“He kills on any day of the week,” said Rostnikov. “No pattern. It might be two Tuesdays in a row and then a Saturday and then a Friday. He can kill for three straight days and then wait a month before taking another victim. Phases of the moon show no consistency. There is no pattern of holidays or birthdays or days of historical or newsworthy significance.”
He leaned back and took a sip of his no-longer-hot tea.
“The positions of the bodies seem random,” Karpo went on. “Nothing about the clothing of the victims or their health informs us. He seems to prefer men over the age of fifty-eight, but he has also killed two young women.”
“One of whom he decorated with wooden spikes in her eyes,” said Rostnikov, holding up a photograph to look at the grisly work of the Maniac.
“All of the killings seem to have been done at night, and he is drawn to Bitsevsky Park.”
“Emil Karpo, are we missing something?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Rostnikov scratched the stump of his leg thoughtfully. Then he turned his chair and looked out the window.
“The weather is breaking,” he said. “The temperature is supposed to reach forty-five degrees.”
Karpo nodded.
Rostnikov reached into the top drawer of his desk.
“I have never heard you whistle, Emil Karpo.”
“I have never felt the need.”
“To make music,” said Rostnikov, gently placing an odd squash-shaped instrument on the desk in front of him.
“The appeal of music is unknown to me. I feel no need for it. It is a functionless distraction.”
“You are a true romantic,” said Rostnikov.
“I do not believe I am.”
“I was engaging in irony.”
“I see.”
Rostnikov picked up the ocarina he had taken from his desk drawer, placed it to his lips, and blew, slowly working his fingers over a line of small holes. A piping of music emerged.
“Here,” said Rostnikov, handing it across the desk. “It is yours. When you feel the inclination, make music.”
Karpo took the ocarina and placed it in front of him.
“Now I think I will take a walk in the park,” said Rostnikov.
“He is going for a walk in the park,” said Pankov.
Colonel Igor Yaklovev, sitting at his desk under the framed discreetly sized print of the face of Lenin, looked up at his short, always nervous assistant. One of the many reasons Pankov was perspiring was that the Yak looked very much like the Lenin in the print above Yaklovev’s head. He had cultivated the resemblance decades earlier and maintained it throughout the fall of the Soviet Union and the fickle changes in the government. It was a safe resemblance. Were it not, the Yak would see to it that he bore no similarity to the founder of the Revolution.
“Did he say why?” asked the Yak.
“No.”
“Did he say which park?”
“No, he did not,” said Pankov.
“Guess.”
“Bitsevsky.”
“Good.”
Pankov went silent, anxious to get away from the Yak. Pankov did not do well in the presence of power, which was, as even he knew, an irony, because few in the government were as fervently but patiently seeking power as the Yak. On several dozen occasions, Pankov had taken phone calls directly from one of the assistants of Vladimir Putin himself. This caused near panic in Pankov, but once, and he was certain of this, Putin himself had come on the line, thinking that he would be speaking directly to Yaklovev. Pankov had almost passed out as he identified himself and transferred the call. His hands had trembled. Perspiration on his forehead had beaded, and his underwear had tightened with moisture.
“The journalist?” asked the Yak, folding his hands in front of him on the desk.
“Tkach and Timofeyeva are taking Iris Templeton to talk to people for her story.”
“I want a list of everyone she talks to.”
“Yes.”
Yaklovev made a note. This information might prove useful, especially if one of the supposedly tough mafiosi in the prostitution business was potentially compromised or embarrassed and the Yak could help him in exchange for future considerations.
“The boxer has not yet been found,” Pankov added.
Yaklovev cared little about that. Rostnikov’s annoying son and the slouching Zelach would find Medivkin, though that might not in any way add to the popularity or power of the Office of Special Investigations. Taking on such no-win cases was the price one sometimes had to pay for ultimate success.
“Go home, Pankov,” Yaklovev said.
“I still-”
“Go home,” the Yak repeated with a smile his assistant would have preferred not to see.
“Yes, thank you,” Pankov said.
The sun would be going down within the hour. This early release would give Pankov time to pick up a few groceries, particularly a few more boxes of oatmeal. Pankov almost lived on oatmeal made with water and artificial maple syrup. Boxes of oatmeal lined his small shelves, and his small refrigerator held three bottles of syrup. Still, one could never be sure when one might run out.
In the outer office, Pankov put on his coat and pressed the button that activated the recording of not only the mocking conversations in Rostnikov’s office but also the conversations in the outer office across the hall where the other inspectors had desks and conversation.
Both the Yak and Pankov had been invited to the wedding of Elena and Iosef. Both had accepted. The Yak was well aware that his presence would make everyone uncomfortable. That did not bother him.
Pankov gladly accepted when he knew that the Yak was going to attend. Pankov had never been to a wedding. Never. He had no friends outside of the thirteen members of the Monocle Club, the group of ten men and three women who not only collected the ocular affectations of the obliterated aristocracy but also knew everything worth knowing and even more not worth knowing about the lenses. Strictly speaking, the members of the Monocle Club were not his friends, but they shared a common, if arcane, interest. They met every two weeks in a small room of the Budapest Hotel, a hundred meters from the Bolshoi Theatre.
As he stepped out of the office, closing the door quietly behind him, Pankov remembered to turn on the cell phone in his pocket. He hated the phone, but the Yak insisted that Pankov keep it charged and in his pocket where he could hear it. There was no place he could be comfortably alone and really no place where he could feel comfortable among people.
It was his life. He accepted it. It did keep him on the fringes of power. He was the assistant and secretary, really, of a very powerful man who would only grow more powerful. This was not bad for a man whose father had been a sub-foreman in a government uniform-manufacturing factory and whose mother had been a sewing machine operator in the same factory.
Behind Pankov as he left Petrovka he could hear a single dog wail. The sun was dropping in the west, and the temperature seemed to be rising.
He headed for the Metro station willing his cell phone not to ring. He would ask his neighbor Mrs. Olga Ferinova what gift he should bring to the wedding and how he should dress and behave.
Vera Korstov was a highly methodical and determined woman. She had left her apartment with a neatly printed list of six names carefully coaxed out of Ivan Medivkin. She had expected more, but this, she had been sure, would be a good start. At the top of her list was Albina Babinski, the widow of Fedot Babinski, the murdered sparring partner.
The police, Vera was certain, would have a similar list of names with at least several duplicates. They would be looking for Ivan as she would be looking for the murderer who had set Ivan up for the crime.
It was unlikely the police would be in a hurry to talk to Albina Babinski. They had no reason to think that she might know where Ivan was hiding.