William Ryan: The Holy Thief

“I know what time it is, Grigoriy Denisovich,” Korolev said. “I had to visit Staff Colonel Gregorin at the Lubianka. He kept me waiting. Would you like me to give you his telephone number so that you can check?”

Looking down, he noticed that moths had been at his sleeve over the summer. He rubbed the chewed fabric and sat down at his desk, placing his fur hat in the bottom drawer where it belonged. He turned on his reading light and began to look through the papers in the file he was due to forward to the procurator’s office later that day, but paused as he became aware of the strange silence that had fallen over the room.

“Comrades?” Korolev asked, looking up. The other investigators were staring at him in open-mouthed fascination, a mixture of terror and pity on their faces. Larinin was wiping sweat from his hairless scalp with his shirt sleeve.

“The Lubianka, Alexei Dmitriyevich?” Junior Lieutenant Ivan Ivanovich Semionov said. Semionov was the youngest of the investigators, only twenty-two, although sometimes, as now, he seemed even younger. He resembled a Komsomol poster boy with his floppy blond hair, almost feminine good looks and straightforward demeanor. Semionov had only been with them for two months-most of it spent assisting Korolev with simple tasks and learning the ropes-and had yet to learn when not to say what was on his mind.

“Yes, Ivan Ivanovich,” Korolev replied. “Comrade Gregorin wants me to give a lecture to the final-year cadets at the NKVD Higher School.”

The three men relaxed. Larinin’s pasty face seemed suddenly a little less pasty, Semionov smiled and Dmitry Alexandrovich Yasimov, a wiry fellow of Korolev’s age with a professor’s face and a cynical wit, leaned back in his chair, wincing as the movement stretched a stomach wound, and pulled at the end of his thin, barbered mustache.

“So, Lyoshka, that’s why you’re wearing the uniform. I suppose we thought there might be some other reason. It’s rare to see you in one.” Yasimov used the familiar form of Korolev’s name, as was his right after twelve years of working and drinking with him. Korolev looked at the chewed sleeve and scowled. It was true; he preferred to wear civilian clothes. Nothing stopped a citizen confiding in an investigator more surely than a brown uniform, in his opinion at least.

“It needed an outing, mind you. Look at this-the damned moths have been at it.”

“And it looks a little tighter now. Putting on weight, are you?” Yasimov’s eyes twinkled and Korolev smiled, the old saber scar that ran along his jaw drawing his left eye to the side and giving him a dreamy look, accentuated by the way his eyes lurked indistinctly under his thick eyebrows. Yasimov would joke that Korolev’s eyes seemed always to be focused on his dinner. But Korolev, while acknowledging an element of truth in the assertion, thought that this dreamy quality made people trust him, and that was certainly useful in their line of work.

“Muscle, Dmitry. I’ve been in training. Keeps me sharp, stops old ladies from stabbing me.”

Semionov snorted behind a hastily opened file and Larinin forgot his troubles enough to laugh openly. Even Yasimov had to smile as he rubbed at the spot where an elderly woman had placed the business end of a pair of scissors when he’d tried to help her across the street. It was the uniform, she’d told them later, and Korolev hadn’t been surprised; uniforms made people nervous these days. She’d thought Yasimov was going to arrest her, even though she’d done nothing wrong, and Korolev had had to lift her gently by the arms to stop her puncturing Yasimov for a second time. Even the innocent were jumping at shadows these days, and she’d just happened to have a pair of scissors in her fist when she did so. Korolev tried not to laugh, but to get the better of his friend was such a rare event that he had to put his hand in front of his mouth. Yasimov shook his head in admonishment.

“Very funny. But yes, I’m following your example now, Lyoshka. Strictly plain clothes after that experience. Anyway, tell us, if you’re passing on your wisdom to young Chekists, on what subject will you be exhibiting your pedagogical abilities?”

Korolev had found the file he was looking for and now it lay open in front of him; the perpetrator’s arrest photograph staring up at him, bruises dark on his pale young face. It hadn’t been a pleasant case, but still he felt his conscience shy at the sight of the man’s battered features. Korolev hadn’t been in the room when they’d roughed the youth up, and he couldn’t really condemn the uniforms who’d done it-they each had sisters and daughters, after all. Nonetheless, punishment was best left to the People’s Courts-otherwise things would be no better than before the Revolution.

Distracted by the photograph, he wasn’t really paying attention to Yasimov and when he looked up he cursed under his breath, half-smiling, seeing that Semionov and even Larinin had warmed to the game.

“Come on, Comrade,” Yasimov said, “it’s a great honor. You must share the news with your fellow workers. In what area of expertise are you so pre-eminent that a staff colonel should have picked you, an aging captain in Moscow CID, to address the bright young Chekists of the F. E. Dzerzhinsky Higher School of State Security? The cream of Soviet youth, no less. Even our boy hero here wouldn’t get a look in with that lot.”

He nodded his head toward Semionov, who smiled good-naturedly. The three of them waited for Korolev’s answer, knowing it already.

“Case file management, you rat,” Korolev said in a rush, unable to stop a smile at his own expense. He was rewarded with a burst of laughter from the other three men.

“A worthy topic, Alexei,” Yasimov said, pleased that the natural order of things had been re-established. “The little Chekists will learn a thing or two from an old hand like you.”

“I hope so, Dimka, although I’m surprised they didn’t think to ask you to give a lecture on self-defense.”

Yasimov wagged a warning finger at Korolev, who was somewhat surprised himself to score off his friend twice in the same morning. Semionov was coughing behind his file and Larinin was looking for something in his bottom drawer, shoulders heaving. Yasimov was about to respond when a loud crash echoed up the stairwell. It sounded like a former General Commissar of State Security’s statue collapsing to the floor and breaking into several pieces, blankets notwithstanding. In the silence that followed the four of them looked at each other. The noise was a reminder, particularly to Larinin, that now was the time for results, not for idle laughter. Soon the only sounds in the room were the rustle of pages being turned in case files and the scratch of Soviet-made nibs against Soviet-made paper. Comrade Stalin looked down on them with approval.

It was Korolev’s habit to review every page of his case file before it went to the procurator’s office. On the one hand, the purpose of the exercise was to ensure the file contained everything the procurator’s office needed to ensure a successful conviction, but Korolev also performed the task to see if he could identify anything he’d missed in the course of the investigation that, with hindsight, might have brought the matter to a close sooner. It was a practice that often yielded interesting results and was never entirely a waste of time. Sometimes Korolev found patterns of behavior repeating themselves that he found intriguing and stored away for future reference. Now, as he looked at the student Voroshilov’s photograph, Korolev wondered whether the rapist would ever have committed his crimes if he’d stayed in the small town near Smolensk where he’d grown up. Obviously, he must have had an inclination toward this kind of violence, but, perhaps, if he hadn’t been sent to study in Moscow, he might have settled down, married a nice girl and contributed usefully to society. Instead, when he’d been accepted at one of the new Moscow engineering academies, he’d discovered the anonymity, and opportunity, at the heart of a Soviet city in transition, where people, buildings and even entire neighborhoods were in a constant state of flux. Workers coming and going, factories opening, new construction projects: the development of Moscow into a capital worthy of the great Soviet Revolution had given young Voroshilov the space and opportunity to rape six young women over a four-week period, and he’d taken advantage.