Stuart Kaminsky - The Man Who Walked Like a Bear

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I was thinking about balloons,” he said. “Iosef was never interested in balloons.”

Sarah smiled. He returned the smile, and she took his hand the way the little girl had done half a century ago. He looked at her and thought that in the evening light and shadow she looked, with her bandaged head and white gown, like a little girl playing a role, perhaps the role of a wise Gypsy fortune teller.

“But Iosef loved the circus,” she said.

In the next bed, the girl Petra Toverinin dozed, a book lying open on her stomach. Irinia Komistok, the old woman, was off somewhere receiving therapy. Porfiry and Sarah were as alone as they probably ever would be in the hospital.

“What about that man?” Sarah asked, trying to sit up a bit.

“Bulgarin,” Rostnikov said. “Ivan Bulgarin. He is gone. His family removed him from the hospital yesterday.”

“Where did they take him?”

Rostnikov shrugged. “I’ll find out, but not today. I couldn’t push the balloon too hard or it might break,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sarah said, sounding tired. “If he has a family taking care of him.”

“I’ll find out nonetheless,” he said.

The girl in the next bed stirred and the book slipped from her stomach to the floor in a flutter like a landing bird. The sound struck something in Rostnikov.

“Porfiry?” Sarah said. “What is it?”

“The American writer Edgar Allan Poe,” he said, softly squeezing her hand. “He said that melancholy is the path of beauty.”

“I think you are tired,” said Sarah. “Why don’t you go home, lift your weights, read a little, and get something to eat.”

“Yes,” Rostnikov agreed, both reluctant and eager to go. If she were better, would he share with her, tell her where Ivan Bulgarin, the bear who had burst into her room, was leading him? No doubt he should drop the whole thing, forget that Nahatchavanski’s name had been given to him by Lukov at the Lentaka Shoe Factory. But perhaps he could pursue it just a bit further to satisfy his curiosity. Besides, he was curious about why Bulgarin was suddenly removed from the hospital and why no record of his transfer could be found.

Rostnikov let go of his wife’s hand and massaged his leg with both hands before standing up. Then he moved to the side of the sleeping girl’s bed, picked up the fallen book, and placed it on the small table nearby.

“Tomorrow,” he said, turning to his wife to kiss her forehead, which felt moist and slightly feverish. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “It takes time. You have vegetables?”

“Potatoes,” he said.

“Find something green,” she said. “Eat something green. Promise.”

“I promise,” he answered, touching her hand and moving to the door and opening it as the last light of day faded. “You want the lights on?”

“No,” she said. “I think I’ll sleep.”

“Tomorrow,” he said.

“If you’re too busy …” she began, following through on the ritual they had established after his first visit.

“I’m not too busy,” he said, closing the door behind him.

NINE

WHEN ROSTNIKOV ARRIVED at Petrovka the next morning, the sun was not yet up. The armed uniformed guard inside the door stood behind a plastic shield, his machine pistol at the ready. His eyes met Rostnikov’s with recognition and returned to the front door.

The sixth floor was not exactly bustling with activity, but neither was it absolutely quiet. A trio of inspectors was using one of the glass-enclosed rooms. Their heads were close together, and they looked tired. One, a man known as Walchek the Pole, was shaking his head no while the others entreated. Walchek looked up when Rostnikov passed and nodded.

Karpo at his desk, pen in hand preparing a report, did not turn around when Rostnikov entered his office, but Rostnikov knew he had been noticed. Tkach and Zelach arrived almost an hour later, Tkach looking tired, Zelach silent and slouching. When the four men met in Rostnikov’s small office moments later, Porfiry Petrovich was lost in thought and concentrating on a sketch he was making of neat tubes of various sizes connected in an intricate pattern.

“Reports,” he said, putting a final touch of shading on a tube and standing up.

Karpo and Tkach placed filled-in forms on the desk, and Rostnikov glanced at them.

“And now,” he said, “tell me what is not in these reports.”

“The man who was found shot, Tolvenovov,” Tkach said, “was killed on a bus, probably our missing bus, probably by Turkistani separatists, probably led by a man in his late forties. If we find the man, Kostnitsov can positively identify him through DNA. The dead man grabbed the man’s wrist.”

“When you find him, Sasha, when, not if,” said Rostnikov, leaning forward, hands on the back of his chair. “To say if is to prepare yourself for defeat. So what will you do to catch him, Sasha?”

“Computer,” said Tkach, holding back a yawn. “Identify and locate Turkistani separatists or those who know the Turkistani community, try to get a lead if it was Turkistanis.”

Tkach was seated in the corner, Zelach standing behind him. Karpo stood in the other corner.

“You had trouble sleeping, Sasha?” Rostnikov asked.

“My mother,” he said, brushing his hair back. “She … we talked most of the night.”

Outside the cubicle the sixth floor was coming to life. A pair of uniformed officers flanked a smiling man whom they jostled forward between the desks, and toward the room where Walchek the Pole and the other two investigators were still seated. The prisoner was ridiculously thin and looked as if he had some disease.

Rostnikov grunted and looked at Karpo.

“I believe Yuri Vostoyavek and a young girl are planning to murder Andrei Morchov,” Karpo said.

Zelach shuffled in his corner and Rostnikov picked up Karpo’s report. There was nothing about a conspiracy to commit murder in the report because, as Karpo had just said, he “believed” but did not know. He would not put his beliefs in a report, only his certainties. Besides, if his beliefs seemed to be well founded, the case would be taken from the Wolfhound’s investigative team. As it was, Karpo was only investigating the probable hysterical reaction of a mother to her son’s almost certainly innocent comment. By the same token, Tkach was investigating the disappearance of a bus, not an unrelated murder. The bus was probably, according to the report that would be filed, taken by an alcoholic bus driver who would soon be found asleep in some field.

“And what shall we do about our young would-be assassins?” Rostnikov asked Karpo.

“We can bring them in for questioning,” said Karpo. “But I do not think they will confess. It will simply make them bide their time and make a greater effort to have the crime look like an accident. Nor do I think it will do any good to confront Comrade Morchov again. We can watch, be alert, and catch them in the act or just before the act.”

“Just before the act would be far better,” suggested Rostnikov. “Let us try that. And let us find out why this young man may wish to kill a member of the Politburo and who the young woman is who may share his goal.”

Karpo nodded and left me room.

“Very good,” said Rostnikov with a deep sigh. “I am pursuing the possibility of petty theft in the Lentaka Shoe Factory. There is an office in the factory that I would like to examine tonight, but it is of vital importance that no one know in advance what I will be doing. I should like two volunteers to aid me in this.”

Tkach nodded in agreement, and Karpo simply blinked his eyes in acceptance. Both knew that there must be something more to this assignment man catching a petty thief, but neither man would think of asking what it might be. They were better off not knowing, or Rostnikov would now be explaining.