'Answer both if you can,' the colonel said with a tiny smile that suggested superior amusement and masked a confusion.
'The weapon,' said Karpo. 'The bullets taken from the German's body were 76.2-millimeter Winchester Magnum cartridges fired from a high-powered West German sniper rifle, a Walther WA2000. Such a rifle was stolen from the collection of the deputy director of Social Mobilization for the Russias a week earlier. An informant told Inspector Rostnikov that a young man named Yakov Krivonos was making the rounds of underground bars where American music is played, bragging that he had such a weapon, that he had killed a German with it.
We attempted to find Yakov Krivonos but were unable to do so. He was in hiding, but I persuaded a bartender in the Billy Joel-'
'Billy Joel?' the colonel repeated, shaking his head.
'A rock-music establishment,' Karpo explained. 'Named for the American singer who came here last year.'
'Yes,' said the colonel. 'Go on.'
'I persuaded a bartender to tell me that Yakov Krivonos was known to have a companion named Carla. I waited until she showed up at the bar last night and then followed her to the apartment from which she was thrown.'
'Or fell,' Colonel Snitkonoy amended.
' 'She landed on the rear streetside fender of an automobile approximately fifteen feet from the building,' Karpo said. 'I watched her descent and-'
'I have been informed,' said the colonel, looking toward the window in the vain hope that the sun was finally rising. A childhood memory came back, and he thought that perhaps the first rays of the sun would destroy this vampire. The colonel admitted to himself that he was quite tired.
'The rifle Krivonos fired at me this night was a Walther 2000, the same make as that which was stolen,' Karpo went on. ' 'It is likely that the bullets I retrieved and have given to the laboratory will verify that it is the same weapon that killed Bittermunder.'' 'I see,' said the Gray Wolfhound, resuming his pacing, since intimacy had no effect.
'We do not know,' Karpo went on.
'Know? Know what?'
'The answer to your second question. Why Yakov Krivonos murdered Bittermunder.'
'Ann,' said the colonel. 'But really, it doesn't matter. This is murder, a foreign visitor. It is a case for the Murder Squad and not Special Projects.'
'On Thursday, Yakov Krivonos will kill again,' said Karpo without emotion. 'A witness heard him say this to his companion, a man with a beard whom he called Jerold. I saw this Jerold for an instant when he shot at me.'
It was more than the colonel cared to keep track of.
'I will try to find Yakov Krivonos before Thursday and stop him from committing this murder,' said Karpo.
'You are, as you may remember, on vacation as of tomorrow, '' the Wolfhound said softly, with just the slightest studied tone of warning.
' 'I am the only police officer who can identify Yakov Krivonos,' Karpo said.
'A young man with orange spiked hair and wild clothing is not difficult to describe to others,' the colonel tried.
'He will change his appearance,' said Karpo.
'He will change his appearance,' the colonel repeated, as if humoring a dense child. 'How do you know this?' ' 'I saw the face of the man with the beard,'' he said. 'The man called Jerold will tell him to do it, and he will do it.'
'It is late, Comrade Karpo,' the colonel said, taking out the 1920 pocket railroad watch that had been given to him in 1972 by the workers of the Kirov Locomotive Assembly Plant after a particularly inspiring speech on the need for maintaining domestic security. 'With the increase in crime since… certain political events, too many hours have been put in by all branches. We must all be alert, ready, refreshed for the arduous task of maintaining the peace and controlling crime.
You will take a vacation beginning tomorrow. This is a directive from the General Staff. When you and Porfiry Petrovich return, Tkach and Zelach will also be directed to take vacations. You will visit your relatives in Kiev. You will return in three weeks and not before then. You will return with renewed vitality. You understand my words?'
'Yes, Comrade Colonel,' Karpo said, noting that the offer to use the colonel's dacha was no longer in evidence.
'Prepare a report on your findings, a detailed description of this Krivonos and the other man, and leave it with Pankov so I can forward it to the proper parties,' said the colonel, clasping his hands before him to show that the conversation and Emil Karpo's investigation had ended.
Karpo understood and rose.
The colonel moved to his desk, sat down behind it, and opened a leather folder the size of a very large book. He took his pen in hand, looked at the contents of the folder, and said, 'Enjoy your vacation and return refreshed and prepared to renew your part in our constant vigil against crime.'
Emil Karpo left the office, closing the door behind him.
It was slightly after five in the morning. The colonel had said Karpo was to go on vacation tomorrow. Karpo would not disobey a direct order. However, the colonel's order meant that Karpo had all of this day and until midnight of the following day to continue the investigation. If he did not sleep, he had forty-three hours to find Krivonos and the bearded man. In forty-three hours, it would be Thursday.
Karpo wasted no time. He went to the elevator, aware that people were avoiding his eyes, pretending, as they always did, that they had just remembered something that had to be done in the opposite direction, suddenly saying something urgent and animatedly to whomever they were walking with and giving the companion undivided attention. A woman, who Karpo knew was Amelia Smintpotkov in Records Two, muttered, 'Vampire,' when she thought she was safely out of Karpo's hearing. Amelia Smintpotkov might well have needed the day off had she known that Karpo heard her and knew her name. In fact, Karpo was unmoved by the reaction to him or by the muttered word. If anything, though he might not be able to admit it to himself, he was mildly pleased. The privileges of police authority were rapidly being taken away. Others around him were finding it frustrating and quite difficult to deal with criminals and a public that were losing their fear of the law. Karpo was confident of his own ability to create fear without recourse to threats or action.
He took the elevator down to the unnumbered laboratory of Boris Kostnitsov, two levels below the ground in Petrovka. Kostnitsov was an assistant director of the MVD laboratory, though he assisted no one and had no contact with the director, whose name he did not know or care to know. Boris Kostnitsov worked alone. He had been assigned an assistant once, but the man had quit after four days, insisting that Kostnitsov was a madman. It was generally agreed that the assistant was right, but it was also agreed that Kostnitsov was brilliant.
Karpo knocked once, firmly, at the gray metal door of the laboratory and waited.
Before opening the door, Kostnitsov's high voice said, 'Inspector Karpo. I know that knock.'
Then the door opened, and Karpo found himself facing Kostnitsov, a man of no particular distinction, medium height, somewhere in his fifties, a little belly, straight white hair brushed back, bad teeth, and a red face. Kostnitsov was wearing a bloodstained blue laboratory coat. His left hand opened the door so Karpo could step in. His right hand held something white and fleshy about the length of an adult finger.
Kostnitsov pushed the door closed and held up his prize.
'Well?' he asked, head turning just a bit to the side, a knowing hint of a smile on his lips.
'Intestines, small intestines,' said Karpo. 'Recently removed, human.'
Kostnitsov beamed.
'The stomach, the intestines. These are the organs that give the easy answers, that paint the clearest pictures. My favorite organ remains the little-appreciated spleen, but the stomach is the pathologist's friend. That which it contains can reveal much. That which it does not contain can reveal even more. Did you know that each of us eats at least a pound of insects each year? Not the gnat that flies in as we yawn or speak but the bits trapped in drinks, canned foods, meats, fish. And the irony, Comrade, is the pound of insects you eat each year is the most
