of him.

“Now I think I will take a walk in the park,” said Rostnikov.

“He is going for a walk in the park,” said Pankov.

Colonel Igor Yaklovev, sitting at his desk under the framed discreetly sized print of the face of Lenin, looked up at his short, always nervous assistant. One of the many reasons Pankov was perspiring was that the Yak looked very much like the Lenin in the print above Yaklovev’s head. He had cultivated the resemblance decades earlier and maintained it throughout the fall of the Soviet Union and the fickle changes in the government. It was a safe resemblance. Were it not, the Yak would see to it that he bore no similarity to the founder of the Revolution.

“Did he say why?” asked the Yak.

“No.”

“Did he say which park?”

“No, he did not,” said Pankov.

“Guess.”

“Bitsevsky.”

“Good.”

Pankov went silent, anxious to get away from the Yak. Pankov did not do well in the presence of power, which was, as even he knew, an irony, because few in the government were as fervently but patiently seeking power as the Yak. On several dozen occasions, Pankov had taken phone calls directly from one of the assistants of Vladimir Putin himself. This caused near panic in Pankov, but once, and he was certain of this, Putin himself had come on the line, thinking that he would be speaking directly to Yaklovev. Pankov had almost passed out as he identified himself and transferred the call. His hands had trembled. Perspiration on his forehead had beaded, and his underwear had tightened with moisture.

“The journalist?” asked the Yak, folding his hands in front of him on the desk.

“Tkach and Timofeyeva are taking Iris Templeton to talk to people for her story.”

“I want a list of everyone she talks to.”

“Yes.”

Yaklovev made a note. This information might prove useful, especially if one of the supposedly tough mafiosi in the prostitution business was potentially compromised or embarrassed and the Yak could help him in exchange for future considerations.

“The boxer has not yet been found,” Pankov added.

Yaklovev cared little about that. Rostnikov’s annoying son and the slouching Zelach would find Medivkin, though that might not in any way add to the popularity or power of the Office of Special Investigations. Taking on such no-win cases was the price one sometimes had to pay for ultimate success.

“Go home, Pankov,” Yaklovev said.

“I still-”

“Go home,” the Yak repeated with a smile his assistant would have preferred not to see.

“Yes, thank you,” Pankov said.

The sun would be going down within the hour. This early release would give Pankov time to pick up a few groceries, particularly a few more boxes of oatmeal. Pankov almost lived on oatmeal made with water and artificial maple syrup. Boxes of oatmeal lined his small shelves, and his small refrigerator held three bottles of syrup. Still, one could never be sure when one might run out.

In the outer office, Pankov put on his coat and pressed the button that activated the recording of not only the mocking conversations in Rostnikov’s office but also the conversations in the outer office across the hall where the other inspectors had desks and conversation.

Both the Yak and Pankov had been invited to the wedding of Elena and Iosef. Both had accepted. The Yak was well aware that his presence would make everyone uncomfortable. That did not bother him.

Pankov gladly accepted when he knew that the Yak was going to attend. Pankov had never been to a wedding. Never. He had no friends outside of the thirteen members of the Monocle Club, the group of ten men and three women who not only collected the ocular affectations of the obliterated aristocracy but also knew everything worth knowing and even more not worth knowing about the lenses. Strictly speaking, the members of the Monocle Club were not his friends, but they shared a common, if arcane, interest. They met every two weeks in a small room of the Budapest Hotel, a hundred meters from the Bolshoi Theatre.

As he stepped out of the office, closing the door quietly behind him, Pankov remembered to turn on the cell phone in his pocket. He hated the phone, but the Yak insisted that Pankov keep it charged and in his pocket where he could hear it. There was no place he could be comfortably alone and really no place where he could feel comfortable among people.

It was his life. He accepted it. It did keep him on the fringes of power. He was the assistant and secretary, really, of a very powerful man who would only grow more powerful. This was not bad for a man whose father had been a sub-foreman in a government uniform-manufacturing factory and whose mother had been a sewing machine operator in the same factory.

Behind Pankov as he left Petrovka he could hear a single dog wail. The sun was dropping in the west, and the temperature seemed to be rising.

He headed for the Metro station willing his cell phone not to ring. He would ask his neighbor Mrs. Olga Ferinova what gift he should bring to the wedding and how he should dress and behave.

Vera Korstov was a highly methodical and determined woman. She had left her apartment with a neatly printed list of six names carefully coaxed out of Ivan Medivkin. She had expected more, but this, she had been sure, would be a good start. At the top of her list was Albina Babinski, the widow of Fedot Babinski, the murdered sparring partner.

The police, Vera was certain, would have a similar list of names with at least several duplicates. They would be looking for Ivan as she would be looking for the murderer who had set Ivan up for the crime.

It was unlikely the police would be in a hurry to talk to Albina Babinski. They had no reason to think that she might know where Ivan was hiding.

The apartment building, in one of the many four-, five-, and six-story concrete Stalin-era complexes throughout the city was a river map of cracks and fissures. Three men huddled in the demi-warmth of the tobacco-fouled entryway. They took some notice of her but were more interested in arguing about what they thought of the latest Russian rage against Georgia.

Vera walked up the staircase lit only on the landings by dim yellow bulbs. She tried not to touch the walls, which were dappled with stains and graffiti, most of which brightly extolled the virtues of one gang over another.

She found the apartment on the second floor where two women stood in opposite open doors talking. A child of no more than two clung to the dress of one of the women.

Vera knocked at the door and prepared herself, got into character. She held her purse protectively in two hands against her stomach. She let her shoulders drop and pinched the flesh under each eye to make them moist. She knocked again, and this time the door opened a crack.

The two women in the hall stopped talking to hear what would be said.

“Albina Babinski?”

Vera could see little of the woman who replied with a tentative “Da.”

“I am sorry, so sorry, to bother you,” Vera said nervously. “I am. . was a cousin of your husband from Odessa. I happened to be in Moscow with a meeting of raw sewage engineers and I heard. . I’m so sorry. I haven’t seen Fedot since we were about twelve. He was always so. . I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry.”

“Come in, Countess,” said the woman on the other side of the door. “And I shall endeavor to snatch from you the halo you have been imagining about your cousin’s head.”

Vera could smell the alcohol on the woman’s breath as the door opened. Sunlight illuminated the small, disheveled room. A dark brown sofa sat heavily across from two chrome and plastic chairs that had probably been considered modern in the seventies. A bottle with three glasses stood on a glass-and-steel table the size of a bicycle tire. The table had chosen to side with the two chairs, but the large sofa with obviously soft pillows had a distinct magnetic attraction for objects in the room that stood in deference to the largest piece of furniture.

Albina Babinski was a mess. Her dyed blond hair was losing its color, and its loose strands were held tentatively in place with five little red plastic clips. Her brown dress was draped over her commodious frame like a Roman toga. Albina Babinski’s face was round, very round, with pink cheeks punctuated by two small pimples on her left cheek and three on her right. Thick, unflattering makeup covered her face, neck, and even the backs of her hands. Vera did, however, give the widow credit for her bright blue eyes and the look of something painful, likely the death of her husband.

“Would you like a drink?” Albina said, motioning toward both sofa and chairs to give her visitor a choice of discomforts.

“Yes, thank you,” said Vera, sitting on one of the chairs, which proved to be just as uncomfortable as it looked.

Albina poured vodka into two glasses, handed one glass to her guest, and clutched the other in her hand as she plopped into the sofa, spilling a few drops of her drink in the process.

“You may return to Odessa to spread the news that Fedot the cousin of fond memory was a walking blind erection that managed to be unable to locate me for the past four years. He was, however, more successful in locating a colorful array of other willing, waiting receptacles.”

Vera looked down.

“I shock you, you who deal in sewage?”

“No.”

“He found the wrong vessel in that giant’s wife,” said Albina, holding up her drink and looking at it as if it were a masterpiece.

“Were there other wives, other women?” Vera asked as if amazed at the possibility.

Albina drank, held her glass to one side, leaned over toward Vera, and whispered, “Dozens. I do not know why women were attracted to him. Fedot was a decent-looking man with a scarred body, but he was hardly a Michael Clooney.”

“I think the actor’s name is George,” said Vera softly.

“Who gives a shit?” said Albina even more softly. “What’s your name, Countess?”

“Vera Egorovna.”

Albina pursed her lips, thought, and said, “Who are you?”

“Vera Egorovna, Fedot’s cousin from Odessa.”

“Bullshit. Fedot was taken from Riga to Moscow when he was a baby. He liked to tell people that he was from Odessa, that he had family there, but he did not. So who are you besides Countess of the sewers?”

Vera sat up straight, put down her purse, and smiled.

“I am a reporter for The Moscow Times.”

“And you are going to write an article about the giant and his slut and Fedot?”

“Yes.”

“How much are you willing to pay for my undivided and truthful story?”

“If there is a story, I am authorized to pay either five thousand rubles or two hundred euros.”

“I’ll take the euros. Can you pay me now? In cash? I have bills to pay, a future to consider.”

“I can give you one thousand rubles today and have the rest in euros delivered by two this afternoon.”

It was, of course, a lie, but the thousand rubles would be a reasonable price for an expanded list of suspects.

“In advance,” said Albina.

“On the table,” said Vera. “The rest tomorrow. Before ten in the morning.”

Albina nodded agreement and said, “What would you like to know?”

It was almost six. There was still enough daylight for the chess players in Bitsevsky Park to see the pieces on the wooden tables. The day had grown warmer, almost fifty degrees Fahrenheit, with only a mild wind, warm enough to draw out what appeared to be the usual regulars, all of them men, most of them retirees, the out-of-work, and those who had hurried over after work. There was also a trio of what appeared to be homeless men wrapped in whatever coats and hats might come close to fitting. When the weather really broke, the present number of sixteen would double and be added to by visitors to the park who had not come to play chess.

Rostnikov paused at the first table, where a thin, bespectacled old man stroked his white beard as he considered his next move. His opponent was an impatient bulky man in his fifties whose left leg bounced rapidly as his fingers tapped on the plank of the bench on which he sat.

Rostnikov had been picked up in front of Petrovka by a black ZiL belonging to the MVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Seated in the back was a man with military-cut steel gray hair and eyes to match.

Aloyosha Tarasov had held out his hand to shake once Rostnikov maneuvered in next to him in the backseat.

“Porfiry Petrovich, how fares the appendage?” said the Major, glancing at the extended left leg.

“The leg and I are not yet friends, but we are making headway.”

Rostnikov had known Major Aloyosha Tarasov through decades of change in the MVD. Departments had been eliminated. Others had sprung up as the tides of political opinion changed. It was difficult to determine sometimes which department had responsibility for specific tasks. What was certain was that Tarasov had been assigned the task of finding the Maniac. It was also certain that Tarasov had not succeeded. They drove in silence for a minute or so looking out the window.

“You are welcome to the case,” said Tarasov. “My superiors, including the Deputy Director, were more annoyed that the murders took so much of their time and budget. Murder has been relegated to a very low level in the MVD. The military branches of our organization take most of our resources and present the best opportunities for high-profile success.”

“Or failure?” said Rostnikov.

“Or failure,” Tarasov agreed. “You have all of our files, with the exception of those that demonstrate the fallibility of many of the staff I was given for the search.”

Pause in the conversation and then Tarasov sighed.

“You have questions for me,” he said. “First I have one for you. Why do you want me to go to the park with you?”

“You have been to the sites where the bodies were found. You have seen the bodies. You have done the investigation. The files show the facts. I would like your impressions.”

“For all the good they will do you,” Tarasov said.

“What did you feel when you looked down at the bodies?” asked Rostnikov.

“What did I feel? As if I would get little sleep that night. Let me see. Neatness. They were all laid out on their backs, hands at their sides, faces forward. Their wounds could not be seen, though some had blood on their faces from the attack. Indifference. They were not the objects of hatred. The killer didn’t care about them as people. It was all very efficient. Those were impressions. They are not in the report. Our killer is intelligent. You were in the park this morning again.”

“Yes.”

Though responsibility for the serial killer had been passed onto Rostnikov, Tarasov would continue to monitor progress or failure from a distance. Rostnikov had assumed at least one of Tarasov’s people would be lurking in the wind.

“He will not attack you.”

Rostnikov shrugged.

“We had people posing as homeless or pensioners for weeks. He never struck. He seems to know when we placed a decoy in the park. Add to that the fact that no one of reasonable interest ever appeared more than once in the hundreds of photographs we took with a telephoto lens. The Maniac struck quickly each time at various places both inside the park and on the walks around it. He will not strike at you.”

“He might come and talk to me,” Rostnikov said.

“Why would he do that?”

“Curiosity, a desire to talk to someone about what he has done and why he has done it.”

“He never spoke to any of my undercover men.”

“Would you have?”

“No,” said Tarasov. “Good luck.”

Except for having murdered his wife, Aloyosha Tarasov was a law-abiding Russian. He took no bribes, played no favorites, kept the secrets of his superiors, and always did what he was told. He was considered a highly competent investigator, and rightly so. He wanted nothing more than to survive, do the work he loved, and be respected. His wife had never understood that. She had wanted to get out of Russia, with or without her husband. Were she to leave, his career would be in jeopardy.

Olga had never been the object of his love. He needed a wife for appearances and a reputation for normalcy. One morning eleven years ago, he had stopped at home after having been at a crime scene nearby. He had found Olga standing in the living room with a suitcase in her hand. She told him that she had arranged passage to Poland and was leaving immediately. He had calmly struck her with his fist and thrown her out of the window of their eighth-floor apartment on Kolinsky Street. A passing pedestrian was slightly injured by the falling body.

Olga had cooperated in death as she never had in life. She had left a good-bye note that could easily be interpreted as a confession of suicide. Tarasov had unpacked her bag, called in the demise of Olga, and sat down to wait for the arrival of an investigator who was dutifully uncomfortable in the presence of an MVD major.

Aloyosha Tarasov did not have pangs of guilt, did not experience bad dreams, and spent almost no time remembering his dead wife or his deed.

Years later Rostnikov had read the supposed suicide note and concluded that it was just what it had been, a statement of her decision to leave. Though it had all taken place years earlier, Rostnikov had asked Emil Karpo to dig into the evidence. He had found airline bookings and discovered that Olga Tarasov had a ticket to Warsaw on Aeroflot the day of her death. He pursued the matter no further. Not yet, perhaps never.

Rostnikov liked his MVD counterpart. They weren’t quite friends, but they were a bit more than acquaintances. From time to time they had lunch together or met to keep each other informed. Rostnikov knew that if the opportunity presented itself, he would have no trouble launching a full investigation into the death of Olga Tarasov.

“Anyplace particular in the park?” asked Tarasov.

“Where they play chess.”

Tarasov leaned forward to tell the uniformed driver where to take them and then turned back to Rostnikov.

“We checked all the chess-playing regulars. They are mostly old men, and the younger ones all have alibis for at least three or four of the murders.”

Rostnikov nodded and said nothing.

“None of them remember seeing anything or anyone suspicious.”

Rostnikov nodded again.

They were silent for most of the rest of the drive.

And now they stood side by side next to a table on the end.

The playing was quick. The small-timers were not necessary.

A skinny, shivering old man at their side glanced at them and whispered, “The sun is going down. Games have to be finished. A game unfinished is a game that gnaws at the heart and mind. Better to lose than to leave a game unfinished. You understand?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “Yes, but there are unfinished games that cannot be abandoned with the setting of the sun.”

“You are the police,” the man said.

“Yes,” said Tarasov.

“I have seen you here before.”

“Yes,” said Tarasov.

“You asked me about suspicious strangers and I told you I had seen nothing.”

“Yes,” Tarasov said once more.

“Even if they finish now,” the man said, “I don’t think I’ll play.”

“Avoid the unfinished game,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes.”

The old man smiled, showing uneven brown Russian teeth.

The policemen walked away, leaving the thin man alone in front of the coveted table and game.

“They would not notice if our killer came up behind one of them, caved in his skull as he sat considering his next move, and dragged the body away,” said Tarasov.

“They would notice a new player who sat down.”

“Yes,” said Tarasov. “But they would not notice a missing player. One of your victims may well have played here a few times. They seem to show no curiosity about regulars who do not show up one day and never appear again.”

“Maybe I’ll have Emil Karpo play tomorrow,” said Rostnikov.

“He plays chess?”

“He is quite good, but he shows no enthusiasm for the game.”

“And do you?” asked Tarasov.

“Not for the game of chess,” said Rostnikov, taking in the area while still looking at Tarasov.

Aleksandr Chenko, string shopping bag in hand, hurried down the path about fifty yards from the chess tables. The bag was heavy with milk, bread, vegetables, and cans of sardines and a large box of kasha. His prize purchase that day at the Volga Grocery had been a bunch of large nearly perfect radishes. He had brought the radishes out and placed them in the bin, spreading them to give their best effect. To ensure that this bunch would still be available, he had placed it gently in a corner of the bin and covered it with ice. He would clean them and admire them before slicing a few of the larger ones and putting them on a sandwich with the sardines.

He did not look directly toward the chess tables, nor at the two who were obviously policemen. Yet he saw them. One had been here several times before. The one with the bad left leg had only begun to come over the past week. At odd hours he would sit on a bench and read a book.

There was something intriguing about the man with the bad leg who was built somewhat like a large brick. It would be interesting to get close and see what he was reading, perhaps even to talk to him. At some point Aleksandr knew he might be caught, but it was essential that this not happen before he had reached his mark. If he chose to go on killing, every victim after that would be a bonus.

At that moment he decided that the policeman with the bad leg would be the one with whom Aleksandr made the record. That would happen soon. Then he would celebrate. Tonight, after eating his sandwich of radishes and sardines, he would call both The Moscow News and The Moscow Times and give them an accurate count of the dead. Since the police were not letting people know, he would tell them. It was essential that people around the world knew.

Just before turning to the left at the point where the path divided, Aleksandr allowed himself one quick glance at his next victim.

The policeman with the bad leg was looking back at him.