Tarnished Icons

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  In fact, when the squad had gone through the door, one of the gang, a scrawny mad-looking kid with an orange mohawk, had reached for a gun in his pocket. Nine members of the gang had died in the spray of bullets that followed. The youngest was fourteen. The oldest was twenty-three, the leader. Four of the gang had not been in the room, but afterward, when they heard what had happened, they disappeared, knowing that the police had marked them for death.

  The only other time he had killed had been when he was on patrol a dozen years earlier. He and his partner spotted a man being beaten. They had stopped their car, pulled their weapons, and ordered the man doing the beating to stop. He paid no attention. The victim was old. The man doing the beating was no more than forty and huge.

  The policemen repeated their order for him to stop. He continued the beating and both officers were sure that he would soon kill the old man. Valentin had hit the big brute in the head with his pistol. The man turned in pain and anger and hit Valentin with his fist. Valentin had gone down shooting. He fired all the bullets in his gun, and the huge man fell dead against his whimpering victim, who turned out to be his father.

  Valentin still carried a scar on his upper lip from the dead man’s blow. It was shortly after this that he had made his first attack. The victim was an old woman who had seen his face and would certainly remember his scar. He had grown a mustache to cover the scar and managed to resist attacking another woman for almost four years. When he did resume, he made sure that his victims didn’t see him.

  Now killing would be necessary, and it would start with the woman last night, the woman whose name, he would soon learn, was Magda Stern. Before he even arranged the gathering of his officers, he knew where she worked and where she lived.

  He called in Sergeant Koffeyanovich and told him that there would be some people coming and that all officers should be gathered in the meeting room. They should come whether or not they were ill or off duty. Those who did not show up, if any, should have their names and addresses turned over to the inspectors who would be arriving soon. Meanwhile the sergeant should give the lieutenant’s apology that he and the major were not available to help them, since both he and Major Lenonov were at an important meeting at the Ministry of the Interior.

  The sergeant, a veteran near retirement, simply said da and left the office. Spaskov called a friend in the Ministry of the Interior and requested a few minutes of his time for some advice. The flattered friend immediately agreed. Spaskov had more than enough cases in the district about which he could ask advice.

  As he put on his coat to leave, Spaskov debated how and where he would kill the woman. He decided it would be with a knife on the street as quickly and quietly as possible. He would wear gloves, take her purse, remove her money, and drop the purse in the street no more than a block from the stabbing.

  Perhaps it would be taken for coincidence, but probably not.

  A number of journalists who had attacked mafias, corrupt officials, and politicians of the right had, over the past year, been threatened, terrorized in their homes. One popular television journalist had even been shot down.

  Perhaps the investigating officer, who if Spaskov had his way, would be him, would accept the crime as a chance robbery or a politically motivated assault.

  At this point, Spaskov had no choice.

  The couple, probably in their late fifties, sat straight-backed next to each other as if they were about to have their photograph taken. The man was tall, lean, and clean-shaven, with dark thick gray-flecked hair. He wore a spotless pair of dark trousers, a blue shirt, and a dark pullover sweater. The woman at his side had hair cut short and growing gray much faster than that of her husband. She was less thin than he and bore an air of confident superiority.

  Rostnikov and Zelach sat across from them drinking tea. The apartment looked like something preserved from a previous century, from the well-polished old furniture and sparkling tea service to the chairs that would have seemed at home in an aristocrat’s parlor. Iosef had seen such things in history books that illustrated the decadence of a previous age. And the walls. On one wall was a framed double-eagle-head flag from the czarist era. Next to it was a portrait of a man in uniform, his dark hair parted in the middle, his mustache finely groomed. A white sash ran across the man’s chest and he wore three medals. His look was one of determination, not unlike that of the man who sat before the two detectives.

  Zelach did his best not to be intimidated by this proud couple who looked at him with critical eyes. He almost managed to give the appearance of confidence.

  Rostnikov, on the other hand, noted the frayed quality of the man’s trousers, the patched corners of the pillows on the sofa, and the very slightly odd angle of the tea table leg that looked as if it had been repaired one time too many, and said, “Remarkable.” He moved awkwardly, his new leg only partially cooperative. “Who is the man in the painting?”

  They were in the apartment of Anya and Ivan Mesanovich. It was their son who had been shot with the three Jews on the embankment.

  “That,” said Ivan with pride, “is my great-great-grandfather, Pavel Pestel.”

  “Captain Pavel Pestel,” his wife corrected. “A cavalry officer who also served, for a brief time, as a member of the czarina’s guard.”

  “Your name is not Pestel,” Rostnikov said conversationally, turning from the portrait to look at the couple.

  “There was an incident,” the man said. “My grandfather was impelled by circumstances to change his name and move to Moscow.”

  Rostnikov said nothing more on the topic. He turned to the subject of his visit, the couple’s dead son. As he did so, he noted that Zelach had finished his tea and was awkwardly balancing the empty cup and saucer on his broad knee.

  “When did your son tell you he was interested in becoming a Jew?” asked Rostnikov, knowing the question would be likely to elicit some emotional reaction.

  “He was not interested in becoming a Jew,” said the woman firmly. “Through two generations, in spite of the Communist doctrine of atheism, my husband’s family and my own have never deserted our religion nor our belief in and hope for the return of the monarchy. We want a country ruled by those bred to rule rather than louts who claim to be working for the people but are actually mad with their own power.”

  “We are not fools, Inspector,” the man said. “My father was a precision machinist and a member of the Communist Party. I was a machinist and a Party member. My son was the best machinist of us all, but our dreams fascinated him.”

  “Hypnotized him,” Anya corrected.

  “The past,” said Rostnikov.

  “Our heritage,” said Ivan. “We have our heritage. For my wife and me it is a symbol of our …”

  “Superiority?” said Rostnikov.

  “Yes,” said the man, meeting Rostnikov’s eyes.

  “So you don’t know why he spent so much time with the Jews, even went to services?”

  “No,” said Ivan.

  Anya nodded in agreement.

  “Since I never had the opportunity to meet your son,” said Rostnikov, “you must tell me: Is it at all possible that he would join the Jews to gain information about them for some organization to which he belonged?”

  “Igor belonged to no organization,” said the woman. “He had a few friends, recent friends, but he didn’t believe in organizations.”

  “Did he talk about the Jews?” Rostnikov asked, finishing his tea and handing the cup and saucer to the woman. He nodded at Zelach to do the same.

  “We didn’t know what he was doing,” said the man.

  “He did say once,” the woman recalled, “that he thought the Jews, who had been supposedly chosen by their God, had the longest history of suffering of any people on earth. The comment came, as I recall, when my husband commented on a news report about Israel. I argued with some vigor that the Russian people had suffered as much as the Jews.”

  “You had this conversation recently?” asked Rostnikov.
r />   “A few days before he was murdered,” said Ivan, head up. “We want the murderer caught. If the state does not execute him when he is caught, I will execute him. If the state does not find him, I will find him.”

  Rostnikov believed him, at least believed that the proud man would try to see that a life was taken for the life of his son.

  “Igor was our only child,” the woman said, touching her husband’s arm lightly.

  “Can you tell us about his friends? Names? Addresses?” asked Rostnikov, notebook out. “Perhaps they can help.”

  The woman gave them two names, Yevgeny Tutsolov and Leonid Sharvotz. She didn’t know where they lived, but she had the impression that they lived together. She also remembered that Igor had said that his friends’ families, had originally come from Saint Petersburg, as had theirs.

  “We never saw his friends,” said the man. “My wife and I suggested that he invite them here. He never brought them. I’m surprised my wife remembered their names. I am not good with names and numbers. But I remember faces.”

  He looked up at the portrait of his great-great grandfather and then back at Porfiry Petrovich.

  “May we see his room?” asked Rostnikov.

  It was a polite question to grieving parents. In fact, Rostnikov needed no authority other than his own to search the house.

  “Yes,” said Ivan Mesanovich, pointing to a door over his right shoulder.

  “Please,” said the woman. “Do not change anything. We want to keep it as it is for a while.”

  Rostnikov nodded. He had the sense that it would be a long time before the woman would bring herself to change the room. This was a family that worshiped the shrine of a lost aristocracy. They would worship both the memory and the room of their dead son, keep it neat, clean, a memorial. He had seen such things before.

  Zelach followed Porfiry Petrovich, who limped into the dead man’s room. It was small. It was neat. There was a chest of drawers, a small closet, and a neatly made-up bed with two pillows. The pillowcases were completely unwrinkled. Above the head of the bed hung a framed photograph. Rostnikov recognized the building in the photograph. Zelach thought it familiar.

  “The Hermitage,” Anya Mesanovich said from the doorway.

  “Has it been up long?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Less than a year,” she said. “Before that there was a large poster of a woman in a bathing suit. He said her name was Demi Moore. She was an American actress. He knew we didn’t like it, but we never tried to get him to take it down. And then, one day, it was gone and the Hermitage was there.”

  Her last words were said with pride. “We will be gentle, and quick,” said Rostnikov. “You may certainly watch.”

  She did, from the doorway. Zelach was uncomfortable but he did his job, going through the chest of drawers while Rostnikov took the closet so that he would probably not have to bend down. There wasn’t much in the closet. The dead man had few clothes. What he had was clean and relatively unfrayed, but there was little. Zelach found the same in the drawers. In the bottom drawer he found a book. He showed it to Rostnikov, who took it. It was thin but in good shape, quite old, and in French. The title, as far as Rostnikov could tell, was Lost Treasures of the Czars.

  “May we borrow this?” asked Rostnikov, knowing, once again, that he really didn’t need their permission.

  “You’ll bring it back?” asked the woman.

  “In two or three days,” said Rostnikov. “I give you my word.”

  “And what is your word worth?” asked Ivan, suddenly appearing in the doorway, showing a tinge of anger at the violation of his only son’s room.

  “In my work,” said Rostnikov, handing the book to Zelach, “it is all I have.”

  When they got back to Petrovka, Rostnikov settled behind his desk, Zelach across from him. Rostnikov was turning the pages of the book, looking at the pictures, understanding only a drop of the text.

  “Well?” Rostnikov asked.

  Zelach didn’t know what to say.

  “What did you think?” Rostnikov prompted.

  “I don’t know,” said Zelach.

  “What do you think we should do now?” Rostnikov persisted, still thumbing pages.

  “Interrogate the dead man’s friends?” said Zelach.

  “Precisely,” said Rostnikov. “What did we see at the Mesanovich apartment?”

  “Old things,” said Zelach, knowing there was something Rostnikov hoped he had observed, but not sure of what it was. “An old banner, an old portrait, old furniture, that book, the photograph over the bed.”

  “Excellent,” said Rostnikov, reaching for the phone.

  It took him only ten minutes to get through to Saint Petersburg, another five minutes to locate the security office, and another seven minutes before General Snitkonoy came on the line, his voice as deep and confident as ever.

  “Inspector Rostnikov,” he said.

  “General,” answered Rostnikov. “May I congratulate you on both your promotion and the responsibility the state has given you.”

  “Thank you,” said the Gray Wolfhound. “You have a purpose other than social in calling?”

  “If you would be so good as to help me with a case,” said Rostnikov, watching Zelach’s puzzled face and shifting his false leg by dragging it across the floor under his desk.

  “Of course,” said the general.

  “Pavel Pestel,” said Rostnikov. He spelled out the name. “Supposedly a member of the czarina’s guard, an army officer, probably in the 1850s or 1860s. Whatever can be discovered.”

  “I will have a good man on it right away,” said Snitkonoy. “What has he to do with the Hermitage?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rostnikov. “Maybe nothing.”

  “I shall have someone call you back,” said the general.

  “Thank you, General,” said Rostnikov, hanging up.

  Although Zelach said nothing, the look on his face said “I don’t understand.”

  “See if you can find Tkach,” suggested Rostnikov, returning to his book. “He reads French.”

  Zelach got up.

  “After General Snitkonoy’s people call back with the information, we will visit the two friends of the dead man as you suggested,” said Rostnikov.

  Zelach’s look of confusion turned to one of slight satisfaction as he left the room.

  Tkach and Elena Timofeyeva had just returned from Trotsky Station, where Magda Stern had been unable to identify any officer as the one who attacked her the night before. None even looked like a possibility. The men, about half in uniform and half in civilian clothes because they were supposedly off duty, filed out disgruntled, tired, and puzzled.

  They would move on to another station or two the next day. Elena was setting it up. They would start with those nearest the District 37 and work their way out. On the way back to the station, Elena had come up with a plan. It had been a good one, but one that would keep Sasha away from home for a number of nights. He had told her his plight, and she had suggested that they go to Porfiry Petrovich.

  So, when he entered Rostnikov’s office, the senior inspector looked up and said, “No luck.”

  “No,” said Tkach, who then told Rostnikov the plan.

  “Sounds good,” said Rostnikov.

  “The baby is sick,” said Tkach. “I have to be home. Maya is already … upset.”

  Rostnikov nodded in understanding and said he would assign someone else to work with Elena at night. And then he handed the book to Sasha.

  “Read it, please,” said Rostnikov.

  “Now?” asked Sasha.

  “Sit. Read. Summarize for me as you go along. The book is not long.”

  Sasha had just started reading when the phone rang. Rostnikov picked it up.

  “Inspector Rostnikov?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Leo Horv, State Security. I would like a few minutes of your time this afternoon. It is a matter of importance. I believe we have some information on the bomber.�
��

  “So I was informed by Inspector Timofeyeva. Would two o’clock be acceptable?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Two o’clock,” the man said, and hung up.

  Rostnikov looked at the phone and then began drawing on his pad, a cage with a faceless man inside, while Sasha went on reading and summarizing.

  Sasha had almost finished the book when the phone rang. Sasha placed the open book on his lap and rubbed his forehead wearily. The call was from a civilian who identified himself as one of the historians of the Hermitage.

  Rostnikov took notes as the man spoke, and made no sound as the man gave him far more information than he probably needed. The conversation, almost completely one-sided, lasted a little more than twenty minutes. When it was over, Rostnikov looked up from his notes at Sasha, who seemed to have fallen asleep.

  “Sasha,” he said.

  Tkach was immediately awake, brushing the hair from his eyes and ready to continue his reading.

  “Go back to what you were reading about the gold wolf,” Rostnikov said, looking at his notes. “Translate every word. Then go home and get some sleep, be with your family.”

  Sasha did not argue. He found the section Rostnikov wanted and translated it word for word as best he could.

  The afternoon before, when Rostnikov had brought the girls back home from visiting their grandmother, Sarah Rostnikov listened to them as they sat around the table. The girls were more animated than Sarah had ever seen them. They spoke of their visit. They told of how Inspector Rostnikov had promised to see what he could do about getting their grandmother out of prison. They both emphasized that he made no promises, but that he said he would try.

  Sarah smiled. The girls ignored the tea she had placed before each of them, though they had finished the cookie they had each been given.

  The pain had come back, perhaps ten minutes earlier. Sarah showed no outward signs but continued to smile and listen. The pains had grown more frequent. They had started recently, months after her cousin Leon was reasonably certain that the delicate surgery had been successful. But then, about two weeks ago, the head pains had come. Not really headaches but pains. At first they lasted only a few seconds, but now they were getting longer. At first she told herself they had nothing to do with the surgery she had undergone, that this was something entirely different. But the last three times the head pain had come there had been slight tremors in both her hands. She hid her hands in her pockets or, as she did now, under the table.