Perhaps, thought Yuri the file clerk, Yuri the killer of prostitutes, there is some new piece of evidence, but what could there be that was new? What could Karpo know?
Yuri knew who Karpo was, had seen him frequently, had seen his name on hundreds of files. Karpo the Vampire, that was what he had heard an investigator named Zelach call him. Yuri Pon tried not to think about the image of a vampire. He tried to force himself to review everything that was in the file. He had done it a thousand times and never had he been able to follow any trail that would lead to him. He had been too careful. Knowing how the investigators worked, he had avoided mistakes, controlled his emotions each time. He was proud of that, proud of that control.
Coincidence, just a coincidence. Karpo was reviewing files, randomly reviewing files. Yuri would check, see what other files the Vam, no, what other files Inspector Karpo had recently pulled out. There was nothing to worry about, nothing. Yuri put his file and the others away and spent the next two hours before lunch neatly typing new file numbers into the computer for the cases that would come in. Thought almost disappeared as he typed, and when his watch told him that he could stop and eat he smiled. It was under control. And then as he sat at his desk and lifted the small round bread from the sack in the drawer, a horrible thought sickened him.
What, he thought, if Karpo knows? What if he knows and is playing a game with me? What if he was watching when the file was returned, is watching right now? Yuri turned quickly from this corner to that, down the row of files, toward the stairway leading up to the next level, to the ceiling where, perhaps, someone had planted a camera.
Yuri Pon couldn't swallow. He was afraid he would choke. He clutched for the bottle of kvass in his sack, unscrewed it, and drank deeply, almost choking.
Madness, he thought. No one is watching me. No one. But that was not the problem. A new one had come. He was sure now. Absolutely sure that the feeling was back, that this very night it would begin again, that the memory of the prostitute in the restaurant would be with him, driving him mad until he dealt with it. Karpo couldn't be watching him. No, but Yuri Pon would certainly be watching Emil Karpo. He finished the small bottle of kvass, let out a small burp, and wondered how he would get through the rest of the day.
The rain had almost stopped when Rostnikov arrived and stood across the street in front of the building to which he had been ordered. The four-story building had no sign on its door to mark its function or purpose. It looked like a small factory, perhaps a complex of offices. There were eleven windows on the street side, each covered so that no one could see in. The concrete facade was smooth, gray, and very common. If one stood across the street where Rostnikov then stood one could see on the roof of the third floor a patio and a series of canopies that looked as if they belonged at the beach in Yalta.
Officially, this building had no name. It didn't exist. Unofficially, and to almost every Muscovite who passed it, it was the Kremlin Polyclinic, where the nation's "special" people went for medical care. Rostnikov crossed the street slowly, glanced at a man with a thick shiny leather briefcase who was reading the copy of Pravda posted on the corner bulletin board, and walked past the single car parked at the curb. It was a long, black four-door Zil, a monster of a car that needed only teeth. Only members of the Politburo were issued Zils. It was estimated that no more than fifteen of the custom automobiles were made each year.
Rostnikov glanced at the car and at the man behind the wheel in the front seat, a young man in a dark suit and a firmly knotted tie, a young man who looked as if his nose had been smashed with a hammer. The young man glanced at Rostnikov and then looked resolutely out the car's front window.
Rostnikov entered the building and found himself facing a pair of burly men in identical blue suits. Both men were in their forties and had close-cropped hair. Beyond them in the small lobby was a desk at which a man and a woman sat. The man was talking quietly on the phone. The woman was looking over her glasses and appeared to be copying something. Only their heads were visible over the level of the desk. Rostnikov imagined for an instant that both of them had been beheaded and were on display at the Poly-clinic to prove how capable and experimental the staff was. Perhaps, he thought, the two heads will even sing a folk song in unison. The image brought a small smile to Rostnikov's face, which, hi turn, brought a look of suspicion to the face of the slightly older of the two burly men, who stepped in Rostnikov's path.
"You have business here, Comrade?" the burly man asked.
Rostnikov gauged the two. Certainly KGB. Both were younger, bigger, more agile than Rostnikov, and both, as evidenced by their slightly bulky jackets, had weapons hidden but handy. Still, Rostnikov was sure that if they attempted to throw him out, he would probably have little trouble getting past them. It was only whimsy, however, for Porfiry Petrovich had no real urge to force his way past the KGB. He didn't even want to be here. Rostnikov reached into his pocket and handed the older of the two men the note Snitkonoy had given him less than an hour earlier. The KGB man ran his right palm over the top of his bristly hair before taking the offering. Rostnikov and the second man looked at each other silently while the first man read the note quickly.
"This way," the reader said, handing the note back to Rostnikov and turning toward the desk. Rostnikov followed him slowly, sandwiched between him and the other burly men. Rostnikov had followed the KGB before. His leg didn't permit him to keep up the pace of these younger men eager to show that everything was urgent. Rostnikov was in no hurry. He had nowhere he wanted to go other than the circus and home. So he walked slowly past the desk where the decapitated head of the woman whose hair was tied back in a bun looked up at him over her glasses.
The parade of three went through a darkly stained wooden door and into an elevator that stood open. They entered silently and faced front, and the younger man pressed a button that closed the doors. He then pressed a button for the third floor and they rode up smoothly. At three, the elevator stopped with a small bounce, the doors opened, and the older KGB officer stepped out. Rostnikov followed, with the younger man behind him.
To the right was a corridor with closed doors. At the far end of the corridor was a desk behind which stood a pair of men clad in white. Talking, they paid no attention to the three men who moved about twenty feet down the corridor and went through a door.
Rostnikov found himself on an outdoor, wooden-floored patio. There were a series of chairs and a scattering of white metal tables on the long patio, as if someone had thrown a party and neglected to take the last step of putting back the furniture.
In one of the chairs, under a canopy, sat a very old man in a dark robe. He was the only one on the patio, and he seemed to be asleep, his eyes closed, as the three men approached.
"Comrade," the older KGB man said softly as they stood in front of the dozing old man. The old man didn't answer.
"Comrade," the older KGB man repeated, perhaps a little uncertain if he should pursue this or simply wait.
"Yes," said the old man, his eyes still closed.
"The man you sent for has arrived," said the KGB man, looking at his partner for some kind of support.
The old man opened his eyes, blinked at the sun, ran his heavily veined hands through his crop of billowy white hair, and sat up. He was small, his face deeply lined, with little broken blood vessels under the eyes that might indicate vodka or age, or both. He didn't look up, but groped in the pocket of his robe for his glasses, found them, placed them on his nose, and looked at the polished wooden floor, shaking his head once. Only then did he look up at Rostnikov. Rostnikov met his eyes and showed nothing.