Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

“No,” she said. “How much do you weigh? In pounds.”

“Slightly over two hundred,” said Iosef.

“You work out?”

“My father has passed on his passion for lifting weights.”

“I am very light,” she said. “And I like being picked up gently.

Especially by big men.”

“Yevgeny Pleshkov,” said Iosef.

Yulia didn’t respond.

“We can continue this discussion at Petrovka, if you would find it more comfortable,” said Iosef.

Yulia sighed. “What do you want?”

“We want to know where Yevgeny Pleshkov is,” said Iosef, wanting to order a drink but certain that he could not afford one, especially after having given Katerina taxi fare.

“I don’t know where he is,” she said. “Would you like a drink?

My treat. It won’t compromise you.”

Iosef nodded and Yulia lifted one thin hand with long dark fin-gernails and a waiter appeared.

“I’ll have a beer,” said Iosef. “Dutch, if you have it.”

“We have it,” said the very ancient, jowly waiter whose thin white hair was brushed and gelled straight back.

“Pepsi-Cola,” said Zelach.

“Coca-Cola?” asked the waiter.

“Coca-Cola,” Zelach agreed.

“Thank you,” said Iosef.

“Yes,” said Zelach, definitely uncomfortable in the presence of this distant, beautiful woman.

“We must find Yevgeny Pleshkov,” Iosef said when the waiter had shuffled away.

Yulia looked at her drink. “I don’t know where he is,” she said.

“I saw him yesterday. He was drunk. Yevgeny is usually drunk when he sees me. He is also usually very generous. When he is drunk he is absolutely incapable of having an erection, no matter what I do.

He was gone this morning when I woke up.”

Zelach was definitely uncomfortable now.

“It doesn’t matter,” she went on. “His interest in me is always how I look and carry myself. He wants me at his side, holding his arm, smiling as I look into his eyes. He has always paid well for this service. Other male friends pay well for other services. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Where is Yevgeny Pleshkov?” Iosef repeated as the waiter brought drinks for all three of them, though the woman had not ordered for herself.

“I have no idea,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. “He will turn up again. Maybe tonight. Maybe weeks from now. I have no idea.”

They drank. Iosef questioned and Zelach watched and listened.

Yulia Yalutshkin revealed nothing more.

“Well,” said Iosef with a sigh as he finished his beer and stood,

“I would suggest that you call me if he turns up. It could mean his career. Our job is to help him.”

“To help him get sober and go home?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And if he does not wish to get sober and go home?”

“Then he may become a very minor footnote in Russian history when he could be a significant figure,” said Iosef.

“You sound like an amateur playwright,” Yulia said.

“Very insightful. But I was a poor one. That is why I’m a policeman. Here is a card. Call our office, ask for me.”

“It wasn’t insight,” she said. “Half the young men who approach me have written a play. The older ones claim to be wealthy or powerful. I can tell which ones are.”

Iosef wrote his name on the back of the card and handed it to the woman, who placed it on the table without looking at it. Then he and Zelach left.

Outside the Metropole, rain was still threatening. A warm breeze blew and the two detectives walked.

“She was lying,” Iosef said. “She knows where Pleshkov is.”

Zelach grunted. He had no idea the woman might have been lying. “She bears watching?”

“And looking at,” said Iosef with a smile.

Zelach blushed. He had done his best at the table not to reveal that he could not keep his eyes from Yulia Yalutshkin. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever been this close to. Zelach hoped that Iosef would assign him to be not only one who looks but one who watches.

The room off the entrance to the health club was small, a cubby-hole passing as an office. On the walls were signed black-and-white photographs of athletes. Emil Karpo stood behind the desk, hands together in front of him. He was almost at attention, a fact which disconcerted the night health club clerk, Sergei Boxinov.

Sergei, at Karpo’s insistence, had sat in the chair on the other side of the desk. Sergei was a former Mr. Universe contender. He had never finished among the top five, but once, in Helsinki, he had finished sixth. That was where a Danish businessman had seen him and offered him the job he now held, night manager of the hotel health club. The Danish businessman had been gay, but not obviously so. He had let Sergei know his preference for men during their conversation. Sergei was not gay, but Sergei had a family and needed a good job. The experience with the Danish man had not been at all as unpleasant as Sergei had expected. Now, all that Sergei wanted to do was cooperate with the pale unsmiling policeman in black and get back home for a few hours’ sleep.

“What happened last night?” asked Karpo.

“Happened? Nothing unusual. I left about one in the morning.

Mr. Lashkovich was here. And the other man.”

“Other man?”

“He came in when I was adjusting the weight machines. I check them every night before I leave. I heard the door open and heard Lashkovich’s voice. He was not a quiet man. I never really got a good look at the other man. But Raisa did.”

“The cleaning woman,” said Karpo.

“Yes, she got a good look, I think.”

“You left at one.”

“About one,” Sergei said. “Lashkovich and the man were still here. It wasn’t unusual for him to be here alone and lock the door when he left. He was a very influential man and I was told to do what he wanted done.”

“So Raisa and the two men were here alone for a while?”

“Yes, but Raisa was almost finished and probably left shortly after I did. Am I going to lose my job?”

“No,” said Karpo. “Unless you have done something wrong.

Have you done something wrong?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“In that case, you may leave. Send in Raisa.”

Sergei rose quickly, almost tipping the wooden chair over. He was out of the office in seconds.

The door opened again but it wasn’t the cleaning woman. It was Paulinin, distraught, his hair Einsteinian wild, his glasses slipping dangerously. He had come to the hotel at Karpo’s request to examine the pool and the shower and anyplace else where he might find even a trace of evidence.

Though he far preferred to work in his subbasement in Petrovka, the challenge of a crime scene intrigued him almost as much as the viscera of a corpse.

“I just called Petrovka,” Paulinin said, breathing quickly.

“They’ve taken the body, Lashkovich, turned it over to the. . the Tatar gang. I wasn’t finished with it. They’re going to bury him tomorrow. How can I check the evidence I gather here against the corpse if I have no corpse?”

“Who ordered the release of the corpse?” asked Karpo.

“Rostnikov, Porfiry Petrovich himself,” said Paulinin. “Is he mad? How can he take my corpse before I’m finished with it? There was so much more to learn. I was just getting to know him. He was just really beginning to speak to me.”

“Learn what you can here,” said Karpo. “Then we will take time for tea and biscuits. If Chief Inspector Rostnikov gave them the body, I am sure he had good reason.”

Paulinin calmed a bit, brushed back his hair, and adjusted his glasses. Tea and biscuits with the man he considered his only friend was calming, but not quite enough. “Porfiry Petrovich has gone mad,” Paulinin said, leaving the room with a shake of his head.