Red Chameleon

SIX

Sasha sat up on the mattress and groped for something to cover himself, a blanket, something, but there was nothing within easy reach. He brushed his hair from his eyes and realized that he was covered with sweat. The room was small, about the size of a large office at Petrovka. It contained a worn mattress in one corner, on which Sasha was now sitting; metal shelving, rusted and cluttered with bits of wiring, machinery, and dusty cans; a very battered table covered with automobile parts; and the woman named Marina, who stood calmly and quite as naked as Sasha, at least from the waist up. She was about to pull her blouse over her head, and Sasha observed with quite conscious guilt that her breasts were much fuller, much larger and rosier, than those of his own Maya.

He watched her pop her head through the blouse and shake her hair clear. She didn’t look at the naked policeman sitting on the mattress who had, for the moment, forgotten his elusive trousers.

The ceiling of the room was high. In fact, it stretched far above them, perhaps two floors, and since the partition that defined it as a room was made only of thin planks of wood, the sound of grinding machines in the room beyond easily penetrated the sanctum of this unlikely sexual space.

Marina didn’t brush or comb her hair. With confidence she simply tossed her head like an unconscious animal that must clear its field of vision to watch for predators.

Sasha Tkach remembered his pants again, looked about, saw them across the room on a chair near the cluttered table, and tried to urge his body to rise. He touched the hairs on his stomach with a solitary finger and brought it away damp.

Why he had come to this moment of confusion and embarrassment was not completely clear to Sasha Tkach. How he had come to it was as sharp and visual as a poster for increased production glued to the temporary wall outside the Bolshoi.

The woman, Marina, had questioned him, questioned him in painful detail, about his alleged father, the kind of automobile he wanted, the deal they could make. As she had led him through the small workshop with the sullen, muscle-bound man named Ilya at their side, Sasha had the distinct impression that Marina was playing with him, smiling to herself as if she had a secret. She stayed close to Sasha, sometimes touching him, once let her breast run against his arm as she pointed to two men who were spray painting a small Volga. The Volga was basically blue, but under the hand of the two goggled men in overalls, it was turning a deep blood red.

The work space, the factory, was not enormous, but it was large enough to hold five automobiles in various states of alteration. The most striking of the vehicles was a white Chaika suspended about eight feet in the air by heavy chains attached to the front and rear bumpers.

“So, Comrade-” she had said.

Sasha had completed: “Pashkov.”

“Yes, Comrade Pashkov,” she went on, leading him past two goggled men who glanced at him with Martian eyes. “So, what do you think? Anything here you or your wealthy friends would like?”

She had paused, hands on hips, to say this, and Sasha, playing his role, had glanced at her, thinking that there was some provocation in her tone, words, attitude, but deciding that it was simply the woman’s normal tone or his imagination.

All he had to do at that point was to make some deal, any deal, not to appear too anxious, to remember to pause, even idle, and then get to a phone, for surely he had found what he had been searching for. All he had to do was play his role out for a few more minutes. He had looked over at the man called Ilya, who was uncomfortably close, his arms folded across his muscular chest, his eyes filled with suspicion.

“The Chaika,” Sasha said. “It’s just what I need. Perhaps we can make a deal for that and”-he shrugged, beginning to perspire in the closeness of the loud shop and the man and woman who wedged him in-“who knows, some additional vehicles for my friends.”

“Fifteen thousand rubles,” the man called Ilya finally said in a growl.

Sasha had looked around at the Chaika with interest and was about to agree when the woman, who had stepped very close to him, whispered with a smile, showing very white, large teeth, “Thirty thousand rubles.”

“Thirty thou-,” he began.

“Worth every ruble,” she went on with that same smile. He could smell her breath on his face.

“I’ll-” Sasha had said as Ilya picked up a very nasty looking electric tool of uncertain function, umbilically tied to the wall with a thick cord. There was anger in Ilya’s face as he pushed a button on the machine and it roared into artificial life in his hands, a metal blade whirring noisily as the machine vibrated. Something in Ilya’s look made it quite clear that he was experiencing at least antagonism and more likely hatred toward the potential customer. The source of that hatred might be resentment at Sasha’s feigned wealth, suspicion that something was not quite correct, or jealousy of Marina’s attention to him. Whatever it was, Sasha did not like the look of the whirring blade or the noise or the man or the fact that he was now effectively blocked from a clear run to the door through which they had come. He might be able to push past the woman. After all, Ilya was carrying a heavy tool in his hands, and the other two burly men seemed to be reasonably well occupied with their painting. But there were two doors to get through, either of which might have been locked behind him, and there were automobile body parts to leap over and perhaps here and there a small pool of oil on which he might slip. No, though the situation was uncomfortable, his best chance was to see it through, play the role, though he wished now that he had been better prepared for it.

“Comrade Pashkov,” she had said at that point, taking his arm quite firmly, “let’s go into the office and conclude our deal.”

The man named Ilya had flipped a switch on the machine. It shook in his hands, sending it into a louder, angrier paroxysm that seemed to amuse Marina as she led Sasha through a wooden door and into the smaller cluttered room where he immediately saw the mattress in the corner. She closed the door behind them, her back to him a moment, possibly locking the door before she turned to face him, still that look of amusement in her eyes. It was at that point Sasha became well aware of the single drop of sweat on her upper lip, her quite full upper lip. The room was hot, and he felt dizzy. Had he his gun, he would simply have pulled it out and ended the whole charade, but he had purposely left it behind in case he might be searched or the bulge seen by an experienced criminal eye. Besides, he had expected no real danger. Even at this point he told himself that it was imagination, an imagination that any policeman felt in such a situation, the fear that his frail disguise had been penetrated, a sense of guilt at being the deceiver, though he was on the side of law and they were the criminals.

“We must arrange for a place of delivery,” he said in as businesslike a manner as he could muster. “A street corner will be fine. I’ll have the cash in a small box. You can count it, and I’ll-”

It was at that point that she had begun to unbutton her tight jeans. Each metal button, shiny and silver, popped open.

“What-?” he began, but he knew just what she planned.

There was no way he could refuse without a mad story, and his failure to answer her earlier questions about his assumed family and life had already created a possible suspicion that he did not want to build upon by saying that he was impotent, ill, homosexual, or any of several possibilities that sprang to mind. As her jeans dropped to the stone floor, Sasha knew that in his heart of hearts he did not want an excuse. Not only did he have to play out this scene; he wanted to do so. His head was warm and aching. Nausea swirled within, and moments later they were on the mattress in the corner, his clothes discarded, the warm, firm body of the woman on top of him, the smell of her sweat in his face. There was no doubt from the beginning that the woman named Marina was in charge. She grunted, sweated, controlled, urged, kissed, almost smothered him in frenzy, and left him exhausted as she rose and strode across the room to retrieve her clothes.

And so now he sat naked, guilty, confused, and watched her button her American jeans.

“The delivery,” he said, looking for his clothes and trying to gain some control of the situation. The thought struck him that when they were all arrested and brought to trial, the woman would certainly tell what had happened in the room. He didn’t know if he could keep Maya from finding out. He could simply deny it had happened. The court might tell her to be quiet. Perhaps no trial would be necessary. He wished he had a towel to relieve his drenched body and clean away some of the feeling, but all that existed was a grimy sheet crumpled at the foot of the mattress.

“You have delivered,” she said, looking down at him, mocking.

“The money, the automobile,” Sasha said, now feeling at a distinct disadvantage with her dressed.

Marina smoothed her hair and shook her head slowly to indicate a negative.

“But-”Sasha began.

“There is no money, policeman,” she said, her hands back on her lips. “At least I hope you are a policeman, and not KGB. I don’t think you’re KGB. You don’t have the look, the confidence, and a KGB man would have had his background story better rehearsed, at least most KGB men. Even within the KGB there is, sadly, some incompetence.”

Sasha got up and tried indignation.

“Look,” he began, and she indeed looked, which made him stop and feel his exposure from the soles of his feet through his soul.

“I’ve always wanted to make sex with a policeman,” she said, walking to the door. He considered leaping forward, stopping her if he could, and searching for a way, though he was sure there was no way out of this room but through the door through which they had come. The only windows were small and very high on the stone walls.

“You were not bad,” she said, “though you could have participated more. You are remarkably passive for a policeman. Have you ever killed anyone?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling the last possibility of his charade slipping away.

“Good,” she said, beaming. “I like that. Until today, I have never been responsible for anyone’s death. What is your real name?”

Sasha did not answer the question but inched toward the chair behind the table where he hoped he had thrown his clothes.

“There are policemen at the exits to this building,” he said. “It is best if you simply gather a few things and urge your partners to come out with me.”

She shook her head as if a small child had tried to play a trick on her.

“No,” she said. “There are no policemen at the exits. You would not have gone through all this, would not be sweating quite so hard, if you were not alone. Shall I guess, my little policeman? You simply stumbled on us here. You and maybe others are making the rounds, checking places on your own.”

“Make no mistake,” he said, knowing that dignity was impossible without clothing.

“I’ll make no mistake, policeman,” she said. “Ilya will kill you, and we will cut you into little pieces, very little pieces, and bury the pieces deep below the floor.”

With that and before he could move or speak, Marina threw open the door. Beyond it stood a burly, sad-faced man in a rumpled suit who looked something like a massive washtub.

Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov looked beyond the startled woman at the naked detective and pursed his lips. His head shook slightly, and Sasha realized that he could hear the man sigh. The sounds of machinery in the outer room had stopped. Sasha didn’t know when it had happened.

“Put your pants on, Sasha,” Rostnikov said.

“Inspector, I-” Sasha began, but Rostnikov interrupted.

“Pants, Sasha. Dignity.”

Sasha went for the chair, found his pants, and began dressing quickly, without looking at what he was doing, pushing his sockless feet into his untied shoes, buttoning his shirt incorrectly.

Beyond Rostnikov, Sasha could see the man called Ilya and the other two in overalls. Their goggles were off their eyes and on their heads, pushing back their dark hair. All three were taller, younger, than the inspector, who seemed not in the least perturbed.

“He came to the door,” Ilya explained to Marina. “Said he wanted to see the man who had come to buy a car. I didn’t know-”

“It’s all right,” Marina interrupted, looking directly at the rumpled inspector before her with interest. “Inspector-”

“Rostnikov. Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov,” the inspector supplied. “Sasha, come.”

Tkach stuffed his sock into his pocket, brushed his damp hair back, and hurried across the room, past Marina, and to Rostnikov’s side. Ilya and the two goggled men stepped back a bit, confused, into the crowded shop but blocked the path to the door.

Marina, apparently unconcerned and quite curious, closed the door behind her.

“Inspector,” she said, “I had planned to kill one policeman today, but you afford me the opportunity to kill two.”

“Marina,” one of the men in overalls said.

“We kill them quickly,” she explained, “and go out the back through the apartment. It is what we planned from the beginning. These are the only two who have seen us. Even if there are more outside, once we are gone, no one knows our faces. We start again, Ilya.”

Sasha looked at the sullen Ilya, who examined the younger policeman with quite obvious jealousy and hatred. Something metal and tarnished and heavy rested in Ilya’s oilstained hand.

Marina’s eyes met those of Rostnikov. She smiled, and he smiled back. There was something sympathetic in the man’s eyes that she didn’t like, that made her confidence falter. The man was about to die because she willed it, and yet he looked at her with-

“Do it,” she said. “Do it and let’s get out of here. Just leave the bodies on the floor and let’s go before the others outside start breaking down the door.”

Sasha stepped back and felt his bare ankle scrape against metal as Ilya raised the wrench to Rostnikov’s back.

“No,” Sasha screamed, and the Washtub stepped back quickly and to the right. The wrench sliced across his shoulder, and the two men in overalls leaped forward to grab the inspector’s arms. Sasha moved quickly forward toward Ilya and felt Marina’s push. He felt himself tumbling over a blanket-covered engine. His back struck something hard and jagged, and he rolled over, trying to grab something, to help the inspector and himself. Panting, he looked up as Ilya stepped forward toward Rostnikov, whose arms were held by the two men, and made it quite clear that he planned to aim his large wrench more carefully.

The grunt Rostnikov gave was less of exertion than of minor concentration. His two arms came forward, taking with them the full weight of the men holding him. They barely had time for surprise to register. Their bodies collided, and Ilya brought the wrench down solidly on the shoulder of one of the two, who screamed in pain and panic.

The injured man let go of the inspector and grabbed for his broken shoulder while the other man continued to hold his grip on the policeman, which proved to be a mistake of the highest order. Sasha scrambled up and saw a calm look of satisfaction on the inspector’s face as he grabbed the man in overalls with his now-free hand and lifted him off the ground to ward off Ilya’s resumed attack. The injured man, meanwhile, staggered blindly toward the office door and crumpled; gripping his shoulder as Rostnikov, now carrying the bewildered man above him, advanced on Ilya. There was no strain-on Rostnikov’s face, though the man he held above him easily weighed two hundred pounds.

Sasha looked around for Marina and saw her duck behind the half-painted Volga. He staggered after her, skipping over the whimpering man with the broken shoulder and watching with fascination as the wrench-armed Ilya felt his way back from the advancing Rostnikov.

A pause, a beat, and with a slight grunt Rostnikov hurled the screaming man toward Ilya. The grimy missile struck Ilya, sending them both sprawling backward into and over a heavy automobile jack. Ilya scrambled, dazed, out from under the apparently unconscious man atop him and searched for a way of retreating from the patient, limping figure that moved toward him. Sasha would later swear that Rostnikov was humming, humming something that might have been Bach, though later Rostnikov would claim that it had been Vivaldi.

Marina was nowhere to be seen. Sasha moved around the Volga, looking behind machines and parts, into corners. He thought he saw a movement ahead but stopped when the sound of that whirring machine screamed behind him.

Across the room Sasha saw the steadily advancing Rostnikov less than a dozen feet from the now-wild-looking Ilya, who held the grinding saw in front of him. Ilya’s muscles and T-shirt were dark with sweat.

“I’ll cut you in half,” he said through closed teeth, but Rostnikov, whose humming could no longer be heard, simply continued forward until the younger man had his back against the wall, the saw held out in front of him.

Something was said by Rostnikov that Sasha could not quite make out. He thought it was a patient “How long can you hold that?” or something equally conversational. He wasn’t sure over the sound of the saw. If indeed that was the question, it was never answered. Ilya shouted and rushed forward, the saw in front of him. Rostnikov’s left arm shot forward, his sleeve brushing the blade, which tore into the dark material. With his right hand, Rostnikov grasped Ilya firmly by the shirtfront while the inspector’s left arm continued its movement and slapped the still-spinning saw away. The saw struck the floor, sending up sparks as it bit in frustration at the cement. The cord slithered, and it looked to Tkach like an angry snake with a whirring, screeching metal head slithering out of control.

Rostnikov held Ilya up in front of him with one hand as the younger man tried to free himself and punched at the thick arm. Rostnikov whispered something as the snakelike saw skittered and continued to scream until it hit the wall, let out a bright final flash of anger, and went quiet.

“… were going to cut us into little pieces,” Sasha could now hear Rostnikov saying. The man with the broken shoulder was sobbing very gently, feeling sorry for himself.

Ilya’s T-shirt had begun to tear as he screamed, “Bastard,” and swung again at Rostnikov. Rostnikov shook his head in disgust at the inability of men to learn from their mistakes. His arm came back, and with a slight grunt he sent the startled Ilya sailing through the air, his arms flaying behind him, trying to grab something, to look back at where he was going, but the flight was too short. He hit the wall with a sick thud and slipped down in an unconscious heap. There was a stain of blood on the wall where his head had hit, and Sasha was sure that the man’s head was at least broken, if he wasn’t dead.

Rostnikov stood watching as Ilya shifted slightly, tried to rise, and failed, and sat back. Only then did he turn to look for Sasha, whose eyes met his across the room.

“The woman,” Rostnikov said.

“I-” Sasha began, but never finished his answer.

“Here,” she said, and the two men looked around, finding her at the same moment.

She stood next to an old wooden hoist dangling from the ceiling behind the Chaika in the air. The hoist was connected to the chains that held the Chaika in the air. Her hands on the hoist had set the dangling car slowly spinning like a massive white magnet seeking the elusive north. What troubled Sasha even more was that the slowly spinning car was directly above Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.

“You move and I drop the car,” she said with a smile, her hands firmly on the lever of the hoist. “And I don’t think you are fast enough with that dead leg to get out from under in time. What do you think?”

Rostnikov shrugged rather indifferently.

“We must deal,” she said.

Her eyes were fixed on the inspector as Tkach slowly edged behind the Volga and moved behind her.

“What can we do?” Rostnikov said gently. “Would you believe my promises? You let go of that and we have you. You might crush me, it’s true. I don’t think I can make it out from under here in time, but what do you gain? You don’t leave here free.”

“But,” she said, “I’ll have the satisfaction of smashing one bear of a policeman and destroying someone important’s beloved car.”

Rostnikov glanced up at the car slowly spinning over his head and remembered Procurator Khabolov’s look of concern about his beloved white Chaika.

“I don’t like cars,” Rostnikov said softly, conversationally. Moving slowly, carefully, Tkach knew that the inspector was stalling, giving him time and cover to move. Marina’s grip on the hoist lever was firm, and for a horrible instant Tkach considered that his life might well be easier if he shouted, and let her crush Rostnikov, who had seen him naked and compromised. He could then simply murder Marina and- But it was only the next level of guilt upon guilt. He knew it was not in him to act on the evil thought. It came, went, was gone. He crept forward, very carefully.

“You are going to die, policeman,” Marina said with a laugh. “Do you know that?”

“You mean I’m going to die eventually or now? The former I am well aware of and have come to terms with. Of the latter, who knows? The scene is not yet played.”

Tkach was now about seven or eight feet away from her. He crouched next to the fender of the dark car. He could see the woman’s fingers slipping on the lever and knew that whatever was to be done must be done quickly. If Rostnikov were to be crushed, would Sasha wonder if he had purposely made the wrong move?

“Policeman,” she said with some admiration, “you are mad.”

Rostnikov put up a hand-his left hand, with the sleeve that had been cut by Ilya’s saw-and let it sweep the room.

“You are standing there with a dancing car threatening to kill me. Bodies are strewn over. You have no chance to get away, and you call me mad.”

“Perhaps we are both mad,” she countered.

“We are both Russians.” Rostnikov sighed. “You will do what you will do.”

The man with the crushed shoulder decided to let out a small whimper, and Ilya stirred slightly against the wall. The other man Rostnikov had thrown lay quite motionless.

Tkach tried to signal to Rostnikov as he stepped away from behind the dark car. He wasn’t sure the inspector saw him, but he had no time to check.

“Marina,” he shouted.

She turned quickly toward him, her hand touching the lever. The Chaika began to spin wildly as it jerked to a stop.

“No,” she screamed, and Sasha stopped no more than four feet from her, hesitating, watching her hand on the lever, but she was too late. She turned quickly toward the space under the car and realized that Rostnikov had stepped back, limped just beyond the shadow of the massive weight dangling from the chains.

Her eyes met those of the inspector and asked a question. Tkach glanced at Rostnikov, who looked up at the car and shrugged.

Marina’s hand pulled back as Tkach lunged for her, and the Chaika dropped on screeching chains, dropped with a massive crash, its front end hitting first and then its rear. Glass and metal exploded through the room, and Tkach threw himself to the floor. The Chaika and the car-theft operation were no more.

The pain was much worse that day than it had been the day before, but Vera had expected that. Actually, she welcomed it, for she had already committed herself, found meaning to the end of her life. If she were suddenly and miraculously to be cured, to discover it had all been a mistake, then the policeman and the others she had killed would have died for nothing. Well, not for nothing. The corruption would still have existed, but there would have been an irony she did not want to face. There was just so much irony a human can take, she thought as she finished putting the rifle in the trombone case, snapped the flimsy latch, and glanced over at her mother, who had fallen asleep over her sewing.

Adriana Shepovik snored gently, a slight breeze touching her face through the open window. Vera felt nothing for her. Then the pain in her stomach punished her and told her to feel. She tried, tried to imagine her mother alone, as she would be, but Vera could feel nothing but its truth. Vera would not be, and her mother would. Her mother would live without meaning, but she would live and suffer. She was good at suffering, had turned it into an old woman’s art.

Vera took seven or eight deep breaths and then a series of short ones before taking five of her pills. She had bought the pills from a clerk in the medical-supply store. He had been furtive, demanded extra money, refused to give the name of the pills, insisting only that they would temporarily eliminate pain. He guaranteed it. He was right, but the pain stayed away for only short periods, and more and more pills were required to relieve it.

Vera made her way to the metro station and glanced at the sky as she went. There was the possibility of rain, which would be fine. Her original plan was to wander around till night and move to the station she had picked out, but the pain might come again. She didn’t have much time. Maybe if it rained, if the rain came, it would grow dark, would provide an artificial night. She had a sense of incompleteness. It was like reading a newspaper. If a word from a story caught her eye, she had to read the whole story even if the subject didn’t interest her or the story would haunt her. Things once begun had to be finished, and she had decided within herself that she must destroy at least one more soldier or policeman, one more at least. Was that too much to ask after what she had been forced to suffer? If a God existed, would he not grant her this wish, look down at her and say she deserved that satisfaction? If a God existed, he could simply take the soul of the policeman and do with it what he would do, anyway, at some point, as he would do with Vera’s soul if one existed. Vera didn’t think one existed. One’s satisfactions and rewards and revenge came in this life, no other.

She tried to look at no one as she rode the subway, not even at the two sailors who talked in the far corner. She stood, swaying slightly with the movement of the car, trying to hold her upright trombone case close to her so no one would feel its weight and sense its shifting contents. At the Kropotkinskaya metro station, groups of young people carrying little bags jostled past her, hurrying toward the huge Moskva Swimming Pool. She let them flow by her and began her walk and her wait, wishing the sky to darken, hoping she could put off taking more of the pills, which, she knew, created a pleasant disorientation that might hamper her aim and shake her resolve.

She walked around the outside wall of the pool, listening to the screams and voices within. At the Kropotkin embankment beyond the pool she leaned over the stone wall and watched the boats going down the Moscow River. She watched for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, grew restless, felt the pain returning, and started back toward Volkhonka Street. People sped past her now, but she moved across the massive Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. She knew the story of the museum, had visited it frequently, particularly as a child in school when it was thought she had some artistic talent. The building had been erected at the turn of the century. It was, she knew, the largest museum in the Soviet Union outside of the Leningrad Hermitage.

She clutched the trombone case to her, ignoring the looks of guards and visitors. The crowd was large, and she let herself wander, seeing but not absorbing the Greek and Roman collection, the stone statues that would be there long after she was gone. Before she could begin to hate them, she wandered into the picture gallery where she stepped on the foot of a small boy, who screamed.

The boy’s mother looked at Vera, ready to fight, but something in Vera’s face stopped her, and she settled for, “That’s all right, Denis. Some people are blind pigs.”

Vera walked on past Botticellis, Rembrandts, Rubenses, Van Dycks, Constables, Gauguins, Picassos, and Van Goghs. Once they had given her satisfaction. Now they sickened her with their suggestion of timelessness. Vera would leave nothing behind her, no Olympic records, no paintings, her only art of creation one of destruction, a protest.

She had to take more pills. There was no help for it. She shifted the trombone case to her other hand and pulled the bottle out of her pocket. There were not many of the green pills left, perhaps a dozen or so. She would have to go back to the man who had sold them to her, the man who sickened her with his corruption. She placed the case between her legs, poured out some pills, threw them into her mouth, and forced them down dry. It was painful, but the pain in her dry throat distracted her from the pain in her stomach. She stood while people moved about her, the practiced move of Muscovites who watched without making it clear they were doing so. Everyone gave the impression of minding their own business except for a heavyset babushka who walked over and said, “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be walking the streets. You should be home, not giving diseases to other people.”

Vera looked at the angry old woman, who was saying exactly what her own mother would say to a stranger on the street. Either pretend the other person isn’t there or walk right up to them on the street and chastise them for not sharing your moral commitment.

Vera looked at the woman with vague curiosity. She stared down the old woman, who eventually backed away, shrugging and angry.

The sky was darker when she stepped back outside, and she felt some sense of hope. It was going to rain. No doubt. It would rain. She felt dizzy, slightly dizzy, but also somewhat euphoric as she crossed Kropotkin Square and was almost struck by a bus at the corner of Gogol Boulevard. When she started down Kropotkin Street and passed the entrance to the Soviet Peace Committee Building, the sky rumbled distinctly.

“Let’s hurry,” a man growled at a young woman in high heels who gave him an angry glare as they passed Vera.

The street was filled with people, many people, especially soldiers. There were policemen, too, an ample supply. The trick would be to get to her destination, set up, and pick her target just before the rain came or just after it ended. During the rain people would get off the street. She would have to be clever, precise, careful. She would have to remember everything her father had told her about shooting.

She hurried, as well as her failing body would allow, toward her destination, ignoring the people she passed, thinking only of her task, trying to forget the painting in the museum. It had been by some minor English realist. She couldn’t remember what the subject had been, a landscape surely, but what had been in it? It gnawed at her, told her to turn around, go back, complete it, but she didn’t have the time. Not now. Not today. Perhaps later or tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow. There had to be a later or tomorrow. She could not end her life without knowing what was in that painting and without taking her father’s rifle out one more time and finding the right target.

Even had she not been absorbed in her thoughts, even had she glanced back as the sky rumbled and darkened even further, it is doubtful that she would have noticed the tall, vaguely Oriental, pale man behind her with his right arm in a black sling.

Earlier that morning Emil Karpo had been sitting at his desk at Petrovka going over his file and waiting. He had prepared his description carefully and felt confident that it was more than guesswork. Rostnikov was nowhere to be found, and time was passing. He could have gone directly to the Gray Wolfhound, but he had no time or patience for clowns, and so he prepared his description and took it directly to each of the militia supervisors for each district, making it clear that they were to give it not only to those assigned to the various buildings but to all the police on the street, all the uniformed guards in public buildings, and all the officers who had taken up positions on key rooftops.

Emil Karpo was not a man to be ignored. Seven of his supervisors had simply accepted the description and agreed to pass it out quickly. They had no desire to prolong conversation with the Vampire, the Tatar with the dead brown eyes. It was easier to do what he requested. Besides, they might be the next victim of the Weeper, and it would be best to cooperate. A few of the military supervisors balked or sulked, but eventually they all agreed, and Karpo went back to his desk to drink cold tea and wait. The description had been simple. Look for a man or woman, of recognized size and strength, carrying a case long enough to hold a rifle. It might be a music case, a fishing case, anything. The person would probably be alone and might behave erratically.

By seven in the morning the reports had begun coming in. Karpo listened, believing it was too early in the day for the Weeper to appear but not taking any chances. He had actually dispatched two cars to pursue leads by noon, but they had proved negative. One had turned up a carpenter going to work, another a member of the ballet orchestra. At nine he discovered that the Gray Wolfhound had ordered the rooftop surveillance to begin at six that night, since the Weeper always struck at night. Karpo tried to reach Colonel Snitkonoy to get the surveillance to begin immediately, but the colonel was out. And then the call had come from the guard at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, and he was on his way after telling the guard to follow the woman and call her whereabouts back to the museum office where Karpo was heading.

The dispatcher of automobiles was surprised to get a call from Inspector Karpo. He couldn’t remember a single time Karpo had ever ordered a car. The legend was that Karpo thought it a waste of Soviet dollars that could be better spent on real needs. The dispatcher, who felt uneasy even hearing the voice of the Vampire, responded without a word and assigned the driving task to one of the older officers whom he wanted to punish for a minor act of assumed insolence.

Karpo said nothing when the car pulled up in front of the building. He got in the back and cradled his senseless arm. His eyes caught those of the driver watching him in the rearview mirror, and Karpo stared back at the mirror, unblinking. He kept his dark eyes fixed on the mirror for five full minutes, so that each time the driver looked up, he saw his pale passenger solemnly glaring through him. The driver sped onward, wanting to get this assignment done as soon as possible and vowing never to get on the wrong side of the dispatcher again.

Luck had been with Karpo, though he did not think of it as luck. It simply happened. Had he not spotted the museum guard in the crowd on Kropotkin Street, he would have gone to the museum, waited for the guard’s call, and eventually have caught up with the woman. But Karpo saw her, dark and heavy, carrying the case, walking like a somnambulist, her lips moving as she carried on a conversation with herself.

“Corner, stop,” Karpo said, and the driver gladly pulled over with a screech, almost running down a couple with a small child between them. “Go back,” Karpo said, and got out of the car. The car was gone before the pale policeman reached the sidewalk.

The uniformed guard was startled when Karpo tapped his shoulder. He let out a gasp, turned in fear, and recognized the. assistant inspector. The guard was about fifty, his tie stained with sweat.

“She’s-” he began.

“I see,” Karpo said softly, watching the woman amble ahead, clearing a path with her trombone case. “Go back to the museum.”

“I’ll go back to the museum,” the guard repeated, and Karpo moved past him through the crowd as the first drops of rain came from the dark, angry sky.