The only real clue to Nikoli Lovski’s wealth was the quartet of armed men in the lobby of the building. Two of the men, wearing well-trimmed dark suits and ties, carried automatic weapons in their hands and stood at ease on opposite sides of the smoothly tiled lobby. Another man armed with an equally, formidable weapon stood behind a bulletproof-glass plate, ceiling-high, behind which sat a very pretty dark woman with a pie-shaped speaker’s screen directly in front of her.
Few would have noticed the fourth man, who stood inside an open elevator in a gray uniform. He seemed to be the elevator operator. The very slight bulge under his jacket and the fact that a modern elevator would need no operator were enough to demonstrate to Emil Karpo that he was probably the most formidable member of the quartet.
There were no other people in the lobby. Karpo and Zelach moved to the reception window, the sound of their shoes echoing.
“We are here to see Mr. Lovski,” said Karpo.
“Names?” the pretty dark woman asked.
“Inspectors Karpo and Zelach. I called earlier.”
The woman nodded and said, “May I see your identification?”
Both men pulled out their identification cards and held them up to the window. The armed man behind the glass glanced at the cards and nodded to the woman, who shook her head.
“Are you armed?” the woman asked.
“Yes,” said Emil Karpo.
She looked at Zelach.
“Yes,” he said.
“You will have to leave your weapons with me,” she said.
A metal drawer slid open in front of Karpo.
“No,” said Karpo. “We cannot.”
In fact, Karpo could if he so chose, but he was not prepared to give in to the power of a capitalist trying to make him feel inferior. It was not Karpo’s feelings that were at issue. He had no feeling about the demand, just an understanding that to comply would put himself and Zelach into the position of accepting their capitulation.
“Then Mr. Lovski will be unable to see you,” she said.
“Please tell Mr. Lovski that under section fourteen of the Moscow City Criminal Investigation Law of 1992 we can insist that he accompany us to Petrovka for questioning. If he refuses, we have the duty to arrest and fine him for violation of the law.”
“Fine him?” the woman said with the hint of a smile. She knew that money meant nothing to her employer.
“And hold him a minimum of twenty-four hours in which we can interrogate him in addition to a fine,” said Karpo. “Call him.”
“Are you sure you wish to antagonize Mr. Lovski?” she asked.
Lovski was a new capitalist. Karpo was an old-line Marxist-Leninist. He had been forced by the reality of corruption in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the crumbling of any true hope for a principled revival of the party to put aside the beliefs on which he had based his life. People like Lovski were the new Russia of the privileged few and wealthy who had replaced the privileged few and politically powerful. Lovski, a Jew whose media regularly attacked Vladimir Putin and his regime, had suffered several indignities, courtroom confrontations, and even nights in jail. Each time he had emerged, determined but a little closer to the edge over which Putin did not yet have the power to push him.
The woman nodded, pushed a button that cut off sound through the screen, and picked up the phone. She hit a single number and began speaking. Karpo and Zelach could not hear her. The conversation was brief, the button to the screen was pushed, and the woman said, “The elevator will take you up.”
“Thank you,” Zelach said.
Karpo said nothing. He moved toward the elevator with Zelach at his side.
“Section fourteen of the Criminal Investigation Law?” Zelach whispered.
“Yes,” said Karpo as they neared the elevator.
“Is there really? …”
“Not since 1932,” said Karpo.
They stepped into the elevator. Since there was no law, Karpo was willing to pick and choose what would serve his assignment still a law existed. When there was a coherent body of law, which there might never be in this new Russia, he would obey it to the letter. Karpo believed in the law, wanted clear rules and guidelines, but he would exist without them and think only of bringing in the guilty and putting the evidence of their guilt before Chief Inspector Rostnikov. What happened after that was something he chose not to consider.
The elevator moved up slowly. The armed man who pushed the buttons folded his hands in front of him and stood back where he could watch the two policemen. The elevator came to a stop so smoothly that when the doors opened Zelach had the impression they had not moved.
The entryway before them was covered in white carpet. There was a single dark wooden door in the wall with no name on or near it.
Karpo and Zelach moved forward to the door, the armed elevator operator behind them. The door popped open. Inside was a large room with a well-polished wooden floor. At a very modern white desk sat an old man in a suit and tie. The old man had thick white hair and small, remarkably blue eyes.
He looked up at the three men and said, “You have ten minutes, no more. Mr. Lovski has an important engagement.”
Karpo nodded. He did not think that they would require more than ten minutes, but if they did, he would take whatever time he felt was needed.
The old man’s eyes met Karpo’s. Karpo was accustomed to people looking away from his ghostly appearance. This old man did not. The old man nodded at the elevator operator, and a door behind the old man’s desk opened.
Karpo and Zelach moved forward with the elevator operator at their backs. They walked through the door and it closed behind them.
The office was as remarkably modest as the building itself. Through the large double window one could see the Hero Tower several hundred yards away and the Moscow River beyond it.
There were four comfortable, soft black-leather chairs and a matching couch against the wall. A conference table with six chairs stood in the corner next to a low wooden table with a marble top, on which rested a large samovar and a line of cups, saucers, spoons, and a bowl of sugar cubes.
Behind the wooden desk before them sat Nikoli Lovski. Both detectives recognized the man from both newspaper and television pictures and they knew his voice when he suggested that they be seated.
He was a man of average height, a bit stocky and no more than fifty years old. His hair was thinning and dark and his face was full, with deep-set eyes. He wore a white shirt and an orange tie. His jacket was draped over the back of his desk chair.
Karpo and Zelach sat. The elevator operator stood behind them near the door.
“Tea?” asked Lovski. “Or I can get you coffee? I am particularly partial to strong tea with water brewed, as it was meant to be, in a samovar. The one over there belonged to my mother’s father and his father before that. It was the only possession the family had that was worth anything in rubles or memories.”
“I’ll have …” Zelach began.
“Nothing,” said Karpo.
“I will,” said Lovski, reaching under his desk to press a button.
The office door opened and the old man entered. Lovski held up one finger and pointed to himself. The old man moved to pour him a cup of tea.
“Your son is missing,” Karpo said.
“I have two sons,” Lovski said.
“Misha,” said Karpo, knowing that the man behind the desk knew which son was missing. “We have reason to believe he has been kidnapped. Have you been contacted with a ransom demand?”
“No,” said Lovski, accepting the cup of tea from the old man, who quickly left the room.
Karpo was reasonably sure the man was telling the truth. “You may be contacted very soon,” he said.