the general had been a committed democrat long before the overthrow of the Party. Kornilov seemed to have been pressed from the same mould that Stalin had used to manufacture murderers like Yezhov, Yagoda and Laventri Beria. Perhaps it was just because I had known him a little while longer, but while he introduced me, Grushko became an altogether warmer, more human figure than his gnomic boss. The general nodded sombrely and shook my hand.
Glad to have you aboard,' he said with a voice that matched his office. It's a pretty good team you'll be working with. And you can bet you'll be busy. Right now there are over two hundred armed Mafia gangs operating in this city. Organised crime constitutes the biggest single threat to this country's democratic future.'
It sounded like something he had been rehearsing for the television cameras, only there was no complementary smile such as might have pleased some public relations man. Kornilov blinked slowly and lit a hand- rolled cigarette.
Yevgeni,' he said, at this moment, about how many cases are you investigating?'
About thirty, sir.'
I'm not suggesting for a moment that you drop any of them. But you'd better make solving Milyukin's murder your number-one priority. He had a lot of friends in the Western press and naturally his death will be reported there. It would look good if we could clear this matter up as quickly as possible.'
Yes, sir.' Grushko fumbled a cigarette out of his own pocket.
I've been speaking to Georgi Zverkov,' said Kornilov.
That vulture,' muttered Grushko.
Nevertheless, quite a useful one when it results in us receiving some information from the public. I want you to go on his television show and talk about Milyukin's murder. Appeal for information. I'm sure you know the drill. Just don't let him make a quilt with you.'
Grushko nodded uncomfortably.
So what do we know about this Georgian?'
He was from Svaneti,' said Grushko. It's a mountainous part of Georgia and the people there are pretty primitive. But tough too. Vaja's hometown, Ushghooli, means heart without feara__. I rang the head of Criminal Service in Tblisi but you know what they're like, sir. They're not much inclined to be helpful these days, so it's hard to say what Vaja got up to when he stayed at home.'
Georgians,' Kornilov shook his head and muttered a curse. Too busy killing each other, I suppose.'
Looks like it, sir,' said Grushko. Here Vaja had a number of convictions for theft and assault. Small stuff, really, and all of it quite a few years ago. We knew he was one of the Georgian team leaders but we were never able to sew a case on him. I've spoken to my usual informers but there's not much that's coming down about this one.' He lit the cigarette and left it hanging on his lip. I dunno. Maybe his Mafia pals thought he was planning to sell Milyukin a story.'
Kornilov's brow wrinkled as he considered Grushko's suggestion.
That's what someone wants us to think anyway,' added Grushko. Or else why the dental work? It could be that this was just some bad blood and that Milyukin was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Stranger things have happened, sir.'
All right, Yevgeni,' said Kornilov. But just suppose for one minute that it wasn't the Georgians. Who would you want to consider?'
Grushko's speculation began with a shrug. The Abkhazians maybe. Not that they're very well-organised at the moment, not since we cracked that taxi-driver racket. Then there's the Chechens. Nobody hates the Georgians more than their Muslim neighbours. This could be the start of another Mafia war.'
Let's hope not. But assuming that the Chechens wouldn't need much of a reason to kill a Georgian, what could they have against Mikhail Milyukin?'
Grushko opened the file he had brought with him and took out some papers and a photograph.
I had a look through my files for people who might have a grudge against Milyukin, and oddly enough this character here's a Chechen.' He handed Kornilov the picture.
His name is Sultan Khadziyev. About five years ago, before the Organised Crime Unit even existed, Sultan was controlling most of the prostitution north of the River Neva. Representing himself as a puppeteer how about that? he obtained permission to go to Hungary with five female assistants. Only they were hard-currency prostitutes who thought their pimp was taking them for a well-earned holiday. When they arrived in Budapest, Sultan got himself a flat and put the girls to work.
But the profits weren't as good as he had hoped for and so after a couple of months Sultan sold the girls and the flat to the Hungarian Mafia and came home. Well, I don't know what kind of girls they were, but the Hungarians couldn't make a go of them either and so they took the girls to Bucharest and sold them to the Romanian Mafia.
Finally the girls saved enough money to escape back to Peter where they took their story to Mikhail Milyukin. He did a big article about them in Ogonyok and persuaded the girls to speak to us and give evidence against Sultan. Along the way Sultan kidnapped one of the girls and half-buried her alive to stop her talking, but Milyukin managed to get the rest of the girls to stand firm.'
A real citizen, this animal,' said Kornilov, looking at the photograph.
We fixed him a holiday of his own,' said Grushko. A ten-year stretch in Perm.'
A spell in a labour camp would be enough reason to kill a man. But if this character's still in the zone as you say.'
These Chechens stick pretty close, sir,' Grushko explained. Maybe one of Sultan's friends killed Milyukin. Maybe they wrote him a fan letter as well. You know, from what I've seen the man got more hate mail than Rasputin.'
Look on the bright side, Yevgeni,' said Kornilov. Food may be in short supply. But at least you'll have no shortage of suspects.'
6
I spent the evening at the Big House, reading Milyukin's hate mail with Grushko and Nikolai. Having divided the pile of letters into three we sat around Grushko's desk and, fortified by a steady supply of coffee, cigarettes and a considerable quantity of dried bread crusts which Grushko kept in his cupboard, we applied ourselves to this distasteful task. Mostly we read in silence but occasionally one of us would read aloud from some particularly venomous letter. In truth there were none of them that threw up any definite leads. But by the end of that night I think we all found that our admiration of Mikhail Milyukin had grown considerably and, as a corollary, this increased our determination to catch his killers. None more so than Grushko himself. I don't recall every letter that Grushko or Nikolai chose to quote from. However the following five seemed to me to be typically unpleasant as well as indicative of the lamentable state in which the country found itself.
Dear Mikhail Mikhailovich,
Your patronymic would seem to indicate that you knew who your father was, although I find that very hard to believe, you intellectual bastard. You write about a drug problem among young people today as if there was someone forcing us to sit on a needle. But this is nonsense. Like most of my friends I enjoy swallowing a rope. Heroin, methadone, wheels, hot-water bottle it's all the same to us what we use. Frankly, we don't much care as long as we can blow our minds free of all that shit we learned in school. You ask what we can possibly believe in. Psychobilly music, that's what. It really helps you get out of your head. And talking of that, let me tell you. the next time I see your stupid face in the Leningrad Rock Club, I'll cut your ears off and spit in your skull. I'm serious. I've a good sharp knife and nothing would give me more pleasure than to stick it in your eye.
Dear Mikhail Milyukin,
Your essay in Ogonyok on alcoholism in St Petersburg was a typical example of the kind of journalism that makes this great country of ours an international laughing-stock. Bug spray in a bottle of beer! Shoe polish on a slice of bread! Boiling a wooden table leg with sugar! If nothing else your damnable piece must have served to give drunkards more ideas on how to get drunk. And you have the temerity to blame all of this illicit drinking on Comrade Andropov's anti-alcohol campaign. Why must we wash our dirty linen in public like this? I used to think you were a responsible man, but now I look forward to the day when the forces of law and order return to this country and sweep you and all your dirty kind back into the labour camps where you belong. And when that time comes the bullet you receive in the back of your stupid skull will be less than you deserve. I pray that your grave is marked only with the stool of the man who shoots you.
