Yevgeny tilted his head back, rubbed his very bristly chin and face, and knew what he must do. He could not sit all day on this bench watching children play and waiting for the rain. Yulia might or might not return. She would certainly be questioned by the police. No, he could not sit here all day and possibly all night.
He had to relocate some fragment of his dignity. He decided to call his wife and son and ask them to come and get him.
Rostnikov got the message from Karpo. It was sitting on his desk when he returned to Petrovka as thunder shook the walls of his office. Thunder, but still no rain. Rostnikov wore a strange suit of light blue pants and a dark blue jacket he had accepted from Leon’s collection of his late father-in-law’s clothes.
One who didn’t know him might think that the Washtub was making some kind of fashion statement. Those who knew him or of him by sight and who saw him enter the building and go up to his office thought that there was some reason for disguise, though they wondered how anyone who looked like Rostnikov, walked like Rostnikov, and was as familiar to the criminal world as Rostnikov, could possibly think that a disguise would be effective. Maybe the Washtub was simply going mad. Even Rostnikov was not immune to lunacy.
Porfiry Petrovich wanted to call Sarah, had planned to call Sarah, but the message from Emil Karpo changed that. He called Karpo in his cubicle across the hall, and Karpo appeared with the copy of his clipping.
“The same weapon killed both the Tatar and the Chechin,”
said Karpo, placing the copy of the newspaper article on the desk in front of Porfiry Petrovich.
Rostnikov read the article and then placed his calls and scratched at his artificial leg where it itched. Karpo stood in front of the chief inspector’s desk, waiting patiently.
It took Rostnikov almost an hour to reach the two Mafia leaders, and in neither case did he talk to them directly. He gave the message to each person to whom he spoke that Shatalov and Chenko should meet him in one hour at the tourist stolovaya, the self-service restaurant, directly across from the Old Moscow Circus.
“It is a small restaurant, as you may know,” he told each man.
“Filling it with men carrying guns will not encourage business.
Only Chenko and Shatalov will be inside.”
In both cases, the person on the other end of the phone said that they would pass on the message.
“It is essential,” said Rostnikov. “Tell them that I know who the killer is.”
Rostnikov hung up the phone after the second call and sat back.
“Emil Karpo, the world is a strange, sad, wonderful, and horrible place, and Moscow is at the very center.”
“I know,” said Emil Karpo, and Rostnikov believed that the gaunt specter before him did know.
“Did you also know that I am keeping voluminous notes for a book I am writing on the tastes, beliefs, interests, and hobbies of Russians? That I am planning to contact an American agent who will sell it for two million dollars? That I will buy a very small restaurant near my apartment where I will be manager, Anna Timofeyeva will come out of retirement to be the chef, and you will be headwaiter?”
“I do not wish to be a headwaiter.”
“I know, Emil. I was joking.”
“I know you were joking,” said Karpo.
“It is part of my lifelong goal of making you smile, though I fear your laughter might cause your death,” said Rostnikov, examining Karpo’s pale solemn face for some sign of amusement, the slightest twitch in the corner of his mouth, a telltale pursing of the lips.
“Humor has no function for me. I was fortunate to be born without the ability to see humor in anything. I recognize irony, as I have just done with your joke, but it does not amuse me. It does not distract me.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Rostnikov. “Distraction is my solace.”
“And justice, which is unattainable, is mine.”
Chapter Eleven
There was a matinee at the Old Moscow Circus. Rostnikov and Karpo had arrived early, and Porfiry Petrovich had talked to the owner of the very small stolovaya with only three tables and a stand-up cafeteria-service counter that ran the length of the shop. The man who owned the shop owed Rostnikov a big favor. The restaurant owner, whose name was Cashierovsky, said he would put a
“closed” sign in the window immediately. The show was beginning at the circus in fifteen minutes, and most of the remaining restaurant patrons would be attending it.
“Can I bring you something?” the man had said. “My pleasure to treat you?”
“Pahmadoori? ” asked Rostnikov.
“Yes.”
“Good, then booterbrod pahmadoori, tomato sandwich,” said Rostnikov. “And a mineral water. Emil?”
“Nothing.”
“You will hurt Cashierovsky’s feelings,” said Rostnikov, who had chosen the table farthest back from the door, which he faced, with Karpo opposite him.
“Tea and a roll,” said Karpo.
“He is a monk,” Rostnikov explained.
Cashierovsky smiled. He knew well who the Vampire was.
Cashierovsky hurried to fill their order, put out the “closed” sign, and shooed out the remaining patrons, telling them that he had to shut down because he was going to the circus.
They were early. It still wasn’t raining.
The day and the view of the circus reminded Rostnikov of another day several years earlier, when he had stood in the rain and watched a circus performer commit suicide by leaping from the head of the statue of Nikolai Gogol in Gogol Square. It had happened right before the eyes of Rostnikov and the traffic policeman in the nearby tower, in addition to dozens of spectators, some of whom had urged the man to jump.
Rostnikov loved circuses. He had taken Iosef many times when Iosef was a boy. He had already taken the two little girls twice. And Sarah, Sarah loved the beautiful, sad clowns and the graceful aeri-alists. Perhaps he could get tickets after this meeting and take Sarah, the girls, and their grandmother. Perhaps he would invite Iosef. Maybe he could even talk Karpo into coming.
Yes, perhaps, and perhaps a circus fairy would leap from the pages of a Lermontov book and give him the money to pay for such an outing.
He wanted to call Sarah, but there was no way of doing so now.
He would simply go home after this meeting and discuss the surgery.
Cashierovsky, a small, pudgy man with very little hair and a wheeze of asthma abetted by the growing pollution of the city, moved as quickly as he could to serve his guests.
“Looks good,” said Rostnikov. “Emil?”
“It looks very good.”
“Tomatoes were a treat when I was a boy,” said Rostnikov, picking up his sandwich.
Cashierovsky stood waiting.
“Delicious,” said Rostnikov, chewing on the bite of sandwich he had taken.
Karpo bit into his roll. “Very satisfying,” he said.
“Peto,” Rostnikov said, “some men will be here in about ten minutes. Two men, I hope. Would you leave the door unlocked and stand near it in case others wish to ignore the ‘closed’ sign?”
“Of course,” said Cashierovsky, already moving back behind the counter.
“You remember my friend Cashierovsky?” asked Rostnikov, savoring his sandwich and mineral water.
“Yes,” said Karpo, slowly eating his roll and sipping his tea.
“Three students from Moscow University beat him, his wife, and his sons, because they are Jewish. They broke his windows and told him to move.”
“What a memory,” said Rostnikov, genuinely impressed, since the incident had happened almost a decade earlier when Rostnikov was still chief inspector in the Office of the Procurator General.