Blood and Rubles

her three years as an uchastovaya she had seen Lieutenant Colonel Lorin, the head of the district of more than seventy thousand residents, only twice and had never exchanged a word with him.

“I can tell you who the local drunks are, who is likely to come home in a bad mood and beat his wife, who might break into an apartment,” Dmitra said in a very high singsong voice that began to get on Sasha’s nerves as soon as she spoke. The voice and the woman reminded him of his own mother. “But I can’t tell you with certainty who killed Oleg Makmunov.”

“You know the dead man’s name,” said Sasha.

“One of many. The police sometimes rousted him from doorways early in the morning. Another biscuit?”

Zelach nodded yes and Sasha answered, “Da,” throwing his head back to get the blond hair out of his eyes. It was a boyish act, one that contributed to his attractiveness to women, who wanted either to mother him or to smother him. At least that was the way Sasha now saw things. At thirty-one he was no longer a boy and his hair was growing subtly darker. At home he had a wife, two small children, and a mother who made shopkeepers cringe.

“The biscuits are from Poland,” Dmitra said. She held out the small plate to the two policemen, each of whom took one small vanilla biscuit. Then she whispered, “Gift from a local vendor. The truth? Between us?”

“Between us,” Sasha said, beginning to feel quite warm in the small apartment.

“I let her set up her table in front of the metro,” Dmitra said, leaning forward. “She gives me a tin of biscuits here, a juice there. She has a prime location. You know how it is? You know what I get paid?”

Sasha was well aware of “how it is.” His wife, Maya, worked, and his mother, who had had her own place for a while, had moved back in with them and was now contributing most of her salary as a government clerk to the household. With two small children it was still difficult, very difficult, but Sasha had never taken a gift from a criminal or a suspect.

“About the murdered man,” Sasha said, giving a stern glance at Zelach, who reached for another biscuit on the small plate on the table in front of them.

“Who kills a drunk?” said Dmitra. Her shrug was a ripple of bony shoulders beneath her oversized sweater. “And especially a drunk like this Makmunov, who could barely put a few rubles together for a cheap bottle.”

“Who?” asked Zelach, who had ignored Sasha’s glance and devoured two more biscuits.

“Another drunk he got into a fight with,” Dmitra guessed. “A creature of the night even lower than Oleg Makmunov.”

“A creature of the night?” asked Zelach, his cheek full.

“Gang members wandering the streets, ready to pick a fight and a drunk’s pocket. Remember, we have no curfews any longer.”

“A gang?” Sasha said.

“A gang of the very young,” Dmitra said. “If they were older, they wouldn’t be using pieces of concrete and their feet. They would have knives and guns.”

“Wouldn’t they simply be afraid to fire weapons?” asked Sasha. “Afraid to be heard?”

“Are we friends now?” Dmitra asked, leaning forward again and speaking softly.

“Well …” said Zelach.

“Fellow members of the law enforcement team, then,” she said.

“Yes,” said Sasha, looking directly at Zelach to keep him from answering.

Dmitra sat back with her tea, comfortable in the new camaraderie she had purchased with a few biscuits. “Response time on a gunshot in this area,” she said, “is at least ten minutes from the time of the call, usually more like fifteen minutes. You could slaughter the entire Bolshoi Ballet on the Prospekt, quietly pick up the shell casings, and walk away singing those incomprehensible American songs. There are only one hundred and nine policemen in this district and five patrol cars. The police, I can tell you, are not anxious to go driving down a street where they might find themselves facing two or three men with submachine guns or those pistols that shoot through solid steel.”

“Continue,” said Sasha with an encouraging smile, not his most winning smile, but certainly one that moved beyond mere politeness.

“Whoever killed Oleg Makmunov didn’t have a gun,” she said. “And what criminal doesn’t have a gun?”

Sasha nodded for her to go on and she did.

“Almost any criminal today has a gun. Almost every civilian has a gun. Like Los Angeles. Only small children, at least most small children in this district, can’t afford guns … yet.”

“So you think this murder was committed by children?” asked Zelach, reaching for the biscuits. Sasha beat him to the plate, took one, and moved it out of Zelach’s reach. He underestimated Zelach’s determination, however, and found the slouching man leaning far forward to get to the plate. Sasha put a hand on his partner’s shoulder to move him back.

“Combined with the fact that there have been five similar killings within the past few months,” Dmitra said, “and all within two square kilometers of where we are sitting-all were drunks out late-it fits the pattern.”

Sasha had seen bands of poorly dressed children-three, six, ten at a time-hands in their pockets, smoking, looking around insolently, daring people to get in their way, begging, demanding. Some of the children were little more than babies, six, maybe seven, years old. Now, with winter coming, these children, many without homes, would be growing more desperate, needing money for clothes or for someplace to sleep.

“Where do you suggest we begin?” Sasha asked.

“Neighbors,” Dmitra said confidently. “I’ll give you names of people who live on the same street where our Oleg was murdered last night. You can tell them you talked to me, that you are friends of mine.”

The prospect of two real detectives saying they were her friends had great appeal for Dmitra.

“I’ll write their names and addresses for you.” She fished a small pad from a great kangaroolike pocket in her sweater.

While she wrote, Zelach pleaded with his eyes for Sasha’s permission to reach for another biscuit or two. Sasha ignored him and finished his tea.

“There,” said Dmitra. She handed Sasha the list.

“Thank you,” he said, glancing at the brief list of names. He took out his notebook and inserted the sheet of paper inside it for protection.

Then Sasha stood up. Zelach joined him and so did Dmitra.

“You hardly touched the biscuits,” she said. “Here, let me give you each a box to take home.”

“We …” Sasha began, but she had already hurried to a cupboard in the corner.

She was back almost instantly with two small blue cardboard boxes covered with Polish words. She held them out, and Zelach took his instantly. Sasha hesitated for an instant and then imagined the look on his daughter Pulcharia’s face when he presented her with the biscuits. He took them, said “Thanks,” and hurried Zelach out of the apartment.

“Let me know if I can help any further,” Dmitra called down the hall as the policemen departed.

“We will,” said Sasha.

When the thin woman had closed the door, Zelach grinned and held up his blue box from Poland. “You know what they call these in America?” he asked. “Cookie. My mother loves them.”

Zelach lived with his old mother in a small apartment. For years he had taken care of her through her various maladies. When Zelach had been savagely beaten recently, she had pulled herself from her bed and taken care of her only child. It had made a new and healthier woman of her.

They hurried down the steps past the graffiti-filled walls and out into the street. Zelach was still grinning. He had plunged the package into the pocket of his jacket. He looked a bit odd to Sasha.

“Are you all right?”

“A bit dizzy,” said Zelach. “Fine, just a bit dizzy. I have medicine for it at home, but sometimes I feel good and forget. I’ll be fine.”

So Sasha Tkach, his own biscuit box in his pocket, walked down the street, keeping an eye on his partner. Just what every investigator needs, he thought, a partner who might suddenly pass out on him.