“Down the hall. To the right,” the sergeant said, stepping into the hall and closing the cell door, which clanged and echoed in the corridors of darkness.
Voshenko, six feet six, close to three hundred pounds, filled the narrow hallway built for children. He shambled forward, his leg chains rattling.
“Stop. There,” called the sergeant from a safe dozen feet behind, his weapon now out of the holster.
Voshenko had been brought in drunk after having killed two people, a man and a woman, in a bar on Kachalova Prospekt. He claimed there had been a fight. No witness stepped forward. Both victims had broken necks. Less than a week after entering the police-station lockup, another prisoner in the same cell as Voshenko had been found one morning with his neck broken. Voshenko denied the killing but admitted readily that the dead man had repeatedly looked at him even after having been told to stop. It was then that he had been shackled. There was no room in the three cells of the station house to place him in complete isolation, and there was no point in asking any of the other stations to take him. No one wanted another mouth to feed on an already meager budget.
Voshenko looked back over his shoulder at the sergeant, who took a step back before he could stop himself. Voshenko smiled and stepped into the interrogation room. The sergeant moved forward cautiously behind him. When he got to the door, he could see that Karpo was already seated behind the small metal table facing Voshenko, who moved to the chair across from the pale policeman.
The sergeant was about to close the door and stand ready, weapon in hand, while the strange inspector from Petrovka questioned the giant. The sergeant believed there was no chance Voshenko would even yield his name.
“Wait outside,” said Karpo. “Down the corridor, next to the cell. I’ll call you when I want you to return.”
“I don’t think …” the sergeant began, and then remembered his orders.
What would happen to him if Voshenko broke the neck of this lean ghost? Would the sergeant be held responsible? Yes, without doubt, and he might well find himself in one of the cells. But he did as he was told, locking the interrogation-room door firmly behind him.
Karpo and Voshenko looked at each other without blinking and without speaking. Finally Voshenko looked away as if in boredom.
“Do you know who I am?” Karpo asked.
“The Tatar, the Ghost, the Vampire,” said Voshenko. “Karpo.”
“Do you know why I am here?”
Voshenko shrugged. He looked at the peeling, once-white walls.
“I called many stations and several prisons asking if they had any prisoners with a specific tattoo,” said Karpo.
Voshenko folded his hands in front of him. They were large with long fingers. On each finger, just above the knuckle, was a minute tattoo of an animal, but only the head of the animal.
“When you were brought here, you were photographed,” Karpo said, his own hands flat on the table.
Voshenko did not remember. He had been too drunk. But he knew of the procedure.
“One of the officers on duty looked through the photographs of all tattooed prisoners,” said Karpo. “He found the tattoo I was looking for on you.”
Voshenko smiled and shook his head. He started to rise, but there was no response from the man who remained seated in front of him. Voshenko lifted his shirt. He was covered with tattoos, almost as many as the man who had been shot outside the café where Mathilde had been murdered.
“None of those,” said Karpo. “An eagle with a bomb in its claws. It is on your right buttock. You need not display it.”
Voshenko hovered over the detective, looking down at him, his fingers spread now within inches of Karpo’s.
“I do not wish to kill you,” Karpo said calmly. “I have questions to ask you. But I can find another prisoner somewhere with this tattoo. Please sit.”
Voshenko did not move.
“Sit,” said Karpo calmly. “Or I shall hurt you very badly.”
Voshenko laughed. Karpo did not. Down the corridor the sergeant heard the laughter and wondered, but did not move. Voshenko sat.
“What does that tattoo mean?” Karpo asked.
Voshenko shrugged, clasped his hands together, and shrugged once more.
“Answer, Prisoner Voshenko. Or I have no use for you.”
Voshenko looked at the man. He could easily reach across the table and have the man’s neck before the detective could pull a weapon. Perhaps he would choose to end the interrogation in that manner. But for now he was curious.
“It is a patriotic work,” said Voshenko. “The strength of the nation, now lost by weaklings.”
“It is the sign of a mafia that deals in nuclear material,” said Karpo.
Voshenko’s bushy eyebrows went up slightly and then back down again. “If so, it is a coincidence,” he said. “For me it is a patriotic picture.”
“Stanislav Voshenko, there was an attack by members of your mafia, the assassination of a German businessman named Heinz Dieter Kirst. Why did your people want to kill him?”
Voshenko shrugged and said, “I don’t know any Germans and I don’t belong to a mafia.”
“I wish to know where I can find the leader of your group,” Karpo persisted.
“I belong to no group,” Voshenko said, placing his hands flat on the table again, ready.
“No more lies,” Karpo demanded.
Voshenko lunged across the table. One hand slammed down on Karpo’s hand. The other hand went around Karpo’s throat. Voshenko looked at his victim with a mad grin of satisfaction, but the pale face of the policeman showed no fear or pain. Voshenko lost his grin and continued closing his thumb and finger, cutting off the air. He had done it many times, always without concern for the consequences. And this time he had nothing to lose. They would never let him out anyway. They would give him a quick trial and shoot him against a wall. But until that moment he would brag that he had killed a policeman.
And then Voshenko felt a sudden pain, an electric shock in his left hand. He pulled it back as if he had been bitten. He held his grip on Karpo’s neck as he painfully lifted his left hand. His thumb hung loosely and his hand was rapidly swelling.
In the instant that the prisoner looked away, Karpo grabbed the massive thumb that was pressing his windpipe and jerked it back hard. Voshenko sat back and tried to pull his hand from Karpo’s grasp, but the policeman held fast. Voshenko reached up with his left hand, but with his thumb broken it was useless.
“And when I break your other thumb, you will be unable to attack or defend yourself,” said Karpo. “I think your cellmates might find that interesting.”
“They are cowards,” said Voshenko, clenching back the pain. “Break the thumb. Then kill me. If you don’t, I will find and kill you the first chance I get. Today. Tomorrow. In a year.”
“I will find your leader, and when I do I will inform him that it was you who betrayed him.”
“He won’t believe you,” said Voshenko, still trying to free his hand. “You don’t have the power to free me.”
“I will see to it that the moment I learn the name of your leader, you will be set free,” said Karpo. “It can be done. Will your leader believe that the police just let you walk out the door?”
Voshenko tried to laugh, but it had none of the crazed power of his earlier laughter. He shook his head to indicate that he would not speak. Karpo bent the thumb back even farther.
“Then I shall break this thumb too,” said Karpo.
“Why does it mean so much to you?” growled Voshenko, now sweating and breathing heavily.
“Talk now or you will have no thumbs,” said Karpo. Voshenko knew that he meant it.