It was nearing time to go, but he still had at least ten minutes for a cup or two of syrupy thick coffee. Pavel was not drunk. He was, however, at his limit and could use the coffee to return to the ground. Pavel was a professional.
He ordered his coffee, told the waiter another joke, and looked around the room with satisfaction. In a few days, he would have enough money for that gourmet trip to America. His English was good enough for him to get on the stage during open-microphone sessions at a comedy club in New York. He had tried it before. The crowd had been small and the audience minimally polite, but he had new material now. He was not one to give up.
He glanced around the room as he drank. There was the hum and clatter of conversation and plates, the shuffling of moving waiters and customers departing. He had an idea for a little joke in English. He would play on his slight Russian accent. He would begin his set in New York by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a Russian, but my English is perfect so let’s conversate.” He removed one of the lined cards from his pocket and with his pen made a note of the remark.
At a table on the other side of the restaurant another diner, back to the room, watched Pavel in the large ornate mirror on the wall. The watching diner had come in a minute after Pavel, given the maître d’ even more money than Pavel had, and pointed to this table.
The watcher heard nothing of Pavel’s jokes but watched him eat, pay his bill, rise, pull his suitcase from beneath the table, and head steadily toward the exit. The watcher had motioned to a waiter a second after Pavel had called for his check. To insure a quick departure, the watcher had overtipped the grateful waiter.
The goal was to stay close to Pavel Cherkasov in the city, on the train, to wait till the exchange was made, then to seize the prize and, possibly, the money. This, the watcher well knew, would require the death of the joke-telling courier and probably the person to whom the money was to be delivered. There might even be more who got in the way.
The watcher was prepared. The stakes of the job were high but the assignment was routine. It would be executed with precision and maybe, thought the watcher, with a touch of irony, which was far more interesting than coarse jokes.
Perhaps the one-legged policeman would appreciate the irony when the time came. The watcher respected the Washtub and sincerely hoped that he would.
“Yah golahdyeen, I’m hungry,” Iosef said.
Elena Timofeyeva and Iosef Rostnikov had not had dinner. They had rushed onto the metro platform, having paused only to call Paulinin, who was still in his laboratory.
“Do not let anyone touch him,” Paulinin had said. “Do not let any of the butchers upstairs get near him. No one should get near him till I talk to him.”
Iosef had hung up the phone and turned to Elena. “He’s coming. He wants to talk to the dead man.”
“Paulinin is mad,” Elena observed as they moved out of their temporary underground office and ran for the train just pulling in.
When they pushed their way onto the train, Iosef had turned to Elena and declared his hunger. She too was hungry, but she was on a diet. Elena was sure that she would be on a diet her entire life. Not for the first time she wondered what would happen if she were ever to have children. She remembered the photographs of her mother before she was pregnant with Elena and after. The before mother was plump and pretty. The after mother was a far different, heavier person: still pretty, but definitely tired.
They were packed tightly and talking was difficult so they said nothing till they got to the Komsomol station. There the body of Toomas Vana was being guarded by three young uniformed police officers, who told gawkers to keep moving.
Elena and Iosef stepped near the body, avoiding the pool of blood that had formed under him, spreading out in an amoebic deep-red pattern.
“Has anyone touched him?” Elena asked the nearest uniformed policeman.
“Not since we have been here,” the young man said, glancing over his shoulder at the mutilated corpse. “I was on the street with my partner in our car. A woman told us someone had been killed. Then he”-he pointed to the third policeman-“showed up.” The third policeman was one of the uniformed detail that had been assigned to work the platforms.
“Good,” said Elena. “Witnesses?”
“Them,” the young policeman said, nodding toward a child who held the hand of a woman and seemed to be consoling her. Elena moved toward the two, who stood a dozen feet away. People moved past, glancing at the dead man.
“You saw what happened?” Elena asked gently.
The woman nodded, her hands trembling.
“And you?” Elena asked the little girl.
“Yes,” she said.
“Your name is? …”
“Alexandra,” the child said. “The man is dead”
“I know,” said Elena.
“My grandmother is frightened.”
“I see. What is your grandmother’s name?”
“Sylvia. Her name is Sylvia.”
“The person who did that to the man. What did he look like?”
“It was a lady,” Alexandra said. “She hit him and hit him and he was bleeding and bleeding and she ran away up the stairs. That way.”
The girl pointed toward the escalators at the end of the platform.
“What did she look like?” asked Elena.
Sylvia gulped and shook her head.
“Like a lady,” Alexandra said. “Like Mrs. Duenya, my teacher. A little like Mrs. Duenya. She had a knife. The lady. She made a noise. She hurt her hand. This one. This is the right hand.”
“Yes, it is,” said Elena, looking back at Iosef, who was standing over the body. “Is that the hand she had the knife in?”
The girl nodded. “It was hurting both of them, the man and the lady, only the man is dead and the lady went away.”
“Did you see anything else?”
“Two big boys took the man’s bag when he dropped it. They ran away. That way.”
This time she pointed to the opposite end of the platform from the one toward which she had said the woman had run.
“They stole it,” the girl said.
“It appears as if they did,” said Elena. “Did the lady say anything?”
Elena looked at the grandmother, who was still trembling. The little girl held the older woman’s hand and patted it gently.
“My grandma does not watch television,” Alexandra confided almost in a whisper. “She has not seen people bleeding and killed and things. I tried to explain to her.”
“Yes,” said Elena. “Anything else you can tell us about the lady?”
The grandmother shook her head.
Alexandra said, “Yes. He was her father.”
“Her father?”
“She called the man At’e’ts, ‘Father,’” said the child. “Two times while she was hitting him, like this.” The child raised her fist as if she held a knife and jabbed out, saying, “‘Father, Father.’ Like that. Just like that.”
They could hear the sound, feel the vibration and the noise, coming from Loni’s when they were about a hundred yards away. A guitar screeched.
“Jimi Hendrix,” Zelach said as they walked toward the door. A very big pair of men wearing leather vests and no shirts on their shaved chests stood guard.
“The player is Jimi Hendrix?” asked Karpo.
“No, the sound. Whoever is playing is imitating Hendrix.”
“I see,” said Karpo, who did not see at all.
At the door the sound was a screaming, sharp-nailed scratch down the spine. The two men in leather vests stood in front of them. Karpo and Zelach took out their wallets and showed their identification.
“I’ll check with the manager,” one of the two men said.
“You may check with the manager after we are inside,” said Karpo. “We do not require permission.”
The two big guards looked at each other and then at Karpo and Zelach.
“You do here,” one of them said. “Mr. Trotskov has fri
ends.”
Which meant that Mr. Trotskov was paying off a Mafia and very likely local police. At least that was what the big man at the door implied.
“You will step back and let us pass,” Karpo said calmly.
“Just wait till …” the big man started, and Karpo stepped forward so his face was inches from the guard.
“We will not wait,” he said. “You will open the door and we will pass.
Karpo’s pale face stood out in the light above the door. His black clothing made that face look like a floating death mask. Something in that mask, the eyes, made the big man say, “Fine, go in.” He nodded to the other man, who opened the door. “Primo,” the first guard said, “go tell Mr. Trotskov that the police are here.”
There would be no need to point out to the owner who Karpo and Zelach were. They stood out in the blaring smoke-filled crowd of young people. With Karpo in front, the detectives made their way through a sea of young men with bad teeth and tattoos as colorful as those of a Siberian convict. Swastikas, skeletons, guns, knives, churches, women, angels, and devils adorned the chests, arms, and even cheeks of both young men and women who, drinks or cigarettes in hand, swayed to the music and parted with scowls as the policemen moved through them to the bar.
Behind the crowded bar, the man they had spoken to earlier, the one called Abbi, stood serving. He was clean-faced and looked sober, with a fresh blue T-shirt and hands moving professionally to keep up with the orders.
Abbi spotted the detectives and moved toward them behind the bar. “You were here this morning, right?”
It was almost impossible to hear him over the screaming of Death Times Four on the small stage.
“That is right,” said Karpo. “We are looking for Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.”
“I don’t know anyone with those names,” Abbi said, looking at the nearby customers who were listening to the conversation.
“You knew them this morning,” Karpo said. “If they are here, point them out. If you will not, we will close this place.”
“They,” Abbi said, nodding at the crowd, “would tear you apart.”
“That is not your concern,” said Karpo.
“What is happening here?” asked a man of about forty who came up behind the bar. He was short with a neatly trimmed mustache. He wore a gray pullover shirt with short sleeves. Inscribed on the left side of the shirt were the words Top Sail in English.
“We are looking for two people who call themselves Bottle Kaps and Heinrich,” said Karpo.
“Why?” shouted the man. “I’m Yevgeny Trotskov, the manager.”
“They were seen leaving here two nights ago with Misha Lovski,” Karpo said.
“Naked Cossack,” Zelach supplied.
“Naked Cossack? I don’t think he was here two nights ago,” Trotskov said, shaking his head.
The music suddenly stopped. The crowd shouted. The lead singer, Snub Nose Bullet, gave the crowd the finger and bit his lower lip. He was thin and bare-chested and had the chiseled face and nose of a Romanian. The crowd loved it. They shouted obscenities back at him and laughed and applauded and banged their bottles and glasses against tables and the bar.
“He was here,” said Karpo. “Point out Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.”
“They said they’d close us down,” said Abbi.
Trotskov smiled knowingly. “We can discuss this in my office,” he said, reaching out for Karpo’s arm. Karpo did not move. He met Trotskov’s eyes, and the bearded owner of Loni’s knew that this man was not interested in a bribe.
“They will kill you,” Trotskov said, his eyes scanning the crowd.
“I told them,” Abbi said.
“Zelach,” said Karpo. “Go to the door. Fire four shots into the ceiling. If anyone attacks you, shoot them.”
“You’re-” Trotskov started, but he could see that the Vampire before him was not bluffing.
“If one of us is hurt or anyone has to be shot,” said Karpo, “Loni’s will cease to exist.”
The madman is prepared to die, Trotskov thought. He looked at the other policeman, the unkempt one with the glasses who did not seem to be as interested in dying as his partner.
“Listen,” Trotskov said, turning to. Zelach.
“To the door,” said Karpo. “Fire.”
Zelach blinked and turned to head for the door, prepared though not pleased at the prospect of dying in this place or, for that matter, in any place.
“Wait,” said Trotskov. “Wait. They’re over there. Table near the stage.”
There were four people at the table. None of them were looking their way.
“Bottle Kaps has a red heart with á knife through it tattooed on his left arm. Heinrich is the big one with the swastika on his chest. Don’t tell them I pointed them out. Please.”
Karpo started for the table, a temporarily relieved Zelach at his side. Zelach had long ago learned that the man with whom he was working seemed to be without fear. He did not appear to value his life. Zelach, however, valued his very much, though he often thought himself nearly worthless. Luck had put him where he was in the Office of Special Investigation. At times like this he thought it had been bad rather than good luck.
Karpo moved to the table with Zelach at his side and looked directly at the one with the red heart with a knife through it tattooed on his arm.
“You are known as Bottle Kaps,” Karpo said.
All four young men at the table looked up. All four were skinheads. All four were drinking beer and smiling.
Bottle Kaps looked away from Karpo, ignoring him, and continued saying to Heinrich at his side, “So, I tell the little ant that if he does not return it I will crush his head with my boots.”
People at nearby tables had stopped talking to watch how the confrontation was going to play out.
Karpo said, “We have some questions to ask you.”
The four at the table ignored the gaunt policeman and kept talking.
Zelach looked around, moving his hand up his side in case he had to reach for his gun. They could, thought Zelach, simply go outside, wait till Bottle Kaps and Heinrich came out later. He did not really care if they had to wait half the night, given the alternative that Karpo was now pursuing.
Karpo took the table in two hands and flung it on its side against the two to whom he was talking. Glasses and bottles and ashtrays and keys flew. Heinrich fell to the floor. Bottle Kaps slid back on his chair. The other two at the table stood facing the detectives.
“I have questions,” Karpo said calmly. “It would be easier to sit quietly and talk than to come with us, but the choice is yours. Make it now.”
Bottle Kaps let out a grunt and pushed the fallen table out of his way. Zelach was sure he was going to charge at Karpo. Heinrich held out a hand to stop him.
“No riot,” he said. “You talk. We listen.”
Heinrich started to pick up the table. He needed help from Bottle Kaps and both of the others who had been seated at the table.
There was a moment now when Zelach felt certain that someone would jump on his back, stab him in the neck, beat him with a chair. He wanted to turn and face the crowd behind him but he held firm, doing his best to pretend he felt as confident and unafraid as Karpo looked.
Death Times Four had missed the confrontation. They had gone through a door in the wall behind the stage. When they came out, looking angry as hell, they were greeted not by cheers but by a silence.
“Out of the grave,” Snub Nose Bullet screamed at them. “The sun is down. It’s night. The night is ours.”
Then his eyes met those of Karpo.
Snub Nose Bullet, whose real name was Casimir Rolvanoshki, had seen many people dressed like vampires, but he had the impression that he might be seeing a real one for the first time. That was what the silence was all about.
Hell, this one might be here to destroy them all for mocking the living dead. Snub Nose Bullet was ready. Vindication. He hit a chord and launched into a song he had written and rehe
arsed only that afternoon.
He wanted to give Karpo the finger, give death the finger, but the best Casimir behind his own mask could do was to give a less-than-powerful sneer before he started singing.
“We will sit here,” Karpo said above the music, moving the chairs of the two young men who had been sitting with Bottle Kaps and Heinrich.
Karpo had to have a plan. Zelach was certain of that now. He would not be constantly challenging these people if he were not confident, did not know exactly how they would react. Karpo knew more about the law than anyone in the Office of Special Investigation, perhaps even more than Inspector Rostnikov himself, and knowing the law at this point in Russian history was no small accomplishment. On a day-to-day basis, Zelach had no idea what the law might be on any crime. He trusted Karpo. He trusted the others. He had no choice.
Death Times Four howled and shouted. Snub Nose Bullet leaned toward Karpo and sang-shouted, “Swine in brown and swine in blue. They will step all over you.”
The four skinheads at the table remained standing, looking at Karpo, waiting for him to make a move.
“Shrapnel Spew,” Zelach muttered.
He had spoken softly but somehow the singer on the low stage leaning toward Karpo heard him and hesitated. The mess of a policeman with glasses, the sweating blob, was right. The line was from the Estonian group Shrapnel Spew. Casimir had not made it up this afternoon-not the song nor the words. He had simply remembered them, and there he stood doing something he had never done before. He was singing and playing someone else’s music. The song was obscure, but somehow this policeman had recognized it. Casimir was sure there was no one else in the room who had any idea of the disaster.
Casimir stopped singing, kept playing, and pointed a finger at Zelach. Everyone watched, not knowing what was happening. Death Times Four was giving this slouch of a policeman the sign that he was good. Snub Nose Bullet did not give his blessings easily, and to a cop?
“Sit down,” said Heinrich.
Karpo and Zelach sat and so did Heinrich and Bottle Kaps. The other two reluctantly moved away.
Karpo paused but an instant before asking his first question. The hesitation came from a completely unexpected source. Emil Karpo, perhaps for the only time in his life since he was a child, had lost control. No one watching him could have known. He looked the same as he always did, but he knew his actions had been unnecessarily provocative.
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