Olga Pleshkov rose, erect, handsome, clasping her hands to indicate that the policemen were excused and she would not be shaking their hands. “Please excuse me. If you have any more questions, you can ask my son. He seems to have all the answers.”
She left the room quickly and her son said, “You will have to forgive my mother. She didn’t even offer you tea or coffee. But I will do so.”
“Nyet, spahssebah,” said Iosef.
Zelach would have liked some tea and perhaps a biscuit, but he also said, “No, thank you.”
“You have more you can tell us about where we might find your father? His friends? People he drinks with, anything that might help?”
Ivan Pleshkov did not hesitate.
“There is a woman he goes to when he decides to lose a few days, a week or two. Her name is Yulia. I think her last name is Yalutshkin or Valushkin, something like that. He spends the days sleeping it off in her apartment. Also, there is an old childhood friend, Oleg Kisolev. He’s a coach of the Dynamo soccer team, used to be a player. I remember watching him. Even as a child I could tell when he visited my father that Kisolev was a pandering fool, with a good but not great kick.”
Zelach was writing carefully.
“Any address for Kisolev?” asked Iosef.
“I don’t have one. You can look in my father’s desk in there.”
“Thank you,” said Iosef. “You’ve been very helpful. Are you interested in politics too?”
“You mean,” said Ivan, “do I have a job? The answer is yes. I am a computer-program designer for the power company. I make more money than my father. I have my own apartment in Moscow.
I like girls. I do not drink and I have no political ambition. Any other questions?”
“Not now,” said Iosef, rising.
Zelach put away his notebook.
“My mother will want me to watch you go through my father’s things. We have been through this before, as you might have guessed. My mother is afraid that the police might steal something of value. I have no desire to offend you, but I hope you understand.”
“You don’t know us,” said Iosef. “No offense has been taken.”
The search of Yevgeny Pleshkov’s office yielded little of any possible use-not even a hidden bottle of vodka, not a personal telephone book, no letters. The office hardly seemed used. The search was quick, made quicker by the hovering of Ivan Pleshkov.
“You are a basketball fan?” asked Iosef, giving up on his search and looking at the young man’s shirt with a cartoonlike design of the head of an angry bull.
“Yes,” said Ivan. “It is my goal to move to Chicago and buy sea-son tickets to all the Bulls games. It is my hope that I can do this before Michael Jordan retires. Getting work as a computer-program designer will be no problem.”
“Might it not affect your father’s political ambitions were his son to move to the United States?” asked Iosef.
“I’m sure it would,” said Ivan. “I do not hate my father, but he has taught me to care little about what happens to him. I hope you find him alive, but if you don’t, my mother will cope and I will move to America that much sooner.”
Ivan walked out the door to the office, with Zelach and Iosef behind.
“Thank you for your help,” Iosef said. “We will contact your mother as soon as we find him.”
When the two detectives were outside in the morning sun, Iosef took a deep breath.
“Well, Akardy?”
“I don’t like him,” said Zelach, who did not look forward to the half-mile walk and the train ride back to Moscow.
“The father or the son?” asked Iosef.
“Neither,” said Zelach.
“Understandable,” said Iosef, starting to walk down the road.
“I think it might be reasonable to add the mother to a list of the unlikable.”
“Ah, look, they have a car,” said Zelach. “He could have offered us a ride.”
“That would have been polite,” said Iosef with a smile. “But it is a nice day and this promises to be a relatively easy assignment.”
“Perhaps,” said Zelach, slouching along at the younger man’s side, “but this morning my mother got out of bed and accidentally touched her left foot to the floor instead of her right. She says I will have bad luck and should be careful.”
“You believe that?”
“Of course not,” said Zelach without conviction. “We shall find Deputy Pleshkov.”
“With luck we will find him during the day,” said Iosef. “If not, prepare yourself for little sleep tonight.”
When they were a few hundred yards down the road and had passed both newly constructed large dachas and crumbling little cottages, a Mercedes-Benz pulled up next to them and Ivan Pleshkov, who had changed into a plain white shirt with short sleeves, said through the open window, “You don’t have a car?”
“No,” said Iosef.
“I’ll give you a ride to Moscow,” he said. “I’m going there anyway. Get in.”
“Maybe your mother was wrong about which foot she touched to the floor first,” said Iosef, opening the back door.
Zelach didn’t think so.
Chapter Three
Rostnikov had returned to Petrovka and immediately reported to Yaklovev.
Pankov, the sweating dwarfish secretary who had survived Colonel Snitkonoy’s promotion and now served as secretary to the Yak, had ushered Rostnikov into the director’s office, as was his standing order. The only requirement was that the director was alone and that Pankov announced that Rostnikov was there to see him.
Pankov lived in constant fear of his superior. The slightest sign of disapproval or possible problems sent the clean-shaven little man of indeterminate age into a sweat, regardless of the heat or lack of it in Petrovka.
The meeting had been relatively brief, with Rostnikov standing in front of the desk of the Yak, who listened carefully to the early report on the new cases.
“Another report by the end of the day, or earlier if there are changes,” said the Yak, sitting erect. “I want the names of those involved in the dogfights, and I want Congress Member Pleshkov found as soon as possible-and I would like it done quietly.”
“I understand,” said Rostnikov, noting that the Yak did not seem particularly interested in the naked mobster found in the river.
“I’m sure you do,” said the Yak, looking up. “If you have more to report, you may sit. If not. .”
“The director of the forensics laboratory may be coming to you with a complaint about my turning his men away from a crime scene this morning,” said Rostnikov.
“The corpse in the river?”
“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “I have Paulinin examining the body.”
“Good,” said Yaklovev. “I will take care of it with an apology and by being my usual charming self. Anything else?”
“No,” said Rostnikov, and the Yak resumed the reading of a thick report before him, a clear sign of dismissal.
Rostnikov left the office, nodded at Pankov, and went to the stairs.
The relationship between Porfiry Petrovich and Director Yaklovev was completely symbiotic and beneficial to both men, though the Yak did not like Rostnikov and Rostnikov did not like the Yak. However, both men trusted each other and knew that, to a great degree, their futures depended on that trust. The Yak was corrupt but he was a man of his word, and Rostnikov was reasonably confident that when the time inevitably came that the director felt he had to betray his chief inspector, the Yak would inform Rostnikov that it was coming.
Instead of going back to his office, Rostnikov went down four flights. The last two flights were underground. There was no one in the corridor, so Rostnikov leaned against the wall, taking all of his weight on his good leg. Four flights down had resulted in a slight soreness where the artificial leg connected to Rostnikov’s leg just below the knee.