you and put in for reimbursement. I'll sign your accounting. You understand all this?'
'No, Comrade,' Dunin said.
'You don't have to. Most police work is doing what you are told and not worrying about what it means. Someone may be trying to kill that very pretty young woman and we don't want that to happen.'
'No, Comrade.'
'Keep yourself busy by trying to fix the door you broke and call me immediately if she says she wants to talk to me. Call me and find me. You understand?'
'I understand,' said Dunin. 'Fix the door, don't let anyone kill her, and call you if she wants to speak to you.'
'Excellent,' said Rostnikov, who limped slowly down the hall as he reached back into his pocket for his notebook.
Someone had to be found to replace the aerialists, Pesknoko and Duznetzov, and, possibly, something would have to be done about Katya. That could wait, but not for long — If she met with an accident too soon the police, that barrel-shaped inspector, would not easily accept the possibility of coincidence. There might, however, be no choice for him. There was much to be done and too much to lose. It was now very dangerous for him to have Katya alive. He could do it without her.
He had worked all of this out, had found the list of replacement acts sent by the Soyuzgostsirk, the Central Circus Administration, and had decided to make a visit to the Moscow Circus School, officially called the State University of Circus and Stage Acts, where all three of the new acts in which he was interested were currently training. He had called the school and had been assured that all three acts would be at the school that afternoon, that all three were being reviewed, and that a decision would be made within an hour or two so that the New Circus could continue its present show without a break.
He crossed in front of Petrovka Park and hurried down Yamskoipola Street and into the lobby of the school, where the sounds of acts in preparation and rehearsal came through the open gym door across the lobby. Built in the early 1920s immediately after the revolution, the Circus School remained the single most prestigious source of circus performers. The building itself, however, showed distinct signs of mildew and decay. The floorboards in the lobby were warped, the wallboards were sagged and buckled.
He passed through the museumlike arcade of pillars covered with historic photographs and moved down the corridor of classrooms. Ten black-uniformed children sat in one classroom with the door open. The instructor, a woman with thick glasses, was writing something on the blackboard.
He strode on past the rows of photographs of circus performers from almost every country in the world without pausing. He had seen them before, hundreds, thousands, of times. He had been a student here, one of eighty twelve-year-olds accepted his year from three thousand applicants. He had been accepted because his father had been one of the original performers in Lunacharsky's first official Soviet Circus. It wasn't that he wasn't talented, capable, but he knew that he was no more so than hundreds who had been turned down. At the age of twelve he had been given the guarantee of a job for life.
At first he had enjoyed the attention, the prestige. But as the years passed, he began to resent, resent the tricks he was taught, resent the act the teachers decided was right for him. His father had been a magician, an honored magician. The son had begun as a magician, had been moved into developing an act as a magician clown, and ended as an acrobatic clown in an act with three others. It was clear before he left the school that he would never be a star, a truth that was unacceptable to him.
He hurried up the stairs to the second level. Classrooms and offices ringed the outside of the second floor, while the middle of the building was open, looking down on the noisy gym where music played, acts rehearsed, and the retired performers who served as faculty urged students on to hurried perfection. He had arrived in time. He stepped back into the shadows to watch the three acts that were being given a final review by the headmaster and staff. The death of a performer in one of the Soviet circuses was not unusual, and the call for a quick replacement was part of the routine. Lists were constantly being revised, acts reviewed, decisions made based on location of the circus, political interest, the kind of act that might be needed, and the possible competition. While the most prestigious acts came from the Circus School, nothing prohibited a circus from taking acts that had been developed privately, usually by families of circus performers.
The gym was quieted by a pair of ballet teachers who had been around die school for years. Random rehearsals were stopped, but the hum of voices and clanking equipment continued. In the comer where he couldn't see, the pianist practiced while the first act set up.
The performers were all young, all good. The first was a trio of ladder balancers, two women and one man. The man was powerful, teeth showing in a confident grin. The women were slim, smiling, an interesting contrast: one dark, one light. The piano clanked a British rock song, badly played but recognizable. The act was excellent but a bit automatic, mechanical, lacking flair.
The second act performed to something by Mozart, which the pianist played a bit better. The performer was also better, a unicyclist with a round steel cage that he controlled, rolling it by riding his unicycle inside it. He looked a bit like a hamster in a plastic bubble, but he played clever variations on movement, near-disasters, and speed riding.
The third act was a slack-wire clown, excellent but too reminiscent of the early Popov routine.
It would take time, a year perhaps, to get to whichever act was selected. Perhaps he would never get to the performer and would have to go the route of dealing with one of the old acts. All of the old acts, however, would be dangerous prospects.
It wasn't as easy to corrupt circus performers as it would have been with some other professionals. Circus performers had prestige, good living conditions, a guaranteed lifetime of work. It would be a challenge, but as he stood in the shadows he looked for the signs of weakness in the faces of the young people below, the signs that had probably been in his own face when he had been down there. How quickly did the stage smile drop when the act was finished? Did the performer hurry the hug of approval from other students and back away? Was there a touch of uncertainty and a masked lack of confidence in the stride?
He looked for these things and saw his greatest hope in the slack-wire clown. It would be hard to influence the decision, perhaps impossible, but the clown had the most promise for corruption. Yes, there was a future, a way out, with but one loose end: Katya Rashkovskaya, a most dangerous loose end. He went back to the first floor and found the office of a teacher who had once been in the New Circus. The teacher had a known drinking problem and debts. He could use money and Dimitri Mazaraki had plenty of money. He paused and examined himself in the glass of the office door, adjusted his mustache, parted down his hair, and stepped through the door.
Yuri Pon had not brought his knife. He was not planning to execute a prostitute on impulse. He had made that mistake once, on the subway, and had regretted it. Everything had gone wrong that time. The prostitute had worn a uniform and had turned out not to be a prostitute at all. He had worked too quickly. He had even been seen. No, he had to be careful, precise. He knew how deeply his emotions ran, and for mat reason he forced himself to be cautious and methodical.
He would identify a prostitute, be absolutely sure that he was correct, follow her, and, if possible, observe her in the act. He would find out where she normally went, prepare himself, and, on the night chosen, execute her.
He took the metro to the Mayakovsky Station and made his way to the Byelorussian Railway Station, where he was sure to find what he was looking for if he were a bit patient. It didn't take long. He bought a coffee from an old woman at a stand in the station, sat with a copy of Izvestia in his hand, adjusted his glasses, and pretended to be waiting for a train. Occasionally, he would look up at the posted schedules to suggest to anyone who might be watching him that he had legitimate business.
In the course of the next two hours he saw three prostitutes attempting to pick up travelers coming in. He rejected two of the prostitutes immediately. They were not pretty enough. A third was a distinct possibility. She was blond, about twenty-five, and wearing a gray dress and a white top. She looked healthy, confident, not defiant. And she was not afraid to approach an occasional soldier. The fourth soldier she approached picked her up, and the two of them walked toward the massive front entrance of the station. Yuri gulped down his coffee, tucked his newspaper under his arm, and got up to follow them. He arrived at the entrance a step before they did and even held the door open for the couple to walk out. It was then that he got his first clear look at the woman. She was pretty but she was flawed. A dark purple birthmark about the size of a baby's hand ran from below her right ear down her neck. It didn't touch her face but it was there. He imagined the soldier kissing her in the dark, kissing her
