Fall of a Cosmonaut

“Maybe I will shoot you.”

The boy who called himself B.B. suddenly changed. He was afraid.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Grachev said. “And I’m not going to shoot Sasha here or anyone else. But that is our secret. I have killed enough for one morning. They are making a great deal of noise up there.”

“A great deal,” Sasha agreed, looking back over his shoulder. “I have no control over that.”

“I don’t mind,” said Valery Grachev. “Now, my third question. You said you know what I am going to do, or you think you do. What am I going to do?”

“Take the negative out of that bag and throw it in the river,” said Sasha. “The only reason you have not already done so is that you are waiting for a larger audience and the television cameras.”

“You really should play chess,” said Grachev.

Sasha shrugged.

“I don’t think I can wait longer,” said Grachev. “I think I see a television truck on the Kremlyovskaya Embankment over there across the river, and I am sure there are others and tourists with cameras. I would like your people to let the people with cameras come where they can see.”

“I do not have that power, Kon,” said Sasha.

“Then I will have to begin.”

“Would you like some help?” asked Sasha, who was now certain that Grachev was dying. “It will be awkward for you, keeping the gun on B.B. with one hand, staying alert, reaching in for the film. It will be painful.”

“I think I would prefer you to remain where you are,” said Grachev. “You can watch.”

With that, the young man reached into the bag and pulled out a tightly wound roll of film about one and a half feet across. Sasha could see the pain in the man’s face.

“You are going to destroy Tolstoy,” said Sasha.

“I am going to destroy a movie about the life of Tolstoy. I will tell you a secret, Sasha,” said Grachev. “From what I have seen of it, it is a very bad, bloated, lying movie about Tolstoy. It turns him into a tragic romantic figure with a big-budget background. The world is better off without this Tolstoy.”

“And without Kriskov?” asked Sasha.

“And without me,” answered Grachev, unwinding the film.

“I can help,” said B.B.

Grachev handed him the reel, and the boy began to unwind the film. There was a rattle and more than a murmur in the crowd behind the two men and the boy. Above the sound of voices and vehicles, Sasha could hear the crinkling of unwinding film. Soon the rocks in front of the boy and the man who now called himself Kon were covered with curls of black film. When there was still about half the film remaining in a tight circle, the circle collapsed and dropped into the boy’s lap.

“Throw it in,” said Grachev. “Stand up. Throw it in.”

B.B. wiped his hands on his jeans and stood. “Really?” he asked.

“Throw,” said Grachev.

And the boy threw.

Some people who had managed to make it to the concrete ledge began to applaud and some took pictures. The film now floated in a serpentine mass upon the water. The black bundle began to move away from the shore. Grachev reached for the second reel and handed it to the waiting boy, who eagerly took it and began to unwind.

“Sasha, would you like to cast black bread upon the water?” asked Grachev.

“No, thank you,” said Sasha. “I’m content to watch.”

And watch he did till there was no more film, just four dark clouds floating away on the water. The first cloud of film had begun to sink.

“Now,” said Grachev, his eyes blinking away perspiration.

“Now?” asked Sasha.

“Now you come close and I tell you a secret,” he said.

Sasha moved toward him carefully along the rocks, knowing that he was ruining a good pair of pants already stained by his earlier shoot-out with the man toward whom he crawled. Someone in the crowd gasped. When Sasha was a yard from the dying man, Grachev turned his weapon on the detective and said, “B.B., you may go now, clamber up the rocks, climb the wall, talk to the television people and the police. B.B., I have become the highlight of your life. You will remember me and what we have done till you die. You will tell the story many times. It will change. I don’t know how. I know. I once made it to the Moscow chess semifinals when I was your age. I remember every move and the watching crowd and I have convinced myself that the game I lost was much closer than it probably really was. Go.”

B.B. scampered up the rocks, slipped once, and continued.

Grachev was not watching, but Sasha was.

“Is he gone?”

“Yes,” said Sasha. “You talked of a woman. Was it Vera Kriskov?”

“That is Kriskov’s wife?”

“You know that it is. You love her,” said Sasha.

“I have never seen her, don’t know her, but I will perhaps do her a great favor when I tell you my secret. Lean close.”

Sasha leaned toward the man, not worrying about being shot, though it would have been a reasonable cause of concern at that moment. Sasha could smell blood, fever, and death now.

“There is a bicycle shop off of Gorky Street. It is called Wheels. There is a closet in that shop, in the rear. Go to it. You will find my final surprise, my last move. I will be laughing. I will have protected my queen.”

“What will I find in that closet?” asked Sasha.

“The original negative and the duplicate negative for the abomination of the life of Tolstoy. B.B. just threw away the negative of a movie I worked on two years ago, The Gambler’s Wife. That was even worse than the film you will find in that closet. That is my gift to the widow.”

“And from this you got? …”

“Look around you, Sasha. I got an audience for my final move. I got …”

He drew in a breath, broke off in the middle of it, stretched himself out, and died.

Chapter Fourteen

Director Igor Yaklovev was sitting at the end of the conference table in his office when Rostnikov arrived with his writing pad, a neatly typed stack of reports, some notes, and a small box in his hands. The Yak motioned the chief inspector to his usual spot, and Rostnikov nodded as he moved to take his seat and place his bundle in front of him.

The Yak said nothing, sat with hands folded before him on the wooden table. There was nothing in front of him. In a few moments there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” called Yaklovev, and the diminutive Pankov entered, juggling a small tray with two cups.

Pankov moved slowly, afraid of dropping the coffee, and placed a cup before the director and another before the chief inspector. The Yak’s was black. The chief inspector’s was white with two sugars. Pankov took the small tray and departed.

“He is learning to make better coffee,” said the Yak after taking a sip.

“Much better,” Rostnikov agreed.

“Progress?” asked Yaklovev.

“Closure on all three current investigations,” said Porfiry Petrovich, handing the director three reports in clean manila folders.

His leg was definitely bothering him. He would have to see Leon, his wife’s cousin, for an adjustment to his prosthesis. The park competition was coming soon. With any pain it would be difficult to lift.

“Andrei Vanga, director of the Center for the Study of Technical Parapsychology, has been arrested for the