“You said she was evil,” Karpo corrected himself. “She was a clerk in a government butcher shop. What had she done that was evil?”
“She was not a clerk in a butcher shop,” Odom said with a smile. “She was a prostitute posing as a student in need of money to help her finish her education. Her name was Anya Profft. All this is on my board.”
“Your board?”
“Never mind,” said Odom impatiently. “Do you believe me?”
“Yes,” said Karpo. “So you and Kola killed the girl.”
In the long pause Karpo could hear the ambient sounds of a street.
“Yes, I am guilty. But only of finding them. Kola … This is lonely business, Karpo. I have to be strong. I have no choice. No one asked me if I wanted to do this. He was there, waiting, growing, demanding. Do you have any idea what that is like, what it took from me to keep him contained for all these years?”
“Yes,” said Karpo, and Odom believed that the man with the flat voice on the other end of the line really did understand. “You will have to go underground soon.”
The pause was long.
“What do you mean?” asked Odom.
“Hide.”
“Perhaps.”
“If you do not, you will be caught.”
“Why are you giving me advice?”
“I am not,” said Karpo. “I’m pointing out that you are a man scheduled for a long dark ride. I think you have no choice but to take that ride even if it leads you to your death.”
“Everyone dies, Karpo. Do you have a first name?”
“Yes.”
Pause.
“What is it?”
“I would prefer not to have you use it,” said Karpo.
“Are you mad, policeman? You are supposed to be friendly to me. Exchange first names, life stories. I’ve read the manuals. Septnekvikov’s biography.”
“Do you wish to turn yourself in?” asked Karpo.
“Turn myself … No. I wish … I wish to be understood. Not forgiven. I’ve done nothing to be forgiven for. Kola has killed forty-one people. See, I’m not afraid of the word, killed. I don’t use cowardly euphemisms. I don’t say ‘eliminated’ or ‘removed’ or ‘did away with.’ He meant to kill them. And I helped. Yes, I helped. And I helped well. You’ve never been close to finding us.”
“We have been very close,” Karpo said. “And we are very close now.”
The chill of hell ran through Yevgeny Odom and within him Kola whimpered.
“You lie to me, policeman.”
“I do not believe in lies,” said Karpo. “You have lied.”
“No.”
“Where is Kola now?”
“Screaming for a victim.”
“Where is he?” Emil repeated quite calmly.
“I quiet him by rocking from foot to foot,” said Yevgeny. “I keep him caged inside me, but it is hard. If he is growing fur.” Yevgeny sobbed.
“You have killed forty, not forty-one,” said Karpo.
“You didn’t find one of them or you didn’t give me credit. Perhaps you didn’t recognize Kola’s work.”
“There is no Kola,” Karpo said.
“Listen, Karpo. Before Kola returned to me, I was considering suicide. Russia is a nightmare now. It was a nightmare before. Only those who are awake and strong, who live by their wits and dine on the bones of the weak, can survive. I needed Kola and he needed me, but now he grows fur. Don’t laugh at me or I’ll hang up.”
“I never laugh,” said Karpo.
Yevgeny Odom knew from Karpo’s voice that this was true.
“Why have you called me?” Karpo asked.
“Because, I told you, I’m having trouble controlling Kola.”
The sound of his own voice made him look down the street to see if he had awakened anyone or drawn the attention of a roving police car. Moscow was accustomed to drunks and noise, he told himself, and then returned to the phone.
“Then come to us. I will meet you. We can take you to doctors who can remove Kola.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t betray him. I am nothing without him. I know if you take him I will die.”
“Why did you call?”
“So someone would understand,” cried Yevgeny in near panic. “Oh God. Shh. Shh. He’s awake again.”
“Kola?”
“I will try to make him wait till tomorrow.”
“We will be waiting.”
“No,” sobbed Yevgeny. “We will strike where we have never struck before, away from the moon and the sun. I think I may be going mad.”
His voice was almost imperceptible.
Another pause.
“Well,” said Odom. “Aren’t you going to comfort me, put an invisible arm around my shoulder, urge me again to give myself up to be treated, understood, cared for?”
“No.”
“What kind of policeman are you?”
“You called me to confess. I am listening to your confession.”
“What? I accidentally called a priest?” Odom asked derisively.
“I believe in no god or gods,” said Karpo.
“What do you believe in?”
“Obeying the law and seeing to it that others obey the law. Without the law, there is no meaning. Without the law, there is you.”
“He will kill again,” Odom said. “And again.”
“Until we catch you,” said Karpo. “I can talk to you no more. I have work to do, work that is more important than you. I need rest.”
“More impor-What is more important than what Tahpor has done?” Odom said in disbelief.
“You do not merit an answer. You are Case 341.”
Yevgeny Odom hung up the phone and fell back against the kiosk. His hands were trembling. His cheeks were cold and he was truly afraid.
THIRTEEN
“Did you believe Hector?” asked Javier, looking back at Porfiry Petrovich as George drove them through the dark night.
“I believe,” said Rostnikov.
“And?” asked Javier.
“I believe that he is telling the truth as he experienced it,” said Rostnikov, looking out of the window. He was still clutching the bottle of rum George had given him. “I believe that the truth may have been altered so that he could experience it according to someone’s plans.”
“Yes, I see,” said Javier, biting his lower lip. “You think maybe I killed Maria Fernandez or had someone do it for me and then got rid of the ladder when Hector came and then put it back after he left and …”
“It is unlikely,” Rostnikov admitted.
There was silence for a minute or two before Rostnikov said, “At night your apartment buildings look like those of Moscow. For a moment, I had the sense that I was dreaming.”
“The same people who built your apartments for Stalin came over here and built ours,” said Javier, glancing out the window at the massive gray high rises set back from the street down which they were bouncing over mounds of gravel and forgotten potholes.
“I did not kill her,” Javier said.
The car clattered dreamily into a neighborhood of narrow streets and old two-story houses. The houses were dark, though here and there groups of men and women could be seen watching as the car passed. The people here were almost all black.
Rostnikov felt himself dozing as they drove into a neighborhood of one-story homes. By the light of the moon he could see that all of the houses were badly in need of repair and paint.
The car suddenly pulled over a low curb with a jolt that shot Rostnikov forward. His leg hit the seat in front of him, and his dreams went flying. The car stopped and Javier stepped out.
“Here,” said George over his shoulder as he too stepped out of the car.
Rostnikov joined them and found himself in front of a one-story once-white house. The lawn was a stretch of gray dirt, and a light shone through the first window they approached. There were voices within the building, perhaps the hushed sound of music.
Holding the bottle of rum, Rostnikov followed Javier and George down a narrow stone path around the side of the house. In spite of the hour, two old women sat on tree stumps in the yard as the three men passed. They neither paused nor looked up from their conversation. To his right, through the open window of the first room, a young black man lay on a bed. He wore a pair of faded pants and no shirt. His body was lean and muscular and on his knees was a very small child in a dress trying to keep from laughing by pushing her tiny fist in her mouth.