A Whisper to the Living

9

Ivan Medivkin parked the small pickup truck in a dead-end alleyway alongside the old gymnasium. The trip had been somewhat painful. It had required him to drive with his knees up high, almost against his chest. His foot wanted to fall heavily on the gas pedal. It was a strain to keep it from dropping and sending the little truck into a mad dash that was certain to cause attention and possible destruction.

He had worried the last fifteen kilometers. The gas gauge had insisted that the tank was nearing empty. He could not stop for gas without being seen and remembered. He was the Giant, Ivan the Terrible, the Man Who Would Be King of the Ring, the Man Wanted by the Police for Murder.

Ivan managed to get the door open and drop his feet to the ground. Then he bent over and came out of the truck crouching. Night was coming soon. There was still a pale wash of dying sun and long gray shadows.

There was a huge green Dumpster against a wall. The top of the Dumpster was open. Things scuttled among paper and garbage, and the smell was sweetly decaying. Ivan walked behind the truck and moved to a wooden door behind a trash can. Something scuttled in that too. Ivan pushed the trash can out of the way and tried the door handle. It was not only locked; it was also held in place by decades of not being used.

The door was wood, once a thick wood, now a wood decaying from the outside in. Ivan threw his shoulder against the door. The door shot open. The ease with which he had opened the door surprised him. He fell over into the equipment storage room, breaking the fall with the palms of both hands. Then he rolled on his side and looked around the room panting from the effort and surprise. Dim twilight through the doorway covered him.

Two heavy punching bags, both with holes that would leak sawdust if they were moved, leaned against each other in a corner, suggesting, at least to Ivan, a pair of dead bodies. A cardboard box stood against a wall, a thick rope dangling from it like a snake that had died trying to escape. A stationary bicycle faced the door, its chain broken. A few feet from Ivan Medivkin lay a deflated brown leather punching bag. The punching bag seemed particularly sad, a defeated head on its side with no eyes with which to see and no body to carry it.

Ivan had spent little time training in this gym in the early days of his career. He and Klaus Agrinkov had moved to the more upscale boxing facility on a one-block street off of Kalanchevkskaya. Ivan rose and moved to the door to the gym. This door had felt frequent openings and closings. He opened the door and stepped through, closing the door behind him. He could hear voices ahead of him down the dark, narrow corridor. He followed them and came to yet another door. This one he opened slowly, cautiously.

The gym was large, a great dank-smelling place. The ring was opposite where he stood in the doorway. Two men were sparring, young men. Both were small, fast. Ivan knew that without being told. Sitting in a wooden chair outside the ring, his back to Ivan, was his manager and friend, Klaus Agrinkov.

Ivan took a step forward and stopped. From the shadows on his right and left the familiar, and not unpleasant, smell of dank sweat engulfed him. He felt a sad murmur of mourning for his damaged career.

Something emerged from the nearby shadows. Two men. One man was large, well built, though not nearly as large or well built as Ivan. The other man looked less formidable. He slouched forward and wore a look of great sadness on his face. He wore round simple glasses with reflecting glass. He turned his head toward Ivan.

That was the point at which the well-built man lifted his hand to reveal a gun pointing at Ivan.

Ivan considered turning and running back through the open door. The man with the gun might shoot, but he probably would not. Ivan began to raise his hands.

“That will not be necessary,” said the man with the gun.

“Thank you,” said Ivan.

“We have been waiting for you,” the man with the gun said.

“You knew I would come here?”

“Where else would you go?”

They met on neutral ground, the British chain Costa Coffee shop on Pushkinskaya Square. Colonel Yaklovev could not bring himself to suggest one of the new Starbucks or the Moka Loka and did not want to go to a Shokoladnitsa coffee house, where there was a slight chance he might be recognized. Yaklovev was secretly addicted to frothy flavored lattes, particularly those made at Shokoladnitsa. With Moscow’s ratio of one coffee house for every 3,187 people, however, it was not difficult to come up with a suggestion that General Misovenski did not veto.

Coffee houses were especially good places to meet in public.

They were crowded and noisy and the two men were unlikely to be recognized. Indeed, without their uniforms, they simply looked like businessmen out for a coffee break.

A few people might comment that Yaklovev looked somewhat like Lenin or that the dark Misovenski with deep-set eyes looked a little like the British actor Ian McShane.

Given the subject that they were going to discuss after having a satisfying sip of their drinks, both men felt confident that the other would not be recording the conversation. What they were about to discuss could lead to the fall of both men.

“It is good,” said the General in the gravelly voice that was familiar and forbidding to his department of 220 men and women.

The Yak put his cup down and nodded his agreement.

He did not like drinking coffee from paper or Styrofoam cups. He thought the coffee before him only minimally satisfying. To avoid the possibility of future profiling for the General’s files, the Yak had ordered a straight medium-sized black coffee.

“If Aleksandr Chenko is arrested and brought to trial,” said the Yak, “he will very likely tell the prosecutors and the court that he is related to Prime Minister Putin and that you had him in your grasp a year ago, as many as twelve murders ago, and that you let him go to protect the reputation of Prime Minister Putin.”

The Yak, with evidence provided by Emil Karpo, knew that Chenko bore no relationship to Putin. The familial tie was an invention of Chenko.

“I am listening,” said the General, offended by the lack of political subtlety being shown by this man he outranked.

“I have that evidence, or at least a copy of it, in my possession,” said the Yak as a young and pretty girl with long black hair bumped into their table. The girl said, “Oops,” and moved her coffee cup away before it spilled on either man.

“And what do you propose?” asked Misovenski.

“If Chenko does not make it to trial, perhaps does not even make it to arrest, my office will be given credit for catching the worst serial killer in the history of Russia, and neither your office nor mine will have to embarrass Prime Minister Putin. You can simply issue brief congratulations to the Office of Special Investigations. My name need not be mentioned. The case will be closed. We can both control the flow of information about Chenko, perhaps even manufacture a suitable biography.”

Since Karpo did not have the imagination for such a task, the Yak had given the assignment to Pankov, who would certainly stain any hard copy with sweat. He would sweat, but he would do a good job.

The General nodded to show his approval.

“It will have to be accomplished soon,” said the Yak.

“You have a person in mind for the task?” asked the General.

“Yes,” said the Yak, deciding he could drink no more of this coffee in a cardboard cup, listen to no more of the babble of boys, the chatter of women, the laughter of girls.

“You approve then?” asked the Yak.

“Yes,” said the General, rising.

Protocol and his superior rank meant that the General should choose his moment of departure and that the Colonel should remain in place till the higher-ranking officer had left.

“You have not finished your coffee,” the General added.

“Perhaps in a moment or two.”

Another nod from the General and he made his way through the evening crowd and out the door.

Yaklovev left as soon as he could, dropping his half-full cup in a trash container whose lid opened greedily.

Igor Yaklovev had written nothing, but he had come well prepared. Before the meeting he had carefully gone over the Bitsevsky Maniac files pulling out names, searching. An hour before the meeting with Misovenski, the Yak had narrowed the list down to five. Half an hour before the meeting his list was down to two, and now, after this meeting, the list was down to one.

The only problem might come from Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov or one of his people who might get hurt or even killed. It would be tragic but acceptable, though the Yak would far prefer not to lose Rostnikov. The Chief Inspector was vital to the Yak’s plans, but even that could be dealt with.

He had decided who would kill Aleksandr Chenko.

Two dented cans of Norwegian salmon.

In twelve years, Aleksandr Chenko had not been responsible for a single dented can, not one can. Nor had he broken a jar or caused a hole in a box of cereal or noodles or anything else.

He had watched the blue-and-white cans roll across the aisle. He had heard them clunk to the floor and wobble in three directions. Customers had been present. He wanted to tell them that nothing like this had ever happened to him before, never, but he said nothing, just chased down the cans and gently dropped them in the carton on the flatbed before starting to return them to the shelf with great care.

That was when he had found the two dented cans.

He would have to tell Juliana Horvath, the storeroom supervisor. He hoped she would not make the dented cans a subject of extended conversation, but he knew she would acknowledge this event in some way. And she did.

Juliana Horvath was just over fifty, stocky, homely, with short, straight dyed yellow hair. She was neither too smart nor too stupid for her position, and she took it seriously.

Aleksandr had carefully restacked the cans in the same display form as before, replacing the dented cans with new ones. Everything was even, symmetrical. A customer would sooner or later remove a can, but that did not matter. Aleksandr would have done his job.

As it turned out, Juliana Horvath had simply accepted the two dented cans and made a small x on the bottom of each so that they could be placed in the reduced-price bin at the front of the store. The saving would be small. The store would still make a profit.

“You look pale,” said Juliana Horvath in her slightly hoarse cigarette-destroyed voice.

“I am fine,” Aleksandr had said.

“You do look a bit-” Ilya Grosschekov had started to observe, but Aleksandr had cut him off with an uncharacteristic firm, “I am fine.”

“It is just two dented cans,” said Juliana Horvath.

They had no real pride in their work. They came, did the job, collected their pay. Aleksandr took pride. What was the point of working eight or ten hours a day if one did not derive satisfaction from what one did? As it was for cans of Norwegian salmon, so it was for the lost souls in the park.

When he checked out later, Aleksandr had walked slowly, full cloth grocery bag in hand, containing the two cans of Norwegian salmon that he had purchased, to Bitsevsky Park. He had come there earlier, on his lunch break, on this cool, clear, crisp day, in search of the policeman with the artificial leg, but the policeman had been at none of the benches. Aleksandr had eaten his cheese and lettuce sandwich on a fresh roll while he searched. No policeman.

Maybe he was ill. Maybe he had been taken from the case, as had been the previous police detective Aleksandr had approached. That policeman had taken Aleksandr into custody, put him in a room for many hours, asked him hundreds of questions, and then released him, causing Aleksandr to lose half a day of work. His mentioning a family connection to Putin may have helped. Aleksandr lied extremely well and was proud of his ability to do so.

The policeman with the artificial leg could not be gone. He was to complete the task. He was, if possible, to be the sixty-fourth sacrifice. Aleksandr planned to approach the washtub of a detective, lure him into the bushes with the excited promise of evidence accidentally uncovered, and then crush the man’s skull from behind with a skilled blow with the hidden hammer. He would do all this in broad daylight, probably on his lunch hour, this time leaving the bloody hammer next to the body, and return to work.

As he now walked through the park looking for the policeman, he considered that the man might not be Number 64. Aleksandr had been counting the first two he had killed, the young man he had pushed from the window and the girl he had strangled and buried far from the park. Maybe he should do more than fill the board just to be sure.

It was the girl who had started him on this path, given him the idea after she had kissed him twelve times in eighteen days and told him that she liked him. Then she had said her boyfriend had come back. Come back from where? No boyfriend had been mentioned. They were in the park. She was being kind and sincere. Aleksandr had strangled her with hands grown strong from honest, hard work. He had buried her and then sought out the boyfriend and pushed him from the window.

Those two were the impetus Aleksandr needed to start the task, and now he had almost achieved the goal. Maybe he would be caught when he finished. It would not matter greatly. If they did not catch him, he might stop, but then again he might not. He might start a fresh 64. He wanted to win this game and then be recognized as the champion, the record holder, the one who stood in a steel cage at his trial imagining a gold medal around his neck.

Aleksandr took the path he almost always took and went winding toward the street and a block of Stalin-era high-rise apartment buildings. Twilight was upon him. There were adult couples and trios and joggers. Few were alone in Bitsevsky Park as the hooded sun sank under gray clouds. Later there would be the drunks, the mad elderly, the occasional fool who had not heard of the Bitsevsky Park killer. He did not like being called “Maniac,” but he had little choice and, besides, it had a satisfying frightening echo to it.

Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Aleksandr looked both ways at the light traffic and crossed in the middle of the street directly in front of his apartment building. He took out his key as he moved and opened the outer door to the cigarette smell that would never go away. He opened the inner door with the next key to what most considered the sickening-sweet odor of strong cleaning liquid. He did not find it distasteful.

He did not wait for the unreliable elevator. He never did. He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, strode to his apartment, opened the door, went in, and locked the door behind him. Then, eagerly, he moved to the small kitchen area, where he removed two slices of fresh lake trout from the newspaper in which they were wrapped. He put a pan on the larger of the two burners atop his stove and prepared the pan with a generous dollop of real butter. He kept the fire very low and, after washing the small potatoes he had brought home thoroughly, cut them into slices and carefully placed them around the rim of the large pan. Finally, he placed the two slices of fish in the pan and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

He had almost forgotten the two dented cans of Norwegian salmon.

Later, after he had eaten, Aleksandr allowed himself a small glass of Nitin wine, on sale last week at the Volga at a bargain. He was not particularly fond of the wine, but it held memories.

After cleaning up the kitchen, Aleksandr took off his clothes and put on a pair of loose-fitting gray jogging shorts and an oversized red T-shirt. He moved to the sole window and sat down in his comfortable chair. A headache, which he had up to now refused to admit, made one last effort to burrow into him.

It was then that he looked out the window and across the space between his building and the next. Sometimes he would see the old couple in the window, sometimes only one. They sometimes nodded to him and he nodded back. They sometimes had their heavy curtains completely draped closed. But not tonight. Tonight the curtains were open. Tonight seated in the window directly across from him was, not two nodding old pensioners, but the policeman with the artificial leg.

The policeman with one leg had not been on the bench.

On his way home from school, and a decidedly unpleasant experience resulting from a confrontation with two other students over the Russian invasion in Georgia, Yuri had looked for the policeman for about ten minutes before heading home.

Now, Yuri opened the door of the apartment to the smell of shchi, cabbage soup, and tefteli, meatballs, and the sight of his grandfather sitting across the room in his personal chair. Yuri Michaelovich spent most of his time watching news and interview shows on television. He cursed and shook his head in disagreement with almost everything he witnessed on the screen. He even grew red in the face second-guessing soccer coaches and players when he occasionally watched a game.

Young Yuri’s grandfather, lean, with shoulders sloped forward and wild mop of white hair bobbing, glanced up at Yuri, waved a hand, and turned his eyes back to the television.

Yuri’s mother stepped out of the cupboard-size kitchen when she heard the door open and said, “You are on time today.”

His grandfather rubbed his stubbled chin, contemplating the folly of all but himself and those of the past who ran the world as he had known it. The Communists had run a much bigger world with much greater efficiency.

Young Yuri’s mother ladled food into two blue ceramic bowls in the kitchen and then stepped around her father and nodded toward the table.

“Sit,” she said.

Olga Platkov was thirty-five and very pretty. She had passed on her large brown eyes and curly dark hair to her son. Now, Yuri thought, putting down his backpack, she looks tired.

Six mornings a week she got up before dawn, dressed, ate what was left over, and began her almost-two-hour train and bus trek to the Coca-Cola bottling plant. She had recently become a shift manager, which meant she got up even earlier and came home later.

Yuri went around the blaring television to the bathroom, where he washed his hands, after which he went briefly into the bedroom he shared with his grandfather. There young Yuri removed the book he was reading and took it back into the living / dining room. He sat at the table in his usual seat. There were only three plates on the table, which meant his father had already left for the Volga Restaurant, where he worked behind the bar.

“Father,” young Yuri’s mother said.

Yuri’s grandfather held up a hand to silence her.

“One minute,” he said.

Yuri and his mother sat and each reached for a thick slice of dark bread.

“I met a policeman in the park,” Yuri said. “He is looking for the Maniac.”

“There is no Maniac,” Yuri’s grandfather shouted, rising from his chair and joining them at the table. “It is a rumor created by this new government working with capitalists.”

Yuri’s grandfather had been a commissar before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yuri did not remember it, but he was often told by his grandfather that they had lived in a large apartment on Kalinin Street, a high-rise with an elevator. Young Yuri’s grandfather had been the Communist Party commissar for the entire street, a big job with a small office on the first floor of the building in which they lived. It had been his job to respond to political complaints and nonpolitical complaints ranging from the price of fish at the market to requests for annuities.

“You know what we need?” he asked, reaching for the bread and butter and looking down at his soup.

“Stalin,” said Yuri automatically.

“Stalin” was the answer to almost every question Yuri’s grandfather posed.

“Yes,” he said. “Stalin. Stalin was a Georgian, like us. Did you know that?”

Yuri knew it well.

“Stalin would have taken care of the problem,” said Yuri’s grandfather, starting to eat the thick soup before him.

Yuri did not know what the problem was, but he nodded his understanding and agreement. His mother smiled at him and slowly began to eat.

“There is no Maniac in the park,” his grandfather repeated more to himself than to his daughter and grandson.

“The policeman has one leg,” Yuri said.

“He is not a policeman. He is a molester of children. No one with one leg is allowed to be a policeman. Stay away from him.”

Yuri knew better than to argue. They ate in silence to the ranting of voices from the television set. When the meal was over, Yuri’s grandfather rose once more, saying, “Policemen with one leg. Maniacs in the park. You read too many wild stories.”

With that Yuri’s grandfather left the apartment to go downstairs and outside, where he could smoke two cigarettes. He had been told by doctors that he had to stop completely, but he had no intention of doing so. He was only sixty years old. Others he knew who smoked were older than he. Doctors since the fall of the Soviet Union told everyone they had to stop smoking.

“There is a Maniac and there is a policeman,” Yuri said, helping to clear the table and put the leftovers in plastic containers. “And he is not a molester of children.”

“I have heard these tales of a Maniac,” Yuri’s mother said, turning the volume of the television set down to a whisper. “I think there was even something on the news. Was that in our park?”

“Yes,” said Yuri.

“And your policeman with one leg is there to catch him?”

“Yes.”

Yuri had not mentioned the candy that the policeman had shared with him. He knew it would not be a good idea.

“Solachkin is a jackass,” his grandfather said, bursting through the door. “A fool, a jackass, a. . jackass.”

Yuri welcomed his grandfather’s return. It interrupted the conversation with his mother, a conversation about the policeman that was beginning to make Yuri uncomfortable.

“You know what that ti sleepoy, asleyp mudak, that impotent bastard, said?” Yuri’s grandfather said between his nearly closed teeth. “He believes in your Maniac? I told him that it was just a trick to divert the minds of the public from the invasion of Ossetia by Putin and his puppet Medvedev. When the police have wrung the last sweat of rumor from the streets they will find some fool to accuse of their make-believe murders and lock him away or even shoot him.”

Yuri had an open book before him. As he was picking it up to retreat to the bedroom, his grandfather strode across the room, beating Yuri to the bedroom. Wherever his grandfather roosted, Yuri would go in the other room.

Through the open door of the bedroom, Yuri heard something rattling and the voice of his grandfather saying, “Betrayed, betrayed by Putin. I am not afraid to say it. Betrayed. I thought KGB Putin would resurrect the Communist Party, but what has he done?”

Yuri’s grandfather emerged with a small wooden box and a board tucked under his arm.

Without a word, Yuri’s mother got up and touched her son’s cheek. She looked so tired. Yuri touched her hand and smiled.

“You set up,” his grandfather said, placing the chessboard on the table.

Olga Platkov moved across the room and through the door to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Yuri opened the wooden box and placed the chess pieces in the center of each box.

“You have white. You open,” his grandfather said. “You want tea?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I will heat the water. You get the tea.”

The two prepared the tea side by side.

“You have white,” Yuri’s grandfather said. “I have black.”

It was the same thing he said before every one of their games of chess. He had said it since Yuri was five years old. The truth was that Yuri looked forward to these games, to chess with his grandfather, who ceased ranting as soon as the game began.

“School is good?”

“Yes,” said Yuri, reaching for the pawn directly in front of the King’s knight.

In the six years they had been playing, Yuri had not won once. This did not seem to bother either him or his grandfather. Yuri knew he would soon start winning.

He changed his mind and moved the knight over the line of pawns.

“A new gambit,” his grandfather said, reaching into his shirt pocket to pull out a cigarette and put it between his teeth. He would not light it. He never did when he was inside the apartment. “Well, let us test your mettle.”

Maybe this would be the game Yuri finally won.

“Now for the reports,” said Paulinin to the couple at his table, the woman next to him, the man just beyond.

The problem and the particular value of Paulinin’s reports was that they were meticulous and detailed, written with a dark, ultra-thin-point pen. There were thirty-two identical fine-point black gel pens in the drawer of his desk right next to the two small jars of pain pills. Paulinin always wrote in clear, small letters. He wanted no mistakes or distortions. When he finished each report, he carefully transferred his notes to the computer.

Before beginning his report, he had turned off the CD of Beethoven’s Fidelio. It was Beethoven’s only opera and the only opera that the scientist really liked. There was an inevitable melancholy to the overture, an echo from the pit in the cell. Most of Paulinin’s guests appreciated the opera.

He had already examined and written reports on five of the victims of the Bitsevsky Maniac and on the latest corpse, that of one Daniel Volkovich, which Inspector Iosef had sent him. Paulinin was not at all sure that the simple case required his special forensic skills. Oh, he was pleased that the son of the Chief Inspector thought highly enough of Paulinin’s skill to bring him this guest. However, the visitors were piling up. Six were in the refrigerator one flight up, and two were before him in the laboratory.

He looked down at the quite pretty woman with her eyes closed and began, “Lena-”

A lightbulb crackled. He began again.

Before writing the reports on his own form and not that of the government, he spoke to both the tape recorder and the two corpses.

“Lena Medivkin and Fedot Babinski were murdered by. .”

“. . two different people,” said Iosef, who had received the report from Paulinin confirming what he had thought.

Iosef and Akardy had remained in the musky gymnasium, neither sitting. Handcuffed, Ivan the Giant stood between the two policemen. Across from them stood Klaus Agrinkov, the manager, and at his side stood a bewildered middleweight with a completely smashed nose. A towel was draped over the shoulders of the middleweight, whose name was Osip. He had no idea what was going on. The only thought in his mind was of getting home and telling Maria that he had met Ivan Medivkin, who was as big as his myth.

“Different people?” said Agrinkov.

Ivan did not appear to have heard. His mind was focused on escape.

“So our expert tells us,” said Iosef. “Both of the victims were beaten to death. However, the blows to Lena Medivkin were short, hard, much more powerful with a right hand than the left. And Fedot Babinski was killed by crushing straight punches to the face, neck, and stomach with a left hand, which suggests. .?”

“Two assailants in the room,” said Agrinkov, nodding his head.

“But not necessarily at the same time,” said Iosef. “Our laboratory has not yet fully established how far apart they were killed, but it appears the woman was killed first.”

“Ivan,” said Iosef. “Both your wife and Babinski were dead when you entered the hotel room?”

“Yes. Who killed Lena?”

“We know Fedot Babinski killed your wife,” said Iosef. “What we do not know is who killed Fedot Babinski.”

Knock at the door.

Tyrone was close to calling Elena Timofeyeva. There were only a few more passages, bits of dialogue that needed work to restore them to the point at which they could be heard clearly. It was late, closing in on midnight. He had her office phone number and he had hacked into her unlisted home phone. She had not answered, but at eight o’clock he left messages on the machines telling her that he was running late, very late, but he had good news. He would bring the tape and perhaps somehow she would show her gratitude.

Knock at the door.

He smiled. Elena the voluptuous policewoman had heard his message and could not wait for him to bring the good news.

Tyrone had been moving slowly to the door, chewing on a caramel, which he could not resist and would certainly contribute to the destruction of his teeth.

Knock at the door.

Only when he was standing before the door did he wonder who besides the policewoman might be knocking at this hour. Had his mother come home a day early and forgotten her keys? Was PoPo Ivanovich here to report on some newly discovered treasure trove of information he had hacked into? No, it had to be the policewoman. Tyrone swallowed his caramel and ran his tongue over his teeth.

Knock at the door. He opened it.

Two men stepped forward. One was thin, not as thin as Tyrone, and wore a suit that fit him reasonably well. He was about fifty, with white hair and blue eyes. His teeth, Tyrone noted, were perfect and seemed to be his own as he spoke.

“You know why we have come,” the man said.

At his side was a considerably larger man wearing brown denim pants, a black T-shirt, and a smile Tyrone definitely did not like.

Tyrone knew, but he said, “Tell me so that I make no mistake.”

“The tape,” said the white-haired man.

The man’s hands were folded in front of him. The larger man in the black T-shirt had his considerable hands at his sides.

Tyrone considered asking, Which tape? but he appreciated the possible consequences of such a question.

“I have given it to the police,” he said.

“You restored it?” asked the white-haired man.

“I did, at least most of it, but I paid no attention to what was being said.”

The two men who had entered his life suddenly now looked at each other and considered.

“Even if I did hear something,” Tyrone added quickly, “I could not testify to what I heard. No court would believe me, not with my background.”

The larger of the two men stepped forward and pushed Tyrone. Tyrone staggered back and almost fell.

“To which policeman did you give the restored tape?” asked the man with white hair.

“His name is Sasha Tkach,” said Tyrone.

The white-haired man nodded. Tyrone felt just a bit safer.

“And you made copies,” said the white-haired man.

It was not a question.

“No,” said Tyrone. “I was asked by the police to make no copies, and I did not have the time.”

“Oleg?” said the white-haired man.

The other man shook his head “no.”

“Oleg does not believe you,” said the white-haired man.

The slaps came in quick, stinging seconds, two with the open palm of Oleg’s right hand and then two with the back of the man’s right hand. Oleg was wearing a large ring. It cut into Tyrone’s cheek. Tyrone reached out to steady himself on a chair that was not there. He sat backward on the floor with a brittle thump.

Oleg stood over him. Tyrone tried to think.

“No copies,” he said. “I swear on the graves and bones of all the saints who have ever lived, on every holy icon that has ever been discovered. I swear.”

“Empty your pockets,” the white-haired man said.

Tyrone, cheek bleeding and certainly in need of surgical closure, came to his knees and emptied the contents of his pockets onto the floor. Then Oleg lifted him to his feet and patted him down.

Agreement passed between the two invaders.

“Come here. I have something important for you to do,” said the white-haired man.

Tyrone put a hand to his cheek and shuffled his way to the man, who said, “Do not drip blood on me.”

The white-haired man took a small spray can from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid of the can and handed it to Oleg, who began spraying its contents generously around the room.

“Now,” said the white-haired man. “Be thankful you are alive and, as you consider your luck, run through the corridors shouting, ‘The building is on fire.’ ”

Oleg produced a lighter, turned it on, held it to a piece of paper he tore from a discarded newspaper on the sofa, and set the apartment ablaze.

The white-haired man and Oleg pulled Tyrone into the hallway and closed the apartment door.

“You will have a scar,” said the white-haired man. “It will remind you to be careful about working with the police. Now run.”

Tyrone, hand to his burning cheek, stumbled, then ran awkwardly, calling out, “Fire, fire, fire.”

When he looked back over his shoulder, the two intruders were gone. He paused for an instant to be certain and then shambled back to his apartment door. The heat from inside threatened the door. Almost everything of his and his mother’s was now gone. His equipment would be useless. Almost everything was gone. Almost.

He knelt and dug his fingernails into the cover of the electrical outlet near the door. The heat stung his fingers, but the outlet cover popped off, revealing an empty space just large enough for the copy of the tape he had placed there less than half an hour earlier.

It was a time to panic, but Tyrone did not panic. Instead, he walked slowly out the door past the people who had come out of their apartments to find out whether there was a fire or they were the victims of a drunken joke.

In bare feet, Tyrone moved to the stairwell, his right hand to his bloody cheek, his left hand clutching the tape.