"I see," said Tkach with a nod.
"You mean you do not see." Rostnikov sighed. "All right. When I was sixteen a tank almost ended me and I had no revelation. Maybe it will come to you, maybe not. Let's go."
Tkach led the way around the book table to the rear of the trailer and knocked at the door.
"Who?" asked a quivering male voice.
"Police," said Rostnikov.
Another male voice inside the trailer muttered, "Oh, God. Oh, God," and the door opened. Rostnikov and Tkach climbed in and Tkach closed the door behind them.
The Gorgasali brothers were in approximately the same positions they had been in the last time Sasha had been in the trailer. The trailer seemed warmer this time, and Sasha was more aware of the smell of human sweat. He-wondered if this warmth was harmful to the tapes in the cabinets.
The hairy younger brother was wearing a shirt and pants. The shirt was flapping out on the left side. His hair needed combing. The older brother sat behind the small table near the rear of the trailer, light coming through the heavily curtained window haloing his white mane. The older brother's face was pale with fear.
"You are a policeman," Osip said, looking at Tkach. "I saw you at Petrovka."
"We just said we were the police," Rostnikov reminded him. Then he turned to Sasha to add, "This is a man who would never understand the very hills on which he dangerously thrives."
"What? What did you say?" asked Felix, who was dressed as he had been at Petrovka: shirt, tie, jacket.
"We are here to save your lives," Rostnikov announced. "You would like your lives saved?"
Osip touched his stubbly cheeks with both hands, and his mouth opened to reveal teeth that should have been much better considering the money he and his brother apparently had made from their videotape operation.
"We are working for an important member of the Procurator's Office," Felix said, pale, veined, pulsing hands flat on the table. "We are patriots doing an important service for our"
Rostnikov shook his head and Felix stopped.
"I have no time to play, no need to play with you," Rostnikov said, looking around the trailer. "Deputy Procurator Khabolov plans to become your partner, to share your profits, take home dirty American movies, and view them on the machines you will supply to him. When and if someone gets suspicious or he needs a success to save his job, he will turn the two of you in and you will be dropped into Lubyanka. No one will listen to your tale of betrayal. No one will believe it."
It was clear to Tkach from the faces of the Gorgasali brothers, particularly that of Felix, that this scenario was one that upset but did not surprise them.
Osip removed his hands from his face, hugged himself, and moaned as he looked at his older brother for help.
"I can't take any more," Osip groaned. "I'd rather be poor again."
"Why do you want to help us?" Felix asked, his voice thin and dry.
"Because if you go to Lubyanka," said Rostnikov, "my colleague here might go with you. Deputy Procurator Khabolov will need someone to blame for letting you operate after a report had been given. My colleague here would be the scapegoat, accused of being your partner."
"Now I understand," said Felix, blowing out a puff of air and reaching for a drawer. He opened the drawer and pulled out a half-full bottle of vodka. "Osip."
Osip nodded his head and for an instant didn't move. Then he roused himself and hurried to the front of the trailer, returning almost instantly with four glasses. He gave them to Felix, who began filling them.
"None for us," said Rostnikov.
Felix nodded and poured drinks for himself and his brother. Both brothers drank with trembling hands.
"What will we do?" asked Felix, pouring himself a second drink.
"You have equipment for videotaping?" asked Rostnikov, touching a metal cabinet nearby.
"Yes," said Osip, eagerly moving to a cabinet farther down, assuming the police would take the equipment as a bribe and go away.
"You know how to use it?"
"Yes," said Felix, perhaps beginning to understand.
"Good," said Rostnikov. "Good. Show us."
For the next half hour Osip demonstrated how to use the Japanese equipment. Rostnikov paid little attention but knew that Tkach was absorbing everything. The inspector was deciding how to set the scene, where to put the blankets. Felix watched him while Osip spoke, partially losing his fear in his absorption with the machines.
"I know what you plan to do," said Felix as he downed his fourth glass of vodka. His gray face was perspiring, his mane of hair limp. "It could fail, get us all killed very quickly."
"Or it might succeed," said Rostnikov. "Success, failure, quickly, or a slow wait till the inevitable moment when the knock on the door will not be from two policemen who have an interest in saving you."
"…the tape for longer periods," Osip was saying as Rostnikov turned.
"Sasha," Rostnikov interrupted, "I've got to go find the circus woman. You finish here and tell these gentlemen what they must do next."
Tkach looked at him steadily and nodded. Rostnikov patted his friend's shoulder and went through the side door of the trailer and into the sun.
Yuri Pon was not having a good morning. First, his head hurt, a pulsing pain the source of which was surely the vodka he and Nikolai had drunk the night before. There had been too many nights like this recently. At first the idea had been to dull Yuri's nights, get him through without the dreams, the images, the longings. But last night he had simply drunk to blot out Nikolai's snoring. Yuri had already decided that he had to find another prostitute, had already met with enough failure. He needed a clear head tonight if he were to find one, to get some relief.
Second, while he had concluded that whoever had looked at the file on the eight killings the day before had probably only been involved in a routine check on something else, he could not really be sure. Inspector Karpo had made no appearance, had given no further evidence of his interest in the file.
Third, the small screw on the right side of his glasses was loose, very loose. He had tried to tighten it with a tiny screwdriver but it barely held, and every hour or so it needed tightening again. Getting his glasses repaired or replaced would be hell, take days. He took them off for the fifth time that morning and tried to tighten the small screw with his thumbnail. It moved a bit.
Fourth, Ludmilla Kropetskanoya, that dark pole of a creature, had dumped extra work on him, had told him to begin the end-of-the-year inventory and cost projections for paper, folders, and nonhardware items. That should be her job, not his. Couldn't she see, didn't she know after all these years, that the efficiency of the files was his doing? Wasn't it evident to her that all the computerizing of files was on schedule because of Yuri Pon? By the end of the current year, if he were not bothered with tasks that could be done by a bookkeeper, and if he were allowed to keep the three clerks who were assigned to the task, he would have all files transferred to the computers.
"… if we keep down the order for manila twos because we won't need them when we turn to the computers," she said, leaning over Yuri, her foul breath in his ear. What did she eat each morning? What rotting fish clung to her yellow teeth?
"I thought we were going to maintain the paper file system as a backup," he said, twitching his nose to push his glasses back. He wanted to push her back, away. God, how his head screamed.
"The latest thinking is that there will be no need for written files at all," she said. "Backup tapes will be kept. Our primary job will be to copy the written reports into the computers, file them properly, and destroy the paper."
"I see," said Yuri, but he didn't see. He didn't see why he had to be told this way, told so casually, that his records, the records he had worked on for more than half his life, were to be destroyed and that he was going to be turned into a way station between policemen and a computer. There was no art to that, no skill. He could see that the computers were more efficient, but there were nuances one couldn't
program. He had seen them, the way an officer wrote something, emphasized it by bearing down, or the space that was taken, the Size of the letters. One could tell something by the writing, the individuality. Each report was different, but they would all seem the same on the computer: each letter the same size, each line the same length, only material programmed that could be retrieved.
"I see," he repeated, but if his glasses fell off, if his head began to hurt any more, if this feeling of rage and the need for relief were not controlled, he would be able to see nothing.
"Good," she said with no further explanation as she left for her office.
Yuri was sweating, his hands folded in his lap, as he looked at the long inventory sheet Ludmilla had placed on the desk in front of him. He got up and walked around the row of file cabinets that stretched for fifteen rows. In the corner, where he couldn't be seen, Yuri sat at the computer terminal, closed his eyes, and clenched his teeth. The clenching brought more pain to his head. He opened his eyes, turned on the machine, listened to it hum to life, and punched in the file number he wanted, the one for the serial prostitute killings. Then he called up the file itself and watched the names and reports go by, letting each name, each situation, recall the feeling.
Ludmilla, Nikolai, his own mother, thought of Yuri as an almost fat, dull minor bureaucrat. He was that. He knew he was that and he didn't mind, but he was more. He had watched for years as the state did nothing about these women, these women he saw everywhere. He, Yuri Pon, whom no one thought of. Ha, he didn't even think of himself. He, Yuri Pon, was slowly, systematically, ridding Moscow of a class of criminals. Jack the Ripper, the Englishman, seemed to have had something of the same idea. Jack had succeeded in changing some things, bringing down a corrupt police system. Yuri had read about him. The same thing would happen for him. The city would have to recognize the existence of prostitution, do something about it as he was doing.
The feeling he had when he did it, stalked, found, was a patriotic frenzy. He couldn't deny its sexuality but he didn't have to admit it, either. Oh, God, tonight. It would have to be tonight. He couldn't wait. And then he stopped, his eyes fixed on the screen, the words before him. Someone had recently called up this file. That was normal, but the system showed a cross-check file still hi the computer. Someone had coordinated data from other files with this one. Yuri pressed the indicated code and the letters on the screen began to roll down. It was a series of names, five names, and the personnel coordinates on each, including days off for illness, nonworking days, hours worked each day. One of the names was his.
Someone had.linked Yuri's name to the file, to the killings, but who and why? It was the same person who had pulled the paper file on the case, his file. It must be Karpo. It was not a routine check. There was no initial on the access code, though there was supposed to be. Everyone, including filing personnel, was supposed to initial any program or any use of a program. He sat looking at his name on the gray screen, and then methodically, letter by letter, the file began to disappear. Yuri looked back over his shoulder. There was no one there. He looked at the screen, panting. Someone, somewhere, was erasing the file that included his name on a list. Someone had seen what he wanted to see and now was eliminating the information. Yuri wanted to climb into the screen, follow the wiring, be led by electricity, until his own face appeared on the screen in front of whoever was doing this. He wanted to look at that face, frighten it with a grin. He put his hand on the screen to slow down the ping-ping-ping removal of each letter. Then his name started to disappear, N-O-P-I-R-U-Y. It was followed by the others, and then the screen was blank, the computer humming.
Yuri looked at his watch to see how many more hours he had to work. Seven. His glasses fell from his nose and clattered to the floor.
From beyond the files, somewhere near his desk, the voice of Ludmilla Kropetskanoya called irritably, "Comrade Pon, where are you?"
The walk from the Gorgasalis' trailer to the New Circus was a short one, but Rostnikov had taken it slowly, pausing frequently to rest his aching leg. He arrived just before noon and was let in by the same old man who had let him in before.
"You're the policeman," said the old man, who clutched a mop in his left hand.
"I'm the policeman," Rostnikov confirmed. "I'm looking for Katya Rashkovskaya. Have you seen her?"
"The flyer?"
"The flyer," Rostnikov confirmed.
"I'm not sure," said the old man. "Might have been this morning. Might have been yesterday. I think it was today. I think it was just a little while ago. When you do the same thing every day, it's sometimes difficult to tell one day from the other."
"Yes," agreed Rostnikov as he watched the old man dressed in gray work clothes try to remember on which day he had seen die woman. "Assuming it was today, where did you see her?"
The man smiled and pointed upward with his free hand.
"Going to the offices, not rehearsal rooms, not the ring," he said. "Performers don't practice as much today as they did when I was a performer."
Rostnikov waited for the man to tell him more, but the old man was leaning on his mop, his eyes far away, remembering some old day, some old act. Rostnikov walked in the direction of the nearest stairway and started up slowly. A chattering familymother, father, young girl, and boyall dressed in blue suits, came hurrying down the stairs. Rostnikov moved to the side to let them pass.
On the second floor above the lower corridor Rostnikov found a series of offices. There was the distant echo of music deep inside the building and the sound of a woman's voice. Rostnikov followed the voice and not the music and found himself hi front of a solid wooden door marked in black letters: ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR.
He paused, tried to listen, but could make out only die voice and not the words. There seemed to be an edge of hysteria to the voice. Rostnikov knocked and the voice stopped. He knocked again and the door opened.
Facing him was Mazaraki, who grinned broadly and stepped back to let him enter. In a corner stood Katya Rashkovskaya. She was not grinning broadly. She was not grinning at all.
"Tavah/reeshch, Inspector," Mazaraki said a bit too loudly. "It is good of you to visit us again. To what do I owe the pleasure of your return?"
Rostnikov looked at Katya, whose knuckles were white against her oversize purse. Her eyes met his but showed less than her pink cheeks. Porfiry Petrovich turned to Mazaraki with new interest. Mazaraki looked just as big as the detective had remembered him, but was there not a dancing in his eyes as if the moment were of great consequence?
"I was looking for Comrade Rashkovskaya," Rostnikov said, watching the smiling mask of a face of the assistant director.
"Fortuitous," Mazaraki said, leaning back against his desk and folding his hands across his chest.
"Perhaps," agreed Rostnikov. "I would have been here earlier but I no longer have access to an official automobile. I have to take a bus or the metro or, in an emergency, a taxi. Do you have an automobile, Comrade Mazaraki?"
"Yes, a little Moskvich," answered Mazaraki, his head tilted slightly to the right like a curious bird. "Very economical."
"It's important to drive carefully," Rostnikov said, looking around at the office. "May I sit?"
"Please," said Mazaraki, unfolding his arms and waving an open hand at a dark wood-and-leather chair.
Rostnikov moved the chair slightly, just enough to be able to see both Katya and Mazaraki at the same time. And enough to survey the room, which was furnished in dark wood and leather, like something out of a magazine. The desk was large and a television sat on the wide lower level of the bookcase along with a machine that was attached to it and that Rostnikov assumed was a videotape player.
"I have a modest collection of films, Inspector," said Mazaraki, moving to the bookcase cabinets and opening one. "Even some American nuns, which I trust are not illegal to own."
"I'm not interested in legal or illegal movies," Rostnikov said, looking at the neat row of tapes. He wondered if Mazaraki were a cl
ient of the Gorgasali brothers, whose trailer was less than a mile away. Perhaps he would find out.
"I've got Keaton, Chaplin, Grease, Gone With the Wind, Blue Thunder, even Raiders of the Lost Ark" said Mazaraki.
Mazaraki was running his large right hand over the tapes and looking over the policeman's head at the silent woman, who remained motionless in the corner.
"Someone in the MVD has the idea that Pesknoko was murdered," Rostnikov said, watching Mazaraki's eyes, which remained on Katya, revealing nothing. His lips, however, tightened.
"Someone?" said Mazaraki, closing the cabinet and moving his right hand up to play with his mustache. He pulled a longish patch above his lip downward and bit at it with his teeth.
"Someone," Rostnikov said, examining his lap.
"You?"
Rostnikov shrugged. It was a possibility.
"And you are investigating?"
"No," sighed Rostnikov. "The case is closed. I am investigating a hit-and-run this morning. It seems Katya Rashkovskaya was almost killed by a motorist outside her apartment building."
"No," said Mazaraki, moving behind his desk and looking up at Katya. "Katerina, you said nothing. After all that has happened, this is quite terrible."
Rostnikov turned awkwardly, deliberately, to face the young woman, who still had not spoken.
"You had other things to discuss," said Rostnikov. "Business, Katya's future."
A Fine Red Rain ir-5 Page 14
