“Yevgeny would know,” said Leonid.
“And be pleased that he had one less partner to deal with,” said Georgi.
“He would know it was you,” said Leonid.
“Probably,” Georgi agreed. “In which case I would have to find him quickly and kill him before he discovered what had happened to you. But I don’t want to kill you. There will be more than enough money to make us both very rich. You have never acted as if you looked down on me. I like you and I need a partner with some brains to get us out of the country, to get the wolf out of Russia, to find someone to buy it.”
“You suddenly seem smart enough,” said Leonid, looking down at the blood on his shirt. He only had four decent shirts and this was one of them.
Georgi shook his head no.
“I’ve thought this through no further than I’ve told you. My mother said I was shrewd when I did poorly in school. She said my shrewdness would see me through life. I’ve exhausted whatever reserve of shrewdness I have for this project. I don’t know how to go beyond killing Yevgeny before he kills us.”
“You had to beat me to tell me this?” asked Leonid.
“I think so,” said Georgi. “I had to get your attention. I am sorry. I could think of no other way. All I know is my own strength. I am often wrong, but I am not wrong about Yevgeny.”
“I think you are not wrong,” Leonid agreed, glancing away.
“I feel you are usually telling the truth when we talk,” said Georgi. “I never have the feeling Yevgeny is telling the truth. You understand?”
Leonid understood. It had been his own feeling for many years, but he had not listened to it. Leonid may have been reasonably smart, but he was a follower, content to be told, first by his father and then by Yevgeny, exactly what to do. He suddenly felt a fear of his boyhood friend, a fear far greater than any in his life, a fear that was miles above his fear of Georgi.
“When will you do it?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Soon. I was going to wait, but it should probably be today, before he sees you. He’ll know something is wrong. You do not lie well, Leonid. The blood from your nose we can take care of. I think the bleeding has stopped, and we can clean you up and throw away the shirt. I can give you one of mine. It will be too large. Throw it away when you get back to your apartment. Soon we will be wearing silk shirts and ties in Paris or Prague or maybe even London or New York.”
The thought of wearing one of Georgi’s shirts brought Leonid’s nausea back.
“But,” Georgi went on, “I’m not sure you will be able to walk straight. He will ask you what happened. As I said, you are a poor liar. That’s another reason I think I can trust you. But Yevgeny will know you are lying, and I think you are not strong enough to stand up to him. No, I’ll have to do it today with my hands or a knife. Tell me how to do it, Leonid.”
Leonid sat still, finding himself thinking seriously about the best place to have Georgi murder his closest friend. Leonid found that there was a certain satisfaction in planning. He had never really done it before. He thought for a long time and came up with a plan that he shared with Georgi. Along with this new satisfaction came the realization that he would have to kill Georgi, not necessarily because he feared that Georgi would not follow through with the partnership but because Georgi was not smart. Georgi got drunk. It was one thing to get drunk among his working friends and blame the Jews for Russia’s problems, but he might get too drunk one night when he was rich and say something that would put them both in danger of being prosecuted, losing their wealth, and possibly even facing a firing squad. And what was to stop Georgi from killing Leonid once they were out of Russia? Leonid had never murdered anyone. Yevgeny had murdered the Jews. But somehow, sometime, he would have to kill Georgi.
Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov of Trotsky Station had many options for dealing with his problem. All of them were bad. Some were worse than others.
He had a direct order from the ministry for himself and the major to be present in one hour to have their photographs taken for the case being investigated by the Office of Special Investigation. It seemed they were not satisfied with their last visit in which almost every police officer in the district was assembled in a demeaning lineup. The police had enough to do without such nonsense. Now they wanted to come back and take photographs of everyone who was not present at that assemblage. The major was far from happy about this order from the Yak. The Yak had connections and friends, and he was smart. They would all have to comply.
Spaskov considered getting a friend who was not a police officer to pretend he was Spaskov for the photo. This might work because the major had said the pictures would be taken in Spaskov’s office. However, there was too little time to find someone, and Spaskov did not think he had a friend to whom he could tell a lie sufficient to gain his assistance. Besides, if the pictures were ever returned, the major or even Sergeant Koffeyanovich might look at them and realize that the man in the photograph was not Spaskov.
Spaskov considered a disguise of sorts, a pair of glasses from the drawer in the catch-all office on the first floor. Again, that might be awkward if anyone, including the colonel, ever saw the photograph, for Spaskov’s eyesight was perfect.
Should he slouch? Make a face? Quickly shave his mustache? Shaving his mustache would be too suspicious. There would certainly be a question or two about why he chose to shave on that day.
Should he smile with confidence? Look stern with self-assurance?
Damn. Although he had not been at the lineup, he knew they had been examined by two policemen and a tall, serious, dark, and pretty woman. Several of the officers claimed they had seen her on Moscow Television News. Others said they were just imagining it. But Spaskov knew that the ones who had claimed to see her were particularly reliable witnesses. She was the last one he had attacked. She was the one whose stubbornness had driven him to rage.
The uniform. He could get out of his uniform and put on his civilian clothes, but this was an observant woman, confident that she could identify her attacker if she saw him.
There were two real choices and a hope. The hope was that she simply might not identify him from the photograph. The night had been dark, the attack quick, her glance at him fleeting at best. The choices were to simply claim the woman was wrong if she identified Valentin. She had mistaken him for someone else. He could not possibly have done such a thing. Valentin Spaskov had risen from the ranks not through favoritism, bribes, or party connections but by his own rare honesty and bravery. He was bright. He had a wife and child and was never known to abuse either of them or consort with the women a police officer frequently encounters in his work. Many an officer actually bragged that he let some women have the choice of sex in the backseat or an arrest. Almost all chose the backseat, often with a partner joining in.
Not Lieutenant Valentin Spaskov. There was not a mark on his record. None. And he knew that if he somehow escaped this horror, he would continue to uphold the law and, when necessary, risk his life to do so, with one exception, which he was doomed to repeat over and over again. He would have to kill the woman tonight.
It would not be easy. The attacks he had made he had no control over. They had simply grown inside him till he had to rape or he would burst with a kind of madness. He attacked in a frenzy to satisfy the creature within. After each attack, it would rest for a while only to awaken and growl anew.
Valentin Spaskov remembered the assaults: following each woman, finding the right place, occasionally abandoning one possible prey for another if the situation wasn’t right. When they were over, he had only a vague recollection of the attacks, the sexual part. He had no recollection of any of the beatings.
For a long time, years, he had wondered why he was doing this. He had read files on other rapists, had even read books. He didn’t think he fit the possible profiles. Somewhere buried in his past was an event, a trauma, a series of incidents, a person these women were supposed to represent, even an idea or symbol for which they stood. Maybe in the line of duty he had suffered some damage to the brain that altered his behavior. He even considered that something may have been missing or distorted in his DNA, that he had been born with an animal lust that he had successfully controlled till he was an adult. But lust was only part of it. He knew that. If it was lust that drove him, his wife was accommodating, albeit less than interested. She readily admitted that the infrequent times when he was her lover, Valentin was gentle, thoughtful, and could be very satisfying.