Eye of the Red Tsar

36

IT WAS MORNING.

Pekkala sat by the water pump on an upturned bucket, the Webley resting by his foot. A hand-sized mirror, made of polished steel, was propped in the crook of the pump handle. Pekkala was shaving, a dingy froth of soap upon his face and the blade rustling faintly as it carved across the contours of his chin.

He’d slept only a couple of hours. After their return from Vodovenko, the three men had agreed to stand watch in turns throughout the night and every night from then on until the investigation was complete.

Suddenly, a face peeked around the corner of the courtyard wall.

Pekkala reached for the gun.

The face ducked out of sight. “It’s only me!” called a voice from behind the wall. “Your old friend, Mayakovsky.”

Pekkala set the gun back down. “What do you want?” he asked.

Cautiously, Mayakovsky stepped back into the courtyard. In his arms, the old man carried a basket made from woven bulrush stalks. “I bring gifts! These are some things which Kirov has requested.” Mayakovsky looked at the gun. “You are a little jumpy today, Inspector Pekkala.”

“I have reason to be jumpy.”

“Shaving, I see. Yes. Good for the nerves. Yes.” Mayakovsky gave a nervous laugh. “Occam would be pleased.”

“What?” asked Pekkala.

“Occam’s razor.” He pointed at the blade in Pekkala’s hand. “The simplest explanation that fits the facts…”

“… is usually right,” said Pekkala. He wondered where Mayakovsky had bartered for that piece of knowledge. “What brings you here?”

“Ah, well, you might say it is Occam who brings me here, Inspector Pekkala.”

Pekkala scraped the razor down the length of his throat, then whipped the soap off the blade and pressed the cutting edge to his skin.

Mayakovsky placed the basket on the doorstep and sat down beside it. “My father was a handyman for the Ipatiev family. I used to wait here for him when I was a child, as he finished up his work for the day. I swore that someday I would buy this place. In the end, of course, the house could not be bought. And who would have wanted it anyway, after the things that happened here?”

“The house you have seems big enough,” said Pekkala.

“Oh, yes!” answered Mayakovsky. “I have a different bedroom for every day of the week. But it is not this house.” He patted the stone on which he sat. “Not the one I swore I would own.”

“Then the only thing driving you is greed.”

“Do you think I would have been happier if I had bought the Ipatiev house?”

“No. Greed does not rest until it has been satisfied, and greed is never satisfied.”

Mayakovsky nodded. “Precisely.”

Pekkala glanced up from his shaving mirror. “All right, Mayakovsky, what are you driving at?”

“Since I do not own this house,” explained the old man, “the dream of owning it persists. I have come to realize that the dream of owning it is now worth more to me than the house itself. I tried to pretend otherwise. How can a man admit that his whole life has been spent searching for something he does not actually want?”

Slowly, Pekkala lowered the razor from his face. “He can admit it, if he faces the truth.”

“Yes,” agreed Mayakovsky, “if, like Occam’s razor, he can understand where the facts are pointing him.”

“I pity you, Mayakovsky.”

“Save some pity for yourself, Inspector.” Mayakovsky’s forged smile flickered on and off, as if it were attached to some faulty electrical current. “You also seem to be in search of a thing you do not really want.”

“And what is it you think I’m looking for?” asked Pekkala.

“The Tsar’s treasure!” spat Mayakovsky. Until now, the old man had been choosing his words carefully, but now they sounded like an accusation.

“What do you know about that?” Pekkala wiped the soap from his blade onto a dish towel laid across his knee.

“I know that the Tsar had hidden it so well that no one could find it. Not that they didn’t try. I saw them. The carriage shed in this courtyard was filled with the trunks the Romanovs brought with them. Beautiful trunks. The kind with curved wooden railings and brass locks, each trunk numbered and named. Well, the militia searched them and stole a few things, but they didn’t really know what they were looking for-just a bunch of books and fancy clothes. Those Cheka boys must have figured out that even if the valuables themselves weren’t in the trunks, they might discover a clue as to where they could find them. Every night, those Cheka guards sneaked out and searched those trunks, but they never found anything.”

“What makes you think that, Mayakovsky?”

“Because if they had found it, Inspector Pekkala, they would have no use for you. Why else would they have kept you alive?”

“Mayakovsky,” said Pekkala, “I am here to investigate the possibility that the execution of the Romanovs was not fully carried out.”

Mayakovsky nodded sarcastically. “More than a decade after they vanished. Do the wheels of bureaucracy in Moscow really turn as slowly as that? The Romanovs are a footnote in history. Whether they are alive or dead no longer matters.”

“It matters to me.”

“That is because you are also a footnote in history-a ghost searching for other ghosts.”

“I may be a ghost,” said Pekkala, “but I am not searching for that gold.”

“Then your emerald eye is blind, Inspector, because you are being used by someone who is. You said it yourself-greed is never satisfied. The difference between us, Inspector, is that I have faced the facts and you have not.”

“I will decide that for myself, Mayakovsky.”

As if prompted by some invisible signal, both men rose to their feet.

“Katamidze is dead,” Pekkala said. “I thought you should know.”

“People don’t last long in Vodovenko.”

“He knew who murdered the Tsar. He may have been the only one who could have told me the name of the killer.”

“I may be able to help you,” said Mayakovsky.

“How?”

“There is someone Katamidze knew, someone he might have spoken to before he disappeared from Sverdlovsk.”

“Who?” asked Pekkala. “For God’s sake, Mayakovsky, if you know anything at all…”

Mayakovsky held up his hand. “I will talk to this person,” he said. “I must go about this carefully.”

“When can you let me know?”

“I will see to it at once.” The old man’s voice was calm and reassuring. “I may have an answer for you later today.”

“I expect it will come at a price. You must know by now that we don’t have much to give you.”

Mayakovsky tilted his head. “There is one thing I’ve had my eye on, so to speak.”

“And what is that?”

He nodded towards Pekkala’s black coat, which hung from a nail on the wall. Just visible under the lapel was the oval of the emerald eye.

Pekkala breathed out through his teeth. “You drive a hard bargain.”

Mayakovsky smiled. “If I did anything less, I would have no respect for myself.”

“What about your basket?”

“Keep it, Inspector. Think of it as a down payment on that badge of yours.”