“What is she saying?” Rostnikov asked, looking over his shoulder toward the radio in the bar.
“She says, When one loves too strongly, one is a slave, and a slave is doomed to misery until she dies. But since one has no choice when love comes … I don’t know the word … then one must learn to accept, and get whatever pleasure one can for as long as it lasts.”
“I’m a little drunk, Elena Timofeyeva,” he said. “So that may account for my telling you this. Say nothing, just consider. Remember the first time you met my son, Iosef?”
“The birthday party for Sasha Tkach at your apartment,” she answered.
“He told me in the bedroom that he loved you and that he intended to marry you. It is dark. I cannot tell if you are blushing or angry.”
“I don’t think you are drunk, Inspector Rostnikov.”
“Perhaps not,” he said. “Maybe it’s the island breeze and … If Povlevich didn’t look like such a boor, I would invite him over to our table for a drink. I have tried not to think about him. KGB people have no sense of humor, and once they get started they talk too much. This one … I can’t tell if his being sent with us is an insult, or if the KGB now has only mediocrities because the best have fled.”
The Americans and Antonio were getting up now, arms around each other, problems resolved in the temporary mist of alcohol. The family of Germans had already left and the sun was all but gone. A few pool lights came on and Rostnikov and Elena said nothing for a few moments as they watched the noisy writers walk across the open patio and enter the hotel.
“Shemenkov,” she finally said, feeling very tired. She wondered what her reaction was to the declaration of love from the son of Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.
“I was informed that he tried to hang himself in his cell. Tied his socks and shirt together to make a noose, hung it from a water pipe, and jumped from his bed. The makeshift rope tore, but not before causing a burn around his neck and altering his voice. All this I got from our Major Sanchez. We will be permitted to talk to Shemenkov in the morning.”
Elena tried to hold back a yawn.
“I’m sorry.”
“Your day has been long,” Rostnikov said. “It is still early. If there is water, I’ll take a bath and read my novel, an Ed McBain, about women.”
Elena hardly heard.
“Tomorrow then,” she said.
“I’ll call you when we must go,” Rostnikov said. “Go ahead. You’ve done well. I’ll finish my drink. Leave the notebook with me.”
Rostnikov watched the young woman move across the patio. A new song began, unfamiliar, upbeat, instrumental. Elena was built more solidly than his Sarah. Elena’s skin was fine and her mind alert. There was an uncertainty in her that worried him, but all in all she would be a fine daughter-in-law. Deep within him he wished that it might happen soon so that the possibility of a grandchild … but that was for Sarah. He wanted very much to talk to his wife.
“Ridiculous,” he said softly to his glass. “They haven’t even gone to a movie together.”
Rostnikov sensed the eyes of Povlevich of the KGB looking at him over the magazine. Should he call the man over, offer him a drink? The man looked lonely, but Rostnikov was tired. Perhaps tomorrow.
Rostnikov got up carefully, tucked Elena Timofeyeva’s notebook under his arm, and slowly made his way across the patio, through the lobby, and up to his room, which had, according to Major Sanchez, been used frequently by Maria Fernandez. Rostnikov drew himself a tepid bath.
He closed his eyes and thought of Maria Fernandez, who had certainly bathed in this same tub. He imagined her looking down at him with a smile. But the figure above him was uncomfortably pale and vague. He reminded himself to ask Major Sanchez for a photograph of the dead woman. The warm water appeased his leg sufficiently for him to work his way out of the tub, dry himself, and put on the boxer shorts in which he slept.
He lay in bed for a while reading about Carella and Brown. Finally, with the ghost of Maria Fernandez lying next to him in the darkness, Rostnikov turned off the light and closed his eyes.
While Rostnikov was reading his book, Major Sanchez and Antonio Rodriguez met in the major’s office, where they drank from glasses filled with Russian vodka.
“He knows,” said Rodriguez, adjusting his thick glasses.
“That doesn’t surprise me, Antonio.”
“Nor me. Does it matter?”
Sanchez looked at his drink and pursed his lips.
“Who knows? Probably not.”
“I like him, the Russian policeman.”
“He is likable,” said Sanchez. “But …”
“But?”
Major Sanchez put a finger to his lips and said quietly, “Antonio, my friend, there are things it is best that you not know, things I wish I did not have to know.”
The major held up his glass.
“To the Russian.”
Rodriguez blinked once, raised his glass, and repeated, “To the Russian.”
“But if the devil springs forth suddenly from the earth …” Sanchez said.
“… then may he spring forth not under us but under the Russian.”
“Salud.”
“Salud.”
Emil Karpo sat upright in his straight-backed wooden chair staring at the wall of his room.
Earlier, as he did every morning before dawn, Karpo had wrapped himself in the thick, dark robe he had been given by his mother two decades ago. He had taken a clean blue towel, the blue plastic container that held his soap, and the black plastic container that held his straight razor, and had gone to the communal shower at the end of the hall. Under the stream of cold water, he had carefully soaped and washed his body and hair. He had then shaved without a mirror. When he was done he had carefully rinsed his razor.
Back in his room, Emil Karpo had dressed and brushed his hair back with the same bristle brush he had used since coming to Moscow years before. He had taken good care of his few belongings, and they had endured.
He had eaten his bread and tomato, drunk his glass of cold tea, and cleaned his already clean room.
Now he sat facing the wall, his dark shades and curtains drawn to keep out the sun, a bright lamp turned to face the map of Moscow on his wall. It was not as elaborate as the map in Yevgeny Odom’s apartment, and the names of the streets had not yet been changed to eliminate the revolution, but otherwise it was the same.
Karpo had prepared four Lucite overlays for his map. He had purchased the thin Lucite sheets at a market not far from the Kremlin. Each sheet had been covered with advertising for some French cigarettes. Karpo had painstakingly removed the advertising with a sharp knife.
The four overlays, each marked in a different color, were arranged so that they could be read even if all were placed over the map at the same time. One overlay showed the location of each murder he felt reasonably certain had been committed by Case 341. A second overlay showed the date, time of day, and weapon used in the murder. A third overlay gave information on each victim by location. A fourth overlay indicated if any witnesses had been found and what, exactly, the witnesses had seen.
Karpo had looked at his map and overlays for hours. There should have been a pattern, but there appeared to be no pattern-no relationship between the days of the week of the murders, the intervals between, the times of day, the phases of the moon, the victims (though he seemed to prefer them young), the weapons used, the locations.
Yet perhaps there was a pattern. The killer was working hard to keep from falling into a pattern. He had even attacked twice in the same location, among the stand of birch trees behind the USSR Economic Achievements Exhibition. The pattern was the conscious avoidance of a pattern.
Karpo’s task was to outguess the killer. To do this he had to figure out where and when he was least likely to attack next.
So Emil Karpo sat for a time, his eyes on the map. Occasionally he got up to switch the overlays, then sat down again to stare at the map, consider a new possibility, take more notes.