Red Chameleon (9 page)

“It may have been incriminating,” Rostnikov went on.

“What?” Zelach answered drowsily.

“The brass candlestick the killers took from the Savitskaya apartment.”

Zelach shrugged. The candlestick held no interest for him. His impulse toward enthusiasm had waned with the afternoon. Zelach was exhausted from two days of effort to impress the Washtub. The trip and that leathery old man had proved too much for Zelach. A conductor came past to check tickets, and Zelach scowled at him. Zelach would gladly have paid his own way back to that town for the joy of crushing the skull of that old man on the porch who had led to Zelach's humiliation.

“Fifty years, more than fifty years, can you imagine that?” Rostnikov said, folding his hands on his lap over the American novel. “Perhaps the very year I was born, maybe even before, these young men are together in this little village, friends, and then … what?”

“What?” said Zelach, not caring what or who or why or when.

Rostnikov turned his face to his subordinate. “Where is your soul, Alexei Stepanovich Zelach?”

“There is no such thing as a soul,” Zelach said, trying to hide his irritation.

“Fine,” Rostnikov agreed. “Then you have no soul. Where is your curiosity? What do you think of? What drives you each day, gets you out of bed, into that old suit?”

“I'm not a philosopher,” Zelach said uncomfortably.

“I didn't ask for philosophy,” Rostnikov sighed. “I was seeking conversation.”

“I'm not very good at talking, chief inspector. You are well aware of that.”

Rostnikov considered returning to his book, but he knew Zelach would find some way to gain his attention. Rostnikov had made up his mind. He would find some diversion for Zelach, something to keep the man busy and, he hoped, useful, something to keep him as distant as possible while Rostnikov worked on the murder of Abraham Savitskaya.

“Are we working tonight?” Zelach said, looking out the window at the first tall buildings that indicated they were approaching Moscow. “I'll get some sandwiches and bring them to the office.”

“No,” said Rostnikov. “Go home. In the morning I will have a new assignment for you.”

Zelach grunted and looked out the window at the familiar surroundings of Moscow.

It was almost seven in the evening when Rostnikov got to Petrovka Street. He had fought the crowds with success and emerged a bit weary from the Sverdlov Square metro station. The sun was almost down and the evening not quite so hot as he crossed the square, went through the park, around the Karl Marx monument, and waited patiently for the traffic to slow so he could limp across Marx Prospekt and move past the shadow of the massive USSR State Academic Bolshoi Theatre.

Minutes later he stepped into Petrovka, the twin ten-story buildings that house the police operations of the city of Moscow. The buildings are modern, utilitarian, and always busy. The people of Moscow know where to find Petrovka, for it is not hidden, nor are the thousands of gray-clad policemen who patrol the city. Indeed, the ratio of police to populace is higher in Moscow than in any other major city of the world.

In spite of this, crime, while it does not flourish, exists. Files of
poznaniye,
or inquiries, cover the desks of the procurators working under the procurator general of the Soviet Union. The police work with the procurators in the twenty districts of Moscow and are responsible for all but political crimes. Political crimes fall within the sphere of the KGB (Komitet Gosudarst-vennoi Beszopasnosti), or State Security Agency. It was a constant puzzle to Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov what a political crime might be. Economic crimes are generally political, because they threaten the economy of the state and are subversive. In fact, however, Rostnikov knew that any crime could be considered political, even the beating of a wife by a drunken husband. Officially, the procurator general's office is empowered by the constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, adapted at the Seventh (Special) Session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Ninth Convocation, on October 7, 1977, according to Article 164, to exercise “supreme power of supervision over the strict and uniform observance of laws by all ministries, state committees and departments, enterprises, institutions and organizations, executive-administrative bodies of local Soviets of People's Deputies, collective farms, cooperatives, and other public organizations, officials, and citizens.”

When he entered the station, Rostnikov planned to head for his small office on the fifth floor, pick up any messages, take care of them, sit quietly in the solitude of his only place of refuge outside the toilet in his apartment, and rest for an hour or two before going home. He planned, of course, to call his wife and give her a half lie about his tardiness, but it would only be a half lie if there was no work to do. He would spend the time doodling on the sheets of rough paper and thinking about the old Jewish man in the bathtub and his daughter, this frightened daughter with the leg as stiff as his own.

However, he did not get to his office right away. As he entered the building, the uniformed officer at the desk, behind whom stood another uniformed officer with a ready Sten gun, called to Rostnikov.

“Inspector,” the man called. “The assistant procurator wants you to come to his office the moment you arrive.”

Rostnikov nodded and made his way to the elevator. It was late for the deputy procurator still to be in. The former deputy, Anna Timofeyeva, had spent as much as eighteen hours a day working until her heart attacks had sent her into retirement in a one-room apartment shared by her cat, Bakunin.

Like former procurator Timofeyeva, Procurator Khabolov had no training in law. Anna Timofeyeva had been the assistant to one of the commissars of Leningrad in charge of shipping and manufacturing quotas. A zealot, she had learned the job of procurator well and with reasonable intelligence had done as well as anyone to combat crime. Khabolov, on the other hand, had come to his first ten-year term as a deputy procurator after having made a name for himself as a trouble-shooter who ferreted out slacking and shirking among factory workers. It was the hound-dog-faced Khabolov who had discovered the tunnel in the piston factory in Odessa, the tunnel through which workers were smuggling vodka, which they consumed in large quantities, leading to the slowdown of production and the failure to meet quotas. Comrade Khabolov had also, through the payment of strategic bribes, discovered how a trio of government dock workers had funneled Czech toothpaste into the black market. Suspicion was the primary tool of the new deputy.

Rostnikov made his way to the door of the deputy procurator and knocked. There was no answer for about fifteen seconds, and then the high voice shouted, “Come.”

Khabolov sat behind the desk, looking down at the file in front of him, apparently barely aware of Rostnikov. But Rostnikov knew that the man had set the scene, had picked up the file as a prop to prepare himself for the inspector.

“Sit,” Khabolov said without looking up.

Rostnikov sat in the wooden chair opposite the deputy and looked up at the photograph of Lenin left over from the days of Anna Timofeyeva. The photograph had meant much to that box of a woman. Rostnikov was sure that it remained only as another prop for the ambitious dog of a man behind the desk.

Like Anna Timofeyeva, Khabolov also wore his uncomfortable brown uniform, but the button at the neck was undone. To Procurator Timofeyeva, the uniform had been a reminder of her duty. To Khabolov, it was a badge of his authority. That Rostnikov had little respect for the new procurator was evident to both men, but nothing on the inspector's face or in his manner let the fact be known.

Finally, Khabolov made a check mark on the file in front of him and put the file on the stack to his left with the pencil atop it to indicate that he planned only a brief moment or two with Rostnikov before he got back to the more serious business that awaited him.

Rostnikov wanted to shift his stiff leg but did not do so. Instead, he sat, betraying no emotion, and waited.

“The old Jew,” Khabolov said. “Are you making progress?”

The game would have to be played out. Khabolov had no interest in the dead Abraham Savitskaya. Whatever was really on his mind would come when he was ready, after he had reminded Rostnikov once again of his demotion, had hinted, once again, at his vulnerability and his Jewish wife.

“I am making progress, comrade procurator,” Rostnikov said evenly.

“Good,” the procurator said, looking down at his folded hands. Rostnikov, too, looked at the hands. The knuckles were white. Rostnikov had more experience reading people by their actions than did the new deputy procurator. It was quite evident that Khabolov did not want to get on with what he planned.

“Are you aware of what has been happening here today?” Khabolov said. “The various … cases.”

“No, comrade. I have just returned from Yekteraslav as part of the—”

“My automobile has been stolen.” Khabolov's watery brown eyes rose to meet those of Rostnikov, to challenge them, warn them, search them for the slightest flicker or sign of amusement. Rostnikov displayed nothing.

“I am sorry to hear that, comrade procurator,” Rostnikov said.

“I want that car found,” Khabolov said. “This ring of car thieves is operating right under our feet. They must be found and finished, quickly and quietly. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Rostnikov said, and he did indeed understand. Khabolov was embarrassed. He could keep the theft quiet for a while, perhaps as long as a week, but eventually it would get out, and he would become a joke, his reputation ruined, his likelihood of advancement stunted.

“Assistant Inspector Tkach has been searching for the enemies of the state who have been stealing automobiles,” Khabolov said. “He has made no progress. You are to assist him, to find my Chaika, to find all the cars and to find them quickly.”

“And the murder …”

“The murder of an old Jew is not as important as this threat to public confidence,” Khabolov said.

“I understand,” Rostnikov replied.

“I'm sure you do.”

“I'll begin immediately. But comrade, I thought I was not to be assigned to important cases, that I was considered—” Rostnikov began, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

“I'm not a fool, Rostnikov,” Khabolov said. “Don't play me for one. We understand each other.”

Khabolov had been right. Rostnikov had risked too much, perhaps because he was tired, perhaps because he disliked the. man before him so intensely. Rostnikov pushed himself up.

“I've not dismissed you, chief inspector,” Khabolov said, and Rostnikov realized that more was coming.

“A police officer has been killed, shot near the Kalinin Bridge on Kutuzovsky Prospekt,” Khabolov said, softly reaching for his file again.

Rostnikov sat again and waited patiently, forcing himself to imagine the three moves it would take to clean and jerk three hundred pounds, forcing himself to cover the urge to shout or reach over and strangle the putrid bureaucrat across from him.

“I'm sorry,” Rostnikov said as he was supposed to. “Who …?”

“We do not know who did it,” Khabolov responded, pretending to read the file in front of him. “It was probably the sniper we have labeled the Weeper. The shot was apparently fired from the roof of the Ukraine Hotel, as was the shot several days ago.”

“I meant who—” Rostnikov tried again.

“Karpo,” Khabolov interrupted, savoring the game. “Inspector Karpo is in charge of the case, but he has just come back from a long illness and could use help.

I'd like you to supervise that investigation also. We must have results quickly.”

“Who was the policeman?” Rostnikov said slowly, almost slowly enough to be considered insolent, but Khabolov had dealt Rostnikov a card that permitted the risk. Khabolov needed the disgraced chief inspector, was admitting that his experience was essential if the deputy procurator was to retain his own job. It was also evident that Khabolov resented this need and hated Rostnikov even more than he had when the morning had begun.

“The officer's name was Petrov,” Khabolov said, pursing his lips at the file. “Did you know him?”

“I knew him,” Rostnikov said, remembering the freckled, eager face of Sergeant Petrov; the cold day almost a year earlier when Petrov had volunteered to enter a state liquor store in which three frightened and armed teenagers were trapped; Petrov's rush across the open space of the narrow street, steam coming from his mouth.

“I knew him,” Rostnikov repeated.

“I heard you the first time, comrade,” Khabolov said. “We can't let lunatics shoot our officers on the street in broad daylight.”

“Yes, nighttime would be much better,” Rostnikov agreed.

“Inspector,” Khabolov said, putting the file down slowly, deliberately. “Let us understand each other.”

“I am sure we do, comrade procurator. I will talk to Inspector Karpo immediately and make the investigation of the sniper murders our number-one priority.”

“Wait,” Khabolov said, rising as Rostnikov limped toward the door. “I don't want those automobile thieves lost sight of.”

Rostnikov turned to the man behind the desk, blinked once, and said, “Then the auto thieves have priority over the killer of a police officer?”

The answer was evident to both men. Of course, the auto thief was more important. The deputy procurator's reputation was at stake. The killer of policemen was high priority indeed, but nothing compared to a reputation.

“I understand,” Rostnikov said before Khabolov could form an answer. He closed the door gently behind him and listened. He thought he caught the sigh of a single word from the new deputy procurator.
Koshmar,
the sigh came, nightmare.

As he moved slowly down the stairs, Rostnikov felt two conflicting urges. The first was a sense of joy, joy at the prospect of new power, the prospect of Khabolov's humiliation, but the joy faded before it could truly form as he remembered the freckled face of Sergeant Petrov.