Martin Smith - Wolves Eat Dogs

"Good idea." NoviRus Security was the last place Arkady wanted to be. "Can you open the bay?"

Light poured in as the gate rolled up, and Arkady found himself facing a service alley wide enough to accommodate a moving van. Dumpsters stood along the brick wall that was the back of shorter, older buildings facing the next street over. There were, however, security cameras aimed at the alley from the bay where Arkady and Grisha stood, and from the new buildings on either side. There was also a green-and-black motorcycle standing under a No Parking sign.

Something about the way the doorman screwed up his face made Arkady ask, "Yours?"

"Parking around here is a bitch. Sometimes I can find a place and sometimes I can't, but the Farts won't let me use the bay. Excuse me." As they walked to the bike, Arkady noticed a cardboard sign taped to the saddle: don't touch this bike, I am watching you. Grisha borrowed a pen from Arkady and underlined "watching." "That's better."

"Quite a machine."

"A Kawasaki. I used to ride a Uralmoto," Grisha said, to let Arkady know how far he had come up in the world.

Arkady noticed a pedestrian door next to the bay. Each entry had a separate keypad. "Do people park here?"

"No, the Farts are all over them, too."

"Saturday, when the mechanics weren't on duty?"

"When we're short-staffed? Well, we can't leave our post every time a car stops in the alley. We give them ten minutes, and then we chase them out."

"Did that happen this Saturday?"

"When Ivanov jumped? I'm not on at night."

"I understand, but during your shift, did you or the receptionist notice anything unusual in the alley?"

Grisha took a while to think. "No. Besides, the back is locked tight on Saturdays. You'd need a bomb to get in."

"Or a code."

"You'd still be seen by the camera. We'd notice."

"I'm sure. You were in front?"

"At the canopy, yes."

"People were going in and out?"

"Residents and guests."

"Anyone carrying salt?"

"How much salt?"

"Bags and bags of salt."

"No."

"Ivanov wasn't bringing home salt day after day? No salt leaking from his briefcase?"

"No."

"I have salt on the brain, don't I?"

"Yeah." Said slowly.

"I should do something about that."

The Arbat was a promenade of outdoor musicians, sketch artists and souvenir stalls that sold strands of amber, nesting dolls of peasant women, retro posters of Stalin. Dr. Novotny's office was above a cybercafe. She told Arkady that she was about to retire on the money she would make selling to developers who planned to put in a Greek restaurant. Arkady liked the office as it was, a drowsy room with overstuffed chairs and Kandinsky prints, bright splashes of color that could have been windmills, bluebirds, cows. Novotny was a brisk seventy, her face a mask of lines around bright dark eyes.

"I first saw Pasha Ivanov a little more than a year ago, the first week in May. He seemed typical of our new entrepreneurs. Aggressive, intelligent, adaptable; the last sort to seek psychotherapy. They are happy to send in their wives or mistresses; it's popular for the women, like feng shui, but the men rarely come in themselves. In fact, he missed his last four sessions, although he insisted on paying for them."

"Why did he choose you?"

"Because I'm good."

"Oh." Arkady liked a woman who came straight to the point.

"Ivanov said he had trouble sleeping, which is always the way they start. They say they want a pill to help them sleep, but what they want me to prescribe is a mood elevator, which I am willing to do only as part of a broader therapy. We met once a week. He was entertaining, highly articulate, possessed of enormous self-confidence. At the same time, he was very secretive in certain areas, his business dealings for one, and, unfortunately, whatever was the cause of his…"

"Depression or fear?" Arkady asked.

"Both, if you need to put it that way. He was depressed, and he was afraid."

"Did he mention enemies?"

"Not by name. He said that ghosts were after him." Novotny opened a box of cigars, took one, peeled off the cellophane and slipped the cigar band over her finger. "I'm not saying that he believed in ghosts."

"Aren't you?"

"No. What I'm saying is that he had a past. A man like him gets to where he is by doing many remarkable things, some of which he might later regret."

Arkady described the scene at Ivanov's apartment. The doctor said that the broken mirror certainly could have been an expression of self-loathing, and jumping from a window was a man's way out. ''However, the two most usual motives of suicide for men are financial and emotional, often evidenced as atrophied libido. Ivanov had wealth and a healthy sexual relationship with his friend Rina."

"He used Viagra."

"Rina is much younger."

"And his physical health?"

"For a man his age, good."

"He didn't mention an infection or a cold?"

"No."

"Did the subject of salt ever come up?"

"No."

"The floor of his closet was covered with salt."

"That is interesting."

"But you say he recently missed some sessions."

"A month's worth, and sporadically before then."

"Did he mention any attempts on his life?"

Novotny turned the cigar band around her finger. "Not in so many words. He said he had to stay a step ahead."

"A step ahead of ghosts, or someone real?"

"Ghosts can be very real. In Ivanov's case, however, I think he was pursued by both ghosts and someone real."

"Do you think he was suicidal?"

"Yes. At the same time, he was a survivor."

"Do you think, considering everything, he killed himself?"

"He could have. Did he? You're the investigator." Her face shifted into a sympathetic frown. "I'm sorry, I wish I could help you more. Would you like a cigar? It's Cuban."

"No, thank you. Do you smoke?"

"When I was a girl, all the modern, interesting women smoked cigars. You'd look good with a cigar. One more thing, Investigator. I got the impression that there was a cyclical nature to Ivanov's bouts of depression. Always in the spring, always early in May. In fact, right after May Day. But I must confess, May Day always deeply depressed me, too."

It wasn't easy to find an unfashionable restaurant among the Irish pubs and sushi bars in the center of Moscow, but Victor succeeded. He and Arkady had macaroni and grease served at a stand-up cafeteria around the corner from the militia headquarters on Petrovka. Arkady was happy with black tea and sugar, but Victor had a daily requirement of carbohydrates that was satisfied best by beer. From his briefcase Victor took morgue photos of Ivanov, frontal, dorsal and head shot, and spread them between the plates. One side of Ivanov's face was white, the other side black.

Victor said, "Dr. Toptunova said she didn't autopsy suicides. I asked her, 'What about your curiosity, your professional pride? What about poisons or psychotropic drugs?' She said they'd have to do biopsies, tests, waste the precious resources of the state. We agreed on fifty dollars. I figure Hoffman is good for that."

"Toptunova is a butcher." Arkady really didn't want to look at the pictures.

"You don't find Louis Pasteur doing autopsies for the militia. Thank God she operates on the dead. Anyway, she says Ivanov broke his neck. Fuck your mother, I could have told them that. And if it hadn't been his neck, it would have been his skull. Drugwise, he was clean, although she thought he had ulcers from the condition of his stomach. There was one odd thing. In his stomach? Bread and salt."

"Salt?"

"A lot of salt and just enough bread to get it down."

"She didn't mention anything about his complexion?"

"What was to mention? It was mainly one big bruise. I questioned the doorman and lobby receptionist again. They have the same story: no problems, no breach. Then some guy with dachshunds tried to pick me up. I showed him my ID to shake him up, you know, and he says, 'Oh, are they having another security check?' Saturday the building staff shut down the elevator and went to every apartment to check who was in. The guy was still upset. His dachshunds couldn't wait and had a little accident."