Stuart Kaminsky: Blood and Rubles

“Good, good,” the man said, moistening his finger and slowly turning the page to the landlord guaranty letters. “You will maintain your business at Forty-five Pushkin Lane?”

“I will,” said Alexei.

The document before the fat man was signed by Alexei’s wife, who was officially the owner of the office building where all of Alexei’s businesses rented space.

Behind Alexei, the line waiting for permission to open a new business was long. Everyone waited patiently. They had waited patiently all their lives, and most of them fully expected that their requests to open businesses would be rejected and that they would be sent to some other office to have their documents “corrected.”

“Temporary registration also in order,” said the fat man, looking at the card before him.

It had cost Alexei five hundred thousand rubles to the lawyer appointed by the Registration Chamber to be sure the registration forms were in order so that he could be issued the card.

“Official police stamp,” the man said. “Code number assigned by State Statistics Committee. The stamp is a bit underinked.”

Alexei let out a small sigh.

“And your company stamp looks a bit too much like that of several others who have applied in the last month,” the fat man said, shaking his head at the incompetence of those who did such things. “Signature card in order and notarized,” he went on. “Three names. Partners?”

“Yes,” Alexei said.

The fat man went to the next document.

“Bank account for the business seems to be fine.” The fat man looked directly at Alexei for the first time.

“We are fortunate enough to have raised sufficient money for this venture,” Alexei said softly.

“Good, good, good,” said the fat man. “Let’s see if we can move this along. Pension-fund papers are signed and stamped, and you have the form from the Tax Inspectorate.”

The man flipped through the documents, once more shaking his head.

“I would like to issue you a permanent registration certificate,” the man said, “but there are some minor discrepancies, words crossed out, stamps too faint. I would like to …” He shrugged his shoulders to show that he would like to help.

“I have one more document that might help,” Alexei said, handing the fat man a small brown envelope.

The man opened the envelope and looked in, careful to keep anyone waiting in line or the registrar at the next desk from seeing. There were five one-hundred-dollar bills. The fat man slipped the envelope into the drawer of his desk and stamped the final certificate that would permit Alexei Porvinovich to open his new business. Alexei accepted the document, shook the man’s flabby hand, and put all of his papers back in his briefcase.

Alexei relinquished the folding chair to the thin, nervous man who was next in line, the one to whom Alexei had given the book.

Success. It had taken only three weeks of waiting and bribing to get the document. He had two more envelopes in his briefcase, each with five hundred dollars. He had been prepared to give them all to the fat registrar. The man had sold his approval well below the going rate.

Swinging his briefcase, Alexei left the bureau building. Outside, he looked at the sky. It was early October. The first night frosts had already come, and soon the first snow would follow. Within a month the Moscow River would freeze and the city would be covered in snow. Good.

It was early, just before two in the afternoon, and Alexei decided to stop at the Grand Hotel for a drink and perhaps a sandwich before he went to his office.

He hurried down Nikloskaya Street-formerly Twenty-fifth of October Street-a street as old as the city of Moscow itself. The street was crowded with people. Alexei paused in front of the Old Printing House at Number 15. With its pale blue facade and neo-Gothic working of white stone, sundials, spires, and the prancing lion and unicorn above the main entrance, it was a building Alexei much admired. The first Russian book was printed there in 1564 by Ivan Fedorov. Alexei was confident that in time he would own this building.

He was looking up at the unicorn when the black Mercedes-Benz pulled up at the curb and two men stepped out of the car, both wearing ski masks and holding automatic weapons. People ran, fell to the ground, and screamed.

Alexei turned, saw the men, started to go to the ground, and then quickly realized that the weapons were aimed at him.

“In the car,” one of the men ordered.

Alexei was stunned. A mistake was being made.

“I’m not-” he began but was cut off by the blow from a steel barrel against his face.

His cheekbone broke and he spat blood. The kidnapper repeated, “In the car.”

Alexei staggered into the backseat of the car, followed by one of the masked men. The driver took off his mask as the car sped down the street, and his partner in the backseat screamed, “What are you doing? You want him to recognize you?”

“I can’t drive down the street wearing a mask,” the driver answered reasonably.

The kidnapper in the backseat still wore his mask. He let out a grunt of nervous acceptance.

“Try not to bleed all over the car,” he said, taking off his own mask and handing it to Alexei, “it’s not mine.”

Alexei took the mask and put it to his throbbing cheek. Then he looked up and recognized the man who had given him the mask. The man’s hair was a wild frenzy and he was panting.

Alexei was certain that he was going to die very soon.

A few short blocks from the Neva River, not far from Saint Isaac’s Square, a tall, lean man in black slacks, shoes, shirt, and jacket stood watching uniformed men pile efficiently out of two vans. At the side of the tall man-who some passersby thought resembled a vampire-stood a pretty, slightly plump young woman wearing an efficient gray suit. They were an odd and serious couple.

The men coming out of the vans carried standard-issue AK-47s and wore dark blue uniforms with helmets. Over their uniforms they wore bulletproof jackets that would have done little good against the automatic weapons that had been circulating in Moscow since well before the rise of Yeltsin’s democracy.

A crowd was quickly gathering, most with nothing better to do, some with a curiosity that demanded satisfaction.

“Terrorists,” one old babushka said with assurance to the plump, pretty woman. No one dared talk to the forbidding and somber Tatar.

The pretty woman, whose name was Elena Timofeyeva, nodded her head. This encouraged the babushka, who shifted a heavy cloth bag from her right hand to her left and said, “Afghans.”

A murmur ran through the crowd, some accepting this conjecture, others declaring it garbage.

“Chechens. It was Chechens. I saw them,” someone shouted.

There were now more than twenty uniformed men arranging themselves at even intervals in front of the ancient two-story wooden apartment building. They reminded Elena of the men she had once seen in an old American horror movie, The Thing, where the scientists circled a giant flying saucer buried beneath the ice.

There was no ice this morning, just the first cold nip of winter.

Elena had taken the number 3 bus down Nevsky Prospekt and walked another two blocks to get there. Deputy Inspector Emil Karpo, the gaunt man at her side, had arrived by metro at the Gostinniy Dvor stop.

Someone gave a sharp command and the uniformed men pulled out long lines of rope with grappling hooks.

Cameramen madly clicked away. Journalists frantically made notes in their pads.

“If they are trying to surprise the terrorists,” grunted a one-legged old man with crutches and a two-day growth of white beard, “they are idiots.”

“Not terrorists,” said another man with a voice of weary knowledge. “Mafia.”