Victor licked a gloved fingertip, dipped it in the bottle and came up with a dab of powder that he smelled, tasted and spat out like a wine expert dismissing an inferior Bordeaux.
'Clonidine. Blood pressure pills. Want a taste?'
'I'll take your word for it.'
'A cocktail of clonidine and vodka would drop Rambo in his tracks.' Victor warmed to the thought. 'Rambo would wake up with no money, no clothes, no bow and arrow, and now we have a case. Madame Butterfly here had the criminal intention and the means of rendering some innocent man unconscious and robbing him.'
Arkady shook his head. ''Madame Butterfly'?'
'Well, we have to call her something. I'm not going to spend the night saying 'the deceased.''
'Anything but Butterfly.'
'Okay. There are so many Russian prostitutes in Italy that the new word for whore there is 'Natasha.''
Arkady said, 'That would presume she was a prostitute. It would affect our attitude.'
'Never mind the trailer, the sex, the drugs. Do you prefer Princess Anastasia? Olga? There's a name you trust.'
'What does she look like?'
Victor brushed a fly from her ear. 'To me she looks like-apart from the makeup and skimpy clothing-a nice country girl.'
'I agree. Olga.'
'Good. I'm worn-out and we've hardly started.'
'The problem is that Olga screwed up with the knockout drops. Or this guy saw what she was up to and switched glasses when her back was turned. Maybe he spiked her glass even more. She passed out. He robbed her and took off.'
'Another problem,' Arkady said. 'There are no glasses-'
'We can always get new glasses and rub a little sleep dust on her lips. Otherwise, they'll bag our Olga and dump her and no one will notice or care. She'll sink without a fucking ripple. I'm not saying we should come to any conclusions, just keep an open mind.'
There was an almost gawky quality to the girl, as if she had not yet grown into her long legs. Her knees were dirty but not scabbed. Arkady wondered what she would look like if her face were washed.
Victor studied the vodka bottle. Half empty or half full, the bottle had a silvery allure. Neither man had touched it for fear of smearing prints. Arkady heard the detective's dry swallow.
'You know what's tragic about all the money floating around?' Victor said.
'What's tragic?'
'A bottle of vodka used to cost ten rubles, just the right sum for three people to share. Not too much, not too little. That was how you met people and made friends. Now they have money they got selfish. Nobody shares. It's torn apart the fabric of society.' Victor raised his head. 'There's not a scratch on her. You fished me out of the drunk tank for nothing.'
'Probably.'
Victor said, 'Why don't you come with me to the garage? The dog's name is Fuck Off.'
'We need a witness or, at the very least, her pimp. Fortunately the pimp is near.'
'Where?'
Arkady ran his finger along the extension cord from the lightbulb to the window. 'At the other end of this.'
While Victor went out Arkady stayed in the trailer with the dead girl and the bottle of vodka. Contract killings aside, four out of every five violent crimes involved vodka. Vodka faithfully attended every human activity: seduction, matrimony, celebration and, definitely, murder.
Sometimes a scene told a story in dramatic terms: a kitchen table with so many beer and vodka bottles there was hardly room to set a glass, knives on the floor, blood smeared the length of the hall to two bodies, one crisscrossed with stab wounds and the other peppered with bullet holes. In comparison the trailer scene was a still life, horizontal, nothing left standing but the bottle.
Arkady was aware that he was missing something profoundly obvious, some basic contradiction. Now when he needed imagination all he could summon was Victor's story about the wayward swimmer and the dolphins. Arkady felt his own invisible dolphins pushing him out to sea and away from land.
He sat on the bunk opposite the dead girl. She had an oval Slavic face that was more soulful than that of Western women and her hair was not simply brown but a dove's mix of ash and brown. Her gaze was averted from the grossness of her pose. Pale bands on her fingers showed where rings had been removed, not forcibly; there was no bruising of the joints. He saw no sign on her of violence new or old, but given the choice between investigating the murder of a streetwalker or writing her off as a 'death by natural causes,' Petrovka would happily accept the proposition that a young woman in apparent good health had undressed, lain down for sex in a trailer and peacefully expired. Finis!
Arkady lifted the vodka bottle off the floor by its bottom edge and stopper. A circle of water marked the floor where the bottle had been. Then something fell from the bottom of the bottle to his feet and he picked up a silver plastic card that said in black script, Your VIP pass to the Nijinsky Luxury Fair. The reverse side had a bar code and June 30-July 3, Club Nijinsky, Browsing begins at 8 p.m.
June 30 was two hours ago. Arkady went to the window. Finding a witness among the furtive citizens of Three Stations promised to be a farce. In this particular place who would notice a prostitute practicing her trade? His eye ran to the apartment house across the plaza. Eight stories mainly of dark flats, but some with kitchen lights on or the hypnotic glow of television on the ceiling. The trailer door opened and Victor was back, saturnine and triumphant.
'You'll never guess.'
'Surprise me,' Arkady said.
'Okay. Our extension cord runs from here and goes directly to the railway police station. I saw our friend the captain through a window. He's got a bandage on his hand the size of a boxing glove. But the cord doesn't end there; it's connected to another long cord that's plugged into an outlet at the back of the militia station. Got it? We're the pimps. You don't look surprised.'
3
So far as Zhenya was concerned, Yaroslavl Station offered just about everything: buffets, bookstore, kiddy corner, shops selling cigarette lighters, CDs and DVDs. A lounge for soldiers; men on leave traveled free. An escalator led to an upper waiting hall that featured a concert piano behind a red velvet rope.
He started on the main floor and watched for anyone willing to play a friendly game of chess on the folding board he had in his backpack. He was cautious; he always carried his ID and a commuter pass in case he was stopped. Although he was half hidden in a sweatshirt and hood, he stayed in the blind spots of ceiling cameras focused on him.
When he didn't see a likely opponent, Zhenya retreated to a bench on a quiet corridor off the upper hall and studied a pocket English-Russian dictionary. Bobby Fischer had learned Russian to read proper chess analysis; Zhenya was returning the favor. Zhenya concentrated on the talented word 'draw,' which described the inconclusive ending of a chess match. Or pulling, pouring, sketching, attracting, earning, opening or closing drapes and more.
With a click the door across from Zhenya opened. Inside, two militia officers and a girl sat at a metal table with a plastic pitcher of water, paper cups and a tape recorder. The senior officer was a woman, a major by the stars on her shoulder boards. A lieutenant tipped back in his chair.
The girl was about fifteen, Zhenya's age. Her eyes were blurred by tears, and since she had dyed her hair a neon red, she was exactly the type the militia liked to harass, but the major used a motherly tone.
'First necessary information and then the search. Everything will turn out fine. Maybe someone will find your lost baby before we're even done.'
'I didn't lose her, she was stolen.'
