A Fine Red Rain ir-5

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  "Mmm," Khabolov hummed, eyes still fixed on the report. His hand went up to the top button of his brown uniform. He unbuttoned the button and sat back, reaching for the now-tepid cup of tea in front of him.

  Sasha Tkach knew enough to show nothing.

  Khabolov finished his tea, put down the cup, looked at the report, placed it on the empty desk, and patted it with his hand. Only then did he look at Tkach.

  "Fartsoushchiki," he said with contempt. "Black marketers. You can smell them."

  The deputy procurator's nostrils curled as if he were smelling one of the Gorgasali brothers.

  "You've done well. This is a good report. You've returned the twenty rubles you did not spend?"

  "Yes, Comrade," Tkach said quickly.

  "And the record album?"

  "Here, in my briefcase," Tkach said, snapping open the case and reaching in. His hands found the wrapped copy of the children's book he had bought for Pulcharia, moved under it, and came out with A Hard Day's Night. Khabolov didn't move.

  "I can…" Tkach began.

  "Leave it right here," Khabolov said, his hands folded on the desk, his eyes on Tkach.

  Tkach put the album on the edge of the desk. Khabolov ignored it.

  "This is an important black market operation, Comrade Tkach," the deputy said, leaning forward, his voice dropping. "Perhaps not as important as the automobile thieves you were instrumental in catching, but quite important."

  Since Khabolov seemed to be waiting for a response, Tkach said, "Yes, Comrade."

  "Quite important," Khabolov repeated, as if something were now understood between them. "They have other connections, these brothers of yours. That is certain. We can bring them in now or we can take this investigation to the next step, to find out who supplies these brothers, these traitors to the five-year plan."

  Again Khabolov waited.

  "What is the next step, Comrade?" Tkach asked.

  "I will personally visit these two thieves who deserve to be prosecuted, deserve to be shot," Khabolov said, his hand reaching out to touch the Beatles album on the comer of the desk. "I have experience in situations like this, black market rings like this. I have worked closely with the KGB, very closely. This can serve as an important learning experience for you."

  "Thank you, Comrade Procurator," Tkach said.

  "For the time being," Khabolov went on, opening his desk drawer and sliding both Sasha's report and the album into it, "we will keep this investigation quiet. When we have the entire ring, you will be given full credit."

  "Thank you, Comrade," said Tkach.

  "Good, good. That will be all for now," said Khabolov, retrieving a file from another drawer. "You have other cases. Get back to them and I'll let you know when this one needs your attention."

  With mis Khabolov's wet eyes turned to the new report, and Sasha strode to the door and out into the hall.

  Tkach checked the lock on his briefcase, took in a deep breath, and hurried to the Petrovka elevator. He wasn't sure if Deputy Khabolov took him for a fool or for a young man wise enough to play the fool. He wasn't at all sure how clever Deputy Procurator Khabolov was. He might be playing a role, setting Tkach up.

  The elevator door opened and Tkach entered. Two women in the rear were talking to a man Tkach recognized from the criminal records room in the basement. Tkach nodded at Pon, and Pon adjusted his glasses and nodded back as the elevator doors closed.

  Tkach was quite sure what he was going to do. He was going to forget the video pirates and get back to his other cases. He was going to forget the video pirates and let the deputy procurator do whatever he planned to do. All he wanted to do now was finish out the day and get home to his wife and daughter with his gift.

  The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and Tkach got out.

  "It's been a hard day's night," he said to himself and smiled, but it wasn't a smile of mirth.

  "What are you smiling about, you soggy bear?" Nikolai asked as Yuri entered the apartment on Galushkina Street.

  Yuri had not been aware that he was smiling. He had nothing particularly to smile about, less now that he could see that Nikolai was drunk again. Nikolai was a near-dwarf of a man who.always needed a shave and was forever brushing back his hair, which, when he was drunk, was somehow always wet. Also, when he was drunk, Nikolai's cheeks puffed out as if he had just returned from having his wisdom teeth removed. Nikolai looked like a chipmunk with bad teeth.

  "I'm not smiling," Yuri said, putting down the briefcase he always carriednot because he needed it for work, but because it was a sign that he worked in an office, that he was someone important enough to have written work to bring home. It was also very handy for carrying the knife.

  "He's not smiling," Nikolai said to the ceiling. "I can't tell when a man is smiling. I'm losing my eyesight."

  Yuri moved to the tiny refrigerator in the corner, and Nikolai had to turn in his chair to watch his roommate remove a bottle of watered fruit juice.

  "You're supposed to mix that with something," Nikolai said. "You drink that stuff without alcohol and it can give you an ulcer. My"

  "Why are you home?" Yuri asked, adjusting his glasses and pouring himself a glass of fruit drink.

  "Why? Listen to him. I live here. I sleep on that bed under the sink in which I wash and shave and from which I drink. That sink. Why am I? What kind of question?"

  "You don't get off work for two hours," Yuri said, still standing, as he sipped the drink and let himself look around the filthy room. When Nikolai passed out, which might be in hours or minutes, Yuri would clean it up. Yuri didn't like things messy, out of place. Sanity dictated that Yuri should not like Nikolai, but like him he did, or, perhaps, need him was a better way to put it. They were used to each other. They were a wall against loneliness.

  Nikolai talked of women, said obscene things, even suggested that he went to prostitutes, but Yuri doubted it. Nikolai was as doomed to be what he was as Yuri Pon was resolved to be what he had become. What it was that Yuri had become was not easy to define. Yuri walked to the window with his drink and looked down at the street below as Nikolai explained.

  "I became ill at the factory. My vision clouded. My eyes began to water. My ears began to ring. The voices of dead socialist poets began to call my name. A terrible fever came over me."

  "And now?" Yuri asked after finishing his drink.

  "I'm fine!" shouted Nikolai, gulping down the last of the clear liquid in his glass. "It's a miracle. If there were a God, this would prove his existence. We should celebrate my miraculous recovery."

  Nikolai stood, swayed, and made for the bottle on the table.

  "A few more illnesses at the factory and you'll lose your job," said Yuri, moving to the sink to wash his glass. "Article Sixty of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics states that it is the duty of, and a matter of honor for, every able-bodied citizen of the USSR to work conscientiously in his chosen, socially useful, occupation, and to strictly observe labor discipline. Evasion of socially useful work is incompatible with the principles of socialist society."

  "If I lose this job I'll find another," said Nikolai, grinning and walking toward his roommate with a fresh drink in hand.

  "You're drunk." Yuri sighed, shaking his hands to dry them.

  "Yes, but it used to be more fun to be drunk," said Nikolai. "Now it's a crime to be drunk. Gorbachev tells us that drunkenness is an affront to the state, an unwillingness to face the harshness of reality, to cope with our problems. He is a wise man."

  "A wise man," agreed Yuri, humoring Nikolai, who drank deeply without taking his eyes from the taller man.

  "But a cruel one, soggy bear," said Nikolai. "It is cruel to force us to remain sober. What have we to turn to for our imaginations, to release our inhabitants"

  "Inhibitions," Yuri corrected, moving to the table.

  "Inhibitions," agreed Nikolai.

  The two men sat facing each other silently across the table as if something profound
had just been said.

  "You don't drink," Nikolai suddenly accused. "You don't go to movies. You don't go to museums. You don't watch television. We don't have a television. We can't afford a television. And the news, the news is, is…"

  "Zakusla," Yuri supplied.

  "Zakuski, yes. Hors d'oeuvres. You don't even talk about women. I'll tell you," and with this he pointed a finger in Yuri's face, "you've never even been with a woman."

  This time Yuri Pon did smile.

  "What? Why are you smiling? I said something funny?" Nikolai asked in mock confusion. "The bear has a harem somewhere? Another luxury apartment, perhaps a little wooden izbas in the country where you bring women and have wild orgies? If I thought that were true and you didn't invite me, it could well be the end of our… You sure you don't want to join me?" With this, Nikolai held up his sloshing glass as an offering. "It is not as much fun to drink alone, you know. It's fun, but not as much."

  "I can't drink tonight," Yuri said. "I've got to go out shopping."

  Nikolai slouched back and laughed like a horse.

  "Going to look for a woman, eh, Yuri?"

  "Perhaps, yes."

  "And what are you going to do with her, Yuri? You want to bring her back here?"

  "No," said Pon. "No."

  "You should be a comedian," said Nikolai, laughing. "A funny comedian. I don't think," he chuckled, leaning forward and whispering, "that you would know what to do with a woman."

  "I know what to do with a woman," Pon said.

  "You want me to come with you and help?" Nikolai said, unable to control his mirth.

  "No," said Pon softly. "I won't need any help."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Thegunshot came just as Rostnikov pushed open the door to the seventh floor of the high rise on Lenin Prospekt about four blocks from the New Circus. In spite of his leg, he had purposely taken a circuitous route to the address of Katya Rashkovskaya. It had been a year or more since he had roamed this neighborhood. So Rostnikov had wandered up Lenin Prospekt, watching the people shop, looking into the windows of the elegantly decorated shops, passing the Varna (which specialized in products from Bulgaria), the Vlasta (with goods from Czechoslovakia), and the Leipzig (with exports from the German Democratic Republic). Rostnikov bought nothing. He had limped along without putting words to his thoughts, paused to examine a window of shoes that would cost at least a month of his salary, ignored a quarrel between two men over a parking space near Lumumba Friendship University, and gradually made his way to the second of three white-concrete high rises.

  He had trudged his way up the stairs in the elevatorless building, moving slowly to minimize perspiration. On the seventh floor he had paused for breath before opening the hallway door. That was when he heard the shot. It wasn't that Rostnikov didn't believe in coincidence. If one lived long enough, particularly in Moscow, one encountered all manner of coincidence. Cases were often closed through coincidence rather than hard work. An officer happened to see a car thief breaking into a car when it looked as if a particular ring of thieves would never be caught. The officer was not staking out the street, was not even on duty, but had taken a wrong turn looking for a movie theater that, as it turned out, was on the other side of Moscow.

  In this case, however, when he heard the shot, Porfiry Petrovich did not assume that he had been fortunate or unfortunate enough to step onto the scene of a crime at the coincidental moment. He hobbled as quickly as he could in search of apartment 717. Here a door opened and a cautious eye peeped out. There a door opened quickly and closed. Beyond, a man in a robe, who looked as if he slept days and worked nights, stepped into the hall rubbing his eyes and almost running into Rostnikov, who barreled past him and found apartment 717.

  There was a voice behind the door, a hysterical voice that might have been wailing wordlessly or might have been saying something. Rostnikov turned to the sleepy man in the robe, who looked puzzled, and said, "Call Petrovka thirty-eight. Tell them Inspector Rostnikov told you to call. Say it's a possible shooting."

  The man nodded and hurried back into his apartment, where, Rostnikov hoped, he had a phone and was not simply going back to bed. Rostnikov pounded on the door once, hard. The door vibrated.

  "Police. Open die door," he said, loud but calm.

  Nothing happened inside, though he thought he heard the sound of something, an appliance, something, above the wailing voice.

  "Open or I'll have to break the door," Rostnikov said, still calm.

  Footsteps moved quickly inside and the door opened to reveal a thin young man in a blue T-shirt. His straight blond hair looked bleached and was combed back from his smooth and wide-eyed face.

  "I told her not to," the young man said, stepping back to admit Rostnikov. "I told her it was stupid. That there were other things she could"

  "Where?" said Rostnikov, grabbing the young man's arm. "Where is she?"

  The young man groaned in pain, twisted his body, and pointed toward a closed door across the room. Rostnikov let him go and hurried to the door. Behind the door was the sound he had heard in the hall, the appliance sound. He pushed the door open and found himself facing a quite beautiful woman of about thirty with a pistol in her hand. Her straight black hair was long, and tied behind her head with a yellow ribbon. She was wearing a yellow skirt and blouse and white sneakers. The gun was aimed directly at Rostnikov and looked none too secure in her grip.

  "Who?" she shrieked, backing up.

  "Police," he said, keeping his voice down but still audible above the rushing mechanical sound in the small bathroom. "You'd better give me the gun."

  Katya Rashkovskaya looked down at the gun in her hand as if she had not expected to see it there. She handed it instantly to Rostnikov, who dropped it into his pocket. Behind him, Rostnikov could hear the young blond man move to the open doorway of the small room.

  "What did you try to do?" Rostnikov asked, gently reaching out to touch the young woman's arm. He had dealt with attempted suicides before, both those who succeeded and those who failed. His theories were different from the party line. His theories were based on experience. It was Rostnikov's belief that all but a very small, insignificant number meant to kill themselves, even the ones who later said and believed that they had only been acting out or pretending. It was, he guessed, like childbirth as Sarah had described it. When it is happening, it is terrible and real. When it is over, it is like a dream. A similarity between the bringing of life and the taking of it.

  "She shot the toilet!" the young man cried behind him.

  Rostnikov turned and looked at the nearly hysterical young man and then at the young woman, who looked as if she had been hypnotized. And then he looked at the toilet, and, indeed, there was a crack in the porcelain, starting with a hole the size of a blintz and zigzagging out into a series of tributaries. Behind the hole, the toilet gurgled loudly and angrily.

  "It's true?" Rostnikov asked, moving closer to the young woman.

  She nodded her head slowly, indicating that it was true. Rostnikov nodded back and led her out of the bathroom past the young man, who backed away.

  "Close the door," Rostnikov ordered. The young man closed the bathroom door, which cut back on but did not end the noise. After leading the woman to a chair and being sure she sat, Rostnikov pulled a straight-backed chair over and sat facing her. He took her hand and said, "I understand."

  She looked at his face, expecting to see a lie, but saw instead that this man, whoever he was, this clothed trunk of a man with a flat face, did seem to understand, which puzzled Katya Rashkovskaya, who wasn't at all sure whether she understood what she had done. One minute she had been sitting in grief and anger over the deaths of Oleg and Valerian. Eugene, her brother, had been talking about himself. She had been drinking tea. And then the idea had come. No, it was not quite an idea. She hated the toilet. It had caused them, the three of them, nothing but trouble. Oleg had tried to get the building supervisor to fix it, had gone to the neighborhood party depu
ty in charge, had tried to bribe, beg, threaten, but nothing had helped.

  And so, sitting there, vaguely hearing the voice of her brother suggest that now that she was alone in this large apartment he could move in, she had suddenly risen, gone to Valerian's drawer, moved the shuts he would never again wear, and pulled out the gun. The next thing she knew this sympathetic man with the face and body of a bear had gently told her that he understood.

  "She's gone mad!" the young man cried, pacing back and forth. "All this death has driven her mad."

  "Are you mad?" Rostnikov asked Katya. She shook her head no.

  "She says she is not mad," Rostnikov reported.

  "She says!" the young man cried in disbelief.

  "I believe her," said the inspector.

  "You…"

  "Who are you?" Rostnikov asked, still holding the woman's hand but looking at the man.

  "I, I don't have to tell you who I am," the young man said.

  "Yes, you do," Rostnikov said sadly. "I'm the police."

  The word police did nothing to the woman, but it froze the young man.

  "I'm Eugene Rashkovsky, Katya's brother. I came to help her in her grief. She"

  "He's a nakhlebnik, a parasite," Katya said. "He came to move into the apartment. He was afraid to come here when Oleg was… here. Oleg would throw him out. Oleg didn't like young men who"

  "You've no reason to start that again!" Eugene screamed. "No reason." He looked at Rostnikov in fear and hurried to his sister. "That has nothing to do with the police, nothing."

  "Go," Katya said, reaching up with her free hand to wipe away hair that had not fallen in front of her eyes.

  "I…"Eugene began.

  "Go," Rostnikov repeated, and Eugene stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

  When he was gone, Rostnikov said, "I know a lot about toilets."

  "Yes," Katya said, a sad smile touching her mouth. "You are the police."