Blood and Rubles

EIGHT

“It is beyond my comprehension,” said the tall, well-built young man.

His name was Sergei Orlov. He was a sergeant in the tax police. He had a small blond mustache that did nothing to hide his extremely boyish looks. He sat with his back straight in the chair before Rostnikov, Hamilton, and Elena Timofeyeva. His eyes met those of whoever questioned him, and he answered in a voice that was controlled and a bit high.

At his side sat Officer Konstantin Terhekin, a member of the District 9 police department. He looked even younger than Orlov and not nearly as confident. His light blue eyes strayed from those questioning him. He was a bit on the portly side and sat not quite as rigidly as Orlov.

“Then you and Officer Terhekin did not allow the items to be removed through the back door of the Dokorov house?” asked Rostnikov.

“Absolutely not,” said Orlov.

“Terhekin?”

“Absolutely not,” Terhekin answered without looking directly at anyone across the table.

“And you had not met each other till the night of this incident?” Rostnikov continued.

“No,” said Orlov.

Terhekin nodded his agreement.

“What did you talk about that long night?”

“Talk about?” Orlov repeated.

“Yes.”

“We did very little talking,” said Orlov. “I did mention that I had a brother who had been captured by the Chechens a few months ago, and he said something about being in Afghanistan.”

“That would take a minute or two,” said Rostnikov. “The rest of the night you just stood quietly. Is that right, Officer Terhekin?”

“Da,” said the plump young man. He changed his position slightly in the wooden chair.

“And in the silence of the night you heard nothing inside the house. No movement. Nothing.”

“We heard the old woman moving around,” said Orlov. “Then we smelled something burning.”

“Burning? And you didn’t rush in to see what it might be?” asked Rostnikov.

“It was a cold night,” said Orlov. “We assumed …”

“Do you believe in magic?” asked Rostnikov.

“No,” said both men.

“In miracles?”

“No,” said both men.

“I confess,” said Rostnikov, shifting his chair back in the hope of restoring minimal feeling to his left leg, “I believe in something like magic. I’ve seen it performed by a shaman in Siberia. But in this case I agree with you. No miracles. Officer Timofeyeva?”

Elena sat up just a bit straighter and looked down at her notes. Both men would normally be expected to look at the pretty, full-figured young woman across the table, but Orlov’s eyes were now riveted on the face of Chief Inspector Rostnikov.

“Were you aware that the guards on the front door, Officers Skitishvili and Romanov, were under observation all night by a series of military police officers?” asked Elena.

“No,” said Orlov.

Terhekin shook his head no as well.

“Are you married?” she asked.

Both men answered yes.

“Children?”

“One boy, two years old,” said Orlov.

“Girl, six months,” said Terhekin.

“Do you have photographs?” Rostnikov suddenly asked.

Both officers fished their wallets out of their pockets and handed them to Rostnikov, who showed the photos to Hamilton and Elena Timofeyeva. Then Rostnikov nudged Hamilton, who pulled out his wallet, removed a photograph, and handed it to the officers across the table. The men nodded in approval. Terhekin gave a pained smile. Wallets and photos were returned. Rostnikov nodded at Elena to continue.

“In return for a full confession,” she said, “including details on where the stolen items can now be found, we are prepared to recommend that you both be given letters of commendation for helping to relocate and protect treasures of great value to the state. Perhaps you both had a drink of something warm offered to you and you passed out. Perhaps you noticed some small detail that helped us trace the truck.

“If you refuse to cooperate,” Elena went on, “you will be charged with conspiracy to defraud the Russian people and the theft of government property of extremely high value. You will be dishonorably dismissed from your service, tried, and found guilty. If you do not cooperate, you will spend the rest of your lives in prison.”

She looked up from her notes and tried not to look uncomfortable. Why had Rostnikov asked to see the photographs of the young men’s children? Elena knew enough of the system by now to know that each man would scramble within his own organization to make a deal or else they would both go to trial, insisting upon their innocence, and quite possibly get away with the crime. If, she thought, there was even a crime. As far as Elena was concerned, the treasures belonged to Natalya Dokorova.

“I would like to confer in private with Officer Terhekin,” said Orlov.

“Unfortunately,” said Rostnikov, “I have, as you may have noticed, a somewhat crippled leg that makes it difficult for me to move. If you would like to use the large closet in the corner or step across the room and whisper …”

“The closet,” said Orlov, rising.

Terhekin rose more slowly, and the two men went to the closet behind Colonel Snitkonoy’s ample desk. They closed the door.

“Well?” asked Rostnikov, standing and holding on to the back of his chair.

“Can you really offer them such a deal?” asked Hamilton.

“We can offer what we wish,” answered Rostnikov. “However, I have little to deal with in exchange for the trust of criminals. So my word is good. It is my hope that a sufficient number of criminals and those in criminal investigation know this. Tell me, have you ever eaten alligator?”

“Alligator?” asked Hamilton.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“I have,” said Elena. “In Florida.”

“Did it taste like chicken? The Americans think everything tastes like chicken,” said Rostnikov. “Rattlesnakes, alligators, iguanas.”

“It tasted like fish,” she said.

Rostnikov nodded and said, “I would like to taste these things-rattlesnakes, alligators, lizards. Americans eat everything.”

“Not the heads of fish or the brains of lobsters,” said Hamilton.

“I personally do not care for the heads of fish,” said Rostnikov. “As for the brains of lobsters, I have never had the opportunity to try them.”

The closet door opened and the two young officers stepped out. Terhekin looked particularly pale. Orlov stood straight and determined. They took their seats, and Orlov spoke. “We have done nothing. We have nothing to say. We wish to speak to our superior officers.”

“Terhekin, you agree?” asked Rostnikov.

Terhekin, eyes moist, said, “Da.”

“You will bear with me,” said Rostnikov. He opened a drawer in the desk in front of him. “I am not familiar with these new electronic devices.”

Rostnikov pushed a button, and the machine emitted a scream of piercing terror. Hamilton reached over, pushed a button to stop the machine, and asked, “Which number?”

“I believe it is number two,” said Rostnikov.

Hamilton’s dark fingers danced on the keys. There was a whirring sound and then the sound of faint voices. Hamilton turned up the volume, and the five people in the room listened.

Terhekin: They know everything.

Orlov: They know nothing.

Terhekin: What difference does it make? They need to blame this on someone. If the Washtub decides to blame us, then it is we who will take the blame. You heard him.

Orlov: Bluffing.

Terhekin: And if not, we go to prison. I’ve heard what happens to police officers who go to prison. And how do we know the old woman will give our shares to our wives?

Orlov: She must, or we will talk. She knows that. On your salary, are you living like a man? Feeding your family enough meat?

Terhekin (laughing bitterly): Meat?

Orlov: If we talk, we go to jail.

Terhekin: But the Washtub said …

Orlov: I do not believe him, and even if I believed him and we talked, it would be the end of our hopes for wealth. Every day we see men and women growing rich by extortion, murder, theft. This is a Russia of madness. You understand? (Pause) Good.

Everyone then heard the sound of a door opening and closing. Hamilton reached over to turn the machine off. Rostnikov nodded his thanks and pushed the drawer closed.

“Even the toilet stalls are wired,” said Rostnikov. “Voice activated. Colonel Snitkonoy wants a full and complete record of every word spoken in this office. The colonel”-here Rostnikov turned to Hamilton-“is a great admirer of your Richard Nixon, who did the same thing. Our colonel, however, is hopeful of better results and eventually a book he can sell to the French or the Americans.”

This was, in fact, the first Elena had heard of the hidden microphones. She began to go over in her mind all the conversations she had engaged in there. There were few, but was there anything compromising? A few weeks after she had joined the department, Major Gregorovich had strongly suggested that they work intimately together, but she had politely rejected him. Was there anything else?

“Gentlemen,” Rostnikov said. “Do we arrest you, call the procurator’s office, and wait for trial?”

Terhekin sat silent, looking at the floor. It was Orlov who spoke.

“We are each given commendations?”

“Lovely ones, complete with frames,” said Rostnikov. “Provided-”

“A percentage of what is recovered?” asked Orlov.

Hamilton coughed and succeeded in suppressing a laugh.

“I am afraid that is not within my power,” said Rostnikov. “It will have to be discussed with those above me.”

“Two trucks,” said Orlov. “The old woman made the arrangements. A garage near the Kazan church. That is all we know. You can raid all the garages near the Kazan church at the same time. We are the tax police; we do things like that all the time.”

“We are grateful for the expert advice,” said Rostnikov. “Inspector Timofeyeva, would you ask Natalya Dokorova to return.”

Elena hurried to the outer door, opened it, and asked the waiting old woman to return. When she entered the room, still clutching the flower, she glanced at the two young men, who were definitely not looking at her.

“Another chair, Inspector Timofeyeva,” said Rostnikov.

Elena brought another chair and placed it next to Orlov. The woman sat.

“I have nothing more to say,” she said.

“Agent Hamilton, would you like to take the next step?” Rostnikov asked, easing back into his chair.

Hamilton, hands folded, looked at each person across from him and in a soft, firm voice said, “Last night, Natalya Dokorova approached these two officers and asked them to conspire with her to steal her brother’s collection of antiques and treasures. Insisting that she had a full legal right to her brother’s possessions, Natalya Dokorova offered them a large sum of money, perhaps pending the sale of certain items. They talked, argued, and eventually agreed, allowing the old woman to go to a public telephone to make a call to someone with whom her brother had worked in the past. While they waited for the trucks, Natalya Dokorova, possibly with the aid of one of these two men, destroyed much of the old furniture in her house. The trucks eventually came, slowly and quietly. Sergeant Orlov went to the front of the building to be sure that the two men guarding the front door harbored no thoughts of returning the visit. This was reported by the two guards there. The loading was done quickly, perhaps carelessly but quietly. It was probably just before dawn when the trucks pulled away.”

“Natalya Dokorova,” Rostnikov said softly, his hands folded before him as well, “it is late. I am hungry. I want to see my wife and the two little girls we have taken in. Please give us the name and address of the garage, or I will have to be up all night raiding garages near the Kazan church.”

The old woman looked angrily at the two officers who had betrayed her. She looked at her flower and flung it at Rostnikov, whose hand came up quickly to catch it. He placed it on the table before him.

“Natalya,” Elena said gently. “Tell the chief inspector. This is a new Russia. You can get lawyers, people to help you, courts that will listen.”

“Betrayer,” said the old woman, looking at Elena. “I promised you cooperation and you have brought me to this.”

“I believed you were innocent,” Elena said.

“I am guilty only of moving my own possessions from one place to another safer place,” the old woman said. “I did not feel my house was safe with all these people in uniforms yelling, threatening, watching. Not much of a crime.”

“The address of the garage,” said Rostnikov.

“Then I betray those who helped me,” said the old woman.

“You simply hired them to bring trucks to your back door and haul away a large load of items,” said Hamilton. “I doubt if they had any idea of what was taking place.”

“That’s right,” said Natalya.

Orlov let out a deep sigh, and something that might have been a sob escaped from Terhekin. Natalya looked at Rostnikov, who was straightening the petals of the flower and ignoring the eyes of the old woman.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you, but there are two conditions.”

“Which are?” asked Elena.

“First, I talk to a lawyer, the best lawyer in all of Moscow,” the old woman said.

“Second?” asked Elena.

The old woman stood and held out her hand toward

Rostnikov. He returned the flower. She did not know the address of the garage, but she did know the name. She gave it to the three investigators sitting across from her.

“Pulcharia called me a name,” screamed Sasha’s mother the moment he entered his apartment. “But I have forgiven her.”

Maya, dark, pretty, and showing no sign of having had two babies, brushed down her hair, moved to her husband, and kissed him softly. Maya and Sasha exchanged a brief look of mutual suffering.

“Would you like to know what she called me?” asked the wisp of a woman who was Sasha’s mother, pulling herself away from the evening news on the television. She was sitting a few feet from the set so that there could be a compromise level of volume, but the television was still loud.

“I can think of nothing that would give me more satisfaction,” said Sasha seriously, taking off his jacket and hanging it on a hook near the door.

“The sarcasm comes from his father’s side,” Lydia screamed.

The children in the other room had learned to live with their grandmother’s shouting and snoring. They shared the bedroom with her.

Lydia’s strident voice was a result of a deafness she refused to acknowledge. Each year it grew worse.

The table was set for Sasha-a cold plate of something that looked like sausage, a large piece of bread, and some slices of raw cucumber and onions.

“We have soup,” Maya said, moving to the stove in the corner and turning it on. “We ate late.”

“Is it warm?” Sasha threw his head back to clear the hair from in front of his eyes as he sat down at the table.

“Yes,” said Maya.

“No need to heat it,” he responded, tearing off a piece of bread. “I have to get a few hours’ sleep. I’m replacing Zelach on a watch at midnight.”

Maya sighed with deep resignation-her usual response to such announcements. She touched his hand.

“What am I? A block of wood? A stuffed chicken?” Lydia asked, moving to the table to sit in front of her son.

Maya walked immediately to turn off the television.

“I’d say a stuffed chicken,” said Sasha. “If those are my only choices.”

“You are not funny,” shouted Lydia. “Not funny. Like your dead father. He thought he was funny too. I watch the children all day till Maya gets home from work. I expect respect.”

Holding a forkful of sausage, Sasha looked seriously at his mother and said, “What did Pulcharia call you?”

“Pahnohs,” Lydia belted out, folding her arms in indignation. “Diarrhea.”

Sasha examined the bowl of dark, thin soup his wife had just placed beside his plate.

“Why?” asked Sasha.

“I told her she had to go to the toilet,” said Lydia. “When she woke up from her nap while the baby and I were watching that show with the clown. I told her, ‘Use the toilet.’ She called me ‘diarrhea.’”

“Maybe she was just telling you that she had … Can this conversation wait till I finish eating?”

“I know the difference between a child telling me she has a problem with her bowels and a child calling me a name,” said Lydia, ignoring her son’s request.

“She is three years old,” said Sasha.

“No excuse. I never let you make excuses,” said Lydia, looking at Maya. “I never let him make excuses. Just the truth. Am I right?”

Though Lydia was not within a kilometer of being correct, Sasha said, “My mother is right.”

“And Maya refused to discipline her,” Lydia went on, feeling a wave of triumph.

“I didn’t think she had done anything that deserved discipline,” said Maya, taking a seat at the small table.

“It is nice to be home,” Sasha said, reaching out to touch his wife’s hand. Maya’s hands were soft. Maybe if he yawned a few times and reminded his mother that he had to get back to work in a few hours, his mother would retire to the bedroom with the children and read a book. Maybe he and Maya could pull out the sofa bed, turn out the lights, make love, and still have time for enough sleep.

“So, what are you going to do?” Lydia insisted.

“I’ll beat her with a belt when I return in the morning,” he said. “Or maybe I should get it over with and pull her out of bed now for the beating. She’ll never forget it.”

He tried the soup. Beans. Still warm. The soup was good. He dipped his bread in it.

“You will not strike that precious child,” Lydia said indignantly. “I never laid a hand on you when you were a child. Neither did your father.”

Sasha contemplated the selectivity of his mother’s memory.

“I’ll starve her for a week,” said Sasha. “Maya, no food for Pulcharia for a week. Make a note.”

“Stop,” Lydia insisted. “You don’t intend to do any of those things.”

“Then, Mother, what shall I do? Maya, what is in this sausage?”

“I’m not sure,” said Maya. “It’s not bad, though.”

Sasha agreed. He simply didn’t like eating the unknown.

“Deprive her of … of television,” Lydia said. “For two days.”

Since Pulcharia seldom looked at television, Sasha agreed.

“I would, however, like to ask her why she called you a name,” he said.

“Pahnohs,” she reminded him as he continued to chew a piece of the unidentifiable sausage.

“I will ask her about this gross violation the moment I next see her,” said Sasha. “Immediately after dinner I would like to get some sleep.”

“You can sleep in the bedroom,” Lydia said. “Maya can clean up, talk a little, watch the television. We’ll wake you.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Sasha. “But I want to shave, get out of my clothes, shower, and go to sleep in here, with my wife, who will, as usual, have to get up early for work.”

“You want to make love,” Lydia said indignantly.

“That is a possibility,” Sasha agreed, smiling at his wife.

“You take away my last crumb of dignity and you smile,” said Lydia with an enormous sigh.

“You have my full and deep respect,” said Sasha.

“I made the soup,” Lydia said, looking at the bowl from which her son was drinking.

“Perfect,” Sasha said.

Lydia talked. Sasha and Maya listened. When he was finished eating, Maya cleared the table. Lydia was on to one of her favorite subjects-Boris Yeltsin and his stooges who had succeeded in making things much worse instead of even a little better.

“I’m not saying I agree with Zhirinovsky,” she said. “But he has a point. And Yeltsin is a drunk who doesn’t know what he’s doing. If it weren’t for the Americans and their money, Yeltsin wouldn’t be wearing those pressed suits and designer ties. You know where he would be?”

“No,” said Sasha.

“In a little apartment with a big bottle,” Lydia said triumphantly.

Sasha had argued with such observations before. This time he nodded and yawned.

“That’s not a real yawn,” his mother said. “That’s a yawn that says, ‘Mother, go to bed.’ Fine. I have books. It’s early, but I have books. You haven’t asked me how I feel today.”

“How do you feel today?”

“Toot bahlyeet, a little pain right here,” she said, pointing to her stomach, “and a touch of pahnohs.”

Sasha did not smile.

“A good reason to get into bed and get some rest,” Sasha said, reaching over to touch his mother’s thin arm. She put her hand on top of his and smiled.

After a shower and a shave, Sasha emerged in an oversized white American T-shirt that had a crude cartoon of a yellow-haired boy and words that Maya had told him meant “Don’t Have a Cow.”

The humor and meaning had always escaped Lydia, who finally retired to the bedroom with a thick paper-covered book. Maya was already in bed. She wore a blue and white long-sleeved nightgown tied at the neck. When the bedroom door was closed, she slipped out of her nightgown and let him see and touch her. Then she reached over and turned off the lights. They made love to the sound of Lydia screeching a lullaby in the shower.

“Romantic,” Sasha whispered.

“Funny,” she whispered back.

He rolled her over onto her stomach and climbed gently on top of her from behind.

“All right?” he asked.

She lifted her buttocks and rose to her knees. In the shower Lydia squealed, “Never any soap in this house.”

Emil Karpo sat at his desk eating a sandwich he had purchased at a stand near the Belorussia train station. The bread slices were thin, the pink and white sheet that passed for ham was even thinner, and there was barely the hint of butter. A bottle of water stood next to the sandwich, which lay on a sheet of paper.

Karpo stopped in his review of his notes from time to time to take a bite of sandwich and a drink of water. It was Thursday night, the night he would normally be with Mathilde. He continued his search. There were Igor Kuzens listed in the directory, and the MVD computer system had come up with a probable Igor Kuzen, a medicine hijacker, but he was in prison. The name had touched a memory in Karpo. He had seen it somewhere, written it somewhere, and now he was going methodically through his cross-index in search of a reference. All names listed in his books of notes were cross-indexed.

He couldn’t find it.

Karpo sat back to finish his sandwich. There was a table lamp before him and a standing lamp in the corner. Mathilde had placed a painting of some people having a picnic on one wall, a painting of a huge red flower on another. She had found a patterned blanket for his cot and was on the verge of convincing him to buy a real bed. She had brought life to Emil Karpo. Communism had been his meaning, but Mathilde had brought life. Now she was dead. A stray bullet from an automatic weapon. The cross fire between two gangs fighting over what? Territory? Nuclear weapons?

Emil Karpo tried to summon anger, but he couldn’t. It was an emotion he bore little of when he was a child and none when he became an adult. He was determined, relentless. He could feel regret at the enormous waste of human life he saw-a murdered child, a woman raped and left for dead, a young man with a meat hook through his body. He had seen this and much more, and it had made him determined to find whoever committed such atrocities.

Now Mathilde was dead and he wanted to feel different. It was Thursday. He wanted to feel angry, but all he could feel was empty. He had lost everything, everything but his work, and he was even beginning to wonder what the point was to that.

“Spelling,” he said aloud, flipping through the index volume where each entry was clearly printed in his own precise hand. He was now going through the Ts, and that was where he found it. Igor Tuzen. A single reference. July 1986. Questioned in relation to the beating and death of a woman who lived in the apartment next to his. The man had identified himself as a physicist. He’d claimed not to have heard the sound of a struggle on the night of the murder even though he had been home all night. The walls were not thick and the woman’s struggle had been fierce. Tuzen maintained that he had been completely absorbed in his work and that furthermore a hockey game had been blaring on his television. Description of Igor Tuzen: age forty, height approximately five feet eight inches, weight 155 pounds. Thick dark brown hair and a pink, youthful face. Glasses with thick lenses. No nervousness. No signs of regret at the murder of his neighbor. No fear. Cooperative. Sorry that he couldn’t help. Wore a smile all the time as if either the world constantly amused him or he were on the verge of idiocy.

Karpo noted the man’s phone number and dialed. The person who answered said no one named Kuzen lived there. Karpo dialed the home of Paulinin. There was no answer. He called Paulinin’s laboratory on the second lower level of Petrovka.

“What?” Paulinin answered.

“Karpo.”

“I have no new information for you,” said Paulinin. “What I have is a new corpse, a Gypsy woman, no obvious means of death. I have a theory.”

“Do you know a physicist named Igor Kuzen?”

“Kuzen? Igor Kuzen.” Long pause, then, “Yes, I’ll find it. Igor Kuzen. Not a physicist. Science training. Wrote a few articles back five, ten years ago, discredited nonsense about the effects of nuclear explosions on plant life, changes in gene patterns, acquired characteristics that could be passed on. He was not completely wrong, just completely ignorant. I might be able to find the articles if you can wait.”

“What happened to Kuzen?” Karpo asked.

“Went to work for a foreign pharmaceutical company,” said Paulinin. “Started in research, moved quickly down to quality control. Last I heard of him.”

“The foreign company?”

“Czech company. Jansco Pharmaceuticals. They make a poor brand of American Prozac. They call it Prinsco. Sells like mad now that everyone thinks he is mad. Can I get back to my corpse?”

“Thank you,” said Karpo.

“You have a night open for dinner perhaps?” Paulinin ventured.

“Perhaps,” said Karpo. “We do not eat in your laboratory.”

“Out, wherever you say.”

“Yes,” said Karpo. “When I’ve finished with what I am working on.”

Next he called the office of Jansco Pharmaceuticals just beyond the outer ring road. He got one of those answering machines and a number to call in case of emergency, which he dialed. A tired woman answered. Karpo asked her how he might find Igor Kuzen. She gave the phone to a man.

“What is this emergency that you have to find Kuzen?” the man asked with some irritation.

“Police,” said Karpo.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” the man said. “I fired him more than eight months ago.”

“Why?”

“Passing on formulas to the Chinese.”

“Where does he live?”

“I’m at home right now. How am I supposed to remember where a former employee lives? I could check in the morning.”

“I’ll meet you at your office in one hour,” said Karpo.

“It’s nearly midnight,” the man groaned.

“One hour.”

“Just a moment,” said the man.

The moment passed. Karpo could hear the woman who had answered the call complaining. The man came back on the phone.

“The last address I can find for Igor Kuzen is Two-thirty-four Lermontov Prospekt. Do you want the phone number?”

“No,” said Karpo, and hung up.

He cleaned up the crumbs left from his dinner, drank the rest of the water, put on his jacket, then paused for a moment to look at the painting of the people in the park. He turned off the lights. He set three hairs he plucked from his head at exact markings in the door, where only he would notice. Should someone enter his apartment or try to during the night, the hairs would move, and even if the person was an expert, it would be difficult to find them and return them to their precise positions.

Karpo checked the pistol in the shoulder holster under his jacket, a Browning that held a thirteen-round clip, and went out into the night. Unlike so many others in the new democratic Russia, Emil Karpo was not afraid of the night. He had, however, begun to fear that he was afraid of being alone.