and strong, but Porfiry Petrovich felt something, the hint of a small, deep tremor perhaps.
“Does that make a difference?” Stoltz said, removing his hand.
“Who knows? The question came to me. I asked it. I’m curious. It is my job to be curious.”
“No, I do not like Vladovka,” said Stoltz, now meeting “eyes. “He is too much of a dreamer, too difficult to gauge. A botanist. He prefers the company of plants to that of people. I had the feeling he was elsewhere during many of our conversations, and he said odd things that he could or would not explain.”
“Like my name?”
“Yes, precisely, like your name. Where he got it or why he mentioned it in space to me, I do not know; he never said when he returned to earth, but I think it ironic.”
“How so?” asked Rostnikov.
“He chose the man who would track him down,” said Stoltz.
Rostnikov nodded and looked around the small park. Not far from here was an old Russian Orthodox church that had been sold to Jews who had, as inconspicuously as possible, converted it to a synagogue. The rabbi, a young Israelite named Avrum Belinsky, was a friend of “through tragedy. Several young Jews had been murdered in what had appeared to be an anti-Semitic act of terror. Rostnikov had found the murderers with Belinsky’s help. The crime had been one of greed and not of hate. Rostnikov and the young rabbi shared some secrets about the case. Perhaps Rostnikov and Iosef would walk over to see the rabbi after lunch.
“I’m going to join Iosef and Dovnikovich for lunch. Would you like to come, talk about weights and competition?”
“No, thank you,” said Stoltz. “I have to get back to our Moscow office. Every day is problems.”
Rostnikov nodded and said, “Then I look forward to your call and to seeing you again. I am sure I will see you again.”
It was Stoltz’s chance to nod before he turned and walked quickly away.
The Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology was within easy walking distance of the Kremlin. There was no sign outside the gray-stone building indicating its purpose. Wedged in between an eight-story red- brick office building and an Atmospheric Research Center of hard concrete and proud sign, the Center for Technical Parapsychology remained relatively anonymous. It had once housed the offices of the International Institute of Communist Parties and Development. Since then it had gone through a massive renovation. The rooms they were shown were all on one floor, the second floor. The first floor was reserved for offices, meeting rooms, a library, and a business-and-records office.
Nothing in the brief explanation they had been given made much sense to Zelach, who simply adjusted his glasses and followed Karpo and the woman in the gray suit who wore glasses far more stylish than his. She was about forty, a bit on the thin side, and plain of appearance with short dark hair. She wore a white laboratory coat. She used no makeup and walked with her hands folded across her small breasts. Her one attractive feature, as far as Zelach was concerned, though he would not admit it to himself, was her ample mouth. She spoke slowly, deliberately, but it made no difference in Akardy Zelach’s comprehension.
“We, I mean the Soviet Union, were the first to officially sanction the study of psi phenomena,” Nadia Spectorski said as she had opened the door of the first room, which contained a wall of steel-colored machines, some with metal arms jutting out. “Do you know the term
“Psi,” said Karpo, examining the room, “is the twenty-third letter of the Greek alphabet. It is a general term for the entire spectrum of paranormal phenomena.”
“Ah,” she had said. “Then you have followed our findings and publications.”
“No,” said Karpo, “but I am aware of the field of study.”
“And you are skeptical?” she asked.
“I am skeptical about all things,” Karpo said.
“Well, perhaps you should see some of the films of our experiments,” she said, arms still folded.
“Perhaps,” Karpo said.
“We are scientists, Inspector, not mystics. We objectively examine telepathy, prophecy, and above all dreams and psychokinesis, the ability to move objects with the mind alone.”
“I am aware of your studies,” Karpo said. “This room?”
“Measures electrical and magnetic changes in subjects engaged in experiments,” she said. “We are not the largest center in Russia for the study of psi phenomena. That is in St. Petersburg at the university, but our work is critical and quite different. And, I might add, underfunded. We used to receive our primary budget from the government, but now we have been forced to seek outside support through our Psychic Research Foundation. We even get money from Americans and the Japanese.”
“The room where the murder took place,” said Karpo.
Nadia Spectorski nodded and moved down the hall, now passing numbered white doors, and stopped in front of room 27.
“Here,” she said.
“The dead man, Sergei Bolskanov, what was his area of specialization?”
“Telekinesis, dream states, several things,” she said, opening the door and reaching in to turn on the fluorescent lights, which tinkled to life. The room was clean and relatively empty. A table sat in the middle of the room, a small table with a white top. There were chairs facing each other across the table and, in the wall to the right, a large mirror.
“Sergei Bolskanov was a brilliant physiologist,” she said. “His experiments, more than twenty years of them with every kind of person, children, politburo members, catatonics, self-proclaimed psychics, cosmonauts, were conducted in this room, filmed through that one-way mirror. They were simple experiments but controlled. The floor, for example, was specially installed and insulated. It floats on designed material so that there are no external vibrations. Objects would be placed on the table. Sometimes Bolskanov would be in the room. Sometimes he would not. Various small objects of widely different material would be placed on the table. The subject would be connected to nonintrusive wires to monitor his or her breathing and physiological responses.”
“Objects,” said Karpo.
“Oh,” said Nadia, pursing her lips, “blocks of wood, glasses of water, toys, books, individual sheets of paper, batteries, the list was long. The results impressive.”
“Tools? A hammer perhaps?”
“The one that was used to kill him? Perhaps. He experimented with hundreds of objects.”
“Could the camera have been running when Sergei Bolskanov was murdered?” asked Karpo.
“I checked. The director of the center, Andrei Vanga, checked. It was not.”
“I would like a list of everyone who was here when Bolskanov was murdered,” said Karpo.
“That should be no problem,” she said. “I’ll show you the sign-in book, which includes the time people checked in and the time they checked out. I have already examined it. There were only five of us, including Sergei. It was late at night.”
“You were here,” said Karpo.
“I was.”
“And?”
“I was in my office downstairs. It is down the corridor away from the entrance. I saw and heard nothing. Even if I were standing directly outside this room, I would have heard and seen nothing. No sound escapes. That is true of all the laboratories.”
Karpo looked around the room slowly and at the mirror. Zelach did the same but saw nothing of interest, and though he did not speak, he felt uneasy in the room. Normally he felt nothing particular, even when he was at a bloody crime scene in which more than one mutilated body was still lying. But this room made him decidedly uncomfortable.
“And your work?” asked Karpo, walking out of the room.
“Psychic probability and telepathy,” she said. “I studied in England. My degree is from Moscow State University in psychological studies and anatomy.”
“And you are not married?” Karpo said.
Nadia Spectorski took off her glasses and cocked her head to one side to examine the gaunt creature in black.
“I am not examining the possibility of a relationship,” Karpo explained. “I am trying to obtain
