“I would like to speak to you, Chief Inspector,” Pankov said, trying to smile apologetically.
“I’ll come down to your office when we are finished.”
“No,” Pankov shouted loud enough for Lydia to hear him clearly and look up at him. “No. I will come back. Don’t come to my office.”
Pankov left quickly.
“Strange man,” said Lydia, looking at the door. “He could have offered me some tea.”
“He did,” said Rostnikov, but her back was turned and she clearly did not hear him.
Then she turned.
“I cannot tell Sasha Tkach what to do,” said Rostnikov, wrapping his thick fingers around the hot mug. Thunder grumbled somewhere far away. “He is a grown man.”
“He has a wife, two children, a mother,” said Lydia.
“I do not have time for this conversation which, as we have agreed, we have had many times before,” said Rostnikov.
“And you always sit there like a. . a. . Buddha, a sphinx, a clerk at the postal office.”
“I have an only son, too,” said Rostnikov. “He is a policeman. It was his choice.”
“And you were happy with his choice?” Lydia said with most un-subtle sarcasm.
“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “And no.”
“If Sasha is hurt, I will hold you responsible,” she said, pointing a thin finger across the desk.
“I will probably do the same, Lydia Tkach,” he said. “But that does not alter the fact that I cannot force Sasha to take a job in the office.”
“You mean you will not,” she said.
“Perhaps.”
Lydia rose suddenly, lifting her Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag filled with vegetables, a few pieces of fruit, some cans of Hungarian soup, and two new pairs of socks.
“Sasha has not been himself,” she said, changing her tone from aggression to a deep, solemn concern.
“I have noticed, Lydia.”
“He has been sullen, depressed. I think, and I don’t want this to go beyond this room, that he has. . that he has been with women other than Maya. He is his father’s son.”
“So are we all, Lydia.”
“I think Maya is planning to take the children and leave my Sasha,” she said. “Take them back to the Ukraine. I know she is. I won’t see them. If Sasha. .”
“You want me to talk to Maya?” he asked.
“Could it hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“Then talk to her, Porfiry Petrovich. Talk to her soon.”
“I will,” he said.
Lydia pulled herself together, stood tall, and said, “I have money, Porfiry Petrovich. I could buy my son a shop or help him get started in a business.”
“I know,” said Rostnikov. “You want me to talk to Sasha too?”
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded to indicate that he would do so. Lydia left.
Rostnikov raised the mug of still-very-hot tea to his lips. A knock at the door and Pankov entered before Rostnikov could tell him to come in.
Pankov closed the door, smiled at Rostnikov, and quickly sat in the chair that Lydia had just vacated.
“Director Yaklovev had to go to a meeting at the ministry,”
Pankov said.
“That’s nice,” said Rostnikov. “That is what you wanted to discuss?”
“No,” Pankov said nervously. “We have known each other for many years.”
“About eight,” said Rostnikov. “The tea is good.”
“Thank you,” said Pankov with a smile that suggested a man in desperate need of root-canal surgery.
The little man shifted in the chair uncomfortably and looked at the closed door as if he feared the sudden entrance of uniformed, helmeted, and armed men.
“Pankov, can I help you with something?”
The little man turned back to face Porfiry Petrovich. The office was warm but not warm enough to account for Pankov’s perspira-tion. Then again, Pankov perspired very easily.
“Can you recall ever having said anything in my office or, more important, my saying anything to you in my office that would, might be considered. . indiscreet?”
“Knowing you from our many pleasant exchanges,” said Rostnikov, drinking more tea, “I would doubt if you ever spoke indiscreetly. I, on the other hand, am on occasion given to utterances that might well be considered indiscreet, though I can recall no specific instances. Would you care to tell me what we are talking about?”
“I have reason to believe,” said Pankov softly as he now leaned toward Rostnikov, “that there is a microphone in my office and that the director can hear everything that goes on, everything that is said.”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov.
“Yes? All you have to say is yes? You knew this?” asked Pankov, removing his glasses.
“Yes,” Rostnikov repeated, putting the mug aside, pulling his pad of paper toward him, and writing something in pencil.
Pankov assumed Porfiry Petrovich was simply making one of his cryptic drawings. After meetings in the director’s office, Pankov had many times examined the pads left behind on the table. There were seldom any words on Rostnikov’s pad, and the words that were rarely there made little sense and seemed to have no relevance to anything that had gone on at the meeting. Pankov had saved all the notes and drawings left behind by all the inspectors. He remembered one of Rostnikov’s notes in particular. It contained two drawings of birds in three-dimensional squares. One bird was black. The other white. And the words “monks, monks, monks”
were neatly printed below the birds.
“Porfiry Petrovich. .” Pankov had begun when Rostnikov tore off the sheet on which he had written and held it up for the little man to read. The letters were large but Pankov’s eyesight left much to be desired. He leaned closer, adjusted his glasses, and silently read: “ALL OF OUR OFFICES ARE WIRED.”
Pankov sat back in his chair. Actually, he fell back and began to look around the room.
“Pankov, you may well be wrong.”
“Yes, yes, yes. I may be wrong. Probably am. I’ve been working hard.” Pankov rose in confusion and turned toward the door.
“Wait,” said Rostnikov.
“What?”
He held up the now-empty mug and handed it to the little man.
“It was very good. Thank you.”
Pankov nodded and headed in dazed confusion out of the office. He had trouble closing the door behind him and came very close to dropping the mug. But he managed to juggle and catch it before it fell to the floor.
Yaklovev was many things. Corrupt, self-serving, ambitious. He was also loyal to those under him upon whom he depended for his success. Yaklovev was smart, very smart. He was not a man to un-derestimate, and Rostnikov did not intend to do so. Porfiry Petrovich had known his office was monitored two days after the Yak had become director, given Rostnikov a promotion, and assigned him this private office. The microphone was well hidden behind a panel in the ceiling almost directly over the desk. It had taken Rostnikov almost half an hour to locate it. He could have done so faster, but climbing atop the desk with one good leg was an invitation to disaster.
Since Rostnikov respected the director’s intelligence, he doubted if the conversation he just had with Pankov would fool him for an instant. The director would know, when he listened to the tapes, which must now be rolling to record silence, that Rostnikov knew about the microphone.
“Like the old days,” Rostnikov said aloud for the ears of the Yak.
Fifteen minutes later, after he had spoken with Sarah on the phone, Rostnikov and Emil Karpo were on their way to pick up a murderer.
“It’s early,” said Sasha with a yawn, his mind moving quickly to adjust to the unexpected appearance of Boris Osipov. “I thought you were coming at seven tonight.”
“Meeting is earlier,” said Boris. “We’ll pick up the dog now.”
“He may not be ready,” said Sasha. “He needs his rest.”
“Dmitri, let us get your dog. Hurry.”
Sasha had been looking out the hotel room window when Boris had arrived. There was nothing he wanted to do, nothing he wanted to read, nothing he wanted to see, though the television set was on.