Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

Squeezed between a fat woman with a grocery bag and a wiry man with a scowl and a cap, Rostnikov had managed to read his American paperback while holding a metal pole. Carella would figure it all out. There would be a reason behind the deaths in the book he held-greed, jealousy, love, loyalty, pure evil. There would be closure and a reason.

The Pizza Hut had been crowded, but a well-built young man with a well-trimmed slight beard, wearing a tan leather jacket and brown shirt, had been waiting.

“This way,” the young man had said, and Rostnikov had done his best to keep up with the man who led him to a table in the rear of the restaurant. Three men sat at the table. One, also wearing a brown leather jacket but older and with close-cropped white hair, continued eating a slice of pizza as Rostnikov and the young man with the beard approached the table.

Rostnikov did not look directly, but he was well aware of other leather-jacketed men at nearby tables. When they had reached the table, one of the three seated men, who looked no more than twenty and had the blank look of death in his eyes, stood up so Rostnikov could sit, which he did.

The white-haired man ignored Rostnikov and continued to eat.

“You’d like some pizza?” asked the other man at the table, a very big man, clean shaven, with neatly cut dark hair and a complexion that bespoke childhood disease.

Rostnikov reached for a slice of pizza with some kind of meat on it. The pizza was still warm but not hot.

“What do you want from me, policeman?” asked the big man with the poor complexion.

“Good pizza,” said Rostnikov. “When I was a young man, we never even heard the word ‘pizza.’ Now. . I want nothing from you. I want something from Shatalov.”

“I am Shatalov,” said the big man.

“And I am Spartacus,” said Rostnikov.

The white-haired man laughed and spat out a piece of his pizza, an act that took Porfiry Petrovich’s appetite.

“That’s funny,” the white-haired man said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “I’ve seen the movie. I love American movies. Spartacus, I am Shatalov, the one the one-eyed Tatar dog of a bastard calls ‘Irving.’ Some day I will make him swallow his own tongue, or maybe someone else’s, for that matter. Maybe I’ll have him eat his own eye and wander blindly through what remains of his life. Or maybe I’ll just kill him after he eats his eye.”

“Would you like this civilized or with the grinding of warnings like sand on the teeth?” said Rostnikov.

“I don’t care for civilized,” said Shatalov.

“Very well. I want it to stop. I want the killing to stop,” said Rostnikov. “If it does not stop, my office and I will devote all our waking hours to seeing that you and the Tatar either spend your lives in prison or die.”

“You’d murder us?” asked Shatalov, obviously amused. “Not you, Rostnikov. I know too much about you, Washtub. Besides, I have many friends in the government, many who owe me more than just favors. Listen, policeman, do you think that confused old drunk Yeltsin simply decided to pull out of Chechnya? Do you think he really gained politically by doing so? Do you think he doesn’t have his own small elite army of well-paid, battle-experienced soldiers who could have marched in and ended the life of every Chechin?

Soldiers who are rewarded with apartments for their deeds, not medals. No, Chief Inspector, the drunk’s people have made a deal with me, the devil, just as Russian leaders have for almost seven centuries. Money changes hands. Deeds are done. We give our support to important politicians as long as they hold their jobs, and Chenko gives his support to others. We cancel each other out. And you sit there threatening me?”

“Warning,” Rostnikov amended.

“Then I consider myself warned. Now, please get on with whatever you have come to say, unless you have already said it.”

“Do you dream, Shatalov?” Rostnikov asked, adjusting his leg under the table. He longed to remove the prosthesis.

“Dream?” Shatalov looked at the big man with the bad complexion as if to confirm that this was a strange policeman.

“Do you dream?”

“Everyone dreams,” said Shatalov, running a hand over the bris-tle of white hair on his head.

“But not everyone remembers what he dreams,” said Rostnikov.

“Your point?” asked Shatalov, now motioning for the young man with the neat beard to remove his plate, which he did. Shatalov folded his hands on the table. Two knuckles were badly con-torted by arthritis.

“Do you ever dream that you are driving down the street in a car and you feel that something terrible will happen? Then your car grows smaller and smaller and a giant foot comes from the sky and you look up and it is about to crush you in your car. You can’t escape. You wake up in fear.”

“Not quite like that,” said Shatalov, seriously. “Different, but close enough. How do you know this? I don’t tell anyone my dreams.”

“It is a variation of the dream others like you, other Mafia leaders, the older ones, have.”

“The Tatar?”

“I haven’t asked him yet,” said Rostnikov. “He wouldn’t tell me if I did.”

“But you knew I would?”

“The moment I saw you eating your pizza,” said Rostnikov.

The eyes of the mobster and the policeman met. Shatalov shook his head.

“I think I like you, policeman. I’ve heard much about you, but I didn’t expect a dream-reading madman.”

“The trick of surviving is not to expect but to anticipate,” said Rostnikov.

“Speak on. I cannot stay here too long.”

“You had Lashkovich murdered,” said Rostnikov.

“Lashkovich? Is that the name of the dead Tatar? Is he related to our beloved mayor?”

“Yes, that was his name. No, he is not related to the mayor.”

“I didn’t have him killed,” said Shatalov, sitting back. “If I did have him killed, I would tell you. Maybe not directly, but I would let you know, take credit.”

Rostnikov believed him. He was sure that if he had killed the Tatar, the Chechin would have said so or made it clear.

“I have ordered the body of Lashkovich be turned over to Chenko,” said Rostnikov. “He will be buried tomorrow morning.

In return, Chenko has agreed that he will not seek retribution against you for seven days.”

“That is sweet of him,” said Shatalov with a smile.

“I ask that you too engage in no acts of violence against Chenko’s people,” said Rostnikov. “At least for one week.”

“And why should I do this?”

“Three reasons,” said Rostnikov, resisting the urge to reach for another piece of pizza, which was undoubtably cold by now. “First, because I ask you and would view your pledge as an act of good will that I would remember. Second, since you did not kill Lashkovich, and Chenko, I believe, did not kill your men, someone is trying to start a war between you. Personally, and I hope you will not forgive my saying so, I would normally not find it upsetting for such a war to break out except that innocent lives would be lost.”

“There are no innocent lives,” said Shatalov.

“That is a statement which you can make to a philosopher or a drunk if you wish a discussion,” said Rostnikov. “I wish to save lives.”

“And third?” asked Shatalov as a waiter brought a fresh pizza and took the old one’s remains away.

“If you do not agree, if you kill, as I have told you, I will devote myself to the destruction of both you and Chenko.”

“You are already devoted to that, aren’t you?”

“No,” said Rostnikov, unable to resist a slice of the fresh pizza, which seemed to be covered with mushrooms. Rostnikov had a passion for mushrooms, peaches, and his wife’s cooking. “Your destruction is the province of the organized-gang division of the Ministry of the Interior. I have been given an assignment. I intend to fulfill that assignment.”