Stuart Kaminsky - Red Chameleon

On the way out, he checked Karpo’s desk, found a note indicating that Karpo was pursuing a lead, and called to Zelach, who sulked at his corner desk, his shaggy head hovering over a document.

“Zelach,” Rostnikov said, moving past two investigators arguing over where they would have lunch. One of them, Irvinov, was a giggler. Everything seemed to amuse him-sex, food, death. His laughter was nervous and made Rostnikov uncomfortable. He had long ago decided that Irvinov’s nervous laughter was much like that which Rostnikov’s son, Josef, had displayed when he was a child. Josef had channeled the nervous laughter into a bemused, ironic smile. The thought of Josef softened him.

“Yes, Comrade Rostnikov,” Zelach said.

“You did very well this morning,” Rostnikov said gently. “You were instrumental in crushing that car-theft ring. I’ve just commended you to the deputy procurator. You have been noticed.”

Zelach was not sure whether he wanted to be noticed, but the idea of being commended to the new deputy procurator was surely better than being reported for incompetence.

“Thank you, chief inspector,” he said somberly.

Rostnikov stood with one hand on the small desk and handed Zelach the order for the window repair.

“Take this work order to the office of Colonel Snitkonoy. Tell them it needs the colonel’s approval immediately, that it relates to the investigation, that I will soon be giving him a complete report.”

Zelach took the work order and looked at it as if it were some radioactive treasure to be held in awe and handled with care.

“I’ll do it immediately,” Zelach said.

“Good man.” Rostnikov sighed. “Good man.”

And with that Rostnikov eased his way out of the large office and down the corridor. Emil Karpo was handling the Weeper. The automobile thieves were caught, and three other cases Rostnikov was working on were at a standstill. It would be, he decided, a good afternoon to make a few social calls, beginning with the strange-daughter of the dead old man in the bathtub. Yes, it would simply be a social call, for he was officially off the investigation.

As he trudged through the rain, back straight, eyes unblinkingly fixed on the large woman carrying the trombone case, Emil Karpo felt an aching numbness that made him want to shift his arm as if he had slept on it for a generation or two.

Except for an occasional umbrella carrier or person so intent on getting somewhere that they braved the driving rain to dash from doorway to doorway, the lean detective and the woman were the only ones who seemed to be out in the rain.

Karpo welcomed the rain and the ache in his arm. Life was, after all, a test. The body was a papier-mache vessel that had to be endured. Man proved himself, his worth, by accepting the weakness of the body and rising above it, not letting pain or emotion rule. Man, if he were to have dignity and meaning, had to rise above his animalism. An individual man was but a transient vessel. Mankind working together as a united organism had power and meaning.

The police were the white corpuscles of the body politic. If a cell went bad, an intruder threatened, the police officer, the soldier, stepped in and removed the offender. If the police officer were destroyed in the process, he would have achieved his goal, served his function.

Emil Karpo was not deluded. Crime would not stop. Corruption would not end. It was the nature of the human beast. It was inevitable. The goal of the Soviet state was a perfection it could never reach, but the seeking of that state of perfection created meaning. Each pain, setback, and criminal, bureaucratic obstacle simply proved the need for commitment.

They walked. First she seemed to have a destination in mind, but as the rain came down harder and harder, the large woman began to wander, her thin dress drenched and clinging to her sexlessly. She walked, and he followed, knowing he would follow for hours, even days, if he had to. He would follow, wait to be sure, and then end it. If by chance she proved to be innocent, he would prove that, too, go home, change clothes, and return to his office for more calls, more leads. He would wait and wait until he found the Weeper or was ordered to stop looking.

It was almost three in the afternoon when the woman began to move resolutely toward some destination. Her pace quickened, her head came up a bit, and she shifted her instrument case to her left hand. The rain had let up just a bit, and they were heading down Kutuzovsky Prospekt. She had not only moved within the possible pattern of previous attacks but was moving in the direction of the Ukraine Hotel.

Karpo was no more than twenty paces behind the woman when she stopped abruptly in front of Don Igrushki, the House of Toys, at 9 Kutuzovsky Prospekt. She turned and looked directly at the detective. The long strands of dark hair clung to her face. There was a madness in her eyes, a defiance that convinced Emil Karpo that he had not wasted his day. He continued to walk, not looking at the woman. She stood, feet firmly planted, not moving the wet, clinging hair from her eyes, nose, and mouth. She watched as he moved past, looking directly in front of her, and he continued down the street as if he had an appointment for which he could not be late. He knew her eyes were on him, knew she would watch him, wondering, cautious, but Karpo did not look back. He knew where she was going and planned to be there when she arrived.

Inside the lobby of the hotel, Karpo paused for a moment, scanning the faces that glanced up at him. The lobby was filled with people talking, waiting, wondering when the rain would end so they could get about their business or pleasure.

There were more than two thousand rooms in the twenty-nine floors of the hotel, with excellent views of Central Moscow from many of the windows. The view from the roof was especially magnificent, but tourists had no access to the roof. Karpo, tingling hand plunged deeply into his black sling, strode across the floor to the bank of elevators and waited, watching the entrance in the reflection of a mirror next to the first elevator. The elevator dispatcher was a man with thick glasses and a tight collar. He was tall, with shoulders stooped from years of working hard to look important. The elevator doors came open, and the dispatcher signaled his approval for the five waiting people to enter after three businessmen came out, but Karpo did not enter.

“This car up,” he said to Karpo while the elevator waited and the young woman operating it watched in guarded curiosity lest she offend the militant dispatcher.

Karpo responded, turning to face the dispatcher, who mistakenly elected to attempt to stare him down. The crowd on the elevator grew impatient, and the operator continued to watch. It reminded her of two gunfighters she had seen in a Czech movie about American cowboys.

The sopping-wet stranger was the unblinking gun-fighter. The dispatcher was the sheriff whose authority had been questioned, and Elena Soldatkin imagined herself the schoolteacher who would have to step in and make an emotional plea to stop the bloodshed, a plea that would have no effect in a film and that she would never make in reality, because the dispatcher was a most unpleasant man who was also the party organizer for the Ukraine Hotel. So she sat, watched, and tried not to show emotion, but at this she was an amateur compared to the strange, besoaked, pale skeleton of a man.

Suddenly, the pale man glanced toward her, looked at the mirror beside the elevator, and then entered the elevator, room being quickly created for him by the retreating figures, who wanted neither the moisture nor the aura he carried. The dispatcher, feeling quite triumphant, though a bit unsettled by the strange man, watched the elevator doors close and turned to gather his next flock for the next ascent. The massive woman carrying some kind of instrument case strode wetly toward him, and he calculated how many people could reasonably be allowed to occupy the same elevator with her, but he was certain it was a task he could handle with his usual expertise.