Stuart Kaminsky - Tarnished Icons

Rostnikov loved plumbing. He owned books on plumbing and pored over the diagrams even when the books were in German or any other language he could not read. From time to time Rostnikov would drop in on the Detlev Warehouse, a great indoor expanse that had once been a lightbulb factory. Now it was piled with neatly organized building parts, including piping, fittings, and tools for plumbers.

In exchange for the not inconsiderable right to evoke Rostnikov’s name and rank when trouble arose, Detlev and his son, who looked like nearly identical well-built Italian construction workers, complete with dark mustaches and faded overalls, supplied the detective with parts and tools free or at a laughably low price. The Detlevs firmly believed that they were getting the better of the deal by saving the money they would normally have to pay to the police and one of the new mafias. At night an armed guard, an off-duty police officer, protected the warehouse, but the Washtub’s reputation was far more effective.

“We should not be long,” Rostnikov said as the older girl opened the front door with one hand, carrying the bucket in the other.

Sarah nodded.

On the way to the Bulianikas’ apartment, the two girls took turns opening doors for Rostnikov, who moved slowly on his new leg, walking before him with a serious demeanor suitable to the serious business at hand.

For Rostnikov, this building, with its ancient and ill-built pipes, was his challenge. Eventually, if he lived long enough and the building continued to stand, he would probably replace every pipe, joint, toilet, and sink. Behind the walls was a network of metal and plastic that worked like a system of the human body. Water came in supposedly clean and left, usually dirty.

The Bulianikas, an old Hungarian couple whose son had moved back to Budapest years ago, welcomed the repair trio, offering tea and cookies. The girls each took one cookie, as they had been instructed, and Rostnikov said they would all have a quick tea when the job was finished.

The job turned out to be an easy one. The sink, old and cracked, was backed up with foul-smelling water and almost full to overflowing.

“First rule in a case like this,” said Rostnikov to the two attentive girls, “is not to immediately use a plunger or drain auger, that long spring. The cause may be in the fixture drain, right here, or in the main drain, which collects waste from the fixture drains. Or the problem could be in the sewer drain that carries liquid and solid waste out of the house and to the sewer. We’ve had no other complaints, so we can tentatively conclude that the scene of the crime is in the fixture. So we start by clearing the drain opening.”

One of the first things he had done when taking on the circulatory system of the ill-constructed building was to collect a few kopecks from each tenant to buy strainers for each sink. It would not solve any problems, but it would go a long way toward cutting down on clogged drains.

Rostnikov, sweating even more through his white sweat suit, removed the stopper and, using a flashlight, looked down the drain to the first bend a few feet away. He could see nothing.

Then, using his plunger, he created suction and pulled, his neck muscles bulging red, the girls standing back in awe. Nothing.

Next Rostnikov forced the long, flexible metal coil of his auger down the drain. He cranked the handle, which rotated a stiff spring when he hit what he thought might be a slight blockage. This accomplished nothing.

“Next,” said Rostnikov like a seasoned surgeon addressing a group of interns rather than two fascinated little girls, “we can do one of two things. We can use a chemical cleaner, which would probably not work because the drain is completely clogged. If it didn’t work, we would then have to contend with caustic water. So we must dismantle the trap and use the auger on the drainpipe that goes into the floor.”

The girls nodded in understanding as Rostnikov dismantled the trap, found it a bit dirty but clear, and inserted the auger into the floor drain. Again no result. He reassembled the trap and, awkwardly holding on to the sink, pulled himself up.

“The clues lead us elsewhere,” Rostnikov said, picking up his piping and toolbox.

After reassuring the Bulianikas that he was on the trail of the problem, Rostnikov took his equipment and, with the girls ahead of him opening the stairway doors, went to the apartment below, where Vitali Sharakov lived alone. His wife had left him two years earlier. She had stayed with him for years only because he had been a member of the Communist Party, the ranking member in the apartment building, who earned a good living as a district sanitation supervisor, though he knew nothing about sanitation. But Sharakov was now a sullen stoop-shouldered man whose bush of dark hair always looked as if it needed cutting and who frequently looked as if he had forgotten to shave.

He let Rostnikov and the girls in with the air of a man who was accustomed to being intruded upon and had resigned himself to a lack of privacy.

“Plumbing problem upstairs,” Rostnikov said.

Sharakov was wearing socks, a pair of wrinkled pants, and a white T-shirt with short sleeves from which his thin arms dangled like winter birch twigs.

Sharakov nodded. The room was dark except for the light from the television set placed directly in front of an old armchair. As far as Rostnikov could see, the room was neat and clean.

From the television came the voices of a couple of actors arguing about a woman who was married to one of the characters.

“No trouble with your sink or toilet?” asked Rostnikov.

Sharakov shrugged and said, “No more, no less than normal.”

He went back to his chair and his television show and let Rostnikov and the girls find their way to the sink. Rostnikov put down his toolbox and piping and turned on the water. The flow was weak. Then the work began. Rostnikov got on his back and moved awkwardly to open the little door that revealed the drain that was connected to the apartment above. Rostnikov stopped and asked Sharakov if he could have more light.

“Yes,” said the man in the armchair, but he didn’t move.

The older girl found the switch, and a hundred-watt bulb came on. Rostnikov took out his flashlight and a few tools and began to remove the metal plate under the sink. The screws were rusted. Rostnikov would replace them with new ones from his toolbox. For now he needed a careful but firm grip to turn each screw, not wanting to crack the grooves. Once he got each screw out slightly, he put a few drops of oil from a small aluminum can into the space behind the screw head. After giving the oil a few seconds to soak through, he removed the plate and searched the space behind it with his flashlight.

The coupling of the two sections of drainpipe was directly in front of him, a piece of luck since many of the joints in the building were difficult to reach. He had both the right wrench and the strength, after using more oil, to turn the coupling. It took about four minutes to loosen the ring and free the pipe. Each twist brought forth an ear-punishing squeak of rusted metal nearly locked by time and decades of polluted wastewater.

Rostnikov placed the coupling carefully on the floor, pushed the freed lower pipe gently out of the way, and called for the bucket and the flexible auger. The older girl handed him the bucket. The younger girl handed him the rolled-up metal coil.

Rostnikov, lying on his back, pushed the coil upward slowly. Gradually the coil almost disappeared, and then he paused, feeling some resistance. He reached for the bucket and held it in one hand while he twisted the handle of the auger. He paused, pushed it a second time, and then quickly pulled it out of the pipe as a trickle of dark liquid dribbled down, falling deep inside the wall of the building. Rostnikov got the bucket under the pipe just in time. The trickle suddenly turned into a torrent as the combination of hair, pieces of metal, paper, and items of unknown origin came thundering out.