Lovski nodded and drank some tea. “And I will pay any reasonable amount, providing it can be demonstrated that it is not a scheme of Misha’s to get money from me. He is not beyond that.”
“How can that be demonstrated?” asked Karpo.
“Simple,” said Lovski, licking his lips. “I shall demand that they deliver to me the small finger of his left hand. I will check it against his fingerprints, of which I have a set. Misha would not cut off his own finger. He needs it to play that piece of steel garbage he calls a guitar.”
“Do you have any idea who might want to hurt your son?” asked Karpo.
Lovski smiled and said, “Anyone in his right mind. Have you seen him, heard the filth he spews? He has even written a song about me, calls me the wealthy Jew in the steel tower, the Manipulator of Metropolis. He says I should be flattened by a female robot, my penis ripped from my body. I understand it is one of his more popular songs.”
“It is,” said Zelach.
“You’ve heard it?” asked Lovski with some interest.
“Yes,” said Zelach.
“And?”
“It is what you say, though there is a pulse to the music that …”
“It is possible that he has not been taken for ransom,” said Karpo.
“You mean someone who hates him has already killed him or is torturing him somewhere?” asked Lovski, taking another sip of tea.
“There are many possibilities,” said Karpo.
Lovski nodded. “There is another possibility,” he said. “I am a member of the Russian Jewish Congress.”
“I am aware, of this,” said Karpo.
“My newspapers, television stations have been critical of Putin and his regime. This you also know.”
It was Karpo’s turn to nod. “So, you believe he may have been taken by someone who wants to put pressure on you to stop your attacks on Vladimir Putin?” Karpo asked.
Lovski smiled. “Nothing so simple,” he said. “A few months ago Putin attended a rededication ceremony at Marina Roscha, the Chabad Lubavich Hasidic synagogue.”
“I remember,” said Karpo.
“What do you know of the synagogue?” asked Lovski.
“It was one of only two allowed in Moscow during the Soviet era,” said Karpo. “It was untouched until the fall of Communism. Since then it has been attacked three times. In 1993 it was almost destroyed by fire. It was bombed in 1996 and 1998. And it has been restored and rebuilt.”
“Yes,” Lovski said with an approving nod. “And Mr. Putin was there to proclaim that the new Russia would not tolerate anti-Semitism. My newspapers covered it, put Putin on the front page and oh the television screen. Putin was not just making peace with a handful of Jews. He was making a peace gesture toward me.”
Karpo nodded.
“You think it is my inflated ego making this assumption?”
“No,” said Karpo. “Your ego, as you call it, is clearly large, but your interpretation bears serious consideration.”
“Meaning?” Lovski prompted.
“Your son may have been taken by an individual or group, anti-Semitic in nature, anti-Putin in philosophy, who wants to put pressure on you to keep you from supporting Putin.”
“Yes.”
“But they have not yet contacted you?”
“No, but when they do it may not be for money. It may be to tell me that Misha is safe as long as I keep up my attacks on the regime.”
“It is a possibility,” said Karpo.
“It is more than that,” said Lovski. “Inspector, I confess that I have been contacted. My receptionist took a message this morning. The caller said to tell me that Misha is alive for now.”
“Was the caller a man or woman?”
“The receptionist said it was a man, or, to be more accurate, a young man.”
“Anything else?” asked Karpo.
“I do not want my son to die,” he said. “I don’t want to see him or hear from him, and I would prefer it if he were somewhere far away. South America would be fine. I understand there is a second and third generation of fascists there who might like his kind of hatred, but I do not want him dead. He is young. People change. I did. Perhaps in ten years, twenty years, he will change, perhaps for the better. I’ll be an old man and far beyond wanting a reconciliation, but he will have to live with whatever that means to him. Officers, give me your number. If I am contacted I will call you, but only if I feel certain that whoever called means to kill Misha no matter what I do. I will try to keep that from happening by promising them and delivering a bonus for his safe return, if that is what they want. I will not, however, change my policy toward Putin. For now, he is relatively safe from attack by me. I have no illusions. Our president has donned a yarmulke for political reasons. He bears ho great love for Russia’s Jews. There is a price I will not pay to free my son, but the price I am willing to pay is quite high to insure that he is safe.”
“Safe except for a finger,” said Karpo.
“He will have to be a singer without a guitar perhaps,” said Lovski with a shrug. “I know little of such music.”
“There is a guitarist with Dead Zombies with two fingers missing,” Zelach said.
“That is comforting,” said Lovski. “Now, if you have no more questions …”
Karpo rose. Zelach did the same. Lovski picked up the phone and was talking to someone before the detectives reached the door, which was opened for them by the elevator operator.
Five minutes later they were on the street.
“Thoughts?” asked Karpo.
Zelach shrugged.
“He hates his son,” said Karpo.
“No,” said Zelach. “He loves his son. He loves him very much.”
Karpo nodded. Karpo trusted his own sense of reason, but he had learned to trust Zelach’s feelings if not his intellect.
Chapter Six
"Do you think the sun will eventually burn out?” asked Rostnikov.
He was sitting in the Paris Café a few hundred yards from his apartment on Krasikov Street. The Paris Café bore no resemblance to anything Parisian, nor was it a café. It was a small shop that was sometimes open and sometimes not, depending on the whims and health of the old couple who ran it. There were six plastic tables with four chairs at each. The decor was simple. A painting of a dark jungle that looked decidedly un-Russian, with its huge palm trees and high waterfall in the distance, was the only decoration. The menu choices were almost as limited. In fact, there was no menu. The old woman or old man simply told you what was available at that moment in time besides coffee, tea, kvas, and vodka. Today, Rostnikov and the three people at the table with him had a choice of flat almond cakes of unknown vintage or puffy, small chocolate muffins of great durability. Rostnikov had ordered two of each.
Like most Moscow cafés, this one smelled of pungent, acrid Russian tobacco. The man and woman across from him were contributing to the smell. The four of them were the Paris Cafés only customers at the moment.
“The sun?” asked the man, looking at Rostnikov without understanding.
The man was large, perhaps forty, clean-shaven and rather resembling an ox. He wore a flannel shirt and solid-blue tie over his navy-blue coat. The woman at his side was a bit younger than the man. Her face was plain though her skin was smooth, unblemished. She was thin, nervous, dark, and wore a look showing that she was prepared for battle.
The man had been introduced by the woman as Dmitri. No last name had been given. The woman was Miriana. She had given no last name. Rostnikov needed none. Miriana was the daughter of Galina Panishkoya who sat heavily to Porfiry Petrovich’s right, her hands in her lap, looking at her daughter who did not meet her eyes.
Both Miriana and Dmitri were smoking cheap Russian cigarettes.
“Time is perhaps infinite, but our solar system, our galaxy, and certainly our lives are not,” said Rostnikov.
“I want my children,” Miriana said, looking defiantly at Rostnikov.
“You abandoned them, Mirya,” Galina said flatly. “You left them with me and …”