Gregor put his tongue in motion. After a few syllables from the warden, the translator told Yocke, “He doesn’t know.”
“Ask him how Russia can establish a free-market economy if it keeps all these people in prison for earning a profit.”
Gregor looked at his shoes.
“Ask him!”
The translator’s head moved from side to side, about a millimeter.
Yocke flashed another broad grin at the warden. “Come on, Gregor. There’s a story here. These Commies ain’t got religion. They’re still the same filthy, diseased assholes they always were. They screwed Dynkin to get at Yeltsin. You can see that, can’t you? They can’t get away with it if we tell it to the world.”
Gregor’s face looked as bad as Lenin’s, who had been dead for over sixty years.
“Don’t chicken out on me again,” Yocke pleaded. “Think up something that will open up this pig’s…”
But Gregor was leaving. He stood and nodded obsequiously to the warden while he jabbered away like a parrot with a hard on. The warden expended the effort to get to his feet. He tugged his jacket down over his gut and adjusted his tie. He grinned at Yocke and thrust out his hand.
At a loss for what to do next, Yocke closed his mouth, gave the warden’s soft hand a token pump, then followed the retreating Gregor.
Going down the corridor Yocke demanded, “What did you tell that fat screw?”
“Screw? What is a screw?”
“A prison guard. A power pervert.”
Gregor gave Yocke a look that was about an equal mixture of contempt and amazement and kept walking.
Outside in the street, Gregor exploded. “You can’t talk to a powerful person like you did in there. This is Butyrskaya! Are you insane? Do you know nothing?” He sprayed saliva.
“My newspaper sent me to get a story,” Yocke snarled. “That asshole was lying! He didn’t even look at the records. What a crock! You people have held your nose so long that you can’t smell shit when you’re in it up to your ears. You’ve been fucked by these people for seventy-five years because you bent over and grabbed your ankles and held the position. You gutless wonders will—”
Gregor spit at Yocke’s feet. “You are a little boy throwing pebbles at a great bear. The chain holding the bear is very rusty, very weak. If you arouse him you will end up in his belly and no one at your rich newspaper in Washington USA will ever know what became of you.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. You will be gone. You and your dirty words and stupid questions and your notebook where you write your words making fun of us. Gone forever, Mister Jack Yocke. Think about that if you have any brains to think with.”
They went to Gregor’s tiny Soviet sedan and shoehorned themselves in. Sitting there with his knees jammed against the dashboard, Yocke said, “Why don’t you drop the krulak act and stop feeding me bullshit?”
“Why don’t you stop acting like stupid Yankee billionaire looking down his nose?”
“I will if you will.”
Gregor inserted his key in the ignition, then glanced sideways at Yocke. “Standing in Soviet Square while gunmen shoot bullets was the most grotesque”—he had to search for words—“the most dumbest stupid thing I have ever in my life seen. Everyone ran because those who shoot don’t want anyone to see their faces. We stupid Russians think of that real quick.” He bobbed his head once and snapped his fingers. “Even if stray bullets don’t kill you the gunmen will if you stand there like you are watching old men play chess. And you hung there on the side of the speaker’s platform, an ape in the zoo. You weren’t shot — a miracle, like an immaculate conception. Truly there is a God and he looks after grotesque stupidly Americans.”
Jack Yocke’s embarrassment showed on his face. “Well, that was sorta…”
Gregor pointed at the prison. “In there, you shot your mouth.”
“Shot my mouth off.”
“Yes. Off. Shot mouth off. Can warden speak English?” Gregor shrugged grandly. “Was the office bugged by people who tape and listen?” He shrugged again. “Can the people who tape and listen speak English?” Another shrug. “Will the warden tell something he has been told not to tell to you, an American reporter to write in your glorious important foreign newspaper God knows what?” He lifted his hands and raised his eyebrows.
“Rub it in.”
“Okay.” He used his knuckles to rub Yocke’s head. “There. It’s rubbed in. You Americans!”
“So what happened to Yakov Dynkin?” Yocke asked as he tried to smooth his hair back into place with his fingers.
“We could spend the afternoon thinking possibilities. He is dead. Moved to another prison. Maybe sick. Maybe released. Maybe in Siberia. Maybe used to clean up mess at Chernobyl. Whatever, for us he is no more.”
“Then why did the warden say no Jews were here? Most liars don’t expand the tale beyond what is necessary.”
“Oh?”
“Why tell a whopper if a little lie will do? If Dynkin’s dead—”
“I don’t know.” Another shrug.
“Let’s try to find Dynkin’s wife. I have her address written down here someplace.”
Gregor turned the key and the engine caught after only three seconds of grinding.
The apartment building was one of dozens in a sprawling area outside the second Moscow loop. They all looked alike, five stories high, splotchy plaster, flat roofs, not a tree in sight. They found the one they wanted because it had a number painted on one corner.
Yocke looked it over and began to compose his story in his head. The adjectives, nouns and verbs came effortlessly as he looked at the appalling, dreary buildings and tried to imagine what it would be like to call one of these concrete cell blocks home.
But he kept his thoughts to himself. Gregor probably lived in an apartment house like this. Or wished he did.
When Gregor parked and killed the engine, Yocke laid a hand on his arm. “Let’s see if we can reach an understanding between us. I’m a foreigner, a stranger. I’m here because the American people are interested in Russia and my newspaper wants to print the stories. All I want to do is understand. If I can understand what is going on, I can write it. But I need to get the truth. I need to get it anyway I can.”
Gregor stared straight ahead. “In Russia there is no such thing as truth. There is only what you write, and it is good for someone and bad for someone else.”
That comment seemed to give Yocke no opening, so he attacked in another direction. “Are you for democracy?”
Gregor considered. “Maybe.”
Yocke frowned. Aloud he said, “For democracy to work, people have to know what is really happening. My job is to find out.”
Come on, Jack! You sound like a candidate for county sheriff. Even you don’t believe that treacle. You are employed by the owners of the newspaper to make them money, to write stories that sell newspapers. To keep the long green flowing they aren’t too picky about who they screw, an attitude they share with hundred-dollar, have-a-nice-day hookers. Now that is truth as red, white and blue as a Harley tattoo.
“This isn’t America,” Gregor explained patiently, damn him!
The reporter grasped his door handle and pulled. “It’s a hell of a lot closer than you think,” he muttered through clenched teeth.
Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington sat in General Yakolev’s car in the alley behind KGB Headquarters while they waited for the driver to return the keys. Toad was in the front beside the driver’s seat. He stared at the cut-stone walls morosely. Herb Tenney was in the belly of the beast and that was a good place for him, he told himself. Unfortunately Herb would be out dancing in the sunbeams in about an hour.