Blood and Rubles ir-10

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  While she wrote, Zelach pleaded with his eyes for Sasha’s permission to reach for another biscuit or two. Sasha ignored him and finished his tea.

  “There,” said Dmitra. She handed Sasha the list.

  “Thank you,” he said, glancing at the brief list of names. He took out his notebook and inserted the sheet of paper inside it for protection.

  Then Sasha stood up. Zelach joined him and so did Dmitra.

  “You hardly touched the biscuits,” she said. “Here, let me give you each a box to take home.”

  “We …” Sasha began, but she had already hurried to a cupboard in the corner.

  She was back almost instantly with two small blue cardboard boxes covered with Polish words. She held them out, and Zelach took his instantly. Sasha hesitated for an instant and then imagined the look on his daughter Pulcharia’s face when he presented her with the biscuits. He took them, said “Thanks,” and hurried Zelach out of the apartment.

  “Let me know if I can help any further,” Dmitra called down the hall as the policemen departed.

  “We will,” said Sasha.

  When the thin woman had closed the door, Zelach grinned and held up his blue box from Poland. “You know what they call these in America?” he asked. “Cookie. My mother loves them.”

  Zelach lived with his old mother in a small apartment. For years he had taken care of her through her various maladies. When Zelach had been savagely beaten recently, she had pulled herself from her bed and taken care of her only child. It had made a new and healthier woman of her.

  They hurried down the steps past the graffiti-filled walls and out into the street. Zelach was still grinning. He had plunged the package into the pocket of his jacket. He looked a bit odd to Sasha.

  “Are you all right?”

  “A bit dizzy,” said Zelach. “Fine, just a bit dizzy. I have medicine for it at home, but sometimes I feel good and forget. I’ll be fine.”

  So Sasha Tkach, his own biscuit box in his pocket, walked down the street, keeping an eye on his partner. Just what every investigator needs, he thought, a partner who might suddenly pass out on him.

  THREE

  The Grieving Family

  “Turn at the next corner,” Rostnikov said in Russian. “Turn left. Cautiously. The street is narrow and the population surly at this hour.”

  The FBI agent turned the car to the left. The movement was smooth, and there were no pedestrians in sight for at least half a block.

  “Why are they surly at this hour?” Hamilton asked without looking over at his passenger.

  “Fear, hunger, political dissatisfaction, low-paying jobs, problems at home,” said Rostnikov.

  “Is it different at another hour?” Hamilton asked.

  “Not really,” said Rostnikov, looking out of the window. “Would you rather speak English?”

  “Not particularly. I prefer the practice.”

  Rostnikov nodded in understanding. “You are a Negro,” he said.

  Hamilton smiled. “You noticed,” he said.

  “No,” Rostnikov went on, trying to adjust his left leg into a less painful position. “I mean that it is unusual. The few dark-skinned people we see are from Africa or, sometimes, Cuba. Diplomats. You are the first American Negro I have met. But I wondered why they had decided to send you to Moscow. You stick out like a sore … tongue.”

  “Thumb,” Hamilton corrected. “I speak Russian and know the culture and politics reasonably well.”

  Rostnikov nodded and said, “Public relations.”

  This time Hamilton smiled more broadly. “More than a bit of that too.”

  “Is this conversation making you uncomfortable?”

  “No,” said Hamilton.

  “Good. Do you know Ed McBain?”

  “Ed … Mystery writer?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “Personally, no. I haven’t read anything by him either.”

  “Fine writer,” said Rostnikov with a sigh. “I was wondering if you or any members of your staff might have one of his books with you that I might borrow.”

  “I’ll ask,” said Hamilton, slowing down so that an old man walking a dog could cross in front of them. The man and the dog moved very slowly. Hamilton had to stop.

  “Most Moscow drivers would simply have slowed down a little and tried to miss them,” said Rostnikov.

  “The pedestrian does not have the right of way?”

  “The pedestrian doesn’t have much of anything,” said Rostnikov. “There, the white building. Second one. Where the policeman is standing.”

  “At the meeting,” Hamilton said, “you assigned a detective to a case involving the murder of someone he knew.”

  “Karpo,” said Rostnikov. “He … they were very close.”

  “In the States we would be sure that a detective or agent was not assigned to a case involving someone he knew well,” said Hamilton. “Objectivity breaks down.”

  “Perhaps,” said Rostnikov. “But determination replaces it. When you meet Inspector Karpo, you will understand.”

  There were cars on the street, but parking was relatively easy. The cars tended to look new, American and French. This was a street of large apartments and wealthy people, many of whom, like Alexei Porvinovich, had become wealthy with the collapse of Communism and the rise of an insane free market. In front of the door a uniformed policeman with an automatic weapon looked at the pair getting out of the car and stood a little more erect.

  “The hood ornament,” said Rostnikov, easing himself slowly out of the car. “Can you remove it?”

  “Don’t know,” said Hamilton, who was by now standing on the sidewalk. “It’s an embassy vehicle.”

  “If it can be removed, remove it and lock it in the car-under the seat where it cannot be seen,” said Rostnikov, locking his door and looking up at the building.

  “But there’s an armed policeman standing twenty feet away,” said the FBI agent.

  “The danger is not necessarily decreased by that fact,” said Rostnikov.

  Hamilton moved to the hood, unscrewed the shiny ornament, and looked at Rostnikov with his trophy in hand.

  “Windscreen wipers,” said Rostnikov, stepping up on the curb.

  Hamilton removed the windshield wipers and looked at Rostnikov, who nodded.

  “On the floor of the car,” Rostnikov said. “If they see it on the seat, they might break the window.”

  “What if they steal the car?”

  “Then it is gone forever,” said Rostnikov. “Things disappear quickly and forever in today’s Russia, not unlike yesterday’s Russia. Tell me, in the United States would they call this a skyscraper?”

  Hamilton locked the car door and looked up at the twelve-story building before answering.

  “Not even close.”

  The armed young man stepped in front of them at the door, and Rostnikov flipped open his wallet to show his identification. The armed young man looked quickly, nodded, and stepped out of the way. Hamilton and Rostnikov entered the small hallway of the building and found the doorbell marked PORVINOVICH. An answering ring popped open the inner door.

  Again Hamilton smiled.

  “May I ask what amuses you?” asked Rostnikov as they moved across the green-tiled floor of the empty lobby.

  “That lock wouldn’t keep out the most inept burglar.”

  “Nor would a better lock,” said Rostnikov as they arrived at the elevator in the corner of the lobby. “The most inept burglar would simply break a pane of glass or kick in a panel. The door is designed to keep out the innocent and discourage the guilty. Tell me, what do you think of the actor Denzel Washington?”

  They got into the elevator, and Rostnikov pushed a button.

  “Because he’s black?” asked Hamilton, his hands at his sides.

  “Of course,” said Rostnikov. “I have not seen him except in a tape of some movie called The Mighty Flynn.”

  “‘Quinn,’” Hamilton corrected. “I hope that when
I retire, Denzel Washington will star in the movie of my life.”

  “You expect such a movie to be made?”

  “Never can tell,” said Hamilton.

  Rostnikov didn’t smile. He liked this FBI man with a sense of humor.

  The elevator hummed smoothly to a stop. Finding the apartment was no problem. Here another uniformed policeman, a little older than the one downstairs, faced them suspiciously, weapon ready.

  “I’m Inspector Rostnikov,” Rostnikov said. “This is American FBI agent Hamilton.”

  The policeman lowered his weapon and stepped back.

  “Were you ordered here by your district commander?” Rostnikov asked.

  “Yes, Inspector,” said the policeman.

  Rostnikov knocked at the door. “These must be important people,” he said. “In an undermanned district two officers are assigned to protect the apartment after the victim has been kidnapped.”

  “His wife and brother …” Hamilton said.

  “If a plumber had been kidnapped,” said Rostnikov softly so that the policeman standing guard would not hear him, “there would be no police-only perhaps a friend of his with a wrench and a bad temper, which might be more effective.”

  The door opened. The man who opened it resembled the file photograph Rostnikov had in his pocket. He wore dark slacks and a definitely disheveled white shirt, conservative blue tie, and a loose-fitting sport jacket.

  “Inspector Rostnikov,” said Rostnikov, without showing his ID. “And this is Agent Hamilton of the FBI. And you are the brother of Alexei Porvinovich.”

  “Yes, how did you know?” The man backed away to let them in.

  “I am the Steve Carella of the Moscow police,” said Rostnikov, looking around the apartment.

  The room was large and modern, with white carpeting. The furniture was mostly white, with black enameled tables. There were two large paintings on the wall. One depicted a pale woman in a clinging black dress reclining on a red chaise longue while an attentive young man in a suit knelt before her, holding up a burning lighter for the indifferent woman, who held a cigarette and holder between two fingers of her left hand. The second painting seemed to have been done by the same artist. It, too, featured a pale woman, this time in white, surrounded by three attentive young men. The woman had her head back and was laughing insincerely. The paintings fascinated Rostnikov because of the woman who sat before him on one of the white chairs. She wore a black suit, and her cigarette, not in a holder, was already lit. She could have been the model for either of the women in the paintings.

  “Madame Porvinovich,” Rostnikov said.

  “Anna Ivanovna Porvinovich,” she said, her voice low. “I heard you introduce yourselves to Yevgeniy. Please sit. Yevgeniy will get you drinks if you-”

  “Cold water would be fine with me,” said Hamilton.

  “Do you perhaps have a Pepsi-Cola?” asked Rostnikov, looking for the least uncomfortable chair.

  “Yes,” said Anna Porvinovich.

  Behind them Yevgeniy left the room.

  “I gather that you have not yet found Alexei,” Anna Porvinovich said.

  Rostnikov tried to keep his eyes from the paintings. “We have just begun to look,” he said. “Shall we wait till his brother returns before …?”

  “As you wish,” Anna Porvinovich said. She put out her cigarette in an ornate glass ashtray, looked at Hamilton, and said, “You speak Russian?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Do you speak English?”

  “No, but some French. I’m learning. Perhaps English would be more interesting,” she said, her dark eyes examining the FBI agent.

  “You do not seem particularly upset by the unfortunate disappearance of your husband,” Hamilton said.

  Yevgeniy returned with a tray on which there were three glasses. He placed the tray on the small table in front of Anna Porvinovich and sat next to her, handing out drinks. The possible widow had a sparkling mineral water with a slice of lime, a fruit Rostnikov rarely saw.

  “People handle distress in different ways,” she said. “I prefer to keep up appearances and my sense of dignity. Yevgeniy, as you can see, is a nervous wreck.”

  “My brother …” he began, and then trailed off.

  Rostnikov took a sip of his Pepsi and nodded his approval. Hamilton didn’t touch his ice water.

  “You have received a ransom call,” said Rostnikov.

  “A call, yes,” said Anna Porvinovich. “Yesterday. A man demanded three million American dollars by Friday or Alexei would be killed. Actually, he said Alexei would be beheaded and thrown in the street. He put Alexei on the phone. He said I should do as I was told. I said I would if it were possible and he would tell me how I was to get three million dollars. Alexei was understandably distraught. He said I knew how to get the money.”

  “Do you?” asked Hamilton.

  Anna Ivanovna Porvinovich shrugged.

  “Did the man who called have an accent?” asked Rostnikov.

  She thought about this a moment and said, “No. But he did not sound well educated.”

  “Tell us what he said,” said Rostnikov. He opened a notepad. Hamilton produced a small tape recorder.

  Anna Porvinovich looked at the tape recorder and then back at Hamilton before going on. “‘We have your husband. We want three million dollars American by Friday. We know you can get it. He told us you know where it is. Bring it in a suitcase to the art museum in Vladimir before noon tomorrow. Place the suitcase behind the bushes to the left of the entrance. Be sure no one is watching you. Then go into the museum and stay there for one hour.’ Then he put Alexei on the phone, and Alexei said, ‘Do what the man told you, Anna.’ Then they hung up. That’s all.”

  “How did your husband sound?” Rostnikov asked.

  “Sound?”

  “Was he frightened?”

  “Resigned,” she said. “I don’t think Alexei believes he will live through this regardless of what Yevgeniy and I do, but I intend to deliver the money and hope for the best.”

  “We would like to wire your telephone in case they call back,” Rostnikov said. He wondered if he could get a recording device through Pankov.

  Anna Porvinovich shrugged and picked up her drink. She examined the rising bubbles for a moment and then drank, her eyes back on Hamilton.

  “We would like to mark the bills and put a homing device in the suitcase full of money,” said Rostnikov.

  “Whatever you like,” she said. She put down her drink.

  “You think he is dead?” asked Rostnikov, watching her face.

  “No,” said Yevgeniy vehemently.

  “Yes,” said Anna Porvinovich evenly. “In the United States,” she said to Hamilton, “what would you do?”

  “I would think that your husband is still alive and will remain so until they get the money and feel they are safe. Then they will kill him. Chief Inspector Rostnikov hopes to find them after they pick up the money and before they feel safe.”

  “Why won’t they simply let him go?” asked Yevgeniy, holding his hands to his mouth.

  Hamilton looked at Rostnikov, who nodded to him.

  “Why risk it?” Hamilton said. “Mr. Porvinovich may know what his captors look like, or he may be able to recognize the place he’s been taken to. It would be an unsafe risk to let him live.”

  Rostnikov shifted his leg and tried not to wince as he said, “Do you have any idea who might be behind this?”

  “Alexei knows so many people,” Anna Porvinovich said, reaching for a cigarette and looking at Hamilton.

  She wants him to go down on one knee and light it for her, like the man in the painting, Rostnikov thought. Hamilton made no move while Anna Porvinovich paused and then accepted a light from Yevgeniy, whose hand was shaking.

  “Can you make a list of people whom Alexei Porvinovich knows-those with whom he does business, those he may have offended, anyone …?”

  “I do not think Alexei would like you to have a list of his business associates
,” Anna answered. “But … all right. You will have such a list in an hour.”

  “And you, Yevgeniy,” Rostnikov said. “Can you help make this list for us?”

  “Yes,” he said. “If there’s any chance we can save Alexei, I will do whatever is necessary.”

  “Do either of you like to dance?” Rostnikov asked.

  “Do we …” Yevgeniy began, confused.

  “I like to dance,” Anna said. “And Yevgeniy is a hippo on the dance floor. I have more than once had the misfortune of having him step on me.”

  Yevgeniy shook his head.

  “Alexei, does he dance?” asked Rostnikov.

  “A little,” she said. “Does it matter?”

  “Perhaps, perhaps not. Do you read?”

  This time Anna looked just the slightest bit annoyed. “Yes, I can read and I do read. I am currently reading a book in French. The newly discovered Jules Verne novel. But-”

  “Are you enjoying it?” Rostnikov interrupted.

  “Not very much.”

  “Then why read it?” Rostnikov asked.

  “When I begin a book, I always finish it. When I go to a play or a movie, I always sit through it. I do not leave anything unfinished.”

  “I understand,” said Rostnikov. “And you, Yevgeniy?”

  “I don’t think this will help my brother.”

  “Humor me,” said Rostnikov.

  “I am not reading a book. I don’t read many books. I am a businessman.”

  “What do you do with your time besides work?” asked Rostnikov.

  Anna now looked at Rostnikov as if he were a madman. “Go to museums, clubs,” she answered. “Read an occasional book. Hold an occasional tea. Time passes. I find things with which to fill it.”

  “Yevgeniy?”

  “I am in business with my brother. That leaves me little free time. I normally spend it with my family.”

  “Family?”

  “Wife, mother-in-law, daughter, dachshund.”

  “How old is your daughter?”

  “Sixteen,” he answered with restrained anger.

  Rostnikov rose, finished the Pepsi in his hand, and placed his drink on the table. Hamilton got up. Yevgeniy got up. Anna Porvinovich remained seated.