“I have them,” the director said. “Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin.”
“Petrov? The runner’s brother?”
“Yes, Aleksandr Petrov’s younger brother.”
“Thank you.”
The director seemed to be about to ask a question but Korolev hung up. He finished his cigarette-wondering about Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Kudrin. And where they might be.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Korolev left the car beside the Gorky Park Metro station. It was a glorious day and men had balled their shirt-sleeves high above their sun-browned forearms while women walked beside them, their laughter light and easy. He’d been to Gorky Park before, of course, but every time he came nowadays it seemed there was some new feature designed to entertain and impress the citizens of Moscow. The parachute tower that dominated this end of the park had been in place for a year or two now-a tall structure, bollard-shaped, with an exterior walkway that spiraled round and up it like the stripe on a barber’s pole. The queue stretched a hundred meters along the central promenade-these days it seemed you even had to stand in line to throw yourself off a building.
Korolev made his way to the meeting spot down by the river-a band was playing somewhere nearby and he found that he was walking in time with the music. No matter what his feet were up to, however, Korolev’s thoughts were focused on Yuri, where the boy might be and whether he was safe-although he kept his eyes moving, scanning the crowd, allowing his gaze to slowly wander around the park. He wasn’t even sure who he was looking for-Zaitsev’s men or Kolya’s Thieves or someone else entirely-but his senses were telling him he was being watched. And he didn’t like the feeling.
“Watch your step, Comrade.”
Startled, Korolev stopped, turned, and found himself looking up into the nostrils of a ten-foot-tall drunk. His surprise must have shown because a laugh came from inside the giant’s stomach. There were eight of them-huge, crude papier-mache representations of the evils of drink. The one he’d nearly walked into was a broad-chested peasant with an unnaturally pink face and two glass eyes that dangled out on springs as it walked. In one hand he clutched a bottle of vodka and the other was just a red-painted stump. The sign around his neck told the full story-“Drunk at work! He cut off his fist! What a fool! Reduced to a wrist!”
He supposed a subtle approach didn’t work with drunks-but all the same.
Ranks of grave-faced komsomol youngsters followed behind the giants, chanting advice to the citizenry-“Drink in moderation-for the good of the Nation!” and “Behave like a cultured Soviet guy-not like a pig in a filthy sty.”
But some in the crowd chanted right back at them: “Stop all the singing, and let’s have a drink.” And more salty advice directed toward the female marchers, one or two of whom couldn’t help but look uncomfortable. And to judge from the raucous laughter, at least some of the crowd were several glasses past heeding any advice on drinking from a squad of teenage activists-and certainly not on their day off. Still, it wasn’t any of Korolev’s business and the statue of the diver was only a short distance ahead-and there he did have business. Important business.
“Insanity, isn’t it?”
It was a deep voice, calm-possessed of a certainty that most could only wish for. Kolya.
Korolev turned, thinking the Thief must be looking at the komsomol agitators, but his gaze was fixed well past them-up at the parachute tower, where a brave soul threw himself outward, falling fast until the parachute jerked his body back and he descended the rest of the way at a more survivable pace.
“Don’t you think? To throw yourself from such a height and trust in something so flimsy to make sure you land safely.”
Korolev shrugged his shoulders. “It has its purpose.”
Korolev couldn’t help but let his eyes drop to the finger and hand tattoos that turned Kolya’s fists blue. Each tattoo had a meaning and there’d be more under his clothes-on his chest, his arms and legs. Kolya’s tattoos, like medals, told of deeds he’d performed, battles he’d won, and the sentences he’d served. Still others signaled Kolya’s rank among the Thieves as clear as the stars or stripes on a soldier’s collar. And Kolya was a Field Marshal among Thieves-as decorated, in their terms, as any Hero of the Soviet Union.
“Its purpose? To train youngsters for war?” Kolya answered, as he watched another parachute descend. “Yes, I can see the point of that. We’ll need young blood for the Motherland soon enough.”
Korolev looked around him, wondering where Kolya’s men were.
“Don’t tell me you came alone?”
Kolya pointed an inked finger further along the path in the direction of the big wheel and, sure enough, there was Mishka-eating ice cream from a paper cup while the big fellow he’d seen at the zoo pushed one hand against another.
“Ice cream?” Korolev asked, surprised.
“He’s fond of it.”
“It’s the weather for it, I suppose.”
Kolya smiled but it seemed to Korolev there was something on his mind-and Korolev couldn’t help but wonder what it might be. Was it his imagination or did the Thief look as if he’d aged since he last saw him? He certainly seemed weary.
“But you, Korolev,” the Thief said. “You came on your own, didn’t you?”
“I’d good reason to.”
“I thought as much.” And they began, by unspoken agreement, to walk away from the river toward the central pond where the statue of a female rower stood surrounded by fountains, her long oar leaning against her shoulder like a rifle.
“So you’re investigating the Azarov killing after all,” Kolya said, looking up at the rower’s naked buttocks.
Korolev had the strangest sensation of cold, even on this warmest of days-and he wondered if it wasn’t a premonition of some kind.
“I was given a choice-but it wasn’t much of one.”
“I heard.”
He’d heard, had he? Either the man had a source in the most unlikely of places or he was playing games with him. He’d two NKVD colonels and now a senior Thief trying to twist his mind into a shape that suited them-and frankly he’d had enough of it.
“I’d like to know how you come by information like that, Kolya.”
“What I know and what I don’t know won’t change if I tell you how I know it.”
Korolev nearly took the bait, but he reminded himself why they were there.
“We didn’t come here just to banter back and forth, did we?”
“No.”
“A question?”
“Willingly.”
“When we spoke about the institute out at the zoo, you said you hoped my son never ended up in such a place. What did you mean by it? You see, you don’t strike me as the kind of man who’d come and tell me something like that just out of the blue. You’ll forgive me-but it seems to me you must have had a reason for it. It’s been bothering me.”
It occurred to Korolev that, to other people in the park, they probably looked like two old friends out for a walk in the afternoon sun-the thought made him uncomfortable. They stopped to watch two groups of students battling an enormous ball backward and forward across a net-some new sort of game, it seemed.
“I’ve a boy of my own, Korolev-that’s why I came to see you that day.”
The Thief’s voice seemed to have lost some of its usual force. Korolev turned and saw that Kolya was pale-his face narrow with concern.
“Two boys, as it happens,” Kolya continued. “One of them is safe and I’ll keep him that way-until it’s time for him to stand on his own two feet of course. The other I don’t know about for certain. His name is Anton and I haven’t seen him since five weeks ago-when I was picked up by your lot over a little misunderstanding.”
“You were arrested?” It was news to Korolev.
“Not exactly. But the person whose name I gave them spent time staring at the sky through crossed bars. Or at least that’s what the records show. I won’t deny it was my friends’ persuasive skills saw that person released and that I was pleased to be out in the fresh air when he was. Fortunately not everyone’s as honest as you are, you see. Many are open to persuasion.”