Black Knight in Red Square

well give up and hope that you get labor in a detention camp.”

“I don’t like this,” came a voice from behind Tkach. It was one of the men at the door, the one who looked like the youngest. “If the police are coming, we have to get out of here. Let’s just kill him and go.”

The leader shook his head sadly at the ignorance of his underling.

“There are no police coming. He’s the only one. He hasn’t had time to call for help. He’s alone. We saw he was alone.”

Tkach now understood the situation. The leader enjoyed making the victim suffer; they had probably never worked on a man before, and he was trying to decide how to handle it.

He looked at Tkach and suddenly threw a punch into the policeman’s stomach. Tkach doubled over, and the man grabbed his hair and pulled him up straight.

“To the elevator,” the leader said. “We’ll make it a double. Our brave policeman can watch while we show him first hand how we do our work on the elevator operator. Misha, when we get on, you close the elevator doors. Boris, you grab the woman and throw her on the floor. Alexi and I will watch our inspector.”

When they turned Tkach around, he was still trying to catch his breath. Breathe slowly, he told himself as they walked to the elevator. As soon as the door opened, he would make his move, try to fight them off and get the door closed. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the best he could do. At the very least, he would smash the face of the leader before they got their knives into him. May the first punch be wonderful. May it break him, kill him.

He dragged his feet and doubled over, trying to slow them down, but it didn’t do much good. He had told the elevator operator not to come up here, to wait for the police, but he had little hope that she would obey. And he couldn’t be sure the woman in the gift shop had called. Even if she had, he didn’t know how long it would take for help to come. It would almost certainly be too late.

The men surrounded him at the elevator door and pushed the button. Tkach hoped fervently that the elevator would not come but slowly, steadily, it was coming. He looked up at the inscription embossed on the panel above the elevator door: The Revolution Continues. Transportation Forward.

With that, the door of the elevator groaned open, and two of the muggers stepped forward to grab the operator, but the woman was not there. Instead, a stubby washtub of a man with a dark scowl and muscular, hairy arms seized the two men. Both came skittering out almost instantly, one thrown across the corridor against the wall, the other sliding back on his rear.

Tkach straightened up and slammed the heel of his hand into the nose of the leader. The man screamed, and stumbled back, holding his face in his hands.

The other mugger, the one who had ridden up in the elevator with Tkach, had his knife out and was advancing on Rostnikov, who stepped out slowly, staring at him. There was no time for Tkach to move, but neither was there need. Rostnikov ducked low as the man with the knife lunged, then grabbed the man’s arm with one hand and his belt with the other. He lifted him and hurled him against the wall, where he sagged to the floor next to the man with the broken nose.

Tkach heard a sound behind him and turned to see the second man, whom Rostnikov had thrown out of the elevator, reach into his pocket. He kicked the man in the stomach and was satisfied to hear an escape of air not unlike the one he had let out when the leader punched him.

Without a word, Rostnikov herded the four muggers into the elevator with kicks and pushes and motioned Tkach in, giving a sour look at the whimpering leader.

Then he pushed the elevator button for the first floor.

“I-” Tkach began, trying to put his clothes back in order.

“Not now,” said Rostnikov abruptly, “I have important work for you to do. You do speak French, don’t you?”

“I speak French,” said Tkach.

“Bon,” said Rostnikov, turning so that neither Tkach nor the muggers could see the satisfied grin on his face.

FOUR

Prostitution, of course, does not exist in the Soviet Union. It has not existed since 1930. This disease of exploitative societies, according to the official Soviet Encyclopedia, “has been liquidated in the Soviet Union, since the conditions engendering and nourishing it have disappeared.” Lenin said that “lack of self-control in sexual matters is a bourgeois characteristic, a sign of demoralization.” Therefore, following a brief flurry of free love movements after the revolution, the Soviet Union effectively ended the sexual exploitation of women.

Which is why it took Emil Karpo almost half an hour to find the prostitute he was looking for in Moscow. Normally, time and duty permitting, Karpo met Mathilde in the Café Moscow off Gorky Street at seven in the evening on the first Wednesday of each month. They would then go to the apartment Mathilde shared with her aunt and cousin, who would be conveniently absent for an hour. Mathilde worked as a telephone operator during the day and as a prostitute at night. She was a sekretarsha, or “secretary,” not a full- time prostitutka.

Mathilde was not at the Café Moscow, but the waiter who set her up with clients stood leaning against the wall, his black bow tie clipped on at an odd angle. His name was Anatoli, and he was somewhere between forty and sixty. His hair was thin, his body sluggish, and his expression sullen. He saw Karpo coming and feigned indifference as he turned to start a conversation with another waiter.

“So,” he told his friend, “if I can get an extra ticket, and you want to pay the twelve rubles, you can have it.”

“Twelve rubles?” asked the man incredulously, removing the black papirosi cigarette from his mouth. “I wouldn’t pay more than seven.” The papirosi had a long cardboard filter and smelled like burning rope. Karpo, who never drank, smoked, or even considered abusing his body, was revolted by all smoking and drinking, which meant he had much to be revolted by in Moscow.

“Anatoli,” Karpo said, stepping behind the waiter.

The other waiter glanced up at Karpo, smelled cop, and headed for the kitchen. Anatoli turned slowly and gave Karpo a bored look.

“Yes?” he said.

“I must see Mathilde immediately.”

“Impossible,” said Anatoli with a near chuckle at the absurdity of the request.

“You misunderstand,” Karpo said softly, putting his good right hand on the waiter’s shoulder. “This is not a request. It is an official police order.”

The waiter winced in pain and began to sink, but Karpo pulled him up. A pair of late lunching customers saw the disturbance and, pretending they hadn’t noticed, hurried to pay their bill and leave.

“Mathilde,” he repeated. “I am not going to arrest her or you.”

“You’d better not,” said Anatoli, reaching up to massage his aching shoulder. “It would do you no good for your superiors to know about you and her.”

He got no further. Karpo’s hand was around his neck, and Anatoli found himself looking into the emotionless face.

“That would embarrass me,” Karpo whispered, “but it would not cost me my job. It would, however, lead to your detention and sentencing as a panderer, and you are well aware of the penalty for that.” He released him roughly. “Where do I find Mathilde?”

Anatoli’s clip-on tie had come loose on one side and dangled as he touched his throat and let out a rasping sob.

“Home,” Anatoli whispered, and cleared his throat. “She called in sick to the telephone office.”

Karpo turned and headed for the door.

“She’s not alone,” Anatoli said.

Karpo continued on through the door and out into the street. In ten minutes, he was on Herzen Street,