"You are right, Comrade," Karpo said.
"I don't know," said Tkach.
"Well," said Rostnikov, standing to ease the strain on his leg, "let's see what we can work out."
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Osip and Felix Gorgasali sat in their trailer, the blackened curtains down, and talked quietly so they would not wake Osip's wife and daughter. They talked about, wondered about, feared, what they would have to face the next morning. A uniformed policeman had arrived late in the evening at the trailer to inform them that they were to be in the office of Deputy Procurator Khabolov at exactly eight the next morning. The policeman had given no explanation, and they had been too stunned to ask for one.
From time to time, Felix muttered nichevo, the Russian word for "nothing," which conveyed resignation, stoicism, the idea that whatever might be the problem, you shouldn't let it get to you. Life is too full of explosions. One cannot allow oneself to be destroyed by fear of them.
"Nichevo," Osip agreed, wondering which shirt to wear the next morning, knowing that he wouldn't be able to sleep.
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Sasha Tkach rubbed his wife's back as they lay in bed. They didn't speak. Maya loved to.have her back rubbed, and let out a soft, appreciative purr as he moved his hands up from her spine to her shoulders.
The book of fairy tales was propped against the table near the baby's bed. Pulcharia turned and gurgled in harmony with her mother's hum, and Sasha smiled in the darkness, forgetting his anxiety.
At precisely eleven o'clock that night, Yuri Pon considered smashing a chair over Nikolai's head. Nikolai, the filthy dwarf, was snoring, snoring as he never had before.
Yuri went to Nikolai's bed and prodded him. The sleeping man snorted, spewed forth an alcoholic belch, turned on his side, and snored much more quietly. Nikolai had not changed clothes, had not shaved, had simply taken off his shirt and shoes and fallen asleep.
The prodding by Yuri would be effective for about ten minutes while Nikolai approached wakefulness and then gradually retreated to the depth of whatever dreams he had, dreams that quickened his heartbeat and made him snore like a wounded cat.
Yuri wanted to sleep, had to sleep. He had to get up early for work. There was so much to do. But going to sleep with this snoring and the feeling of incompleteness was impossible. It was as if Yuri were hungry, but he had eaten ravenously when he got home that night, had eaten and eaten as he had as a boy, a fat boy. The eating left him still hungry, but hunger wasn't quite what he now felt. Unfulfilled. That was it. There was only one thing that would make that feeling, that near-pain, go away. He would have to do more work for the state, for the people, for Russia. He would have to find a prostitute soon. He would have to find her and kill her. If he lived long enough, he might have to find and kill every prostitute in Moscow inside the Outer Ring Road. There might be hundreds. They might be replaced by others. He might be caught. That would be the worst of all, to be caught and sent to jail knowing that they were still out there. It would be like forever living suspended over a jigsaw puzzle with one piece left to put in and never being able to place the piece where it belonged. As he lay in the darkness of the room, he imagined himself standing over a table with a jigsaw puzzle laid out before him. He couldn't see the puzzle but he knew he held the final piece in his hand. He couldn't quite see the piece, either, but he knew it was heavy, too heavy to keep holding. He also knew that he could not put it down, and he struggled to stay awake, not fall into mis dream, a dream he had created. His eyes wouldn't open. In his near-dream he looked down at the puzzle and suddenly knew the puzzle was very important.
It was more than just a thing to pass the time. The solution to the puzzle would be the solution to something about himself.
He forced himself to look, forced himself to pull the image that lay flat and unfinished before him into perspective. It was a woman, the head and shoulders of a woman, but he could not make the image hold still, become sharp, and the piece in his hand made his muscles ache with pain. He turned his eyes to his hand. He turned slowly in fear and saw that his upraised right hand clutched a human eye, a pulsating human eye with a nerve dangling between his fingers like a red worm. Yuri wanted to scream, drop the eye, but he knew he couldn't. The eye in his hand looked down at the puzzle, and Yuri followed its gaze and saw that the woman in the puzzle was missing an eye. For an instant, less than the time it would take to be sure, he thought the woman in the puzzle was his mother and then it was a woman he sometimes saw at the grocer's and then it was no one he knew and then it was the face of the uniformed woman he had killed in the subway, the one on the stairs, the one who had said something to him, called him a name, when he accidentally bumped into her. He had seen mat she was nothing but a prostitute in a uniform. Even if she were really in the army, she would be a prostitute when she got out, as she had surely been before she went in. She had called him a name, had called him a perverted fat pig. After all he had done, all he planned to do. He who was always so careful, so neat. She had called him a pig and he had lost control, had pulled out his pocket knife, had shown her what a pig could do. And now he stood holding her eye. Had he cut out her eye? He didn't remember. He didn't think so. He couldn't remember the report. Perhaps he could check it in the morning. He didn't want the eye that squirmed in his hand, squirmed wet like petroleum jelly as his arm turned to stone. Yes, he would return the eye. Oh, please, let him return the eye, he begged whatever gods might be, begged his hand, but neither the gods nor his body answered.
At eleven o'clock 'that evening, Emil Karpo finished his aim exercises, clenched his teeth to keep from making a sound, and felt the thin drops of perspiration on his forehead. He wiped the moisture away with his sleeve and moved to his desk, where he had laid out three pages of names. After his meeting with Rostnikov, Karpo had returned to Petrovka, gone to the records room, and told the night clerk that he needed a copy of the complete list of those who had access to the files, who were authorized to go beyond the desk.
If the clerk had any thoughts of withholding the list from the gaunt specter before him, he did not voice or show them. He dutifully supplied a copy of the current authorization list and hoped that Karpo would take it and leave. Instead of leaving, the Vampire had asked the clerk a series of strange questions about how long he had been night clerk, where he had been at certain times of the year, and where he lived. The inspector was obviously mad, as quite a few investigators seemed to be, and the best thing to do was humor him. The clerk answered the questions, and Karpo left without explanation.
And now Karpo stood over his desk looking down at the list of eighty-six names including inspector-level personnel in the MVD and the Procurator's Office plus clerical personnel. At least fifteen on the list were KGB, though they were not identified as such. They would be the most difficult to check out, but it could be done. Some of the checking could be done without the knowledge of the individual. Work schedules might well clear a good number by showing that they were in a specific place or ill or accounted for at the time of any of the murders. It would not be easy and might take a great deal of time, but the expenditure of time did not bother Emil Karpo. He would methodically go through the list and check them all. Then he might have to check them again. In the end, it might turn out to be none of them, in which case he would have to find another way to deal with the killer. It was just a matter of time and of his ability to make his mind and body continue to function.