Polar Star (31 page)

“I suppose.”

Slava jumped as Marchuk slapped his cap against a boot and shook off water. The captain replaced the hat
on his head and lit a cigarette. “Go on,” he encouraged Slava.

“Volovoi was found in the main room of the bunker and the American was found in a second room,” Slava said. “There was a trapdoor of sorts in the second room, but no ladder was found.”

“There was no way up from the inside,” Marchuk said. “It’s like a mystery.”

“I didn’t see much of Dutch Harbor,” Arkady said.

“Really?” Marchuk said.

“But I didn’t notice much in the way of medical facilities,” Arkady continued. “Did a doctor examine the bodies?”

“Yes,” Slava said.

“In a laboratory?”

“No.” Slava became defensive. “There was clearly a fire and explosion, and the bodies were almost too badly burned to be moved.”

“The Americans accept that?” Arkady asked.

Marchuk said, “They would have to fly the bodies to the mainland, and we’re not going to let them have Volovoi. His body will be examined in Vladivostok. Anyway, Captain Morgan has accepted the report.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Arkady said, “who was next at the scene, after Korobetz and Ridley?”

“Morgan,” Slava read.

“You accept the report, too?” Arkady asked Marchuk.

“Of course. Two men die, one of theirs and one of ours, and nearly every sign indicates that they got drunk and burned themselves to death. That’s the kind of stink the Americans and we can mutually put behind us. Cooperation is the byword of a joint venture.”

The captain swung his attention to Slava. “Volovoi was a real shit. I hope you can fill his shoes.” He leaned forward, turning again to Arkady. “But how do you think this will look for me, returning to Vladivostok with two of my crew in bags? Do you know what a circus it will
be? What will my next command be? A garbage scow in Magadan? They still float logs along Kamchatka. Maybe they’ll save a log for me.”

“You went ashore on my authority,” Hess said to Arkady. “Supposedly you were still gathering information about the dead girl, Zina Patiashvili.”

“Thank you,” Arkady said. “It was invigorating to be on land again.”

“But now we have three dead instead of one,” Hess pressed on, “and since one was the vigilant defender of the Party, the Party will have its questions when we return home.”

“Somehow”—Marchuk stared at Arkady—“somehow I connect it all to you. You come on board; there’s one dead. You go ashore; there are two more dead. Compared with you, Jonah was a ray of sunshine.”

“You see, this is the question: where were
you
?” Hess asked. “Volovoi left the hotel searching for you. No one could find either of you, and the next time we see the commissar he’s up on top of a hill burned to death with an Indian—”

“An Aleut,” Slava said. “It’s in my report.”

“A native, whatever, to whom Volovoi had hardly ever spoken before. What was Volovoi doing drinking, which he never did, with a boatbuilder on top of a hill? Why would he be there when he was looking for you?” Hess asked Arkady.

“Do you want me to try to find out?”

Hess smiled at the answer from sheer professional appreciation, as if he had seen a goalie stop a difficult kick, then boot the ball into the opposite net.

“No, no,” Marchuk said. “No more help from you. I can just see their faces in Vladivostok if we tried to explain why we assigned you to investigate the death of Volovoi. Comrade Bukovsky is in charge.”

“Again? Congratulations,” Arkady said to Slava.

“I have already questioned Seaman Renko,” Slava
said. “He claims that after leaving Susan, being drunk and feeling ill, he went out behind the hotel and passed out. Then he remembers nothing until he found himself in the water, having fallen off the dock.”

Marchuk said, “Izrael, the factory manager, tells me that you were drunk in a fishhold the other day and almost froze yourself. No wonder you lost your Party card.”

“The hidden drunks are the worst,” Arkady agreed. “But, Captain, you just said you accepted the American report that there was an accidental fire. Then what is Comrade Bukovsky investigating?”

“I’m assembling our own findings,” Slava said. “I’m not necessarily asking questions.”

“The best kind of investigation.” Arkady nodded. “A straight line with no dangerous curves. Incidentally,” he said to Hess, “could I have my knife back? You took it before we went ashore.”

“I’d have to look for it.”

“Please do. It’s property of the state.”

Marchuk crushed his cigarette into an ashtray and glanced at the porthole, heavy-lidded with ice. “Well, your days as an investigator are over once again. The death of Zina Patiashvili is a closed matter until we reach home. Gentlemen, the fish await.” He rose, pulled the beak of his cap forward, picked up the twisted butt and used it to light another cigarette. Everyone had been smoking Marlboros since Dutch Harbor. “I like you, Renko, but I have to say this: if our comrade Volovoi didn’t die in the fire—if, for example, his throat was cut—I would suspect you first. We can’t figure out how you could kill two men or escape the fire. I like the way you fell in the water. That would dampen the smell of the smoke and wash the grass off your boots.” He pushed up the collar of his coat. “My Americans await. It’s like leading little girls across a frozen pond.”

22
From the stern rail Susan focused binoculars on the wake of the
Polar Star
. Her jacket was buttoned to her chin and, like a girl on skis, she wore mittens and a woolen cap.

“See anything?” Arkady asked.

“I was watching the
Eagle
. A Gulf boat shouldn’t be here.”

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“Funny,” she said, “I’ve been avoiding you.”

Out of habit, Arkady checked over his shoulder to see whether Karp was near. “That’s hard on a ship.”

“Apparently.”

“Can I look?” he asked.

She handed him the glasses. Arkady focused first on the water reaching up the
Polar Star
’s ramp, the waves almost a tropical blue as they flowed in and out of the rusty gullet. Water so cold seemed molten. Seawater started to crystallize at twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit, and because it carried so much brine it formed first not as a solid but as a transparent sheen, undulating on black swells, going gray as it congealed.

The trawlers had to stay close to mother. Through the glasses he could see the
Merry Jane
slip by the
Eagle
as the first ship brought in a bag that lay fat and wet on its deck. The
Eagle
was just setting its net, and as it rose on a swell he had a clear view of two deckhands in yellow slickers. Americans didn’t use safety gates. Water surged freely up and down the ramp, and the men expertly timed their every move, jumping onto gantry rungs when larger waves broke over the gunwales. The binoculars were 10 × 50, so Arkady could see that it was the former policeman Coletti who was working the hydraulic levers on the gantry. The second fisherman threw loose crabs over the side, and only as the man turned did Arkady recognize the peaked brows and grin of Ridley.

“Just a two-man crew?” Arkady asked. “They didn’t replace Mike?”

“They’re capitalists. One less share to give up.”

Setting a net was a delicate operation in the best of circumstances, which was a calm sea with room to maneuver. The
Aurora
had already tangled its trawl wires on a propeller and left, at a limp, for Dutch Harbor. In the wheelhouse, Morgan, in a baseball cap and parka, alternately worked the
Eagle
’s throttle and tended the controls of the winch behind him.

“Why didn’t you stay at the hotel with me?” Susan asked.

“I told you that Volovoi was coming to take me back to the ship.”

“Maybe he should have. There’d be more people alive now.”

Arkady, always slow on the uptake, finally put the glasses down and noticed that Susan’s cheeks weren’t burning merely from the cold. What had he looked like when he suddenly left her? A coward, a seducer? More likely a buffoon.

“I’m sorry I left,” he said.

“Too late,” Susan said. “You weren’t just running
from Volovoi. I watched from the window when you crossed the road. You were following Mike.” The steam of her breath seemed like visible contempt. “You followed Mike, Volovoi followed you. Now they’re both dead and you’re taking an Arctic cruise.”

Arkady had come to apologize, but as always there seemed to be a barrier between the two of them he couldn’t cross. Anyway, what could he say? That Mike was dead when he found him? That a model trawlmaster had sliced the first mate’s throat, though he had witnesses for where he supposedly was and Arkady did not? Or, what were you looking for in the water?

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Let me tell you what I think. I think you really were an investigator of some sort at some time. You’re pretending to try to find out about Zina, but you’ve been offered a chance to get off the boat if you can blame an American. It would have been Mike, but now that he’s dead you have to find another one. What I don’t understand,” she said, “is me. Back at Dutch Harbor I actually believed you. Then I saw you running across the road after Mike.”

Arkady found himself getting warm. “Did you tell anyone I was following him?”

In spite of her anger she looked back at the
Eagle
. Arkady looked through the glasses again. The boat went hull down, then disappeared behind a swell, and when it rose, both Ridley and Coletti had climbed the gantry to stay out of water that would have been up to their knees. In the wheelhouse Morgan had picked up his own binoculars and was watching Arkady in return.

“He’ll stay close to us, won’t he?”

“Or get iced in,” Susan said.

“Is he a dedicated man?”

A swell like a smooth rock streaked with foam grew between the two men, gathered momentum as it rolled
to the
Polar Star
and then plunged up the factory-ship ramp. Morgan held his binoculars steady on his target.

“He’s a professional,” she said.

“Did you make him jealous?” Arkady asked. “Was that why you asked me to your room?”

Susan’s hand rose to slap him, then stopped. Why? Arkady wondered. Did she think a slap would be too banal, too bourgeois? Nonsense. On a Saturday night the Moscow metro resounded with slaps.

The ship’s speakers squawked. It was 1500, time for light musical selections from Fleet Radio, beginning with a rumba suggesting Cuban beaches and waving palms. Socialist maracas struck up a Latin rhythm.

Arkady said, “This music reminds me: before Dutch Harbor you were leaving us for a vacation. Soo-san, why did you come back to this Soviet ship you hate so much? The fish? The excitement of filling the quota?”

“No, but it might be worth it to see you rotting on the slime line again.”

The radio room was the first port-side cabin behind the bridge. Nikolai, the young man who had piloted the lifeboat that had taken Hess and Arkady into Dutch Harbor, was idly working the crossword puzzle in
Soviet Sport
when Arkady entered. His desk was occupied by stacked radios, amplifiers and a row of binders, one with the red stripe of classified codes, but there was room left for a hot plate and pot. Cozy. The rumba trotted in and out of the speaker. Not bad duty. Junior lieutenants with training in electronics were often assigned to fishing fleets to take an ostensibly civilian tour of foreign ports. Even in his warm-up suit and slippers Nikolai had the air of a freshly minted officer whose future was lined with gold braid. He raised his eyes lazily toward Arkady.

“Whatever it is, old-timer, I’m busy.”

Arkady checked to make sure no one was in the passage,
then closed the door, kicked over the radioman’s chair and planted a foot on his chest.

“You screwed Zina Patiashvili. You took her into an intelligence station in this ship. If your chief finds out, you’ll go to a military labor camp, and by the time you get out you’ll be lucky if you still have teeth and hair.”

On his back, Nikolai still held his pencil, his eyes two perfect pools of blue. “That’s a lie.”

“Then let’s tell Hess.”

Arkady looked down at a young man who was experiencing all the terrors of free fall, for whom a comfortable and promising world had suddenly become an abyss.

“How do you know?” Nikolai asked.

“That’s better.” Arkady removed his foot and helped him up. “You can pick up the chair. Sit.”

Nikolai promptly did as he was ordered, always a good sign. Arkady turned up the speaker a notch as the rumba faded and was replaced by a Bulgarian folk song.

While the lieutenant sat at attention Arkady considered the different ways to handle this interrogation: as a former lover of Zina himself, as a blackmailer, as someone still carrying out a ship’s inquiry. But he wanted an approach that would throw an aggressive naval intelligence officer into a pit of despair, as if the young man were already in the hands of the military’s most despised enemy. He deliberately chose the unlikely words with which the KGB always began its more informal chats.