“The tattoo on his arm!” Masha called. “The number four. Had you seen that before?”
“No. Kolyan didn’t have a tattoo!” Dima shouted back. “He went around most of the time in just an undershirt, so I would’ve seen it.”
A satisfied smile spread across Masha’s face. She waved good-bye and hurried on.
ANDREY
Tochinovka turned out to be the kind of village you might see in a documentary about the dying Russian countryside. More than half the houses were boarded up, and the ones that were still inhabited seemed to be light-years away from the glamorous capital instead of sixty miles. While the gilded young people of Moscow tweeted on their smartphones at university lectures and learned the correct way to eat imported oysters, while they injected Botox into their jaws so they wouldn’t grind their bleached teeth at night from the stress of modern life—here there was a stinking outhouse behind each little shack, like something out of the Middle Ages, and the villagers hauled water from a distant well and warmed it up over propane. The distance between those two realities could be measured in centuries. The people spoke the same language, but they didn’t understand each other. Nobody in Tochinovka knew anything about oysters, Botox, or Snapchat. The only person here who had seen the world and all the paradoxes of the twenty-first century had been Yelnik. He was like a double agent. And he’d been murdered.
Andrey sat and smoked, pondering, without any particular bitterness, a remarkable quality all Russians seemed to share: complete disdain for an ordinary, decent existence. Disregard by the people in power for everyone else, for four generations now, at least. The abject humility of these people, who’d been the workhorses of socialism, who’d wired the whole country for electricity, but didn’t think to ask for hot water or a sewage system. As if it were just the way of things, that of course you have to trudge through the snow when nature calls in winter, wipe your ass with torn-up newspaper, and rinse your hands with water from some rusty old bucket.
What on earth had Yelnik been hoping to find here? He had been set up well enough. He could at least have afforded a heated bathroom after he got out of prison.
The door to Yelnik’s run-down house was locked, so Andrey, checking for a key in the usual places, peeled back the mat and felt around the heavy window shutters. Nothing. The property wasn’t big, but it was well cared for. There were some vegetable beds, a small potato patch, even a greenhouse. That door was unlocked, and Andrey went inside. In contrast to the healthy garden, the greenhouse was badly neglected, which made sense since the gardener had disappeared over the winter. The air was hot and heavy, but it didn’t smell of the usual cucumbers and tomatoes. No, it smelled of death and decay. Andrey shuddered. There was a dead bird lying on the floor, its thin bones glowing white through matted black feathers. Must have flown in during the winter and, when no one opened the door again, it couldn’t get out, Andrey thought. So Yelnik’s killer had a bird’s blood on his hands, too.
“What makes people different from birds?” Andrey mused aloud as he stood, undecided, before the porch, playing with the coins in his pocket. “People know how to open doors.”
He pressed a coin from his pocket firmly into the palm of his hand. He had a paper clip in there, too, precisely for occasions such as this. Andrey looked around stealthily. Not a soul.
“You understand, right, Yelnik? It’s because I was raised on the streets, it’s because of my poor family, it’s all the bad examples in my life,” Andrey muttered as he straightened out the paper clip. “Idle minds and so on!”
Andrey went to his car and opened the trunk, humming contentedly as he pulled out a narrow wrench. There was a gentle bounce in his step when he walked back to the front door of the house. He glanced around one more time. Still quiet. Andrey inserted the wrench in the lower part of the keyhole, then slid the paper clip into the upper part, tip pointed up. He turned the paper clip slowly, counting the contacts: one, two… five. There was a tiny click with every turn. Andrey looked dreamily at the summer sky, dotted with cheerful white clouds. He gave the door a gentle push and it swung open without so much as a creak.
“Anyone home?”
But all the house offered up in response was complete silence and impenetrable darkness.
He felt for a light switch. With a soft click, an enormous chandelier lit up, completely out of step with the rundown village.
Andrey whistled. Nothing inside this place matched Tochinovka. The chandelier, all bright-orange Murano glass, hung high above him, and it took a moment for Andrey to realize there was no second floor. His eyes took in a surprisingly large space, bounded only by wooden beams painted a dark chocolate hue.
The room was square, with a noble-looking oak parquet floor near the entryway and a sprawling Turkish rug farther in. Arranged on the rug were a white leather sofa, a pair of futuristic-looking armchairs, and a narrow coffee table. Deeper inside, the light flashed off a kitchen outfitted in chrome, the kind you see in glossy magazines. Heavy velvet curtains covered the windows.
Andrey made himself look outside. Sure enough, Tochinovka was still out there, poor and gray. Surreal, he thought, shaking his head as he explored. First a bedroom, white and minimalist, with a massive closet full of expensive clothing—Italian jeans and English suits. Then a guest bedroom in the same style. Plus a big bathroom, with an elegant shower made of a porous beige stone, and a modern flush toilet. Andrey turned the shower tap mistrustfully. The water responded immediately—hot with amazingly high pressure. Yelnik had enjoyed all the blessings of civilization, not in some ritzy suburb, but right here in run-down Tochinovka. Was he trying to hide among the drunk old men and half-blind old women? If the former killer wasn’t killing anymore, he must have been making money—and judging from this house, more than a little of it—some other way. Not by growing potatoes, that was for sure.
Back in the living room, Andrey looked at the fireplace with envy. It was sleek, modern, and set a couple of feet off the floor. Yelnik the hitman had taste. Maybe he’d hired a designer, a good one. How would he have described the job? Make me a palace inside a wretched little shack? But why? And if there were a designer and Andrey could find him, would he have any idea where his nutso client’s money came from?
Andrey walked outside, sat on the porch, and lit a cigarette. He was completely confused. Getting ready to come here, he had been nearly convinced that Yelnik, tied up as he was in the murder business, had been caught on the wrong side of some old deal. But this house stank of new money, new trends, if you could put it like that.
The phone in his jacket pocket chirped. A text. Yelnik’s cellmate was Zitman. Goes by the Doctor. Trusty Arkhip! The Doctor, covert soldiers, new business, murder by drowning, half a year in a freezer, and a body without its guts, finally tossed back in the Moskva River—
“Hello!”
Andrey jerked his head up.
A short man with Down syndrome, maybe twenty years old, stood in front of him. The man grinned shyly, his small eyes trusting and kind.
“Hi,” said Andrey.
“Are you the new owner?” The man had started sidling over to the porch.
“No,” Andrey answered honestly, shifting over to make room.
“I’m Andreyka,” his new friend said. “Got a smoke?”
“Sure, buddy. That’s my name, too.” Andrey handed him his pack of cigarettes.
Andreyka took a few and tucked them behind one ear. They sat there smoking quietly for a couple of minutes.
“Igor’s not coming back,” Andreyka said suddenly, in a funny, high voice like an old woman. “No, not coming back!”