Hard Currency

SIX

Elena Timofeyeva found Rostnikov in a white plastic chair next to a white plastic table at the side of the pool of the El Presidente Hotel. The sun was low and a cool breeze wafted in from the Caribbean Sea a few hundred yards beyond the hotel. There were six similar tables around the pool in which no one swam. One table was empty. At the other tables sat small groups: a couple, a family that might have been Germans, a quartet of men between forty and sixty arguing in English and Spanish. And seated alone, a bottle of beer before him and a magazine in his hands, sat Povlevich, the thin KGB man whom Rostnikov had pointed out to Elena on the plane.

After Jaime and Abel had sheepishly dropped Elena at her hotel, she had rushed to her room, washed her face, combed her hair, and hurried down the stairs without waiting for the elevator, which she had already discovered suffered from chronic malaise.

When she arrived at the pool, Rostnikov was drinking something from a tall glass. Next to him sat a little man in thick glasses who was leaning forward and talking emotionally in barely passable English.

“I risk my job, maybe my life to talk to you,” the little man was saying as Elena approached. “But I must, Rosenikow.”

The man sensed Elena beside him, went silent, and turned his head to see her. His eyes were hilariously magnified behind the thick lenses. He was older than he had first appeared, maybe sixty, possibly even older.

“Señor Rodriguez,” Rostnikov said in English. “This is my colleague, Investigator Timofeyeva.”

The little man rose from his chair and took Elena’s hand. She was five-foot-five. The man barely came to her shoulder. He wore a disheveled, slightly oversize Madras jacket over a faded blue shirt and dark baggy pants.

“Mucho gusto,” she said.

“Servidor de usted,” he replied. “Habla español?”

“Si,” she said. “Pero es mejor si habla un poco despacio.”

“She speaks Spanish, Rosenikow,” Rodriguez said to Rostnikov.

“I observed,” said Rostnikov in English. “Please sit, Elena Timofeyeva. Señor Rodriguez is a journalist and a novelist. He is with that group at the other table, all writers here for a week of meetings. They have been drinking.”

“We have been drinking too much,” Rodriguez expanded.

“Too much,” said Rostnikov.

“I see,” said Elena. She placed her notebook on the table and sat down. The four men at the table across the pool reached a crescendo of Spanish-English argument.

“In the interest of international brotherhood,” Rodriguez said, “we meet every year and fight about nothing with great passion.”

A waiter appeared, a man in his thirties in black slacks and a white shirt.

“I suggest you have a rum drink and a hamburger,” said Rostnikov.

“I …” Elena began.

“It is all right,” Rostnikov said. “I have an adequate supply of Canadian dollars.”

Rodriguez nodded in agreement. Elena ordered and the waiter moved on.

“Señor Rodriguez …” Rostnikov began.

“Antonio,” said the little man. He placed his right hand on his chest as if he were about to make a sacred vow. “Por favor, Antonio.”

“Antonio and I have made an exchange,” said Rostnikov. “I have given him my four rolls of toilet paper, three bars of soap, my Bulgarian pen, and the promise of a shipment of paint from Moscow in exchange for four hundred Canadian dollars.”

Antonio Rodriguez shrugged and whispered, “I cannot spend foreign currency. It is against the law for Cubans. So what good does this money do me? What good does it do my country? You want to know how I got Canadian dollars? No, better for me you don’t know. Let me tell you somethin’.”

From the bar behind them came the smell of grilling burger and the sound of a Mexican mariachi band on the radio. Antonio was forced to raise his voice.

“I love my country. I would never leave Cuba. If we were attacked by the Americans or the Cuban exiles in America, I would fight them. I say you this knowing what I risk. I say you this knowing I’m a lot drunken. Fidel doesn’t know what to do. He mus’ step down, Rosenikow, you know?”

Rostnikov nodded and drank.

“But this you do not care,” Antonio continued. “You want only to save one fool of a Russian. I want to save my country, my people. I don’t hate Russians.”

Antonio Rodriguez was looking at Elena, so she replied, “I am pleased.”

“Pleased,” Rodriguez said with disgust. “The Soviet Union looked at us like some kind of troublesome peon colony. They found Fidel an annoyance. But when they needed good medical care, your leaders, where did they go? Right here, to Cuba. Did you know that?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“Good,” said Rodriguez, looking at each of the Russians. “Good.”

“What do you know about the Santería?” Elena asked.

“More than any man alive who is no a Santería,” Antonio Rodriguez said with a satisfied smile. He adjusted his heavy glasses on his rather small nose. “I have written of them, gotten to know them. Most of what you hear is crap shit. Despiénseme, but I hear so much garbage, it would make me to laugh if I wasn’t so fretting about my country.”

Elena looked at Rostnikov, who put down his drink and gave her a very small nod of understanding.

“Antonio,” he said, “the Santería are a subject of great interest to Russians-a curious alien thing. It is something like the interest the English had in American Indians in the eighteenth century or …”

“I’m no a fool, Rosenikow. Hey, you want to be my friend, my amigo, my tovarich? See, I speak few words Russian.”

Rodriguez laughed and removed his glasses to wipe his eyes with the backs of his hands. With his glasses off, he looked to Rostnikov like a small mole.

“This Santería question, it has something to do with your Russian in jail, verdad? I’m a journalist, remember?”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Elena, wondering whether Rostnikov disapproved of her pursuing this before she discussed it with him.

Antonio Rodriguez put his glasses back on and clapped his hands. “Then,” he said, “I speak.”

The radio was now playing a loud Spanish version of a song Elena had heard in the United States. It was something about virgins.

“The Santería are the biggest religion in Cuba, bigger than Catholics,” Antonio said, holding his hands out to show how big they were. “But they got no pope, nothing like that, just branches, groups, dozens, maybe hundreds, big, small, each with its own babalau who leads his group like a family.”

“Are they violent?” asked Elena.

“Violent,” he repeated, shaking his head and looking at the sky. “Who isn’t violent? Some of them they are. Most of them are no violent. There are stories yes of spells, sacrifices, all kinds of stupid stuff. Most of the Santería are Negroes. They brought their religion from Africa and had to hide it even before the revolution. They hid their gods, giving them the names of Catholic saints, celebrating them on the Catholic saints’ days, but hiding their saints in jars, turning desks into altars. They are powerful, here, all through the islands, New York, Miami, but not organized. Now you tell me, Rosenikow, why you want to know these things?”

Rostnikov turned his eyes to Elena. She opened her notebook and slid it in front of Rostnikov, who shifted in his seat and read the notes by the quickly fading light of the setting sun.

Antonio Rodriguez looked at the notebook in Rostnikov’s hands and then over at his fellow writers, who seemed to be getting along quite badly enough without him.

Rostnikov took his time going over all of Elena’s notes. Her handwriting was firm and flowing, and the notes were a combination of data and personal impressions. Karpo’s notes, which Porfiry Petrovich had grown accustomed to, were, in contrast, printed in small, efficient block letters, easy to read and with no personal impressions.

Satisfied, Rostnikov closed the notebook and returned it to Elena. It was only then that he realized that he had been sitting in nearly the same position for a long time. The drink, the sounds of the sea, and the lights around the pool had lulled him into forgetting his leg. Now, suddenly, this rebellious appendage had gnawed into him and brought him to consciousness. Porfiry Petrovich had no choice but to stand, holding the edge of the table; and begin to coax his leg into some level of reluctant cooperation.

“You wish I should leave?” asked Antonio, also rising. “I have give offense?”

“No,” said Rostnikov. “Sit, sit. My leg fell asleep. It will pass. You have a wife, Antonio Rodriguez?”

“Wife, two sons. I have pictures in my wallet, but old, very old pictures, not my sons old, the pictures. My sons are grown but … my pictures are of children.”

Rodriguez sat suddenly, looking quite glum.

“I have a wife and son, one son. His name is Iosef,” said Rostnikov.

“One of my sons is José. Same name, is it not so?”

“El mismo, verdad,” said Elena as the waiter returned with her drink and American hamburger. When the food was in front of her, Elena realized how hungry she was. Rostnikov paid the waiter in Canadian money, and she lifted the sandwich as the waiter departed.

“A witness told Investigator Timofeyeva,” Rostnikov said, “that the son of a Santería priest-”

“Babalau or Obba, keeper of the secrets,” Rodriguez corrected.

“This babalau’s son had threatened the victim, Maria Fernandez, threatened her with death.”

Rodriguez shrugged.

“Is possible,” he said. “People get angry, say things. Is possible. Which Santería?”

“Javier, the son of …” Elena began, and Rodriguez finished.

“… a very important babalau named Manuel Fuentes.” He began to laugh so loud that even his journalist friends at the table across the pool paused to look at him.

“Forgive me, Rosenikow,” he said. “We are lucky I do not choke. Manuel would hurt no one, would not permit his people to hurt anyone.”

“You know this Manuel?” Rostnikov said.

“I know many people in Habana,” Antonio whispered, his magnified eyes darting around the remaining patrons poolside. “Sí, I know him. Actually, I know one of his people, a Communist youth leader. Irony, no? A Communist youth leader is a secret Santería. But that’s nothing. A cabinet minister was last year made a santo, how you call a saint by the Santería. See, I trust you. I tell you things that could get my friends in trouble. You should trust me.”

“Perhaps,” said Rostnikov, feeling painful life returning to his leg. “But experience in my country has taught me that trust must be earned slowly and relied upon almost never.”

“You read Lorca,” Rodriguez said with a smile.

“Gogol and Ed McBain,” Rostnikov said. “Can you arrange a meeting for us with this babalau?”

“Maybe,” said Rodriguez. He scratched his chin and looked at Elena as if she held some special answer to the puzzle before him. “But I will have to be with you.”

“You would be most welcome,” said Rostnikov, sitting down carefully to avoid angering his leg.

“Then,” said the little man, “I shall get back to you very soon. If I do arrange this, however, is important you respect the babalau.”

“Once,” said Rostnikov, watching Elena take the final bite of her sandwich, “I saw an Inuit holy man do things that may have been miracles. One of those things may have saved the life of my wife. I always respect what I do not understand until it proves unworthy of my respect.”

“You are a crazy Russian,” Antonio said, “or maybe I no understand your English as good as I like to think.”

“I think you understand,” said Rostnikov.

“Ah well, so maybe I do. But as you can tell I am fond for you and more than fond for this lovely lady who has the appetite of a Cuban. I will talk to you soon.”

“Soon, I hope,” said Rostnikov.

“Tomorrow,” said Antonio. “Buenos noches, señorita.”

“Hasta mañana,” answered Elena.

The little man turned and tottered toward the end of the pool.

“I hope he doesn’t fall in the water,” Elena said.

“He won’t fall,” said Rostnikov.

“A coincidence, his approaching you.” She picked up a few overlooked crumbs on the end of a finger and guided them to her mouth.

Rostnikov shrugged.

“Povlevich sent him to you?”

“Perhaps, but probably our Major Sanchez,” said Rostnikov. “Do you know that song?”

Elena didn’t. It was a plaintive song, sung by a woman who was almost in tears.

“What is she saying?” Rostnikov asked, looking over his shoulder toward the radio in the bar.

“She says, When one loves too strongly, one is a slave, and a slave is doomed to misery until she dies. But since one has no choice when love comes … I don’t know the word … then one must learn to accept, and get whatever pleasure one can for as long as it lasts.”

“I’m a little drunk, Elena Timofeyeva,” he said. “So that may account for my telling you this. Say nothing, just consider. Remember the first time you met my son, Iosef?”

“The birthday party for Sasha Tkach at your apartment,” she answered.

“He told me in the bedroom that he loved you and that he intended to marry you. It is dark. I cannot tell if you are blushing or angry.”

“I don’t think you are drunk, Inspector Rostnikov.”

“Perhaps not,” he said. “Maybe it’s the island breeze and … If Povlevich didn’t look like such a boor, I would invite him over to our table for a drink. I have tried not to think about him. KGB people have no sense of humor, and once they get started they talk too much. This one … I can’t tell if his being sent with us is an insult, or if the KGB now has only mediocrities because the best have fled.”

The Americans and Antonio were getting up now, arms around each other, problems resolved in the temporary mist of alcohol. The family of Germans had already left and the sun was all but gone. A few pool lights came on and Rostnikov and Elena said nothing for a few moments as they watched the noisy writers walk across the open patio and enter the hotel.

“Shemenkov,” she finally said, feeling very tired. She wondered what her reaction was to the declaration of love from the son of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.

“I was informed that he tried to hang himself in his cell. Tied his socks and shirt together to make a noose, hung it from a water pipe, and jumped from his bed. The makeshift rope tore, but not before causing a burn around his neck and altering his voice. All this I got from our Major Sanchez. We will be permitted to talk to Shemenkov in the morning.”

Elena tried to hold back a yawn.

“I’m sorry.”

“Your day has been long,” Rostnikov said. “It is still early. If there is water, I’ll take a bath and read my novel, an Ed McBain, about women.”

Elena hardly heard.

“Tomorrow then,” she said.

“I’ll call you when we must go,” Rostnikov said. “Go ahead. You’ve done well. I’ll finish my drink. Leave the notebook with me.”

Rostnikov watched the young woman move across the patio. A new song began, unfamiliar, upbeat, instrumental. Elena was built more solidly than his Sarah. Elena’s skin was fine and her mind alert. There was an uncertainty in her that worried him, but all in all she would be a fine daughter-in-law. Deep within him he wished that it might happen soon so that the possibility of a grandchild … but that was for Sarah. He wanted very much to talk to his wife.

“Ridiculous,” he said softly to his glass. “They haven’t even gone to a movie together.”

Rostnikov sensed the eyes of Povlevich of the KGB looking at him over the magazine. Should he call the man over, offer him a drink? The man looked lonely, but Rostnikov was tired. Perhaps tomorrow.

Rostnikov got up carefully, tucked Elena Timofeyeva’s notebook under his arm, and slowly made his way across the patio, through the lobby, and up to his room, which had, according to Major Sanchez, been used frequently by Maria Fernandez. Rostnikov drew himself a tepid bath.

He closed his eyes and thought of Maria Fernandez, who had certainly bathed in this same tub. He imagined her looking down at him with a smile. But the figure above him was uncomfortably pale and vague. He reminded himself to ask Major Sanchez for a photograph of the dead woman. The warm water appeased his leg sufficiently for him to work his way out of the tub, dry himself, and put on the boxer shorts in which he slept.

He lay in bed for a while reading about Carella and Brown. Finally, with the ghost of Maria Fernandez lying next to him in the darkness, Rostnikov turned off the light and closed his eyes.

While Rostnikov was reading his book, Major Sanchez and Antonio Rodriguez met in the major’s office, where they drank from glasses filled with Russian vodka.

“He knows,” said Rodriguez, adjusting his thick glasses.

“That doesn’t surprise me, Antonio.”

“Nor me. Does it matter?”

Sanchez looked at his drink and pursed his lips.

“Who knows? Probably not.”

“I like him, the Russian policeman.”

“He is likable,” said Sanchez. “But …”

“But?”

Major Sanchez put a finger to his lips and said quietly, “Antonio, my friend, there are things it is best that you not know, things I wish I did not have to know.”

The major held up his glass.

“To the Russian.”

Rodriguez blinked once, raised his glass, and repeated, “To the Russian.”

“But if the devil springs forth suddenly from the earth …” Sanchez said.

“… then may he spring forth not under us but under the Russian.”

“Salud.”

“Salud.”

Emil Karpo sat upright in his straight-backed wooden chair staring at the wall of his room.

Earlier, as he did every morning before dawn, Karpo had wrapped himself in the thick, dark robe he had been given by his mother two decades ago. He had taken a clean blue towel, the blue plastic container that held his soap, and the black plastic container that held his straight razor, and had gone to the communal shower at the end of the hall. Under the stream of cold water, he had carefully soaped and washed his body and hair. He had then shaved without a mirror. When he was done he had carefully rinsed his razor.

Back in his room, Emil Karpo had dressed and brushed his hair back with the same bristle brush he had used since coming to Moscow years before. He had taken good care of his few belongings, and they had endured.

He had eaten his bread and tomato, drunk his glass of cold tea, and cleaned his already clean room.

Now he sat facing the wall, his dark shades and curtains drawn to keep out the sun, a bright lamp turned to face the map of Moscow on his wall. It was not as elaborate as the map in Yevgeny Odom’s apartment, and the names of the streets had not yet been changed to eliminate the revolution, but otherwise it was the same.

Karpo had prepared four Lucite overlays for his map. He had purchased the thin Lucite sheets at a market not far from the Kremlin. Each sheet had been covered with advertising for some French cigarettes. Karpo had painstakingly removed the advertising with a sharp knife.

The four overlays, each marked in a different color, were arranged so that they could be read even if all were placed over the map at the same time. One overlay showed the location of each murder he felt reasonably certain had been committed by Case 341. A second overlay showed the date, time of day, and weapon used in the murder. A third overlay gave information on each victim by location. A fourth overlay indicated if any witnesses had been found and what, exactly, the witnesses had seen.

Karpo had looked at his map and overlays for hours. There should have been a pattern, but there appeared to be no pattern-no relationship between the days of the week of the murders, the intervals between, the times of day, the phases of the moon, the victims (though he seemed to prefer them young), the weapons used, the locations.

Yet perhaps there was a pattern. The killer was working hard to keep from falling into a pattern. He had even attacked twice in the same location, among the stand of birch trees behind the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition. The pattern was the conscious avoidance of a pattern.

Karpo’s task was to outguess the killer. To do this he had to figure out where and when he was least likely to attack next.

So Emil Karpo sat for a time, his eyes on the map. Occasionally he got up to switch the overlays, then sat down again to stare at the map, consider a new possibility, take more notes.

He was going over the relationship of night attacks to day attacks when he sensed the sound of footsteps long before he was fully aware of them. They came up the stairs toward his landing, moved down the uncarpeted floor of the corridor. The pace slowed a few dozen paces from his door, and he rose silently, crossed the room, and opened the door. It was Mathilde Verson.

“You don’t ask who’s knocking before you open your door at five in the morning?”

Karpo stood back to let her in.

“You didn’t knock.”

“You didn’t give me a chance. But it doesn’t matter. You knew it was me,” she said, stepping inside. He closed the door.

Her red hair flashed fiery in the light of the lamp as she walked toward the window.

“May I let in the sun?” she asked, reaching for the shade.

Karpo said nothing.

“The sun is up,” she said.

“Five forty-seven,” he said.

She eased the shade up and let in the day. She wore an orange dress with yellow flowers.

“You have something to ask me, Emil Karpo?”

Her hands were on her hips. With the open window behind her he could not clearly see her face, but he was sure she was smiling.

“You are going away,” he said. “An emergency. You will not be gone long.”

“My detective,” she said, looking about the room.

“If you were in trouble, you would have said so in the hall. It would have been evident from the tension in your muscles and your voice. However, if it were not an emergency, you would not have come here this early. If you were going to stay away long or were planning never to see me again, you would not be in a playful mood.”

She sat on the edge of his bed and looked at the map on the wall.

“And where am I going on this brief trip?” she asked.

“Odessa,” he said. “Your sister is getting married, an unexpected marriage.”

He could see her face now. She smiled and cocked her head to one side.

“Absolutely wrong,” she said.

Karpo stood rigid.

“No.” She sighed. “Don’t worry. You are not wrong.”

“Your family is in Odessa. Births, marriages, and honors are nontragic emergencies. Your sister is unmarried and so-”

“And so,” Mathilde interrupted. She got up from the bed. “How many years have we been together, Emil Karpo?”

“Four years, two months, and twelve days,” he answered instantly.

“I know better than to assume romance, Karpo.”

“It is both a failing and an asset that I am committed to precision,” he said.

“But our relationship has changed greatly in that time,” she said, taking a step toward him.

“Yes.”

“You began as a client and became a friend,” she said.

“That is accurate,” he agreed.

“And,” she said, stepping even closer to him, “I have learned that behind your dedication to duty is a human with needs beyond those of a cyborg or an animal.”

Karpo said nothing.

“What is on the wall?” she asked.

He told her. She looked at the map and the Lucite coverings.

“There are so many,” she said.

“And no pattern,” Karpo said.

“Then something’s missing,” she said.

“No,” said Karpo. “It is complete.”

“No,” she insisted, walking to the map. “Something looks … You have a Metro map?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Same size?”

“Yes, and one for bus lines. But he has, as far as we know, never used the Metro in any-”

And Karpo stopped, the right corner of his mouth moving slightly in something only Mathilde Verson would recognize as a smile.

Moments later the Moscow Metro map was on the wall covered by the clear plastic sheets.

“Every murder has taken place within a five-minute walk from a Metro station,” he said.

“No attacks in Metro stations?” asked Mathilde.

“No. Nor right outside of them.”

“Maybe he wants to be near them,” she said. She was sitting in the straight-backed chair in the middle of the small room and looking up at Karpo. “But why?”

Karpo looked at the map again.

“Every Metro line,” he said. “Kirovsko-Frunzenskaya, Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya … Not just one or two lines.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “he is unaware that he is doing it. Or, perhaps, he cannot move far from the Metro yet wants to draw our attention away from it.”

“Because,” Karpo said, “he may work near the Metro.”

Karpo moved to his desk, gathered his notes, and turned to face Mathilde.

“I should have seen this,” he said. “What do I lack that prevented my seeing this?”

“Imagination,” Mathilde said.

“There may be some other link, some other grid that also matches. It could be a coincidence.”

“But you don’t think so,” she said.

“No. If this is right, we have narrowed our search down to perhaps eighty thousand people.”

“I did not say I could solve your problem, Emil. I simply pointed out a pattern.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Two weeks,” she said.

“Then I shall see you when you return. I wish you a good trip,” he said, moving toward the door.

“Where are you rushing to?” she asked.

“I shall wake Sasha Tkach and proceed to consider the relationship between the killings and the Metro.”

“He has a wife, two children, and a mother,” Mathilde said. “Let him sleep a little longer.”

Karpo considered the suggestion.

“Perhaps. He may be more useful if he is fully rested.”

Mathilde stepped toward him again.

“Emil Karpo, I am in a good mood. I have just given you a useful suggestion for finding a murderer. I am going to see my sister married. Therefore, though it is not Thursday, I suggest that you and I get undressed, get on top of your little prison cot, and make love.”

Karpo simply observed the woman who was now only inches from him.

“I am not proposing marriage,” she said. “Just a major deviation from routine.”

“When must you leave?” he asked.

“My train leaves at eleven. I’ll have to be out of here in no more than an hour.”

“That will give Sasha Tkach another hour and ten minutes of sleep. That should be sufficient,” said Karpo.

Mathilde shook her head, took the notebook from Karpo’s hand, and whispered, “How could any woman resist such a romantic offer?”