Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [61]
On his way into town, Arkady parked behind the apartment complex by Dynamo Stadium, where a blue militia-precinct lamp on the corner announced what looked like an all-night bar. In the street, a drunk and his wife had a domestic conversation. He said something and she slapped him. He said something else and she slapped him again. He leaned into the blows as if he agreed with her point of view. Another drunk, in good clothes lightly dusted, walked in circles, as if one foot were nailed to the sidewalk.
Inside the station, the desk officer was helping to subdue a drunk who, stripped to the waist and blinded by methanol, was trying to fly, beating his tattooed arms against the wall and leading a chorus of drunks who shouted from separate tanks. Passing through, Arkady showed his ID, not bothering to open it. He might be dressed in odd sizes, but in this crowd he looked pretty good. Upstairs, where all the doors were padded in gray upholstery, a bulletin board displayed photos of Afghan vets on the force. In the Lenin room—the meeting place for political reinforcement and morale—militiamen were sacked out on long tables, towels across their faces.
Jaak’s key opened a door to a room with a linoleum floor and yellow walls. Since a precinct “undercover” room was home to different detectives working different hours, the furniture was sparse and the decoration was anonymous: two desks facing each other at the window, four chairs, four hulking prewar safes made of iron plate. A car poster, a soccer poster and a scene of a world’s fair were taped to the wall. A corner door was open to a pissoir, a foul nosegay to the room.
The desks shared three phones: an outside line, an intercom and a dispatch connection to Petrovka. The drawers held old sheaves of wanted faces, car descriptions and calendars that went back ten years. Around the legs of each desk chair the linoleum was scarred by cigarettes.
Arkady sat down and lit a cigarette. He realized he had always believed that one day Jaak would decamp for Estonia, be reborn as an ardent nationalist and heroically defend the fledgling republic. He had believed Jaak had the capacity to have a different life. Instead of this. The difference between him and Jaak was not so great, dead or alive.
The first phone call he made was to his own office.
He was answered on the second ring. “Minin here.”
Arkady hung up.
A naïf might ask why Minin hadn’t gone to the Lenin’s Path Collective. Arkady knew from experience that there were two types of investigations: one that uncovered information, and the more traditional type that covered it up. The second was actually more difficult since it demanded someone to cover the crime scene and someone to control information in the office. As Arkady’s superior, Rodionov had to be the man at the collective. Minin, hardworking Minin, upgraded Minin, would be entrusted with gathering all the evidence and dossiers that showed any connection between the martyred General Penyagin and Rudy Rosen.
Arkady pulled out the short list of phone numbers he had taken from Penyagin’s Party book. The first he recognized as Rodionov’s; the other two were Moscow numbers but were new to him. He glanced at his watch: two A.M., an hour when all good citizens ought to be home. He picked up the outside line and dialed one of the unfamiliar numbers.
“Yes?” a man’s voice answered, calmly coming awake.
“I’m calling about Penyagin,” Arkady said.
“What about him?” “He’s dead.”
“That’s terrible news.” The voice stayed well spoken, soft, calmer than before. “Did they catch anyone?”
“No.”
There was a pause; then the voice corrected itself. “I mean, how did he die?”
“Shot. At the farm.”
“Who am I talking to?” The very polish of the voice was unusual, Russian birch painted with foreign lacquer.
“There was a complication,” Arkady said.
“What complication?”
“A detective.”
“Who is this?”
“Don’t you want to know how he died?”
There was a pause at the other end. Arkady could almost hear an intelligence becoming fully alert. “I know who this