Stuart Kaminsky - Red Chameleon

“What?” said the man in a surly voice to the perspiring policeman.

“I want to talk,” Sasha said.

“Talk,” said the man without removing his goggles.

“It is confidential,” Sasha went on. “Your name was given to me by a friend who did not wish his name to be used.”

The man stood up now and removed his goggles, letting them dangle around his neck. His face was grimy and his body huge and hulking.

“A man?” he said, slowly getting to his feet. He walked to the counter to look at Sasha and placed the heavy electric tool on the counter with a thud.

“A man you would know,” Sasha said, lowering his voice confidentially.

“My name is Nikolai Penushkin,” Sasha said, emphasizing the surname, which was that of a reasonably well-known member of the Politburo. “My father is … someone whose name I am sure you know.”

The man’s face was dark, covered with grime. “Your father sent you to me?” the man said.

“No,” Sasha corrected slowly. “A friend sent me. A friend who thought you might be able to help me locate a car.”

“A car?”

“To buy,” Sasha said.

“You want to buy a car?”

“Yes,” Sasha said, happy that some progress was being made. “A very good car. I can pay in rubles or even American dollars if necessary.”

“I don’t sell cars,” the man said.

“My friend said that you might know someone who sold cars, very good cars,” Sasha pushed. The man was not gifted with great intelligence.

“I know someone who sells cars,” the grimy giant agreed.

“I would like a very fine car,” Sasha said slowly, as if talking to a child. “A Zil, a black Zil.”

“I–I’ve never been close to a Zil,” he said. “Why are you coming to me? I have a little shop. I couldn’t even touch a Zil. You have important friends-”

“Ah,” said Sasha, now whispering. “But there are no Zils available. I heard that one was … missing and that you might know the person who found it and that the person who found it might be willing to part with it for the right price.”

The big man studied Sasha’s face for a few seconds, and the policeman tried to look like a spoiled son of an influential father. He grinned into the huge dark face and was about to speak again when a massive paw shot out and grabbed his tie. Sasha felt himself being strangled as the big man lifted him over the wooden counter. Sasha’s feet clanked against the electric tool and over bits of metal.

“Idle parasites of the rich,” the man whispered. “The state is being strangled by nakhlebniki like you. Your fathers struggle to make a world built on the bodies of those who died in the Revolution, and you drag us down.”

The man had pushed Tkach against the corrugated steel door, which rattled behind him.

“No,” Tkach managed to croak when the man put him down but didn’t release his grip on the policeman’s tie.

“I’ll give you a lesson your father should have given you when you were a child,” the giant said.

Tkach managed to reach under his jacket with his left hand and fumbled his pistol out with an awkward twist. The giant paid no attention. His eyes, brown and deep, were fixed on Tkach’s. He was about to push his open palm against the policeman’s nose when Tkach stuck the pistol in his face, aimed at the man’s right eye.

Instead of dropping him, the huge man smiled. “I’ll eat that gun,” he said.

“I’m a policeman,” Tkach said, gasping. In another second, he would either have to shoot this innocent lout or take a beating.

The man clearly didn’t believe Tkach would shoot. He had heard too much of the cleverness of the idle rich. The man, whose name was Vadim, though Sasha Tkach would never learn it, knew he was not himself clever, but he had faith in his instincts.

“I’ll show you my identification card,” Tkach said, still holding the pistol in front of the brown eye.

Vadim hesitated, and Tkach, still holding the gun, reached in with his free hand to pull out his identification card. He held it in front of Vadim’s face and prayed that the man could read.

“So,” said Vadim, not letting go, “you are a corrupt policeman trying-”

“To catch automobile thieves,” Tkach finished. “I’m going to every repair shop, every dealer, every-”

The man hesitated, shook his head, and put Tkach down.

Sasha, his eyes still on the mechanic, slowly put his identification card and his gun away.

“If you have any idea of who might …” Sasha began talking through a rasping throat and adjusting his tie, but Vadim had already put his goggles on and had stepped away to reach for his tool. Sasha stopped talking and edged toward the counter as the man picked up the tool and turned it on. The whirring was deafening. It struck Sasha that the giant might decide to turn the swirling blade on his visitor. Before that could happen, Sasha took four steps across the floor, scrambled over the counter, and went through the door into the street where he took in three deep drafts of hot summer air and cursed the day he had ever decided to be a policeman.

When the waiter in restaurant number four of the massive Hotel Rossiya reached for the odd package on the table, a hand clamped his wrist, squeezing feeling from his fingers.

The waiter’s name was Vladimir Kuznetsov, and until this moment he had been having a good day. He had a pocketful of change in tips from the French, Canadian, Italian, and American businessmen and tourists he had served, and in a few hours he would be off for a one-week vacation. There was not much to Vladimir Kuznetsov. He was a thin sparrow of a creature whose needs were small and ambitions even smaller. At present, his sole goal in life was to free himself from the viselike fingers around his wrist.

Kuznetsov had just deposited two plates of pickled fish in front of the two sullen foreigners who had been drinking for an hour like native Muscovites, but they were not Muscovites; Vladimir was sure of that.

The younger of the two men, who had grabbed his now-senseless wrist, said some nonsense in English that sounded like “Kipyur hans hoff.”

The very old man looked at Vladimir but showed no emotion. He took a drink of vodka, pulled the long, wrapped package out of the waiter’s reach, and said something in English to the younger man, who finally let Vladimir go.

“Forgive us,” said the old man in Russian, but a Russian had sounded old, unused, and tinged with another accent that sounded American. The old man displayed no look of regret on his face. His eyes, instead, were far away or long ago.

“I understand,” Vladimir said, resisting the urge to massage his feeling-deprived hand and wrist. He would not give the Americans the satisfaction. On the other hand, he decided not to insult them. Everyone knew Americans were mad, violent, but having behaved with violence, they often responded with guilty generosity. These were well-dressed men with money. A sizable tip might be in order.

Vladimir walked off slowly, with, he felt, dignity. He weaved his way around the tables, filled with people, most of whom were in military uniforms. He paused inside the door to the kitchen and looked back across the dining room at the two men at the table. Only at that point did Vladimir rub his wrist and look at it, pulling back the cuff of his frayed white shirt. Through the small window in the door, Vladimir could see that the old man had forgotten his fish and had laid his hand on the package Vladimir had been punished for almost touching. The younger man ate, but he kept his eyes respectfully on the old man, who was saying something.

Misha Kvorin was smoking as he leaned against the wall behind Vladimir. The two were not exactly friends, though they had known each other for more than ten years. Misha had the sour, sagging face of a pike.