The old man was wearing a postman’s cap and a coat too warm for the weather. He needed to decide whether to shave or grow a beard. Beards had not returned to fashion yet except among some highly successful businessmen and mafia leaders.
“You saw a man shoot down a drunk last night in that doorway?” Sasha asked, pointing to the doorway. The crushed body of Oleg Makmunov had been removed hours ago.
The old man on crutches shook his head firmly. People passed. A few older ones with string bags or a small child in tow glanced at the three men and moved on.
“It was Zorotich,” said the old man firmly.
“Someone named Zorotich shot the man in the doorway over there?” asked Sasha.
Zelach was somewhat bewildered by the exchange since he knew that Makmunov had been beaten and kicked to death, not shot.
“Svet Zorotich shot him,” the old man said decisively. “With an American tommy gun, an old one with one of those cans wrapped around it.”
“Where can we find this Zorotich?” Sasha asked politely.
“Right up there,” the old man said, pointing above him with his crutch and almost knocking off his postman’s cap. “He lives right over me, makes noise all night. I heard him go out, saw what he did. I’ll say so before any judge, any judge.”
“Thank you,” said Sasha, brushing back his hair, putting away his notebook, and shaking the old man’s trembling hand.
“Others around here are afraid to talk.” The old man looked up and down the street with contempt. “But someone’s got to stop this lunatic. Am I right?”
“You are right,” said Sasha, moving past the old man and motioning for Zelach to follow.
Sasha entered the building and started up the stairs with Zelach behind him. Outside, the old man watched them for a moment, then looked up and down the street, wondering which way to hobble.
“What are we doing, Sasha?” Zelach asked, panting as he climbed the narrow, dark stairway.
“We are going to talk to Mad Dog Zorotich,” Sasha answered. “He mows people down in the street for daring to look at him or utter his name in vain.”
“Seriously, Sasha.”
“It can’t hurt,” said Sasha, walking down a narrow corridor. There were only six apartments on each floor. It wasn’t hard to find Zorotich’s. His name was finely scripted on a white card pasted to the door.
Sasha knocked. No answer came from within. He knocked again, this time more loudly. Still no answer. He motioned for Zelach to move away. Zelach did what he was told, but Sasha remained in front of the door, motioning for Zelach to continue down the stairs. Zelach dutifully obeyed, proceeding out the door. Sasha put his ear to the door just above the finely lettered name. He heard a shuffling movement and then he said, “We know you are in there, Zorotich. Open the door, or my partner will break it down.”
“No,” came a voice inside. “You’ve come to kill me and take my apartment, like Illyna last month.”
Sasha removed his identification card from his wallet and slid it under the door.
“You see my card?” he said.
More shuffling, a move toward the door.
“It could be a fake. You people can make good fakes.”
“It’s not fake. I’m a policeman. Your neighbor downstairs said-”
“The fake cripple? There’s nothing wrong with him. He can walk as well as you or me. He’s crazy. He wants sympathy, a pension.”
“Last night, late, someone was killed across the street. Did you see anything, hear anything?”
The man inside laughed bitterly. Zelach was now coming slowly and carefully up the stairs, calculatedly making a good amount of noise. Sasha waved him to the door.
“So,” said the man inside with a sigh, “if I don’t let you in, you break down the door and kill me. If I open the door, maybe you just kill me. How do I know you are policemen?”
“Do you have a phone?”
“Ha,” the old man laughed.
“My ID, common sense. We are not thieves. We are not some mafia wanting to steal your apartment.”
A series of locks and chains went into action, and the door came open to reveal a man. He was tall, thin, and quite old and he wore dark trousers, a blue shirt, and a dark sweater vest. At the man’s side was a large white dog.
“Well, if you’re going to kill me, do it. Just let Petya go.”
The old man in the doorway, Svet Zorotich, was obviously quite blind. His eyes were a clouded white and his gaze missed both detectives.
“I’m still alive,” the man said, “so you must be the police or thieves or both. As you will see, there is very little in here worth stealing.”
Sasha looked around. The man was right. A bed in the corner. Two chairs at a small table. A cupboard. A chair against another wall. A radio on a small table near the chair.
“Obviously,” Zorotich said, “I did not see anything last night, nor anything since 1971.”
“Sorry,” said Zelach.
“Since you’re here,” he said, “maybe you can get that damn cripple to turn down his television at night and go to sleep at a reasonable hour.”
“We’ll tell him,” said Sasha. “Sorry we bothered you.”
“You’re not going to ask me, are you?” the old man said. “Hear that, Petya? They want to know what we saw, not what we heard.”
The dog was alert now.
“What did you hear?” asked Sasha, certain that the man was going to blame his downstairs neighbor for the murder.
“Voices, outside,” said the man. “I had the radio turned down out of consideration for my neighbors, a consideration they do not choose to extend to me.”
“Voices?” Sasha prompted.
With the help of the dog the man found his way to the chair near the wall and next to the table.
“I turned off the radio like this,” he said, demonstrating his action. “And I heard him talking to himself on the street, the drunk. Then they came. I could hear them talking to him. I could hear them crushing him with rocks that scraped the sidewalk when they missed.”
“Do you know who they were?” asked Sasha.
The old man shrugged and reached down to pet his white dog. The dog moved closer to the man.
“I recognized their voices,” he said. “They don’t live far away. I’ve heard them in the street at night.”
“Who are they?”
“Who knows?” asked the man.
“If we find them, could you identify their voices?” asked Sasha.
“Yes.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t know. I think so. One of them was named Mark. They used his name. And they live near here.”
“Anything else you can tell us about these men?” asked Sasha.
“Men? Who said ‘men’? Not me. They were boys, little boys, children. I knew they were killing and I was afraid to go to the window and shout down, afraid they would come up for me and kill me. So I said and did nothing.”
“But you’ve told us now,” said Sasha.
“I’m a veteran, you know,” old Zorotich said. “Pension. Terrible pension. Can’t live on it. Got a niece who helps me out as much as she can. Anything else?”
Sasha looked at Zelach, then said, “Nothing I can think of.”
Once the policemen were out the door, Sasha said seriously, “He did it, Zelach. The tommy gun was hidden in his closet. He is only pretending to be blind.”
“Then why didn’t we arrest him?” asked a perplexed Zelach.
They were almost to the foot of the stairs. Sasha stopped and turned to Zelach. “Svet Zorotich is really
