“I agree,” said Rostnikov, limping to the door.
“As soon as you hear anything,” she said, pulling a thick folder in front of her.
Rostnikov went out the door thinking that Anna Timofeyeva and Sergei Malenko represented perfectly opposing wills. Malenko was a successful capitalist within a socialist country. He was the living evidence, an alternative, a corrupt alternative, perhaps, but one which refused to go away. Anna Timofeyeva labored for a Utopia free of Malenkos, elder and younger, free of dissent, free of poverty. In his deepest heart, Rostnikov was confident that neither her world nor the world of Sergei Malenko would ever triumph. No Utopia had ever survived; perhaps none was desirable. Man had evolved into a creature who lived in constant tension. Utopias might destroy him. And besides, in a perfect world there would be no room for the police.
It took forever to get back to his own office, where Sasha Tkach sat, his hair disheveled, his coat open. The young man slumped in the chair across the desk and didn’t even fully turn to face Rostnikov.
“Any news from the cab investigation?” Rostnikov asked, easing himself into his chair and feeling the pain rush through his leg as he changed position. Rostnikov wondered if the German who had shot him in 1941 was still alive somewhere and if the German was walking on two whole legs. Rostnikov did not like Germans, even East Germans. They weren’t to be trusted.
“Nothing,” said Tkach.
“Stolen cars, kidnappings, missing persons?”
“Nothing,” said Tkach, looking down at his thumbs. Rostnikov leaned over to see what was so interesting about Tkach’s thumbs, but could see nothing.
“You have something on your mind, Sasha,” Rostnikov sighed.
“I think I should be given…I should have less responsible assignments until I can prove myself,” he said. “I’ve bungled all of this badly.”
“You have,” agreed Rostnikov. “To use the terms of hockey, you have allowed as many goals as you have scored.”
“Yes. Had I remembered that the cab driver had been killed near Petro Street, I could have prevented the murder of Marie Malenko. Had I not lost Simon Lvov, he would have led me to Ilyusha Malenko and he would not have kidnapped the girl.”
“I know,” said Rostnikov. Tkach looked at him, waiting for further comment.
“Is that all you can say?” asked Tkach more in a plea than anger.
“What more can I say? You made mistakes. I am not your father. I can’t forgive you for your mistakes, neither will I sit here brooding on them. You have a job. You do it. Sometimes things go right. Sometimes they go wrong. If we demoted every police officer who made major mistakes, there would be no senior officers left. You have many inadequacies as an investigator, Sasha, perhaps even more than I, but I think, frankly, that we are the best available. So let’s stop worrying about the past and start considering the present and future. Let’s begin by your getting me half a dozen aspirin and a pot of tea.”
Something approaching a smile touched Sasha Tkach’s mouth and he brushed back his hair.
“I haven’t given you a reprieve,” said Rostnikov, rubbing his leg, “only a minor task. Please do it.”
Gas is not easy to get in Moscow, which is one of the reasons so few Muscovites own automobiles. But there are many other reasons. Automobiles are very expensive and the laws governing their use are many. But the worst thing about owning an automobile in Moscow is the repairs. There are less than a dozen shops in Moscow authorized to repair automobiles. Working in these shops are mechanics who frequently resent the fact that they must work on these automobiles without any prospect of ever owning one themselves. Parts are difficult to get and repair work is usually done quickly and badly. The mechanics get paid the same for good or bad work, and the customers really have no choice.
Vera Alleyenovskya, a second cellist in the Bolshoi theater orchestra, was a near tireless perfectionist; her only indulgence was the automobile. Her Volga had been repaired four times in the last month only to develop the same problem anew each time. And each time she had patiently returned it for repair. The car spent more days in the shop that month than on the road. Vera Alleyenovskya was beginning to consider getting rid of the car. This thought was connected in her mind with the possibility of accepting the offer of marriage of Igor Petschensky, the tuba player. Both would involve a radical change in self-image for which she was preparing herself.
Vera Alleyenovskya looked at herself in the rearview mirror when she got into her car, which had now been running for two days without a breakdown. Her blond hair was tied straight back, her eyes were blue, her skin clear and pale, her face a bit chunky. At moments like this, she tended to push the sale of the car and the proposal of Petschensky deep into the recesses of her mind. After all, it was one thing to deal with a tuba as part of the total sound of the Rimsky-Korsikov, but to hear the individual rehearsal might be too much in spite of Petchensky’s admirable mustache. Vera Alleyenovskya saw something else in her mirror this evening, and it was to have a profound effect on her life.
In the mirror was the face of a young man. Vera Alleyenovskya turned quickly with a half scream.
“No,” said the young man, showing a long, rusty scissors and glancing out of the window to see if any passerby noticed what was happening inside the parked car. Then Vera Alleyenovskya saw the young girl. The man had one arm around her, holding her mouth. The girl’s eyes were wide and frightened.
“What do you want?” asked Vera quietly. “What are you doing in my car? With that child?”
“I want you to turn around and start the car,” Ilyusha Malenko said. “Now. I can easily kill you and drive myself, but then I’d have to do something with little Natasha here and I don’t want anything to happen to her, not now. So drive.”
Vera Alleyenovskya drove. She had no idea of who the young man was. Her primary source of information was the Moscow Pravda.
“We’re cold,” said the young man, looking over her shoulder into traffic. “We’ve been sitting in here on the floor for hours. Turn on the heat.”
“It takes a while to work,” Vera said. “Where shall I take you?”
“Later,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder with the scissors. “Later. And don’t think clever thoughts. I am clever too, and I have grown quite used to doing what I must. There are three dead to prove it.”
The young man sounded proud of his accomplishment. A look in the rearview mirror at both him and the girl seemed to support what should have been a confession but sounded like a boast.
“I do not have an inexhaustable supply of petrol,” Vera said, driving through the new falling snow.
“Later,” he growled. “How do you come to own a car?”
“I’m a musician,” Vera explained.
“My father owns two cars and a woman.”
Vera had nothing to say. She nodded and drove.
“Drive out of the city,’’ he said a few minutes later. Then to the young girl beside him. “I’m going to let you go. My hand is tired of holding you. You are to sit back in the corner and say nothing and not whimper. You understand?”
Vera couldn’t see if the girl nodded, but she did hear a sudden gasp for air and the young girl’s lungs taking in air loudly and quickly.
Vera drove along the highway past apartments and houses for almost an hour.
“Turn here,” he ordered at one point, and she skidded, almost missing the road where he told her to turn. “Now drive.”
Vera drove down the small highway for ten minutes and then the blades of the scissors clicked in the air near her cheek.
“There, there, there up ahead, turn into that road,” said the young man.