Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express

Chapter Seven

Zelach had dined with his mother in their small apartment which she kept impeccably neat and clean, smelling and looking like something from a different era, a different place. The place it looked like was an apartment in Voronezh south of Moscow, near the Ukrainian border. Zelach’s mother had been born there, a gypsy who did not look like one and who escaped to marry a slow-witted but decent Moscovite policeman who thought her quite beautiful. Akardy Zelach had been born six months after they had married. She had never, to this very day, told him of his gypsy blood. There was no reason to do so. The boy had looked like his father the moment he was brought painfully into the world.

Zelach’s mother loved her son and worried about him. He had talents but no great intellect. He was a follower, and when she died she wondered whom he might follow.

They ate boiled potatoes, thick fish soup, and bread with water.

“I must work tonight,” he said as he ate.

“I know,” she said.

He had not told her before this moment, but her comment did not surprise him. She almost always knew when he had to work, when his mind was on something other than the meal or the television screen. She usually knew what he was thinking. This did not disturb him. It was reassuring.

The words to one of the Naked Cossacks songs kept running through his head:

Spit on your friends. Shit on your friends. They’ll do the same to you.

Just clasp their hands and walk in step when you agree on what to do.

On what to do, on what to do, and who to do it to.

“Akardy,” his mother said. “Yes.”

“You are bouncing your head while you eat.”

“A song I can’t … it just …”

“Listen to the song,” she said, tearing off a piece of bread. “It may tell you something.”

Emil Karpo ate alone in his room, which was about the same size as Misha Lovski’s cell. The room held very little furniture-a cot near the single window whose shade was almost always pulled down, a chest of drawers, a free-standing simple wooden closet, a desk in front of a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf filled with files of cases he had worked on, open and closed cases, and cases that he had never been assigned but were still open.

What free time Karpo had, he gave to those files and their challenge.

He ate one cucumber, one tomato, one onion, a thick slice of unbuttered bread, and a piece of plain boiled chicken he had prepared on his hot plate on the dresser.

There were two lights in his room, one a bulb in the ceiling, the other a small table lamp.

The only color in the room was a painting above the dresser, a painting of and by Mathilde Verson, a gift from her. The woman in the foreground looking up the hill to a barn was definitely Mathilde, though her face was turned. Mathilde, the woman of the city, the part-time prostitute whom he had paid once every two weeks for her services until she had stopped taking the money and they had become something more than client and provider. That lasted three years, four months, and six days. She was shot in the crossfire between two Mafias, gangs disputing territory or trying to make a point which may not have been clear to either gang.

The phone next to the computer rang. He picked it up and said, “Yes.”

“Emil,” came Rostnikov’s voice. “I am going on a train ride.”

Karpo said nothing.

“Sasha is going with me. To Siberia.”

“Yes.”

“While I am gone, you are in charge.”

“I understand.”

“I left the file on the subway attacks on your desk.”

“I shall read it in the morning unless you feel I should get it immediately.”

“No, just be acquainted with the case, should you be needed. In an emergency, you can reach me on the Trans-Siberian Express, the number two. I’ll be in compartment twelve, car three-two-seven-eight.”

Karpo did not bother to write the number. He would remember it.

“Yes,” he said.

“Emil, as I recall, you can see the sun over the hill in your painting of Mathilde. Is that correct?”

Karpo did not have to turn to the painting.

“That is correct.”

“Then I have a very important question. Is the sun rising or setting? Have you ever asked yourself that question?”

“No,” Karpo said, now turning to the painting.

“Look at it with fresh eyes and tell me what you think when I return.”

“I will do so.”

“You are working on the Lovski case tonight?”

“Yes. Zelach and I are going to a club called Loni’s where Lovski was apparently last seen.”

“Find him,” said Rostnikov. “And don’t forget the sun.”

He hung up and Karpo turned his wooden chair so that he could face the painting above his dresser.

Pavel Cherkasov dined, as he had planned, at the Uzbekistani restaurant on Neglinnaya Street. There was a good crowd, but Pavel had assured himself a table near the wall with a few bills passed to the maître d’. With a bottle of Aleatiko wine to guide him, Pavel, as planned, had started with maniar, moved on to shashlik, followed by an order of Tkhum-dulma. He ordered a second bottle of wine and turned to the patrons at the next table, a well-dressed couple in their fifties.

“A glass of wine?” he offered.

The man smiled and Pavel motioned to the waiter, who came over quickly. He knew Pavel from previous visits, knew the man would leave a big tip if he were served quickly and if the waiter smiled or laughed at his jokes.

“The other night I came in here,” Pavel said in a whisper to the couple at the next table after the waiter had moved to get two clean glasses. “I said to the waiter, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a rat.’ And the waiter replied, ‘Then you’ve come to the right place.’”

The woman gave a slight tic of her left cheek that might have signaled offense or a touch of amusement. It encouraged Pavel, who poured wine from his bottle into the glasses the waiter had brought.

“Listen, listen,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “An American and a Russian go to hell and the devil says, ‘You have a choice of American hell or Russian hell. The difference between them is that in American hell you get one bucket of shit to eat every day. In Russian hell, you get two buckets.’ The American takes American hell. The Russian, to the American’s surprise, takes Russian hell.”

The woman and the man to whom Pavel was speaking were definitely not amused, but Pavel chose not to notice.

“A year later,” Pavel said, “the American and the Russian meet. ‘How is your hell?’ asks the Russian. ‘Just as promised,’ the American answers. ‘One bucket of shit to eat every day. And Russian hell?’ ‘Just as I expected. The shit deliveries seldom arrive, and when they do come they are late and there are never enough buckets to go around.’”

Pavel laughed. The couple did not.

“We are late for an appointment,” the man said, motioning to the waiter for the check.

“One more,” Pavel said, laughing. “When I was here yesterday, I told the waiter there was a dead cockroach in my soup and he said, ‘I’ll call my manager, but you should know there will be an extra charge for the funeral.’”

The couple rose without the check and headed for the door. Pavel kept laughing. On the train, he would find a captive audience in the bar. He had dozens of train and travel jokes and even more about drinking. He checked his watch. He had brought his suitcase with him. It was tucked under the table, which was not at all odd in Moscow. One never knew when luggage or a coat might disappear from a checkroom.

It was nearing time to go, but he still had at least ten minutes for a cup or two of syrupy thick coffee. Pavel was not drunk. He was, however, at his limit and could use the coffee to return to the ground. Pavel was a professional.

He ordered his coffee, told the waiter another joke, and looked around the room with satisfaction. In a few days, he would have enough money for that gourmet trip to America. His English was good enough for him to get on the stage during open-microphone sessions at a comedy club in New York. He had tried it before. The crowd had been small and the audience minimally polite, but he had new material now. He was not one to give up.

He glanced around the room as he drank. There was the hum and clatter of conversation and plates, the shuffling of moving waiters and customers departing. He had an idea for a little joke in English. He would play on his slight Russian accent. He would begin his set in New York by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a Russian, but my English is perfect so let’s conversate.” He removed one of the lined cards from his pocket and with his pen made a note of the remark.

At a table on the other side of the restaurant another diner, back to the room, watched Pavel in the large ornate mirror on the wall. The watching diner had come in a minute after Pavel, given the maître d’ even more money than Pavel had, and pointed to this table.

The watcher heard nothing of Pavel’s jokes but watched him eat, pay his bill, rise, pull his suitcase from beneath the table, and head steadily toward the exit. The watcher had motioned to a waiter a second after Pavel had called for his check. To insure a quick departure, the watcher had overtipped the grateful waiter.

The goal was to stay close to Pavel Cherkasov in the city, on the train, to wait till the exchange was made, then to seize the prize and, possibly, the money. This, the watcher well knew, would require the death of the joke-telling courier and probably the person to whom the money was to be delivered. There might even be more who got in the way.

The watcher was prepared. The stakes of the job were high but the assignment was routine. It would be executed with precision and maybe, thought the watcher, with a touch of irony, which was far more interesting than coarse jokes.

Perhaps the one-legged policeman would appreciate the irony when the time came. The watcher respected the Washtub and sincerely hoped that he would.

“Yah golahdyeen, I’m hungry,” Iosef said.

Elena Timofeyeva and Iosef Rostnikov had not had dinner. They had rushed onto the metro platform, having paused only to call Paulinin, who was still in his laboratory.

“Do not let anyone touch him,” Paulinin had said. “Do not let any of the butchers upstairs get near him. No one should get near him till I talk to him.”

Iosef had hung up the phone and turned to Elena. “He’s coming. He wants to talk to the dead man.”

“Paulinin is mad,” Elena observed as they moved out of their temporary underground office and ran for the train just pulling in.

When they pushed their way onto the train, Iosef had turned to Elena and declared his hunger. She too was hungry, but she was on a diet. Elena was sure that she would be on a diet her entire life. Not for the first time she wondered what would happen if she were ever to have children. She remembered the photographs of her mother before she was pregnant with Elena and after. The before mother was plump and pretty. The after mother was a far different, heavier person: still pretty, but definitely tired.

They were packed tightly and talking was difficult so they said nothing till they got to the Komsomol station. There the body of Toomas Vana was being guarded by three young uniformed police officers, who told gawkers to keep moving.

Elena and Iosef stepped near the body, avoiding the pool of blood that had formed under him, spreading out in an amoebic deep-red pattern.

“Has anyone touched him?” Elena asked the nearest uniformed policeman.

“Not since we have been here,” the young man said, glancing over his shoulder at the mutilated corpse. “I was on the street with my partner in our car. A woman told us someone had been killed. Then he”-he pointed to the third policeman-“showed up.” The third policeman was one of the uniformed detail that had been assigned to work the platforms.

“Good,” said Elena. “Witnesses?”

“Them,” the young policeman said, nodding toward a child who held the hand of a woman and seemed to be consoling her. Elena moved toward the two, who stood a dozen feet away. People moved past, glancing at the dead man.

“You saw what happened?” Elena asked gently.

The woman nodded, her hands trembling.

“And you?” Elena asked the little girl.

“Yes,” she said.

“Your name is? …”

“Alexandra,” the child said. “The man is dead”

“I know,” said Elena.

“My grandmother is frightened.”

“I see. What is your grandmother’s name?”

“Sylvia. Her name is Sylvia.”

“The person who did that to the man. What did he look like?”

“It was a lady,” Alexandra said. “She hit him and hit him and he was bleeding and bleeding and she ran away up the stairs. That way.”

The girl pointed toward the escalators at the end of the platform.

“What did she look like?” asked Elena.

Sylvia gulped and shook her head.

“Like a lady,” Alexandra said. “Like Mrs. Duenya, my teacher. A little like Mrs. Duenya. She had a knife. The lady. She made a noise. She hurt her hand. This one. This is the right hand.”

“Yes, it is,” said Elena, looking back at Iosef, who was standing over the body. “Is that the hand she had the knife in?”

The girl nodded. “It was hurting both of them, the man and the lady, only the man is dead and the lady went away.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“Two big boys took the man’s bag when he dropped it. They ran away. That way.”

This time she pointed to the opposite end of the platform from the one toward which she had said the woman had run.

“They stole it,” the girl said.

“It appears as if they did,” said Elena. “Did the lady say anything?”

Elena looked at the grandmother, who was still trembling. The little girl held the older woman’s hand and patted it gently.

“My grandma does not watch television,” Alexandra confided almost in a whisper. “She has not seen people bleeding and killed and things. I tried to explain to her.”

“Yes,” said Elena. “Anything else you can tell us about the lady?”

The grandmother shook her head.

Alexandra said, “Yes. He was her father.”

“Her father?”

“She called the man At’e’ts, ‘Father,’” said the child. “Two times while she was hitting him, like this.” The child raised her fist as if she held a knife and jabbed out, saying, “‘Father, Father.’ Like that. Just like that.”

They could hear the sound, feel the vibration and the noise, coming from Loni’s when they were about a hundred yards away. A guitar screeched.

“Jimi Hendrix,” Zelach said as they walked toward the door. A very big pair of men wearing leather vests and no shirts on their shaved chests stood guard.

“The player is Jimi Hendrix?” asked Karpo.

“No, the sound. Whoever is playing is imitating Hendrix.”

“I see,” said Karpo, who did not see at all.

At the door the sound was a screaming, sharp-nailed scratch down the spine. The two men in leather vests stood in front of them. Karpo and Zelach took out their wallets and showed their identification.

“I’ll check with the manager,” one of the two men said.

“You may check with the manager after we are inside,” said Karpo. “We do not require permission.”

The two big guards looked at each other and then at Karpo and Zelach.

“You do here,” one of them said. “Mr. Trotskov has friends.”

Which meant that Mr. Trotskov was paying off a Mafia and very likely local police. At least that was what the big man at the door implied.

“You will step back and let us pass,” Karpo said calmly.

“Just wait till …” the big man started, and Karpo stepped forward so his face was inches from the guard.

“We will not wait,” he said. “You will open the door and we will pass.

Karpo’s pale face stood out in the light above the door. His black clothing made that face look like a floating death mask. Something in that mask, the eyes, made the big man say, “Fine, go in.” He nodded to the other man, who opened the door. “Primo,” the first guard said, “go tell Mr. Trotskov that the police are here.”

There would be no need to point out to the owner who Karpo and Zelach were. They stood out in the blaring smoke-filled crowd of young people. With Karpo in front, the detectives made their way through a sea of young men with bad teeth and tattoos as colorful as those of a Siberian convict. Swastikas, skeletons, guns, knives, churches, women, angels, and devils adorned the chests, arms, and even cheeks of both young men and women who, drinks or cigarettes in hand, swayed to the music and parted with scowls as the policemen moved through them to the bar.

Behind the crowded bar, the man they had spoken to earlier, the one called Abbi, stood serving. He was clean-faced and looked sober, with a fresh blue T-shirt and hands moving professionally to keep up with the orders.

Abbi spotted the detectives and moved toward them behind the bar. “You were here this morning, right?”

It was almost impossible to hear him over the screaming of Death Times Four on the small stage.

“That is right,” said Karpo. “We are looking for Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.”

“I don’t know anyone with those names,” Abbi said, looking at the nearby customers who were listening to the conversation.

“You knew them this morning,” Karpo said. “If they are here, point them out. If you will not, we will close this place.”

“They,” Abbi said, nodding at the crowd, “would tear you apart.”

“That is not your concern,” said Karpo.

“What is happening here?” asked a man of about forty who came up behind the bar. He was short with a neatly trimmed mustache. He wore a gray pullover shirt with short sleeves. Inscribed on the left side of the shirt were the words Top Sail in English.

“We are looking for two people who call themselves Bottle Kaps and Heinrich,” said Karpo.

“Why?” shouted the man. “I’m Yevgeny Trotskov, the manager.”

“They were seen leaving here two nights ago with Misha Lovski,” Karpo said.

“Naked Cossack,” Zelach supplied.

“Naked Cossack? I don’t think he was here two nights ago,” Trotskov said, shaking his head.

The music suddenly stopped. The crowd shouted. The lead singer, Snub Nose Bullet, gave the crowd the finger and bit his lower lip. He was thin and bare-chested and had the chiseled face and nose of a Romanian. The crowd loved it. They shouted obscenities back at him and laughed and applauded and banged their bottles and glasses against tables and the bar.

“He was here,” said Karpo. “Point out Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.”

“They said they’d close us down,” said Abbi.

Trotskov smiled knowingly. “We can discuss this in my office,” he said, reaching out for Karpo’s arm. Karpo did not move. He met Trotskov’s eyes, and the bearded owner of Loni’s knew that this man was not interested in a bribe.

“They will kill you,” Trotskov said, his eyes scanning the crowd.

“I told them,” Abbi said.

“Zelach,” said Karpo. “Go to the door. Fire four shots into the ceiling. If anyone attacks you, shoot them.”

“You’re-” Trotskov started, but he could see that the Vampire before him was not bluffing.

“If one of us is hurt or anyone has to be shot,” said Karpo, “Loni’s will cease to exist.”

The madman is prepared to die, Trotskov thought. He looked at the other policeman, the unkempt one with the glasses who did not seem to be as interested in dying as his partner.

“Listen,” Trotskov said, turning to. Zelach.

“To the door,” said Karpo. “Fire.”

Zelach blinked and turned to head for the door, prepared though not pleased at the prospect of dying in this place or, for that matter, in any place.

“Wait,” said Trotskov. “Wait. They’re over there. Table near the stage.”

There were four people at the table. None of them were looking their way.

“Bottle Kaps has a red heart with á knife through it tattooed on his left arm. Heinrich is the big one with the swastika on his chest. Don’t tell them I pointed them out. Please.”

Karpo started for the table, a temporarily relieved Zelach at his side. Zelach had long ago learned that the man with whom he was working seemed to be without fear. He did not appear to value his life. Zelach, however, valued his very much, though he often thought himself nearly worthless. Luck had put him where he was in the Office of Special Investigation. At times like this he thought it had been bad rather than good luck.

Karpo moved to the table with Zelach at his side and looked directly at the one with the red heart with a knife through it tattooed on his arm.

“You are known as Bottle Kaps,” Karpo said.

All four young men at the table looked up. All four were skinheads. All four were drinking beer and smiling.

Bottle Kaps looked away from Karpo, ignoring him, and continued saying to Heinrich at his side, “So, I tell the little ant that if he does not return it I will crush his head with my boots.”

People at nearby tables had stopped talking to watch how the confrontation was going to play out.

Karpo said, “We have some questions to ask you.”

The four at the table ignored the gaunt policeman and kept talking.

Zelach looked around, moving his hand up his side in case he had to reach for his gun. They could, thought Zelach, simply go outside, wait till Bottle Kaps and Heinrich came out later. He did not really care if they had to wait half the night, given the alternative that Karpo was now pursuing.

Karpo took the table in two hands and flung it on its side against the two to whom he was talking. Glasses and bottles and ashtrays and keys flew. Heinrich fell to the floor. Bottle Kaps slid back on his chair. The other two at the table stood facing the detectives.

“I have questions,” Karpo said calmly. “It would be easier to sit quietly and talk than to come with us, but the choice is yours. Make it now.”

Bottle Kaps let out a grunt and pushed the fallen table out of his way. Zelach was sure he was going to charge at Karpo. Heinrich held out a hand to stop him.

“No riot,” he said. “You talk. We listen.”

Heinrich started to pick up the table. He needed help from Bottle Kaps and both of the others who had been seated at the table.

There was a moment now when Zelach felt certain that someone would jump on his back, stab him in the neck, beat him with a chair. He wanted to turn and face the crowd behind him but he held firm, doing his best to pretend he felt as confident and unafraid as Karpo looked.

Death Times Four had missed the confrontation. They had gone through a door in the wall behind the stage. When they came out, looking angry as hell, they were greeted not by cheers but by a silence.

“Out of the grave,” Snub Nose Bullet screamed at them. “The sun is down. It’s night. The night is ours.”

Then his eyes met those of Karpo.

Snub Nose Bullet, whose real name was Casimir Rolvanoshki, had seen many people dressed like vampires, but he had the impression that he might be seeing a real one for the first time. That was what the silence was all about.

Hell, this one might be here to destroy them all for mocking the living dead. Snub Nose Bullet was ready. Vindication. He hit a chord and launched into a song he had written and rehearsed only that afternoon.

He wanted to give Karpo the finger, give death the finger, but the best Casimir behind his own mask could do was to give a less-than-powerful sneer before he started singing.

“We will sit here,” Karpo said above the music, moving the chairs of the two young men who had been sitting with Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.

Karpo had to have a plan. Zelach was certain of that now. He would not be constantly challenging these people if he were not confident, did not know exactly how they would react. Karpo knew more about the law than anyone in the Office of Special Investigation, perhaps even more than Inspector Rostnikov himself, and knowing the law at this point in Russian history was no small accomplishment. On a day-to-day basis, Zelach had no idea what the law might be on any crime. He trusted Karpo. He trusted the others. He had no choice.

Death Times Four howled and shouted. Snub Nose Bullet leaned toward Karpo and sang-shouted, “Swine in brown and swine in blue. They will step all over you.”

The four skinheads at the table remained standing, looking at Karpo, waiting for him to make a move.

“Shrapnel Spew,” Zelach muttered.

He had spoken softly but somehow the singer on the low stage leaning toward Karpo heard him and hesitated. The mess of a policeman with glasses, the sweating blob, was right. The line was from the Estonian group Shrapnel Spew. Casimir had not made it up this afternoon-not the song nor the words. He had simply remembered them, and there he stood doing something he had never done before. He was singing and playing someone else’s music. The song was obscure, but somehow this policeman had recognized it. Casimir was sure there was no one else in the room who had any idea of the disaster.

Casimir stopped singing, kept playing, and pointed a finger at Zelach. Everyone watched, not knowing what was happening. Death Times Four was giving this slouch of a policeman the sign that he was good. Snub Nose Bullet did not give his blessings easily, and to a cop?

“Sit down,” said Heinrich.

Karpo and Zelach sat and so did Heinrich and Bottle Kaps. The other two reluctantly moved away.

Karpo paused but an instant before asking his first question. The hesitation came from a completely unexpected source. Emil Karpo, perhaps for the only time in his life since he was a child, had lost control. No one watching him could have known. He looked the same as he always did, but he knew his actions had been unnecessarily provocative.

Was it this place? These people? The deep realization that this is what had become of the nation for which he lived, the cause in which he had believed? He was in the belly of a dying beast, the heart of chaos. This place was a cancer. These people were spreading it. And they were only a symptom. His head beat with the first pangs of migraine. The smoke, the noise, the realization, the lights. Pain. He wanted to get this over quickly and get to the darkness of his room. And because he wanted it over quickly, he chose not to give in, to move slowly, to challenge the pain.

“Two nights ago you were seen leaving here with Misha Lovski, the Naked Cossack,” he said.

Neither of the young men answered.

“Where did you go?” he asked.

The two young men looked at each other. The look between them said that they both recognized the madness in the eyes of this pale spectre.

“We left him in the street and went home,” said Heinrich.

“Right outside in the street,” Bottle Kaps confirmed, shaking his head.

“No, you did not,” said Karpo.

Zelach sat silent, listening.

“What is this about?” asked Bottle Kaps.

“Misha, the Naked Cossack, is missing,” said Karpo.

“Missing?” asked Heinrich. “Gone?”

“We want to find him,” said Karpo. “We want you to tell us where he is.”

“Us? We do not know. Go find some of those rappers. They probably killed him. They hate him, hate us all. We would not hurt the Naked Cossack. He is a symbol of our battle.”

“Battle with whom?” asked Karpo. “About what?”

“You, everyone, the weak bastards who are turning Russia over to the Jews,” said Bottle Kaps.

“And the niggers, the chernozhopyi,” said Heinrich. “And the Chinese. The rappery. And …”

“I did not say we thought he was kidnapped, killed, or even hurt,” said Karpo. “I said only that he is missing.”

“We don’t know where he is,” Heinrich said.

“No,” said his partner.

“You will come with us,” said Karpo, starting to rise.

“Why?” Heinrich protested.

“Because you are lying,” Karpo said. “If Misha Lovski is dead, you too will die.”

“This is crazy,” said Heinrich. “You think he is dead and you just want someone to blame because his father is rich and-”

The band was wailing a few feet from Karpo’s throbbing head. He wanted to slowly rise, take the guitar from the shouting robot, and methodically rip out each string.

“How do you know his father is rich?” asked Karpo.

“He told us,” said Heinrich.

“He told no one,” said Karpo. “He is ashamed of his father. Someone else told you.”

Bottle Kaps gritted his teeth and looked at Karpo with a last pretense of anger.

“We do not know where he is. We do not know who took him.”

“What,” asked Karpo, “makes you think someone took him? One assumption we made was that he went away on his own, but your answers confirm that he has been taken. You will come with us.”

The band continued. Karpo could take no more and for that reason he remained seated, looking calmly at the two young men across from him.

“We are not going with you,” said Heinrich. “We did nothing.”

“Then,” said Karpo, “we shall have to shoot you. I shoot well. I’ll probably not kill you. We need one of you to talk. Akardy Zelach on the other hand is nearsighted, a poor shot. A bullet from his weapon could strike anywhere on your body. I’ll shoot you.”

Karpo looked at Heinrich.

“Detective Zelach will shoot you,” Karpo went on, looking at Bottle Kaps.

“Then what will happen to you?” asked Heinrich. “Look around.”

“From your place on the floor, if you are still conscious and alive, you can watch and bear witness. Now we leave or you die.”

The feeling of sharp glass entered Karpo’s brain. The light burned deep as if he were looking into the sun.

But both of the younger men believed this pale madman. They had encountered brutal policemen in the past, policemen who enjoyed beating, policemen who might get so worked up that they would shoot to kill, but nothing like this one. He was, once again, not bluffing.

“Let’s go,” Heinrich said.

Death Times Four had changed songs. Akardy Zelach neither liked nor recognized what they were now playing.