The Sin Collector

ANDREY

Andrey pondered the mysteries of the universe in the same place the vast majority of humankind did: sitting on the crapper. He thought about Yelnik’s bathroom, the toilet with a tank and the marble floor, hidden away in that godforsaken village. Yet here under Andrey’s feet were nothing but warped wooden boards. His outhouse was practically medieval. Even the average villager has a septic tank these days, Andrey scolded himself. And what did he have? Soviet-style sanitation, with newsprint tacked to the wall.

What a pile of crap, literally. And that newsprint… When he got inside again, there it was, the ubiquitous MK. On days when Andrey took the train home, he sometimes bought a copy. MK was the kind of newspaper that didn’t tax your brain. Here, for example, were the latest shocking crime chronicles. Something itched at his memory, buried, like a dusty coin that had rolled under the couch. He had read something, not in a case file or a novel… something about a soldier’s mother who had her son’s body shipped home to her, and found it to be surprisingly light, because the body was missing its heart, kidneys, and liver. The official story was that the soldier had committed suicide. The coins! Fourteen of them in Yelnik’s empty belly.

Andrey ran back to the house, where Marilyn Monroe was waiting for him with such a demanding expression on his face that you never would have guessed that after the kibble last night, he had also weaseled out of Andrey half a dozen sausages Andrey had bought for himself.

“You call yourself a dog?” Andrey asked as he pulled on his jeans and boots and chugged some lukewarm coffee. “No, Marilyn. You’re a pig. I’m kicking you out of here so you can go die on the street, got it?”

But Andrey wasn’t even fooling himself, he thought as he hurried to the car. He sounded like half of an old married couple. He could yell all he wanted, but there was no way of getting rid of Marilyn now.

When Andrey finally flew into the office after what seemed like hours in traffic, he made a point of not noticing the expression on his intern’s face, which hinted loudly at something secret and weighty. Instead he rushed to the computer and pulled up MK online. Marketing experts might have said that the newspaper’s website pushed the limits of bad taste. But Andrey wasn’t there for the style. He needed an item that was probably two years old. He started searching, keying in two or three terms at a time—organs suicide soldier, army stolen organs, and so on—until he found it. There it was, the suicide of Private D., body returned home, something something something… Here. General Ovcharov denies rumors of stolen organs, calling the allegations a deplorable provocation… All right, nothing interesting after that. But now he had a last name. Andrey wrote the general’s name in his notebook, along with the name of the reporter.

The phone rang and Andrey and Masha both jumped. Anyutin was summoning him to report on the investigation. Andrey was so pleased with himself this morning that he graciously invited the intern to come with him. This was her chance to get a glimpse of how real professionals operated, guys who weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. Nothing like the girl-talk she was probably used to at her fancy college.

“I really need to speak with you,” the girl told him in the elevator.

“Later,” said Andrey, committed to his role as the stern hero.

The intern shut her mouth. But when they knocked at the colonel’s door and walked inside, it was Andrey’s turn to shut up.

Anyutin wasn’t alone. Katyshev was sitting there, too. Andrey just had time to wonder what the hell was going on before Anyutin, demonstrating all the hospitality of a polished host, seated the intern at the all-powerful prosecutor’s right hand, and showed Andrey to a seat a little farther off to the left.

“So, how are we all getting along?” Anyutin began, while Katyshev practically winked at his little golden girl.

Andrey felt a wave of anger welling up inside him again. The feeling got even stronger when the little idiot grinned and said, “Fantastic!”

“Well, Captain? How would you evaluate Intern Karavay’s contribution so far?”

“I give her an A plus,” Andrey said, in a voice so full of scorn a deaf man could have heard it. “I’m glad to see Mr. Katyshev here with us. Just the man I was hoping to talk with today.”

“At your service,” the prosecutor said with a nod of his gray head.

“I’m investigating a hitman named Yelnik. Maybe you remember—he was charged with murder but acquitted in the Nungatov case. You were the prosecutor.”

“Yes, I do remember,” Katyshev said, nodding again. “Not a very pleasant story. The detectives were able to scrounge up only a few paltry leads, and the defense attorney—Tishin, I think—twisted the facts all around so that, by the end, it wasn’t even clear who had killed whom. Yelnik only served a couple of years for failure to cooperate. So what’s he done this time?”

Andrey sat at the ready, his chest puffed out proudly.

“Actually, Yelnik has been murdered, and I’m investigating. After he got out of jail, Yelnik got out of the game. He moved out to the village of Tochinovka and raised chickens and potatoes. But his place, which looks like a dilapidated shack from the outside, is a luxury resort on the inside.”

“Did you have a search warrant, Yakovlev?” Anyutin interrupted.

“The door was open. Kind of,” said Andrey. “But here’s the strange thing. The last time he was in prison, Yelnik’s cellmate was a guy named Zitman, also called the Doctor. The Doctor was famous for traveling around poor regions and getting people to sell their organs—and for pennies, compared to the going price abroad. When Zitman got out of prison, he moved to Israel. But I have a source who says that Yelnik received several visits from some unidentified military officers. And his call list includes multiple short calls, just a few seconds long, to a number at the Ministry of Defense.” Andrey looked in turn at every member of his rapt audience. “Meanwhile, a couple years ago, the bodies of soldiers started getting shipped home—without their internal organs.

“What I think is this: Yelnik was inspired by Zitman, but decided to take a streamlined approach. Instead of a single kidney, he’d take both, plus the heart and liver. Basically, everything he might be able to sell. One healthy young soldier could make him big bucks, even if he split it with the medics and commanding officers. You might remember, Yelnik was known for making his hits look like suicide. Probably his military contacts would notice some dumb recruit, an orphan or someone from a poor family, somebody whose suicide wouldn’t cause a scandal, and pass the information on to Yelnik. But he must have cheated somebody, sometime, and they came back to collect their share. That’s why Yelnik’s guts are missing. They decided to make up the difference at their supplier’s expense!”

“Somebody? Sometime?” Anyutin said. “Rather a foggy theory, isn’t it, Captain?”

But the chief’s radiant face belied his doubt. He was especially pleased that Katyshev himself was there to see the top-rate work his people were doing.

“Colonel Anyutin, sir,” Andrey said with a smile. “I already have the name of one general, and a journalist who wrote an article about the soldiers a couple of years ago. It won’t be too hard to get to the bottom of this.”

“So if I understand correctly,” said Katyshev, swinging one leg, “this murder is not at all connected with my old case against Yelnik? I had been worried about that. A completely separate crime, eh?”

“Sorry, but I don’t think it is separate,” a young, clear voice rang out.

What the fuck! Andrey turned to glare at his intern. She was staring at the floor, a nervous but stubborn expression on her face.

“Tell us more, Intern Karavay,” said Katyshev with an exaggeratedly official tone to his voice, and looking at the girl’s pale face, Andrey felt like he might explode with fury any second.

Oh, she doesn’t think so, huh? This fucking brat, all wrapped up in her books and her serial killers, doesn’t think so!

“I only have a very raw theory right now,” Karavay began. “But it seems to me that this is part of a pattern. A series of murders that started almost two years ago at the old electric station.”

“Is that so? Let’s hear an explanation,” said Anyutin.

“I’m sorry,” Masha said, raising her eyes, “but I’m not yet ready to provide a full analysis.”

No fucking way, thought Andrey. Now what was he supposed to say? Anyutin also looked dumbstruck. If this were any other member of his staff, anyone other than this girl here as a favor to you-know-who… What the hell was this?

Andrey stood up with a grunt and said a curt military-style farewell to Katyshev. As he was leaving, he saw how Katyshev was looking at the intern. It was an attentive, appraising gaze. But there was something else in it, too: Katyshev was looking at her with admiration.