Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Chapter Four

“K her s nim, I don’t give a damn,” Misha Lovski tried to shout, but it came out as a faint dry croak.

He no longer had any sense of how much time had passed. Was it a day? A week? A month? The lights had remained on except when they came in to take his bowls, empty of food and water, and his bowl filled with excrement.

The music was ceaseless. His own voice. His own band. The words lost their meaning. He could not see the speaker. They were watching him. He knew it, felt it. And so he sat on his mattress folded over to cover his legs. He was feeling a definite chill. He was coming down with something. Maybe they had been putting something in his food. What the hell did they want? He wanted to dat’pisdy, kick ass, bash a head in with his guitar.

“I will not die,” he croaked. “I will not cry. I am a cossack, a free man, an adventurer, a kazak. I live at war. I am the cossack Illya of Murom of the bylina, the heroic poem, the best.”

I am a cossack, he told himself, a warrior of the Dnieper and the Don.

“We are a community of Russians, Tartars, Germans, Serbs, Georgians, Greeks, and Turks. Warriors. I know what you are doing. You are testing me to see if I am a real cossack, if I am worthy to meet the challenge, be a worthy warrior.”

He received no answer but the sound of his own voice and the shock of metal vibrations from the music.

“I am going to go to a cossack camp,” he said. “I am going to learn to fight with my fists, with the shasqua, saber, and the kinjal, lance.”

The music seemed to get louder.

“I will ride bareback, learn to fire guns, cross rushing rivers, sing cossack songs, embrace Christianity, and wear a true cossack uniform. You know why I am the Naked Cossack?”

The music grew even louder. Misha was talking to himself.

“Because I am not yet worthy of the uniform,” he said so softly that even he could not hear himself.

He tore at the corner of the mattress. Frenzy. Another idea. There was padding inside. Some material. Cotton, wool. He rolled two balls of the material and stuffed them in his ears. He did it openly, not trying to hide. He wanted whoever was watching to see this as an act of ingenuity and not as an indication that their torture was working. He folded his arms, crossed his legs, and stared at the door.

The sound was muted but not stilled. The music continued. He dozed in exhaustion and then awoke. His plan had to take place soon or it would be too late. He would be too tired or too crazy.

He had to be ready to move quickly, silently.

Misha had noticed something. Not for the first ten or fifteen times, but after that, when the lights suddenly went off and the music stopped while his bowls were taken and relatively clean ones placed in front of his bars. Whoever made the exchange always reached over and checked the door to his cell with a quick pull to be certain that it was still firmly locked.

Misha had tried it. The cell door was surely locked and he had no tools to work on it. It could not be long now. Someone would come. The ritual would be repeated. He would be ready. He had actually practiced walking barefoot, silent, learning the exact number of steps from the wall to the bars of the cell so that he could move across the floor in total darkness.

While he was going over his plan again, the lights went out. The music stopped. He had placed his bowls very close to the bars. Whoever came would have to move close. He could hear the door beyond his cell open, hear the footsteps, sense when the person was about to reach down. Misha got to his feet, moved quickly, feeling his testicles beating against his thighs.

Hand through the bar, ready. The sound of his jailer reaching for the door.

Misha struck, reached through the bar, grabbed the wrist. The wrist was not thick, but he could not hold it as the jailer pulled away with a grunt and gasp, dropping metal bowls that clattered to the floor.

The jailer said something through clenched teeth. “Propezdoloch, clever bastard.”

Misha thought he recognized the voice. He croaked defiantly, “I am going to get out.”

And the voice of his jailer came back, “Ni khuya, no way.”

The jailer moved quickly to the door at the end of the room, not stopping to pick up what had been dropped, not wanting to put a hand into or touch the toilet bowl.

The outer door opened and closed and Misha was alone again, but this time he had something to work with. He had recognized the voice of his jailer. He would not utter the name. He would pretend that he did not know. The darkness of the visits was still his protection.

They would keep it dark when they entered for only two reasons: to help drive him mad or to protect themselves from Misha identifying them when he was free. Which meant that Misha had a chance of being free. It was slim hope, but he clung to it, and the knowledge that he knew who his captors were.

The lights came on. The music did not. Misha looked at the mess outside his cell. One bowl, the one which had held water, was on its side against the far wall. The food bowl was overturned within his reach. Miraculously, his toilet bowl had not been moved.

In addition, there were three fresh bowls within reach just beyond the bars. Misha reached through the bars and worked the food and drink inside.

He was hungry now, thirsty too. There was much to think about. He could fashion new earplugs while he considered his plight.

He was not being tested by cossacks, but he would behave as if he were a cossack. He would imagine himself in full blue uniform and long blue coat, leather boots, and a fur hat.

Misha felt a chill. He coughed once, took a drink of water, and retreated to the wall and mattress. He had much to do.

“Your name is Anatoly Zagrenov,” said Karpo, looking down at the sheet on the badly scarred wooden table.

“People call me Bottle Kaps,” the young man said. “I call myself Bottle Kaps.”

They were in a small room in a local precinct police station. There was nothing in the room but a table and two chairs. A single window, quite small and quite dirty, about seven feet up on one wall let in a little light. The walls were a thin brown with spots and smears of dirt. The floor was rough, cracked gray concrete. There was no two-way mirror. There was but one door and any police officer passing the room ignored whatever sounds, pain, anguish, pleading, or cries seeped into the dark corridor.

The young man who wanted to be called Bottle Kaps had moved to the chair to sit. Karpo motioned to him to remain on his feet. The detective also remained standing on the opposite side of the table with the sheet of paper before him.

“You are nineteen years old,” Karpo went on. “Your mother is dead. Your father lost his job two years ago as a janitor in a plastic factory.”

“He is a drunk,” the young man said. “A parasite.”

“In contrast to you,” said Karpo.

“I work.”

“At what?”

“Things,” the young man said. “I know cars. I can fix things. But only for the right people.”

The young man rubbed the top of his head. He hadn’t shaved in about a day. Prickly small hairs were starting to grow.

“You are going back in the obyezannik, the monkey cage with the drunks and thieves,” said Karpo. “With Sergei.”

“Sergei?”

“Sergei Topoy, Heinrich,” said Karpo.

“Sergei Topoy,” the young man repeated with a smile.

“You will remain in the cage until you answer my questions and I believe your answers, Anatoly,” said Karpo.

Anatoly cocked his head to one side, spread his legs slightly, and clasped his wrist behind his back, a posture meant to show that he had no intention of cooperating.

“What happened to Misha Lovski?”

“I told you. We went out into the street. He just went his way.”

“You are lying,” Karpo said calmly.

“You may think what you like,” said Anatoly.

“A boy was murdered near the Mahezh Shopping Center yesterday, a rapper,” said Karoo.

The Mahezh was an underground mall off of Red Square where Russian rappers in loose-fitting parkas and baggy pants gathered.

“So?”

“You killed him,” said Karpo.

“I … I was nowhere near there yesterday. I have never killed anyone. I was with Heinrich and friends all day. We …”

“But you killed the boy,” said Karpo.

“No.”

“I have a policeman who will testify that he saw you do it,” said Karpo.

“I did not kill anyone,” Anatoly said. “Ask Heinrich. Ask …”

Karpo moved to the door and opened it. A young uniformed policeman stepped inside. Karpo nodded toward Bottle Kaps and said, “Is that him?”

The young policeman looked at Anatoly and said, “Yes.”

“You are certain?” asked Karpo.

“Certain,” said the policeman, who turned to leave.

“Wait,” cried Anatoly. “You … it must have been someone else. We look alike.”

The policeman was gone. Karpo had asked him to step in and identify the young man Karpo had brought into the precinct two hours earlier. Karpo had said nothing about a murder and, as far as Karpo knew, there had been no murder.

“I did not kill anyone,” Anatoly insisted, his arms now in front of him. “That cop is … I understand.”

Karpo said nothing.

“You are bluffing just to get me to tell you what happened to the Naked Cossack.”

“One minute,” said Karpo. “I give you one minute. Tell me what happened or you go back in the cage and I give Sergei the opportunity to tell me and walk out the door while you remain to be tried for murder.”

“You are bluffing,” said Anatoly with mock confidence.

“You are running out of seconds,” said Karpo.

The young man looked at the pale unsmiling figure in black. He knew the police had taken others off the streets, put them in jail for crimes they had not committed, found witnesses, usually the police themselves, to testify to their guilt. Anatoly had heard such stories. Such arrests accomplished two things. They officially solved a crime and they put someone in jail the police wanted off the streets.

“Your time is up,” Karpo said, gathering his papers.

“No, wait.”

“Your time is up,” Karpo repeated, turning toward the door.

“I will tell you, but you do not let Sergei or anyone else know I told you,” the young man said in near panic.

Karpo started to open the door.

“Please,” called Anatoly. “It was the girl, the red-haired girl, the crazy one who calls herself Anarchista. The one in Naked Cossack’s band. She paid us. Told us the Naked Cossack was a Jew. She gave him something in his drink at Loni’s and we put him in a car. He was unconscious. She drove away. That is all I know.”

“She paid you?” Karpo said, looking back.

“Cash and … and a quick fuck for both of us behind Loni’s.”

Karpo closed the door and turned to face the young man, who was bouncing on his heels nervously.

“What did she say she was going to do with him?”

“I do not know.”

“Kill him?”

“She did not say. She was high on something. Happy. It was a game. The sex, everything. A game. I do not know where she took him.”

It was getting worse all the time. No foundation. Creatures like this roamed the streets and alleys. Democracy had not brought democracy. It had brought chaos and anarchy. The girl had aptly named herself. There was no dignity, no sense of mission in catching her, in freeing Misha Lovski if he was still alive. There was only the task.

“If he dies or is dead, you are an accomplice to murder.”

“But I told you what happened,” Anatoly whined. “You owe me for that.”

“And for many things,” said Karpo. “Many things.”

The open-air stalls in Gorbushka market were closed. Snow was more than a foot deep and the temperature was below freezing with an occasional sweep of cold wind bending the branches of the surrounding trees. The only real activity was in the dingy concrete building at the edge of the market.

The interior of the building was packed with people, almost all younger than thirty, laughing, haggling, swearing. Music screamed, a hundred different sounds, voices in a dozen languages, instruments knifing through the bodies.

Karpo and Zelach walked through the crowd, drawing stares, glares, and occasional comments, though no one was quite up to facing the pale man in black.

“Vampire in the daytime,” said one boy, head shaven, teeth bad.

Some assumed the two men were older sympathizers, last-generation pavers of the way. There were a few holdovers. Maybe these two were here to buy or sell. Maybe.

The huge open space was warm with bodies and rank with sweat and the oil on leather jackets decorated with skulls, swastikas, church towers, bottles marked poison, daggers, guns. A fat man in a black sweat shirt stood behind a table covered with German World War II medals, all imitation. He held up a watch and shouted, “The real thing. The real thing. Look at it.”

At another table were books and pamphlets with titles like Defending Russian Purity and International Skinhead Bulletin.

Karpo and Zelach moved on, scanning the crowd, looking for the girl. There were many girls with bright-red hair, most of them blocked by larger young men and boys.

Another table was doing a brisk business in Confederate flags and hats, white hoods advertised as genuine Ku Klux Klan antiques.

More tables. Boots, boots, boots, German army T-shirts and uniforms.

Noise. Stares.

Earlier, Karpo and Zelach had gone back to the apartment of Misha Lovski. The door they had broken had been repaired. They knocked and a voice had answered, “What?”

“Police,” Karpo had said.

“Shit, not again. Do not break the door. I am coming.”

A few seconds later the door had opened to reveal Valery Postnov, the frail blond boy who called himself Pure Knuckles. There seemed nothing pure about him, and his knuckles, both detectives knew, were bony and thin. One good punch and the boy’s hand would be broken.

“What?” he asked dreamily, wearing only soiled white briefs, scratching his hairless chest. “You find the Cossack?”

The room had not been cleaned or cleared or touched since their last visit.

“Nina Aronskaya,” Karpo said. “Where is she?”

“Anarchista?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I ask,” said Karpo, staring down at the boy who tried to hold his ground.

“I do not know where she is,” he said.

“You will come with us,” said Karpo. “Put on some clothes.”

“Where are we going?” the boy asked, looking at Zelach, who blinked behind his glasses.

“Somewhere where you will be very uncomfortable,” said Karpo. “Somewhere where you will remember where Nina Aronskaya is. Somewhere where you will remember perhaps where Misha Lovski is.”

“I do not know where the Cossack is,” the boy said. “He is … this is no big thing. He just wandered for a few days. He will come back.”

“Put on your pants,” said Karpo. “You have one minute. It is cold outside today. One minute or we take you as you are.”

The boy looked at Zelach, who continued to do his best to look impassive. He wanted to tell the boy to do what Karpo wanted, that Karpo had been behaving even more strangely than usual, that the boy would be very sorry if he did not cooperate. Zelach willed the boy not to show any disrespect. Karpo was never in the mood for disrespect for the law. Today would be a particularly bad day to test him.

“She went with Acid,” the boy said.

“Yakov Mitsin,” said Karpo.

“Yes,” the boy said. “To the Gorbushka. They are looking for new clothes, giving us a new look in case the Cossack does not come back.”

“You just told us you were sure he would be back,” said Karpo.

“I know, but Anarchista said we should not count on it. She is getting a little … forget it.”

“A little what?” asked Karpo.

“She said the Cossack is a Jew, that his father is rich,” the boy said. “She has been talking crazy like that. They got new clothes for the band and when the Cossack comes back he will be pissed.”

Karpo stared into the eyes of the boy, who tried to meet the look but gave up.

“Does Mitsin have a cell phone? The girl?”

“No,” said the boy.

“If you are lying and you call them, we will return for you,” said Karpo.

“I will not be here,” the boy said. “This is getting too … I am getting out.”

“No,” said Karpo. “You will stay here. If you leave, we will find you and you will not be pleased when we do. You understand?”

“I will be here,” the boy said with a sigh.

Then the policemen had headed for the market.

It was Zelach who spotted the girl, not because his eyes were more keen than Karpo’s. They were not. Not because he was looking more closely. He was not. It was a sense he could not explain, a sense his mother had taught him to accept. One moment he was looking at random faces and the next he felt that he should turn left and look all the way across the room. The crowd parted for a fraction of an instant and he saw her.

“There,” he said to Karpo.

Karpo turned his eyes toward where Zelach was looking. He was tall enough to see over most of the people who shuffled and stomped down the aisles, and he caught a glimpse of scarlet hair.

It was pointless for Emil Karpo to try to hide in the crowd, in any crowd. People parted when he approached, even people inside this concrete shrine to hatred.

“Go to the door,” he told Zelach. “She does not get out.”

“Yes,” said Zelach.

“You understand?”

“Yes,” he said.

“If you must shoot her or anyone who attempts to stop you, do so, but try not to kill them.”

Zelach did not say yes. He did not nod. Karpo was already beyond him, making his way toward the girl with the flaming-red hair. Zelach looked toward the girl, who did not seem to have noticed the two policemen. He made his way as quickly as he could back to the main entrance. People did not part for him as they had when he was at Karpo’s side. He was jostled, given nasty looks. He heard a few muttered insults and some not so muttered. Alone he looked less formidable and more like a storekeeper or office worker who had made the wrong turn into a bad neighborhood at lunchtime.

It took him almost a full minute to get back to the front entrance. He patted his jacket with the inside of his right arm and felt his gun resting in the holster. He was almost certain that he would be unable to shoot the girl or anyone else unless they were armed and directly threatening him. He would brandish his gun, which might bring the crowd down on him but might succeed in stopping the girl. He could fire into the ceiling, which might bring the crowd down on him and might stop the girl. Or he could try to subdue her and hold her till Karpo came to his aid.

Zelach was not weak. He did not have nearly the strength of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov or Iosef Rostnikov or Emil Karpo, but he was not without his reserves.

That was what he would do.

Zelach was now convinced that something had happened to Karpo, that he would have to tell someone about the strange things he was doing, but who? Porfiry Petrovich was the logical choice, but he was on a train heading into Siberia. Zelach had no desire to come face to face with Director Igor Yaklovev, who might not believe him or might not care. He had the distinct feeling-no, the certainty-that Yaklovev considered Zelach a fool to be suffered because Chief Inspector Rostnikov wanted him.

Emil Karpo was the senior inspector in the Office of Special Investigation in Porfiry Petrovich’s absence. Zelach decided to do what he always did in difficult situations. He would ask his mother.

Positioned next to the door, trying not to draw attention to himself and failing miserably, Zelach adjusted his glasses, leaned back against the wall, and plunged his hands into his pockets.

Across the room in the vicinity of where he had seen the girl, Zelach could make out the spear-straight figure of Emil Karpo. He wished he could hear what was being said. He had the distinct feeling that it was not going well.

Had he been close to Karpo and privy to the conversation, he would have seen and heard what follows:

Neither the girl nor Yakov Mitsin at her side noticed Karpo approaching. They were haggling over the cost of studded-denim and leather jackets, caps, and belts with a thin man wearing a black overcoat.

“Nina Aronskaya,” Karpo said.

The girl froze in mid-sentence. She had met Karpo but once. She would never forget his voice and knew what she would see when she turned.

Mitsin turned first and faced him. Then she turned.

Karpo said nothing. He ignored the young man and looked at the girl. She was overly made-up, her artificially powdered face even whiter than Karpo s own. Her lips were a bright artificial red that matched her short hair. She wore a ring through her nose, which she had not borne when Karpo had seen her naked in Misha Lovski’s apartment.

The look of fear was there and gone almost before it came into existence, but Karpo recognized it. Now would come the bluff, the lies. They would come if Karpo did not stop them. People around them were watching them now, sensing a confrontation.

“Misha Lovski,” answered Karpo.

“How did you find us?” Yakov Mitsin asked.

Karpo ignored him.

“You found him?” the girl asked.

“If we had, I would not be here.”

“What do you want?” asked Mitsin, looking at the watching circle of faces.

Karpo continued to ignore him.

Mitsin was wearing a leather jacket covered with patches displaying weapons. The girl wore an almost-matching jacket, but hers bore painted images of naked males’ and females, some pressing together facing each other or with the male figure behind.

“Where is Misha Lovski?” Karpo asked the girl.

“I do not know,” she said. “How should I know? I am not his mother.”

“That is Anarchista,” a male voice came from behind Karpo.

“And that is Acid,” came a female voice. “It is Acid.”

“You drugged him, had Heinrich and Bottle Kaps put him in a car, and you took him somewhere,” Karpo said. “You will tell me here and now where he is. Then you will go with me to find him or his body.”

“You are crazy,” said Mitsin, getting between Karpo and the girl, putting his face up inches before the taller detective, playing to the crowd.

“You will step out of the way,” Karpo said, so quietly that Mitsin could barely hear him. “Or I will shoot you in the left leg just above the knee. The pain will be unbearable and you will be fortunate to walk normally again.”

Mitsin’s smirk faded. In the eyes of the tall ghost he could see truth. He stepped out of the way and said, “We are not going with you.

“No,” agreed the crowd, which pressed forward slightly.

More and more people in the concrete block were now aware that something was happening. Fights were not uncommon here. Murder was not unheard of just outside the doors.

Karpo showed not the slightest fear or concern, and in fact he felt none, He was calm, ready, and very determined. For an instant he considered that he might welcome an attack from the crowd.

The girl seemed uncertain. She looked at Mitsin, who avoided her eyes.

“What happens if I tell you?”

“That depends on where he is, if he is alive and well, and why you did it,” said Karpo.

“Do not talk to him,” called a burly skinhead in the front of the.small circle.

“He is alive,” she said. “I think he is alive. It was just a joke. He is alive. Someone wants to teach him a lesson, that is all.”

“Someone paid you,” said Karpo. “Who?”

The burly skinhead pushed ahead of the crowd. Karpo barely glanced at him. The detectives hand went inside his jacket and came out with a gun pointed directly at the skinhead, who suddenly stopped.

“Who paid you?” asked Karpo.

The girl hesitated, her eyes moving around, considering a run for the exit, hoping the crowd would protect her. Her thoughts went no further than that.

“It would be a very bad idea,” Karpo said, seeming to read her thoughts.

The girl who called herself Anarchista gulped nervously and Karpo could see tears forming in her eyes. He could also see two men moving quickly through the crowd, two men who fit into the scene even less than Karpo and Zelach.

The men were wearing identical dark suits with white shirts and ties. They had the look of athletes. Both were no more than forty.

“Where is he?” asked Karpo as the two men moved behind the girl and Mitsin.

Suddenly both men had weapons in their hands. One of the two, the larger, had a small machine gun, which he had pulled from under his coat. Karpo turned his gun on the two men. The crowd began to back away in panic. People screamed and fell. Tables toppled.

Each of the men in suits grabbed an arm of the girl and began to back away with her. Mitsin moved with them. They were all facing Karpo, who was certain he could shoot the man with the automatic weapon through his forehead before he could fire. It was unlikely that he would get off a shot at the second man before he himself was killed.

The quartet backed away toward the entrance, toward Zelach, who had his weapon in two hands aimed at the backs of the two men.

Zelach fired.

The man not holding the machine gun fell to his knees but did not scream. The crowd was screaming louder, making for the exit, blocking Zelach’s vision. He could not fire again without the risk of hitting someone innocent or, given the nature of those in the building, someone who was at least innocent of what was taking place at the moment.

The man behind Nina Aronskaya ducked with her as cover and kept backing away, leaving his partner on his knees. Karpo could shoot the girl or Mitsin, but there was no point to it.

The man with the gun, Mitsin, and the girl joined the fleeing crowd and swept past Zelach through the doors and into the cold day.

Karpo followed, nodding to Zelach to deal with the fallen man. In the street, Karpo saw Mitsin entering the back seat of a black car with heavily tinted windows. The door closed and the car pulled away. Karpo hurried back into the building, where Zelach stood over the fallen man. The man’s weapon had been kicked professionally out of reach.

“He needs a doctor,” Zelach said.

The wounded man, now in a sitting position on the concrete floor, turned his head toward Karpo. Zelach’s bullet had entered his right thigh. Blood was oozing out. The pain must have been great, but the man did not show it. He calmly removed his belt and began to use it as a tourniquet around the top of his thigh.

“Get an ambulance,” Karpo said to Zelach.

Zelach said nothing. He holstered his gun and looked around for a phone. The hall was clear of people now and he saw no phone. But he did see a glass door in one corner that might well lead to an office. He hurried toward it, half expecting to hear a gunshot, half expecting to turn and see the wounded gunman on his back, dead or dying.

But there was no shot. Emil Karpo had already decided what to do with the wounded man.