“Then don’t tell him you told me you were coming back,” he said. “I’ve got enough grief with him. When I have enough saved, I’m going to buy him out or sell out and start my own place. The hell with my wife. The hell with her sister. A man can only take so much. You know what I mean?”
The detectives turned, crossed the room, opened the door, and went out into a light falling snow.
Porfiry Petrovich read the note, neatly printed in ink on a piece of paper that showed the creases of a double fold. The note read:
Take the green rubles in a simple bag on the Two leaving M. for V. on Thursday. Contact will be made en route. Contact will give you the words Nicholas’s Secret. Give contact the suitcase after contact gives you a package. Do not open the package. Deliver it to Ivan. Collect fee remainder from Ivan.
The note was unsigned. Rostnikov laid it flat before him and looked up at the Yak, who gave a slight tilt of his head to indicate that he waited for his chief inspector’s response.
“Two is the number-two train leaving from M., Moscow, on Thursday. Green rubles are not rubles. They are another green currency, probably dollars, half a million American dollars.”
Rostnikov paused. Today was Thursday.
“Go on,” said the Yak.
“There is nowhere to go until you give me more information.”
Porfiry Petrovich wanted to take off his leg and scratch the stump. The itching was demanding, almost unbearable. He sat motionless.
“The message was intercepted,” said the Yak. “The sender, who was being watched, was taken into custody. What you have is a copy of a one-sided telephone conversation. The call was from the sender’s apartment in Odessa to a phone booth in Moscow. The Odessa phone line was tapped. The receiver at the phone booth said nothing. By the time a car arrived at the booth, the receiver was long gone. In the course of interrogating the sender-a very old man who unfortunately died under the strain of vigorous questioning-it was determined that the old man had simply been hired in a bar by a woman he could not identify. He was given a handful of rubles to make the call and repeat exactly what is on the sheet before you. Security forces considered it a dead end, possibly drugs, smuggled currency. They lost interest. There wasn’t enough information for them to board the train and search all the luggage for a bag of money. And even if they found such a bag, it would prove nothing.”
“And I am to board the Trans-Siberian Express tonight, find the person with the bag of money, and? …” asked Rostnikov.
“I am not interested in the money or the man,” said Yaklovev, suddenly standing. “Though you are to bring both to me. What is more important, I want the package. Look at the next item in the folder before you.”
Rostnikov opened the folder and pulled out the xeroxed sheet of two pages copied from what must have been an old book.
“Read,” said the Yak.
The two pages dealt with court intrigue during the decline of the reign of Czar Nicholas I. There was speculation on the relationship of Russia to Japan, the growing hostility between the two countries over offshore islands in the Sea of Japan. Highlighted in yellow marker were the words: “believed to have been a secret treaty signed by the czar and the emperor of Japan. The document supposedly disappeared or was stolen en route from Vladivostok to St. Petersburg.”
Rostnikov looked up.
“Speculation?” asked the Yak.
“The person with the suitcase full of money is buying the document?” Rostnikov tried.
The Yak said nothing.
“Such a document would have little political or economic significance even if it did exist,” Rostnikov said. “Agreements made by a Czar a hundred years ago would not be honored today and it would do little good to attack the royal family. It is ancient history.
“Go on.”
“And there is little reason to see a connection between this intercepted message and the supposed document.”
“And so you believe the pursuit of this package is not worthy of action?”
Behind the Yak, through the window, Rostnikov could see the snow beginning to fall. It heartened him. Winter was his season, the season of most Moscovites. A clean white blanket of snow. Crisp chill air. He considered pointing out the falling snow to the director and thought better of it. Instead, he said, “I believe it is worth pursuing.”
His reasons for making the statement needed no further comment. There was something the Yak was not telling him. There was probably a great deal the Yak was not telling him.
“Take one of your people with you.”
“Sasha Tkach,” Rostnikov answered without hesitation. “He has no immediate assignment.”
That was true, but the chief inspector had other reasons for wanting the less-than-stable detective to accompany him.
The Yak turned his back and walked to the window, hands folded behind his back. He was looking at the falling snow.
“It will not be easy to locate the courier,” said the Yak. “But I have great confidence in you, Porfiry Petrovich.”
“I shall do my best to merit such confidence,” said Rostnikov.
“Pankov will hand you tickets for you and Tkach on your way out. The number-two train leaves a few minutes before midnight. You are in separate first-class compartments. If the courier is a professional, and it seems that he or she is, then they are likely to be in first class, if for no reason other than to protect the suitcase full of money. You have twelve hours to prepare. Take the entire folder. You have one-way tickets. As soon as you find the package, the courier, and the money, you are to fly back to Moscow from the nearest airport. Pankov will take care of all travel arrangements and provide you with necessary expense money. You will return whatever you do not use directly to him.”
Rostnikov rose, steadying his leg with both hands as he did so. He picked up the file folder and his notebook and turned toward the door.
“No one sees the contents of the package,” the Yak said, his back still turned. “It is to be delivered to me unopened.”
“Unopened,” said Rostnikov. He closed the door gently behind him and stood before the desk of the moist-foreheaded Pankov.
Without a word Pankov handed Rostnikov a thick envelope, and the chief inspector departed. Three minutes later he was in his office, door closed, behind his desk. He dropped the folder and envelope with the tickets and cash on his desk and quickly removed his artificial leg as he sat. He began scratching the stump as he settled back. Ecstasy. Pure delight. Better than Sarah s Chicken Tabak. Better than walking in the snow. Better than winning the senior weight-lifting title in Ismailovo Park. The itch slowly spread and Rostnikov worked on it as he reached for the phone on his desk with one hand and pushed a number on the keyboard.
“Come to my office,” he said and hung up.
The itching slowly departed and Porfiry Petrovich reconsidered the delights of life. Scratching an itch was very good, but Chicken Tabak, sex, snow, and the rush from lifting massive weights had now moved high above it on his list of pleasures.
He put his legs down, the front of the desk hiding the artificial leg he had not replaced on the chance that the itch would return.
Rostnikov had believed very little of what Yaklovev had told him, but that didn’t matter. The assignment was clear and probably not as difficult as it appeared to be on the surface.
A knock.
“Come in.”
Sasha Tkach entered. Rostnikov motioned him across the small space and nodded at the chair on the other side of the desk. Sasha sat.
“How would you like to take a trip?”
“Where?”
“Siberia, the Trans-Siberian Express.”
“To China?”
“Vladivostok.”
Sasha brushed the lock of hair from his face. He did not look pleased by the prospect of the journey.
“When?” asked Sasha.
“Tonight,” said Rostnikov.