Three hours later, he had talked to the young man in prison, who proved to be a braggart, a drunk, and a fool. Three other leads proved to be useless and, what is worse, quite distant from each other.
By one in the afternoon, Sasha wanted to think, to wake up. The afternoon was brisk, cool, and threatening, once again, to rain. He walked down to Petrovka Street past the Bolshoi Theater’s eight tall stuccoed columns, atop which stood four rearing horses harnessed to the chariot of Apollo. He crossed Marx Prospekt to the garden in front of the 220-ton monument to Karl Marx, which had been officially completed and shown on Sasha’s sixth birthday. Lydia, he remembered, had brought him down for the unveiling of the great man, who leaned eternally against a stone rostrum as if in midspeech, while below him were engraved his words of revolution, “Workers of the world, unite.”
Beyond Sverdlov Square he glanced at the old Central Lenin Museum and moved down into the huge underground connection to the Revolution Square, Sverdlov Square, and Prospekt Marksa Metro Stations. Ten minutes later he stepped out of the Volgograd Prospekt Station, found a small café when he had two coffees in the hope that they would wake him up, and made his way to the run-down concrete building that housed the Center for Turkistani Culture and dozens of other offices, causes, and businesses that awaited a moment of respect or recognition that might never come.
The Center for Turkistani Culture, as it turned out, consisted of two mismatched desks, one of metal with rust creeping through the thin layer of paint, the other of battered wood. A quartet of wooden chairs stood in the corner of the room, with a table in the middle where two very old men, one of whom was turning out billows of gray smoke from an ancient and foul-smelling pipe, were playing a game of chess.
Behind one of the desks sat a very dark woman who was neither young nor old nor very interested in the visitor. She wore a serious dark dress that came up to her collar and a more serious, short, no-nonsense hair style.
She looked very Greek to Sasha, who showed his identification card.
“So you are a policeman,” she said, apparently unimpressed, her hands folded.
“Are you here to return our country to us?” said the old chess player with the pipe. The other man grunted.
A year ago such talk to a policeman could have been enough for a journey to Petrovka. It was still not the safest thing to do even in a mad world, but Sasha was too tired for such games.
“I’m looking for some men and a woman,” he said, addressing the woman behind the desk. “Possibly a group of young people and an older man. Turkistanis who may have some knowledge of a crime.”
“Not much to go on,” the woman said.
Sasha suddenly felt like a schoolchild in front of his teacher. Yes, the woman looked like a teacher.
“If these people commit a crime, your cause will be set back,” Sasha tried.
Both old men laughed, and the one who had spoken before removed the pipe from his mouth and spoke again. “A cause that has gotten nowhere cannot be set back.”
“It can be destroyed,” said Sasha.
“Threats?” said the old man, now looking up from the board.
“Play,” said the other man irritably. “Play the game. Mind your business, Ivan.”
“No threats,” Sasha said, holding up his hands and smiling boyishly.
“We know of no one like that,” said the woman.
“They may have killed a man yesterday,” Sasha pressed on, feeling that the woman did know something, did have an idea. That possibility woke him, made him alert.
“Unfortunate,” said the woman. “I have much work to do here. If you would please leave, I would-”
“A name, a name from any of you,” Sasha said. “No one will know where I got it, and the police would be in your debt.”
“In our debt?” the old man named Ivan said. “How much in our debt?”
“We cannot pay for information,” Sasha said, turning to the old man, who made a move that the other old man quickly pounced upon.
“A permit to hold a meeting,” Ivan said.
“Ivan,” the woman behind the desk warned.
“Donkey shit,” said Ivan, pointing his pipe at her. “I’m eighty-two years old. What are they going to do to me? Kill me? I give him a name. Maybe some people we can’t talk to reasonably get sent away by the police, and we get a permit to meet. What do you say, police boy?”
“I say let me make a phone call,” he replied.
“And I say,” said Ivan, “tell me now. I’ve just lost this game to this, this piss-hill dwarf, and I want to get out of here and get a drink.”
“I don’t have the authority,” Sasha said.
“Then you don’t get a name,” said old Ivan, standing up and putting on a frayed cap.
“I’ll get you a permit,” he said.
“Ivan,” said the woman with a sigh, “you are a fool.”
“And we are going to have a permit,” he said with a grin that revealed an almost toothless mouth.
“You trust this policeman?” the woman said, looking at Sasha.
“Why not?” Ivan said with a shrug. “What we have to lose? Tell him the name, Lavrenti.”
The other man got off his chair, and Sasha saw that he was indeed nearly a dwarf.
“You won the game,” said Ivan. “Now tell the boy who he is looking for.”
“Peotor Kotsis,” said the little man.
“Peotor Kotsis,” Sasha repeated.
“Where did you hear that name?” asked Ivan.
“Where did I … he just …” And Sasha understood. “Someone called in with a tip,” Sasha said, looking at the woman, who pretended to be busy with her papers.
“What did we tell you?” Ivan asked.
“I don’t recall,” said Sasha. “What would this caller tell me about how to find Peotor Kotsis?”
“Who knows?” said Ivan, putting his hand on the little man’s shoulder. The two shuffled to the door and left.
“You’re not going to get a permit for us, are you?” the woman said.
“I will get the permit,” Sasha said, anxious to leave. “I will get the permit.”
“The man on the phone. The one who called you? He told you to look for a girl named Sonia selling flowers on the Arbat.”
“A girl named Sonia,” Sasha repeated. “Where on the Arbat?”
“How would I know?” the woman said without looking up. “He called you, not me.”
The Gray Wolfhound sat behind his desk, back straight, afternoon sun catching his distinct, etched profile. He wore a brown uniform with only three medals, but those medals caught the sun, and their reflections danced on the walls of the semidarkened room. The Wolfhound read the reports in front of him slowly, muttering an occasional “hmm” or “ah” as he turned the pages.
Rostnikov had decided to stand rather than sit, though the colonel had suggested that he make himself comfortable. If it took the Wolfhound five more minutes, Rostnikov would have to sit. The ache would come and he would have to relieve it. He had sat through a full hour of Major Grigorovich explaining parade routes. And then Pankov had stumbled over a financial report. When they had left, the Wolfhound had asked Rostnikov to stay so the colonel could more closely examine the current cases under investigation.
Colonel Snitkonoy put down the reports and looked up at his investigator. But still he did not speak. He put the tips of his long fingers together, tapping them lightly twice. “You know what is happening in China, Porfiry Petrovich?” he said finally.
“I’ve heard of unrest,” Rostnikov said, his eyes meeting those of the Wolfhound’s.
“Unrest, yes,” said the colonel. “It is speculated that the reforms in our country provided the model for the Chinese response. Do you think that likely?”
There was usually, but not always, a point to the colonel’s seemingly random observations.
“According to Engels, all things are possible that fall within the range of scientific probability and the laws of nature,” said Rostnikov. It was not, in fact, Porfiry Petrovich’s operative philosophy, but it was one of the acceptable responses. One could, and sometimes did, get through life by engaging in a prescripted dialogue founded upon clichés drawn from Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the latest acceptable interpreter of revolutionary truth.