Daria Desombre: The Sin Collector

“What about you?” Anyutin asked. Judging from his lack of objections, Anyutin must believe him. There was something in Andrey’s voice that could not be denied.

“I’ll call you back, sir,” Andrey answered, and he hung up.

At almost exactly the same time, Fomin came back on the other line.

“Okay, I have the visitor log. Today the victim had three afternoon meetings. Here’s the last one: N. N. Katyshev. In at 7:15, out at 7:45.”

“Which door did he use? Did he leave through the reception area?”

“Well, yeah,” said Fomin, not understanding. “It was all by the book. Here’s the signature, they gave him a pass—”

Andrey swore, glancing at Masha. “Get back to Petrovka,” he ordered Fomin. Furious, he slammed the phone down on the dashboard.

Masha knew why he was so livid. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. They had come so close. The killer could have been any one of the ghostly silhouettes of pedestrians hurrying by.

“He’ll never go home again,” Masha said quietly. “And I doubt he’ll go back to the dacha. Let me think.”

They parked, and Masha spread the map from the cellar across her knees. She peered at the web of downtown streets and at the holes from the pins scattered here and there over the pale-green background. So, Masha thought. Now we look at it the other way around. She started very methodically, one by one, to count off the places the murders had been committed. Bersenevskaya waterfront. Lenivka. Pushkin Square. Kolomenskoye. As she counted, she smoothed over each pinhole in the paper with her finger. She felt as if she were releasing those old names of the streets and squares from their terrible history, setting them free again. Her finger faltered for a moment when she came to Poklonnaya Hill. Andrey opened the window and smoked a cigarette, never taking his eyes off of her. Lubyansky, Nikolskaya, Prechistenka. One remained. One mark, almost in the center of the map, where there were already more than enough pinholes.

Masha picked up the map and held it closer to her eyes. She read the name, then turned her pale face to Andrey.

“There it is,” she said. “Do you see? He had everything ready for us.”

“What do you mean?” Andrey tossed his cigarette out the window and took the map from her.

“A few of the tollhouses, a few of the murders, were missing. I thought that Nick-Nick—that the killer—must have committed them, but we didn’t know where to look. But here on the map, there are exactly enough pinholes for every victim we’ve found, including the murder he committed today… and one more. There was an extra pin on the map, Andrey.”

“And what does that mean?”

Masha spoke slowly. “I think he allowed for the possibility that we might find his lair. And if we did, and found his map, then he would have no way back. So he left just one extra pin on the map, a place he could return to, if necessary, after he made it through all the tollhouses. That pin marked a place we haven’t connected with a killing yet. But…” Masha paused, then went on, her voice flat. “But it was on the list that Kenty made.”

“Are you saying he’s asking the two of us for a meeting?” asked Andrey, incredulous.

Masha nodded.

“At”—Andrey squinted and read the tiny lettering, barely legible in the dim light of the car—“Vasilevsky Slope?”

“At Vasilevsky Slope.”

“You stay in the car,” Andrey told her.

He kissed her, his lips taut, then pulled a gun out of the glove compartment and left. There were fewer lights here, and it was completely dark. A few lingering tourists wandered around the square, on the hill leading from St. Basil’s down to the Moskva, where it flowed past the Kremlin. Masha sat there terrified as the air inside the car gradually got colder.

Maybe I should call Anyutin? Why did Andrey go by himself? Or maybe he called everyone as soon as he got out of the car and the place is already surrounded? In that case, why haven’t they gotten all these foreigners out of the area?

Masha thought time must have stopped. She looked around. This was the obvious place to meet, now that she thought about it. The perfect scene for the final act in this nightmare. The Kremlin wall seemed higher here than anywhere else. This road flowed like a wave, in a wide ribbon, down to the river, crowned on the high end of the slope by St. Basil’s Cathedral. The building was brightly lit, and from here, it looked like an elaborate gingerbread house. It was a favorite spot for teens and tourists to come for pictures, the kind of place where you could reduce a complex, amazing city to one nice glossy picture.

As Masha looked at the wall of the ancient fortress, almost black in the night, she thought about how the history of any city, any point on the map where people have lived pressed close together for centuries, was a history of blood and cruelty. Human beings were pitiless creatures. If all the blood that had ever been spilled on the streets of those ancient cities were to rise up over the cobblestones, we’d all be wading around in it up to our ankles, maybe our knees. And we’d never agree to live in a city again, because of all the cities in creation, only one was free of sin—and nobody had ever seen it. The City of God, Heavenly Jerusalem.

A phone rang, and Masha realized in horror it was Andrey’s. He had left it on the dashboard, which meant he couldn’t call anyone for help. And that meant he was out there alone in the dark, hunting for a killer, who was lying in wait for him in some dim shadow of the fortress wall!

In one swift move, Masha grabbed the phone, tumbled out of the car, and, like a baby bird fallen from its nest, helplessly looked around in all directions. The phone had stopped ringing and she couldn’t see Andrey anywhere. People hurried by, intent on their own business, and she suddenly wanted to take a deep breath of the cold, wet river air and shout at them all, Get out of here! Save yourselves! Instead she let out a short, spastic breath and started scrolling through the phone’s contact list for Anyutin’s number.

“Mashenka,” a quiet voice said then, and for a split second she sighed with relief. Thank God, Nick-Nick was here! He’d know what to do! But then she remembered, and she froze.

He was standing right behind her. Masha thought she could even smell his old-man breath.

“Mashenka,” he said again, in a voice that was at once dear to her and utterly repulsive. “Your papa would have been proud of you. You always were a very smart and very stubborn girl.” He chuckled softly, sounding pleased with himself. “And I very much believed that you and I would meet one day, right here, at the end of my journey. I really had no desire to be here by myself. But I was sure you would seek me out! Fyodor also trusted me at the beginning, do you see? But that night he started asking questions. Before I had even answered, he knew. He knew me so well, Fyodor! We were best friends! Nobody else could see through my lies, but he always knew!”

Masha gritted her teeth and turned to face him. Nick-Nick was standing with his hands stuffed into the pockets of his ripped old raincoat. Masha remembered that jacket. It must have been fifteen years old. Nick-Nick smiled at her, a smile that was tired and sad.

“You—” Masha could not finish her sentence.

“Yes, Mashenka. I killed him. Not with my own hands, of course. The people who had bribed me killed him. You understand.” He tried to step even closer to her, but she moved away. “It was a time when everything was so confused, Masha. There was such poverty, such chaos. Economic, political, moral. I was lost and confused.”