"You're the policeman," said the old man, who clutched a mop in his left hand.
"I'm the policeman," Rostnikov confirmed. "I'm looking for Katya Rashkovskaya. Have you seen her?"
"The flyer?"
"The flyer," Rostnikov confirmed.
"I'm not sure," said the old man. "Might have been this morning. Might have been yesterday. I think it was today. I think it was just a little while ago. When you do the same thing every day, it's sometimes difficult to tell one day from the other."
"Yes," agreed Rostnikov as he watched the old man dressed in gray work clothes try to remember on which day he had seen die woman. "Assuming it was today, where did you see her?"
The man smiled and pointed upward with his free hand.
"Going to the offices, not rehearsal rooms, not the ring," he said. "Performers don't practice as much today as they did when I was a performer."
Rostnikov waited for the man to tell him more, but the old man was leaning on his mop, his eyes far away, remembering some old day, some old act. Rostnikov walked in the direction of the nearest stairway and started up slowly. A chattering familymother, father, young girl, and boyall dressed in blue suits, came hurrying down the stairs. Rostnikov moved to the side to let them pass.
On the second floor above the lower corridor Rostnikov found a series of offices. There was the distant echo of music deep inside the building and the sound of a woman's voice. Rostnikov followed the voice and not the music and found himself hi front of a solid wooden door marked in black letters: ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR.
He paused, tried to listen, but could make out only die voice and not the words. There seemed to be an edge of hysteria to the voice. Rostnikov knocked and the voice stopped. He knocked again and the door opened.
Facing him was Mazaraki, who grinned broadly and stepped back to let him enter. In a corner stood Katya Rashkovskaya. She was not grinning broadly. She was not grinning at all.
"Tavah/reeshch, Inspector," Mazaraki said a bit too loudly. "It is good of you to visit us again. To what do I owe the pleasure of your return?"
Rostnikov looked at Katya, whose knuckles were white against her oversize purse. Her eyes met his but showed less than her pink cheeks. Porfiry Petrovich turned to Mazaraki with new interest. Mazaraki looked just as big as the detective had remembered him, but was there not a dancing in his eyes as if the moment were of great consequence?
"I was looking for Comrade Rashkovskaya," Rostnikov said, watching the smiling mask of a face of the assistant director.
"Fortuitous," Mazaraki said, leaning back against his desk and folding his hands across his chest.
"Perhaps," agreed Rostnikov. "I would have been here earlier but I no longer have access to an official automobile. I have to take a bus or the metro or, in an emergency, a taxi. Do you have an automobile, Comrade Mazaraki?"
"Yes, a little Moskvich," answered Mazaraki, his head tilted slightly to the right like a curious bird. "Very economical."
"It's important to drive carefully," Rostnikov said, looking around at the office. "May I sit?"
"Please," said Mazaraki, unfolding his arms and waving an open hand at a dark wood-and-leather chair.
Rostnikov moved the chair slightly, just enough to be able to see both Katya and Mazaraki at the same time. And enough to survey the room, which was furnished in dark wood and leather, like something out of a magazine. The desk was large and a television sat on the wide lower level of the bookcase along with a machine that was attached to it and that Rostnikov assumed was a videotape player.
"I have a modest collection of films, Inspector," said Mazaraki, moving to the bookcase cabinets and opening one. "Even some American nuns, which I trust are not illegal to own."
"I'm not interested in legal or illegal movies," Rostnikov said, looking at the neat row of tapes. He wondered if Mazaraki were a client of the Gorgasali brothers, whose trailer was less than a mile away. Perhaps he would find out.
"I've got Keaton, Chaplin, Grease, Gone With the Wind, Blue Thunder, even Raiders of the Lost Ark" said Mazaraki.
Mazaraki was running his large right hand over the tapes and looking over the policeman's head at the silent woman, who remained motionless in the corner.
"Someone in the MVD has the idea that Pesknoko was murdered," Rostnikov said, watching Mazaraki's eyes, which remained on Katya, revealing nothing. His lips, however, tightened.
"Someone?" said Mazaraki, closing the cabinet and moving his right hand up to play with his mustache. He pulled a longish patch above his lip downward and bit at it with his teeth.
"Someone," Rostnikov said, examining his lap.
"You?"
Rostnikov shrugged. It was a possibility.
"And you are investigating?"
"No," sighed Rostnikov. "The case is closed. I am investigating a hit-and-run this morning. It seems Katya Rashkovskaya was almost killed by a motorist outside her apartment building."
"No," said Mazaraki, moving behind his desk and looking up at Katya. "Katerina, you said nothing. After all that has happened, this is quite terrible."
Rostnikov turned awkwardly, deliberately, to face the young woman, who still had not spoken.
"You had other things to discuss," said Rostnikov. "Business, Katya's future."
"Yes," said Mazaraki behind him.
The young woman nodded yes.
"Is it not a bit unusual," continued Mazaraki, "that a full chief inspector is investigating a drunken driver who accidentally"
"Your car is parked outside?" Rostnikov cut in.
Mazaraki's smile disappeared for an instant and then returned, more fixed, more artificial, than before, the broad smile of a performer who wanted the smile to be seen forty rows back in dim light.
"My car is parked outside," Mazaraki said, playing with his mustache.
"Well, this has been an interesting, though brief, visit," Rostnikov said, using both arms of the chair to raise himself. "Comrade Rashkovskaya, if you are finished here, perhaps I could have a few words as you walk wherever you"
"I'm going home," she said softly, her eyes turning away from both men.
"Good," said Rostnikov. "We can talk on the way."
Mazaraki rose quickly and hurried around the desk and to the door to open it.
Rostnikov looked up at the bigger man as Katya stepped into the hall.
"Would you like to see the circus tonight, Comrade Inspector? As my personal guest?"
"I like the circus," said Rostnikov, looking into the hall at the woman, whose eyes were fixed on the big man.
"I'll leave your name at the box office. Would you like to bring?"
"My wife and I would very much like to see the circus," Rostnikov cut in.
Mazaraki bowed his head slightly, perhaps mockingly.
"I would like to see you working," said Rostnikov. "I have the impression that you are an outstanding performer."
"Thank you, Inspector," Mazaraki said, and Rostnikov stepped into the hall. The door closed slowly behind him.
In the hall, he caught up with Katya.
"You'll have to walk more slowly if I'm to keep up with you."
"I'm sorry. I really don't want company."
"You might find it comforting, protective."
"I need no comforting or protection," she said, increasing her pace.
At the bottom of the steps, about ten feet below him, she stopped and turned.
"I will take care of my business," she said.
"I am a patient policeman," Rostnikov said softly so she would have to strain to hear him. "At some point I will hear this story. I prefer to hear it from you, but if you are not around to tell it, I will hear it nonetheless."
"Thank you for the plumbing books," she replied and hurried to the front door past the old man with the mop. Her hard heels clacked and reminded Rostnikov of some piece of music, the memory of which passed almost as quickly as it had come. He watched her go out the door into the sunlight and turn to her right.