“I’ll ask you a question. You answer truthfully and briefly.”
Artiom wet himself. He nodded.
“It was my wife’s idea, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Artiom. “All her idea.”
“She made love to you a few times and you agreed to murder her husband,” said Porvinovich.
The man bound on the chair sobbed a little louder.
“To kidnap you,” said Artiom. “Not to murd-”
He was cut short by a sharp sound from the weapon in Porvinovich’s hands. Artiom closed his eyes and then opened them, fairly certain that he had not been shot. He looked at Porvinovich, who nodded toward Boris, who was slumped forward, held up only by the cord that tied his hands behind him to the back of the chair. There was blood dripping from a wound in the man’s chest and even more blood coming from the bent-over head of the man, who was surely dead.
“You killed him,” said Artiom.
“You lied.”
“I …”
“You were going to kill me. She told you to.”
“Yes,” said Artiom, unable to take his eyes from the bleeding dead man. “I’ve never killed anyone. She-”
“I believe you,” said Porvinovich.
Artiom did not feel relieved.
“The neighbors,” Artiom said desperately. “Some of them must have heard the shots.”
“Two shots. A car backfiring. Light bulbs falling,” said Porvinovich. “They will mind their own business. I assume she picked this place.”
“Yes,” said Artiom.
“Then it is unlikely that any neighbors here would report what may have been two gunshots. You agree?”
“I agree,” said Artiom. “May I sit? I don’t feel …”
Porvinovich pointed the barrel of his weapon at the chair he had stood up from. Artiom, wet and sick to his stomach, made his way to the chair and sat. Porvinovich stepped back half a dozen feet.
“Have you ever met my brother?” asked Porvinovich.
“No,” said Artiom, gripping the sides of the chair to keep his hands from shaking.
“I’ve had all day to think about this, Solovyov,” said Porvinovich. “All day. I am a smart man cursed with a scheming wife who cares as little for me as she does for you. I’m sure she cares even less about Yevgeniy.”
“Yev-?”
“My brother, whom, I am now certain, she has helped nurse back from impotence. Without Yevgeniy, who is not smart-don’t ask me why some genes pass to one child and not to another-she cannot handle the business. It is my belief that without me he cannot handle it either. If you had a reasonable amount of intellect, you would understand that you are not part of her future plans. My guess is that she has already arranged for your death within a very short time. And that she realizes she will have to do it herself. Yevgeniy is incapable of either complex thought or direct action.”
Porvinovich paused. Artiom nodded.
“Do you want to know what happens next, Artiom Solovyov?”
Artiom wasn’t sure that he did. He resisted the sudden, compelling urge to turn his head and look at his dead assistant.
“I’ll tell you,” said Porvinovich, leaning back against the wall. “I’m afraid the events of the day have made me temporarily insane, especially when I discovered that you had murdered my wife and brother.”
“Your wife and …?”
“You just came in and told me that you had murdered my wife and brother,” Porvinovich said. “I was enraged. I rushed at you, took you by surprise. You fired, killing your assistant. I wrenched the gun from you and you started toward me. I shot you.”
“But your wife is not dead,” said Artiom, looking into the purple face of madness.
“No,” said Porvinovich, “but she soon will be.”
This time there was a burst of fire from the weapon, not just two shots. Artiom’s initial reaction was surprise and then relief that he had not been shot. Suddenly the pain came. In his stomach. He looked down. Three, maybe four holes bleeding as one.
“I’m dying?” Artiom asked.
“I certainly hope so,” said Porvinovich, who fired once again.
This time Artiom felt nothing.
Elvira Chazova arrived just before the police ambulance. A neighbor, with what appeared to be sympathy, but was certainly satisfaction, had knocked at her door and told her that her boys were being arrested in the street right outside.
Elvira had grabbed the baby and run past the neighbor. From across the street she saw a man lying on the ground and another man kneeling next to him. The nosy widow from the first floor across the street stood in her doorway watching. Other eyes looked down from darkened rooms.
Her sons were in a circle, handcuffed around a lamppost.
“My babies,” she screamed.
The slouching man on his knees rose and stepped toward her. Two men leaped from the ambulance and hurried to the fallen man.
Just before she reached her sons, Zelach stepped in front of her.
“They are bleeding,” she moaned. “Look at them. Babies. You have beaten my babies.”
The three boys looked at their mother, ashamed to have been caught. It was the baby in the woman’s arms who began to cry.
“I must take care of my babies,” she insisted.
“They are under arrest,” Zelach said.
“My little ones?”
“Attempting to rob and murder a police officer,” Zelach said.
“They wouldn’t attack a police officer. They wouldn’t hurt anyone,” she said. “Won’t someone help us?”
The baby cried. Sasha Tkach was put on a stretcher and carried to the ambulance. As the stretcher moved past the three handcuffed boys, they looked at the barely conscious policeman with vague curiosity.
At that moment a police car, one of the “new” BMWs, which already had over two hundred thousand kilometers on it, pulled up to the curb, lights flashing. Two young policemen got out of the car.
“Help me,” Elvira Chazova cried, showing her screaming baby to the two officers, who registered no particular emotion.
“Those three,” said Zelach as he handed the handcuff keys to the first officer to reach him. “Beating and attempted murder of a police officer. Don’t let them run.”
The officer nodded. The mother reached out an arm to stop him.
“My babies would never do such a thing. It was someone else. Wasn’t it?”
“Someone else,” said Alexei Chazov. “We were just coming home. We saw the man on the ground. We went to help him. Then this guy came out and started to beat us.”
“That’s right,” said Boris and Mark.
The young policeman had unhandcuffed the Chazov boys and was leading them to the waiting car.
Elvira started toward the police car. Zelach stepped into her path.
“What will happen to my poor children?” she cried. “What will happen to me? There is no money.”
“What will happen to my partner?” said Zelach.
The police car’s doors closed. Zelach turned his back on the woman and motioned to the officer, who was driving the car. Zelach climbed into the backseat, muscling the boys over to give himself room. There was enough room for all of them. The brothers were small.
“Drop me at the hospital,” Zelach said. “Then take these three to your lockup. I’ll come by later to write a report.”
