Hard Currency

TWO

“I was just walking my dog,” the old man said, pointing at his dog. “I walk Petya every morning. Here. There. Everywhere. I’m a veteran.”

They were standing next to a thick tree in Sokolniki Park. The bark of the tree was peeling with age or some blight. Tkach didn’t know which, but he did notice that the tree was dying. As he had conducted the interview, Sasha had turned the old man, whose knees buckled with arthritis, away from the police laboratory crew and Emil Karpo, who were going over the area and examining the mutilated body of the girl.

“Citizen Blanshevski,” Sasha said. “Did you see anyone in the park this morning? Any people you usually see? People you have never seen before?”

“Comrade,” said Blanshevski. “I prefer to be called Comrade. I don’t mind saying I am a veteran. My brother died fighting the Germans.” The old man spat. “Whenever I think of the Germans, I spit. I have given my life to the Party. You should know that. So call me Comrade or I have nothing to say.”

Sasha gently bit his lower lip. He said nothing for a moment. For the three weeks since his thirtieth birthday he had, with the help of his wife, Maya, managed to pull himself from the thick pool of self-pitying misery in which he had been immersed for months.

Thirty was not as bad as he had feared, and there had been a great compensation. Their second child had come, a boy whom they named for Sasha’s father, Ilya, much to the joy of Sasha’s mother, Lydia, who was still temporarily living with Sasha, Maya, and their two-year-old, Pulcharia. Ilya was healthy, and he slept reasonably well. Maya had begun to get her figure back and with it the health that had seemed to ebb away in pregnancy.

Sasha felt that he was looking like himself once more. The mirror showed him a face that looked no more than twenty-three. He was, he knew, reasonably good-looking if a bit thin. His straight blond hair tended to fall over his eyes and he had to throw his head back to clear his vision. There was a large space between his front upper teeth, which seemed to bring out the maternal instinct in many women, and this had gotten Sasha into trouble on more than a single occasion.

But now things were looking better. Elena Timofeyeva, with whom he had been teamed for almost four months, had gone to Cuba with Rostnikov. Elena’s cheerful sense of the future had been almost unbearable. Sasha preferred, at least for now, the company of Emil Karpo. At his worst moments of depression, Sasha knew that he was a dynamo of good cheer compared to the man known throughout the MVD as the Vampire.

“Comrade Blanshevski,” Sasha Tkach tried again, “did you see …?”

“A man,” Blanshevski said, adjusting the blue cap on his head. “Petya, wait. The police don’t want your crap around here. Dog is really my wife’s.” Blanshevski leaned toward Sasha; he whispered now in case his wife might be hiding in the tree. “Hate the dog. Hate it. I’m a prisoner of the dog. The Nazis …” He spat again. “The Nazis couldn’t have tortured me more if they had captured me. If I believed in God, I would pray for the dog to die.”

“Then why don’t you kill it?” Sasha whispered back.

The old man looked down at the whimpering little dog and shook his head.

“Can’t,” said Blanshevski. “I’m not a violent man. Besides, I’m used to him.”

Something shuffled where the search was taking place, and Tkach found himself looking over the old man’s shoulder. Karpo was kneeling next to the body. The amount of blood was …

“You saw a man,” Tkach said.

“I saw Comrade Aloyon, who sits on the bench way over there and reads the paper when it’s warm, cold, hot, who cares,” said the old man. “I saw the woman with the fat baby. I don’t know her name. See her maybe twice, three times every week. Saw her even before the baby. Never even said hello. She’s always in a rush. Me, I’m not in a rush. Where have I to go? I walk a dog I don’t like in the morning. I have some tea or something for lunch. I look at my wife and out the window. I …”

“A man,” Tkach said. “You saw a man.”

“Businessman,” said Blanshevski. “I forgot. I shave. I shave twice a day. I strop my own straight razor. Skin is still smooth. Almost nothing left of the blade. I try to keep busy but …”

He shrugged and looked at Sasha for sympathy. Sasha shrugged back thinking that a month ago, before his thirtieth birthday, he would probably have considered strangling the old man.

“Businessman,” said Sasha.

“Maybe forty, fifty,” said Blanshevski. “Bald, glasses. Carried a briefcase. Gray suit. Looked a little like that one on the television. The game show where they spin that wheel. I’ll think of it. Oleg something.”

“Where did you see him?”

“There,” he said, pointing. “Petya has to do his stuff.”

“He can do it here,” said Sasha. “We’re far enough away.”

“I don’t want them to think it’s evidence,” said the man. “I heard they can do things. Go through a toilet and get DRA.”

“DNA,” Tkach corrected.

“Because of this damned dog, I could get involved here,” said the man.

“You are not a suspect, Comrade Blanshevski. You are a witness. The bald man.”

“It’s all right, Petya,” Blanshevski said, and Petya bleated with gratitude and relieved himself. “The man came out of the park and got in a car. I was this close to him. Not like you and me. Like we are to the dead girl. I’ve seen people torn like that. The war. You’re too young to remember the war.”

“What kind of car?”

Over the man’s shoulder Tkach saw Karpo get up, look around, and begin to move toward them.

“I don’t know. A little car. Dark. I don’t know kinds of cars. I’ve never had a car. A car is a car. Tin, wheels, things that go wrong. Inefficient. My daughter’s husband has a car. I don’t know what kind. They told me.”

Karpo was now next to them. Blanshevski looked up at him nervously.

“Could you recognize him if you saw him again?”

“He’s my daughter’s husband. You think I’m a fossil.”

“Not your daughter’s husband. The bald man.”

“I know. I know that’s who you meant. I was … I don’t know. A bald man. My eyes are not perfect. Watch where you’re standing.”

The last was directed at Karpo, who looked down to avoid Petya’s dropping.

“Bald?” said Karpo.

The old man nodded uncomfortably.

“How big was he? My size? Inspector Tkach’s?”

“Not as tall as you,” said Blanshevski, reaching down to pick up the dog, who was whimpering again. “More weight. Not heavy really, but … more weight.”

Karpo reached into the pocket of his black suit, removed a notebook with a dark cover, and pulled out a drawing. He handed the drawing to the old man.

Tkach knew the drawing well. He watched the old man’s face as he put the dog down and squinted at the drawing.

“This man has hair,” said the old man, pointing at the hair of the man in the drawing.

“I know,” said Karpo.

“No glasses,” the man said, shaking his head. “No glasses and hair. It’s not a photograph.”

“I am aware of that,” said Karpo.

“Still …” Blanshevski said. “It could be the man. I can’t be sure.”

Karpo took the drawing back and put it into his notebook.

“I have Comrade Blanshevski’s address,” said Tkach.

“You can go home,” Karpo said to the old man.

“Remember Petya just …”

“I remember,” Tkach assured him.

The old man adjusted his cap once more and looked back at the bloody body. He seemed about to say something but changed his mind when he looked at Karpo’s pale face and unblinking eyes. Then he scurried away.

When the man and dog were out of earshot, Tkach said, “You think it’s him again?”

“The liver is missing. So is the right eye. The victim is young. We’ll wait for the laboratory report.”

During the past five years, forty people, all young men and women, had been found dead in parks and wooded areas ranging from central Moscow to Istra, over thirty kilometers outside the city. Almost half of the murders had taken place during the day. In fact, the only pattern anyone had been able to find in the killings was that the killer alternated the times, daytime for a month, then nighttime for a month, with the exception of September of the past two years, when the killings seemed to be randomly divided between day and night. Almost all the murders had involved sexual violation and mutilation.

In spite of the great number of almost certainly related murders, until recently only a few in the MVD and KGB had known of the crimes. When they were listed in the files they had not been officially linked until the new power of the Special Affairs Office had permitted Karpo to go into the restricted files of the Procurator’s Office. When he reviewed the files, he found that some of them had been removed by direct order of the Minister of the Interior, but there was enough to track down and enough to begin a profile. Less than two days after Karpo had shown interest in the files of the serial killer, the existence of what was certainly the single worst killer in Russia since Joseph Stalin suddenly became common knowledge. Other criminal investigation branches were only too willing to allow the Special Affairs Office to take over. Journalists from other countries, obviously tipped by Russians who were afraid to ask for themselves, had begun to push and prod, to write of cover-ups, and to hint at even greater horror than the great horror itself.

Rostnikov had concluded that it was the enormity of the horror that had kept the killings a secret until now. In the midst of political turmoil, coups, ethnic riots, and gang warfare, no one wanted to accept the fact that a monster was loose in Moscow, killing, mutilating, and cannibalizing. A KGB defector named Mishionoko had told the Italian newspaper La Republica of the monster in 1989 but no one had taken him seriously. Now it was widely believed that every unsolved killing in Russia was being blamed on the monster so that when a suitable scapegoat was found dozens of political murders could be suddenly and conveniently solved.

Tkach moved past Karpo and walked toward the body, passing one of the three men who were on their knees going through the leaves and grass. Though the body was blood-soaked, twisted, and mutilated there was something about it that seemed familiar to Sasha.

Twenty yards away, one of the grass searchers stood up.

“Here,” he said. “Knife. No blood.”

Karpo moved toward where the man was pointing. Tkach kept looking at the body. Suddenly he knew what was disturbing him and he shuddered. In spite of its distance from human form, the young woman’s body bore a clear resemblance to Sasha’s little daughter, Pulcharia. The corpse with the bloody black hole where an eye had been could have been his daughter.

“I remember,” a voice came through the trees.

Sasha forced himself to turn from the body, willing himself not to shake. Karpo stood next to the investigator hovering over the knife. Everyone had stopped at the sound of the voice.

“I remember,” Blanshevski repeated as he came through the trees. “The car. The bald man’s car. It had a sticker on the bumper. One of those stickers, you know. It said something about blood.”

The old man stopped and looked at the policemen.

“‘Give blood,’ it said. I’m sure. ‘Give blood.’ It was white with red letters. ‘Give blood.’”

No one spoke and the old man’s eyes turned to the dog in his arms. He stroked the dog and repeated, “I’m sure.”

One of the lab technicians whose name Karpo did not know motioned to the deputy inspector.

“I’m sure,” the old man repeated yet again as Karpo and Sasha approached the body and the kneeling technician.

The technician lifted a pale bare leg of the dead girl and twisted it so that the bottom of her foot faced Karpo.

“A tattoo,” the man said. “On the bottom of the foot. I think it’s a hammer.”

“It’s a gun,” said Karpo.

“Capones,” said Sasha with a sigh. Behind them the old man said, “Yes, Petya, I am absolutely sure.”

They landed in Havana in darkness. Rostnikov had tried to sleep on the plane for the final few hours when the turbulence had stopped, but each time he dozed he had the sensation of falling and nausea. He woke up to the groaning of the plane, the sound of his own rapid breathing, and the aching of his withered leg.

He was happy to land and anxious to get to a bath where he could read for half an hour before settling into a bed. He planned to sleep for at least a solid day.

The airport in Havana was smaller than Rostnikov had imagined. In fact, it was small by any international standard and far from the vast empty echoing of the Sheremetyevo in Moscow.

Their luggage, one bag each, was lined up and waiting as they entered the terminal. A line was forming for each item to be checked on metal platforms. The stone-faced customs clerks reminded Rostnikov of pathologists about to examine the stomachs of the recently dead, certain they would find nothing they had not encountered before.

The thin KGB man, four people ahead of them, was doing his best to focus on the contents of his leather suitcase, which had been opened on the table before him.

Suddenly a large man in a faded but neatly ironed blue uniform approached, smiled at Elena Timofeyeva, and said in slightly accented Russian, “You don’t have to wait in line. Please follow me.”

Without waiting for a reply, the man picked up their luggage, turned, and walked slowly through the crowd. Rostnikov nodded to Elena and followed the man, who nodded at the weary customs inspector who was violating the packed undergarments of the thin KGB man.

The uniformed man with their luggage pushed open a double door marked “Oficiales Solamente” and reached back to hold it open so Elena and Rostnikov could follow.

“Am I moving too quickly?” the man asked as they entered an almost empty waiting area about the size of a tennis court.

“We are fine,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes,” said Elena.

“As you wish,” said the man. “This way. I have a car.”

Three children, the oldest no more than five, were playing on the chrome-and-plastic seats of the waiting room. A heavy woman in a pink flower-print dress watched the children, trying not to doze off.

“Air-conditioning is off again in the airport,” said the big man, looking back at them. “I don’t know if it is intentional to save power or a parts breakdown.”

He strode onto the sidewalk in front of the airport. Three Russian-made buses were lined up, their doors open, their drivers talking to each other. Two cars also stood at the sidewalk. One was a recent-vintage white Lada with blue lights mounted on its roof and the other an old rust-and-blue American Chevrolet. The large man went to the Lada and opened its trunk.

He threw Rostnikov’s and Elena’s cases into the trunk, slammed it shut, and turned to Rostnikov with a smile. He held out his hand.

“I am Major Sanchez, Havana Police.”

Rostnikov took the man’s hand.

“Your Russian is perfect.”

“You flatter me,” said Sanchez, taking Elena’s hand. “I spent four years in your country. My wife is Russian.”

Elena withdrew her hand from his.

Sanchez’s hair was dark, thin, and receding. His skin was light brown and his teeth remarkably white. His forearms and neck were powerfully muscled.

“You have children?” Rostnikov asked.

“Confused children,” said Sanchez. “They speak Russian and Spanish and think in a combination of the two that creates interesting juxtapositions. Shall we go?” Sanchez moved to the passenger side and opened both the front and rear doors. “I suggest you open the windows.”

Rostnikov got in the front seat and Elena into the rear as Sanchez moved briskly to the driver’s side and got in.

“You speak no Spanish?” Sanchez asked.

“None,” said Rostnikov, trying unsuccessfully to maneuver his leg into a position that was not terribly painful.

“Pero usted habla español muy bien, yo pienso,” Sanchez said to Elena, looking at her in his rearview mirror.

Elena looked toward Rostnikov, who was watching the traffic as Sanchez drove slowly out of the parking lot.

“Ah, I see,” said Sanchez in Russian. “You were hoping to keep your knowledge of our language a secret. Well, I wish you luck.”

“Where are we going?” Elena asked.

“Hotel,” said Sanchez. “There are many empty apartments in the Russian embassy. The place is almost abandoned, an echoing sterile mausoleum crying out for history or ghosts. You would be bored. There’s an apartment building for Russians and Bulgarians, the Sierra Maestra on First Street, right on the water, but it’s noisy and most of your people who are still there are a sullen lot, waiting to be called back to whatever country they’ve now become members of. Am I talking too much?”

They flashed down a broad street almost empty of cars. Beyond the rows of houses set back against the trees there were spots of light, suggesting a sleepy village more than a major city.

“No,” said Rostnikov.

“You have questions?” said Sanchez.

“What were you doing in Moscow?” asked Rostnikov, still looking out of the window, his eyelids heavy.

Sanchez laughed.

“I was studying literature and languages,” he said. “At Moscow University. That’s where I met my wife. I was in the army. It was expected by my family that I would come back from your country and become a general, a leader of our nation.”

“But …?” asked Rostnikov.

Sanchez shrugged.

“I lacked ambition,” he said. “To be ambitious in Cuba is to risk the enmity of others who are ambitious. It is difficult enough to survive without creating enemies.”

“But you are a major,” said Elena.

“At my age and with my education, I should be at least a colonel,” said Sanchez.

“So,” said Rostnikov, “we are not to take your assignment to us as a sign of great respect for our mission.”

Sanchez laughed again.

“Precisely,” he said, looking at Elena in the mirror. “Before Yeltsin you would have merited at least a colonel. Now you get an unambitious, overage major. There. On the right. That used to be a Catholic girls’ school. Then it was a school for your people. Now it is empty.”

Rostnikov caught a glimpse of the two-story white house with brown trim and barred windows.

“We would like to see Shemenkov in the morning,” Rostnikov said.

“When you wish,” said Sanchez. “I am at your service.”

Rostnikov smelled the sea. Past Sanchez he could see moonlight on the water as they crossed a small bridge.

“From this point on, the Malecón,” explained Sanchez. “Walkway along the sea. Runs the length of the city. You’ll be at the El Presidente, a short walk to the old stadium, where there’s a complete workout facility. I’ll bring you there tomorrow.”

Rostnikov did not bother to ask how Sanchez knew of his weight-lifting habits. The man obviously delighted in surprises, and Rostnikov had no reason to deny this pleasure to his host.

“That is most kind of you,” said Rostnikov.

“It is both my duty and my pleasure to be gracious,” said Sanchez. “It is also my curse to be honest, so I tell you that he did it.”

“He?” asked Elena from the darkness of the back seat.

“Shemenkov,” said Rostnikov.

“I have a copy of the report in the trunk,” said Sanchez. “In Russian. More detailed than the one we sent to Moscow. We have discovered more. Your engineer is guilty. There were three witnesses. I suggest you talk to him, interview the witnesses, see Havana, sit by the pool for a few days, relax, allow me to entertain you, and go home.”

Sanchez’s eyes met Elena’s in the rearview mirror. She had started to turn away when the Lada came to a sudden halt that threw her awkwardly forward. Rostnikov kept himself from cracking his head into the windshield by pushing against the dashboard.

“Are you all right?” asked Sanchez.

“Yes,” said Elena, sitting back.

Rostnikov nodded and looked out the window at the swiftly moving motorcade of five dark cars that had cut them off and caused Sanchez’s sudden stop. Men wearing fatigue uniforms and carrying weapons looked out of the windows of the cars. In the middle car, the back seat window facing the Lada rolled down and a man with a flowing gray beard looked out, his eyes finding and meeting those of Rostnikov. The two men looked at each other for the beat of a heart and then the window slowly closed as the caravan moved forward and out of sight down a dark street.

“Fidel,” said Sanchez. “He has a house not far from here. No one is supposed to know where it is, but … He has houses everywhere.”

Sanchez drove two blocks along a divided boulevard with empty pedestals on the median strip.

“This is the Avenue of the Presidents. Each of those pedestals held the statue of a Cuban president. They were all torn down after the revolution.”

“We have some fresh empty pedestals in Moscow,” said Rostnikov, as Sanchez turned down a narrow street of three-story homes, made a right, and then another right to pull up in front of a hotel. Three taxis and a bus were parked in front of the hotel and a few people were seated on white plastic chairs beyond a low stone balustrade.

“The food is adequate, the rooms sufficient, the plumbing bad, and the toilet paper scarce,” said Sanchez. “One of the better hotels in Havana.”

“We appreciate your choice of accommodations,” said Rostnikov.

“There was another reason for putting you into this hotel,” said Sanchez, his smile now gone. “Maria Fernandez worked here. But your countryman had the minimal good taste to murder her in an apartment on the other side of the city. Your Russian stabbed her fourteen times, including three rather deep thrusts in the right eye. I have managed through persuasion and what little influence I have to get you the very room where Señorita Fernandez sometimes entertained visitors from a variety of countries dealing in hard currency. Señorita Timofeyeva, usted tiene la cuadra próxima, trescientos cuarenta y cinco.”

“Muchas gracias,” Elena responded as Sanchez got out of the car.

“You speak Spanish like an American,” he said, opening the door for her as Rostnikov struggled out of the passenger side.

“I learned in New York,” she said.

Across the top of the Lada, Rostnikov watched as Sanchez held on to Elena’s hand, smiled, and said, “I have always had an attraction to Russian women.”

“You must learn to control it,” she answered, removing her hand. “In the long run it will lead you to disaster.”

“Qué lástima,” he said with a sigh.

“Sin vergüenza, es verdad,” she said.

While Sanchez moved to the trunk of the car and opened it, Rostnikov surveyed what appeared to be a giant rat on one of the three stone steps leading up to the patio in front of the hotel. A second look told him that it was a small, diseased dog.

“Many dogs in the city,” said Sanchez, handing Rostnikov his suitcase. “Not much food. You have hard currency?”

“No,” said Rostnikov. “Only rubles.”

“Worth nothing,” said Sanchez, handing Elena her suitcase. “I’ll get you Canadian dollars in the morning. They’ll take them at the restaurant, and the café, and the shop near the pool.”

He slammed the trunk shut and held out his hand toward the hotel entrance.

“There are American movies on the television every night,” he said, leading the way. “New movies. We don’t pay the Americans. What can they do, sue us?”

The lobby of the El Presidente resembled the lobby of a small hotel in Yalta in which Rostnikov had stayed less than a year before. The furniture was imitation eighteenth-century French, and the walls were papered. The lobby was bright, and a handful of people were at a small bar in the far corner laughing and talking in German.

There were two clerks at the desk, both in blue uniforms. One was a young woman with red hair, the other a young man with blond hair and blue eyes. Neither spoke Russian.

“They speak some English,” Sanchez said in English. “I understand your English is very respectable, Inspector.”

“It has been adequate in the past,” Rostnikov replied in English.

Sanchez smiled once more, handed each of them a key he had received from the blond desk clerk, and said, “The elevators are right there. Slow, but …”

“We shall be comfortable,” said Rostnikov.

“Shall I meet you in the restaurant for breakfast?” Sanchez asked.

“Late lunch would be better,” replied Rostnikov.

“Perhaps …?” Sanchez said, turning to Elena.

“Late lunch will be fine,” she said.

Sanchez shrugged and handed Rostnikov a brown folder stuffed with paper. Rostnikov took it, shook his host’s hand, and said, “Two o’clock in the restaurant.”

“As you wish,” Sanchez said. “Welcome to Havana and have a good night’s sleep. The television movie tonight is Scent of a Woman. Al Pacino. Magnificent performance.”

“We appreciate your hospitality, Major Sanchez, and your movie review,” said Rostnikov.

In the mirror over the check-in desk Elena watched the door of the hotel open and the thin KGB man from the airplane enter. The thin man paid no attention to the Cuban in the blue uniform and no attention to Rostnikov or Elena. He crossed the lobby, suitcase in hand, and moved immediately toward the bar.

“May you have an interesting visit,” said Sanchez, catching Elena’s eye. “Buenos noches.”