People Who Walk In Darkness

Chapter Seven

It was a warm night in Moscow, more than forty years ago. A warm night. The policeman, burly and resigned, sat on a rock tented by two slabs of concrete which might well have given way to crush him. Unfortunately, this was the only reasonable cover while he watched the truck.

The building was going up slowly, typical of projects in the Soviet Union, where no incentive existed for workers to put in a full day of hard work. Appeals to the abstract love of a nation that needed more buildings were to no avail. The workers did not define themselves as Soviets. They considered themselves Russians, Georgians, Chechens, Lithuanians, or whatever.

And so they had no reservations about stealing from the State as the State had no reservations about taking from them. At least, that was the way most of them thought. It was something the policeman understood.

An inventory by the project director and the Communist Party representative at the site had revealed a serious loss of valued equipment and wiring. The conclusion was theft by employees. The solution was the placement of a policeman in the shadows.

And so he sat as he had for the past two nights, a cheese sandwich in his pocket, his holstered gun resting familiarly against his right thigh, the flashlight on his belt pressing against his left leg.

He was hungry. He slowly, quietly unwrapped his sandwich and took a large, satisfying bite.

And then he heard them coming.

He did not know what time it was, could not read the face of his watch in the darkness, but it was definitely past midnight.

They came, three of them, whispering, climbing on the rear of the truck, opening it with a key, their shoes producing a metallic echo as the door swung open. Two of the men stepped into the truck. The third remained on the ground to receive the equipment handed to him. It looked as if they had planned to take no more than they could carry.

The policeman set aside his sandwich and slowly eased his way out of the concrete tent.

The man on the ground was leaning over to place a metal box near his feet when the policeman approached.

As the man got up to receive something else from the two in the truck, the policeman stepped to the rear of the truck, slammed the door closed, and threw the bolt to lock them in.

The thief on the outside took it all in and began to run. He was much younger than the policeman, and much lighter. He would have gotten away had he not tripped on a coil of wire he had taken from the truck.

The policeman had his gun out and pointed at the man on the ground, who realized that it was all over. The two in the truck obviously realized the same thing. They were making no noise, not crying to be let out. They sat and waited.

An hour later, the policeman led all three of his prisoners into the stone shack that served as the local police station. The shack, with temporary cells in the rear, was at least a century old. Not a single renovation had ever been done.

It was not the policeman’s job to talk to the prisoners. He was just there to catch them, turn them in, and go home while the KGB decided what to do with traitors to the Revolution.

And then, within an hour after he had caught the thieves, she appeared.

The policeman did not know how the woman found it. Somehow people knew. Someone would see an arrest taking place or hear a name mentioned by a clerk who worked in Petrovka, or a talkative young jail guard. No matter. She found out.

She was pretty, with healthy country skin and corn blond hair. She had been sitting, waiting, worried about her husband, the man who had tripped over the coil of wire, when she had found out what happened.

Relatives were not allowed into the police station. This was a place of little hope and the province of those who had learned indifference.

She confronted him when he stepped out of the police station into the early morning light. “What has happened to my husband?”

And that was how it had begun.

The policeman never denied to himself, and he could not hide it from his wife, that if ever he were to suffer a downfall, it would be because of a woman or women. He could not help it. In spite of his less-than-handsome features and bulky frame, there was something comforting about him, something sad and peaceful. He recognized this and let it happen.

And that was how it had happened this time.

Her name was Klara. She was a Pole. She did not love her husband, never had, but he had promised the pretty young girl security and love. He had delivered neither. It was not that he did not want to. He was simply incapable of doing more than being a full-time laborer and a part-time thief.

Klara worked in a glass factory, in terrible heat, for little pay. Now her husband was in jail. That would end his income. She might have to go back to Poland, to a family that did not want her and could not afford to have her.

So the policeman and the factory girl became lovers. It lasted for five months. Her husband went to a Gulag. The policeman helped her even though he had little money and a family of his own.

And then she became pregnant.

And that was how Fyodor Andreiovich Rostnikov, half brother of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, was born.

James sat at the table, a blue metal cup of stale, cold coffee in front of him with a dent in its lip. On the side of the cup was an emblem. It looked a little like a coat of arms. He was curious, but not enough to ask Vladimir Kolokov, who sat across from him.

The table was planked wood with rickety legs. Every time James lifted his heavy arms or dropped them back on the planks, the legs of the table rattled against the uncovered concrete of the floor.

“Tell me,” said Kolokov, examining him, “are you smart?”

Wanting to stay alive and hoping for an opportunity to escape before the day of the exchange, James calculated and easily came to the conclusion that he should say, “I’m very smart.”

Kolokov grinned. It was the right answer. A moderately clever man would have said that he was dumb, stupid, perhaps the most densely stupid creature that ever placed foot inside of Russia. A truly smart man would realize, as James did, that the possible path to some hope of survival lay in pretending to be a fool who thought himself smart. James had learned well from his six years working with these strange people, the Russians.

“Very smart,” Kolokov repeated, looking at the bald man, named Pau, who was the only other person in the very dark, windowless room.

An incongruous floor lamp, heavy wrought iron with elaborate glass panels, provided illumination and something at which to glance.

“The clothes fit you,” said Kolokov.

James looked down at the shirt he was wearing. One of the other Kolokov men, Bogdan or Alek, had given James these clothes, told him to strip and dress. The rough, warm, long-sleeved khaki shirt did fit, as did the badly faded jeans whose legs had to be rolled up. He had been given no belt.

James ached. His face, neck, head, arms, body, and legs all ached in various degrees of pain that worsened when he moved. James used two hands to drink from the blue metal cup.

“You understand that I had to kill your friends?”

James nodded.

“And I’ll have to kill you if you lie to me?”

James didn’t respond.

“That was a question.”

James nodded. And then he decided. There was really no hope in playing the fool. There might be something for him in engaging the man in conversation, flattering him. What he would really have liked to do was throw the remaining coffee in the Russian’s white, smirking face and then shove the cup in a sharp thrust against his nose. That would have been suicidal, but that’s what he wanted to do. Instead, he said, “Why did you need to kill them?”

Kolokov’s mouth opened slightly, and then closed as he smiled. The black man had said this in perfect Russian, and had said it without a trace of the fool.

“I need two things,” said Kolokov. “I need to feel danger, physical, immediate danger, for me or for others created by me.”

“It’s a need?” asked James calmly.

“A need,” Kolokov said. “I am definitely a borderline psychopath. At least that is what the psychiatrist at the prison said before I gouged her eyes out.”

“You didn’t gouge her eyes out,” said James.

Kolokov regarded his prisoner very seriously now.

“No, I did not, but I wanted to. The way you want to gouge my eyes out right now. Calling me a psychopath gives my actions a name, but a label explains nothing.”

Kolokov leaned back, reached into his shirt pocket, removed a package of American cigarettes, put them on the table, and didn’t open them.

“You smoke?”

“No,” said James.

“Suit yourself.”

Kolokov opened the package, removed a cigarette, and lit it.

“You need money,” James said.

“I’ll amend that. I want money. I want to be rich. I want things. I want people to do things to, to do things for. I want a very big bathtub with constant hot water, steaming water, clear, clean water.”

“Women?” asked James.

“When I want them.”

“Yes.”

“You understand all this?”

“Yes,” said James, forcing a smile with bruised puffed lips.

James was thinking of a home and family he would probably never see again. Well, that was premature. Kolokov leaned forward across the table and whispered, “I’m surrounded by fools. That doesn’t mean I’d want someone like you with me. Too smart. Can’t trust people like you, but I do like matching wits with them.”

“Honduras,” came the voice of the bald man.

Kolokov turned toward him and said, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Honduras,” the man repeated.

“Does something go with that observation?” asked Kolokov.

“Remember Honduras,” said the bald man.

“Honduras?” repeated Kolokov, looking at James for a possible answer to the question.

James had no answer.

“The man from Honduras,” said the bald man. “Three years ago.”

“Hon-” Kolokov repeated. “I don’t remember any-Guatemala. He was from Guatemala. How did you come up with Honduras?”

“I got it wrong.”

Kolokov looked at James and sat back, smoking and remembering. The Guatemalan had been a tiny man, the color of a pecan shell. He was no more than thirty-five and had fallen under Kolokov’s umbra during a street robbery. On little more than a whim, Kolokov had brought the man, Sanchez, to an apartment, and was about to do something particularly painful to him under the guise of getting him to tell how he might provide ransom money.

Sanchez had worked him perfectly, claimed to be a member of the Guatemalan mission in Moscow, talked Kolokov into a partnership to steal ancient artifacts from Central America and sell them to dealers in Turkey. Kolokov let the man go after they shook hands on a partnership that promised to make both men rich.

The problem was that Sanchez had lied. He was not a diplomat. He was a visiting poet. He knew nothing about artifacts. He knew much about making up stories.

“You really know where there will be a delivery of diamonds?”

“Yes,” said James. “They will be delivered to three Russians who will take them to various cities, where they will be exchanged for cash.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Kolokov.

James was impassive.

“I’m telling the truth.”

“I’ll kill you painfully if they do not appear where you say with the diamonds.”

“I understand.”

Kolokov rose and began to pace the room. If this black man were as smart as he appeared to be, he knew that he would be dying as soon as Kolokov had the diamonds.

“What will you do with the diamonds when you have them?” asked James.

“Sell them?”

“Where? To whom?”

“I know people,” said Kolokov pausing, wary.

“People who can handle millions in diamonds or low-level gluttons who deal in wristwatches and seal skins?”

Kolokov didn’t answer.

“You need to know who can pay for the diamonds,” said James. “You need to know the people who can take the diamonds West to Germany, France, England, the United States, Japan, the people who will pay you for the diamonds when you have them.”

“And you will tell us who they are?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to trust me.”

“No,” said James. “Once you have the diamonds we go to someplace very public where it will be impossible for you to kill me without getting caught. In this public place I will tell you who the contact buyers are.”

“You might lie?”

“We stay in public till you or your people make the first contact,” said James. “I will give you three names. You pick whichever one you like.”

“Sounds good,” said Kolokov, knowing full well that he would have to find a way to kill this smart-mouthed black once he had what he needed. It should not be too hard.

“Guatemala,” warned the bald man.

Kolokov shook his head and smiled at James with a shrug. If it were like Guatemala, at least he would be ready for it. It was also a promising sign that the bald man had not said ‘Honduras.’

“Are you a chess player?” asked Kolokov.

“Yes.”

“A good one?”

“A good one.”

“So am I. Let’s play a game or two.”

“Guatemala,” came the voice from the shadows.

Kolokov grabbed the blue cup from in front of James and hurled it in the direction of the bald man. He hit the man in the face. The bald man made no sound.

“I’ll get the board,” said Kolokov. “Play your hardest, Botswanan.”

“I will.”

James had decided to see what kind of player Kolokov was before devising a strategy that would convince his captor that he was doing his best while letting the Russian win the game. He did decide that, while he would lose the first game, he would surely win the second, but lose the third. Kolokov would sometimes be even, but he would never lose.

James Harumbaki was not the best chess player in Botswana. He was the second-best player. He was confident that he could manipulate the Russian. The best player in Botswana was an Indian who owned four pawnshops. The Indian had finished fourth in the world the previous year.

“Watch him,” Kolokov said, leaving the room to get the chessboard and pieces.

When he was gone, the bald man in the shadows stepped out. His cheek was gushing blood from the cup Kolokov had hurled at him. He calmly looked at James Harumbaki and said, “Honduras.”

Balta had a simple plan for finding the model.

The city was not exactly overrun with modeling agencies and beautiful models. There were some, even a few small offices of agencies with their primary headquarters in Paris or New York. No, finding the model Christiana Verovona had described on the train before she died should not be difficult.

Balta had a list of names he obtained from the agencies. He also looked at photographs. None of the agencies would give him the addresses or phone numbers of any of the women they represented. They didn’t want to risk being cut out of their share of a job.

There was a daily newspaper ad calling for beautiful young girls who were looking for a career in modeling. Balta knew it was a scam, but he called the telephone number in the ad and made an appointment.

When he arrived at the office of the Parisian Modeling Agency just off of a busy street, he was ushered through a reception-waiting room where a girl of no more than fourteen sat on a chipped metal chair next to a woman in her forties.

Balta was taken to a small office where a lean man wearing an unimpressive wig to cover his bald head made a show of rising. He was ridiculous. Dressed in crimson slacks, a blue blazer, a puffy white shirt, and a crimson scarf that almost matched his slacks, he made a show of adjusting his jacket as he sat.

“I am Anatole Deforge,” he said in a French accent which did not disguise his Slavic origin. “And you wish. .”

“To find an old friend I’ve lost track of.” Balta continued smiling.

“An old friend. Then you are not interested. .” he said with disappointment.

“Not at the moment,” Balta added, leaving the door open to what the man who called himself Deforge might be planning to offer.

“Well,” Deforge said with a shrug. “Perhaps. .”

“Perhaps,” said Balta. “I’m looking for Oxana Balakona.”

“Which of us isn’t?” said Deforge.

“You know where she lives?”

“I can find out if she has a residence in Kiev. I know she works here from time to time. I’ve never had the pleasure of representing her.”

Oxana Balakona was far above the aspirations of this little man, but Balta knew how to deal with little men.

“You’ve been very kind,” he said. “I’ll certainly urge her to see you.”

“Would you?” he asked.

“Yes. Perhaps I could get her to come with me to see you later in the week.”

Deforge could not keep himself from clasping his hands till his knuckles were white.

“My door will always be open to both of you.”

“Her address?” said Balta.

Deforge held up a finger to indicate that he would take care of the matter. He picked up his phone and made a call without looking up the number.

“Nina,” he said. “I need the phone number and address of Oxana Balakona. . No. . Yes. Of course, my sweet. If anything comes of it, you will be involved.”

There was a pause. Deforge looked at Balta and smiled. His teeth were false, large, and slightly yellow.

“Ah yes, Nina, fine. I will.”

He hung up and scribbled on a square yellow sheet he tore from a pad.

“You want me to call the number for you?” Deforge asked, holding out the sheet. “It would be no trouble.”

“No, thank you,” said Balta, taking the sheet from him. “I think I want to surprise her.”

The train pulled into the Kiev station. It had been on time. Lydia had packed for Sasha. She had done it quickly, efficiently. Everything had been fitted neatly into the blue cloth duffel bag. The price he had paid for her help had been a twenty-minute speech on life, loyalty, the need for caution, the sad demise of the Communist Party, the end of the benevolent Soviet Union, her certainty that Elena Timofeyeva would try to seduce him, his responsibility to her, his wife, his children, and the uncertainty of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov’s motives.

Sasha had listened, or pretended to, without the usual exasperation and arguments. Lydia had tried with increasing perseverance to get her son to react, but he was having none of this. His lack of response worried her far more than her fear that something might happen in a backward place like Kiev where people marched in the streets over elections.

Adding to her concern was the fact that he leaned over and kissed the top of her her head before he left the apartment.

She had decided that she would have to talk to Rostnikov about Sasha as soon as the Chief Inspector returned from whatever ludicrous expedition he had undertaken in Siberia.

Elena’s packing had taken no more than five minutes. It consisted of putting her small zipper bag of makeup, toothbrush, and tooth powder into the brown leather suitcase that she always kept ready under the bed.

She had ceded the window seat to Sasha so she could watch him during the train ride. His behavior in Georgi Danielovich’s apartment, his taking away the addict’s gun, could have been brave or suicidal. Elena considered the latter to be more likely. His smile did not reassure her. It made her more suspicious.

“You want to go see Maya and your children when we get there?” asked Elena as they walked to the exit where a Kiev detective was to meet them.

“Yes,” Sasha said.

Good, Elena thought but did not say.

“Maya has a cousin, Masha, a model,” he said. “Maybe she can help us find the model we’re looking for.”

The four o’clock meeting in Moscow with the Africans who had given Georgi the diamonds to deliver to Kiev had been a bust.

Georgi had been there, suitcase in hand, pacing in front of the toy store, glancing furtively at Lubyanka Prison, looking as conspicuous and obviously addicted as he was. Elena and Sasha had been watching from inside the toy store. People had passed Georgi, even a young black man in jeans and a blue T-shirt, but the man had not stopped.

After ten minutes Georgi had suddenly stopped pacing. He looked around as if listening to something and then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone, which he held to his ear. He listened, began to say something, and stopped. He put the phone back in his pocket, went up to Elena and Sasha, and said, “They know you’re in here.”

“What did they say?”

“They want their money. I wanted to tell them that I did not have their money,” he said woefully. “But they knew that too. They want me to find the person who killed Christiana and took their money. Shit, I cannot even find my way to the fucking toilet half the time.”

“We will find whoever killed Christiana and took the money,” Sasha said.

“But you will not give the money to the black guys who gave me the diamonds to deliver.”

“No,” said Elena.

Georgi chewed on his lower lip and said, “What do I get out of this?”

“With a little luck, you get to Odessa and you stay alive,” said Sasha.

“That is something,” Georgi said.

Now, in Kiev, Sasha and Elena were in search of a thief and murderer and millions of rubles in diamonds. They had eight days left and the promise of help from the Kiev police unit that dealt with illegal traffic and theft of diamonds and other precious jewels.

There was a chill in the air and a gray sky, which was not particularly welcoming, but the man standing next to the blue and white police car was. He wore dark slacks, a pale blue shirt, and a tan zippered jacket. He was about forty, and to Elena he resembled the Australian actor Russell Crowe.

“Timofeyeva and Tkach?” he asked, holding out his right hand.

“Yes,” said Elena. “Elena Timofeyeva.”

“Sasha Tkach.”

“Jan Pendowski, Detective Inspector.”

They shook hands.

Pendowski opened the car doors. Elena got in the front passenger seat, Sasha in the back. Pendowski got in the driver’s seat and looked at Elena with the approval of a man who was confident of his appeal.

“My wife is here with my children,” Sasha said.

“I know,” said Pendowski. “I’ll take you to her. And?”

“We are looking for a woman, a model, a very beautiful model who has been in television ads. She took a suitcase containing diamonds from a woman who was then murdered on a train back to Moscow.”

“Yes, I know all this. I think I can help you,” said Pendowski with a grin as he started the car.

And he could help them. And he would help them, but not nearly as much as they wished and not in the way they wished.

Jan Pendowski could, if he wished, drive them directly to the apartment of Oxana Balakona. He knew it well. He had recently spent the night next to, on top of, and under Oxana in her bed. And he could certainly take them directly to his own small apartment where, locked in a small, extremely heavy steel safe with very thick walls, was the decorated wooden box into which he had transferred the diamonds.

Jan Pendowski’s plan was to be pleasant and helpful to the Moscow officers, particularly the pretty and not model-thin woman. Jan had grown tired of the thin Oxana whose bones he could feel when his body was pressed against hers. The firm flesh of Elena Timofeyeva was very inviting. She was seated close enough for him to smell. Her scent was pure and natural, a welcome change from the sweet and artificial scent of Oxana Balakona.

The next few days promised to be interesting and very rewarding for Detective Pendowski. He had many circles and dead ends for the Russians before he killed Oxana and delivered her to them.