wasn’t sure to what he was paying homage, but it felt right, the proper preparation for the interrogation he would soon undergo.
There was no one in front of the wooden house. After all, one had to know it was there and wend one’s way back to it to find the unassuming structure.
As he moved along the white fence toward the entrance, he sensed a movement behind him. He started to turn. He felt no more than the sting of a bee, the prick of a pin. It was in his lower back, somewhere near his liver. An irritation. He finished turning and found himself looking at a bare-headed man with curly black hair. The man was walking away from him. The man was carrying an umbrella.
Vladimir turned back toward the house and wondered why the man had come up behind him and then turned away when Vladimir turned. The sting. No, he told himself. It couldn’t be. But he knew that it could. He felt fine, but that meant nothing. It wouldn’t end like this. They wouldn’t … but he knew they could.
He made it as far as the front door and then he fell to his knees. No one was around. It would, he knew, make no difference. It was too late. The ground was moist from the morning rain. He didn’t want to die here.
The door of the house opened and an old woman stepped out, covered her mouth with her hand, and leaned over to him. She had a look of horror in her eyes. Vladimir did not know that his eyes and mouth were streaming blood. He felt nothing but weakness. He was suddenly very sleepy.
Maybe he should try to say something to the woman, write something in the dirt, but he couldn’t think what he might write or say. He fell forward on his face before the woman, who screamed and ran back into Lermontov’s house.
When an ambulance arrived fifteen minutes later they found the body of the young man, whose head was encircled by a large pool of deep-red blood. The two men who had come out of the ambulance had seen sights like this before. They could take the vision. What they couldn’t grow accustomed to was the stench of the dead man, who had befouled himself in a last spasm of indignity.
Since Elena was to play the niece, she could not return for the tour of Yuri Kriskov’s editing facility. The chances were more than good that the negative-napper worked for Kriskov. The trip from the office to the production center just outside the outer ring on Durova Prospekt, not far from Mira Prospekt, was taken with Yuri Kriskov, who drove, explaining the list he had prepared of employees who had access to the negative.
Though Kriskov maintained an office in the heart of the city, the production facility, including a small studio, was a long, traffic-jammed ride away. On the way Kriskov said, “Normally I go to the production building from home. I live not far away, but sometimes …”
“Stop,” shouted Sasha.
Kriskov hit the brake and Sasha lurched forward, hands against the dashboard. Kriskov had come very close to ramming into the rear of a very large, rusting blue truck.
“I am more than a bit upset,” Kriskov explained.
You are more than a bad driver, Sasha thought.
Traffic was slow. It usually was, but Yuri Kriskov wove his blue Volga with tinted windows through the narrow, momentary spaces between buses, trucks, and cars.
The list Kriskov had prepared was long and, Sasha decided, probably useless at this stage. Besides, he couldn’t concentrate on it with Kriskov, who chain-smoked and challenged sanity as he sped past cars, trucks, buses, and an occasional bicycle. There wasn’t enough time to check out each name. Yuri had done his work. There were forty-two names on the list and it was possible none of them was the right one. If the thief was not trapped tomorrow, Sasha and Elena would go to Porfiry Petrovich and ask for additional help in checking the people on the list.
The car was thick with smoke. Yuri made no effort to apologize or open a window more than a crack. The car was specially equipped with air conditioning, but it did little and was noisy.
Sasha had the list in his lap.
“I trust everyone on that list,” said Kriskov between nervous puffs. “And, at the same time, I don’t trust anyone on the list. This is maddening. How can I look at them. Kolya I have known since we were children in Rostov. And his sons I have known since they were babies. Forfonov, Blesskovich, Valentina Spopchek nursed me through the flu, and … I may reach out and strangle one of them if they show the slightest hint of deception.”
“You won’t,” said Sasha, opening his window as they nearly missed a rickety little yellow Yugo whose driver cursed and managed to get out of the way, almost hitting a pickup truck in the next lane.
Yuri paid no attention. “We are almost there,” he said.
A few minutes later Yuri turned off the highway, sped down Mira Prospekt, made a sharp left onto Durova Prospekt, and drove until they came to a newly paved narrow road. At the end of the road stood a five-story building, white with a dome that looked as if it had been designed for a science-fiction movie. The structure stood alone in an open field of tall weeds. Yuri drove to the building and parked in a space marked by a black-on-white sign nailed to the concrete wall, stating that this was the space, of “Y. Kriskoff.”
Kriskov threw away what remained of his latest cigarette and got out of the car. Sasha followed him to the large gold-painted double doors.
“My name,” Sasha reminded him, “is Sasha Honoré-Baptiste, from Gaumont.”
“I remember. I remember,” said Yuri impatiently. “I know my lines. I started as an actor. What if someone says something to you in French?”
“My French is fine.”
They were passing the empty reception desk in the tiled lobby and heading for a door with a red light over it. The light was on.
“You speak it like a native?”
“I have been told. Relax, Yuri Kriskov,” said Sasha. “I know what I am doing.”
“Of course,” said Kriskov, looking at the young man at his side, decidedly unconvinced at this point in his life of the wisdom of this or any enterprise.
They paused at the door and the light went off. The producer opened the door.
“This is a re-recording studio,” said Yuri. “The director works with the actors and sound people to go over lines, repeat, change, make them clearer, or just put them in. In this case they appear to be working on a film that may not exist.”
Three people were in the small, tile-walled room. A bearded man, in jeans and a gray T-shirt that displayed a picture of Michael Jordan smiling, was introduced as Peotor Levich, “the famous director.” Sasha had never heard of the famous director but he shook his hand warmly and said, “I very much admire your work.” Sasha did his best to speak with a French accent.
Levich was big-shouldered and going to fat. He was perhaps forty at most. “Sasha Honoré-Baptiste,” he said and they shook hands. “I know you.”
“Impossible,” said Yuri Kriskov quickly. “Monsieur Honoré-Baptiste has been in Moscow for only a few days and …”
“From the movies,” said Levich, examining Sasha with a knowing grin. “Policeman. Policeman. Ah, you are an actor. I remember you played a policeman in those two movies with the actor. What is his name? What is his name? Sad face he has. But his name …”
“I’m an investor now,” said Sasha. “The hours are shorter but it pays better.”
“Where did you learn Russian?” asked Levich.
“My mother is Russian. She taught me. My father is a jeweler. He has traveled to Russia many times.”
“I saw you in those movies,” Levich said. “I greatly admire French movies. What was it? Something about some stolen drugs. You played Belmondo’s son and there was that actor.”
He looked at Sasha for an answer and then supplied his own.
“Philippe Noiret. I would have loved him for Tolstoy. I would have traded my arm. Both arms.”
Sasha smiled and shrugged, unable to deny the man’s fantasy.
Levich stepped back, examined Sasha, and said, “Yuri, he is our Montov when we do
“He is not an actor any longer,” said Yuri, showing his impatience. “He has told you.”
“You would play opposite Leonora Vukolonya,” Levich went on. “It’s not a huge role. You could do it in a
