Wolves Eat Dogs (29 page)

Arkady went into his own room and packed, if for no other reason than to give the impression that he was leaving and following orders. His life—case notes and clothing—fit into a small suitcase and duffel bag with room to spare. There were flights all day to Moscow. He had options. He could change from camos, bungee-cord the suitcase and bag to the rear fender of the motorcycle and look like any other office worker making an early commute to the city. If he raced, he might still catch a plane and get to the prosecutor’s office by noon. Where would Zurin assign him next? Was there a position for a senior investigator out on the permafrost? The people of the Arctic Circle were said to be full of life. He was ready for a laugh.

He noticed, at the top of his file, the employment application for NoviRus. He was surprised to find he still had it. He scanned the opportunities. Banking? Brokerage? Security or combat skills? It did nothing for his confidence to realize he had not one marketable talent. Certainly not communication skills. He wished he could start the night over again, beginning with Zurin’s call, and clarify to Eva what he was doing. Not going, only helping a criminal flee the Zone. Was that better?

Bela was already up, having a daybreak coffee in front of CNN, when Arkady arrived.

“I always like to hear the weather in Thailand. I picture listening to the soft rain as Thai girls walk up and down my back, kneading it with their little toes.”

“Not Russian girls in boots?”

“A different picture altogether. Not necessarily a bad one. I judge no one. In fact, I always liked those Soviet statues of women with powerful biceps and tiny tits.”

“You’ve been here too long, Bela.”

“I take time off. I see the doctor. I walk around the whole yard every day. That’s a 10K walk.”

“Let’s walk,” Arkady said.

The scale of the yard was best appreciated on foot. As it broke the horizon the sun turned shadowy canyons into the neat ranks of a necropolis. The endless rows of poisoned vehicles evoked the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had dug, bulldozed and loaded radioactive debris. The trucks were here. Where were the men? Arkady wondered. No one had kept track.

“Two passengers,” Arkady said. “You take them out like your usual customers.”

“But they’re not regular customers. Things out of the ordinary make me nervous.”

“Selling radioactive auto parts is ordinary?”

“Mildly
radioactive.”

“Get out while you’re ahead.”

“I could. I should be reaping the benefits of my labor, not living in a graveyard. The situation with Captain Marchenko has become intolerable, the bastard’s always trying to get me dismissed.”

“Does he ever stop your van?”

“He wouldn’t dare. I have more friends upstairs than he does, because I’m generous and spread the money around. When you think about it, I have a good thing going here. I’m the only one in the Zone with a good thing going. I’m sitting pretty.”

“You’re sitting in the middle of a radioactive dump.”

Bela shrugged. “Why should I jeopardize that for two men I don’t know?”

“For five hundred dollars that you don’t have to spread around.”

“Five hundred? If you called a taxi from Kiev, he’d charge you for both ways, two people, luggage. A hundred dollars, easy. And then he couldn’t get past the checkpoint.”

“What are you moving today?”

“An engine block. I got a van specially outfitted, with jump seats for the customers.”

“Then they’ll just be two customers riding along, as usual.”

“But I sense desperation. Desperation means risk, and risk means money. A thousand each.”

“Five hundred for both. You’re going anyway. The real question is why you would come back.”

Bela spread his arms. His chains and medals jingled. “Look around. I’ve got thousands of auto parts to sell.”

“Because you’re losing your hair. Look in a mirror.”

Bela touched his hairline. “What a joker. You had me for a second.”

Arkady shrugged. “And the virility is normal?”

“Yes!”

“Five hundred for transportation for two to Kiev, for a service that you usually provide for free. Half to start and half on arrival, to start immediately.”

“Immediately? We’re pulling the engine now, but it’s not ready.” Bela glanced in the wing mirror of a car.

“Any dryness of the mouth?”

“It’s the dust, the wind always kicking it up.”

“You’d know better than I. It’s just that everyone rotates time here except you. I don’t want to see you holding on to a sack of money with one hand and an IV tube with the other.”

“Don’t lecture me. I was here for years before you showed up, my friend.” Bela slapped dust off his sleeves.

“My point exactly.”

“Change of subject!”

They turned the corner onto an avenue of heavy trucks. Halfway down the row was a shower of sparks.

“Fifteen hundred.” Bela touched his hair again.

“I hate haggling,” Arkady said. “Why don’t we do this? Clean your hairbrush and brush your hair. We’ll start at five thousand. No, we’ll start at ten thousand, and for every new hair in the brush, we deduct a thousand.”

“I wouldn’t have any money left.”

“And we haven’t mentioned yet that you’re illegally selling state goods.”

“They’re radioactive.”

“Bela, that’s not a mitigating factor.”

“What do you care? They’re Ukrainian goods. You’re Russian.”

“I’ll shut you down.”

“I trusted you.”

“Nothing personal.”

“Five hundred.”

“Done.”

To prevent the removal of the hotter engines, the hoods of some trucks had been welded shut. Bela’s welder, in a mask and greasy coveralls, was cutting one open with an acetylene torch. A lifting sling and a crane stood by to pull the engine out; then the welder would seal the hood again. It was a perfect system. Arkady checked his dosimeter. The count was twice normal. Well, what was normal?

Feeling high from a successful negotiation and the euphoria of a sleepless night, Arkady detoured. Instead of returning directly to the dormitory, he went to Eva’s cabin to explain to her that while he had to report to Moscow, he could return in a day or two on his own. Even if he wasn’t allowed back in the Zone, they could meet in Kiev. She was difficult. He was difficult. They could be difficult together. They could try to “forge the glorious future,” as the banners used to say. Or fight and break up, like everyone else. He imagined the entire conversation in advance.

As Arkady rode the motorcycle up to the cabin, he saw Alex’s Toyota truck parked at the garage, and as he walked to the screen door of the house, he heard a scuffle within. There was something about the sound that prevented him from rushing in immediately. No one was in the front room; no one played the piano or sorted through the papers on the desk. He heard no real conversation: instead, a groan and a noise like shuffling feet.

Arkady moved to the bedroom window, and there, through the lilacs, he had a view of Alex and Eva. They stood together. Her bathrobe was open, and he was pressing her against a bureau, his pants down, his buttocks flexing in and out. She clung limp as a rag doll, arms around his neck, as he pounded his flesh into hers, covered her mouth with his. Was this the magical dance floor from the night before? Arkady wondered. A change of partners, obviously. As Alex pulled Eva’s head back by her hair to kiss her she saw Arkady at the window. She freed a hand to motion him to leave. The bureau, jostled, spilled brushes, pictures, perfume bottles. Alex saw Arkady in the bureau mirror and more vigorously lifted her with his strokes. As she rocked, Eva listlessly watched Arkady. He waited for some signal from her, but she closed her eyes and laid her head on Alex’s shoulder.

Arkady backtracked to the bike, staggering as if he’d lost his sense of balance. It was a little early in the day to cope with this. Apparently, Eva hadn’t expected him back. All the same, it was, he felt, a little sudden. And it seemed to spell farewell. He felt a rage take over, although he wasn’t sure at whom. This was, he understood, why domestic quarrels ended so badly.

Alex came out of the cabin’s screen door, tucking his shirt in, buckling his belt, the man of the house encountering an unexpected visitor. “Alas, poor Renko, I knew him well. Sorry you caught us like that. I know it’s painful.”

“I didn’t know you would be here.”

“I thought you were gone. Anyway, why not? She’s still my wife.”

“Did you rape her?”

“No.”

“Was there resistance?”

“No. Since you ask.” Alex looked back at the cabin as Eva appeared through the haze of the screen door. “It was very good. Felt like home.”

Arkady walked to the cabin door. As he reached the front step Eva bolted the screen door and backed up to the middle of the little parlor clutching her robe tight. “She’ll get over it,” Alex said. “Eva is tougher than she looks.”

Arkady rattled the door. He considered ripping it out, but she shook her head and said in a hoarse voice, “This is none of your business.”

“You’re upsetting her,” Alex said.

“Are you bruised?” Arkady asked.

Eva said, “No.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Go away, please!” Eva said.

“I need to—”

This was exactly the sort of scene that police the world over hated. Two men starting to wrestle on the ground, a motorcycle kicked over, a woman sobbing inside the house. The gun in Alex’s hand was the next escalation. He pushed it against Arkady’s temple and said, “We had an understanding, you and I. You came here for an investigation. Fine, investigate. Any questions you want. But leave Eva alone. I take care of Eva. She needs someone reliable who will be here tomorrow and the day after. Go back to Moscow now, and no one’s the worse.”

“I was lonely,” Eva said. She came to the screen. “I phoned Alex and asked him over. It was my idea.”

“All of it?”

But she retreated from sight.

“Is that good enough for you?” asked Alex. “So, you’re finished here, right? We can be friends again. We’ll run into each other on the street in Moscow, remember our drunken samogon party and pretend to wish each other well. Agreed?”

Alex was first to his feet. He tucked the gun, a 9mm, into the back of his belt. Arkady rose more slowly.

“One question.”

“The investigator is back on the case. Excellent.”

“Who did they call?”

“Who called who?”

“At the samogon party, you did a hilarious impersonation of the control-room technicians, how they blew up the reactor and had to report to Moscow. Who in Moscow did they call?”

“You’re serious? What does it matter?”

“Who?”

“It was a chain. The minister of energy, the director of power-plant construction, the minister of health, Gorbachev, the Politburo.”

“And who did
they
call? Someone respected, with firsthand experience in nuclear disasters. I think they called Felix Gerasimov. They called your father.”

“That’s a guess.”

“It can be checked.”

Alex seemed to consider a wide range of responses. With self-control, he picked up Arkady’s motorcycle and dusted off the saddle. “A good trip home, Renko. Be careful.”

A thought struck Arkady. “You said you had an understanding with me. Do you have an understanding with Eva?”

Alex smiled, caught out. “I said I wouldn’t hurt you.”

B
ela tucked Bobby and Yakov into jump seats behind a washed and brushed Kamaz V8 in a wooden cradle and security straps.

“Not hidden but not seen,” Bela said. “It’s going to go down like cream. I’ve done this a hundred times. As soon as we get going, I’ll turn on the air conditioner. I guarantee a good time.”

Yakov kept one hand on the gun inside his jacket and smiled like a grandpa. Bobby held onto his laptop.

Arkady glanced at Bela’s CDs. “Your Tom Jones collection?”

“It’s a long drive.”

Bobby rallied enough to say, “Renko, you remind me of a dog I once had. With one eye, three legs, no tail. Answered to the name Lucky. That’s you. You never know when to stop.”

“Probably not.” Arkady wasn’t sure it was a compliment.

“Ozhogin is really coming?”

“I think so.”

Yakov nodded. Wonderful, Arkady thought, the paranoids agree.

Bobby said, “One thing, Renko. Tell me you’re staying because you know who killed Pasha. Tell me you’re close.”

Arkady let his fingers lie: he held his thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart and slid the van door shut.

“Where are you?” Zurin demanded. “I expected you here in this office an hour ago.”

“I’m sorry. That flight was overbooked,” Arkady said.

“To Moscow?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you right now? I hear shouts.”

“On the plane.” Arkady was in Campbell’s dormitory room. The professor himself was curled up in the bottom of the shower stall, and a tape of a soccer game between Liverpool and Arsenal was on the television.

“What flight number?” the prosecutor asked. “When are you landing in Moscow?”

“Can Colonel Ozhogin meet me?”

“No.”

“How do you know? You haven’t asked him.”

“I’m sure he’s busy. When are you landing?”

“They’re telling us to turn off our mobile phones.”

“How could you—”

Arkady ended the call. That was the problem with long leashes, he thought. You couldn’t tell whether the dog was at the other end or not.

He hoped he had done one thing right and gotten Bobby and Yakov safely out of Chernobyl. It wasn’t like rescuing babes from a fire, but Arkady was willing to celebrate small accomplishments. Yakov’s expression at the end might have been the ghost of a smile.

He cleared Campbell’s desk enough to write a list of what he knew about Timofeyev: the pivotal relationship with Pasha Ivanov, their paired careers, their similar poor health and poisoning, the letter that Timofeyev had mentioned at Pasha’s charity party, the discovery of Timofeyev’s body in the Zone by what Militia Officer Karel Katamay had reported as a local squatter. Everything parallel to Ivanov except his death; that was different. The only person as ill as they were, in the same extraordinary fashion, was Karel Katamay. Katamay was the key, and he was a wraith in the woods. Or hidden in Pripyat near the theater, at least during the day, while the Woropay brothers were on duty.

Arkady’s task was to avoid Ozhogin. The colonel would consider him the most likely lead to Bobby, and Arkady suspected that he enjoyed gathering information. Arkady had taken the precaution of hiding his motorbike in back of a woodpile behind the dormitory. Of course, Ozhogin’s arrival might be a figment of Arkady’s imagination, and the urgency in Zurin’s commands merely revealed excitement at having Arkady near.

In the meantime, Arkady hydrated the wilted Campbell with a glass of water and a lukewarm shower; any decent guest would have.

Victor called. “You were right about the travel office. Anton and Galina picked up tickets for Morocco.”

“For when?” Arkady felt apologetic: he had completely forgotten about Anton. He paced, negotiating empty bottles on the floor. On the television Liverpool still played Arsenal.

“Two days. I caught the travel agent on the way down and bought her a coffee.”

“You chatted up the agent?” The newly attired Victor must be much less frightening than the old one, Arkady thought.

“I chatted up an agent. Did you know that it’s often cheaper for two people to travel than one?”

“You’re getting very sophisticated.”

“But there’s more to it than that. We were having our coffees, the travel agent and I, when Anton and Galina came out of the building. See, after the agent. So, they must have gone into the dentist’s office. That just struck me as odd. Where was the dentist?”

“Dr. Levinson?” No inspiration in Liverpool. Arkady switched to England versus Holland. From the 1990s. A classic.

“That’s right. There was a phone number on her office sign. I called it and a voice said she was going on a month’s vacation starting tomorrow. It was a sweet voice, but not a well-educated voice, and my bet is it was our lovely Galina. I worry about the dentist.”

“Why?”

“You know where Anton went from there? A bank. I ask you, since when does Anton Obodovsky use a legitimate bank? He launders money or he buys diamonds. He does not stand in line like a normal person at an ordinary bank. Something is going on.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it is, I have a feeling that when he and Galina take off to Morocco they’re not going to leave any loose ends behind. If so, I am very disappointed in Galina.”

“Where is Anton now?” It was the end of the soccer match. Arkady could tell because the British fans were ripping out grandstand railings and hurling them at police.

“The last I saw, he and Galina were tearing along the river in a new Porsche convertible. Real lovebirds.”

Klaxon wailing, a bus pulled onto the field and disgorged Dutch police with helmets and shields.

Victor said, “By the way, you may be right about Alex Gerasimov. He either fell or jumped off a four-story building a week after his father blew his head off. But the son lived. Is he crazy or strong?”

“Good question.”

“Where’s Bobby?” Victor asked. “His phone’s off. What’s going on up there? Do I hear soccer?”

Only Victor would rightly interpret a riot as a soccer match, Arkady thought.

“Kind of. Get a home number for the dentist, just to hear her voice. And if Zurin calls…”

“Yes?”

“You haven’t talked to me in weeks.”

“I wish.”

Arkady closed the mobile phone and rewound the video to the point where police buses rolled into view. The phone rang. The caller ID showed a local number.

“Arkady?” It was Eva.

There was a pause while British fans threw seat cushions, bottles, coins.

“Eva, I think I misunderstood your relationship with Alex.”

“Arkady…”

Thugs, stripped to Union Jack tattoos, dragged down local fans and stomped them with boots.

Eva said, “Alex said you went to Moscow.”

“So?”

Once down, a victim could be kicked in any number of vital spots. Some hooligans, British or Russian, were virtuosos with steel-toed boots. Meanwhile, the police ducked from the rain of hard objects.

“I thought you’d left.”

“You were wrong.”

A crowd surged onto the field, broke through the police line and rocked a bus.

“I hear shouts. Where are you, Arkady?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“You don’t trust me?”

He let the question stand. The bus driver had locked the doors but trapped himself inside. The bus windows burst into crystal.

Eva asked, “What can I do?”

Rioters put their shoulders to the bus and rocked it from side to side. The lights were on. Running back and forth, the driver looked like a moth in a swinging lamp.

“If you want to help,” Arkady said, “you can tell me what Alex does in Moscow in his off-time. You’re close to him.”

“Is that what you want to talk about?”

“Can you help or not? What does a radioecologist do in Moscow to earn money?”

Police formed a wedge in an effort to rescue the bus. However, a number of hooligans had appropriated helmets and batons and put up a stiff resistance. One policeman, taken hostage, spun comically between blows.

“Can you help or not?” Arkady repeated.

Oopah!
The bus went over with a cheer. Figures swarmed it, kicking in the windshield and dragging the driver out.

“Please don’t,” she said.

“Can you help or not?”

Too late, a water cannon arrived to clear the field. As the jet drove the crowd back, the stampede in the exits gained the strength of desperation. A second wave of bodies rushed the camera and sucked it under.

“No? Too bad.” Arkady ended the call.

The next images were taped later, of police picking over clothes on the field and the empty stands, photographing the scene, maneuvering a tractor crane to lift the toppled bus back on its wheels. An ambulance stood by in case anyone was underneath. There was a special, mutual pain to the conversation, he thought. Hurting her, of course. Also—by ending the call and demonstrating who was in control—denying himself the chance to listen. This way he could enjoy the deep satisfaction of twisting the knife in two people at the same time. It was the sort of pain a man could suck on forever. The bus lurched onto its wheels. No bodies. The final shot was of the score: 0–0. As if nothing had happened at all.

Great minds compartmentalized. Arkady put on Vanko’s tape and fast-forwarded, then rewound. The question, he decided, was why the camera had found Bobby, among all the Hasidim. On repeated viewings, it was a little more obvious, and not as a matter of editing. If Vanko had edited, he would have excised the clumsy shot of his run to the tomb. And the virtual close-up of Bobby at the prayer was not hidden well enough. Toward the end of the tape, at the leave-taking of the buses, Arkady could almost feel the camera search for Bobby. He went frame by frame until he saw a reflection in the bus’s folded glass door of Vanko handing out business cards. If Vanko hadn’t been taping, who had? When had the handover taken place? Before the Kaddish? Or even earlier, before the visit to the tomb?

Arkady heard a car brake hard in the dormitory parking lot and bodies rush into the downstairs hall. A rapid conversation included the bewildered tones of the housekeeper. A moment later, heavy feet ran up the stairs and stopped next door, at the room Arkady had occupied. A key jiggled and they were in. It sounded like they tossed the mattress and drawers, then collected again in the hall.

Arkady slid a chain bolt into the doorplate a moment before someone rapped on the other side.

“Renko? Renko, if you’re in there, open up.” It was Ozhogin, which gave Arkady the perverse satisfaction of knowing he had been right. At the same time, the door seemed flimsy. Arkady moved back. He heard the housekeeper waddle up the hall and mention the Scotsman, maybe adding a gesture of drinking. She scratched the door and called Campbell’s name. A fist knocked less politely.

“Renko,” Ozhogin said, “you should have filled out the form. We would have found some kind of job for you. Now it’s come to this.”

The housekeeper tried the wrong key and apologized. A key was a formality; Arkady knew how simple it was to pop the lock. Anyway, she had the key; it was only a matter of finding her glasses.

“Here we are,” she said.

Arkady became aware of someone behind him. Campbell had wandered in from the bathroom in his undershirt and drawers, wet as a duck. The professor punched Vanko’s tape out of the machine, replaced it with one marked Liverpool-Chelsea and raised the volume. On his way back to the bathroom, he picked up a bottle that was not completely empty. When the door suddenly opened the length of the chain he paused to shout through the space, “Shut yer fookin’ gobs!”

Arkady didn’t know how well Ozhogin spoke English but he seemed to get the message. There was a long moment while the colonel decided whether to break in on the drunken Scot. The moment passed. Arkady heard Ozhogin and his men retreat down the hall, confer, then move with dispatch down the stairs and out to their car. Doors slammed and they drove away.

Hours slipped around the window shade. Arkady knew he should sleep; he also knew that as soon as he closed his eyes he would be back on the ground outside Eva’s cabin.