"My glasses. My rifle," Sergei Mirasnikov said.
"Your glasses are on your head and your rifle is safe," said Rostnikov picking up the man easily as Karpo, wearing his coat but still bareheaded, came running to his side.
"Are you all right, Inspector?" he asked.
"I am fine," he said. "Get up to Dr. Samsonov's house. Bring him down here immediately."
"Immediately," Karpo said.
"One more thing, Emil," he said and he whispered his order as Mirasnikov's wife came stumbling out the door of the Hall wailing.
The naval officer and two of his men were working their way down the slope toward them and lights were going on in the houses on the slope.
"Of course, Inspector," Karpo said, and something that only Rostnikov would recognize as a smile touched the corners of Emil Karpo's face before he turned and hurried past the sailors coming toward him.
Rostnikov moved past the wailing woman with a strange feeling of elation. The killer had made a mistake, a terrible mistake in letting Rostnikov know that something had happened to frighten him, to make the killer think that Rostnikov knew something that required his death. He would go carefully over what he knew when he got back to his room. But that was not the only mistake the killer had made.
Given enough mistakes and a bit of luck, Rostnikov could possibly identify the killer quickly enough so that he could be back with Sarah in a few days.
"A bed," Rostnikov said to the wailing woman who followed him as he looked around the hall.
"In there," she said pointing to their room.
"Stop howling, woman," Mirasnikov groaned from Rostnikov's arms.
"Howling," she shouted following them. "Howling, he says. I'm grieving."
"I'm not dead yet," Sergei mumbled, but only Rostnikov heard.
Five minutes later Samsonov, with the help of his wife, was working on the old man. Everyone else had been told to go home and Mirasnikov's wife had been banished to the meeting room.
Rostnikov stood carefully watching Lev and Ludmilla Samsonov while Karpo whispered to him. When Karpo was finished speaking, Rostnikov nodded.
"Our killer is very clever, Emil."
"Yes, Inspector. Very clever. May I ask about your wife?"
"She needs an operation," he said. "If I were a religious man, I would say that with God's help we will be home in a few days."
"But you are not a religious man," said Karpo.
"There is no God, Emil Karpo. You know that."
There were times when Karpo could not tell if Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov was making a joke. This was certainly one of those times.
"He's still in there," said Zelach as Tkach came panting up the stairs taking them two or three at a time.
It was one of those 1950s concrete block buildings with no personality. This one was on Volgogradskij Prospekt and Volovkatin's apartment was on the fifth floor.
Zelach was standing on the fifth-floor stairway landing behind a thick metal door. The door was propped open just a crack with a piece of jagged wood.
"There," Zelach said pointing through the crack at a door. "You can see it." The lumbering investigator with only minimal ability to think did have a skill, a skill which had resulted in his finding the man who had evaded them the previous day. Zelach was single-minded. If he was told to find Volovkatin, then he would doggedly pursue Volovkatin for years following false leads, even ridiculous leads and vague possibilities if no one gave him a direction in which to go. In this case, he could think of nothing but to go to the apartment and wait in the hope that the dealer in stolen goods would return.
The vague possibility of Volovkatin's return had prompted Zelach, who had been in the man's apartment, to leave everything as it was. He did not want Volovkatin to return to an empty apartment and run away. As Inspector Rostnikov had once said, the rat does not step into a trap without cheese. It was the kind of truism that Rostnikov often fed Zelach like a simple catechism. Rostnikov himself tended to discount such simplicities which, though they were often true, were just as often false. In this case, there was a magnificent supply of cheese.
If Volovkatin had not returned, Zelach would have continued his vigil during his free time till other assignments or a direct order forced him elsewhere. Luck had been with him this time as it had a surprising number of times in the past.
"Good," said Tkach leaning over and clasping his knees to catch his breath. "We'll do this right."
"He's trying to be quiet in there," said Zelach, "but he is not being very successful."
"We are not concerned with his success," said Tkach straightening up, "but with ours. Let's go."
Tkach pushed the door open and stepped into the hall with Zelach right behind. Sasha stood to the right of the door and Zelach to the left. The procedure in this case was clear. They would continue to wait in the hope and expectation that Volovkatin would be leaving. He knew the police were after him and that coming to the apartment created some danger but the cheese had proved too tempting.
If Volovkatin did not leave within an hour, they would have to try the door and even knock. It would end the surprise and Volovkatin might be armed, might do something foolish. There was no other way out of the apartment but, knowing the severity of his crime and the likely punishment, the dealer in stolen goods might do something foolish, might dive through the window or decide to remain in the apartment till they broke down the door, in which case someone other than Volovkatin might be hurt. So the policemen stood against the wall on each side of the door and waited and listened and watched.
Five minutes later an old man staggered drunkenly through the stairway door singing something about rivers. The old man didn't see the two policemen at first. He was a stringy, gray creature with his cap tipped dangerously close to falling on the back of his head. A cigarette burned down close to the old man's lips as he concentrated on searching through his coat and pants pockets as he sang. At the moment he fished his apartment key out of one of his inner pockets, he looked up in triumph and saw the two men leaning against the wall.
The old man swayed, stepped back in fear, his cigarette dropping from his lips.
Tkach put a finger to his own lips with his right hand and pulled out his police identification card with his other hand. The old man gasped and his moist red eyes showed fear.
"I'm just drunk," wailed the old man. "That's still no crime. Is it a crime now?"
Tkach looked at the door, put away his identification card and continued to put his hand to his lips to quiet the old man. Then he stepped forward quickly and clasped his hand over the old man's mouth. He could feel the man's stubble and the sticky moisture of his mouth. Tkach leaned close to the man's ear and whispered, "We are not going to arrest you, little father," he said. "We are waiting for the man in that apartment. I am going to let you go and you will go very quietly to your apartment. You understand?"
The old man nodded, Tkach's hand still clasped on his mouth.
"Good, very good," whispered Tkach. "We appreciate your help."
He removed his hands from the old man's mouth and immediately wiped it on his own jacket.
"You sure…" the old man said aloud.
Tkach put his hand back on the man's mouth but the old man was nodding now. He understood and put his own grimy hand to his mouth. In doing so he knocked his already tilted cap onto the floor. He started to lean down for it, but Tkach stopped him, retrieved the cap and placed it firmly on the old man's head. The old man opened his mouth to say something but Tkach shook his head no and the old man smiled in understanding and closed his mouth.
"I don't live here," the old man whispered.
"Then go where you do live," whispered Tkach.
"I don't know how to get there," the old man whispered again.
His breath was green-brown and foul but Tkach stayed with him, wanting to open the door and throw him down the stairs. He looked over at Zelach who shrugged.