“I must talk to you, Comrade Rostnikov,” he said seriously.
“Talk,” growled Rostnikov.
“Can I come in?” said Samsanov, nodding toward the interior of the apartment.
Rostnikov backed up to let the thin man enter and closed the door behind him. Samsanov nodded at Sarah, looked around the room and back at Rostnikov. The building manager wore a dark, worn suit and white shirt with no tie. His neck was speckled with gray hairs and made him look rather like a sorry chicken.
“You fixed the toilet and disturbed the Bulgarians,” Samsanov said, his eyes narrowing.
Rostnikov could see that the man had been drinking, perhaps building himself up for this moment.
“I did,” said Rostnikov, “and let me remind you that I am a chief inspector of the MVD and that I have given you certain tokens of good faith for you to do something about the toilet and that you failed to do so.”
Samsanov raised a placating hand as Rostnikov had hoped he would. The ploy was to start an offensive before he could be attacked.
“I have not come to complain,” Samsanov said. “I’ve come to see if we can reach an understanding.”
“Understanding?” asked Rostnikov, moving toward the building manager and looking over at Sarah.
“You seem to be good at repairing the plumbing. You know something about it,” said Samsanov softly. “People who need such repairs are willing to pay to bypass the normal procedure. I thought that you and I might-”
“That we might make a profit by illegally doing plumbing repairs,” Rostnikov said.
Samsanov looked at the door and back at Sarah.
“I’m not talking about illegal profits,” he said soothingly. “I’m talking about helping people.”
Samsanov clearly had no idea that the apartment was bugged, had not been part of it. The KGB could have used him but had chosen not to. Rostnikov’s near certainty about the apartment being bugged had been confirmed the night before when he found one of the devices and marveled at how incredibly small they had become.
The KGB was almost certainly uninterested in the petty profiteering of a building manager, but Rostnikov was amused at the possibility of telling Samsanov that he was proposing a punishable offense and that his proposal was being recorded by the KGB.
“Out,” said Rostnikov. “I have a good mind to arrest you.”
In truth, Rostnikov was not at all offended by Samsanov’s proposal. He was rather flattered, but he enjoyed acting out the scene for Sarah, who smiled, and for whoever was listening.
“I didn’t mean-” Samsanov said, moving toward the door.
“You meant,” said Rostnikov, opening the door. “Out.”
“Remember,” Samsanov said, trying to regain control as Rostnikov gripped his arm and urged him into the hall. “You violated the order of the committee.”
“I will be most happy to address the committee on the subject,” said Rostnikov, making no effort to keep his voice down. “In fact I would welcome it. Please let me know when it will be.” He shut the door firmly on Samsanov.
Karpo was up by five on Sunday morning. The streets were almost empty, and the sky was still dark. It was his favorite time of the day, and he enjoyed the long walk to Petrovka Street.
Even at the noisiest of times, Moscow was comparatively quiet; the noise level was comparable to that of Saumur, France, or Waterloo, Iowa, rather than that of New York, Rome, Tokyo, or London. Part of this was due to the smaller number of automobiles, but part was due to the relative quiet of Muscovites. From time to time foreigners have attributed this quiet atmosphere to the fear of the people in a totalitarian state, but they have only to read accounts of Moscow streets before the current century to know that this is not true. No, while Muscovites can be given to hearty laughter and heated argument and even madness, they are essentially a private people. They drive their emotions inward where they build, rather than outward where they dissipate. And Russians are fatalistic. If a person is run over by a car, it is terrible, horrible, but no more than one can expect.
This tendency to keep things inside is perhaps to a large degree also responsible for the heavy consumption of alcohol in Moscow. The emotions have to be diluted, tempered, and released, or they might explode. Karpo had seen such explosions many times. He accepted it as the human condition. Every once in a while a human being, an imperfect mechanism at best, would malfunction, and clog up the machinery of the state. Such flaws had to be repaired or removed. They simply couldn’t be tolerated. Karpo saw himself as an expert in the maintenance of the commonweal.
As he walked, Karpo’s left arm began to throb slightly from the movement. He had several options. He could take one of the pills, which might affect his alertness and would do only a little to ease the pain. He could seek public transportation, a rather difficult thing to find so early on a Sunday morning. Moscow was the center of a godless state, but the concept of the Sabbath was so much a part of the Russian psyche that the government had eased its rules on Sunday and had gradually allowed it to become a day of rest. Karpo could have called Petrovka and had them send a car for him. After all, he was on official business, but to ask for a car would be an indication of weakness, and that would never do. He chose instead to accept the pain and walk on. He would think through the pain.
By six he was at his desk. The long, narrow room was not yet full, but Kleseko and Zelach were at their desks, and in the corner fat Nostavo was eating a piece of dark bread and talking to a uniformed officer, who stood nearby acknowledging the sage advice he was getting. Eating at one’s desk was forbidden, but many inspectors did so. The practice offended Karpo, who regarded any infraction of the rules as a threat to the entire structure. Lenin had said the same thing most clearly, and had led a most ascetic life. If one is willing to break a small rule, how will he know whether the next rule is also a small one when he breaks it? Soon the line between small and large is a blur and the individual becomes a detriment to the state. But Karpo did not report such offenses. There were too many of them. There were too many bribes, too many inspectors who took advantage of their privilege.
Zelach looked over at him, and Karpo nodded in recognition. Then Zelach looked away. Karpo picked up the phone and dialed.
“Kostnitsov, laboratory,” came the voice after a long wait.
“Karpo.”
“So, I’m here,” said Kostnitsov. “The sun is coming out over the Kremlin Wall, my wife is turning over for another few hours’ sleep, and my daughter is who the hell knows where.”
“Do you have the report ready?” said Karpo.
“Would I be in my laboratory now if I had no report? Would I have gotten myself up in darkness, cut an acre of my chin shaving in a daze, traveled without food to say I had nothing?”
“I do not know you well enough to answer such questions,” said Karpo.
“I’m talking human nature, not Boris Kostnitsov. Sometimes, Inspector Karpo, I despair of you. Come on up to my office. That is the least you can do. No, wait, the least you could do in addition to coming to my office is to bring me some tea.”
With that, Kostnitsov hung up. The assistant director of the MVD laboratory had no fear or awe of Karpo, no respect for his reputation. Others shied away from the Vampire and limited their contacts with him, but Kostnitsov had always treated him as he treated others, with no respect at all.
In a rather strange and inexplicable way, Karpo liked the man. So, as he would for no other-with the possible exception of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov, who would never ask-Karpo made his way to the darkened cafeteria, boiled some water, and made a cup of tea. Then he took the elevator to the lower level, which housed the laboratory.
There was no name on the door, only a number. Knocking was awkward. Karpo shifted the hot cup to his left hand, which he could only raise to his waist. He knocked with his right.