Rostnikov was fascinated but turned his eyes back to his two hosts in time to see Lukov with a spaniel apologetic look on his face in response to the woman with the clipboard, who made it clear with her tight lips and unblinking stare that she blamed him for what they had just seen.
“Pardon me, Inspector,” she said, hurrying to the door. “I’m sure you can find your way out.”
“Certainly,” Rostnikov said and stepped aside. “Comrade Lukov can show me to the door.”
The woman opened the door, letting in the remaining sounds of the factory. Most of the sewing machines had stopped so the workers could watch the effects of the accident, but those machines that needed no immediate human direction continued to clatter. Raya Corspoyva closed the door behind her and hurried, smock flying behind her, toward the overturned lift truck and the driver, who was being helped up by several co-workers.
“I’ll show you out,” Lukov said, trying to guide his visitor away from the scene beyond the windows.
Rostnikov turned and followed the man to the door. On the floor beyond the window, Raya Corspoyva looked up at them as she stood over the driver of the lift truck.
“Handsome woman,” Rostnikov said.
“I used to think so,” Lukov said, leading the way through the office door and into a dark corridor down which Rostnikov had entered the man’s office an hour earlier. “I mean, when you work with someone-”
“I understand,” Rostnikov said sympathetically. “It is a great responsibility to run a factory like this.”
“Great responsibility,” Lukov repeated, opening another door and ushering Rostnikov through it and into a musty reception area past two women who looked up at them as they moved to the front door of the factory office. “We’re told by people in the city what to pay the workers, what to charge for the shoes and boots, and they don’t even know what our costs are. And we’re supposed to keep the workers happy. How do you keep a worker happy? How do you produce a good product if it doesn’t matter to anyone whether it’s good or not?”
“It is difficult,” Rostnikov agreed as they moved through the door and onto the concrete expanse in front of the factory.
“Let me tell you,” Lukov whispered, though no one was in sight. “It’s not just here. The workers don’t care. Calls to produce out of patriotism don’t work anymore. I don’t think they ever did. Posters don’t get leatherbound. I shouldn’t be saying this, I know, but I trust you, Inspector. You have a kind face, an understanding face.”
“Thank you,” said Rostnikov, who was certain that Lukov, who was far from bright, probably took every opportunity to bare his soul to anyone when he was out of range of Raya Corspoyva.
“My father made shoes,” Lukov said, looking around as if for a cab or a dead father. “My grandfather made shoes. I know leather. I know quality. You know where quality is? It’s gone. I’m speaking treason here. My God. But we have a new openness, right? Gorbachev says so. Right? Factories are allowed to make their own decisions, make a profit, give incentives, improve what they do. You know what it’s like to spend a lifetime knowing you are creating an inferior product, knowing you can do better? What does that do to pride? I ask you.”
Rostnikov shrugged.
“And so we have corruption and people who watch,” he went on, nodding back at the factory to indicate that it held the woman who looked over his shoulder.
“Corruption?” asked Rostnikov. “You mean pilfering?”
“No,” said Lukov.
“Corruption cannot exist without protection,” said Rostnikov.
“Ha!” Lukov laughed until he coughed, which reminded him that he should fish into his pocket for a cigarette. “They get the best protection a ruble can buy. My God. I’m doing it again. I’m talking too much. It happens. I can’t stop. My wife warned me. She wonders how I survived so long when I can’t stop, but you understand, Inspector. I can see. This can’t go on. Look there. That man. The one in blue. His name is Dovrinin. He’s a colonel in the army. You know what he does? He sits there. All day. He sits there and he can reject any shoe, call it brak, junk, and he doesn’t need a reason. If we are not … nice to him, he can reject everything, end our operation.”
“That is no different than any factory,” Rostnikov said. “Bulgarin, did he protest about some corruption?”
“Who knows?” Lukov lit his cigarette. “He wasn’t here all that long, but maybe he found something, discovered something. A factory like this. Who knows where the money goes? If it loses enough, I get blamed and … I know what will happen. I know it. Someone will get caught and they’ll blame me. Millions of rubles. Do I see any of it? Does my family? No. I’ll see the inside of a prison or worse.”
He looked around and went on. “God, she may be watching us. She watches me all the time. I must be going as mad as Bulgarin.”
“Bulgarin said the devil was after him,” Rostnikov said.
“You said that before,” Lukov said. “No more talk. My tongue should be torn out. Maybe it will be. All I want to do is make shoes. Smell me.”
Rostnikov let his nose flare.
“I smell of leather,” said Lukov with a sigh, looking at his cigarette as if it held some answer.
“Give me a name,” Rostnikov said.
Lukov looked at the factory entrance in fear.
“A name,” Rostnikov repeated softly. “You were waiting for someone to tell about the corruption of your factory. I’m listening. You may not get another chance. A name.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Lukov said. “I’ll give you the name and then you’ll have to forget it. Believe me. I told you. I feel better. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“The name,” Rostnikov repeated, almost whispering, his hand reassuringly on Lukov’s bony shoulder, his head inches from the frightened man’s face.
“Nahatchavanski,” Lukov spat out. He pulled away from Rostnikov’s grasp and ran back to the factory entrance where, indeed, Raya Corspoyva stood watching him.
Rostnikov had no car, no driver. He had come by the Metro and would head back that way. He had his Ed McBain book in his pocket but knew he would not read it. As much as we wanted to know what happened to the dead magician in the book, he knew he would open the book, stare at the page, and try to decide what he was going to do with the information that a high-ranking KGB member had just been accused of corruption.
Yuri Vostoyavek crossed quite illegally in the middle of Arbat Street, dodged a small black foreign car, and ignored the mad, angry honk of the horn behind him.
Yuri paused to glance at the newspaper that had been handed to him by a screaming man atop an overturned concrete flower planter in front of the Khudozhestvenny Cinema. He had seen the gathering of people when he came up from the Arbat Metro Station in Arbat Square and, though he was late, detoured to see what was going on.
The police, a group of brown-clad young men in brown hats, had arrived at almost the moment Yuri had taken the newspaper in his hand. The crowd had dispersed, moved suddenly away in a ripple while a young policeman ordered ruki nazad, put your hands behind your back. The screaming man being spoken to had resisted, but his arms were pulled firmly behind him by a trio of police, who ushered him away.
“Chaos,” mumbled a well-dressed man with a briefcase who smelled of something sweet.
Yuri had grunted and watched.
“Freedom is not chaos,” another well-dressed man had countered while they watched the police guide the screaming man with the armload of newspapers toward a parked car.
“It must be for the briefest moment or those let free will not experience the light-headedness of realization and responsibility,” a woman behind them said.
Yuri had turned to look at the woman, a small truck of a woman in a coat too warm for the weather and glasses so thick they made her eyes look like comic caricatures. She could have been any age.