Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

The dog suddenly grew quiet.

“Good,” said Rostnikov, putting the dog at his left side. “Be reasonable and you will survive.”

The dog, however, let out a growl and sank its teeth into Rostnikov’s leg. His teeth and jaws suddenly quivered with pain. The dog let go and backed into a corner, cowering. He had never encountered anything like Rostnikov’s prosthetic leg.

“Now,” said Rostnikov, “sit and be quiet. If you try to bite me one more time, you will further destroy my clothes, which I can ill afford, and I will have to kill you. I have never killed a dog or a cat or a beetle. Remind me someday to tell you a story about beetles.”

The frightened dog had appeared to be listening, and Rostnikov had spoken to him in the same way he would talk to a human.

The elevator moved up.

Porfiry Petrovich took three steps across the ascending elevator and leaned over to examine Elena’s shoulder.

“We need towels,” he said. “You will need a tetanus injection and some stitches.”

“How, why are you here?” Elena said painfully as she stood.

“To save your life,” he said. “An informant overheard two men talking in a booth of a restaurant. That is the informant’s job. The two men were talking about killing you. I came here to get you out and maybe Sasha.”

“Your timing was perfect,” Elena said after biting her lower lip to keep away the pain.

“Not really,” said Rostnikov. “I was following you when you went out for coffee. When you returned here, a man got out of a car with the dog. I moved as quickly as I could but I couldn’t get to the dog quickly enough. The man said ‘Kill’ and pointed at you as you stepped into the elevator, and then the man stepped outside.

I got to the elevator just in time to get my hands on the closing door. The rest you know.”

“Let’s get Sasha and leave,” said Elena.

The elevator came to a stop at the floor of the suite.

“I may have an alternative idea,” said Rostnikov, looking back at the dog which had crept forward on its belly. “Back,” he said firmly.

The dog slunk back, not wanting the clamp of the man’s fingers around his neck or the taste and texture of the strange leg. By now the dog was firmly convinced that the man was completely made of plastic and metal and could not be hurt.

The elevator door slid open.

Awkwardly but gently, Rostnikov helped Elena out of the elevator and reached back in to press the button for the first floor. The dog looked up at Rostnikov and Elena as the door slid closed and the bloody elevator started down with the dog inside.

“You said you have an alternate idea?” said Elena as Rostnikov lifted her in his arms and asked her which room was hers and Sasha’s.

“Yes,” said Rostnikov. “I’m afraid you are going to have to die.”

“I don’t understand,” said the confused young man in uniform and helmet, weapon at his side, helmet strap digging deeply into his chin.

They were standing outside of Yulia Yalutshkin’s apartment.

Zelach had been sent down to the lobby. Iosef had checked the bedroom. Yulia was gone. It was clear that someone had slept in the bed besides the woman. The bed was still slightly warm and there were a few dark hairs between the sheets, possibly pubic hairs.

“A man came out of this apartment while you stood guard,” said Iosef, trying to remain calm. “And the woman is gone.”

“No man came out,” the young policeman said. “And she didn’t. . I thought she was. .”

“What happened?” asked Iosef.

“She asked me to come in,” the policeman said. “She needed someone to help her button the back of her dress.”

“So you went into her bedroom?”

“For an instant. I could see her the entire time.”

Zelach reappeared, panting, and said, “The doorman saw Pleshkov and the woman leaving the building about ten minutes ago.”

“Your name, Officer,” asked Iosef.

“Nikita Sergeivich Kotiansko,” the young, bewildered man said, looking at the closed door.

“How long have you been a police officer?”

“Six weeks,” Kotiansko said.

Actually, Iosef knew it wasn’t a matter of experience as much as common sense. Nikita had neither tool to fall back on.

“How did she get out? We can assume Pleshkov was hiding in the living room and hurried out when you went into the bedroom, but how did she get away?”

Zelach and Iosef waited for an answer.

“It must have been when she asked me to pick a different dress out of her closet. I couldn’t button the dress. The holes were too small. She said she was going to get something to drink.”

“So she wasn’t wearing anything,” said Iosef.

Nikita stood at attention, not looking at the two inspectors.

“Very little,” said the policeman. “I didn’t think she would run away. This is her apartment. She had no clothes on.”

“She almost certainly had a dress hidden in the living room,”

said Iosef.

Though he said and showed nothing, Zelach thought his partner was amazingly clever.

“Did she touch you, Nikita Sergeivich?” asked Iosef calmly.

“Once, my cheek,” said the policeman. “Said I should look for something in the closet I liked. She touched my cheek. I could smell her perfume. What will happen to me?”

“Go up to the roof,” said Iosef. “You’ll find a shed with some evidence. Touch nothing. Guard it. Hope that it rains and you get very wet so I feel sorry for you.”

“Yes, Inspector,” said the young man.

Nikita Sergeivich Kotiansko moved very quickly.

Viktor Petrov was as dedicated to his work as a hotel security guard as he had been dedicated to his work as a police sergeant before his wounding. Viktor was thirty-three years old and lucky to be alive. He had been involved in a shoot-out seven years earlier when he had just made sergeant. Three young boys were caught inside of a store where they were cleaning out its contents. Petrov had been shot by a fourteen-year-old. Death had seemed certain, but almost miraculously he had survived his chest wound. Petrov, recovering in the hospital, had been visited by the minister of the interior himself and given a medal. He was then told that he had a collapsed and unfixable lung and, therefore, would be honorably retired with a pension. The pension, he knew, was not enough to feed, clothe, and shelter himself, his wife, and their then infant son.

Though he told no one, Petrov had no desire to return to duty following his shooting. He was afraid because he was a young man in a job growing more dangerous. He had been given an honorable escape.

Petrov had drifted from job to job. For almost a year he was on the security staff of the Bolshoi Theater. The job paid poorly and the hours were terrible but there were perks, including food from various company parties, mainly for wealthy foreigners.

But Petrov’s wife had grown ill with a disease of weariness the doctor called chronic fatigue syndrome, which he said could not be cured. Petrov’s wife couldn’t work.

So Viktor Petrov moved on to a job that paid much more. He became, as his father had been, a waiter. For a year he had waited tables at a private club. After being a policeman, however, he found it humiliating to be an anonymous figure to loud men and over-dressed women. He found it humiliating to constantly be saying

“thank you very much” for tips he had earned.

And so, Viktor had found, through a friend who was not only still a policeman but now a captain, the job of security guard at the Leningradskaya Hotel. The hotel was one of the seven huge concrete monstrosities built on Stalin’s orders in the 1950s. Some found the hotel strangely beautiful. Others pronounced it a hideous tower whose rooms should be reserved for visiting mad scientists.