Stuart Kaminsky - Red Chameleon

The answer was evident to both men. Of course, the auto thief was more important. The deputy procurator’s reputation was at stake. The killer of policemen was high priority indeed, but nothing compared to a reputation.

“I understand,” Rostnikov said before Khabolov could form an answer. He closed the door gently behind him and listened. He thought he caught the sigh of a single word from the new deputy procurator. Koshmar, the sigh came, nightmare.

As he moved slowly down the stairs, Rostnikov felt two conflicting urges. The first was a sense of joy, joy at the prospect of new power, the prospect of Khabolov’s humiliation, but the joy faded before it could truly form as he remembered the freckled face of Sergeant Petrov.

Since Sergeant Petrov was a police officer, a member of the military police and not the procuracy, Colonel Snitkonoy, the Gray Wolfhound, had to be dealt with. Colonel Snitkonoy was outraged, incensed, furious, and prepared to fuss and fume for hours if need be until serious attention was paid to him.

There was a time, Rostnikov knew, when the colonel had indeed been a wolfhound, had pursued criminals with vengeance in his heart and blood on his teeth. The Gray Wolfhound was a marked contrast to Porfiry the Washtub, his counterpart. Snitkonoy was tall, with distinguished gray temples, slender but not thin, the sculpted features of a Rublev painting. He was impressive, never a line askew on his bemedaled uniform. Even the medals were lean and orchestrated, not a double line of cartoon festoonery but a discrete trio of ribbons chosen for their color rather than their import.

The Gray Wolfhound was indeed impressive, but he had become essentially hollow. The administration of the military police had changed around him; it had, in the course of fifteen years, become more bureaucratic and, in some ways, more efficient. Snitkonoy looked like, and was, a remnant of a past era. The chiseled Sherlockian profile now seemed almost comic, and Snitkonoy found himself being used increasingly as a figurehead for public gatherings, an actor to be presented to visiting dignitaries.

Foreign visitors, at least those not experienced at such deception, left Moscow, after having met Snitkonoy, convinced that they had experienced the rare privilege of an audience with a great and busy man. One enchanted Bulgarian had even gone back to Sofia and penned a novel using a distinctly Snitkonoy-like figure as the protagonist.

Porfiry Petrovich sat quietly, hands folded on the conference-room table, and listened to the Gray Wolfhound. It was still early on Friday morning, though Rostnikov had already met with Zelach, Karpo, and Tkach briefly in his own small office. He had assigned Zelach to a new task that would keep him out of the way, had impressed Tkach with the importance of finding Comrade Khabolov’s Chaika, and had offered his assistance to Emil Karpo, who had indicated that he would do whatever the procurator thought best in the case of the weeping sniper. Rostnikov’s stomach had rumbled, bringing a nervous laugh from Zelach. It had been the only moment of levity in the brief meeting before Porfiry Petrovich and Karpo had to attend the meeting in the conference room in the second tower of Petrovka.

“The resources of the entire militia will be mobilized for this effort,” the Wolfhound said, striking his palm against the polished table for emphasis. Rostnikov had already lifted his cup from the table in anticipation of the gesture. He had been to other conferences hosted by the Wolfhound, and he knew it was coming. Karpo, at his side, had no tea, and most of the others in the room, five of them, had also been to conferences with the most famous member of the military police. Only one drowsy newly appointed man of about fifty with a pink face and round cheeks was taken in by the performance. His full cup of tea tottered and overflowed. The pink man leaned over to wipe the table with his sleeve.

Porfiry Petrovich leaned over to make a note on his pad of ragged paper, a move that pleased Snitkonoy. The note read, “The entire militia running around on Gorky Street, bumping into each other, possibly killing more people than the Weeper.” He drew two stick figures of uniformed policemen bumping into each other and then he crossed them out. The image of Petrov’s face began to form on the paper. Rostnikov sighed and found himself drawing a candlestick.

“Questions?” the Wolfhound said, folding his arms and looking around the table.

“What, precisely, is the militia doing?” asked the newcomer with the pink face.

The proper question, Rostnikov thought, was “What are we wasting our time here for?”

The Gray Wolfhound smirked knowingly, as if the pink-faced man’s question was the one he expected. He turned to the map of Moscow behind him on the wall and began to point to buildings as he spoke.

“For the next three weeks an armed officer will be placed atop the Ukraine Hotel, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Building, the Mir Hotel on Kalinin Prospekt, the Moskva Hotel on Sverdlov Square, the Izvestia building on Gorky Street, all the buildings from which it is believed the Weeper had fired. This, on the assumption that he will return to one of them as he has apparently returned to the Ukraine Hotel. Further questions?”

“Did Sergeant Petrov have a family?” Rostnikov asked, looking up from his doodles.

“I don’t know,” said the Wolfhound, rubbing his palms together. “How is that relevant?”

Instead of answering, Rostnikov merely shrugged. The Gray Wolfhound was not someone he had to appease.

“We will catch our sniper within the week, two weeks at the latest,” Snitkonoy said, right palm to his chest. “This I personally promise.”

“We are reassured,” said Rostnikov, putting the finishing touches to the cube he was shading in. Snitkonoy had made such promises before. On one or two occasions, he had actually succeeded in keeping the promise, though the success had little to do with the colonel.

“We’ve talked enough,” Snitkonoy said, glancing at Rostnikov, whom he clearly could not fathom. “Comrades, it’s time to work.”

The pink man rose and then looked around in embarrassment when no one else moved. He sat down quickly as everyone else in the room except for Karpo and Rostnikov got up. The others had expected Snitkonoy to try to hold on to his audience, but possibly the disturbing presence of the Washtub had dissuaded him. The Wolfhound was the first out of the room. His gait had been martial, determined, as if he were on the way to do personal battle with the Weeper. In fact, as everyone but the pink man knew, the Wolfhound would head back to his office to wait until he was needed to perform another ceremonial public act.

When the room had cleared, the pink man stood and addressed Rostnikov and Karpo.

“We have not been introduced, comrades. I am Sergei Yefros of the Soviet Afro-Asian Solidarity Committee.”

And what, thought Rostnikov, are you doing at this meeting!

“I don’t know why I was told to come to this meeting,” the pink-faced little man said apologetically in answer to the unstated but obvious question. “I think there may have been some mistake.”

“Impossible,” said Rostnikov sternly. “We don’t make mistakes. Colonel Snitkonoy makes no mistakes.”

“No,” the man said, shuffling sideways toward the door and pointing to his own chest with his open palm. “I meant I made a mistake. I … made … I made a mistake. Do you see?”

“That,” Rostnikov conceded, “is possible.” And the man plunged through the door, leaving Rostnikov and Karpo alone in the room. For a full minute the two men sat in silence, Rostnikov with his lips pursed, looking for the answer to a murder in the crude candlestick he had drawn; Karpo trying to think of nothing-and almost succeeding.