Madness Treads Lightly

CHAPTER 28

Before Masha Kolosova, secretary to Smart’s editor in chief, could take off her coat, the outside line rang in the reception area.

“Who on earth could that be so early?” Masha grumbled, lifting the receiver.

“Hello!” a high-pitched female voice said in English. “Is this Smart?”

“Yes,” Masha replied in English. “How may I help you?”

“I’m calling from New York,” the woman on the line said. “Your colleague, Mrs. Polyanskaya, is accompanying my husband as his interpreter. I know he stayed at her home in Moscow and I can’t find them. No one’s answered for more than a day. I’m so worried, you see. My husband is rather elderly.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. All’s well. They’ve gone to Tyumen.”

“Oh, yes, of course! Is there some way I can contact them there? Did Mrs. Polyanskaya say which hotel she’d made reservations for?”

“Unfortunately not. But they won’t be in Tyumen long, as far as I know. They have an ambitious itinerary—Tobolsk, Khanty-Mansiysk. If Mrs. Polyanskaya calls, I can ask her to—”

“No, thank you, there’s no need. I’m reassured. My husband always says I’m an old worrywart. Again, thank you so much. All the best.” And there was a dial tone.

Darn it! Masha suddenly remembered as she was hanging up. Lena asked me not to tell anyone where she was going with her professor! But it was a call from New York, after all.

The professor’s wife had a staccato way of speaking, just like New Yorkers have. Masha knew that distinctive New York accent very well. She often had occasion to deal with New Yorkers, on the telephone, in Moscow, and in New York when she was lucky enough to have the editor in chief take her along.

For a second the thought flashed that it hadn’t actually been a long-distance call. It just sounded too crisp in the morning quiet of the empty office. But she discarded the thought. She had a long, busy day ahead of her.

I knew it, Regina thought. I knew it. Tyumen, Tobolsk, Khanty. Well, now I am free to do whatever I want. She’s there without her child, after all. She’s got that American professor, but not the child. Blindboy has no principles when it comes to old men. But the timing, the timing. I have to get in touch with Blindboy, and he has to fly there.

The mere thought of what Polyanskaya might be doing in Tyumen and Tobolsk made Regina’s palms sweat. And if she imagined someone helping her there… No, she had to stop this right now, this minute. Blindboy would do his job, of course, but that wouldn’t be for at least three days. Maybe more. Every step that woman took now could be the last for their company, and that meant the last for Regina.

After thinking just a few seconds, she dialed 8, the code for Tyumen, and then a few more numbers. She had an excellent memory for phone numbers, especially the ones that shouldn’t be kept in notebooks.

“They’re just spitting in your face, all three of them,” Vladimir Trofimov, an investigator in the Prosecutor’s Office, said, looking at Misha with pity. “You should have stayed home with the flu, Sichkin. Your bosses would have waited. Now look what you’ve dumped on me! You’ve dragged up suicide, and a fire, and an accident. And you’ve got strollers blowing up. It’s hitting the fan, Misha!” he said, loudly slapping his desk with each word as if he were driving in invisible nails.

“Does this mean you don’t want to attend the lineup?” Misha asked gloomily.

“I see no reason to. The case is set for trial. Don’t you understand that? Sevastyanov’s going to point the finger at anyone—his own mother, Pushkin—he’ll do anything to send the case back for further investigation.”

“He didn’t kill Azarov,” Misha said brusquely.

“Well, hello.” The investigator was at a loss. “He has no alibi and the motive’s plain as day. He’s a thug, Misha. I hope I don’t have to prove to you that Sevastyanov participated in the shoot-out all over again.”

“He did participate in the shoot-out, but he didn’t kill Azarov.”

“You are one stubborn guy, Misha.” The investigator sighed. “Think about it. How many careers do you think Volkov has destroyed over the years? How many people do you think are out there wishing evil on him? Does it really matter what some psycho with hurt feelings called him? He could call him a murderer, or a vampire, or the devil himself! What, are Volkov and Gradskaya going to off them all afterward because they have such a heightened sense of their own dignity?

“Misha, do you at least understand who you’re going after?” the investigator continued in an agitated whisper. “Have either of them—Volkov or Gradskaya—ever come up as a suspect or defendant even once? Sure, they probably didn’t get to where they are in our new free market without some connections to the criminal world and organized crime. There’s a gallows waiting for each of them—Gradskaya and Volkov both. But you can’t prove shit. You won’t have time. And I’m not your friend in this. I have two children and a grandson who was just born yesterday.”

In and of itself, the testimony of the suspect, Pavel Sevastyanov, was worthless. It only took on real weight and meaning if Shovel and Claw not only confirmed the fact of their meeting with Regina Gradskaya but also laid out the substance of their conversation with her.

At first, even Misha thought the idea of a lineup was absurd. But he was fresh out of ideas, so he gave this option very careful thought. He came to the conclusion fairly quickly that there was a chance, albeit a small one, of forcing testimony out of those thugs.

Misha knew from experience that thugs, as a rule, were impressionable and neurotic by nature. Especially after they’d cooled their heels for a few days in jail. Misha was counting on them losing it. Before the lineup, he decided to call Shovel and Claw in for questioning separately. He would tell each a sad story about how a smart and rich woman, Regina Valentinovna, had squealed on them, sold them down the river. She’d stated that she had met two bad guys, real gangsters, once at the casino on Voikovskaya. But the honest woman had no idea she’d been face-to-face with real bad guys.

Out of naïveté, Regina Valentinovna thought she was talking to nice, normal people about trivial things, like the big party being planned at a restaurant outside Moscow where none other than Yuri Azarov would be performing. That was what she told investigators she talked to the two young men about. She didn’t know, the good, naive woman, that she was dealing with violent criminals who were just waiting to shoot everyone they could. She couldn’t have guessed that those bloodthirsty bad guys were taking advantage of her harmless gossiping.

Sichkin had an extra surprise in reserve for Shovel. In searching his apartment, a substantial sum in US dollars had been found in his mirror bar. Misha was going to tell him that, by the way, the experts said those greenbacks, fifty-three hundred in all, were counterfeit. And he’d ask, “Where did you get those lousy bills, dear friend? Who deceived good-hearted you so cruelly?”

His hopes for success were slim. Shovel would lose his temper and lash out, of course, and so would Claw. But they weren’t going to rat out Gradskaya. Neither wanted to die.