Josh Roseman - The Clockwork Russian and Other Stories

Her eyes go wide. “I should not permit you.”

“It might help.”

That sways her easily. She takes a key out of her desk and hands it over. “Be quick, John Bach,” she says. “I truly do not know when he is to return.”

I unlock the door. “Let me worry about that.” I close the door on her tear-streaked face.

Ivanov’s office — Vasily Leonovich’s until just recently — is only a little bigger than Irina Iosovna’s. Two people could probably sit across from Ivanov if they bunched up tightly. One wall is taken up by metal file cabinets. I try a few drawers, but they’re all locked. The clock is boring and inexpensive, which surprises me; with Pyotr Leonovich as his brother, I’d have thought Vasily would’ve gone in for something nicer. I’m sure Pyotr wouldn’t have begrudged it to him, not with the way he’d talked to me about his brother. Other than the clock, the walls are bare, with no fresh paint and no holes for hooks that might have once held pictures. I get the feeling that Vasily spent little time actually in the office and Ivanov just doesn’t care.

I go behind the desk and sit in the old but well-maintained wooden chair. The armrests are worn smooth with use. Nothing on the desk stands out to me — the notepads don’t have impressions I can examine, and if Ivanov is using a date book of some kind, he’s not leaving it out. The desk itself is plain wood, sturdy, not ornamented; one drawer has pens and other oddments in it, and the rest of them are filled with used ledger books. I don’t have enough time to pore over all of them, but I glance at enough pages to see that these buildings are definitely profitable, even with regular maintenance and the one at the far end of the property with the non-paying tenants. If Mr. Frieze wants the buildings, that I can understand, but why destroy them just to rebuild? He could bring in plenty of money just by installing a puppet manager.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what happened after Vasily’s death.

The bottom drawer of the desk is false — the handle pulls the entire panel off, and behind it is a metal safe with a clockwork lock. The only way in, other than to break it, is to use the key, and even if I had the key, it’d be useless. Based on what I can see of the gears — there’s a little window so the owner can see how much time he has before he can open the safe — I wouldn’t be able to unlock it until about 11:30. With enough time and the right tools, I probably could break in, but I didn’t come prepared for that.

I get up off the floor and dust off my knees, then sit in the wooden chair to think, to try and figure out how this is all connected.

Vasily Leonovich works for Mr. Frieze. He’s apparently in good standing — he works on vehicles, makes them run better or faster or have the ability to withstand bullets. Mr. Frieze must know that Vasily has a brother, and maybe has even approached him, but Pyotr said nothing about working for Mr. Frieze. It’s more likely Vasily kept him out of it or Pyotr just didn’t have the abilities Mr. Frieze needed. Through all this, Vasily also maintains the apartments and takes in recent immigrants, helping them to get on their feet, letting them live for free. Mr. Frieze probably knows all of this too, and doesn’t care until he comes up with this lakefront construction project. Anyone who reads the paper knows that he’s bought up several blocks worth of property, but Vasily says no. Maybe they argue; I don’t know. Mr. Frieze, though, can afford to wait, to break down Vasily’s defenses. It would be too obvious to just kill him, and if he really was a genius with machines, it would have be a waste. I’ve never heard of Mr. Frieze eliminating someone as talented as Vasily was supposed to be just to make a point.

Then Mr. Frieze is handed a gift: Karol Ivanov, who makes the bone-headed mistake of stealing from his organization. He plays on Vasily’s loyalty, tries to get Vasily to hand over the property in exchange for Ivanov. Vasily says no, gives the deed to his brother for safe-keeping, and tries to rescue him. He gets all of a few dozen feet into Mr. Frieze’s compound and is shot dead.

But then I get to the sticking point: why is Karol Ivanov walking around? Why didn’t Mr. Frieze just kill him and be done with it, once Vasily was taken care of? That part doesn’t make any sense to me. I guess I’ll just have to find Ivanov and ask him myself.

I lock the office behind me and hand the key to Irina Iosovna. “Thank you.”

She gives me a grateful smile before putting the key away. “Did you find anything that could help?”

“No. Just more questions. But maybe you can help me.”

“How?”

“Do you have a picture of Karol Ivanov?”

Now it’s her turn to shake her head. “I would not know where to look, either.”

“Well, what does he look like?”

She nibbles her lower lip for a moment. “He is not a pleasant man. Not like Vasily Leonovich.” She sniffs, tears threatening, but controls herself. “Smaller than you, up to perhaps your nose. But wider. Muscular. He has brown hair and eyes, and a moustache but no beard. He is… what is the word for not shaving?”

“Scruffy,” I say without thinking.

Irina Iosovna smiles. “Thank you. It is a good word.” Her tongue darts out, licks her lips, which are pale from the cold of the room. “He looks scruffy almost all the time. And he has a scar above his left eye. It cuts through his eyebrow.”

That does it. “Black hat? Blue coat?”

“You have seen him today?”

I shove my hands into my pockets so she doesn’t see them curl into fists. “Just missed him. He bumped into me on the steps.”

She laughs, but there’s no joy in it. “He does that.”

“I’m not surprised.” I take a couple of breaths. “I think I’ll leave him a message, if that’s all right?”

A nod. She picks up a pen and holds it over a notepad. “What would you like me to tell him?”

I know exactly what to say.

A cab brings me home, and after locking the office door, I toss my coat on my chair and grab the top drawers of both my file cabinets. Instead of the drawers sliding out, the false-metal doors of a large cabinet swing open. I undo my holster from my shoulders and hang it on a hook, selecting one that’s a little stiffer, the straps thicker. It also has room for two guns. I put my electric handgun on the left side, and on the right, my service revolver — one of very few bullet weapons I own. Killing is very, very final, and if I kill Ivanov, I can’t question him. But I might need more than just electricity this time.

I pull my sweater over my head and hang it up, then put the holster directly over my shirt — it’s thirty degrees outside and too windy not to wear more than just a shirt and coat, but if I need to move quickly, I won’t be able to do that wrapped in wool. I’ll just have to be cold. I lament for a moment that I haven’t figured out the grenades yet, then laugh at myself; that would be far too much just to threaten one man. Instead, I slip collapsible batons in each of my coat pockets, and put my small tool kit in the inside pocket, since I might have to break into something. I don’t bring any extra bullets — I hope I won’t need them — but I do bring the speed-winder for my electric gun. I hate to use it, because it’s just as likely to strip the gears, which will mean I’ll have to replace them all, but if it works, it could save my life.

Then I put the coat on, lock up behind me, and head back to the lakefront. Instead of going into the main building, I go into the farthest from, the one where the new tenants live. The ones who can’t pay. The ones just as likely to have jumped the fence as come through the government complex downtown. This building is far less well-kept than the official one; the tile floors are cracked in places, and there’s trash on the stairs. I can’t imagine that Vasily Leonovich would’ve allowed this — I never met the man, but everything I know about him says this means Ivanov doesn’t care about these people, not the way the Novotny brothers did.