Stuart Kaminsky - A Fine Red Rain

"Possibly, Comrade, possibly," agreed Rostnikov.

"And you took an officer on standard patrol and assigned him to protect a woman from the circus?" said Snitkonoy with a smile directed at Pankov, who shrank back and smiled in return.

The woman was distraught and, possibly, a potential victim of the person who may have killed or induced the deaths of the two circus performers," said Rostnikov.

"They were accidents," said Snitkonoy, standing up and clasping his hands behind his back in the familiar pose of his frequent photographs.

"Possibly," said Rostnikov with a shrug as he watched the colonel begin to pace.

"You will remove the officer from that assignment and you will cease this investigation," said the colonel, pacing but not looking at Rostnikov.

"As you say, Colonel," Rostnikov said, looking down at his pad and fighting the urge to fill in a quick caricature of the prancing fool. The urge was followed by a weaker but distinct urge to grab the colonel, lift him up, and shake him like a toy till his brains were rearranged in a more functional manner or ceased to work altogether.

"You have done it again, Inspector Rostnikov," the Wolfhound said with a shake of his head. "Once again. You have blundered into something mat…doesn't concern you. Do you understand?"

"The KGB has an interest in the case." Rostnikov sighed, put down his pencil, and sat back.

"I was unaware of the interest of another investigative branch when I approved the assignment," said the Wolfhound. "This morning I was fully briefed on the situation. You are to drop the investigation."

Which meant that Snitkonoy knew nothing, had been told nothing other than that he should have Rostnikov back away from whatever he was doing. It meant that the case, which had been deemed to have some importance, was far beyond the petty nonsense the Gray Wolfhound was allowed to handle. It wasn't at all unusual for the KGB to pick up a case once preliminary investigative reports had been tiled and decide that the situation was political or economic.

It was also clear to Rostnikov that the Wolfhound had probably been treated with no great respect by whoever had ordered him to pass the word on to Rostnikov.

"Find the metro painters, Comrade Inspector," the Wolfhound said, turning his back to the seated trio. "Find the pickpocket."

"Yes, Comrade Colonel," Rostnikov said, putting his hands below the table so that the others would not see his fists tighten, his knuckles go white.

"That is all, gentlemen," the Wolfhound said with a dismissing wave of his right hand, his back still to them. Pankov gathered his papers and was out of the meeting room almost instantly. Major Grigorovich moved deliberately and just slowly enough so that Rostnikov might not think that he was hurrying away to escape the wrath of the Wolfhound. Rostnikov took a deep, silent breath, stood up, gathered his notes, and limped toward the door. As he touched the handle, the deep voice behind him said, "Rostnikov."

Rostnikov turned to the colonel, whose back was still to him. The tightly gripped fingers of Snitkonoy's hands, clasped behind his back, were as white as Rostnikov's had been under the table.

"You were in the war, weren't you, Inspector? That's how you got your limp."

"Yes," said Rostnikov, wondering where they were going now.

"I was one of the youngest field officers in die Great War," said the Wolfhound, turning to face Rostnikov. There was a look on the older man's face Rostnikov had never seen before.

"Younger people who have no experience with combat, have never faced death, now tell those of us who know something of what it means how we should react to it," Snitkonoy said. "Do you understand what I am saying here, Comrade Inspector?"

The Wolfhound was clearly apologizing for his behavior during the meeting, which made Rostnikov wonder if Snitkonoy were quite the fool he thought him to be. Most likely he was a fool whose massive ego had been pierced by a young KGB agent who had no time for or interest in the egos of old men.

"I understand, Colonel," Rostnikov said.

"Good," said Snitkonoy with a deep sigh, raising his head and his voice. "Good."

There was nothing more to say. Rostnikov left the room, picked up the plumbing books from the drawer in his desk in which he had put them, and headed for Lenin Prospekt and the apartment of Karya Rashkovskaya, As Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov left the meeting room, two floors below him Felix and Osip Gorgasali sat on a wooden bench outside the office of Deputy Procurator Khabolov. They had been waiting for almost two hours while others came and went. They had been escorted up the elevator and to the bench by a uniformed MVD officer who said nothing to them, did not even look at them. He had simply pointed at the bench in the dark hallway, and they knew mat they were to sit.

Osip had suggested that they dress shabbily, two lowly merchants just able to make ends meet. Felix, being older, prevailed, however, and they had worn respectable suits with ties, though the doming was not new. In fact, both men had complete wardrobes of imported Polish clothes and even some American clothing. Osip owned two pairs of American Wrangler jeans.

They said almost nothing as they sat. From time to time the dark and hairy Osip played with a shaving cut on his chin. He was afraid of bleeding in front of the deputy procurator, but he couldn't keep his fingers from his face. Each time the office door hi front of them opened, Osip jumped slightly and let out a small groan. Both men needed a toilet. Neither would rise or ask.

And then, at a little before ten, a burly man in a shaggy suit stepped out of the deputy procurator's office and motioned to the brothers Gorgasali to enter. The burly man stepped past them and walked down the hallway. Osip was reminded instantly of the moment in The Wizard of Oz when the scarecrow, the lion, and the tin woodsman walk with Dorothy into the lair of Oz. The Wizard of Oz was one of Natalya's favorite tapes. His daughter had seen it twenty or thirty times before Felix and Osip sold it to a Pravda editor for 250 rubles. Osip had, however, made a copy, which wasn't as good as the original but that

"Sit," said the man behind the desk, breaking in on Osip's thoughts of the Emerald City.

The brothers sat on the two straight-backed wooden chairs facing the desk white the man behind it, his head down, continued to write on a pad of yellow paper. The man wrote for about five minutes, reread what he had written, gave the two men an icy look of appraisal, and then placed the yellow pad to the side of the desk.

"Do you know why you are here?" asked Khabolov.

"No, Comrade," said Felix. "We're just merchants, booksellers. We've witnessed no crime, committed no crime. We are honest citizens of the Soviet Union trying to make a living for"

Khabolov's hand went up and Felix stopped. Osip was filled with a sudden fear that he would be asked to speak and would be unable to do so. He was the frightened lion.

"We know all about you," Khabolov said, looking over at his yellow pad. "I plan personally to inventory your entire collection of tapes and machines."

Osip couldn't help himself. A burst of fear let loose within him and released a loud sob. Felix looked at him angrily, but Osip could think only of prison, of his wife, daughter. Had he remained a simple bookseller, had he ignored mis brother who had always ordered him around, gotten him into trouble, he would be breathing normally nowpoor, but facing life.

Khabolov ignored the sobbing Gorgasali brother and looked at the older one with the white hair who might be pissing in his pants but was able to hold on to a facade of confused innocence. The two men before Khabolov were ripe. This same scene had worked well before, in Odessa with the typewriter thieves, and was working even better now.