Black Knight in Red Square ir-2

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  He had taken the job at the Tretyakov Gallery more than five years ago. His main reason then was the privacy. He would be alone for many hours in the mansion, though other guards would be wandering about on their rounds. But soon after he took the job he began to grow interested in the thousands of sculptures, drawings, watercolors, and engravings that covered the walls and filled the rooms.

  More than four thousand people visited the gallery every day, plunking down thirty kopecks each and waiting in long lines, but Osip paid nothing and had the rooms to himself. He could pause and carry on a conversation with Kiprensky’s portrait of Pushkin or sit on the bench, his feet planted firmly on the inlaid wooden floor, and lecture to Rublev’s larger-than-life nine-hundred-year-old saints.

  Tonight, however, would be special. It had all been arranged. It would be his last trip through the gallery, and he would say good-bye to almost all of his iconic acquaintances. Osip checked in at the side door, trying to control his grin as he said hello to old Victor and put his sack on the ledge in the small guards’ room.

  “Quiet so far,” said old Victor, looking up from the chessboard over which he sat slumped for hours. It was what Victor always said. Osip would miss that. He wondered what old Victor would be saying about him tomorrow.

  In ten minutes, Osip began his rounds. In the past four years, he had slowly, carefully, and systematically stolen eighty-five paintings from these walls, carefully replacing them with others of about the same size and shape from various storage rooms of the collection.

  The thefts, in fact, had been discovered only recently, and only a few of them, because of a complaint from a Belgian art student who could not locate a small canvas by Ilya Repin. He had been most careful since then and had cooperated fully and enthusiastically with the police investigators, who found that Osip Stock lived most frugally, did not have the paintings hidden in his home, and seemed most eager to find the missing artworks. He was confident that he was very low on the list of suspects, but after tonight he would be quite well known and very far away.

  None of the thefts had been his idea. Well, a few of the later ones were at his suggestion. He had been recruited by the Dutchman, who had invited him for a drink. It had seemed that the two had met accidentally, but it did not take long for Osip to figure out that it had been well planned. Van der Vale had dined and befriended Osip for three weeks before he brought up the possibility of taking some paintings. Osip had been most receptive, and the partnership had begun.

  Osip would remove a painting from the wall, hide the frame, wrap the canvas around his body, replace the stolen painting with a similar one from the storage rooms, and walk out. He would meet van der Vale in an alley not far from the gallery where they would make the transfer.

  The agreement was that van der Vale would bank Osip’s money in Amsterdam and, when the right moment came, would supply Osip with a forged German passport and a ticket to Zurich. Tonight was the right time. Osip would take the most valuable painting available. At first they had tried to figure out a way to take the Rublev Trinity or Dionisii’s icon of the Metropolitan Alexis, for which Osip had particular affection, but getting the wood blocks out would have been impossible. They settled on a series of eighteenth-century paintings which, when wrapped around Osip, would make him a bit stocky, but not enough for any of the guards to notice. By the time the theft was discovered in the morning, if it was, Stock would already be in Zurich. He had been preparing for this for almost five years, right down to learning enough German to carry him past the airport inspectors if necessary.

  Osip was most patient. He made his rounds, chatted with the other two guards, ate with them and encouraged them to hold a mini chess tournament. Each guard would patrol while the other two played. Osip got in the first game and lost. He couldn’t have beaten Victor no matter how hard he tried, but he did not want to win. When Vasily sat down to play what Osip knew would be a long game, Osip ambled slowly out of the room. Once out of sight, he moved quickly down the hall and up the stairs. Within ten minutes, he had removed the six canvases and piled their frames in a closet. He juggled the remaining paintings around to cover the loss, knowing that it would not take a careful inspection the next day to discover the theft.

  By the time he was finished, Osip was sweating heavily, something he had not counted on, but there was no help for it. He had to move quickly. The chess game should go on for an hour, but what if Vasily made a stupid move?

  He had wrapped the small canvases around his waist and tied them neatly to his chest. He felt a bit awkward, but reasonably confident that he could carry it off. He was buttoning the final button on his jacket just as Vasily stepped into the room.

  “Victor won,” he announced as if there had been any doubt of the outcome. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Me?” said Osip. “Nothing.”

  “You are sweating and walking strangely,” said Vasily.

  “Maybe I’m ill,” admitted Osip. “I’ve been feeling strange since I ate.”

  “You ate something bad,” Vasily said wisely, his words echoing off the ancient figures that looked down at them. “Maybe you should go home.”

  “Maybe,” Osip said, reaching for a cigarette. “I’ll go talk to Victor.”

  It was even better than he had thought. He could get out even earlier. The Dutchman would be waiting. He always arrived early and checked the alleyway to be sure it was safe. Maybe Osip could get an even greater head start, catch an earlier flight, and get out of Russia even faster. It was worth discussing with the Dutchman.

  Victor agreed that Osip looked terrible, but then, he thought that Osip always looked terrible. Tonight he looked a little stiff and was sweating through his uniform.

  “Go home, Stock,” he said, flushed with his double chess victory. “We’ll take care.”

  Osip feigned reluctance but accepted finally, moved slowly to the door and stepped out into the star-filled night. He took a deep breath and, after a final look back at the gallery, started down the street. Five minutes later, he entered the alley and waited. Ten minutes later, the little Dutchman, whose name was not van der Vale and who was not Dutch, decided it was safe to enter the alley. He followed the glowing tip of Stock’s cigarette and moved forward cautiously.

  “Stock?” he said in accented Russian.

  “Yes.”

  “You are early,” said the Dutchman, looking around. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” whispered Stock, moving forward, where he could make out the slight form. “I said I was sick and got away early. You have the clothes for me and the suitcase?”

  “Yes,” said the Dutchman, thinking that it would have been much better if this fool had gone through the night on the job. Perhaps it did not matter. He did not, in fact, have clothes for Stock, nor did he have a suitcase or a passport. The Dutchman planned to take the remaining paintings and bludgeon Osip Stock to death with the metal bar he now held behind his back. In spite of his open face and slight body, the Dutchman had done such things before. “The paintings, quick.”

  Stock removed his jacket and shirt and peeled off the paintings. In his haste he had hidden the bottom painting, a landscape, so that the paint pressed against his sweaty chest. A good deal of paint stuck to his skin when he peeled the canvas off.

  If they inspect me at the airport, Osip thought, the evidence of my guilt will be painted in reverse on my body. He thought about where he might wash.

  “Enough.”

  Stock thought the voice was the Dutchman’s, who in turn thought it was Stock. They were both wrong. It was the voice of Emil Karpo who now stepped out into the starlight, a tall outline with a hand outstretched, holding a gun.

  “Police,” he explained evenly. “You will raise your hands slowly and lie on the ground, face down.”

  Osip let out a small whimper and looked at the Dutchman. The Dutchman looked around quickly, and seeing no escape, he brought his hands up. In his right there glittered the bar of metal. Stock took in
the metal bar.

  “You were going to kill me,” he said slowly.

  The Dutchman, who knew more about the Soviet system of justice than Osip Stock did, was beyond concern. He was thinking of the prison years ahead, but Osip was a man who had been betrayed and whose dream had been shattered. He threw down the paintings and, ignoring Karpo’s gun, lunged at the Dutchman.

  “Stop,” shouted Karpo, but Stock was not to be stopped. The Dutchman swung the bar and caught the advancing madman on the shoulder, but Osip had his hands around the smaller man’s throat. The metal bar went skittering across the pavement, clanking and sending up sparks.

  “Stop,” Karpo repeated, stepping forward. With but one good arm, he doubted if he could separate the two and knew that if he came too close he ran the risk of losing his gun. “I am going to shoot,” he said over the grunting of Osip and the gurgling of the Dutchman.

  Karpo aimed a few feet from the struggling pair, who had rolled over on the paintings. The bullet hit the head of an eighteenth-century saint but did nothing to discourage Stock. Karpo aimed the second bullet at Stock’s legs. But it was dark, and the thieves were moving. Even as good a shot as Emil Karpo could be forgiven for what happened.

  The bullet struck the Dutchman on the left side of his chest and made a path through his heart before lodging in his lung. There was a convulsion, and the man died, but Osip Stock kept strangling him. As long as he kept his attention on the little man, he would not have to think about what was coming next.

  “He is dead,” said Karpo, stepping forward to stand next to Stock. “You madman. He is dead.”

  It took a substantial clout with the gun to make Osip stop and look about. It took another clout to make him react.

  “Now get up and pick up those paintings,” Karpo said. The kneeling Stock looked up at this angel of death, then down at the Dutchman. Anger turned to fear, which turned to panic. Stock rose, looked at the gun pointed at him, glanced around the alley, and took off at a sprint. Karpo considered chasing him, but he was running at a breakneck pace, his jacket flying open, his thin, birdlike chest heaving.

  Karpo raised his gun, but when he had Stock’s back firmly in sight he changed his mind. He knelt to be sure the Dutchman was dead and listened to Stock’s clattering footsteps receding in the darkness.

  From a public phone nearby, Karpo called for an ambulance. Then he called the gallery and told one of the guards to come for the paintings. His third call set up a general alarm to pick up Osip Stock. Then he returned to the alley to wait with the body. He would have to make out a report, but he would worry about that later. The fact that he had shot a parasite did not bother him, though he considered that he might have handled the situation better.

  For Karpo it was a case closed, a job done. Even as he leaned against the wall within feet of the dead man, his mind was back on the woman with the dark eyes. It was almost like love, this hatred he felt for her, but either way it spurred him on. If he could think like her, he might be able to figure out her next move. As he waited for the ambulance, he closed his eyes and went over the case from his first sight of the woman to his discovery of the maps. Just before the ambulance arrived at 3:15 A.M. an idea came.

  By the time Osip Stock was picked up at 4:47, he had run almost ten miles. The police had found him not far from his home. He was exhausted and not terribly coherent. Karpo did not know that Stock had been picked up till nine the next morning, because he had left word that he was not to be disturbed. He had a plan to work out, and it would require his full concentration.

  ELEVEN

  Discouraging, Rostnikov thought, most discouraging. The room was crowded with people. It was normally a basketball court, but at present it was being used as a warm-up room for those competing in the Sokolniki Recreation Park’s annual weight-lifting competition for men and women over fifty. The contestants warmed up in here and then competed in another building. Four people competed at a time early in the competition, and as the lifting continued, this was decreased to two, and at last the finalists competed individually before a substantial audience.

  In the past, Rostnikov had seen only the finalists. He did not realize how many people in Moscow over the age of fifty considered themselves weight lifters. There were several hundred, and it was discouraging. The room was filled with people doing situps and pushups, running in place, turning red in the face from their efforts. It was madness. Some of the contestants looked too old to compete in anything. Others looked far younger than fifty.

  Feeling awkward, he moved to a corner and flexed his muscles. Normally he warmed up by simply lifting. He had a terrorist killer to catch, a dangerous plan to execute. How long could he wait here to be called? Yes, it was Saturday, and most of the people here did not have to work, but for him this was a working day.

  “Breathe,” said a robust woman doing situps next to him. “You don’t want to hyperventilate. Breathe deep.”

  This discouraged Rostnikov even more. He must look like a novice if this woman was giving him advice. Many of the people in the gymnasium were wearing sweat suits like his. Others wore fancy European running suits in blue or red. A good number were in shorts and shirts emblazoned with the names of the cooperatives or factories they represented. Rostnikov’s sweat suit was gray and baggy.

  “Breathe,” insisted the robust woman, coming up from a situp.

  “I am breathing,” Rostnikov replied. Off in a corner, someone dropped a weight with a terrible clang and cursed. A man with an enormous belly and a bald head came past and paused to look down at Rostnikov as if he were inferior competition. Around his neck the man had draped a blue towel, which he held with both hands and used to flex the muscles in his hairy arms. Rostnikov suddenly felt like apologizing and heading for the exit, but it was too late for that, and this might well be his last chance to compete.

  Names were called. Weight totals were posted solemnly on a blackboard to indicate leaders. Losers trooped in silently, some angry with themselves. The bald man, as it turned out, was an early loser. He stomped past Rostnikov and threw his towel at the wall. It hit with a sweat-soaked splat. People around pretended not to notice.

  And then Rostnikov was called. The robust woman who, he was sure, had warmed herself up into total exhaustion, wished him luck and reminded him to breathe. He promised to do so.

  “Name,” said a man in a white shirt, dark tie, and thick glasses. He held a clipboard and did not look back at Rostnikov as he led the way. Rostnikov, dragging his bad leg, had trouble keeping up with him.

  “Rostnikov, Porfiry Petrovich,” the chief inspector called ahead, following the man through the crowd and out of the building.

  “That is right,” said the man, heading for the next building.

  “I thought it might be,” said Rostnikov.

  The man stopped and turned to the detective, his clipboard clutched to his chest. “This is a most serious competition,” he said. “We take it seriously.”

  “As do I,” said Rostnikov, wondering if the man was using an editorial “we,” or whether “we” referred to the state, or to everyone competing except Rostnikov.

  The man examined Rostnikov and found nothing impressive in the washtub with the oversized gray sweat suit.

  As a participant rather than a spectator, Rostnikov’s first view of the auditorium was a revelation. The sense of being looked over and criticized was overwhelming. He followed the man with the glasses like a lost child latching onto the nearest adult.

  There was little formality. When he got to mat number three, a no-nonsense woman checked his name again and pointed with a pencil for him to move to the weight that sat waiting. No one told him how much it weighed. Things were moving too quickly. The morning was too hot, and there were too many people to eliminate. A pair of bored, muscular young spotters with tight white shirts moved to either side of Rostnikov as he stood behind the bar and looked at the woman who held the stopwatch.

  “Time,” she said.

  Rostni
kov took a deep breath, bent awkwardly with his bad leg braced. He had taped the leg to give it a bit more stability, but he knew he could not count on it for help. He looked down at the bar but not the weights. You will rise and become one with me, he commanded the bar.

  Rostnikov had not practiced the snatch very often. It was too difficult to do with his leg, to bring the weight from the floor to a locked overhead position in one smooth move. In addition, when he practiced in his apartment, he was afraid of sending the weights through the floor onto the heads of the Vonoviches below.

  Rostnikov grabbed the weight. Though this was not his event he would try not to embarrass himself. Up, he commanded, up as one, and he imagined Alexiev or young Anatoli Pisarenko flinging the metal overhead with that beauty of motion that demonstrated a man’s control over his own body.

  He bent his good knee and moved his other leg to a firmer position and lifted. Up, up, up, he commanded, but he was lucky to get the weight as far as his chest. Fearing that time was running out, he paused only a fraction of a second, then pressed the weight upward and held it. It was heavy, but tolerable. He looked over at the woman and the man with the glasses for the sign that he could drop the weight and end the embarrassment of having failed, but there was something strange about their faces. Both had mouths open and the woman was not looking at her watch. Several people from the other mats had moved over quickly to look at him, and there was a buzz of words he could not make out. The weight above his head began to sway, and he was afraid he would drop it.

  Rostnikov pleaded with the woman with his eyes, and finally she nodded to indicate that the lift was complete. He dropped the weight as easily as he could and pulled his bad leg back out of the way as the bar bounced against the mat as if alive. The two spotters bent over to stop it, and Rostnikov straightened up, a slight ache in his back. It was at this point that he realized the cluster of people around his mat were applauding.

  “Why did you do that?” asked the man with glasses, a look of awe on his face.