The Sin Collector

ANDREY

Andrey stood waiting outside a swanky-looking apartment door. He hadn’t been surprised when instead of an ordinary buzz, the doorbell had produced a trill like a nightingale. Screw this guy and all his rich-guy shit, seriously. And his girlfriend Masha, too, who just so happens to be my intern on the side.

Innokenty answered almost immediately and stood framed in the doorway like some kind of Napoleon or something, posing for a full-length portrait. The celestial blue of his shirt matched the jeans he was wearing obviously just to kiss up to his guest. Bite me, thought Andrey. But he winced a little on the inside, because just that weekend he had bought himself some new pants, a classic cut in dark-blue velvety corduroy. They cost way too much, and he’d cursed himself as he took out his wallet. But he bought them, anyway, because he knew there was no way he could show up at this snob’s place in his same old jeans again. Standing here now, he realized this was a game he could never win. Because first of all, his host really was going out of his way to be nice, even abandoning his usual elegance to make his guest feel more comfortable in his home; and secondly, Innokenty’s jeans were so chic and expensive that Andrey’s corduroys paled in comparison. All that put Andrey right back in his usual state of seething irritation, and when he caught sight of Masha down the hall, also wearing jeans—what had they done, planned their outfits ahead of time?—he merely nodded.

“Come on in! I’m just throwing something together in the kitchen.” Innokenty pointed the way down the hall, and Andrey followed Masha inside, trying not to look around. The walls here in hallway, painted perfectly white, provided the ideal backdrop for the old icons. In the living room the furniture was an explosive mix of stylish modern design and antiquity: a bright-red sofa shaped like a teardrop, a lamp with steel flourishes, and next to them a very simple Empire-style writing desk with a leather top. Behind the desk there was a graciously curved antique chair upholstered in the same red fabric as the ultramodern sofa. This room had no icons on the wall. Instead, there was an enormous black-and-white photograph of a wide-open eye. The picture seemed strangely familiar to Andrey, and the decor reminded him of the cover of a fashionable design magazine.

There were more photos arranged on the desk, and Andrey paused before them, not wanting to be the first one to speak. But as he looked over the pictures—these were black-and-white, too—he was alarmed to discover that the master of the house was not alone in any of them. He was always with Karavay: ten-year-old Masha dressed in gym clothes and holding a rapier, for some reason, with a young Innokenty across from her; a teenage Masha gazing into the distance; Masha and Innokenty at some sort of black-tie banquet, smiling awkwardly at the camera. Andrey coughed, confused, and turned to Masha, who was sitting next to a low table which held a variety of bottles and three wine glasses. Childhood friends, then? he wondered. Masha caught him looking at her quizzically and blushed a little.

“Innokenty thought we should drink a toast, to the success of this case.”

“We should eat something, too!” Innokenty walked in with a tray of warm petit fours. “But I should warn you that I’m not the baker. I only popped them in the oven. So don’t overdo yourselves with compliments.”

Masha laughed and took the first exquisite small pastry off the tray. “Thank you, Kenty. I’m starving!”

Andrey followed Masha’s example. The dainty little treats proved delicious, and he felt like Marilyn Monroe galloping up to the gates of some gastronomical paradise. Just like the dog would, he stuffed a few of the treats into his mouth at once, keeping his fingers crossed that at least he wouldn’t make the same gulping noises his dog made. Meanwhile, Innokenty opened a bottle of wine with a tasteful pop, poured some first for Masha, then looked at Andrey inquisitively. Andrey didn’t dare open his mouth with all those stupid petit fours inside, so he just nodded at the bottle of whiskey, and Innokenty filled a massive tumbler for him and tossed in a couple of ice cubes. Andrey picked up his drink carefully, afraid of committing yet another uncivilized act, but then threw caution to the wind, clinked glasses with Innokenty (who was gallantly tackling the whiskey along with him) and with Masha, and gulped down the Johnnie Walker, which he didn’t get too often but dearly loved.

“Well!” Andrey said, and smiled warmly at them for the first time ever as he felt the golden beverage find its way to his heart. “What’s new?”

Innokenty and Masha exchanged meaningful looks, which for once didn’t make Andrey angry. These two had known each other forever! They were friends. Just friends! Maybe it wasn’t just the whiskey that had put him in such a good mood.

Surprised, Masha returned the smile, then dug through her bag until she found a stack of paper covered in small, tight handwriting.

“I started a separate dossier on each of the victims. I thought we should try to put all this in order, find some way to classify their possible sins, and collect them all together.”

Andrey nodded and lifted his glass.

“So.” Masha had been acting shy again, but gradually her voice became steady, and she began laying out her arguments calmly, never suspecting that her intonation was an exact replica of the lawyerly manners of the senior Karavay, her father. “What do we have? We have the numbers one, two, and three. Three murder victims on the Bersenevskaya waterfront. Two men, one woman.”

“Number one,” said Innokenty, “was a really inoffensive type of guy. Other than talking too much, nobody had anything bad to say about him. There is one interesting detail, however: his father was a priest, and they didn’t get along. He used to monkey around in church during the service. Blaspheming, basically. Nothing major.”

“The second,” continued Masha, looking closely at Andrey, “accused her married boyfriend of rape.”

“Whoa, really?” asked Andrey.

“She got pregnant, he wouldn’t leave his wife—”

“Got it. Was he convicted?”

“No. But the wife was there in the courtroom, and they say she put a curse on the victim, right there in front of everyone.”

“Well now. That’s not hard to understand. I hope she’s not a suspect?”

“I didn’t check it out,” admitted Masha, biting her lip. “But I don’t think that fits our theory.”

Andrey laughed. “That’s what I’ve been saying! The facts fitting the theory, instead of the theory fitting the facts! Anyway. Go ahead.”

Masha colored slightly, and Innokenty swiftly came to her aid.

“Finally, number three. Solyanko. He was a professional athlete, an Olympic contender. He’s suspected of planting drugs on his main competitor, Snegurov.”

“Suspected?”

“Snegurov suspected him, anyway. He’s thinking along the lines of cui prodest. Find the one who benefits—”

“Is that how the jock put it?” Andrey asked with a smirk.

Innokenty smirked in response. “More or less.”

“All right, so what do we have?”

“What we have,” said Masha quietly, “is three bodies where the tsars had their gardens in medieval Moscow, a place that is a stand-in for the Garden of Gethsemane. One victim offended the church, the second gave false testimony, and the third slandered a colleague. All three had their tongues cut out.”

Nobody spoke.

“Pretty harsh,” Andrey said finally, but he had to agree. “Go on, Intern Karavay.”

“Number four was the drunk they found at Kutafya Tower—in Jerusalem, that’d be the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. His number, four, showed up in the form of a new tattoo on his biceps. A cop from his neighborhood confirmed he’d never seen it before.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t make any headway on that one,” confessed Innokenty, wringing his hands. “Just wasted some time and wrecked a good suit.” He stopped when he met Andrey’s wry gaze. “I had a long but fruitless conversation with a local alcoholic guru. All I learned was that Nikolai Sorygin was a flower drunk.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Apparently that means he lived like a plant, drank vodka like breathing air. Never did anything bad, but never did anything good, either. An archetypal drunk. And vodka was used to kill him, too, in a medieval way perfectly suited to our dismal hero.”

“The next, I think, was the architect, Gebelai,” Masha went on.

“Is that the one who killed all those people when his metro station collapsed?”

“That’s him.” Masha looked Andrey straight in the eye. “Andrey, I’m pretty convinced that our killer did this one, too. We don’t need to look too far for Gebelai’s sin—there were hundreds of victims. There was even proof that he was at fault, but the charges were dropped. They found him in an apartment on Lenivka.”

“In Jerusalem, that’s the Jaffa Gate,” Innokenty piped up. “He died of exhaustion. He was an award-winning architect, rich and pampered, with all kinds of medals. One of them was pinned to his body. Right into his skin.” Kenty passed Andrey a photograph of the medal he had found online. “This is a third-degree Akhdzapsh medal, awarded in Abkhazia for exemplary service. It has eight rays. Three of Gebelai’s were broken off.”

“So five were left,” said Andrey, doing the depressing calculations. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “All right. Let’s go on.”

“Then we were able to identify the arm.”

“What arm?”

“Remember how, about half a year ago, a detached arm was found in a bag with a Chagall? We went to see the collector that painting was stolen from. He recognized the arm.”

“He recognized it?” Andrey looked at them skeptically.

“This man has a fantastic visual memory,” Innokenty insisted. “He recognized tattoos that he had seen on a thief named Samuilov one time in court. This wasn’t the first time Samuilov had robbed the same group of art collectors.”

“I think the arm is a symbol,” Masha said. “The murderer didn’t care what thief he killed, as long as it was a thief.”

“I agree,” said Innokenty, nodding. “The arm—or the hand, anyway—represents theft. And they used to chop off thieves’ hands in the Middle Ages.”

Andrey sighed. “Where?”

Innokenty knew what he meant. “The arm was found between Lobnoye Mesto, which maps onto Golgotha, and St. Basil’s, which represents Mount Zion. Remember how in Ivan the Terrible’s time St. Basil’s was called ‘Jerusalem’?”

Andrey did not remember, naturally. But he did suddenly feel as if an unnaturally cold breeze was blowing over him. And he was grateful that Innokenty was splashing some more whiskey into his glass.