Casimir stopped singing, kept playing, and pointed a finger at Zelach. Everyone watched, not knowing what was happening. Death Times Four was giving this slouch of a policeman the sign that he was good. Snub Nose Bullet did not give his blessings easily, and to a cop?
“Sit down,” said Heinrich.
Karpo and Zelach sat and so did Heinrich and Bottle Kaps. The other two reluctantly moved away.
Karpo paused but an instant before asking his first question. The hesitation came from a completely unexpected source. Emil Karpo, perhaps for the only time in his life since he was a child, had lost control. No one watching him could have known. He looked the same as he always did, but he knew his actions had been unnecessarily provocative.
Was it this place? These people? The deep realization that this is what had become of the nation for which he lived, the cause in which he had believed? He was in the belly of a dying beast, the heart of chaos. This place was a cancer. These people were spreading it. And they were only a symptom. His head beat with the first pangs of migraine. The smoke, the noise, the realization, the lights. Pain. He wanted to get this over quickly and get to the darkness of his room. And because he wanted it over quickly, he chose not to give in, to move slowly, to challenge the pain.
“Two nights ago you were seen leaving here with Misha Lovski, the Naked Cossack,” he said.
Neither of the young men answered.
“Where did you go?” he asked.
The two young men looked at each other. The look between them said that they both recognized the madness in the eyes of this pale spectre.
“We left him in the street and went home,” said Heinrich.
“Right outside in the street,” Bottle Kaps confirmed, shaking his head.
“No, you did not,” said Karpo.
Zelach sat silent, listening.
“What is this about?” asked Bottle Kaps.
“Misha, the Naked Cossack, is missing,” said Karpo.
“Missing?” asked Heinrich. “Gone?”
“We want to find him,” said Karpo. “We want you to tell us where he is.”
“Us? We do not know. Go find some of those rappers. They probably killed him. They hate him, hate us all. We would not hurt the Naked Cossack. He is a symbol of our battle.”
“Battle with whom?” asked Karpo. “About what?”
“You, everyone, the weak bastards who are turning Russia over to the Jews,” said Bottle Kaps.
“And the niggers, the chernozhopyi,” said Heinrich. “And the Chinese. The rappery. And …”
“I did not say we thought he was kidnapped, killed, or even hurt,” said Karpo. “I said only that he is missing.”
“We don’t know where he is,” Heinrich said.
“No,” said his partner.
“You will come with us,” said Karpo, starting to rise.
“Why?” Heinrich protested.
“Because you are lying,” Karpo said. “If Misha Lovski is dead, you too will die.”
“This is crazy,” said Heinrich. “You think he is dead and you just want someone to blame because his father is rich and-”
The band was wailing a few feet from Karpo’s throbbing head. He wanted to slowly rise, take the guitar from the shouting robot, and methodically rip out each string.
“How do you know his father is rich?” asked Karpo.
“He told us,” said Heinrich.
“He told no one,” said Karpo. “He is ashamed of his father. Someone else told you.”
Bottle Kaps gritted his teeth and looked at Karpo with a last pretense of anger.
“We do not know where he is. We do not know who took him.”
“What,” asked Karpo, “makes you think someone took him? One assumption we made was that he went away on his own, but your answers confirm that he has been taken. You will come with us.”
The band continued. Karpo could take no more and for that reason he remained seated, looking calmly at the two young men across from him.
“We are not going with you,” said Heinrich. “We did nothing.”
“Then,” said Karpo, “we shall have to shoot you. I shoot well. I’ll probably not kill you. We need one of you to talk. Akardy Zelach on the other hand is nearsighted, a poor shot. A bullet from his weapon could strike anywhere on your body. I’ll shoot you.”
Karpo looked at Heinrich.
“Detective Zelach will shoot you,” Karpo went on, looking at Bottle Kaps.
“Then what will happen to you?” asked Heinrich. “Look around.”
“From your place on the floor, if you are still conscious and alive, you can watch and bear witness. Now we leave or you die.”
The feeling of sharp glass entered Karpo’s brain. The light burned deep as if he were looking into the sun.
But both of the younger men believed this pale madman. They had encountered brutal policemen in the past, policemen who enjoyed beating, policemen who might get so worked up that they would shoot to kill, but nothing like this one. He was, once again, not bluffing.
“Let’s go,” Heinrich said.
Death Times Four had changed songs. Akardy Zelach neither liked nor recognized what they were now playing.
Chapter Eight
Igor Yaklovev, Director of the Office of Special Investigation, former KGB colleague of Vladimir Putin, a man who plotted his destiny carefully and with great ambition, sat in his favorite chair in his boxer shorts and a T-shirt, watching television.
On the table in front of him sat his nightly glass of brandy atop a plain white porcelain coaster.
The Yak lived alone. He had once had a wife. She had proved to be a constant nuisance. She was gone. He did not miss her.
He checked his watch. In less than an hour, Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would be on the Trans-Siberian Express. That trip was the most important item on the director’s list. It was not that finding the son of Nikoli Lovski was not important. Handled correctly, it could be the key to a formidable base of support when Igor Yaklovev decided it was only minimally risky to call in his markers and make his next move up.
The Yak was not interested in sex. The Yak was not interested in money; nor was he interested in posterity or popularity. Life was brief. To make it interesting, he had decided early to play a game, not terribly different from a board game like Risk or Monopoly. He would slowly, patiently, acquire power, as much power as possible. His goal was to become the most powerful man in Russia without the public having any idea of his existence. Once he had achieved his goal, the game would be over. He would exercise his power, dictate policy to politicians, soldiers, the media, enjoy the fruits of having won.
Igor Yaklovev did not think a great deal about why he had taken this path in life. He was sure that it had something to do with his ineffectual father, who struggled, took orders, worked in a government automobile factory, and died young without a complaint. His mother had accepted whatever fate the government chose to give her or not give her.
Igor had chosen the Communist Party to escape the same fate as his parents. He had never been convinced of the ideology, but it was open to manipulation. He had seen that as a very young man. And he had come far, savoring briefly the fall of each opponent in his path, opponents who were usually too preening or stupid to realize that they were engaged in a game. The Yak had never looked back at the bodies of those who had fallen.
He did, however, at this moment, look at the body on the television news show. In front of a videotape of the draped white form on the metro platform, a serious white-haired man at the news desk in the television studio said that the dead man was the latest victim of the Phantom of the Underground.
Russian media elevated major violent criminals to a new level by giving them names. The Yak did not think that “Phantom of the Underground” was particularly inventive, but that did not matter. What did matter was that this case belonged to his department and that the office was getting publicity. Publicity was fine as long as the Yak’s name was not mentioned and the criminals being sought were caught or killed quickly.