Stuart Kaminsky - A Fine Red Rain

"Paulinin" Karpo began, but the scientist held up a hand to stop him as he pushed his glasses back on his nose, which brought a smile to his simian face and a streak of blood to his forehead.

"Do you know what that is?" he asked Karpo, glancing at him and then moving to the small sink in the corner of the room. "Huh?"

"No," said Karpo patiently.

Paulinin pushed some rubber tubes and a glass beaker out of the way and turned on the water. As he washed, he looked back at Karpo and said, "A food processor. The French and Americans use them for chopping food into pieces so small that they turn to paste almost. You can put anything except solid mineral products in it. Well, almost anything."

He turned off the water and faced Karpo as he dried his hands on his smock.

"I got it from a KGB man named… a KGB man I've done some things for," Paulinin whispered, though his laboratory was almost certainly not wired and the door was soundproof.

"Interesting," said Karpo at near-attention, waiting.

"They were through with this heart," Paulinin said, biting his lower lip and looking down at the plastic bucket affectionately. "Through with it. Case closed. Autopsy finished. X ray failed to show anything. Natural death. They gave me the heart. And do you know what I found in that heart? Do you know what that French food processor and I found in that heart?"

"I do not know, Comrade," said Karpo.

"Gold, gold, gold. Tiny fragments of gold," Paulinin said with a smile on his bloody face as he absently reached up to push down his hair. "Someone injected gold into his bloodstream. It blocked his vessels. A man with a heart condition. Gold. Can you imagine?"

"I" Karpo began.

"And you want to know what I'm going to do with this information?" Paulinin asked, moving behind his desk and clapping his hands together as he sat.

"No," said Karpo.

"Nothing," said Paulinin, blowing out air. "I think our political people may know something about this. The old Cheka eliminated two politicals hi a similar manner for symbolic reasons in 1930. And then various murders have been committed involving the introduction of small particles of metal orally or through an orifice. One particularly interesting case in Syria last year involved the introduction of a catheter into… But I sense a certain disinterest in you, Comrade Emil. So, if the KGB finds out I have the heart, they may ask why and wonder what I found. I will tell them I used it for experiments on tissue, that I discovered nothing, that I chopped the pieces up and flushed them, which is what I will do. I don't want certain people with a strained sense of humor to inject gold into my urinary system so that some morning I would wake up pissing away hundreds of rubles in gold."

Paulinin looked up at Karpo expectantly.

"I made a joke, Comrade Inspector," Paulinin said.

"I know," replied Karpo.

"Why do I like you, Inspector?"

"I had no idea you did," said Karpo.

"I really did find gold in mat heart," said Paulinin softly, turning to look at the food processor. "Now I've sifted it and have enough gold to pay for a second food processor. Why would anyone kill with gold?"

"I don't know," said Karpo.

"Aren't you curious?" asked Paulinin, starting to get up, looking over at the bucket, and sitting down again.

"No," said Karpo.

"What do you want?" Paulinin asked.

Karpo opened the battered briefcase and removed the stack of papers held together by a large spring clip. He found a place on the desk atop a book in a foreign language and placed the stack on it.

"You have a work process report?" Paulinin said, adjusting his glasses and reaching for the papers.

"No," said Karpo.

"And no 3245 approval?"

"No," said Karpo. "The case is not officially mine. Just as the death of the former possessor of that heart is not officially your responsibility."

"Unlike you, I am always curious," said Paulinin. "I am not always temperate, either, or, as you know, I would have more space, more equipment, more responsibility. But am I bitter?"

"Yes," said Karpo.

"A little, perhaps," Paulinin agreed. "What do you want?"

"I have the names of a number of people on these lists with some information about each of them," Karpo explained. "Each person should be in the central computer file with more data. I cannot have access to the computer without a case report. In addition, I do not know how to program for the answers I need."

"And you want me to…?" Paulinin began, reaching up to touch his bloody forehead. He brought his hand down and looked a bit puzzled by the sight of blood on his just-washed hands.

"Put these names into the computer. Ask the questions I tell you to ask. I want to narrow mis list down."

Paulinin picked up the clipped papers and began to flip through them.

"I recognize these names, most of these names," said Paulinin, almost to himself. Then he put the pile down and looked at the set of false teeth. With a fresh sigh, he moved the teeth and picked up the abacus. "How many names?"

"I've got it down to forty-one," said Karpo. "Do you want to know why I want this done?"

"No," said Paulinin. "What I don't know, I can't tell later. This eccentricity of mine offers protection only as long as I prove to be a creative source of information. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Karpo.

"You need this"

"Immediately," said Karpo.

"How many questions do you have about each of these?"

"Five," said Karpo.

"Five," said Paulinin, who glanced at the first sheet of the pile of papers Karpo had given him and began to make some calculations on the abacus. The beads clicked quickly under his fingers for a few seconds and then he looked up. "Maybe an hour. Maybe two. You want something to eat, drink, while you wait?"

"No," said Karpo.

"Then," said Paulinin, putting down the abacus and rising, "let's narrow your list."

As Paulinin sat at the computer terminal in his laboratory and Karpo watched over his shoulder, nine floors above them the morning meeting of Colonel Snitkonoy's staff was about to end.

The Gray Wolfhound had listened with a knowing shake of his head to Pankov's and Major Grigorovich's reports. Something about the Wolfhound's manner alerted Rostnikov. Snitkonoy was not listening to the reports. That was clear from his knowing nods, the inappropriateness of the moments at which he decided to grunt or smile with approval. His uniform neatly pressed, his hair very recently cut, Snitkonoy was putting on his act. Pankov sweated and didn't seem in the least aware that the Wolfhound had another prey in mind. Grigorovich noticed. He relaxed his back slightly after he began his report because he quickly knew that he, too, was not the focus of the Wolfhound's real attention.

Not once had Snitkonoy mentioned his visit the day before to the factory. Not once did he say anything about his influence, his busy schedule. What was even more disturbing was that he gave no words of wisdom to the trio that sat as he paced. In addition, he had made no lists and drawn no diagrams on the blackboard.

"Inspector Rostnikov," the Wolfhound said in his deep voice mat had been known to carry throughout Dynamo Stadium without benefit of a microphone. "You have several concurrent investigations."

"Yes, Comrade," Rostnikov agreed, alert, anticipating but keeping his voice low and a bit lazy. "The gang of youths defacing transportation centers, the pickpocket, metro stations with paint seem to be"

"The tsirk" Snitkonoy said, suddenly leaning forward over the table, his medals jangling on his chest. "What is going on with the circus business, the accident?"

"I made some preliminary inquiries"

"And found what you believe to be a connection between the fall of the man in Gogol Square and the aerialist?" the Wolfhound said, leaning even further forward toward Rostnikov. Grigorovich, who sat between the two men, was ramrod straight and still.