It was almost three in the morning when Porfiry Petrovich woke up and reached over to touch Sarah. At first, when he touched the cool, smooth pillow he thought she must be in the washroom or the living room, getting a drink. Sometimes Sarah had difficulty sleeping. She never woke him. Iosef had inherited his mother’s occasional sleeplessness. Rostnikov never had trouble sleeping. When his head touched the pillow he was asleep in less man a minute. He could not take naps during the day even when he worked several days without sleep. The nap would only leave him in a weary fog.
When he realized where Sarah was and that he was alone in the apartment, Rostnikov sat up, got out of bed, turned on the light, and looked back at the empty pillows. It was too early to stay up, to read. He thought of his weights, moved into the living room, opened the cabinet in the corner, and pulled out his fifty-pound iron dumbbell. In his pajamas, he sat on a kitchen chair doing curls dreamily, wondering why he was up.
Unfinished business, he thought. And then he let his mind go to silver, a silver he once saw on a door beyond which had been an old man who had told him a terrible secret. The secret had led to a man who had killed seven people.
The sweat would not come. Rostnikov continued.
Perhaps he should read the section in the new book, the section on installing double bends in sink tubing. He imagined copper tubes curling into the bowels of his building, the bowels of the earth, twisting and turning in a pattern that made no sense to him but that some hidden building had concocted to keep Rostnikov forever guessing, forever following the twists and turns he had … and then he understood.
Rostnikov was in the middle of the downside of a right-handed curl, his elbow resting on the table. He let the weight down and paid attention while his mind laid out the truth.
Yes, it was so. It explained everything.
He put the dumbbell away carefully, respectfully, closed the cabinet, turned off the light, and went back to the bedroom. He would be able to sleep now.
ELEVEN
Yuri Vostoyavek did not tell his mother about the dream of the gaunt man for two reasons. First, he did not wish his mother to know that he had experienced a nightmare and might be seeking her sympathy. Elena Vostoyavek was already too anxious to provide her sympathy to her only son. Second, and perhaps more troubling and important, Yuri was not completely sure that it had been a dream.
It had seemed so tangible, so … and then he remembered. He remembered as he put on his shoes and heard the water running in the small bathroom.
“Mother,” he called, pausing with one shoe on, “in the night, did you call out to me?”
“Call out? Yes. You knocked over the clock.”
“But the clock wasn’t on the floor this morning,” he said.
Elena turned off the water and came into the combination living room-kitchen-bedroom.
“I picked it up early this morning when you were asleep,” she said, looking at him as she adjusted an earring. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
Yuri stood up quickly, his face pale.
“Wrong? Why are you always asking what is wrong? Nothing is wrong. It’s depressing to … I’m sorry.”
“Does it have to do with …?” she began and then stopped.
“Do with what?” Yuri asked, pausing at the door.
“Do with that girl?” she said softly, hoping he wouldn’t be angry, sorry that she had said it.
“I don’t know,” he said, and left the apartment.
And that answer from her son, that moment of doubt frightened Elena Vostoyavek more man the anger of her son had ever done.
Just before dawn, Porfiry Petrovich had eaten two slices of bread with currant jam and drunk a quart of something called celery-banana juice. He had made his call to Petrovka, asking if there had been any reports of break-ins during the night. He did not explain himself to the clerk. He did not have to. He simply gave his name, rank, and access code.
Then, with the receiver cradled under his ear as he put on his pants, Rostnikov listened to the list of break-ins throughout Moscow. The Lentaka Shoe Factory was fifth on the list, but Rostnikov waited until the clerk had read the full twenty-six. He then requested a full printout on his desk within the hour.
Moments later he had Raya Corspoyva, the party representative at the Lentaka Shoe Factory, on the phone.
“Comrade,” he said with concern, “I’ve just received the morning report and note that an attempted break-in has taken place.”
“It was nothing, Inspector,” she said. “A mistake.”
“It seems strange coming so closely on my visit,” he said. “Are you sure this has nothing to do with my inquiries?”
“Nothing,” she assured him. “A mistake. Nothing is missing. There is no sign of entry. Had I been here I would have stopped the guard from reporting. I will admit, however, and I hope this does not get into the record, that one of our night security guards got a little drunk and thought he saw someone. Even claimed to have been attacked, though he couldn’t identify an attacker.”
“Drunk, on duty?” Rostnikov said.
“They have been dismissed,” she replied.
“And that is all there is to it?”
“That is all,” she said. “You have my word as party member, Comrade.”
And, Rostnikov noted, your word does not include the death of a guard dog and the mauling of another.
“Thank you, Comrade,” he said. “You have relieved my anxiety.”
A few minutes before seven that morning, Sasha Tkach had stood just outside the Arbat Metro Station no more than twenty paces from where Emil Karpo had stood the day before when he followed Yuri Vostoyavek. The sun had been bright, the air cool. Though Sasha was tired, he felt as if the world might be considering at least a neutral attitude toward him.
He had begun the morning at six in the Petrovka office checking the computer for licenses issued to flower sellers. There were several Sonias, none of whom was authorized to sell on or near the Arbat.
Yes, the old man could have been lying to him, but Sasha didn’t think so. The man wanted the permit to meet, and Sasha, with Rostnikov’s help, would deliver it if he found Sonia.
He began making inquiries of vendors and received the description of several flower vendors, though no one knew their names. A one-armed man selling shoelaces in front of a shoestore told him of a girl who might have been named Sonia who usually came to the square around ten to sell flowers. By the time he received this information, it was a few minutes to nine. He bought a copy of Pravda, buttoned his jacket, and went back to the square to await the arrival of the flower seller, who might or might not be the Sonia he was seeking.
Porfiry Petrovich did not immediately go to Petrovka that morning. In fact, he called in a second time asking to be switched directly to Pankov. He told Pankov that he would be investigating the shoe factory pilfering and would be in sometime in the afternoon to report.
Since Porfiry Petrovich had not once in the several months he had worked for the Gray Wolfhound offered any kind of report to Pankov, the little man was genuinely grateful.
“I will be here and waiting,” Pankov said with dignity.
Rostnikov hung up. The copies of documents he had made were in an envelope securely taped to the bottom of the lower right-hand drawer of Pankov’s desk. Rostnikov had read them carefully the night before. The link to Nahatchavanski was subtle and circumstantial but evident to a careful observer. Substantial payments had been made to a man named Stylor for “services.” Stylor had, in turn, taken this money for unspecified services and turned it over to a fund to establish a memorial for casualties of the Afghan campaign. Gregor Nahatchavanski was the director of this campaign. The documents indicating this link had been clipped together, making it clear that Raya Corspoyva was providing herself with a bit of insurance, a dangerous bit of insurance.