Comrade Milyukin,
In your recent article in Krokodil magazine, you compared St Petersburg's murder rate to that of New York. But this is rubbish. It is nothing like as great. Anyway, who really cares? Mostly it's the people from the swamps, the darkies from the southern republics, who are killing each other, for drugs, or for hard currency. No one misses scum like that. Except you, perhaps, you mealy-mouthed liberal. Let me tell you I didn't fight in Afghanistan and come home to get soft with criminals. There should be only one sentence for these people: death. I myself have shot lots of these animals to spare the courts the trouble. But it now occurs to me that the country would be equally well served if we sent a few of you so-called special correspondents the same way. So you know what? I'm going to track you down you bastard. And when I do I'm going to turn you into one of your own statistics. Depend on it. A patriot
Comrade Milyukin,
Do you know the Dieta supermarket, near Mayakovsky Square in Moscow? This morning I went to the meat counter and they were selling mortadella sausage at 168 roubles a kilo. My husband is a schoolteacher. He earns 500 roubles a month. So I ask you: how can we afford prices like this? I ended up buying ten eggs, and they cost me almost 18 roubles. Only a few months ago they would have cost me less than 2 roubles. My point is this: you have the nerve to tell me that things are better now. Well, let me tell you, your new democracy has destroyed the old economic system but you haven't introduced anything to replace it. How I wish Stalin was still alive and you and all your fellow democrats were forced to spend your time working on a collective farm. Better still, I think a few years in Solovki would do you a world of good.
Mikhail Milyukin,
Your piece about St Petersburg's Cosa Nostra' was one of the most stupid, misleading piles of shit I have ever heard anyone gob out on national television. There is no such thing as the Russian Mafia'. The whole idea of a Mafia has been made up by people like you who try and make money out of selling scare stories. There are just businessmen providing people with what they want and, just as often, with what they need the things you can't buy in the state shops. Our business methods have to be ruthless sometimes if only because in this stupid, backward country of ours there exists no understanding of supply and demand and free enterprise. If someone lets you down in business there is no real legal mechanism to enforce a contract or to have him pay compensation. So we break his legs, or threaten his children. Next time he'll do what he's supposed to. A man doesn't pay a share of his profits to his partners, we'll burn his house to the ground. This is just business. You are an intelligent man. You should understand this. And yet you continue to sell us the dead horse about the Mafia. A number of my business colleagues are very angry about this. They feel that the opportunity cost us by your continuing to peddle this kind of garbage is too high. So a word of warning. Stop it now. Because the next time you choose to describe joint ventures, traders, private businessmen, cooperatives as Mafia-run, you might not live to regret it. You will perhaps be interested to note that due to the large number of men leaving the military the price of a gun is actually coming down at a time when every other kind of price is going up. Think about it.
Ten o'clock,' said Grushko when the last letter had been read. Yawning, he stood up and went over to the window. The sky was still as bright as day and would remain so for several hours yet. During the month of June it is actually dark for less than an hour.
I usually look forward to this time of year,' he said. The churki don't much like the lighter evenings. More chance of being nicked, I suppose.' He shook his head wearily. I don't know. Maybe I'm just getting old. But when someone like Mikhail Milyukin gets his box, then I begin to think that whoever did it, well, they must think their chances of getting away with it are good. I mean, they must have known that we'd pull all the stops out. And still they went ahead and did it. It makes me think that they just don't care. That they don't expect to get caught. That they're laughing at us. It's. it's depressing.' He turned and looked at us with a frustrated sort of look.
I shrugged. Being a policeman isn't so bad. Things might be worse. You could have been a cosmonaut.'
Nikolai grunted his assent.
These former heroes were now a cruel national joke: most of them had Alzheimer's disease from useless endurance experiments in poorly shielded Soviet space stations. I thought of another equally tasteless joke that was popular in Moscow at the time.
Why do policemen have dogs? Because they need someone to do the paperwork.'
This time Nikolai guffawed loudly. That's a good one,' he said, slapping his huge thigh.
Grushko smiled, shook his head and lit a cigarette. You should have been a comedian,' he said.
True, I said, 'but my mother says I did the next best thing.
Your mother too, eh?' chuckled Nikolai.
Grushko was looking at his watch.
I think we'll call this a day.' He collected his jacket off the back of his chair. Where does your brother-in-law live?'
Ochtinsky Prospekt.'
You're in luck, comedian. That's where I live. Come on, I'll give you a lift.'
We said good night to Nikolai, who said he had some paperwork he wanted to finish.
Unfortunately I don't have a dog,' he grinned. See you tomorrow.'
On the way downstairs to the car Grushko spoke some more about the letters we had read.
For the Russian writer the real hallmark of his success has always been the number of enemies he makes. Don't you agree?'
By that standard Mikhail Milyukin must have been a very successful writer indeed,' I said.
Grushko nodded grimly.
By that standard he ought to have won the Nobel Prize for Literature.'
We came out of the Big House and stood in front of the huge wooden doors for a moment, enjoying the summer air. A man walking past eyed us nervously and then quickened his step. It was not the kind of place you lingered near. Grushko's eyes followed the man suspiciously.
We might make a bigger impact if people weren't still so damned nervous of us,' he grumbled.
That, I said, 'is going to take a little while.
I suppose so.' Grushko lit a cigarette. His gold lighter flashed in his hand and I found myself again wondering about the generosity of Swiss policemen. What could he possibly have done for them that would have been rewarded with such a generous gift? Or were the Swiss police just so well paid? Nobody would have been dumb enough to flaunt a gold lighter if it had been come by dishonestly. Grushko caught my eye and seemed to sense my curiosity. Maybe he could read palms after all.
One night I was at home and I got a call from this militiaman at the Moskow,' he explained. We went down the steps and along the pavement. The Swiss police had got themselves into a bit of bother. Some girls had joined them for dinner and they'd helped them spend quite a bit of money well, by our standards. There were empty bottles of champagne all over the table. Anyway, at the end of the evening the girls, who were hard-currency prostitutes you understand, put it to the Swiss that they should all go upstairs. Only the Swiss thought better of it. But the girls felt that they had wasted a whole evening on them without result: I mean, what's a free dinner next to a hundred dollars, right? So they told the Swiss that they were working girls who needed the money and expected to be paid for their company. There's nothing more rapacious than a Russian whore. But the Swiss disagreed and so the girls called their pimp in to try and settle the dispute. One of the Swiss persuaded a militiaman to give me a call and I had to go and sort it out. I had the militiamen throw the girls in the hotel cage and threatened to pinch the pimp.' He pocketed the lighter. So now you know how I came to own this cigarette lighter.' His tone was defensive.
I shrugged. I'm sure it's none of my business.'
Just as you like,' said Grushko.
We found Grushko's car and drove north, across the Neva. Where the reddening sun touched the shiny graphite surface of the river it looked as if someone had washed a murderous, bloody axe in the water.
Ochtinsky Prospekt, in the east of St Petersburg, was exactly like the place where I had lived in east Moscow. Exactly like any big housing estate in Russia, now that I come to think of it. Once, when I was returning from a holiday in the Crimea, I saw my home from the air. It was as if a giant had gone to buy some shoes and tried on every pair in the shop. (This could not have been a Russian shop.) In her concern to make a sale (this could certainly never have been a Russian shop), the assistant had thrown the white boxes all over the place until the floor was littered with them. That was what my home looked like from the air. Something that had been dropped
