Stuart Kaminsky - A Fine Red Rain

He stumbled across Kirov Street and was almost hit by a Volga whose driver leaned out the window and shouted something at him before speeding on. The steps of the Dzerzhinsky Metro Station were in front of him. He went to the rail and looked down into the darkness of the station and decided mat he could not go down there, not now. A familyfive or six people, probably foreignwas coming out of the Mayakovsky Museum to his left. They were talking loudly, arguing about something. They headed toward the metro, and Yuri clutched his briefcase and stumbled away, crossing Serov Passage, managing to avoid traffic. He began to walk aimlessly down the street. At the entrance to the museum, Yuri stopped, adjusted his glasses, and looked around as if he were lost. Then he turned around, headed back to the square, looked up at the sun, and crossed New Square Street in front of the Detsky Mir children's shop. He passed the store entrance and moved up 25th October Street.

Yuri was in the wrong area for what he needed, wanted. His moist fingers tightened on the worn handle of the briefcase as he wandered. He looked only forward, not back, and had he looked back in his present state it was doubtful that he would have seen the tall, gaunt man and the woman in the red hat who were following him.

"He's sick," said Mathilde, hurrying to keep pace with Karpo.

"Yes," agreed Emil Karpo, following Pon through the afternoon crowd, trying to stay far enough back to keep from being seen. Karpo was well aware that he did not melt well into a crowd. Mathilde's new red hat did not add to the possibility of their successfully blending into the pedestrian traffic, but Pon was not a man to notice. He had stumbled out of Petrovka, and they followed him simply because he was the first of the three possible suspects to leave that day. They would have pursued any of the three who came out first. The plan would have been the same in any case.

They had, however, almost missed Pon. One of the suspects was an investigating officer who might come out any time on assignment. Pon was an office worker. It was hours earlier than his normal departure time.

"I don't like the way he looks," said Mathilde as they walked.

Karpo shrugged. He didn't care how Pon looked as he staggered around the streets of Moscow.

"Do you think it's him?" Mathilde asked. Pon stopped suddenly, clutched his briefcase to his chest, and looked across the street toward the elevated parkway where the statue of Ivan Fyodorov, the first Russian printer, stood. Karpo put out a hand to halt Mathilde.

"Wait," he said.

Pon seemed to be about to cross the street, changed his mind, and continued walking. Across from the Slavyansky Bazaar Restaurant five minutes later, Pon adjusted his slipping glasses once more and turned his head back toward Karpo and Mathilde. Mathilde was about to stop but Karpo reached out, grabbed her hand, and kept walking behind a young couple.

"Don't stop. If we stop, we stand out," he said. "If he doesn't start walking again, we turn in to the first doorway."

But Yuri Pon did decide to walk again. He walked and walked. For almost an hour he wandered almost aimlessly, and as he walked he sweated, and as he sweated he began to recover a bit from whatever was ailing him.

"I'm tired," sighed Mathilde.

Karpo looked at Pon, who had paused in front of the Cosmos Hotel and moved toward the entrance. The Cosmos lobby was not exactly the place where one might encounter a prostitute, but Mathilde was tiring and Pon showed no signs of ceasing his wandering.

"Now, in the lobby," Karpo said.

"Aren't you going to tell me to be careful?" she asked playfully.

Karpo looked down at her, at the thin layer of perspiration on her slightly protruding upper lip.

"I don't believe my telling you to be careful would make you more cautious. You are already aware of the danger," he said.

Pon had gone through the hotel doors and disappeared.

"That's true," said Mathilde, shaking her head. "I thought of it more as a sign of… forget it. Good-bye. Stay close behind."

"As close as I safely can," he said.

He watched her hurry to the hotel, holding her hat down on her head as she moved. He paused as she entered the lobby and then followed her, moving at a normal pace.

Yuri Pon was hot sure how he had wandered into the hotel lobby. People bustled around him, his glasses threatened to slip off his nose, the briefcase felt heavy and hurt his arm. He shifted it to the other hand and realized that he was sweating, almost drenched.

And then the feeling came over him as it had in Petrovka. He was inside. He could not breathe. He had to get out, stay out, perhaps he would never be able to go indoors again. He almost ran into the woman as he backed away and turned toward the hotel doors.

"Careful," said the woman in the red hat and dress, reaching out to keep him from falling.

"I'm, I'm… I have to get outside. I don't feel so well," he said, hurrying past her onto the street. That was better. Oh, it was much better.

"Are you sure you're all right?" the woman in the hat said behind him. She had followed him out. He stepped out of the way of a soldier in uniform, an officer who marched quickly into the hotel.

"I'm better," Yuri Pon said.

The woman took his arm to help him. His first impulse was to shrug her off, but she was not Ludmilla. This was a younger woman, a pretty woman with a nice smell.

"I'll help you," she said, and he let her help him.

"It's all right," he said after a few seconds of standing at the curb. "It's hot."

"Yes," the woman in red said. "It's hot. You look like a prosperous businessman?"

"I'm a file cle, a files supervisor in the Central Petrovka Station," he said.

"I think you should lie down somewhere," the woman said. "I know a place not far away where we could go. You could rest, lie down, perhaps even enjoy yourself a bit. Just a short taxi drive away."

Yuri Pon turned his eyes toward the woman and looked at her seriously for the first time. She was pretty, or close to pretty, and she was a prostitute. He had stumbled upon her. The excitement welled within him. He jiggled the briefcase and laughed.

The woman backed away for an instant, her eyes opening in puzzlement, and then she returned to his arm.

"What's so funny?" she said. "I like to share a joke with a man."

"I was looking for you," he said.

"Magic." The woman sighed. "Fate brought us together. Do we find a taxi?"

"No taxi," Pon said, taking her hand. "No taxi. Taxis are too…"

"Constricting?" Mathilde said.

"Yes," Yuri agreed. "No taxi."

He suddenly took her right hand and began pulling her with him down the street.

"What?" she began.

"Hurry!" Yuri cried. "We'll miss it."

At the corner a trolleybus stood, its door starting to close. They got to it just in time to reach in and grab the door. He pulled the woman onto the bus, paid the eight kopecks for the two of them, and dragged her to an open pair of seats as the bus pulled away.

"What is?" the woman began.

"Wait… wait," Pon said, pushing his glasses onto his nose with his palm. He let go of her hand and clutched the briefcase to his chest. Two uniformed sailors looked at the woman and Pon and whispered to each other.

"Yes, yes, it's all right," Pon said with a smile. "I can breathe."

"Good," the woman said with her own smile, looking toward the back of the bus. Yuri looked back, too. There was no one there.

"Where are we going?" she asked him in a whisper.

"The park," he said. "I want to take you to the park."

Emil Karpo walked up to the two cabdrivers in front of the Cosmos Hotel. Both drivers wore little caps. The smaller of the two wore a long-sleeved gray shirt with the sleeves rolled up unevenly. He had hairy arms; the hair was reddish brown. The second driver was bigger, heavier, louder.