Hard Currency

FIVE

Elena Timofeyeva sat in the empty cafeteria of the women’s prison waiting for Victoria Oliveras. The stone tables and benches were gray and clean. The light from the narrow windows was bright, and the large photographs of Castro, Che Guevara, and Celia Sanchez that looked down at Elena were depressing.

The ride to the women’s prison had taken about an hour, during which the driver of the ancient Buick and his partner, both un-uniformed men in their early thirties, had argued about whether they had enough gas and if the tires would make it.

They had been recruited by Major Sanchez to take Elena Timofeyeva. He had told them that they would be paid for their service to Cuba when they brought her back. The two men, Jaime and Abel, had accepted humbly and gratefully, but once in the car they had begun to complain.

It was also clear to Elena as they drove down narrow roads past African-style thatched huts and through small towns where apparently windowless little homes were jammed next to each other that the two men had no idea she could understand their language.

On several occasions during the journey, the young men had discussed her sexually. She had looked out of the window as they gave her high marks for body and face and low marks for potential passion. But, ultimately, they seemed more interested in the possibility of the Buick’s actually completing the journey.

And then, when they had reached the prison, the men had asked for money so they could go to a nearby small town to get something to eat.

Elena had let them mime and speak loudly in simple Spanish, repeating the word pesos and pointing to their mouths.

While they were going through this a woman in a light khaki uniform appeared. There was a star on her collar and above the right pocket of her blouse a white-on-black patch saying “Ministerio del Interior.”

“Can I help?” asked the woman in Russian.

“No, gracias, pienso que yo puedo hacerlo,” Elena answered in Spanish, certain that Jaime and Abel could hear her.

Then Elena gave them some Cuban pesos and told them to return in two hours.

When they drove off, the woman in uniform identified herself as Lieutenant Colonel Lopez, director of the City of Havana Women’s Prison. She was a tall, slender mulatto with a handsome, weary face. Her skin was clear and her manner efficient, which had suited Elena.

Elena had been expected and the order had come down for her to have a complete tour of the prison before meeting Victoria Oliveras.

“Victoria is working,” Lieutenant Colonel Lopez said. “She will be available in one hour. Meanwhile, I have been instructed to show you our prison.”

The tour had been as efficient as Lieutenant Colonel Lopez’s manner and it was evident to Elena from the start that what she was seeing was a showcase, a model prison maintained for foreigners. She knew because the Soviet Union had also maintained such prisons and she had visited both the showcases and the much more numerous and punitive remnants of the past.

The “work with internment” prison itself consisted of three two-story buildings, one building for the guards, most of whom were women, and the two cell blocks. Beyond the gates of the prison and the fifteen-foot-high metal fence was lush, green jungle through which Elena had been driven for the last five miles of the journey.

Elena was told by the lieutenant colonel that though the building had been built in the 1960s for nine hundred women, there were only four hundred now inside. Their sentences ranged from one month to twenty years for nonviolent felonies such as petty theft, drug sales, and economic crime.

The tour had taken Elena through fluorescent-lit corridors. She was shown large cells for four to six women, each cell individually coordinated in identical bedspreads and pillows with matching pillowcases. It looked better than any Moscow University dormitory room. It looked better than the tiny dark apartment in Moscow Elena shared with her aunt.

Flowers were everywhere-in cells, offices, the pharmacy, the twenty-four-bed hospital staffed by two full-time physicians. There was a baby ward in the prison hospital. The nearby conjugal visiting rooms reminded Elena of low-cost American motels she had been in when she had studied in the United States.

“The babies stay here for forty-five to ninety days after they are born,” a young woman doctor in a white smock explained. “Then they go to relatives or the state center for orphans.”

From the hospital Elena was taken to the heart of the prison, the textile factory. She was told that prisoners were paid to work an eight-hour-a-day schedule. There was also schooling in weaving, sewing, and knitting.

“The policy of Fidel, the Central Committee, and the Ministry of the Interior is reeducation before release,” Lieutenant Colonel Lopez said. “We have psychologists, social workers, and lawyers on the staff. Some of our women choose to live in the nearby towns when they are released. They can continue to work in the prison factory and earn the same or better wages than they would in the city.”

Elena had asked a few polite questions, accepted the offer of orange juice, and was led to the cafeteria, where she sat drinking alone and listening to the distant sounds of the prison, the chatter of women’s voices, the churning of sewing machines.

Then a woman guard appeared with a full-lipped, angry young woman. The young woman’s dark hair was long, straight, and tied back at the neck. She was short and lean with the body of a model. She wore denim slacks and a denim blouse with denim buttons.

Elena asked Victoria to sit and the guard to excuse them for a few minutes. The guard nodded and disappeared, but Victoria did not sit. She crossed her arms defiantly and stood across from the Russian detective. Elena took her notebook from her pocket and went over her notes once more before looking back up at Victoria.

“You are not Cuban,” Victoria said.

“I am not Cuban.”

“You are some kind of Russian.”

“I am some kind of Russian.”

“Your Spanish stinks.”

“We can speak Russian.”

“I don’t speak Russian. Just Spanish.”

“Then you will have to suffer my Spanish.”

“Or not talk.”

“We will talk,” Elena said. “Sit.”

“You like men?”

“As a gender or …”

“For sex,” said Victoria, rubbing her finger along her lower lip.

“That is not relevant to our conversation,” said Elena. “Now sit.”

“It is relevant to our conversation,” said Victoria. “Maria liked men and women. Have you ever made love to a woman?”

“No,” said Elena. “Now you sit.”

“What is so important about my sitting?”

“I don’t like looking up, and I don’t want you uncomfortable and hostile.”

Victoria shrugged and sat across from Elena on the stone bench. She kept her arms folded and her eyes defiant.

“Thank you,” said Elena. “I have only a few questions.”

“I’m not in a hurry. I go back to the pressing machine when we’re finished.”

“Did you see Igor Shemenkov murder Maria Fernandez?”

Victoria laughed. “I see. You’re going to try to get him off. He’s a Russian and you’re … I saw him.”

“You actually saw him stab her?”

“No,” Victoria said. “One minute she was fine. Then we were out in the hall and she was alone with your Russian. The next minute we came back in and he is on his knees over her body with a knife in his hand and a scratch on his face.”

“Carlos and Angelica Carerra were with you in the hall the entire time?”

“Yes,” said Victoria, rolling her eyes to the ceiling at the stupidity of the question. “Yes. Yes.”

“To your knowledge, had Shemenkov ever acted violently toward Maria?”

“To my knowledge?”

“Yes.”

“No, but so what. He tried to hit me.”

“Did he or anyone else threaten Maria Fernandez, argue with her, express a desire to harm her?”

Elena’s question was routine and she almost wrote the answer before it came. But the answer she got was quite unexpected.

“Yes,” Victoria said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Yes,” said Elena.

“Do you think I am pretty?”

Elena looked at the young woman who now pouted in poor imitation of a model in an American fashion magazine.

“Yes.”

“You are pretty too in a heavy kind of Russian way.”

“I’m flattered,” said Elena. “You say someone threatened Maria Fernandez?”

“The Santería,” said Victoria. “I’m in the band here. You should come and hear us. We do shows for visitors. I sing ‘Blue Moon.’ In English.”

Elena closed the notebook, sat back, and looked at Victoria Oliveras. Shemenkov had said something about Santería.

“What? What are you looking at?”

“Sudden changes of subject are neither interesting nor attractive.”

“Is this attractive?” asked Victoria. She stood up and pulled down her denim pants and underpants.

“No,” said Elena. “Who is the Santería?”

“It’s not a who, it’s what,” said Victoria, pulling up her pants and sitting again. “The Negroes brought it from Africa. They’re like your gangs. You have gangs?”

“We have gangs,” admitted Elena.

“They worship dolls and do magic. They kill. They kill and eat the hearts of their victims for their religion. I know. It was the son of a babalau who works at the Cosacos. Maria made fun of him. She got drunk, made fun.”

“A ‘babalau’?”

“Holy man, Santería,” Victoria said. “Like a … a priest or something. He’s a waiter at one of the tourist bars. Just a waiter, but he comes on to Maria like she should be impressed because he’s the son of a babalau. Hell, his father’s just a second-rate bass player.”

Elena was tired, and the woman in front of her seemed either very clever or very stupid.

“Maria offended this …”

“Javier. I don’t know his last name.”

“And you think Javier …?”

“I don’t think nothing. You asked me a question. I answered your question. I answered your question ’cause maybe I don’t answer your question and they transfer me to another prison. This one is better than where I was living in Havana. Food’s better. Rooms are safe if you watch yourself. Work’s a bore, but easy.”

“This Javier, he threatened Maria?”

“Yes,” Victoria said wearily, looking toward the barred windows.

“Who heard this threat?”

“We all did,” Victoria said.

“We?”

“Me, the Carerras, Maria, your stupid Russian.”

“And Javier said?”

“Maria would die for insulting the son of a babalau. He whispered like a bad guy in a movie. Maria laughed at him. He walked away and Carlos told her it wasn’t a good idea to make the Santería angry. Maria said she didn’t give a shit. Her Russian would protect her.”

“When was this?”

“Week ago.”

“And you think the Santería might have killed Maria for insulting this babalau?”

“I know they could,” Victoria said smugly. “I know people they killed. Antonio Reyes, the pimp from the Dominican. Donna Ramerez, worked the tourists near the ballet on Paseo San Martí on the Prado. They could have sent someone to the apartment over the roof, climbed down in the dark, or maybe they had wings and floated away. They could have killed her, but they didn’t. Your Russian killed her.”

“There is no doubt in your mind that he killed your friend.”

“She was not my friend,” Victoria said, her face inches from that of Elena Timofeyeva. “For all but the first two weeks I knew her, she abused me, ridiculed me, tormented me. We were lovers for two weeks and then we were … I couldn’t stop. I loved her. I never loved anyone before Maria. Not my mother. Definitely not my father. Not my brothers, not even my grandmother.”

There were tears in the eyes of Victoria Oliveras, but she did not blink or look away. She did not try to hide them.

“I’m not going to be stupid enough to love anyone else again.”

“How old are you, Victoria?” asked Elena.

“Seventy, maybe eighty.”

“You are twenty-one,” said Elena. “I’ve looked at your record.”

Victoria’s eyes scanned the clear-skinned, healthy-looking Russian woman, searching for a sign of the trick she must be playing.

“So?”

“Nothing,” said Elena with a sigh, standing up and putting her notebook away.

“You know something?” said Victoria, standing up as the guard who had brought her to the cafeteria returned and took up a position near the exit. It was evident from the perfectly timed appearance of the guard that the conversation had been listened to and someone had decided it had come to an end. Elena was annoyed because they hadn’t had the courtesy or intellect to hide what they were doing.

“No,” said Elena.

“I don’t like Russians,” Victoria hissed. “I don’t like you. I think you would be a cold grouper fish in bed with a man or a woman. Russians are cold. That’s why fools like Shemenkov lose everything for a Maria Fernandez who warms them.”

Elena nodded to the guard, who moved forward. Elena caught the pain and anger in Victoria’s eyes as she turned, tossed her braid of long hair back, and advanced to meet the guard.

The ride back to Havana was quiet except for the blowout, which required the two drivers to put on a spare that had no tread at all.

When she got back to the El Presidente Hotel just before ten, there was a note waiting for her from Inspector Rostnikov.

“Come to the pool whenever you return. Igor Shemenkov seems to have attempted suicide. The management has informed me that there will be no music tonight.”

This did not promise to be a good morning for the Gray Wolfhound, though he was sure no one in the conference of his senior staff was aware of his foreboding.

The colonel was wearing a perfectly pressed brown uniform with three ribbons of honor and one special medal of valor.

His hands were behind his back, his staunch chin held up, his blue-gray eyes scanning the men seated before him.

Only Rostnikov was missing, and, though he did not wish to admit it to himself, the colonel felt relief at the absence of his senior investigator. Rostnikov never seemed to be paying attention at the morning meetings and had a disconcerting habit of asking questions or coming up with answers that seemed to have little to do with the subject under discussion. On the other hand, Karpo, who was at this morning’s meeting, had the equally disconcerting habit of paying close and critical attention to everything Colonel Snitkonoy said.

Facing the Wolfhound at the right end of the solid wooden table sat his assistant, Pankov, a near dwarf with thinning hair who was a perfect contrast to the colonel. Regardless of the season, Pankov’s perspiration soiled and sagged his small collection of suits; the colonel’s uniform never showed a stain or crease. Pankov’s few strands of hair refused to rest in peace against his pink speckled skull; the colonel’s full mane of perfectly groomed white hair was admired by all who met him, particularly women. When he stood, Pankov came up to the colonel’s chest. When he spoke, Pankov’s insecure high-pitched stammering played the flute to the Wolfhound’s confident baritone. In appreciation of Pankov’s inadequacies, Colonel Snitkonoy treated his assistant with the respect due a faithful dog.

Next to Pankov sat Major Grigorovich, a humorless block in his late forties who wore a neatly pressed brown uniform with no medals or ribbons. The major’s lack of decorations reflected his remarkable ability to survive based on his uncanny ability to determine just how far to go without upstaging, embarrassing, or challenging whoever his immediate superior might be. Rostnikov, when he was in attendance at the colonel’s morning meetings, always sketched in his notepad. One of Rostnikov’s favorite subjects was the major. Grigorovich had once had the opportunity to glance at one of Rostnikov’s sketches. The figure in the picture looked remarkably like the British actor Albert Finney.

Next to Grigorovich, sitting upright, his long-fingered pale hands palms down on the table, sat Emil Karpo, dressed in black slacks, sweater, and jacket.

From the window, Colonel Snitkonoy looked down into the courtyard of the central police building on Petrovka Street. The shrubs and bushes were green from recent rain, and the iron fence had recently been repainted black. The dogs that were kenneled on the opposite wing seemed particularly quiet today. In fact, thought the colonel, they had been growing more and more quiet for some time. Was someone eating them?

The Wolfhound dismissed the idea and forced himself back to the task at hand.

The colonel savored his morning sessions and had recently begun to consider taping them. Then Pankov would transcribe them to be edited into a book that would provide startling models for criminal investigative procedure. Though the colonel was always confident that what he was saying was pointed, correct, and inspiring, two minutes after he had begun he was certain that this was one session he would not have included in his contemplated text.

“Ours is a nation of pravo-voye gosudarstvo, a state based on law,” the Wolfhound said, taking two strides from the window toward his seated staff. “A true market economy, which is now required for Russia to prosper, must be grounded in law with a fully supportive judicial system.”

He looked at each of the three faces before him and saw complete admiration in Pankov, respectful acceptance in Grigorovich, and nothing discernible in Karpo.

“Do you concur, Inspector Karpo?” the colonel couldn’t resist asking.

“The law,” said Karpo, “is simply a superstructure for the existing system of power, whatever that power may be.”

“Lenin,” said the Wolfhound, glancing at Pankov, who gave him a small smile of awe.

“Marx,” Karpo corrected.

“We are in a new era, an era of landscaping, styling, pruning,” said the colonel, seeking a quick recovery in an immediate attack. “Each tree, each bush and shrub in the new Russia is the people rooted in the soil of all our history from the day the first stone was laid in the Kremlin wall in 1367 …”

And here the colonel hesitated in anticipation of a correction by Emil Karpo. Not hearing any objection, the Wolfhound plunged on, ever deeper into an analogy which he sensed was decidedly weak.

“… through the contributions of Marx and Lenin to the trials of a new, emerging Russia whose leaves and limbs must be carefully contoured to form a beautiful and mighty new forest of pride. Do you understand, Inspector Karpo?”

Karpo, palms still on the dark wooden table, replied, “I am not sufficiently well read in poetry or literature to fully appreciate the allusion, but historically, one might go back not to the stone walls of the Kremlin but to its first fortifications built from the wood of the virgin forest which became Moscow.”

Grigorovich shook his head almost imperceptibly to make clear that he thought Karpo was making a grievous political error. The major was sure that Colonel Snitkonoy saw the sympathetic movement of his head.

Pankov had simply cringed.

“Major Grigorovich, your report on illegal arms in the city,” the colonel said, and he resumed his pacing beside the conference table.

Grigorovich opened his notebook and looked down at the sheets before him. Each sheet was neatly typed with oversize letters. The major wore his glasses infrequently and never in public.

“Our best estimate is that about fifty thousand black market weapons-semiautomatic guns, pistols, canisters that spray nerve gas, handguns that shoot gas jets-are being brought into Moscow every month for distribution not just to criminals but to honest citizens who believe the police are no longer able to protect them from the beggars, the drunks, and the Gypsies. It appears that one of the most popular weapons is the AK-47. Russia manufactured and distributed them throughout the world and now they are being sold back to our people at double the price for which they were purchased from us.”

Grigorovich looked up from his notes to see what effect his report was having. The colonel was at the window looking out. Pankov was looking at the colonel. The only one looking at Grigorovich was Emil Karpo.

Colonel Snitkonoy, who had access to more accurate and disturbing reports than the one that Grigorovich had just given, was aware that violent crime involving weapons had increased by 50 percent in the past year.

“The safeguards of socialism departed with the Soviet Union,” the colonel said, still looking out of the window. “Inflation and unemployment, though temporary, have driven many to poverty and crime. Too many people now feel that they must arm themselves. … Grigorovich.”

“A gas canister can be purchased by anyone at an Arbat kiosk for eight hundred rubles, five American dollars. Firearms can be had in most bars for three hundred American dollars. The weapons come from Poland, Germany, on trains from Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, across the borders from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. The borders are a sieve.”

“Conclusion?” said the colonel.

“More men, women,” said Grigorovich. “The borders must be controlled, the laws against possession of weapons renewed. The-”

“Major,” the colonel interrupted, “it is too late. Freedom has brought us the blessing of destruction. We now have the right to commit suicide, and where a right exists there will be people who wish to exercise it. Source, Inspector Karpo?”

“I do not know.”

“Tolstoy,” said the Wolfhound triumphantly. “Major Grigorovich, the responsibilities of our small staff grow with each day. The successful accomplishment of our duty will best be accomplished if we choose our responsibilities with caution. There is no way, outside of a return to the Communist party, to control arms, drugs, or offensive public behavior. We will leave the matter of weapons in the hands of Deputy Police Chief Sedov and hope that he and his men can perform a miracle. As for the Mafia and the gangs, we leave that slough of despond to the Ministry of the Interior gang division.”

The colonel looked up at the clock on the wall behind his desk. The clock, a gift of the Workers of the Volga Automobile Associated Works, told him it was nearly eight in the morning. The colonel stood erect, boots heel-to-heel, arms folded across his chest, and said, “Inspector Karpo, you have something to report on the murder of the young woman in the park.”

Eighteen minutes later by the clock on the wall Emil Karpo completed his report on what he now believed was at least the thirty-fifth and probably the fortieth murder by the man who was known inside Petrovka as Tahpor, the Ax, in spite of the fact that not one of the murders had been done with an ax. Karpo, however, did not refer to the killer as the Ax. He left the assignment of code names to Colonel Snitkonoy, who enjoyed the idea of a battle with a formidable adversary, providing the adversary was quickly apprehended and the colonel and his department given full credit. Karpo preferred to give a killer no identity other than a file number. Those who abused the system deserved no special recognition. They deserved only punishment and anonymity.

“Continue your investigation,” said the colonel. “If additional people are required …”

“Investigator Tkach and I will be enough for now,” Karpo said.

“Very good,” said the colonel, unfolding his arms and moving to his desk. “If that-”

“The foreign minister from Kazakhstan,” said Karpo, opening the second file in front of him.

“Yes,” said the colonel, sitting down in his large dark wooden desk chair and putting his fingertips together.

“Died of a heart attack Monday afternoon,” said Pankov quickly.

“I have reason to believe,” said Karpo, holding up the first sheet of Paulinin’s report, “that the foreign minister was murdered.”

Grigorovich shook his head again, this time in more open exasperation. Fifteen minutes later, when Emil Karpo had finished reading, Colonel Snitkonoy took the report, ordered the three men at the table to maintain absolute secrecy on this possible crime, and dismissed them.

When they were gone, Colonel Snitkonoy scratched his head. He had been suffering an overpowering itch of the scalp for more than half an hour and had resisted the pleas of his body to respond. Now he indulged and opened the file.

Rostnikov, he thought, would have handled this better. Rostnikov would have given him the information privately and said no more if he were not directed to pursue this bizarre possibility. Well, that was not quite so. Rostnikov would probably pursue it, but he would do so with some sense of discretion. Karpo was a dangerous man. All zealots were dangerous.

Karpo was a Communist. When others had taken the opportunity to renounce and abandon, Karpo had quietly insisted on retaining his Party identity and membership. At first this had seemed an act of near suicide, but recently, as food and jobs disappeared and Yeltsin began to appear in more and more devastating cartoons hung up for sale along the Arbat, Colonel Snitkonoy had begun to wonder if he should not keep his portrait of Lenin handy.

Now, in these explosive times, a bomb had been placed in the colonel’s hands, a bomb that could well destroy him. The implications of this murder, if it was a murder, were inescapable. Even if no one in the government or bureaucracy had murdered the minister, someone had certainly acted to conceal the cause of his death.

The colonel laid the file neatly before him on the empty desk, smoothed his hair, and reached for the phone.

Though there were many who considered Colonel Snitkonoy a buffoon who had been propelled to significance by a combination of impressive bearing, very good luck, and a highly professional though eccentric staff, there were few who doubted his professional integrity. It was one thing to survive by avoiding missions that ran high risks to one’s career. It was quite another thing to shirk responsibility when it was placed in one’s lap. He would have to bring Karpo’s report on the dead foreign minister to the attention of his superiors.

While the phone rang, the Wolfhound had only one major regret: that Rostnikov was not in Moscow so the whole thing could be dumped in his more ample lap.