Next to Grigorovich, sitting upright, his long-fingered pale hands palms down on the table, sat Emil Karpo, dressed in black slacks, sweater, and jacket.
From the window, Colonel Snitkonoy looked down into the courtyard of the central police building on Petrovka Street. The shrubs and bushes were green from recent rain, and the iron fence had recently been repainted black. The dogs that were kenneled on the opposite wing seemed particularly quiet today. In fact, thought the colonel, they had been growing more and more quiet for some time. Was someone eating them?
The Wolfhound dismissed the idea and forced himself back to the task at hand.
The colonel savored his morning sessions and had recently begun to consider taping them. Then Pankov would transcribe them to be edited into a book that would provide startling models for criminal investigative procedure. Though the colonel was always confident that what he was saying was pointed, correct, and inspiring, two minutes after he had begun he was certain that this was one session he would not have included in his contemplated text.
“Ours is a nation of pravo-voye gosudarstvo, a state based on law,” the Wolfhound said, taking two strides from the window toward his seated staff. “A true market economy, which is now required for Russia to prosper, must be grounded in law with a fully supportive judicial system.”
He looked at each of the three faces before him and saw complete admiration in Pankov, respectful acceptance in Grigorovich, and nothing discernible in Karpo.
“Do you concur, Inspector Karpo?” the colonel couldn’t resist asking.
“The law,” said Karpo, “is simply a superstructure for the existing system of power, whatever that power may be.”
“Lenin,” said the Wolfhound, glancing at Pankov, who gave him a small smile of awe.
“Marx,” Karpo corrected.
“We are in a new era, an era of landscaping, styling, pruning,” said the colonel, seeking a quick recovery in an immediate attack. “Each tree, each bush and shrub in the new Russia is the people rooted in the soil of all our history from the day the first stone was laid in the Kremlin wall in 1367 …”
And here the colonel hesitated in anticipation of a correction by Emil Karpo. Not hearing any objection, the Wolfhound plunged on, ever deeper into an analogy which he sensed was decidedly weak.
“… through the contributions of Marx and Lenin to the trials of a new, emerging Russia whose leaves and limbs must be carefully contoured to form a beautiful and mighty new forest of pride. Do you understand, Inspector Karpo?”
Karpo, palms still on the dark wooden table, replied, “I am not sufficiently well read in poetry or literature to fully appreciate the allusion, but historically, one might go back not to the stone walls of the Kremlin but to its first fortifications built from the wood of the virgin forest which became Moscow.”
Grigorovich shook his head almost imperceptibly to make clear that he thought Karpo was making a grievous political error. The major was sure that Colonel Snitkonoy saw the sympathetic movement of his head.
Pankov had simply cringed.
“Major Grigorovich, your report on illegal arms in the city,” the colonel said, and he resumed his pacing beside the conference table.
Grigorovich opened his notebook and looked down at the sheets before him. Each sheet was neatly typed with oversize letters. The major wore his glasses infrequently and never in public.
“Our best estimate is that about fifty thousand black market weapons-semiautomatic guns, pistols, canisters that spray nerve gas, handguns that shoot gas jets-are being brought into Moscow every month for distribution not just to criminals but to honest citizens who believe the police are no longer able to protect them from the beggars, the drunks, and the Gypsies. It appears that one of the most popular weapons is the AK-47. Russia manufactured and distributed them throughout the world and now they are being sold back to our people at double the price for which they were purchased from us.”
Grigorovich looked up from his notes to see what effect his report was having. The colonel was at the window looking out. Pankov was looking at the colonel. The only one looking at Grigorovich was Emil Karpo.
Colonel Snitkonoy, who had access to more accurate and disturbing reports than the one that Grigorovich had just given, was aware that violent crime involving weapons had increased by 50 percent in the past year.
“The safeguards of socialism departed with the Soviet Union,” the colonel said, still looking out of the window. “Inflation and unemployment, though temporary, have driven many to poverty and crime. Too many people now feel that they must arm themselves. … Grigorovich.”
“A gas canister can be purchased by anyone at an Arbat kiosk for eight hundred rubles, five American dollars. Firearms can be had in most bars for three hundred American dollars. The weapons come from Poland, Germany, on trains from Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, across the borders from Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. The borders are a sieve.”
“Conclusion?” said the colonel.
“More men, women,” said Grigorovich. “The borders must be controlled, the laws against possession of weapons renewed. The-”
“Major,” the colonel interrupted, “it is too late. Freedom has brought us the blessing of destruction. We now have the right to commit suicide, and where a right exists there will be people who wish to exercise it. Source, Inspector Karpo?”
“I do not know.”
“Tolstoy,” said the Wolfhound triumphantly. “Major Grigorovich, the responsibilities of our small staff grow with each day. The successful accomplishment of our duty will best be accomplished if we choose our responsibilities with caution. There is no way, outside of a return to the Communist party, to control arms, drugs, or offensive public behavior. We will leave the matter of weapons in the hands of Deputy Police Chief Sedov and hope that he and his men can perform a miracle. As for the Mafia and the gangs, we leave that slough of despond to the Ministry of the Interior gang division.”
The colonel looked up at the clock on the wall behind his desk. The clock, a gift of the Workers of the Volga Automobile Associated Works, told him it was nearly eight in the morning. The colonel stood erect, boots heel-to-heel, arms folded across his chest, and said, “Inspector Karpo, you have something to report on the murder of the young woman in the park.”
Eighteen minutes later by the clock on the wall Emil Karpo completed his report on what he now believed was at least the thirty-fifth and probably the fortieth murder by the man who was known inside Petrovka as Tahpor, the Ax, in spite of the fact that not one of the murders had been done with an ax. Karpo, however, did not refer to the killer as the Ax. He left the assignment of code names to Colonel Snitkonoy, who enjoyed the idea of a battle with a formidable adversary, providing the adversary was quickly apprehended and the colonel and his department given full credit. Karpo preferred to give a killer no identity other than a file number. Those who abused the system deserved no special recognition. They deserved only punishment and anonymity.
“Continue your investigation,” said the colonel. “If additional people are required …”
“Investigator Tkach and I will be enough for now,” Karpo said.
“Very good,” said the colonel, unfolding his arms and moving to his desk. “If that-”
“The foreign minister from Kazakhstan,” said Karpo, opening the second file in front of him.