The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

Chapter Eleven

There was a matinee at the Old Moscow Circus. Rostnikov and Karpo had arrived early, and Porfiry Petrovich had talked to the owner of the very small stolovaya with only three tables and a stand-up cafeteria-service counter that ran the length of the shop. The man who owned the shop owed Rostnikov a big favor. The restaurant owner, whose name was Cashierovsky, said he would put a

“closed” sign in the window immediately. The show was beginning at the circus in fifteen minutes, and most of the remaining restaurant patrons would be attending it.

“Can I bring you something?” the man had said. “My pleasure to treat you?”

“Pahmadoori? ” asked Rostnikov.

“Yes.”

“Good, then booterbrod pahmadoori, tomato sandwich,” said Rostnikov. “And a mineral water. Emil?”

“Nothing.”

“You will hurt Cashierovsky’s feelings,” said Rostnikov, who had chosen the table farthest back from the door, which he faced, with Karpo opposite him.

“Tea and a roll,” said Karpo.

“He is a monk,” Rostnikov explained.

Cashierovsky smiled. He knew well who the Vampire was.

Cashierovsky hurried to fill their order, put out the “closed” sign, and shooed out the remaining patrons, telling them that he had to shut down because he was going to the circus.

They were early. It still wasn’t raining.

The day and the view of the circus reminded Rostnikov of another day several years earlier, when he had stood in the rain and watched a circus performer commit suicide by leaping from the head of the statue of Nikolai Gogol in Gogol Square. It had happened right before the eyes of Rostnikov and the traffic policeman in the nearby tower, in addition to dozens of spectators, some of whom had urged the man to jump.

Rostnikov loved circuses. He had taken Iosef many times when Iosef was a boy. He had already taken the two little girls twice. And Sarah, Sarah loved the beautiful, sad clowns and the graceful aeri-alists. Perhaps he could get tickets after this meeting and take Sarah, the girls, and their grandmother. Perhaps he would invite Iosef. Maybe he could even talk Karpo into coming.

Yes, perhaps, and perhaps a circus fairy would leap from the pages of a Lermontov book and give him the money to pay for such an outing.

He wanted to call Sarah, but there was no way of doing so now.

He would simply go home after this meeting and discuss the surgery.

Cashierovsky, a small, pudgy man with very little hair and a wheeze of asthma abetted by the growing pollution of the city, moved as quickly as he could to serve his guests.

“Looks good,” said Rostnikov. “Emil?”

“It looks very good.”

“Tomatoes were a treat when I was a boy,” said Rostnikov, picking up his sandwich.

Cashierovsky stood waiting.

“Delicious,” said Rostnikov, chewing on the bite of sandwich he had taken.

Karpo bit into his roll. “Very satisfying,” he said.

“Peto,” Rostnikov said, “some men will be here in about ten minutes. Two men, I hope. Would you leave the door unlocked and stand near it in case others wish to ignore the ‘closed’ sign?”

“Of course,” said Cashierovsky, already moving back behind the counter.

“You remember my friend Cashierovsky?” asked Rostnikov, savoring his sandwich and mineral water.

“Yes,” said Karpo, slowly eating his roll and sipping his tea.

“Three students from Moscow University beat him, his wife, and his sons, because they are Jewish. They broke his windows and told him to move.”

“What a memory,” said Rostnikov, genuinely impressed, since the incident had happened almost a decade earlier when Rostnikov was still chief inspector in the Office of the Procurator General.

Karpo had not helped with that case. Rostnikov had quickly found the three students and given them the choice of court and certain prison, or dropping out of school and going their separate ways outside of Moscow, after turning over a sum sufficient for Cashierovsky to repair his restaurant. He had also warned them that they would be watched for the rest of their lives, that they were now in the central computer.

The trio had left within a day.

Had they remained, Rostnikov was certain the insane justice system would have been sympathetic to them and probably let them go with a mild warning and a token fine that would not even repair one window they had broken. As for keeping their names in a central computer, it was little better than a joke. Rostnikov wondered what university students were being taught if they did not know the system was nearly useless. The only ones at the time who had decent monitoring systems were the KGB, and they would have no interest in cluttering the memories of their computers with such matters.

But that was long ago. Times had changed. The bureaucracy was different. Things were worse.

Chenko, the one-eyed Tatar, was the first to arrive. The young man who had met Rostnikov before his first encounter with Chenko came out of a car illegally parked at the curb. The windows of the car were tinted. The young man looked both ways and around the street. Then he looked through the window, saw Rostnikov, and returned to open the back door of the parked car. A moment later Chenko came out of the car and quickly entered the door of the restaurant, which the young man helped open for him.

The man stood outside the door, his back to the restaurant, and Chenko moved forward to the table.

“What is this?” said the Tatar.

“A tomato sandwich,” said Rostnikov.

“I don’t like jokes,” said Chenko, cocking his head from side to side to look at the two men.

“Neither does my associate,” Rostnikov said, nodding at Karpo.

“Please sit.”

“If this is a trap,” Chenko said, “my men have been ordered to kill both of you very painfully and then to do the same to all the members of your families till your line is erased.”

“That,” said Rostnikov, “is very colorful. The Godfather, something like that. I believe you, Casmir Chenko. Your problem is that if we were to be killed, our friends would destroy your families. We could start a regular old-style feud with our descendants killing each other, forgetting eventually why they were doing so. This is not a trap. Please sit.”

The gnarled, one-eyed man sat at the table with his back to the side wall. He was between the two policemen.

“Mineral water? Something to eat?”

“Nothing,” said Chenko. “I will remain here for five minutes, no longer.”

At this point, Cashierovsky appeared with a large, round metal tray covered with small plates of food- ukha, fish soup; meat boiled in kvass and served with kasha. He placed the plates and forks out for the men, and, after putting the empty tray on the counter, the shopkeeper moved to stand next to the front door of his establishment, as Rostnikov had asked him.

Rostnikov’s eyes moved to the door as did Chenko’s single eye.

Karpo did not turn. He finished the last piece of his roll and served himself a plate of kasha. Rostnikov ate with one hand, the other in his lap within easy reach of the weapon under his jacket.

Chenko started to rise. “I will not talk to him,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” said Rostnikov. “I would like you to simply listen to me. Sit, please.”

Rostnikov knew that Chenko’s gesture had been for show. In his call asking the Tatar to meet here, he had been clear that Shatalov would also be present.

Outside the door Shatalov posted his own man, who stood facing Chenko’s young man. There was certainly a carful of Chechins close by.

Shatalov moved to the table. His smile was gone. He did not look at Chenko. “There is no point to this,” said Shatalov. “It is too late for talk. I agreed to a truce and he. . that smirking Tatar murdered one of my best men.”

“You are here, sit,” said Rostnikov. “Casmir Chenko did not murder your man as you had not murdered his man.”

“I. .”

“You will please sit,” said Rostnikov loudly, bringing a fist down on the table that made the two men outside the restaurant and Peto Cashierovsky start nervously.

Shatalov sat and motioned to his man outside that everything was calm. Chenko did the same.

“I now know you have a temper, policeman,” said Shatalov, “and terrible taste in clothes.”

“My anger comes unbidden. As for the clothes, I had an accident,” said Rostnikov.

“Others can be arranged,” said Shatalov, looking at Chenko for the first time.

“Easily,” said Chenko.

“One-eyed, wattle-necked rooster,” said Shatalov, whose white hair looked even whiter than it had the day before.

“Irving,” said Chenko.

“Do you want to know who killed your men and why, or do you want to simply leave here ignorant and continue the war that is costing you lives and rubles?” asked Rostnikov.

“Why do you care?” asked Chenko.

“Innocent people will die,” said Rostnikov. “I don’t care about you or your men. Innocent people have already died because of you.”

Rostnikov picked up the newspaper article which he had placed facedown on the table. He handed it first to Chenko, who cocked his head to one side to read it with his good eye. When Chenko was finished, he handed it back to Rostnikov, who handed it to Shatalov, who read it quickly and returned it to the policeman.

“The name of the boy who died when your men had a street fight, a fight over an insult, not even over territory, a fight. . the name means nothing to you, either of you? The underlined name?”

“Nothing,” said Chenko.

“Nothing,” said Shatalov.

“Emil, tell them the name of the killer of their men.”

Karpo did as he was told.

“I don’t know this person,” said Shatalov.

“I don’t either,” said Chenko.

“Yes, you do,” said Rostnikov. “I will tell you and convince you, and you will stop your war before it begins. I have no illusions. At some time, you will start killing each other again, and though it may make no difference to either of you, if one more innocent person dies, I will see to it that you are both brought to justice. This I promise you and myself.”

“Talk,” said Shatalov, looking at his watch. “I told my men I would be in here no more than ten minutes.”

“I told my men five minutes,” said Chenko. “And those minutes are almost up.”

And so Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov pushed his plate away and explained. They listened. There was not much to tell. When he was done, Chenko rose immediately.

“You are both convinced?” asked Rostnikov.

Neither man spoke. Both nodded that they were convinced.

“There is a condition to my telling you this truth,” Rostnikov went on, pulling the plate of food back so he could reach it. “You are not to seek out or harm the one who did this.”

“That cannot be,” said Chenko.

“It cannot,” said Shatalov.

“An eye for an eye. Five gangsters for one child,” said Rostnikov, his hand still in his lap. “I want your word.”

“You will accept our word?” asked Shatalov.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“No more killings?” said Shatalov, looking at Chenko.

“Not from the person I have just named,” said Rostnikov.

“You have my word,” said Chenko.

“You have mine,” said Shatalov.

“I arrived first,” said Chenko. “I leave first.”

Shatalov opened his mouth to speak, but Rostnikov stopped him. “Go,” Porfiry Petrovich said, and the one-eyed man left.

When he had entered the car with tinted windows, followed by the young man he had posted at the door, Rostnikov nodded at Shatalov that he could leave. The white-haired gangster rose and departed. Rostnikov eased his weapon into the pocket of the ugly slacks of Leon’s dead father-in-law.

When Shatalov was no longer visible outside the door, Rostnikov said thank you to Peto, who took down the “closed” sign, hurried to the table, and asked no questions about what had just happened in his restaurant, though he was pulsing with curiosity.

“Another tomato sandwich?” asked Cashierovsky.

“Why not? Another roll and tea for you, Emil Karpo?”

Karpo shook his head.

“I’ll wrap the food you didn’t eat to take home,” said the restaurant owner.

“That would be very nice,” said Rostnikov.

The pudgy restaurant owner hurried off to make another sandwich for Rostnikov.

“Were you genuinely angry when you struck the table, Porfiry Petrovich?” asked Karpo. “It was very unlike you, but most effective.”

“I was genuinely angry, Emil,” said Rostnikov. “I have a family crisis. Elena Timofeyeva has been injured and I am wearing a jacket and pants that would befit a clown across the street. I have a bad feeling. I was angry, but perhaps not as angry as I appeared.”

A bag containing the uneaten food and a second tomato sandwich appeared in front of Rostnikov. On the plate next to it was a firm peach.

“You remembered,” said Rostnikov.

“I remembered your love of peaches,” Cashierovsky said.

“Enjoy.”

“He’s back,” Ivan Pleshkov said to Iosef over the phone.

“Does your father know you are calling me?” asked Iosef, sitting at the desk in his cubicle. He had been about to go out the door and head for the home and office of Leon the doctor. Porfiry Petrovich had left a message for his son telling him where Elena was, that she had been injured but that she was fine.

Iosef had wanted to see for himself, to be with her, but the phone had rung and Yevgeny Pleshkov’s son was on the line.

“Is he planning to leave?”

“I don’t think so,” said the son. “He looks tired. He looks like cat vomit.”

“Has he said anything to you or your mother about where he has been, what he has done?”

“He doesn’t have to,” said Ivan. “He’s been whoring, drinking, gambling, behaving like a fool. The great potential leader of the people is a buffoon, but what is new about that?”

“Can you keep him there?” asked Iosef.

“I can’t keep him anywhere,” said Ivan. “He goes where he wishes, does what he pleases, helps the masses and abuses individuals. But from the look of him he is at least content to be home for the immediate future. My mother has asked no questions. She will, though, and he will give her stupid lies. She will pretend to believe them. It is over. He is back till next time. Good-bye.”

Ivan hung up the phone and so did Iosef.

The proper thing to do at this point was to tell everything to the chief inspector, his father, but Porfiry Petrovich was out somewhere with Karpo and it was possible that Yevgeny Pleshkov might run off again. He either had to act on his own or talk to Director Yaklovev, which he preferred not to do. But he had little choice.

Instead of calling, he walked to the director’s office and asked if the Yak was in. The dwarfish Pankov began to sweat almost immediately. He had been given a specific list by Director Yaklovev. Except in an emergency, no one else was to be admitted to his office.

Porfiry Petrovich was on the list. No other member of the Office of Special Investigation was.

“Is this an emergency?” asked Pankov, looking at the director’s office door.

“It is,” said Iosef. “And we are wasting time.”

“What is the emergency?”

“Something for the ears of the director only.”

“I can ask him,” Pankov almost pleaded. “But I must have some idea. .”

“Tell him it is about Yevgeny Pleshkov,” said Iosef. “Tell him it is urgent. Tell him. .”

The director’s door opened and Yaklovev, spire-straight, said,

“Come in, Rostnikov.”

Oh, by my mother’s saints, thought Pankov, he can hear everything that is said out here. He has wired my space.

This was terrifying news to the little man, who now searched his memory, frantically wondering, fearing, that he had said something in the last months, something that would eventually mean his ruin.

I should have known, Pankov thought. I should have suspected.

Oh, god. He doesn’t care if I know. He is planning to replace me, to drive me into a breakdown and replace me.

The door closed behind the two men.

Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov had many things on his mind when he returned to his office. He wanted the day to be over so he could talk to and be with Sarah. He wanted to bring in the killer of the Chechins and Tatars. He wanted quite a few things, but he did not want to find Lydia Tkach sitting in front of his desk with her arms folded when he returned from his meeting with Shatalov and Chenko.

He sat behind his desk, put his hands flat in front of him, and looked at the thin woman attentively. That she was furious was obvious. Sasha’s mother did not hide her opinions or feelings. And her primary feelings were reserved for her only son.

“Elena Timofeyeva was attacked by a wild tiger,” she said.

“A tiger?” asked Rostnikov. “Contrary to rumors you may have heard, I can assure you, Lydia, that there are no packs of wild tigers roaming the streets of Moscow. There are animals far more dangerous, but not tigers. It was a dog.”

“Anna Timofeyeva said it was a tiger.”

Rostnikov seriously doubted this, since Lydia was shouting and not wearing her hearing aid. Actually, she almost never wore the hearing aid, which made conversation with her very public.

“A dog,” said Rostnikov.

“Then a dog,” Lydia conceded with exasperation. “Anna Timofeyeva says she will probably die.”

“Elena Timofeyeva is probably home by now,” said Rostnikov, trying hard to keep from looking at his watch. “She has some injuries but she is fine.”

“We shall see,” said Lydia with suspicion. “She was working with my Sasha, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then he may be attacked by some animal, may be killed,” she said, challenging the chief inspector.

Sasha was certainly in danger from animals with guns, but a second dog attack was unlikely.

“I think he is in relatively little danger,” Rostnikov said, reaching under the desk to try to adjust his leg through the trousers of Leon’s dead father-in-law.

“Relatively?” Lydia shouted. “Relatively? There shouldn’t be any relatively for Sasha. There should be no danger.”

“He is a police officer,” said Rostnikov patiently. “There is always some danger when one is a police officer.”

“Not if one sits behind a desk,” Lydia said, leaning forward with a cunning smile.

“He does not want to sit behind a desk. I don’t know if I could get him moved behind a desk even if he wanted to. We have had this conversation many times, Lydia Tkach.”

“And we will have it many more times till you do something to protect my Sasha.”

There was a knock at the door of his office. Rostnikov called,

“Come in.”

Pankov entered with a very false smile and a steaming mug.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you might like some tea.”

“That would be nice,” said Rostnikov.

“Can I bring some for the lady?” Pankov asked, placing the tea before Rostnikov.

“What?” said Lydia, looking at the little man as if he was an intrusive insect.

“Tea,” Rostnikov said loudly.

“No.”

“This is Sasha Tkach’s mother. This is Pankov, the director’s secretary,” said Rostnikov.

The tea was hot and sweet, a strong tea. It was clear that Pankov wanted something. This was the first time the little man had been in his office, and Porfiry Petrovich was confident that Pankov had never been in the room across the hall with its cubicles for the other inspectors.

“I would like to speak to you, Chief Inspector,” Pankov said, trying to smile apologetically.

“I’ll come down to your office when we are finished.”

“No,” Pankov shouted loud enough for Lydia to hear him clearly and look up at him. “No. I will come back. Don’t come to my office.”

Pankov left quickly.

“Strange man,” said Lydia, looking at the door. “He could have offered me some tea.”

“He did,” said Rostnikov, but her back was turned and she clearly did not hear him.

Then she turned.

“I cannot tell Sasha Tkach what to do,” said Rostnikov, wrapping his thick fingers around the hot mug. Thunder grumbled somewhere far away. “He is a grown man.”

“He has a wife, two children, a mother,” said Lydia.

“I do not have time for this conversation which, as we have agreed, we have had many times before,” said Rostnikov.

“And you always sit there like a. . a. . Buddha, a sphinx, a clerk at the postal office.”

“I have an only son, too,” said Rostnikov. “He is a policeman. It was his choice.”

“And you were happy with his choice?” Lydia said with most un-subtle sarcasm.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “And no.”

“If Sasha is hurt, I will hold you responsible,” she said, pointing a thin finger across the desk.

“I will probably do the same, Lydia Tkach,” he said. “But that does not alter the fact that I cannot force Sasha to take a job in the office.”

“You mean you will not,” she said.

“Perhaps.”

Lydia rose suddenly, lifting her Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag filled with vegetables, a few pieces of fruit, some cans of Hungarian soup, and two new pairs of socks.

“Sasha has not been himself,” she said, changing her tone from aggression to a deep, solemn concern.

“I have noticed, Lydia.”

“He has been sullen, depressed. I think, and I don’t want this to go beyond this room, that he has. . that he has been with women other than Maya. He is his father’s son.”

“So are we all, Lydia.”

“I think Maya is planning to take the children and leave my Sasha,” she said. “Take them back to the Ukraine. I know she is. I won’t see them. If Sasha. .”

“You want me to talk to Maya?” he asked.

“Could it hurt?”

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Then talk to her, Porfiry Petrovich. Talk to her soon.”

“I will,” he said.

Lydia pulled herself together, stood tall, and said, “I have money, Porfiry Petrovich. I could buy my son a shop or help him get started in a business.”

“I know,” said Rostnikov. “You want me to talk to Sasha too?”

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded to indicate that he would do so. Lydia left.

Rostnikov raised the mug of still-very-hot tea to his lips. A knock at the door and Pankov entered before Rostnikov could tell him to come in.

Pankov closed the door, smiled at Rostnikov, and quickly sat in the chair that Lydia had just vacated.

“Director Yaklovev had to go to a meeting at the ministry,”

Pankov said.

“That’s nice,” said Rostnikov. “That is what you wanted to discuss?”

“No,” Pankov said nervously. “We have known each other for many years.”

“About eight,” said Rostnikov. “The tea is good.”

“Thank you,” said Pankov with a smile that suggested a man in desperate need of root-canal surgery.

The little man shifted in the chair uncomfortably and looked at the closed door as if he feared the sudden entrance of uniformed, helmeted, and armed men.

“Pankov, can I help you with something?”

The little man turned back to face Porfiry Petrovich. The office was warm but not warm enough to account for Pankov’s perspira-tion. Then again, Pankov perspired very easily.

“Can you recall ever having said anything in my office or, more important, my saying anything to you in my office that would, might be considered. . indiscreet?”

“Knowing you from our many pleasant exchanges,” said Rostnikov, drinking more tea, “I would doubt if you ever spoke indiscreetly. I, on the other hand, am on occasion given to utterances that might well be considered indiscreet, though I can recall no specific instances. Would you care to tell me what we are talking about?”

“I have reason to believe,” said Pankov softly as he now leaned toward Rostnikov, “that there is a microphone in my office and that the director can hear everything that goes on, everything that is said.”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“Yes? All you have to say is yes? You knew this?” asked Pankov, removing his glasses.

“Yes,” Rostnikov repeated, putting the mug aside, pulling his pad of paper toward him, and writing something in pencil.

Pankov assumed Porfiry Petrovich was simply making one of his cryptic drawings. After meetings in the director’s office, Pankov had many times examined the pads left behind on the table. There were seldom any words on Rostnikov’s pad, and the words that were rarely there made little sense and seemed to have no relevance to anything that had gone on at the meeting. Pankov had saved all the notes and drawings left behind by all the inspectors. He remembered one of Rostnikov’s notes in particular. It contained two drawings of birds in three-dimensional squares. One bird was black. The other white. And the words “monks, monks, monks”

were neatly printed below the birds.

“Porfiry Petrovich. .” Pankov had begun when Rostnikov tore off the sheet on which he had written and held it up for the little man to read. The letters were large but Pankov’s eyesight left much to be desired. He leaned closer, adjusted his glasses, and silently read: “ALL OF OUR OFFICES ARE WIRED.”

Pankov sat back in his chair. Actually, he fell back and began to look around the room.

“Pankov, you may well be wrong.”

“Yes, yes, yes. I may be wrong. Probably am. I’ve been working hard.” Pankov rose in confusion and turned toward the door.

“Wait,” said Rostnikov.

“What?”

He held up the now-empty mug and handed it to the little man.

“It was very good. Thank you.”

Pankov nodded and headed in dazed confusion out of the office. He had trouble closing the door behind him and came very close to dropping the mug. But he managed to juggle and catch it before it fell to the floor.

Yaklovev was many things. Corrupt, self-serving, ambitious. He was also loyal to those under him upon whom he depended for his success. Yaklovev was smart, very smart. He was not a man to un-derestimate, and Rostnikov did not intend to do so. Porfiry Petrovich had known his office was monitored two days after the Yak had become director, given Rostnikov a promotion, and assigned him this private office. The microphone was well hidden behind a panel in the ceiling almost directly over the desk. It had taken Rostnikov almost half an hour to locate it. He could have done so faster, but climbing atop the desk with one good leg was an invitation to disaster.

Since Rostnikov respected the director’s intelligence, he doubted if the conversation he just had with Pankov would fool him for an instant. The director would know, when he listened to the tapes, which must now be rolling to record silence, that Rostnikov knew about the microphone.

“Like the old days,” Rostnikov said aloud for the ears of the Yak.

Fifteen minutes later, after he had spoken with Sarah on the phone, Rostnikov and Emil Karpo were on their way to pick up a murderer.

“It’s early,” said Sasha with a yawn, his mind moving quickly to adjust to the unexpected appearance of Boris Osipov. “I thought you were coming at seven tonight.”

“Meeting is earlier,” said Boris. “We’ll pick up the dog now.”

“He may not be ready,” said Sasha. “He needs his rest.”

“Dmitri, let us get your dog. Hurry.”

Sasha had been looking out the hotel room window when Boris had arrived. There was nothing he wanted to do, nothing he wanted to read, nothing he wanted to see, though the television set was on.

When the knock had come, Sasha had picked up a magazine and opened the door. Now he slowly prepared to go with the older man, wondering how he could leave word that he had been forced to leave early.

What is the worst that can happen? he asked himself. Rostnikov and a dozen armed men would simply show up at the dog arena.

Nimitsov and the others would be arrested, and Sasha would hand over the small tape recorder in his pocket which should then have the entire conversation of the meeting he was about to attend. If he was searched, which he doubted he would be, he would simply and readily admit that he was planning to tape the meeting for his own protection. It would be reasonable, coming from the criminal he was supposed to be. For further protection, a gun had been hidden in a sliding tray under the portable dog cage in which he would transport Tchaikovsky. Sasha hoped he would not need the weapon.

And then again, he hoped he would. This man waiting for him and Nimitsov had tried to kill Elena. And for some reason, Sasha was sure they had killed Illya Skatesholkov. They would certainly kill Sasha with very little provocation.

Sasha Tkach had left the room earlier, had an expensive lunch in the hotel, and called Maya at work from a phone booth. In case someone was watching him, Sasha smiled a lot when he spoke and tried his best to suggest that he was speaking to a woman, which he was, but not the kind of woman a watcher might assume. The clerk at Maya’s office said she was not in. He called her at home.

“It’s me,” he said. “Why didn’t you go to work?”

“Because your mother couldn’t stay with the children,” she said.

“She said she had to go see Porfiry Petrovich. Do you know why she had to see him, Sasha?”

The baby started to cry in the background.

“No,” he said, but he knew.

“Are you enjoying your assignment, Sasha?”

“No,” he lied.

“Are you doing dangerous things, suicidal things?”

“No,” he repeated.

“I love you, Sasha.”

“I love you, Maya.”

“I’m leaving you, Sasha,” she said. “I’m taking the children and going back to my family in Kiev.”

“No,” he said finding it difficult to hold his smile and keep his voice down. “Please wait till this assignment is over. We should at least talk before you do something like this.”

“If you change, can prove that you have changed, we will come back. My brother is doing very well in the automobile business. He wants us. He has a job for me. Don’t follow us. I’ll call you. When, and if, I think you have changed, we can talk about our returning.”

It was growing ever more difficult to keep smiling, but Sasha managed. “Wait till I get home,” he said. “I should be finished late tonight.”

“We will be gone by late tonight,” she said. “You feel trapped by us. You will no longer be trapped. Maybe you will find it unsatisfying. Maybe you will feel liberated. We’ll see.”

“Maya,” he said, “have you been with another man?”

“No,” she said.

He believed her. She pointedly did not ask him if he had been with another woman.

“Wait till I get home,” he said, “please. We’ll talk. I can change.”

“Maybe you can, but I don’t think so. I do not want to talk.

Good-bye, Sasha. I do love you.”

“Maya. .”

She hung up.

That was less than an hour ago, and now Boris stood waiting for him in the hotel room. Sasha adjusted his jacket and tie and nodded that he was ready.

Boris drove. Sasha sat in the seat next to him and tried not to look for backup that might be behind him but probably wasn’t. It had been too early. It would be hours before backup came. Nimitsov had said they would be picking Sasha up much later.

At the converted garage at the end of the narrow passageway off the Arbat, Sasha made as much noise as he could, talking loudly to Boris, telling him an off-color story he had actually heard from the mistress of a car-hijacking gang when Sasha had been undercover several years earlier. The woman, with Sasha’s cooperation, had seduced the policeman. Boris was in no mood to laugh at the joke.

He had seen Peter Nimitsov kill Illya Skatesholkov. Boris had no particular fondness for Illya, though they had worked reasonably well together. But Boris did have a fondness for Boris, and if Nimitsov could go wild and kill a man who had simply protected Peter’s prize dog, what might Boris accidentally do that would earn him a bullet in the brain? The baby-faced Nimitsov was definitely getting crazier and crazier. Boris had spent much of the day trying to figure out how he might be able to get some money and go somewhere far away-Canada, Australia, Japan. Hidden in his small apartment was a very legal passport Boris had bought with bribes, for one thousand dollars. One could get a passport by simply applying for one, but that meant long lines and weeks of waiting.

Boris had received his passport in less than a day.

And so Boris was in no mood to laugh at the loud off-color joke he would normally have found funny. And he was too preoccupied to notice that Dmitri Kolk’s voice had grown uncharacteristically loud when he told his joke.

Sasha made as much noise as he could reasonably make as he opened the unlocked door, held it half open, and said something to Boris that he hoped would alert the trainer inside the garage. It did, but the trainer was not doing anything that would have alerted Boris in any case. He was exercising one of the dogs, a German shepherd, in the mesh-surrounded area in the middle of the garage.

“I need Tchaikovsky now,” said Sasha.

The trainer, wearing black denims, a white T-shirt, and thick leather gloves, nodded and climbed into the exercise pen. The shepherd looked up, sensing that his time uncaged was shorter than usual. It was a sensation he did not like. The dog began to growl.

Boris and Sasha stood watching as the trainer slapped the side of his leg. This time the dog trotted to his side.

Less than five minutes later, Boris and Sasha were carrying the cage containing the pit bull to the car. The gun in the tray under the cage was inside a holster firmly taped to keep it from sliding.

Sasha had a fantasy of getting the weapon, shooting Boris, Nimitsov, and anyone else at the meeting, and running to stop Maya from taking the children to Kiev. Kiev wasn’t even safe. People were still dying there from the Chernobyl fallout.

But Sasha knew he would do no such thing, and he had little hope that his wife and children would still be there when he got home.

“Deputy Pleshkov,” Iosef said, “we would like you to accom-pany us back to Moscow.”

Akardy Zelach stood back but forced himself to keep from looking down. Yaklovev himself had, according to Iosef, ordered them to take a car, with a driver, out to Pleshkov’s dacha.

Both policemen anticipated that the confrontation at the end of the journey would not be easy. And it wasn’t.

Pleshkov looked sober, somber, cleaned, and well groomed. This was the Pleshkov of television interviews, the confident man with the smile of understanding.

Pleshkov’s wife stood behind him in the small reception area of the dacha. The son, Ivan, was nowhere in sight.

“No,” said Pleshkov. “I am sorry. I’m too busy. I have a speech to give at the assembly tomorrow. I must get it finished today. A trip to Moscow and then back would interrupt my thoughts and eat too deeply into my time. The day after tomorrow might be possible.”

“Deputy Pleshkov,” said Iosef politely, “this is very important.”

“I’m sorry,” said Pleshkov, looking genuinely sorry.

“May we speak to you in private?” asked Iosef.

“My wife can hear anything you might have to say,” he said.

“Murder,” said Iosef.

“Murder?” repeated Olga Pleshkov.

“Murder? ” said Yevgeny Pleshkov.

“A German,” said Iosef. “Wouldn’t you like to come with us?”

“Perhaps I should,” Pleshkov said with a sigh. “If this is about a murder and you think I may be able to help.”

“What is this, Yevgeny?” Pleshkov’s wife asked.

“You heard the young man,” Pleshkov said. “Apparently a German has been murdered.”

“So?” she asked. “What has that to do with you? Germans are murdered in Moscow all the time. Frenchmen are murdered. Finns are murdered. Americans are even murdered. You are not called to Moscow for every murder. What is so diplomatically significant about this German that your presence is immediately required?”

“That is what I intend to find out, my dear,” said Pleshkov, looking not at her but at Iosef.

When they were in the car watching Pleshkov’s wife through the window, the deputy, seated between Zelach and Iosef, said,

“Would you have arrested me had I refused to come?”

“Yes,” said Iosef.

“I see,” said Pleshkov as the car pulled away onto the dirt road.

“I’m sure we can settle this quickly and I can be back at my desk in a few hours, finishing my speech.”

“I don’t know,” said Iosef, looking forward, as was Zelach. “That will be up to Director Yaklovev.”

Pleshkov turned to look back at his wife standing tall, hands clasped in front of her. Ivan Pleshkov suddenly appeared in the doorway of the dacha. They both watched the unmarked police car head toward Moscow.

Pleshkov looked up at the sky. Still no rain. He had never seen anything quite like this in Moscow. The sky had been dark for days.

Thunder crashed. The wind swirled, but it did not rain. Yevgeny Pleshkov did not believe in omens, but he silently cursed the sky and to himself said, Rain, damn you. Rain.

The room was not large and contained relatively little. A bed with a pillow and a green blanket, a small table with two chairs, an electric hot plate, a cabinet that certainly held a few plates and cups, a sink, a battered chest of drawers, and a curtained-off area in a corner.

Raisa Munyakinova should have been in bed after her night of work, but she was dressed and tired when Rostnikov knocked at her door. She did not appear surprised when she opened the door and saw him and Karpo standing before her.

“You know why we are here?” Rostnikov asked gently.

“You have found the killer,” she said. “Come in. Would you like some tea, coffee? I don’t have too much to eat or drink at the moment. I’ve had little time to shop.”

“I’ve already had tea,” said Rostnikov.

“Thank you, no,” said Karpo.

Raisa moved to sit heavily on her small bed.

“It is not the man I described, is it,” she said. “Not the man in the coat.”

“No,” said Rostnikov.

He and Karpo stood before her. She looked up at them, nodding in understanding.

“May I sit?” asked Rostnikov.

She pointed to one of the wooden chairs. Rostnikov sat with some difficulty, holding onto the table to keep from toppling backward. Karpo continued to stand.

“You were on the cleanup crew at the Leningradskaya Hotel last night,” said Rostnikov, looking at Raisa, who showed only a distant blankness. “You work there regularly in addition to doing shifts at several hotels.”

“Yes,” she said.

“In fact, you were working the hotels on the nights when five Tatar and Chechin Mafia men were murdered,” said Rostnikov.

Raisa shrugged.

“We have the records and a newspaper photograph of you carrying your dead son who was killed in a gun battle between the two gangs.”

“I should have protected him with my body,” she said, shaking her head. “I keep seeing it, feeling myself trying to think.”

“There was no man in a coat,” said Rostnikov, “was there?”

Raisa shrugged again and looked up at Karpo. There was no sympathy, no condemnation in the pale face of the policeman.

“No,” she said.

“Would you like to tell us what happened, or shall we keep fishing?” asked Rostnikov. “I fish fairly well, but it helps if the fish cooperates. It is less painful for the fish and the final results are the same.”

Raisa Munyakinova began rocking forward and back, looking at the floor as she spoke.

“I made up the man in the coat and told the night manager of the health club that he was there, and later that he had left. The night manager seems to believe that he saw this man. You want to know why he believes?”

“Yes,” said Rostnikov.

“Because I am nobody,” she said. “My son was a nobody. I am a drudge, a woman with no face who cleans men’s hair from toilet seats and mops up vomit and sprays showers that smell of alcohol.

They don’t look at me. They don’t see me. I’m sure the monsters who murdered my little boy forgot about him in minutes, if they ever thought about him at all.”

“Why did you take the body of Valentin Lashkovich to the river and how did you do it?” asked Karpo.

“I knew someday it was possible that a smart policeman would figure out as you have that I was working in each hotel on the night of the executions,” she said. “I wanted to make it look as if he had been killed and dumped in the river, killed somewhere other than the hotel. I’m very strong. The death of my baby made me even stronger. I shot him and he staggered through the door and into the pool. There he died. I pulled his body out of the water and put it in a garbage can, covered it with garbage and a few torn towels, and put the can on a two-wheel lift I knew was in the cleaning supply room. There is an old man named Nikolai at the back door near the loading dock. I am as invisible to him as I am to everyone else. He asked me nothing, even opened the door for me. I told him I was taking the garbage out. I sometimes do that. So did the other women. I hurried, but I did not run. I saw few people on the streets. I dumped the body and the garbage in the river and hurried back. Nikolai didn’t even notice that I had been gone far longer than was needed to dump garbage.”

“The gun?” asked Rostnikov.

Raisa kept rocking.

“The gun,” Rostnikov repeated gently.

“I bought it from a neighbor’s husband,” she said. “I know I paid far too much for it. I didn’t care. He showed me how to use it. He’s a cab driver. He has more guns.”

“Do you know where it is now?”

“I threw it in the gutter on the way home last night.”

“Then you decided you were through killing?” asked Rostnikov.

“I decided I needed a new gun,” she said. “If I go to jail for a hundred years, I will live, and when I get out, I’ll kill every man who was on the street the day my only child was killed. He played the violin. Did you know that?”

“No,” said Rostnikov.

“A little boy who played the violin beautifully,” she said, looking at the impassive Karpo. “Little boys who play the violin should grow up to play in orchestras, concert halls. They should not be shot in the head by monsters who do not even care what they have done. Do they hear music, these monsters?”

“No,” said Karpo.

“No,” repeated the woman. “And now?”

“Now,” said Rostnikov with a sigh as he stood awkwardly. “You come with us to Petrovka. There is a place where you can sleep tonight. Tomorrow, we shall see. Take some things with you.”

Raisa stood up, nodding dumbly. She was standing in front of Emil Karpo, looking into his eyes.

“I did what had to be done,” she said. “You understand?”

“Yes,” said Emil Karpo. “I understand.”