“Please,” called Anatoly. “It was the girl, the red-haired girl, the crazy one who calls herself Anarchista. The one in Naked Cossack’s band. She paid us. Told us the Naked Cossack was a Jew. She gave him something in his drink at Loni’s and we put him in a car. He was unconscious. She drove away. That is all I know.”
“She paid you?” Karpo said, looking back.
“Cash and … and a quick fuck for both of us behind Loni’s.”
Karpo closed the door and turned to face the young man, who was bouncing on his heels nervously.
“What did she say she was going to do with him?”
“I do not know.”
“Kill him?”
“She did not say. She was high on something. Happy. It was a game. The sex, everything. A game. I do not know where she took him.”
It was getting worse all the time. No foundation. Creatures like this roamed the streets and alleys. Democracy had not brought democracy. It had brought chaos and anarchy. The girl had aptly named herself. There was no dignity, no sense of mission in catching her, in freeing Misha Lovski if he was still alive. There was only the task.
“If he dies or is dead, you are an accomplice to murder.”
“But I told you what happened,” Anatoly whined. “You owe me for that.”
“And for many things,” said Karpo. “Many things.”
The open-air stalls in Gorbushka market were closed. Snow was more than a foot deep and the temperature was below freezing with an occasional sweep of cold wind bending the branches of the surrounding trees. The only real activity was in the dingy concrete building at the edge of the market.
The interior of the building was packed with people, almost all younger than thirty, laughing, haggling, swearing. Music screamed, a hundred different sounds, voices in a dozen languages, instruments knifing through the bodies.
Karpo and Zelach walked through the crowd, drawing stares, glares, and occasional comments, though no one was quite up to facing the pale man in black.
“Vampire in the daytime,” said one boy, head shaven, teeth bad.
Some assumed the two men were older sympathizers, last-generation pavers of the way. There were a few holdovers. Maybe these two were here to buy or sell. Maybe.
The huge open space was warm with bodies and rank with sweat and the oil on leather jackets decorated with skulls, swastikas, church towers, bottles marked
At another table were books and pamphlets with titles like
Karpo and Zelach moved on, scanning the crowd, looking for the girl. There were many girls with bright-red hair, most of them blocked by larger young men and boys.
Another table was doing a brisk business in Confederate flags and hats, white hoods advertised as genuine Ku Klux Klan antiques.
More tables. Boots, boots, boots, German army T-shirts and uniforms.
Noise. Stares.
Earlier, Karpo and Zelach had gone back to the apartment of Misha Lovski. The door they had broken had been repaired. They knocked and a voice had answered, “What?”
“Police,” Karpo had said.
“Shit, not again. Do not break the door. I am coming.”
A few seconds later the door had opened to reveal Valery Postnov, the frail blond boy who called himself Pure Knuckles. There seemed nothing pure about him, and his knuckles, both detectives knew, were bony and thin. One good punch and the boy’s hand would be broken.
“What?” he asked dreamily, wearing only soiled white briefs, scratching his hairless chest. “You find the Cossack?”
The room had not been cleaned or cleared or touched since their last visit.
“Nina Aronskaya,” Karpo said. “Where is she?”
“Anarchista?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I ask,” said Karpo, staring down at the boy who tried to hold his ground.
“I do not know where she is,” he said.
“You will come with us,” said Karpo. “Put on some clothes.”
“Where are we going?” the boy asked, looking at Zelach, who blinked behind his glasses.
“Somewhere where you will be very uncomfortable,” said Karpo. “Somewhere where you will remember where Nina Aronskaya is. Somewhere where you will remember perhaps where Misha Lovski is.”
“I do not know where the Cossack is,” the boy said. “He is … this is no big thing. He just wandered for a few days. He will come back.”
“Put on your pants,” said Karpo. “You have one minute. It is cold outside today. One minute or we take you as you are.”
The boy looked at Zelach, who continued to do his best to look impassive. He wanted to tell the boy to do what Karpo wanted, that Karpo had been behaving even more strangely than usual, that the boy would be very sorry if he did not cooperate. Zelach willed the boy not to show any disrespect. Karpo was never in the mood for disrespect for the law. Today would be a particularly bad day to test him.
“She went with Acid,” the boy said.
“Yakov Mitsin,” said Karpo.
“Yes,” the boy said. “To the Gorbushka. They are looking for new clothes, giving us a new look in case the Cossack does not come back.”
“You just told us you were sure he would be back,” said Karpo.
“I know, but Anarchista said we should not count on it. She is getting a little … forget it.”
“A little what?” asked Karpo.
“She said the Cossack is a Jew, that his father is rich,” the boy said. “She has been talking crazy like that. They got new clothes for the band and when the Cossack comes back he will be pissed.”
Karpo stared into the eyes of the boy, who tried to meet the look but gave up.
“Does Mitsin have a cell phone? The girl?”
“No,” said the boy.
“If you are lying and you call them, we will return for you,” said Karpo.
“I will not be here,” the boy said. “This is getting too … I am getting out.”
“No,” said Karpo. “You will stay here. If you leave, we will find you and you will not be pleased when we do. You understand?”
“I will be here,” the boy said with a sigh.
Then the policemen had headed for the market.
It was Zelach who spotted the girl, not because his eyes were more keen than Karpo’s. They were not. Not because he was looking more closely. He was not. It was a sense he could not explain, a sense his mother had taught him to accept. One moment he was looking at random faces and the next he felt that he should turn left and look all the way across the room. The crowd parted for a fraction of an instant and he saw her.
“There,” he said to Karpo.
Karpo turned his eyes toward where Zelach was looking. He was tall enough to see over most of the people who shuffled and stomped down the aisles, and he caught a glimpse of scarlet hair.
It was pointless for Emil Karpo to try to hide in the crowd, in any crowd. People parted when he approached, even people inside this concrete shrine to hatred.
“Go to the door,” he told Zelach. “She does not get out.”
“Yes,” said Zelach.
“You understand?”
