surprised him. His day had been long and he had to get up in a little while. Yet he had felt powerful, and she had met him with lust.
They took a long time, and then Maya wanted to talk some more. He couldn’t simply turn his back on her and sleep.
“I think we should hire someone,” she had said.
“We can’t afford it,” Sasha reminded her, his head turned to her. Candlelight flickered on his wife’s dark face, and her breasts peeked over the blanket.
“I don’t know how much longer I can live with her,” Maya said softly. “I don’t know how much longer the children can live with her.”
“I understand,” he said. “We can’t afford someone to watch the children. And she would never speak to us again if we made her leave and hired a woman to stay with the children.”
“You could convince her,” said Maya. “Tell her how she could get back to work, have some privacy and freedom. Make it sound like we were doing it for her.”
“She wouldn’t believe it,” he said.
“I know,” said Maya, chewing on her thumb and trying to think of some new approach to keep her sanity and get rid of Lydia.
The discussion had continued for almost an hour and concluded with Sasha agreeing to go over their budget during the day and see what he could do. By the time they had finished the discussion, Sasha had to get up, get dressed, and relieve Zelach. Before he had reached the front door, Maya was breathing the sound of sleep. She was amazing. She could fall asleep in an instant and be up at the slightest sound from one of the children. Sasha had trouble getting to sleep but heard nothing once he got there.
And now he slouched wearily down the dark street, his steps a bit uneven, lost in thought of how he could get more money. The only way he could do so with little effort was to accept the bribes he was sometimes offered. These were usually bribes from petty criminals. On occasion he had been tempted, and twice he had accepted “gifts” from grateful shopkeepers whose stolen goods he had recovered. He could probably make a great deal of money by selling his services as an informant to one of the Moscow mafias. He could imagine seriously considering an illegal act if the lives of Maya or the children were at stake. After all, what had the state become? Where, as Gorky’s
Sasha had a sense that he was only a few doors from the house where Zelach was sitting at the window. He glanced across the street, not expecting to see the three boys, not expecting to see anything.
He was certainly not expecting the sudden, solid pain in his head, a pain that dropped Sasha to his knees. Had he suffered a stroke? He was a young man. But his father had died of a stroke. Another blow came, and this time with it came the taste of blood and the sound of soft voices.
“Again, Boris, again.”
Sasha raised his arm and felt the next blow crack against his elbow. A figure appeared before him, the vague shape of a boy looking directly at him, judging how much more it would take to kill this stubborn victim.
“Again, Boris,” the boy before him said.
Now, as he rolled back on the sidewalk, he tried to curl into a ball and find his gun under all of his clothes. He could see three children, all boys, one with a plank of wood in his hands, the one who had been in front of him with his hands plunged into his pockets, and the third, the youngest, advancing with a brick in his hands.
Sasha struggled to shout, and perhaps he did. He tried to get back onto his knees, certain that the boys meant to kill him. He blinked his eyes to clear away the blood and got up on one elbow, still groping for his gun. Above him the young one raised the brick over his head and looked down at Sasha with no sign of emotion. Sasha was certain that he could not get the gun out in time. His other thought was of Maya, who would be doomed now to live with Lydia forever.
Sasha closed his eyes. There was a scuffle of feet. The blow did not come, or perhaps Sasha was too numb to feel it. There was a greater scuffling and the grunt of a man, followed by the pained, high, angry groan of a child.
Sasha opened his eyes. A man, Zelach, was kicking at the boy with the wooden plank. The young one who had hovered over Sasha with a brick was huddled against the wall, brick gone. He was holding his head. Zelach’s kick was true. He caught the boy in the stomach. The boy dropped the plank and fell to his knees. The last boy, the one who had ordered Boris to hit Sasha, had begun to run across the small street, toward the apartment building the two policemen had been watching. Zelach looked down at Sasha, who had finally managed to pull out his weapon. Sasha nodded, and Zelach took off after the fleeing boy, who had a good start.
The next few seconds were miraculous. The usually slouching, recently ill Zelach caught the boy before he got through the door to the apartment building. He grabbed him by the neck and turned him back across the street, where the two other boys nursed their wounds and showed no inclination to run.
Methodically Zelach handcuffed the boy he had caught to the one who had hit Sasha with the plank. Then Zelach held out his hand to Sasha, who in confusion started to hand him his gun.
“No, Sasha,” Zelach said softly. “Your handcuffs. I’ll get them.”
Zelach reached under Sasha’s jacket and removed the fallen policeman’s handcuffs. A moment later the three boys were handcuffed in a circle around a lamppost.
“Are you all right?” asked Zelach, kneeling in front of Sasha.
“I don’t know,” said Sasha, but he was reasonably certain that the words came out so softly that Zelach couldn’t hear them.
Zelach touched his partner’s arm and said, “I’ll be back in an instant.”
Sasha tried to nod and looked at the boys, small, angry-faced children around a dark maypole. The two older ones glared at Sasha with hatred, and the oldest one said, “Why didn’t you say you were a cop?”
Sasha didn’t answer. He fumbled to put his weapon back in its holster and thought he succeeded. He felt himself passing out.
“The widow is calling for an ambulance,” Zelach called, coming back to Sasha, who nodded, eyes closed.
“He’s dying,” said the oldest boy.
By now faces were appearing at windows. People looked out of their dark little caves at the sight below them.
Zelach rose, stepped to the three boys, and hit the oldest one with the back of his hand directly in the face. The boy’s nose began to bleed, and blood appeared in his mouth, covering his teeth. He looked like a pale-faced vampire, and worst of all he did not cry. He did not even look angry. He simply glared into the face of the policeman, who considered hitting him again but changed his mind. The first blows he had struck against the children had been to protect Sasha. This blow had been in anger. Zelach had no blows left in him, and at this point he was sure they would do no good.
“Stay awake, Sasha Tkach,” Zelach said, moving quickly toward his fallen friend. “I think I already hear the sound of a police van. Stay awake.”
Sasha tried.
He failed.
Karpo made what proved to be the mistake of stopping at his office. It should have been safe. It was well after midnight. The lights were out in the Office of Special Investigation, but before his finger finished flipping the switch, Karpo knew that he was not alone, that someone had been sitting in the darkness.
The man was seated in Karpo’s cubicle, at Karpo’s desk. It was Hamilton, the FBI agent. He looked dressed for the day, suit pressed, clean-shaven, the faint smell of aftershave lotion on his face.
Karpo stood in front of the man, who handed him a sealed envelope. Karpo opened the envelope and read the message, which was signed by both Chief Inspector Rostnikov and Colonel Snitkonoy. The message was brief. Karpo was ordered to surrender to the FBI agent all the information he had gathered on the gang called the Beasts and possible nuclear-weapons dealers. He was then to follow all of Hamilton’s orders in pursuit of the investigation. In short, he was working for the American on the search for Mathilde’s killers.
Hamilton pointed to the seat next to the desk.
“Are you ordering me to sit?”
“No,” said Hamilton. “Inviting you.”
“I decline the invitation.”
