"Tumsk?"
"Somewhere in Siberia on the Yensei River," the Wolfhound said, ignoring the now insistent knock. "Arrangements have been made for you. Check them with Pankov. Take the report. It is a copy. Guard it carefully. It contains information on Rutkin, Samsonov, the child. You have my support and confidence and three days."
"Thank you, Colonel," Rostnikov said getting up carefully and clutching the file. "Can I have some assistance in this? Perhaps I can settle this with even greater dispatch if I have someone to do the legwork. Someone we can trust."
The colonel had a smile on his face which did not please Porfiry Petrovich. The colonel put his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels.
"I've anticipated your request, Gospodin, Comrade." the Wolfhound said. "Investigator Karpo will be accompanying you."
"As always, Comrade Colonel, you are ahead of me," Rostnikov said.
"Porfiry Petrovich, do not fail me. Do not fail us. Do not fail the Revolution," Snitkonoy said from his position near the window where the setting sun could silhouette his erect form.
"The Revolution can continue in confidence with its fate in my hands," Rostnikov said, hand on the door. It was as close to sarcasm as Rostnikov could risk with the colonel, but the inspector's dignity required the gesture.
"Ah, one more thing," said the colonel before Rostnikov could get the door open. "An investigator from the office of the procurator will be accompanying you. Someone from the Kiev district. The Procurator General himself wants him to observe your methods, learn from your vast experience."
Rostnikov opened the door where the colonel's assistant, Pankov, a near-dwarf of a man, stood ready to knock again. Pankov was not incompetent but that was not why Snitkonoy had chosen him. Rostnikov was sure that Pankov owed his position in life to the striking contrast he made to the Wolfhound. Pankov's clothes were perpetually rumpled, his few strands of hair unwilling to lie in peace against his scalp. When he stood as erect as he was able to stand, Pankov rose no higher than the Wolfhound's chest. Rostnikov had recently decided that Pankov looked like a refugee from the pages of a novel by the Englishman Charles Dickens.
"Is he upset?" Pankov whispered in fear to Rostnikov.
"Not in the least," Rostnikov whispered back.
"Pankov," the Wolfhound bellowed and Pankov almost shook.
"I'll check back with you in half an hour to make arrangements for my mission to Siberia," Rostnikov told the frightened little man who looked at the silhouetted colonel.
"Sometimes," whispered Pankov, "I think I would live longer if I were in Siberia."
"Perhaps," Rostnikov whispered back, "it can be arranged."
"Stop whispering and get in here, Pankov," the Wolfhound shouted. "I haven't all night, my little friend."
Rostnikov stepped out, closed the door, tucked the folder under his arm and slowly headed for his office. He did his best not to think, to concentrate on nothing at all, to select in his mind the novel he would take with him on the trip. Rostnikov had never been to Siberia. He had no curiosity about Siberia. He did not want to go to Siberia. But, and this was much more important, he had no choice in the matter.
CHAPTER THREE
Ice cream is the Soviet Union's most popular dessert. It is eaten not only in the summer but in the winter. It is eaten in enormous quantities. In Moscow alone more than 170 tons of ice cream are consumed each day and visitors report that the ice cream in Moscow runs second in taste only to that of Italy and is probably equal to that of France and the United States.
Business, however, was not particularly good that morning at the ice cream stand in the Yamarka, the shopping center behind the Education Pavilion of the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition, the VDNKh, in North Moscow. Boris Manizer, who had sold ice cream at the stand for four years, knew why. Visitors, who usually stood in line at the stand, would approach with an eager smile, see Boris's new assistant and change their minds.
Boris's new assistant was not just sober. He was positively forbidding. The man was tall, over six feet, lean with dark thinning hair and very pale skin. He looked corpse-like and his dark eyes radiated a frost more cold than the ice cream they sold or, today, failed to sell. The white sales-coat simply added contrast to his new assistant's pale skin.
The man did not serve many customers and when he did he moved his left hand a bit awkwardly, as if he had recently been injured. Boris had decided that he did not like his new assistant, but he had no choice. The man had appeared two days earlier, shown his MVD identification and informed Boris that he would be working with him "for a few days." There was no further explanation.
And so, this morning as every morning Boris Manizer took the metro to the VDNKh Station and walked past the massive Space Obelisk pointing into the sky to commemorate the progress of the Soviet people in mastering outer space. Five years ago on a summer day, Boris had heard two educated men in front of the Obelisk saying that religion had been replaced in modern Russia by the Soviet space program. It had struck Boris as a wonderful, secret truth. He began to notice how many space stamps, space ashtrays, space desk ornaments were being sold. Even grocery stores and beauty shops had names like Cosmos and Sputnik. It had, in the last few years, began to change a bit, but it was still evident that the people were waiting for something new to happen in space, something new to celebrate the way he heard the crazy Americans celebrated the anniversaries of rock singers like Elovis Presahley and movie stars like Marilyn Munrue.
The wind had been blowing across the Peace Prospekt this morning and Boris had hurried beyond the Alley of Heroes, with its busts of Yuri Gargarin and the other Soviets who had been in space, and to the main entrance of the Exhibition, the biggest museum in the city including 100,000 exhibits, frequently renewed, in 300 buildings and 80 pavilions with open-air displays when weather permitted. He had tramped left, past the Central Pavilion and the stature of Lenin in front of it, avoided the frozen path lined with winter-white birch trees where skaters would soon flash back and forth laughing, their noses red. He had walked around the Education Pavilion and down the path into the shopping center.
Boris could talk knowingly with his customers about the many exhibits and pavilions though he had actually been in only a few of them. Boris liked to talk, to suggest to his customers that they visit the Circlarama theater, the bumper cars in the fun fair, the Animal Husbandry Pavilion and the Transport Pavilion. Now Boris fleetingly considered talking to the policeman who had given him no name, but one look at the gaunt face changed his mind.
A few weeks earlier business had been booming. People had come, in spite of the cold weather, as they always do to the annual Russian Winter Festival. The exhibits were crowded and people coming in from the troika rides were hungry. Now, standing beside the vampire of a police officer, Boris began to worry about how long the stand would stay in business. Already, he knew, the next nearest ice cream stand, the one managed by Pugachev, had almost doubled its business since the coming of the ghost. And so Boris stood glumly and watched the customers pass him by, glance at the policeman and hurry on to another stand or to one of the sbashlyk grills.
"What are you looking for?" Boris finally asked as the day wore on and the pale man stood unblinking. "Since it is destroying my livelihood and starving my wife and children, I would like to know."
The man looked down at Boris. Almost everyone looked down at Boris who stood slightly over five feet tall. Boris wore a clean, white linen cap with a peak to give the illusion of a few added inches to his height, but it simply made him look like a very little man with a peaked cap.