"Mmm," Khabolov hummed, eyes still fixed on the report. His hand went up to the top button of his brown uniform. He unbuttoned the button and sat back, reaching for the now-tepid cup of tea in front of him.
Sasha Tkach knew enough to show nothing.
Khabolov finished his tea, put down the cup, looked at the report, placed it on the empty desk, and patted it with his hand. Only then did he look at Tkach.
"Fartsoushchiki," he said with contempt. "Black marketers. You can smell them."
The deputy procurator's nostrils curled as if he were smelling one of the Gorgasali brothers.
"You've done well. This is a good report. You've returned the twenty rubles you did not spend?"
"Yes, Comrade," Tkach said quickly.
"And the record album?"
"Here, in my briefcase," Tkach said, snapping open the case and reaching in. His hands found the wrapped copy of the children's book he had bought for Pulcharia, moved under it, and came out with A Hard Day's Night. Khabolov didn't move.
"I can…" Tkach began.
"Leave it right here," Khabolov said, his hands folded on the desk, his eyes on Tkach.
Tkach put the album on the edge of the desk. Khabolov ignored it.
"This is an important black market operation, Comrade Tkach," the deputy said, leaning forward, his voice dropping. "Perhaps not as important as the automobile thieves you were instrumental in catching, but quite important."
Since Khabolov seemed to be waiting for a response, Tkach said, "Yes, Comrade."
"Quite important," Khabolov repeated, as if something were now understood between them. "They have other connections, these brothers of yours. That is certain. We can bring them in now or we can take this investigation to the next step, to find out who supplies these brothers, these traitors to the five-year plan."
Again Khabolov waited.
"What is the next step, Comrade?" Tkach asked.
"I will personally visit these two thieves who deserve to be prosecuted, deserve to be shot," Khabolov said, his hand reaching out to touch the Beatles album on the comer of the desk. "I have experience in situations like this, black market rings like this. I have worked closely with the KGB, very closely. This can serve as an important learning experience for you."
"Thank you, Comrade Procurator," Tkach said.
"For the time being," Khabolov went on, opening his desk drawer and sliding both Sasha's report and the album into it, "we will keep this investigation quiet. When we have the entire ring, you will be given full credit."
"Thank you, Comrade," said Tkach.
"Good, good. That will be all for now," said Khabolov, retrieving a file from another drawer. "You have other cases. Get back to them and I'll let you know when this one needs your attention."
With mis Khabolov's wet eyes turned to the new report, and Sasha strode to the door and out into the hall.
Tkach checked the lock on his briefcase, took in a deep breath, and hurried to the Petrovka elevator. He wasn't sure if Deputy Khabolov took him for a fool or for a young man wise enough to play the fool. He wasn't at all sure how clever Deputy Procurator Khabolov was. He might be playing a role, setting Tkach up.
The elevator door opened and Tkach entered. Two women in the rear were talking to a man Tkach recognized from the criminal records room in the basement. Tkach nodded at Pon, and Pon adjusted his glasses and nodded back as the elevator doors closed.
Tkach was quite sure what he was going to do. He was going to forget the video pirates and get back to his other cases. He was going to forget the video pirates and let the deputy procurator do whatever he planned to do. All he wanted to do now was finish out the day and get home to his wife and daughter with his gift.
The elevator stopped at the fifth floor and Tkach got out.
"It's been a hard day's night," he said to himself and smiled, but it wasn't a smile of mirth.
"What are you smiling about, you soggy bear?" Nikolai asked as Yuri entered the apartment on Galushkina Street.
Yuri had not been aware that he was smiling. He had nothing particularly to smile about, less now that he could see that Nikolai was drunk again. Nikolai was a near-dwarf of a man who.always needed a shave and was forever brushing back his hair, which, when he was drunk, was somehow always wet. Also, when he was drunk, Nikolai's cheeks puffed out as if he had just returned from having his wisdom teeth removed. Nikolai looked like a chipmunk with bad teeth.
"I'm not smiling," Yuri said, putting down the briefcase he always carriednot because he needed it for work, but because it was a sign that he worked in an office, that he was someone important enough to have written work to bring home. It was also very handy for carrying the knife.
"He's not smiling," Nikolai said to the ceiling. "I can't tell when a man is smiling. I'm losing my eyesight."
Yuri moved to the tiny refrigerator in the corner, and Nikolai had to turn in his chair to watch his roommate remove a bottle of watered fruit juice.
"You're supposed to mix that with something," Nikolai said. "You drink that stuff without alcohol and it can give you an ulcer. My"
"Why are you home?" Yuri asked, adjusting his glasses and pouring himself a glass of fruit drink.
"Why? Listen to him. I live here. I sleep on that bed under the sink in which I wash and shave and from which I drink. That sink. Why am I? What kind of question?"
"You don't get off work for two hours," Yuri said, still standing, as he sipped the drink and let himself look around the filthy room. When Nikolai passed out, which might be in hours or minutes, Yuri would clean it up. Yuri didn't like things messy, out of place. Sanity dictated that Yuri should not like Nikolai, but like him he did, or, perhaps, need him was a better way to put it. They were used to each other. They were a wall against loneliness.
Nikolai talked of women, said obscene things, even suggested that he went to prostitutes, but Yuri doubted it. Nikolai was as doomed to be what he was as Yuri Pon was resolved to be what he had become. What it was that Yuri had become was not easy to define. Yuri walked to the window with his drink and looked down at the street below as Nikolai explained.
"I became ill at the factory. My vision clouded. My eyes began to water. My ears began to ring. The voices of dead socialist poets began to call my name. A terrible fever came over me."
"And now?" Yuri asked after finishing his drink.
"I'm fine!" shouted Nikolai, gulping down the last of the clear liquid in his glass. "It's a miracle. If there were a God, this would prove his existence. We should celebrate my miraculous recovery."
Nikolai stood, swayed, and made for the bottle on the table.
"A few more illnesses at the factory and you'll lose your job," said Yuri, moving to the sink to wash his glass. "Article Sixty of the Constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics states that it is the duty of, and a matter of honor for, every able-bodied citizen of the USSR to work conscientiously in his chosen, socially useful, occupation, and to strictly observe labor discipline. Evasion of socially useful work is incompatible with the principles of socialist society."
"If I lose this job I'll find another," said Nikolai, grinning and walking toward his roommate with a fresh drink in hand.
"You're drunk." Yuri sighed, shaking his hands to dry them.
"Yes, but it used to be more fun to be drunk," said Nikolai. "Now it's a crime to be drunk. Gorbachev tells us that drunkenness is an affront to the state, an unwillingness to face the harshness of reality, to cope with our problems. He is a wise man."