“Old, it’s an old rifle. What can I say?”
Karpo watched Paulinin searching through the drawer of his desk in the laboratory on the second level below ground of Petrovka. Paulinin was wearing a blue smock and looked more like a flower seller in Dzerzhinsky Park than the eclectic encyclopedia he was. Paulinin looked rather like a bespectacled, nearsighted monkey with an oversized head topped by wild gray-black hair. He was forever searching for something, putting things together, looking for challenges. His office was a clutter-piles of books, objects from past investigations. Here a pistol with the barrel missing. There, on the tottering pile of books on the edge of the desk, some false teeth.
“You can,” said Karpo, standing in front of the desk, motionless, “tell me when it was made, who made it, how I might discover who it belongs to.”
“Miracles,” said the monkey of a man, pulling a long wire from the drawer, examining it carefully with a squint and returning it. “The man wants miracles.”
And miracles, Karpo knew, were just what Paulinin liked to deliver. And so he waited patiently, immobile, a dark tower around which buzzed the clever spider monkey.
Paulinin pushed the drawer closed, tapped both open palms on the paper-covered desk, and considered. An idea struck, and he shoved a report on coarse yellow paper aside and grabbed a syringe as if it might try to scurry off the table.
“An 1891-30 Moisin, our primary rifle of the last war with the Germans,” Paulinin said, holding the syringe up to examine it against the ceiling light. “There are thousands still around. Amazing that this one can still shoot. The bullet went through an almost smooth barrel. The whole rifle is a relic. I don’t see how anyone could hit the Kremlin-forgive my example-with it, let alone a policeman fourteen stories below.”
Paulinin turned his back to place the examined syringe on the small sink in the corner.
“Go on.”
Karpo’s arm had in the past several days begun to lose all feeling. It had to be placed by him in the black sling like a sleeping baby each morning. He wondered if the numbness would continue to spread up his shoulder to the rest of his body. There was no fear in his conjecture, only a curiosity and a suppressed regret deep within.
“So,” Paulinin said, turning to face Karpo and folding his arms as he leaned back against the sink, “the gun does not break down. It does not come apart, to be placed in a little carrying case. This is no-what was that American movie?”
Karpo did not go to movies, had only seen part of one while pursuing a pickpocket in the Rossia Theater five years earlier.
“Filthy Harry,” Paulinin said. “That was it. Americans are rifle crazy since Kennedy. Movies, books, full of rifles, full of people shooting people from rooftops. Like your Weeper.”
“The rifle could not be broken down for transport,” Emil Karpo reminded Paulinin, who pushed away from the sink and began to search through the pile of books on the desk.
“Your Weeper has to carry the rifle around full length. It is 51.5 inches long and weighs 8.8 pounds without bayonet. It’s not some little thing, either. Big, long, a Cossack penis, we used to call them. So, ask yourself, Comrade Karpo, how did your Weeper carry that rifle up to those roofs and down? What did your killer carry in it? A rolled-up rug, what? It’s too big for a violin case like they used in old American movies.”
“I’ve made a note,” Karpo said, and found Paulinin pausing to catch his eye. Normally, Karpo took detailed notes and went back to his room to transcribe them, but with one hand it was a difficult task, and he wanted no comment or glance from Paulinin. They were not friends. In truth, Karpo, the Vampire, the Tatar, wanted no friends. He wanted no obligation except to the state.
Paulinin looked at the limp arm through his thick glasses and shrugged before continuing.
“So your killer is left-handed. The Moisin has a right twist, but his bullet enters, drifts toward the left. Could be done by a right-handed shooter, but someone who is picking a target will usually wait till the target is neutral or to the right. That is conjecture, of course, based on experience.”
“Of course,” agreed Karpo.
“Finally,” said Paulinin, holding up a finger as he found the thin report he was searching for. “Your killer is strong. That rifle kicks like a member of the Supreme Soviet denied an extra box of Americans cigarettes. So, a picture is forming, comrade inspector?”
“Someone strong, probably big, left-handed, carrying something long enough to hide a long, heavy rifle.”
“That’s it,” agreed Paulinin, adjusting his glasses and reexamining the report in his hand. Karpo was clearly dismissed.
“Very good,” the detective said, not in the least offended by his dismissal. “If-when I find the rifle, I will bring it to you for positive identification.”
Paulinin laughed and shook his head. “You are looking for an antique, Comrade Karpo, a mastodon. If you find it, there will be little need to verify its relation to the crimes. If you dragged the corpse of Stalin in here and said, ‘Is this the Stalin who sat on your mother’s face, the Stalin who wore his collar too tight, the Stalin who was the premier of all the Russias?’ what could I answer?”
“You could answer like any Russian, ‘It is possible,’” Karpo said, opening the door to depart.
Paulinin was actually surprised. Never in his fifteen years of dealing with the pale, sharp bone had he known Karpo to display any humor. He turned to his report on chemical testing of vomit with professional joy as soon as the door was firmly closed.
But Karpo had meant no humor in his remark. Humor was far from his mind. It was caution he voiced, a caution he usually exhibited but which something within him now told him, urged him, to abandon. Time was, he feared, against him. The Weeper might strike again, kill another policeman. Or Karpo’s arm might be exposed, and he might be summarily dismissed. That could not, must not, happen till the Weeper was found.
He spoke to no one as he climbed the stairs. Karpo never took an elevator unless ordered to or accompanying a superior. He liked his feet on something solid. He walked home in the noon heat, absorbing but not considering the sweating figures that moved past him in shirt-sleeves or short-sleeved, loose blouses. The young woman who stared at him at the corner registered deeply but not consciously. Her breasts were large, unfettered, distracting. As he crossed Sverdlov Square and strode through the thin crowd in front of the metro station, the image of Mathilde came to him. He stopped, drew a deep breath, and willed the image to depart. He imagined a silver circle, breathed easily, ignoring the man with the loaf of bread under his arm who stared at him, and waited while the distraction of the body passed. When he moved again, he knew it would have to be addressed, that imp inside. There was no denying the animal inside. It could distract, but it also confirmed, reminded. It spoke and had to be answered, or it would play hell with even the most disciplined body, calling it from its duty. Better to respond, appease, recognize, than to suffer the distraction.
He got on the Marx Prospekt train and stood for the four stops till the Komsomolskaya Station. There were a few seats, but Karpo did not want to sit. He wanted the distraction of discomfort, relished the physical irritation to be overcome.
He departed from the train, walked slowly through the crowd, avoided bumping into a man in a railway uniform who carried a net bag filled with green apples, and headed for the long escalator. The station reminded him of an ancient time with its decadent upturned glass chandeliers, its arched columns, and curved white roof with decorative designs. He preferred the more efficient outer stations to these compromises with the past.