“He is ill,” said the new driver pulling into the street and looking over his shoulder.
This one, thought Rostnikov, has an intelligent face. Let us hope the face does not hide a talkative personality.
“What is his malady?” Rostnikov asked, going over the notes in his notebook.
“American flu,” said the driver.
“I understand they call it Russian flu in the United States,” Rostnikov replied.
“I know little of American prejudices,” said the driver. Rostnikov examined him further. He was young, with close-cut brown hair under his fur cap. He looked like an athlete in some track or field sport.
“I know of them through occasional reading of American novels,” said Rostnikov, looking out of the window into the glaring sun.
“I cannot read American novels,” said the driver. “I can’t keep the names straight. Americans have so many strange names, so many variations and diminutives. I can never keep it straight. For example, an American can have the names John, Jack, Jonathan, Johnny-and all be the same person.”
“And your name?” asked Rostnikov, willing to carry on the conversation because he did not look forward to the interview he was about to undertake.
“Dolguruki. Michael Veselivitch Dolguruki.”
That ended the conversation. Rostnikov could think of nothing further to say. Had he been sitting in the front seat, he might have found it easier. In fact, he had observed that other inspectors and even government officials and the wealthy and elite tended to sit in the front seats with their drivers as acts of social equality, as if everyone did not know that they were far from equal. Rostnikov preferred the space of the back seat and the solitude.
Rostnikov was being silently jostled as the car moved expertly through the wide black asphalt streets jammed with late morning trucks spitting exhaust and with swarms of cars-Volgas, Muskvitches, Laplas, and tiny Zaporojetzes-jockeying for the curb as if in a race or game. They drove through old Moscow, just outside the walls of the Kremlin with houses one-hundred-fifty years old side by side with new concrete blocks with few windows that looked like untreated marble ready for a sculptor to release the imprisoned figure or figures frozen within it. They passed the ministries and went through the small side streets with wooden houses that looked ready to fall and had looked that way a dozen or more years before the Revolution.
The driver found Leningrad Prospect and headed out to Volokolamsk Highway. The last circle one encounters in moving away from Moscow is that of the dacha suburbs where many wealthy Muscovites have their summer villas. This circle is, ironically, also shared by the poorest of the Muscovites, those who cannot afford to live closer to the city where they work and are forced to exist in shacks of one room which tourists are steered away from. So only those who can afford to travel easily to the inner city and those who are least able to do so, share this ring. It was here, on Moscow Ring Road, that they were heading now.
Rostnikov did not enjoy this task. He had called at a suitable hour in the morning, a time that seemed not too early to wake up anyone at the house and not too late to miss the person he was trying to reach. He had gotten someone, a woman, and explained his mission and was given an appointment for the next hour. It gave him little time to prepare, but he preferred the discomfort of the encounter and the lack of preparation to the alternative, the continued freedom of a brutal killer who was most likely Ilya Malenko.
He had taken upon himself the responsibility for tapping the phones of Malenko’s various known acquaintances in the hope that the man would try to contact one of them. In addition, Tkach would go to each of the dozen or so people on the list and inform them of the gravity of the situation if Malenko should try to reach them other than by phone. There was some hope that at least some of them would cooperate, not for political reasons or fear, but because Malenko had murdered Granovsky and Marie Malenko. Of course, he might contact no one, but that was unlikely. He could get no work without identifying himself. He would have nowhere to stay without contacting a friend or relative.
The most likely person to contact was obvious and that, indeed, was the person with whom Rostnikov had made the appointment. Although he had been in this area of dachas in which they found themselves, Rostnikov was not really familiar with them. It was an alien world normally denied him and other policemen. When crime occurred by or to the members of this cultural elite, it was invariably handled by the K.G.B. or the militia.
The driver found the house with little difficulty and pulled into the small driveway in front. It was a two-story home, wood and brick, freshly painted from the summer. Rostnikov got out and the driver began to follow.
“You remain here,” said Rostnikov, motioning the man back without looking at him.
“As you wish, Comrade Inspector,” was the reply, and Rostnikov heard the car door close behind him. He walked to the front door, anxious, apprehensive and a bit angry, angry that he should feel this way. This was the home of a rich man, not one who was rewarded for his achievements in the arts or sciences or government or even athletics, but a man who everyone knew had grown rich by black market connections, by alterations of government manufacturing contracts, by bribes-yes even massive bribes to the police. It was known and he was tolerated. No, he was not just tolerated, he was supported, one of the hidden capitalists who helped the economy and were purposefully overlooked.
Rostnikov knocked. The door was solid and painted white. Inside he could hear footsteps on a hard floor and the door opened. A woman, a very beautiful woman somewhere in her thirties, opened the door and smiled at him with teeth Rostnikov thought impossible to maintain in Moscow. Her eyes were so blue that they seemed to be painted and her straight yellow hair was swept back like a Frenchwoman’s.
“You are Inspector Rossof?” she said.
“Rostnikov,” he corrected.
“Yes,” she said, stepping back to let him in. “Sergei was on his way out of the door when you called this morning. I just caught him.”
They stood in a small hallway with dark wooden floors.
“I did not mean to…” Rostnikov began.
“That’s all right,” she stopped him with a smile. “Come, he is in the parlor.”
Rostnikov followed her a few steps. She stopped and turned around.
“It is Ilyusha, isn’t it?” she said softly, her smile suddenly vanishing.
“Your…” Rostnikov began not sure of the relationship of this woman and the man he was pursuing.
“My stepson,” she said coming to his aid. “I don’t really know him. I actually only met him once and we didn’t get on.”
“I see,” said Rostnikov sagely, though he didn’t see why she was telling him this.
Her smile returned. “I don’t even know what he has been doing, what his interests are,” she said, and Rostnikov understood. This woman wanted to make it clear that she was no part of Malenko’s political position or anything else he might be involved in.
“I see,” he said, and this time he did.
“I was a clerk in my husband’s factory when Ilyusha-”
Her statement was interrupted by the opening of the door before which she stood. She stepped back as if the sound had brought with it a terrible blast of heat.
“Elizabeth,” said the man who now stood before them, “I must get to town for that meeting with the under-minister. I’d appreciate seeing the inspector immediately.”
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth Malenko said, unable to keep from looking around the hallway at all she might lose by offending the important man.