'Accidents,' she said.
Rostnikov shook his head and looked at his short, knobby fingers laid flat on the table.
'I don't know,' she said, angrily dropping the books on the table so that he had to pull his hands back quickly. 'What do you want from me?'
'To save your life,' he said, setting the books neatly and rising. 'But I may not have the time. I am no longer investigating the accidents of yesterday morning. When I leave this apartment, the case will be closed, at least until whoever is responsible kills you.'
His eyes met hers again, and she seemed on the verge of speaking but once again held back.
'Then there is nothing to be done,' he said, moving to the door. 'I'll return for the books in a week. I hope you are alive when I come for them.'
'You are trying to frighten me,' Katya said.
'Yes,' Rostnikov agreed. 'But I'm also telling the truth. I have a son in the army. He's just been sent to Afghanistan.'
He had paused at the door to say this and turned for her reaction.
'I'm sorry, but… you are a confusing man. Why did you tell me about your son?'
Rostnikov shrugged.
'I don't know,' he said. 'I really don't. I thought it might somehow persuade you to let me help you. In my work there are far too many failures. Maybe it was as simple as thinking that my son would find you very pretty.'
She smiled, showing even teeth.
'I like older gentlemen,' she said teasingly.
'Pesknoko,' he said.
The smile dropped from her face and she bit her lower lip.
'Yes,' she said. 'Why is this so important to you? Are you like this about all your investigations?'
'No,' he said softly. 'Perhaps it is the circus. Perhaps it is the memory of Duznetzov on Gogol's head, the rain splashing against his face. Perhaps it is simply you. I've never known anyone who has shot a toilet. It's an act of outrage I can understand.'
Rostnikov left without another word. He had nothing more to say. He walked slowly down the hall because his leg permitted him to walk no faster. He did not really expect that she would open the door and call him back, and she did not.
The morning was warm as Rostnikov crossed Lenin Prospekt and found a street bench from which he could see the entrance to Katya Rashkovskaya's apartment building. The bench was far enough away on the even- numbered side of the street so that she probably wouldn't notice him. Following her would not be easy. She was young, swift, an acrobat, but if she did not know she was being followed, he was confident that he could keep up with her.
Rostnikov looked up at the tall buildings and the sun, pulled a day-old copy of Izvestia from his coat pocket, and pretended to read as young mothers with baby carriages, old men heading for the park and each other, and babushkas with avoskas for shopping strolled past him. No one looked at him for more than a glance. It would be hours before anyone found it strange that this man had nothing to do for so long but read his paper. No one would bother him. They'd assume he was either a madman or a policeman and stay out of his way, but he preferred not to be noticed. As it was, he waited only seventeen minutes till Katya Rashkovskaya came through the entrance of her building. She did not look around to see if anyone were following her. She turned to her right and began to walk quickly away from Rostnikov's bench.
At this pace he was sure he would never keep up with her. There were no real crowds at this hour of the morning, so he would have trouble hiding, staying close. He stood up quickly, put his newspaper in his pocket, and turned to follow her at the same moment that a dark automobile pulled out of traffic, moved from the left lane into oncoming traffic on the right, shot across the street, and bumped over the curb toward the back of the unsuspecting Katya.
Rostnikov cupped his hands and bellowed above the sounds of traffic. His voice carried, heads turned to look at the madman, and one of the heads was that of Katya Rashkovskaya. An average person would have had no chance with the oncoming car, but Katya was an acrobat. She leaped backward instinctively, a graceful, high back flip that brought her down just beyond the fender of the dark car, which bumped over the curbing, missed an approaching bus, and joined the line of automobiles racing outward from the city.
Rostnikov lumbered forward, professionally stopping traffic with his outstretched hands as he had done as a young policeman. When he reached Katya's side, she was being comforted by an old woman who seemed to be no more than four feet tall and wore a black babushka over her head.
'Crazy mad,' the woman said, holding Katya's hand. 'A drunk. They tell us that all this drunkenness will stop, but does it stop?'
Katya was staring blankly at the building across the street.
'You poor… And the police. Where are the police? There used to be police everywhere,' the old woman lamented.
'I'm the police,' Rostnikov said.
The old woman looked at him as if he were drenched in acrid lemon juice.
'I'll take care of the young lady,' he added.
Reluctantly, the old woman let go of Katya's hand, which, instead of falling to her side, remained extended as if still in the firm grip of the tiny woman.
'He could have killed her. You know that?' the old woman said, accusing Rostnikov.
'I know that,' Rostnikov said, watching Katya's face. 'I know that.'
The old woman stood for a moment and then spotted someone not unlike herself across the street. She pulled herself away with a final shrug of disgust and hurried to tell the tale to her crony.
'I have nothing to say,' Katya said through closed teeth, hyperventilating.
'This, too, was an accident?' he asked, ignoring the pedestrians who slowed down to look at this frightened young woman and the barrel-shaped man.
'An accident,' she said.
Summoning a hidden reserve, the young woman forced her eyes away from the building across the street, pushed away from the protection of the brick wall behind her, and looked at Rostnikov defiantly.
'An accident,' she repeated.
'I cannot always be present to prevent accidents,' he said.
'I know. Spasee' ba, thank you, but I'll do what I must do to see to it that there are no more accidents. You told me you were no longer investigating yesterday's… accidents.'
'I'm not,' Rostnikov said as she pulled herself together. 'I'm now investigating a case of drunk driving and a near-fatal accident resulting from it. Premier Gorbachev wishes to eliminate drunkenness and I plan to help him. My first task will be to locate that drunk driver.'
'You…' the young woman began and then changed her mind. She scanned the traffic coming and going, looked at the faces of people on the street, and hurried away much faster than Rostnikov could possibly follow.
Emil Karpo paused under the awning of a restaurant-bar off Kalinin Prospekt. The Belgorod was small and the service was poor even by Moscow's standards. The food was decent. The prices were not bad. There was no atmosphere to speak of, only a dozen tables in a dark main room and flimsy wooden tables with thick, brown, cotton cloths. The walls of the Belgorod matched the tablecloths, or came reasonably close, not by design but by chance. On the walls were indifferent paintings of imaginary landscapes. But most people did not come to the Belgorod for the food or the atmosphere. They came to discuss business, frequently illegal, or to meet one of the prostitutes who were known to check in with the bartenders and waiters.
The windows of the Belgorod were covered with lace curtains, making it impossible to see inside, though a bit of light managed to penetrate from the narrow street. It happened occasionally that a wandering tourist or a visitor from out of town might chance on the Belgorod and mistake it, because of the lace curtains, for a tearoom. Once he was inside, however, the smoke-filled room of suspicious-looking people would cause him to depart after fifteen or twenty minutes of nonservice.
Emil Karpo opened the door of the Belgorod and stepped into the near-darkness and the sound of voices. A
