Tarnished Icons ir-11

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  Belinsky felt a sudden chill race along his fresh wound. He kicked out at the kneecap of the man who had slashed him. The blow was high. The kneecap did not break, but the man staggered back with a scream of pain. That left the silent man standing before the rabbi, trembling with fright, a pistol in his hand. Belinsky could see in the man’s eyes that he was going to shoot, but the man had made a mistake. He was no more than two feet away. Avrum stepped swiftly to his right and with a chop brought his right hand down on Leonid Sharvotz’s wrist. Leonid let out a gasp and dropped the gun in a knee-high bank of snow.

  A first-floor light went on in the building next to which they were fighting. A woman’s face appeared, squinting at the window, wiping away a small circle of frost so that she could see what was going on. The three men fled in different directions. The one he had kicked above the knee hopped rather than ran. Belinsky could have caught him, but the rabbi had no idea of how serious his chest wound might be, how much blood he had lost. The one whose nose he had broken was far down the street, and Avrum could see a trail of blood in the light from the woman’s window. His eyes turned to hers, and the woman backed away quickly and turned off her light.

  Avrum went to the snowbank where the gun had fallen, picked up a handful of snow, and pressed it through the tear in his clothes onto his bleeding chest. He groped in the bank for a few seconds, found the weapon-a Glock 9mm, model 17. Avrum had seen them before. There were few weapons that Avrum had not seen. He pocketed the Glock and walked home, but not too fast, as he continued to press the freshest snow he could find against his wound. To run or even walk quickly would make his heart beat faster and the blood flow more rapidly. He made it home, teeth tight, a prayer in his mind, and dead-bolted the door.

  His clothes were ruined. Even his pants were covered with blood. He washed and treated himself, relieved that the chest wound was not deeper, took the codeine, and lay in his bed with a small light on next to him.

  Why hadn’t they simply killed him as they had killed the others?

  The question jabbed at him through the night and the pain till the relief of his morning prayers.

  And now he sat waiting to tell his story to the police; the Glock he had taken taped under his small dresser. He had called his Israeli contact before he came, had called from an outdoor phone, told her what had happened and described his attackers. She had seemed more puzzled than Avrum that he was still alive. She promised to get orders and suggested that he call back late that afternoon. He agreed.

  Now he sat waiting while Rostnikov talked on the phone.

  A few hours earlier Oleg Selski had finished his breakfast: a bowl of barley soup, some bread, and a cup of strong, hot tea. Oleg was a man of average height and weight, forty-five years old, with a head full of hair that always needed cutting and a wife and a ten-year-old daughter.

  Oleg was an editor of Izvestia who had grown comfortable with the new openness of Russia. His job was no longer simply a bore, concerned with only the rote tasks of editing and selecting stories to be published after approval, of course, by the senior editor from the Party. That had changed. Though it had lost millions of readers to the newer, bolder Russian newspapers, Izvestia had also been liberated, and Oleg had found causes, crusades, and corruption. His salary had increased, not enough to make him and his family financially secure, but enough to give them some comforts. All in all, life was good for Oleg Selski.

  He was just finishing the last of his bread when Katrina, his daughter, came in with a letter. Selski occasionally received letters at home from his brother in Volgograd or from sources who didn’t want to write to him at the news office.

  This letter was a bit bigger than the rest.

  “Can I open it?” Katrina asked.

  Oleg threw the last of his bread into his mouth and washed it down with the last of his tea. He smiled at his daughter, pigtailed, in her blue-and-white dress, her pink face aglow.

  And then something struck Oleg. He wanted to speak, but he choked and spat out bread. He could be wrong, must be wrong. His instincts were not always right, but he was a cautious man who had learned how to survive.

  Katrina, a smile on her face, was already opening the letter when he finally shouted no. His shout startled the girl, who dropped the half-opened letter to the floor, where it instantly exploded.

  SIX

  The call Rostnikov was taking was from the bomber. Emil Karpo was listening in on the phone in his cubicle across the hall. Iosef stood next to Karpo drinking coffee and waiting. There was a definite winter wind rattling the window in the next cubicle, the one that had belonged to Iosef’s father before he had moved across the hall.

  “Did it happen?” asked the bomber.

  “It happened,” said Rostnikov, calmly sitting up in his chair and doodling on his pad of paper.

  “Do you want to know why he opened the letter?”

  “Yes,” said Rostnikov, drawing a cube on top of another cube. He knew he would draw a simple bird inside each cube, but he had no idea why.

  “He’s not on your list,” said the bomber smugly.

  A car horn beeped angrily over the phone.

  “I’m calling from a pay phone. I’ll make this short and be gone before you get here if you even have access to the technology for locating where I am.”

  “Your reason for selecting Oleg Selski?” Rostnikov asked calmly.

  “His newspaper, instead of spewing Communist lies, now spews capitalist ones,” said the bomber. “He has approved stories, editorials about the need for nuclear power plants. Chernobyl is operating again, a bomb far more destructive than any I have sent, destined to go off again, and he approved.”

  “So you sent him a bomb?”

  “Yes.”

  “I assume that means anyone in Moscow could receive a bomb if they believe in or use nuclear energy,” said Rostnikov.

  “Chernobyl is still operating,” said the bomber excitedly. “And yes, you are right. Even you, you are helping them by trying to catch me instead of helping me. You could get a bomb. The package I sent you could just as well have been a bomb. Any policeman could get one. You can’t protect the entire city. Did you read my statement?”

  “Yes,” said Rostnikov. “I gave it to my superior with your demand.”

  “What did you think of it?”

  “Well written but trite,” said Rostnikov. “If any station carried it, viewers would be bored after the first paragraph. There is not a citizen who has not been brought up on the simplicities of propaganda.”

  “I know,” said the bomber soberly. “But I owe it to my father. I owe it to the victims. I owe it to my mother. I am the last in my family. The name dies with me.”

  “You plan to die soon?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Slowly, gradually, like my father unless you catch me first, in which case I will kill myself,” he said.

  “The letter bomb you sent today,” Rostnikov said, easing his new leg into a less uncomfortable position, “it was not opened by Selski. It was opened by his ten-year-old daughter. Would you like to know what happened to her?”

  Silence from the bomber.

  “She started to open the letter,” Rostnikov continued. “Her father suspected something. He told her to drop it. She is in the hospital. Critical but expected to live. She lost her toes and part of her right foot. Her father was unharmed. Tell me, what is your favorite color?”

  “My fav-I have none. The girl will live?”

  “So I am told.”

  “This is not a trick?”

  “No,” said Rostnikov.

  “I believe you,” the bomber answered so softly that the inspector could barely hear him.

  “Your statement will not be read on television,” said Rostnikov.

  Silence from the bomber. Then he hung up.

  “Come in, Emil,” Rostnikov said to Karpo on the other end of the line. He looked at his watch. It was still early. School would not be out for hours. He had told Sarah that he was taking the g
irls after school.

  The door to the office opened. Karpo and Iosef entered. Iosef closed the door and said, “There’s a man waiting to see you in the hall.”

  “I know,” said Rostnikov, looking at the notes he had written on his pad. The pad also contained a diagram of the large room of Belinsky’s synagogue. While he was talking, Rostnikov had made drawings, in pencil so he could erase them, of possible configurations of tubing.

  “The tape worked?”

  “Perfectly,” said Karpo, holding up a cassette.

  Karpo stood at near attention, hands folded before him. Iosef, almost as tall as the pale man at his side, looked around the room and then at his father. Something more than anger paled his face.

  “So, what do we know now?” said Rostnikov. “Iosef?”

  “We’re dealing with an educated psychopath,” he said. “He thinks nuclear energy is killing us all, so he takes the ironic position that if he kills those who produce it or support it, he is making a statement against self-annihilation. The irony is that he would, if he lived and wasn’t caught, eventually murder most of the population of Russia. At least that would be his goal. I say, find him, kill him on the spot.”

  “A soldier’s answer,” said Rostnikov.

  “I was a soldier. I saw what terrorists and lunatics can do,” answered Iosef.

  “Emil?” Rostnikov asked, now looking at the impassive man before him.

  “First, the bomber is on our contact list. He himself has something to do with nuclear energy. He knew that if Oleg Selski had been on the list, he would not have allowed his daughter to open the letter. The bomber’s father was involved in some aspect of the production or use of nuclear energy. He may have been a scientist or a technician, but well educated, judging from his son’s speech and his proclamation. The father died as a result of nuclear accident or contamination, or at least his son believes so. He is probably right. In spite of this, the bomber also works or worked in nuclear energy research, production, or technology, probably studied the field because of his father. The bomber has radiation poisoning or believes he does and wishes to make a statement before his death. He lives with his mother, is probably around forty-five.”

  “Do you think he will stop now that he has almost killed the child?” asked Rostnikov, looking at his son.

  “No,” said Iosef. “He will believe that he must continue, that he has more reason now because he won’t want the girl’s injuries to be meaningless, especially in light of the director’s refusal to try to get his proclamation read on television.”

  Rostnikov shook his head and said, “First a soldier. Then a playwright and actor. Now a policeman. An interesting combination of talents. Karpo, what do you propose doing?”

  “Checking hospitals and physicians for men being treated for radiation poisoning,” Karpo replied. “See if any names coincide with those on our call list. Check with all Moscow corporations or government agencies dealing with nuclear materials. Review every person on our contact list.”

  “There are many?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Seven hundred and twenty-seven,” said Karpo. “We can begin to check immediately.”

  “What, I wonder, is the bomber’s favorite color?” Rostnikov mused, staring down at his drawing of birds inside of cubes. “If he calls again, I’ll ask him again, but I think I know the answer.”

  “Which is?” asked Iosef.

  “He considers himself a dead man. He gets satisfaction from nothing but his crusade and self-pity. I believe we are looking for a gray man, a very gray man.”

  Rostnikov had not bothered to tell Karpo to make a copy of the cassette of the bomber’s call. He knew he would have one on his desk by the time his visitor left. Nor did he suggest to Karpo that Paulinin listen to the tape. He was sure the detective would arrange it immediately.

  When his visitor left, Rostnikov would report to Yakovlev and then follow some leads on the murder of the Jews after getting a report on the Shy One, the rapist, from Sasha and Elena. It was a busy day, but he had promises to keep.

  Rostnikov picked up the phone, dialed two numbers, and told Zelach to come in and bring the man waiting in the hall.

  Moments later Zelach and Belinsky entered and Zelach closed the door.

  “What happened?” asked Rostnikov, pointing to his chairs.

  Belinsky sat. Zelach hesitated and then sat also.

  “I was attacked last night by three men,” he said. “I can give you descriptions of all three, poor ones of two of them and a precise one of the third. The third man has a badly broken nose. One of the other two men will be walking with a limp for some time. The last will have a stiff wrist for at least a week.”

  “You can give the descriptions to Inspector Zelach when we finish. Are you badly hurt?” asked Rostnikov.

  “I shall have another scar,” said Belinsky, touching his chest. “Each one with its own history to remind me that I and my people must remain forever and always alert.”

  Rostnikov nodded in understanding. He, too, had such scars, as did Zelach.

  “They had weapons?” Rostnikov asked.

  “Yes,” said Belinsky, saying nothing about the Glock hidden in his room.

  “Then I assume we both have the same question,” said Rostnikov.

  Zelach looked decidedly puzzled when Rostnikov turned his eyes on him to see if he understood.

  “Why didn’t they simply kill me like the others?” asked Belinsky.

  Rostnikov nodded again. “Anti-Semites who have not hesitated to murder six others do not kill you, a rabbi. What did they say?”

  “That we should get out,” said Belinsky.

  “Name-calling?”

  “Almost none, but there was no time,” said the rabbi, whose neck was throbbing. He had looked in the mirror before coming. His neck was purple. He covered it with a scarf, which he still wore over his second coat. The first coat, his better and warmer one, had been cut to uselessness the night before. Even with a sweater, the short brown coat he now wore was not warm enough for the cold weather.

  “They said-” Rostnikov began.

  “Only one spoke,” said Belinsky.

  “He said,” Rostnikov corrected, “get out. Out of where? Russia? Moscow? Did you have any sense of what he meant? Was he talking of all Jews?”

  Belinsky started to shake his head, but the pain in his neck stopped him, and he said “No” and then amended that to “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Rostnikov repeated.

  “I think he wanted us out of the way. We were standing in his way,” said Belinsky, trying to remember.

  The rabbi sat firm, upright, not ignoring the sense that blood had begun to seep slowly through the bandage and tape on his chest. He should, he knew, be lying down quietly, letting the wound close and begin to heal, but there was much to do. He would finish here, go to his room, change his dressing, and lie on his back quietly.

  Rostnikov looked at Zelach, who clearly had no ideas. Rostnikov was aware that Zelach’s mother loved him, cared for him, was grateful to Rostnikov for his confidence in a son she knew was less than bright. But Zelach’s mother was, Porfiry Petrovich knew, a quiet bigot. A word here, a word there had made that evident. Akardy Zelach simply accepted the prejudices of his mother, although little in his life bore out the distrust his mother expressed. Every day bore out his experience that crime, violence, and evil appeared in all groups, among all people, as did kindness and a love of family and a respect for the law, no matter how confusing that law might be. Rostnikov preferred not to consider the dilemma.

  “You have any suggestions or ideas, Akardy?” Rostnikov asked.

  The Jew looked at the slouching, uncomfortable man in the chair next to him. There was nothing in the Jew’s eyes to indicate anything but interest in what Zelach might say. Suddenly Zelach got an idea.

  “Mesanovich,” he said, almost without thought. “The one who died on the embankment, the one who wasn’t a Jew.”

  Rostnikov smiled. Avru
m Belinsky shrugged, though it brought on a wince of pain, which he disguised by gently biting his lower lip as if in thought.

  “You want a doctor?” Rostnikov said.

  “I know where I can get one of my people if necessary,” said Belinsky. “I made a mistake last night. It will not happen again.”

  “Mistake?” asked Zelach before he could stop himself.

  “The rabbi thinks he should have killed the three men,” said Rostnikov. “Am I correct?”

  “Yes,” said Belinsky, rising from his chair. He had considered using the gun in his pocket during the attack but had been confident that he could defend himself without it and create a sense of fear in his attackers without killing them. “I’ll not make that mistake again if I have the opportunity.”

  The detective and the rabbi looked at each other, and both knew that there was no chance of changing the other’s mind. Belinsky turned toward the door, forcing himself to walk deliberately. He paused, turned, and said, “The materials for the heating arrived.”

  “Eight o’clock tonight?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Yes,” said Belinsky. “You’ll need help. I can get some of my congregants, and I will be there.”

  “You are in no condition to help, but be there,” said Rostnikov. “I need only two of your people, the stronger the better. I’ll recruit others.”

  “It will be,” said Belinsky.

  The rabbi went out the door and closed it. Rostnikov began to adjust his artificial leg.

  “What do you have planned for tonight?” asked Rostnikov.

  “Tonight?” asked Zelach. “Dinner. Television.”

  “How would you like to learn the profession of heating engineer?” Rostnikov proposed. “It will be something to fall back on in times of trouble.”