The Case of the General's Thumb

by Andrei Kurkov

  “He’s not coming back.”

  “He’s got nowhere else to go. Just hang on. When he does come, give him two of the tablets, and get your things together.”

  So that was it!

  “Still there? I’ve put today’s paper in your post box. You’ll see the score. Ring when he’s had the tablets, and we’ll come and get you.”

  Nina’s water dish was empty. Nik refilled it, cleared away the old lettuce and uneaten cucumber, and put down fresh.

  He no longer wanted Sakhno to come back. Not to be given tablets and die.

  The fridge was empty apart from three cans of beer. He had just two hundred DM left.

  At the local shop he bought two tins of haricot soup, bread and sausage, and on his way back to the flat collected the newspaper from their post box.

  MAFIA WAR HITS KOBLENZ STREETS ran the headline.

  Ferencs Szabo, Hungarian procurer of girls from Eastern Europe for illegal brothels in North Rhine Westphalia, was last night shot dead near the Bismarck Monument. Szabo, according to police sources, had recently attempted to seize control of the contraband cigarette trade, traditionally the province of the deaf-and-dumb community. Szabo’s German girlfriend and two of his bodyguards died last year in clashes with the Russian Mafia. Eyewitnesses state that Szabo was shot by a man aged about forty from a hearse driven by a young blonde. Anyone with information concerning this incident should contact the Koblenz Police.

  Nik reached for the bottle of Absolut. No, Sakhno would not be back now.

  58

  Viktor’s second watch on the entrance of Border Troops HQ proved more rewarding than the first. No sooner had he taken up position than a man in a leather jacket tapped on his window.

  “Waiting for somebody?”

  “Yes,” said Viktor, lowering it.

  A little later he noticed movement at a first floor window. The curtain moved aside and two men looked out, one of them very like the man in the leather jacket.

  In the course of the next half hour he was subjected to three inspections from the same window.

  Zanozin was still on a ventilator and in a coma.

  “How is he?” Viktor asked Mrs Zanozin, depositing a carrier bag containing sausage, cheese and a carton of apple juice on the bedside table.

  “No change, the doctor says. And if after three days there’s still no change, that’s it. This ward’s only got the one ventilator.”

  “Have something to eat,” he said passing her the bag.

  She thanked him warmly.

  “If he’d been a State Deputy or a General, my poor Misha, they’d have whisked him off to Germany or Austria and saved his life, so one of the nurses said.”

  That evening Georgiy rang.

  “What news of our HQ?”

  “They’re beginning to keep an eye on me.”

  “Splendid! Tomorrow could be interesting. I’ll ring. Oh, and you’ll find those photos back in your safe.”

  No plodding through rain, no slipping under a partition for Georgiy!

  Viktor’s third watch passed uneventfully, but driving away from Border Troops HQ, he was tailgated and twice rammed by a green 4 × 4, as if to force him into the path of oncoming traffic. Point made, the 4 × 4 dropped back.

  Back at District Viktor sat, not in the best of moods, watching the sun gain ascendency over cloud, when Refat rang.

  “How far to Koncha-on-the-Lakes?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “So off you go. House 28 – no street name – Tarnavsky, Valentin. He’s the one who wrote to Saratov. Show him the photos, see if he gives us our fourth man.”

  “Bit of a comedown after the Mazda, eh?” remarked the guard as Viktor made for the duty Zhiguli.

  “It goes.”

  All the way to Koncha-on-the-Lakes he was tailed by a cherry-red Samara, which, when he stopped in the writers’ village, drove on past.

  Tarnavsky, at 2.00 in the afternoon, had clearly only just got out of bed. The kitchen where they sat had no clock, and the whole place had an air of time suspended.

  “You wrote to a lady in Saratov about a sum of money left with you by her husband,” Viktor began.

  “I did. Are you from her?”

  “I’m not.” Viktor produced his envelope of photographs. “But I’d like you to look at these and tell me if one of the men is him.”

  “Yes, that’s Nik,” he said pointing him out. “Nice chap.”

  Having elicited from Tarnavsky as much as he could remember, Viktor rose to go.

  “This money, what do I do with it?”

  “If you give me your number, I’ll ring.”

  The cherry-red Samara tailed him all the way back to Kiev. He noted its registration number. At least it had the decency not to ram him.

  59

  The next two days were a protracted nightmare. His money was nearly finished and so, it seemed, was his life. The phone rang and he let it ring, at first not wanting to answer, but later not able to. Five empty bottles of Absolut littered the floor beneath the table. Staggering in a haze to the table, he seemed to see Tanya and Volodya waving, calling.

  After two more glasses, he took a sheet of paper and wrote: “They want you dead. Hop it. Koblenz cops onto the hearse. Ditch it. Best of luck, Nik.”

  He poured the last of his vodka into a cup, added two of Ivan Lvovich’s tablets, watched them effervesce, then gulped the mixture down.

  60

  Viktor’s fourth watch on Border Troops HQ passed uneventfully except for the arrival in the last few minutes of a stretch Chrysler. Two close-cropped giants got out and looked around before opening the rear door for a thin man in a long, tight-fitting overcoat who went quickly into the HQ building. Viktor wrote down the registration number, then saw that he was himself under observation from the second floor.

  He pressed the starter, circled the flower bed in front of the main entrance, and was heading for the T-junction with Vladimir Street when an enormous lorry came bouncing over the cobbles towards him. He braked, intending to reverse out of trouble, but in the panic of the moment engaged first gear.

  When at last he opened his eyes, he saw Ratko.

  “I thought I heard my wife.”

  “I met her coming out as I came in,” said Ratko. “Don’t worry – you’re only here for a couple of days. You were bloody lucky, the doctor says. And the safety belt helped. Damn all left of the car, though.”

  “How about Zanozin?”

  “Off the ventilator. Breathing normally.”

  “What’s the score with me?”

  “Broken leg. Concussion. Soon be your old self and back on the waiting list. You’ll have your three-roomer in time for your daughter’s wedding.”

  Viktor smiled.

  “That’s an old one! What happened to the lorry?”

  “Nothing much. Made of tougher stuff than your car. Brakes failed. Driver messed his face up going through the screen. We’ll mess it up a bit more when he’s better! Driving in the city centre with deficient brakes!”

  Ratko went his way, leaving a bag of oranges and Viktor with his right leg in plaster and strung up in the air.

  61

  Nik spent the night vomiting, suffering attacks of diarrhoea, and longing for death that seemed so slow in coming. But it was not until dawn that he finally collapsed senseless onto the floor beside his bed.

  The door latch clicked, followed by footsteps, not so much heard as felt through the floor, then two blurry silhouettes stood over him.

  “Always knew you were the dotty one,” came Sakhno’s voice. “Hanging or shooting’s better than poisoning, and more reliable – especially when the poison’s a super-fast laxative! Here, drink this.”

  It was the last beer from the fridge, and it did something to assuage the Sahara-like aridity of his mouth. Cups of tea completed the cure, he was able to sit up, become aware of the young blonde female with Sakhno, and the fact that they were conversing in deaf-and-dumb language.

&nb
sp; “So now we’re quits,” said Sakhno. “Though I deserve extra special for swapping the tablets.”

  “When was that?” Nik managed to ask.

  “Back in Belarus. I had some for you. They were given to me in Kiev.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “No mystery. We do the job, one of us gets told to kill the other, after which, what simpler than to give him the chop.”

  “When exactly did you hit on that?”

  “The moment they gave me the tablets and said you’d be in a denim suit like mine.”

  Nik fell back and lay staring at the ceiling, while Sakhno and the girl stood conversing by the stove.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Uli, Ulrike.”

  “Pretty … So that was you two in Koblenz.”

  “Where did you get that from?”

  “The man who phones left a newspaper. It’s there somewhere.”

  Sakhno found it and Nik translated.

  “And that’s why you decided to opt out?”

  “No. I’d just heard that my wife and son had died in a fire. It was after that I was told to look for the paper. And when you got back, you were to be given the tablets.”

  Sakhno looked at him with new interest. “So you decided not to wait for me.”

  “It’s all over. No sense to anything. They’d get me back, they said. But back where?”

  “It’s bloody well not all over! We’re only just starting!”

  “You and Uli are wanted by the police, I’m a dead loss – what the hell can we start?”

  “What about the money?”

  “What money?”

  “The money we were to find, then be killed for finding. We’re nearly there, man! All we have to do is go to Trier and shake the tree.”

  “Money’s no use to me.”

  “So, I’ll have your share. And actually we don’t need to go to Trier. This chap who phones is who we want, and he’ll be somewhere in this one-eyed town. Any ideas?”

  “I’ve got his telephone number. His address can be got by working through the directory.”

  “So we go for the money?”

  “You do.”

  “We both do. I need you to speak German.”

  While Sakhno busied himself with the directory and Uli fussed over Nina, Nik fell asleep.

  62

  With Zanozin and Viktor on different floors in the same hospital, Ratko was able, as he put it, “to kill two hares with the same bullet”. Viktor did his best to do justice to the constant supply of oranges, and Ira helped. Even so, they made little impression on it.

  The first snow fell. No longer was his leg suspended from the crane-like device, and the day came when he was issued with crutches, for which he signed, and taken by ambulance to Kharkovsky and his flat to mobilize and resume normal life.

  “How long are you laid up for?” Georgiy inquired.

  “The plaster comes off in three weeks.”

  “Sounds grim. Still, the driver of the lorry’s hanged himself. ‘Overcome with remorse.’ I don’t think!”

  “Don’t think what?”

  “That he hanged himself. What came as a surprise was that you were being photographed from the windows of State Security opposite, as well as observed from HQ.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You were watching the doors, we were watching for reaction. So you’ve stirred up two ministries by the look of it. State Security’s drawn your file from Personnel.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “Nothing, just get better. Let events take their course without you. Safer that way. I’ll keep you in touch.”

  Outside it was dark, but it was no longer snowing. Autumn was slowly giving way to winter.

  63

  “Up you get,” Sakhno urged, rousing Nik from an uneasy half sleep. “I’ve got the address.”

  “What time is it?”

  “4.00.”

  “Can’t it wait till morning?”

  “Look, while you’ve been blissfully sleeping, I have spent hours going through the phone book!”

  Heaving himself to his feet, Nik saw that Sakhno’s bed had been taken over by Uli.

  “48-04 is Überkraft, N., Schönparkallee, 18. And that’s here,” Sakhno pointed to the top left corner of the street map in the directory.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Pay him a visit.”

  “And then?”

  “Like you said, make a run for it.”

  Their footsteps rang out loud and crisp in the silence of the sleeping town, until snow began to fall, steadily muffling them.

  Schönparkallee, 18, proved to be a bungalow set back behind a low, well-trimmed hedge.

  Sakhno led Nik round to the back, where they found a vent of the kitchen window open.

  “Give me a leg up,” he whispered, and by the time Nik joined him, had beer, sausage and cheese ready in the light of the open fridge.

  “We’ll breakfast first, in case there’s no time later. I like eating out. And there’s a bottle of Stolichnaya in the fridge that leaves with us when we go.”

  “Time we met our host,” Sakhno said, taking a kitchen knife and marching off into the darkness.

  Sakhno was now leader. Nik was content to be led.

  Following more slowly, he found Sakhno, in a blaze of light, holding the knife to the throat of a bewildered Überkraft still snug in bed.

  Physically persuaded by Sakhno, Überkraft finally responded to questioning in Russian.

  “It was me delivered the rifle. I collected it from left luggage, Cologne station.”

  “Who told you to ring and what to do?”

  “Medvedev. My controller in Soviet days. After the break-up, total silence. But two months ago, he phones, tells me I’m reactivated. Tells me to take you under my wing, find you a flat.”

  Weinberg, so far as he knew, was a disaffected former agent, with high-level contacts and high-level involvements. Hence the order to call him to account. It was all money, money, money, today. Ideology was out.

  “Why did we have to frighten up Pogodinsky?” Nik asked.

  “Question of money. He hadn’t paid the interest.”

  “On what?”

  “The restaurant. It wasn’t his. It was financed by the Committee.”

  “Who was he to pay the interest to?”

  “Weinberg, I think. He’d been to see Pogodinsky before we took over.”

  They left Überkraft trussed but ungagged.

  Outside it was still snowing.

  64

  After only three days, Viktor was bored to tears, and irritated at Ira’s undisguised pleasure at having him confined to the flat.

  “You should break your leg more often,” she told him.

  One evening, when Ira was busy putting Yana to bed, the bell rang, and hobbling as fast as he could on his crutches, he managed to catch the postman before he returned to the lift.

  “Special Delivery. From Moscow. Sign here, please.”

  He signed, and hobbled back to the kitchen.

  The envelope contained a typed but unsigned letter, presumably from Refat, and the photostat copy of a handwritten letter. The former read:

  Our fourth man was at Euskirchen, near Cologne. The enclosed, together with envelope addressed to wife and son, seems to have been dropped in the mud and cleaned up afterwards. My guess is that it was posted to create the impression that our friend was still alive, he having been prevented from posting it himself. Amateurish and a bit of a puzzle.

  Looking at Tsensky in the photograph, Viktor felt sorry for his having to write home so impersonally.

  Taking his tea over to the window, he pressed his face to the glass.

  Parked at the block entrance, cab light on, was a minivan. A car drew up. A man got out, and the minivan moved off in the direction of the metro and the Kharkov Highway.

  65

  “Belgium next, so get the map,” Sakhno informed Nik, sitting sque
ezed against Uli on the front seat of the hearse. Uli was nursing the now hibernating Nina in a cardboard box packed with screwed up balls of newspaper.

  “We shan’t get far at this rate,” Nik responded, snow having reduced traffic to a crawl.

  “More haste, less speed.”

  Nik envied his assurance.

  “Pity there’s no radio-cassette player,” Sakhno added. “It’d cheer things up a bit.”

  “Music? In a hearse?”

  “Don’t see why not, especially if the corpse was musical. Apart from which, we’re not corpses.”

  As they waited to join the Autobahn, Sakhno conducted a sign-language conversation with Uli, which ended in an exchange of kisses. Nik did his best to be non-existent, immersing himself in the road map, and calculations of time and distance.

  After a while Uli took over the driving, and Sakhno lolled yawning beside him, Nina in her box on his knees.

  In Liège they bought warm clothing and ate in a Vietnamese restaurant. Nik was surprised at Sakhno’s ordering no vodka, but made no comment.

  “How far to Luxembourg?” Sakhno asked.

  Nik didn’t know, but Uli apparently did.

  “What does she say?”

  “Three hours in this weather, and another hour to Trier. So we can look up Herr Weinberg this evening. And how much shall we touch him for? Two hundred thousand dollars? Half to you, less expenses. And away you go.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “We’ve got a place lined up … God, I could do with a drink! But not till we’ve got ourselves some money.”

  Coming in sight of the hearse they saw two youths busy doing something at the rear of it. Sakhno darted ahead and knocked one of them senseless. The other fled. The back window was smashed.

  After stowing their scattered possessions back in the hearse, Sakhno got Nik to help lift the unconscious youth on board.

  “What’s the point?”

  “He might come in useful.”