Stuart Kaminsky - People Who Walk In Darkness

“I think I’ll be going to Kiev soon,” he said. “I will talk to Maya. I will beg, plead, promise on the lives of my children to be a good and faithful husband and father. I have no great hope. I’ve made such promises before.”

“I know,” Lydia said, taking his hand. “Tell her it is the last time you’ll ask her to come back to you.”

“She said last time was the last. I’m late.”

He smiled at his mother. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was enough. She stood in the open door of the apartment as he headed for the stairs, eating his ham sandwich.

“Beg her to come back,” she called out. “Tell her you’ll stop with the women, the drinking, the brooding.”

“I don’t think all the neighbors heard you,” Sasha said over his shoulder.

“They already know everything,” she said. “Be safe.”

He waved his sandwich at her and went down the stairs.

Sasha had twenty minutes to get to the address where he was to meet Elena Timofeyeva. There was no way he could make it.

Porfiry PetrovichRostnikov, Chief Inspector in the Office of Special Investigations, was airsick. The seat was small, the space for his legs-one real, one artificial-was restrictive, the ride bumpy, the smell of human bodies and tobacco cloying.

Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov would be fine when they were on the ground, according to the young woman in a military uniform who seemed to be in charge of avoiding questions. She was also in charge of giving them each a bottle of water and a bar of whole grains held together by congealed honey.

Dubious information about the nature of his illness did not soothe Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov. He tried to read the slightly tattered paperback copy of his Ed McBain 87th Precinct novel.

There were two seats on each side of the aisle. Emil Karpo, erect as always, sat looking out the window at clouds. Rostnikov preferred the aisle. Actually, Rostnikov preferred not to be on any airplane at all.

There was no one to whom he could complain. He was resigned. It was not unlike most things in life.

Rostnikov closed his eyes and leaned back. Six of the other passengers on the plane were heading for Devochka. All six of them worked for the mining company. There was no one else to work for. The plane would drop them off at Devochka and then take the remaining thirty-seven passengers to Noril’sk.

Rostnikov had read the folder the Yak had given him. The security folder for Devochka had been prepared by the Director of Security at the mine. The name of the man and his signature were on the reports in that folder. Rostnikov knew the man. He was also certain that Yaklovev was well aware of Porfiry Petrovich’s connection to the man.

“You are ill, Porfiry Petrovich,” came Karpo’s voice through the hazy pink of Rostnikov’s closed eyes.

“The air.”

“Here,” said Karpo, putting something in Rostnikov’s hand.

Rostnikov opened his eyes and looked at the pill in his palm.

“For airsickness?” Rostnikov asked, swallowing the pill without waiting for an answer.

“Yes.”

“You get airsick?”

“No,” said Karpo. “But I prepare for the contingency when I fly.”

“Are you prepared for all contingencies, Emil?”

“No, that would be impossible. I try to prepare for those I can anticipate.”

“A wise life plan,” said Rostnikov. “We make a good team, Emil Karpo. You are logical and unimaginative. . no insult intended.”

“And none perceived. I see little value in having an imagination. Besides, it is not a choice one makes.”

“And I am intuitive,” said Rostnikov, feeling a bit better already. “Intuition can deceive.”

“As can logic,” said Karpo.

“You realize Emil, this is one of the longest conversations we have ever had that did not involve murder, mayhem, theft, or imminent danger.”

Rostnikov was about to say something about Mathilde Verson, but he decided not to, maybe some time later when her ghost did not still stand so close to Karpo’s shoulder.

“See if you can find the young lady. See if any of the passengers were in Devochka the day the Canadian was murdered. If so, I would like to talk to each of them before we land.”

Karpo clicked his seat belt open and began to rise.

“Another thing,” said Rostnikov. “If anything exists on this plane that resembles food, I should like very much to eat it.”

“Would youlike to have something to eat?” asked the man. “Soup? Ice cream?”

The child stirred in the bed and turned to face him.

“No.”

“How do you feel?” asked the man.

“All right.”

“Not hungry? Not thirsty?”

“No.”

“You want to play chess?”

A long hesitation and then, “Yes.”

The man never intentionally lost to the child, but lose he did, and with each loss he smiled and reached over to tousle the child’s hair.

“You want to play here?” the man asked.

“No. We might bump the bed and turn over the board. I can come into the other room.”

“We’ll have to use the timer,” the man said. “I have an important visitor coming here today. I must be out there to greet him.”

The child understood and climbed out of the bed.

It would be harder to smile after this game if he lost or won. It was weighing heavily on his mind that he had killed the Canadian, but the deed was done, and not for the first time had he killed.

“This time I have white,” the child said.

“And I, like my blighted soul, am black. Let us play.”

“Two games?”

“Depends on how long this game takes,” he said, setting up the board. “The airplane will be here in an hour and there’s someone on it I must see.”

“Who?”

“A man named Rostnikov.”

The child had a white pawn raised high.

“That’s the same. .”

“Yes,” said the man as the white pawn went down on the board.

The man looked out the window in the direction of the airstrip.

“It’s your move,” said the child.

“Yes, it is my move,” said the man.

“How didthis happen?”

The thin, silver-haired, impeccably dressed old man sat erect, shook his head, and reached for his tea. Gerald St. James, whose name had once been Branislaw Moujinski, was not angry, though he had reason to be. Neither was he disappointed, for he knew better than to expect much of others. He had seen almost everything in the nearly forty years he had been in the diamond trade. Most of what he had done was considered illegal in the countries in which he did business. But, since he was in business with most of the countries, he had made many people rich and grateful and eager to overlook transgressions.

There was the necessity of, what was it the Americans called it, plausible deniability? This was why the old man, who longed to put a “Sir” in front of his name, was President of Monarch Enterprises, Ltd. with offices in Moscow, Antwerp, Tel Aviv, and London, where he now sat drinking tea.

Were he to turn his chair around, he could see the unimpressive DeBeers building. Gerald St. James had paid more than twice what his offices were worth just to have this view. He savored the sight of the DeBeers building and its underground vaults housing an estimated five billion dollars in uncut diamonds. DeBeers had begun storing the diamonds in 1930, stockpiling the gems to keep the market from overflowing. Periodically, privileged diamond dealers from around the world would be permitted to come to London to purchase “sights,” assortments of diamonds that they could purchase with cash. There was no negotiating, no dealing, no haggling. The dealers were told what the price was for the sight they were offered, and they paid it. Refusal to make the purchase was not an option.