Stuart Kaminsky - A Fine Red Rain

Rostnikov moved slowly still, put the weights back in the cabinet, rolled up the blanket and put it over the weights, and closed the cabinet doors. Then he moved to the bathroom immediately inside the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, examined his dark, solid, and quite hairy body, noticing that even his navel hairs were turning gray, turned on the shower, and waited for the water to turn warm. Hot was too much too expect. Hot had never happened. Warm was a luxury and, as it turned out, a luxury Rostnikov would have to forgo. The water remained cold.

"Yahmm," hummed Rostnikov as he stepped into the stream of cold water, letting it hit his back, his chest, bounce off his head. He took the soap out of the soap box, rubbed himself from head to foot, including his hair, and continued to "Yahmm," pausing only to catch his breath. The soap was a luxury, tooFrench soap, purchased by Sarah for a price and from a source she preferred not to discuss with her policeman husband. Rostnikov didn't care. He smelled the soap and hummed. Rinsed himself off and hummed. Turned off the water and continued to hum for the few seconds it took to reach the towel. As soon as he touched the towel he stopped humming and thought of his mother at their kitchen table. She smiled, a thin woman with yellow-brown hair, and then the thought was gone.

Rostnikov was brushing his teeth when the phone rang. He wrapped the towel around his ample middle and moved as quickly as he could to the phone in the other room. The phone was both a luxury and a reminder of how near the nearest order was. The phone was his because he was a policeman. The phone was his because sometimes police inspectors had to be reached quickly.

"Rostnikov," he answered, picking up the receiver.

"Karpo," came the familiar voice. "I'm at Elk Island. A row of tree stumps cut for chess players. You know it?"

"I know it," said Rostnikov.

"If you catch a cab, you can get here"

"In twenty minutes, if I frighten the cabdriver," said Rostnikov, throwing off the towel and reaching for his undershorts as he spoke.

"We may have to move," said Karpo.

Perhaps only Rostnikov would have noticed the very slight change in that monotone, a change so slight that perhaps a dog could not pick it up, but a change he sensed. Rostnikov said nothing. He struggled into his pants as Emil Karpo added, "I have found the prostitute killer but I cannot arrest him."

Rostnikov tried to buckle his belt with one hand but couldn't.

"He has Mathilde," Karpo said. "And he knows I am here."

"I'm coming," said Rostnikov, and hung up the phone. Although Rostnikov had known about Mathilde Verson for several years, he had finally met her in the hospital a few months ago when Emil Karpo was stubbornly refusing to allow surgery on his arm. She had helped Rostnikov convince the stubborn zealot to agree to let Sarah's cousin Alex perform the operation in his office. Karpo had tried to hide it, but Rostnikov had seen the eyesnot the face, but the eyesreveal an appreciation, a willingness to respond to the life force of the woman. And now that woman was in the hands of a killer of eight women.

As soon as the phone was down, Rostnikov buckled his pants and put on his shirt. He slipped on his socks, knowing that at least the right one was inside out. The shoes went on without tying. He took four steps to the table, put the cheese and onion on top of the cold meat pie, held the combination in his right hand, and downed the glass of wine with his left. On the way out the door, Rostnikov took his first bite of pie-cheese-meat and found it dry and not nearly as satisfying as he had hoped it would be.

Around two in the afternoon Yuri Pon had become quite ill, quite ill. It might have been something in the herring he had packed for lunch; the herring did not mix well with the information the computer had given him and then taken away.

"Comrade Pon," Ludmilla Kropetskanoya had said, a slight puckering in the corner of her razor slash of a mouth indicating that she found it distasteful to say what she had to say, "you do not look well."

"I don't feel very well," Pon agreed and let himself feel even worse. He touched his brow and his hand came away moist with sweat.

"I think you have a temperature," she said, reaching over to touch his head. He backed away so quickly he almost fell out of his chair.

"No, don't," he squealed. She had never touched him. The idea of her touching him with those cold steel fingers made him retch.

"I'm…" she began and then shook her head. "Go home. You're sick. Fill out your sheet and go home. Things are slow. We have the extra help. Go take care of yourself. You've been behaving, I have to say this, like a man about to fly to the moon."

"How does a man who is about to fly to the moon feel?" he said, looking down to hide the hatred he was feeling toward her.

"Frightened," she said calmly.

"I wouldn't be afraid to go to the moon," he said, looking up at her defiantly. "I would not be afraid to go to the moon."

This look on her face was a new one, one he had never seen before, and it frightened Yuri Pon. Ludmilla's eyes opened wide and her mouth went slack as she looked at him. Then the tight rubber face returned to near-normal. It had been a look of surprise, possibly even fear.

"I'm sorry," Yuri said, touching his own forehead. "I must be feverish, a bit feverish. I've been working hard on the computer. It's"

"Go home," she said. "Now. Go home and take care of yourself. That is an order, Comrade."

Orders, he thought. This woman gives orders. I could give her orders. I could get my briefcase, get my knife. Then I would give the orders. But he knew he would do no such thing. The knife wasn't for withered goat tails like Ludmilla. It was for young, filmy women. On Ludmilla he would have to use something mat didn't bring him close to her, didn't force him to touch or smell her. A club, a chair. He thought of the statue of a Greek goddess in his mother's room, a cheap copy his mother had purchased at a market, a cheap replica with a small chip in the base. He could bring mat down on Ludmilla's face again and again and again.

Yuri forced himself to stand up. It was difficult. He tried not to tremble with rage, confusion, and that aching, longing feeling.

"Home, now," Ludmilla repeated. "If you still feel like this tomorrow, you go to the clinic and have them look at you and fill out a report."

"Yes, Comrade," he whispered. "Thank you. I do feel…"

She had already turned her back and was marching toward a uniformed officer at the desk. Yuri shut his mouth and moved to the small closet near the door where he kept his jacket and briefcase. Behind him he heard Ludmilla take a file from the officer, heard them speak, but he could not make out the words. As soon as Yuri's fingers touched the handle of his briefcase, he found it difficult to breathe. He needed air, desperately needed air. He took in large gulps of air and looked back over his shoulder at Ludmilla, who continued to talk to the officer but looked at her departing assistant as if he were a disfigured beggar.

Yuri didn't stop to make out an early departure report. He knew he would never make it if he did. As it was, he barely got to the main entrance, where the uniformed and armed guard on duty watched him emotionlessly as he puffed and grunted to the door and out into the afternoon sun. Two men and a woman he recognized from the Procurator's Office moved past him, eyeing him as he gulped in air and loosened his tie. An efficient-looking woman in a dark suit whom he didn't know asked him if he needed help. Yuri couldn't speak, but he shook his head no and stumbled down the steps into the square. He looked across the street toward the stern statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky.