the stairs, breathing in his ear. 'I can get my bottle and bring it.'' 'No,' said Sasha, wondering what Zelach and Tamara might think and say if they suddenly faced each other in the small apartment.
He had a very simple plan. He would go with Tamara to her apartment, remember something he had to work on, make his excuses, and depart. Maybe he would have one drink. How could it hurt? The men who he thought were watching him were probably just muggers, not the computer thieves. Moscow was filled with muggers who roamed confident that the police were too busy with more important crimes occasioned by Gorbachev's reforms to deal with a little mayhem and the loss of a few rubles here and there.
Sasha deserved a drink, a moment to relax. He seldom drank and didn't intend to now, but the idea of one drink, a few moments watching Tamara, having her hold his arm, was appealing. It could cause no harm. Zelach was sitting behind the door ready if someone came while Sasha was out.
I could even argue that I had left intentionally, he told himself. Left to lure the thieves into breaking in so Zelach could catch them.
'This is the door,' Tamara said with a big grin, showing her teeth. The center tooth had just a spot of lipstick on it.
'I've got to get back to my apartment,'' Sasha said, trying to remove the woman's hand from his arm. She held fast.
'One drink,' she said, searching for her key in the little purse she carried with her free hand. ' A moment. I'm afraid to go in by myself. Just go in with me. I'll turn on the lights, and then you can go if you want.''
' 'I can stand in the hall,'' said Sasha, adjusting his glasses.
'You're cute,' she said. 'My shy little Jew.'
Tamara opened the door with one hand, the other still holding tightly to Sasha, tugging at him as she entered. He told himself that he had no choice but to follow.
'The light's here,' Tamara said, kicking the door shut behind them.
For an instant she released Sasha's arm and left him standing in the darkness, penetrated only by a faint light through the window from the street below. Then the light came on. The room was bright, a room of yellows and reds, the furniture modern and colorful, with flowers, and the rag a large yellow rectangle with a red rose the size of Maya's favorite mixing bowl in the center.
'I must go now,' Sasha said.
Tamara smiled at him from where she stood across the room near a floor lamp.
'If you have to work, you have to work,' she said with a shrug, kicking off her shoes and moving toward him with her right hand held out. As she neared, he held out his hand to take hers, to shake it quickly, to make a hurried departure and get back to Zelach, who was probably asleep and snoring in the chair behind the door.
Tamara ignored his extended hand, moved in, and put her arms around his neck and her open mouth on his. Sasha took her arms to remove her, but she had her hands locked behind his neck. He opened his mouth to tell her he really had to leave, but her tongue entered, licking his lower teeth before he could speak.
She tasted of warmth and alcohol, a sweet, different taste from Maya.
'Maybe another night,'' he said as she released her grip and stood back to look at him with a knowing smile. 'Tomorrow. ''
Her right hand moved forward suddenly between his legs. He backed away but had only a half step to the door. Her hand pressed forward.
'Tonight,' she said, moving in, releasing his belt.
Sasha wanted to speak, opened his mouth again, but Tamara said, 'Shhh,' and unbuttoned his pants.
This must stop. Now. He must halt her firmly, his mind ordered, but his mesmerized body would not obey. Her fingernails rubbed against the flesh at his waist, not quite gently, promising, threatening. He said no more as she dropped his pants to the floor and put her thumbs inside his underwear. It was too late.
There was no point in issuing orders to his body. His underwear came down to his knees, and Tamara stepped back to look at him.
Her hands went to her hips, and she asked, 'Are you sure you're a Jew?'
Colonel Snitkonoy had exhausted his complete array of poses, and none of them had worked on Emil Karpo, who sat impassively alone at the conference table and looked up at him. Had it been daylight, the colonel could have set this meeting with Karpo for the precise moment the sun hit the window. Then, the Gray Wolfhound knew, he would be outlined in light, a tall figure with bright filaments of red and yellow stabbing into the room. His voice, carefully nurtured, would resonate in baritones off the walls. It would have been a concert of light and sound to which few failed to respond.
But this was very early in the morning, before five, before the sun. Before Karpo had arrived, the Wolfhound had turned on the two floor lamps in the corners of the office and the one lamp that reflected upward from the well-polished top of his oak desk to create deep shadows around the eyes and below the lips. Aware of every crease and button on his perfectly pressed uniform, the colonel had moved from one light to the other since Karpo had entered the room. Erect, hands clasped behind his back, the Wolfhound found the right nuance of light for the right phrase. Nothing. But it was difficult to discourage Colonel Snitkonoy. Some said it was impossible. He had too much confidence. Others had suggested that he did not have the intellect to merit such confidence.
It was the great confidence and lack of intellect of Colonel Snitkonoy that had sustained him in the MVD for over thirty years while others fell or were trampled. It was the sense of the theatrical and the imposing figure he presented that had moved him to his present position as director of special projects. He was until recently, it was generally agreed, no threat to anyone.
The irony of Colonel Snitkonoy's current rise in party circles was that his department, a repository of largely ceremonial duties no other branch wanted, had met with singular success. During what appeared to be a routine investigation of a minor problem at a shoe factory, Rostnikov had uncovered a high-ranking KGB officer engaged in extortion. And then Rostnikov and Tkach, while on a routine check of parade security, had foiled a terrorist attempt to destroy Lenin's tomb. Colonel Snitkonoy's star had risen, and now there were some who said that he had been a brilliant survivor who waited for years to build a superior staff and to seize the moment when it was safe to become dangerous.
Whatever the truth, greater autonomy and responsibility had come to the colonel's staff and with it possible enemies. Colonel Snitkonoy was learning what it was like to be vulnerable. He was also reaping the rewards of success, and in just two days he would, as the guest of Gorbachev himself, attend a ceremony in Soviet Square followed by a dinner to honor those who were contributing selflessly to the success of perestroika and peaceful transition.
'Inspector Karpo, Comrade Karpo,' he said, deciding to try compassion, 'a young woman is dead. I grant that. I lament that. The loss of any Soviet citizen, especially a youthful citizen who holds promise for the future, is of great concern to Colonel Ivan Snitkonoy.'' 'There is nothing to lament, Colonel,' said Karpo, looking up. 'The young woman was Carla Wasboniak, a user and seller of drugs, a probable accessory to several murders, an enemy of the state.'
'Yet you feel compelled to find the young man who killed her,'' said the Wolfhound tolerantly, a wiser figure with perfectly groomed silver hair who was sure, now, that the pale figure seated before him would see the weakness in his position.
'His name is Yakov Krivonos,' said Karpo. 'We have sufficient evidence to believe he has murdered three people, possibly more. He is quite mad, quite dangerous. Inspector Rostnikov and I believe that he was involved in the murder of the visiting German businessman last month.'
'Bittermunder?' said the Wolfhound, perplexed but not showing it in the least as he nodded as if he knew where this conversation was going. 'Senseless, very brutal.'
'Yes,' said Karpo.
'Why?'
'Why was he murdered, or why does Inspector Rostnikov believe Krivonos is involved?'' asked Karpo without a trace of sarcasm.
The colonel, like most people, had avoided conversation with Emil Karpo as much as possible. He had always been confident that when the time came he could deal with this creature of the night if necessary. He had always told himself, however, that it was easier to allow Rostnikov to deal with the man. After all, Karpo had worked for years with Rostnikov when they were in the Procurator General's Office, and Rostnikov did not seem to mind the man, even seemed to have some genuine affection for him, which was a mystery to the Gray Wolfhound.
