“It was part of my great-grandmother’s dowry when she married my great-grandfather,” said Genrikhovich. “She was the daughter of an admiral and he was a professor at the old Naval Guards Academy. He taught celestial navigation and mathematics. They kept him on after the revolution because, as he put it, ‘Even Stalin could not alter the course of the stars.’ He was good at his job, so they let him keep the dacha; it has remained in our family ever since.”
It had taken them almost an hour to descend through a series of tunnels and manholes to the Pushkinskaya metro station. They’d come up on the track bed in their rubberized protective suits, suddenly finding themselves in the ornate, arched, pale marble station. Genrikhovich led them onto a Number One line train, and by the time they reached the end of the line at Novoye Devyatkino they had the entire car to themselves, the stench emanating from the suits having driven everyone else away.
Marina Genrikhovich’s dacha was on a narrow lane well away from the nearest apartment block and was completely private. While Genrikhovich ran himself a bath, Holliday and Eddie took a bar of soap down to the fast-running creek at the end of the property, stripped off the suits and took the plunge. The water was freezing but neither man cared. They were more than willing to endure the cold just to get the smell of the sewers off.
“Your sister must be a large woman, amigo,” said Eddie, slipping into a red dragon-motif silk bathrobe that came only to his knees. Genrikhovich had built a blazing fire, and Eddie sat on a velvet footstool, warming up.
“Yes. Even as children I was the one who ate no fat and Marina at no lean. She has a freezer in the kitchen with enough food to last through the next ice age.”
“Good,” said Eddie. “I could, how you say it, eat a horse.”
“I think she has some sudzhuk sausage, if you’d like some.”
“What is this sudzhuk?” Eddie asked.
“Horse meat. It is a delicacy in the Ukraine.” Genrikhovich shrugged. “You said you could eat one.”
“Jesucristo, los rusos estan locos,” said the Cuban in his dragon robe. “No, muchas gracias, mi amigo. Tal vez la proxima vez. Maybe next time.”
Holliday had fared a little better in the clothing department and had managed to squeeze himself into a spare pair of Genrikhovich’s trousers and an old sweater that fit him like a sausage skin.
“The first order of business is getting some clothes. Eddie doesn’t have anything fit to wear, and I wouldn’t want to go too far dressed like this.”
“No problem,” said Genrikhovich. “I will drive Uncle Joe to the univermag and get what you need, and then I will make us something to eat. You have money?”
“Sure, I’ve got money,” said Holliday. “But what’s a univermag and who is Uncle Joe?”
“A univermag is a. .” Genrikhovich turned to Eddie.
“A univermag is a. . ?como usted lo dice, almacenes grandes?” The Cuban snapped his fingers. “A departamento store, a mall.”
“And Uncle Joe?”
“Dyadya Dzho, Kreml’ Highlander,” Genrikhovich tried to explain.
“Stalin,” Eddie translated dryly.
“The minibus outside-it is the name Marina and I gave to it.”
“That thing actually runs?” Holliday asked, astounded.
“Certainly,” said Genrikhovich. “It is a classic.”
True to his word, the Russian drove off in the rumbling, popping Uncle Joe and reappeared after what seemed to be a very long time, beaming and carrying a number of shopping bags. He’d purchased three complete sets of clothing, including a blue-and-white satin Dynamo Moscow bomber jacket for Eddie and a military-style ushanka fur hat with an old hammer-and-sickle emblem on the front for Holliday.
As dusk fell and the evening air cooled, Holliday and Eddie dressed themselves in their new outfits and sat down to a remarkably tasty meal prepared by Genrikhovich-broiled steak with onions, mushrooms and fresh tomato slices from the little vegetable garden beside the cottage. With dinner finished and coffee in hand, they gathered around the fire in the living room once more. Genrikhovich had even managed to get Eddie a box of Partagas Habaneros cigars at the univermag, one of which the Cuban was happily enjoying.
“Much better,” said Holliday. “You have skills as a cook, Dr. Genrikhovich.”
“Please,” said the Russian, “you must call me Victor.”
“All right, Victor,” said Holliday. “The meal was great, but we still have a real problem.”
“Which is?”
“If the FSB knows who you are they’ll eventually find this place. We can’t stay long, and the phony IDs we picked up in Odessa are useless now.”
“The dacha is still under my great-grandmother’s family name-Kornilov-but you are right; they will find it eventually. As to the matter of our papers, I have been giving this a great deal of thought and I believe I have discovered an answer.”
“Do tell,” said Holliday.
“It is in these books.” Genrikhovich smiled, waving a hand toward the rickety brick-and-board bookcase.
“Which books?” Holliday asked.
“A number of them,” answered Genrikhovich. “From Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel and Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper to Wilkie Collins’s Armadale and even Ian Fleming’s Moonraker.”
“I’m not seeing it,” said Holliday, shaking his head and wondering what the old man was so excited about.
“The Talented Mr. Ripley?The False Inspector Dew?”
“Nope,” said Holliday. Eddie puffed on his cigar, the titles going right over his head.
“The Day of the Jackal?” Genrikhovich said, exasperated.
Finally Holliday got it. Each of the books the Russian had mentioned involved someone taking on somebody else’s name.
“Identity theft,” he said.
“Yes.” Genrikhovich nodded. “In particular, a technique called ‘ghosting,’ taking the identities of the newly dead.”
The Russian reached into the inside pocket of his frayed suit jacket and brought out a slip of paper. He handed it to Holliday. It appeared to be a list of addresses.
“What’s this?” asked Holliday.
“When I went to the univermag I was thinking about this problem, so I stopped at FloraQueen, a florist store, yes? They send flowers.”
“We’ve got the same thing in the States.” Holliday smiled.
“Yes, well, it seems that tomorrow there are to be six funerals of people from Novoye Devyatkino, three Orthodox, two nondenominational and one Jewish. The Jewish cemetery is in Obukhovo in the far southern part of the city. The Orthodox cemeteries are at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Ligovka-Yamskaya in the east, and the two nondenominational funerals are being held at the Novodevichy Cemetery near the Moscow Triumphal Gate.
“All of the cemeteries are at least an hour away by metro from Novoye Devyatkino. Three of the interments are scheduled to take place at eleven in the morning, two will take place at one in the afternoon, and one will take place at two. During those periods the apartments of the deceased will presumably be vacant.” The Russian grinned ghoulishly. “I have known very few corpses who took their passports, identification and wallets with them to the grave.” There was a long silence.
“?Es brillante!” Eddie whispered finally, eyes wide.
Genrikhovich beamed. He looked at Holliday. “What do you think?”
“Victor,” said Holliday, “I think we may have seriously underestimated your potential. You have a truly criminal mind.”
18
The apartment occupied by the late Ostap Obelovich Cheburashka and his wife, Tatanya, was located in one of the older high-rises in Novoye Devyatkino. The simple lock had been easily slipped with a credit card. The apartment was a three-room affair with a living room/dining room, a kitchen and a bedroom. Presumably there were toilet and bathing facilities elsewhere on the floor. A mezuzah was stuck to the doorframe, and a menorah sat on an old, scarred sideboard, the nine candles no more than inch-long stubs. Ostap Obelovich had died just in time. Beside the menorah were pale, overexposed photographs of a young man and his wife, the man the picture-perfect proletarian worker, the young woman virginal and expectant. Khrushchev’s Russia and the new Five-year Plan, a plan that had gone on forever and finally come to nothing. The apartment smelled of borscht and cigarettes and lemon vodka and failed dreams. Somewhere along the way Ostap Obelovich had lost the young wife, because there was no sign of her in the apartment. The bed was single, the clothes were all his and there was dust everywhere.