Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [62]
The line went dead, but not before Arkady had recognized Max Albov’s voice, too. Even if they had met only for an hour, because it was recently and in Penyagin’s company.
He dialed the other number, feeling like a night fisherman dropping a hook in black water to see what would bite.
“Hello!” This time it was a woman, wide awake, yelling over a background of television babble. She had a lisp. “Who is it?”
“I’m calling about Penyagin.”
“Wait a second!”
While he waited, Arkady listened to what sounded like an American relating a tedious story interspersed by explosions and the popping of small arms.
“Who is this?” A man came on the line.
“Albov,” Arkady said. Not that he was nearly as smooth as the journalist, but he modulated his voice a bit and there was that racket on the other end. “Penyagin’s dead.”
There was a pause, not a silence. With a musical segue, the American in the background moved on to a different story. The small-arms fire continued, though, with echoes that suggested a luxury of space.
“Why are you calling?”
Arkady said, “There were problems.”
“The worst thing you can do is call. I’m surprised at a sophisticated man like you.” The voice was strong, with the radiant humor and confidence of a successful leader. “You don’t start panicking in the middle of the game.”
“I’m worried.”
There was the click of a well-hit ball, a burst of applause and enthusiastic shouts of “Banzai!” By now Arkady could picture a bar of Marlboro colors and contented golfers. He could hear the ringing of the cash register and, in softer tones, the distant chimes of slot machines. He could also see Borya Gubenko cupping the receiver, starting to be concerned.
“What’s done is done,” Borya said.
“What about the detective?”
“You of all people know this is not a conversation to have on the phone,” Borya said.
“What next?” Arkady asked.
It was the middle of the night now. The television’s American voice had a reassuring mutter. Arkady could almost feel the campfire glow of the screen, an international sameness of news that must accompany businessmen everywhere. Once Americans were going to save Russia. Then the Germans were going to save Russia. Whoever was going to save Russia now would bring their golf clubs to Borya’s, Arkady thought; he had said that the Japanese were always the last to leave. “What do we do?” he asked again.
He heard the launch of another ball. Was it bouncing off one of the cutout trees standing on the factory floor? Or sailing long and true to the grass-green canvas on the far wall?
“Who is this?” Borya asked, then hung up.
Leaving Arkady with … nothing. First, he had not taped the conversations. Second, what if he had? He had captured no confession, nothing that couldn’t be explained by sleepiness, noise, misunderstanding, a bad connection. So what if Penyagin had their phone numbers? Albov had been introduced as a friend of the militia, and the militia protected Borya Gubenko’s driving range. So what if Albov and Gubenko knew each other? They were sociable members of the New Moscow, not hermits. Arkady had proof of nothing at all except that the Rosen case had taken Jaak to a collective farm, where he was killed and was found in the same car with Penyagin. And Arkady had bungled the Rosen case. He didn’t have Kim, and what evidence he did have was being seized at this moment by Minin.
On the other hand, Jaak might be dead, but he was not a bad detective. Arkady looked through all the drawers and under them, and then brought out Jaak’s oversized key. Each undercover detective had his own safe, a locked repository of his work. He tried the key on all four ancient safes in turn, fishing for a tumbler, until the last lock yielded and the iron door swung open to the three private shelves of Jaak’s life. On the lower shelf were dead files tied in red ribbon, a basement of Jaak’s professional memory. On the top shelf were personal items: loose photos of a boy and a man fishing, of the same boy and man holding a model plane, of that boy now grown into an army uniform and recognizable as Jaak posing