“The little girl who just left here has a grandfather,” Rostnikov said. “He cleans guns in preparation for an invasion by the Japanese. I would like you to talk to him about the places in the mine too large for all but little girls to crawl into. I should like to know where they are.”
“There are not any such places,” said Boris emphatically.
“But there is a ghost?” asked Rostnikov.
“The ghost is real, but do not tell anyone I said so. The small caves are not real, and you can tell anyone you like that I said so,” said Boris.
“Enlightening,” said Karpo.
“Hidden places, Emil Karpo. Hidden places,” said Rostnikov.
His choices were still narrow. He could gather everything he could get into a suitcase and make some excuse to be on the next plane out of Devochka. He had plenty of excuses open to him for short-term visits to Moscow. In Moscow he could disappear, and with the help of St. James he could leave Russia. But he was not certain that St. James would help him. His value lay in staying where he was, and the truth was that he did not want to leave. His life was here.
Even if St. James made him rich, it would not compensate for what he would have to give up. St. James would probably want the two detectives killed. He would have to kill them. Then what? More policemen? Maybe the next ones would not be so smart, or maybe they would and they would be looking for a ghost who had killed two policemen. It was not a good situation.
He made a decision. If either or both of the policemen decided to go into the mine, they would get a visit from the ghost girl and they would not leave the mine alive.
“So?” asked Iosef Rostnikov, holding the phone close to his ear to mask the sound of a building across the street being demolished by a huge wrecking ball.
He had watched the demolition for half an hour before making the call. There was something fascinating and satisfying in the sight of the massive ball swinging widely and then making an almost grateful loop into what remained of the wall.
Porfiry Petrovich lay in the bed fully clothed sans the leg, which kept him company within reach, on a chair. From the bed he could look through the window at a formation of clouds that looked like a laughing man reclining.
“They don’t have the diamonds,” Rostnikov said, watching the cloud slowly morph into something else he could not yet identify.
“They could have them and plan to simply give the people who have the hostage African the fake diamonds,” said Iosef.
“Then they would not value the hostage’s life very highly.”
“But the kidnappers probably plan to kill him anyway,” said Iosef. “They are likely to know that.”
“There is little doubt of that. So perhaps your two Botswanans plan to start a small war at the War Memorial in the hope of saving their friend.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Iosef. “And you suggest?”
“Caution and backup. How is Zelach?”
“A man will be sure to meet at least once in his life something that is unlike anything he had happened to see before.”
“Chekov?”
“Gogol,” said Iosef. “Zelach is that thing.”
“Be careful,” said Porfiry Petrovich.
“I will be. Any other advice?”
“Marry Elena if she will still have you. You asked for my advice.”
“I did,” Iosef said. “Anything else I should know?”
“You have an uncle.”
“An uncle?”
“He is here in Siberia.”
“What better place for an uncle,” Iosef said, knowing his father’s sense of humor.
“You have cousins too. I will tell you more when I see you. Perhaps I can persuade him to visit Moscow if I do not have to arrest him for murder.”
“He is a suspect, this uncle?”
“A suspect with definite credentials. Let us talk again after the war at the War Memorial.”
Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov hung up and reached awkwardly to place the phone back in its cradle on the night table.
He forced himself up, letting his leg hang over the side of the bed. He had a date with Viktor Panin to lift weights. Panin was also a suspect. There were few who were not. After lifting and showering, Rostnikov would meet with more little girls and Yevgeniy Zuyev, the mayor of Devochka, another suspect. The total number of suspects in the mining town was two hundred eleven men, two hundred eighteen women, and one hundred sixty- one school-age boys and girls. Somehow Rostnikov, who was slowly putting on his favorite gray sweatsuit, did not believe he would have to talk to all these people.
Speaking softly to his artificial leg, he put it on and decided he would wait for Emil Karpo’s report on the grandfather who was preparing for invasion by the forces of Nippon.
It was not the girl Lillita’s grandfather, Karpo discovered. It was her great-grandfather, Gennadi Ivanov. He was indeed alone in a small room into which he welcomed Karpo after the detective identified himself.
Karpo estimated that the man was at least ninety years old. He was surprisingly erect and tall, but so thin that he had to constantly adjust the thick suspenders over his sloping shoulders.
There was a bed in a corner, a dresser, and a large table cluttered with the exposed insides of a rifle. Along one wall was a rack of rifles and a case of handguns behind glass doors.
“No ammunition,” said the old man, offering a chair.
He sat on a bench that ran the length of the table.
“I will be given the ammunition when the Japanese come,” he said. “At least that is what they tell me, have been telling me for tens of years. They do not believe the attack is coming. Their fathers did not believe. I wish they were right, but they are not. They were repulsed at Vladivostok by sea and in Korea by land in 1904. My father fought them off.”
The old man wore a well trimmed white beard and a matching head of hair. He eyed the still-standing detective and made a decision.
“I know where they keep the ammunition. I can just walk over to Fedya Rostnikov’s office, shoot the lock off, and arm forty men.”
“But you have no ammunition to shoot the lock off,” said Karpo.
The old man smiled knowingly, showing a mouth that had long since lost most of its teeth.
“Perhaps. Perhaps. Do you have any idea what this is?” he asked, pointing at the dismantled weapon on the table in front of him.
“A Mosin-Nagent rifle,” said Karpo. “It fires a 7.62 × 54 rimmed cartridge. Five shot bolt action.”
“Can hit a Japanese soldier at five hundred yards,” said the old man. “This one was used in the war against Finland. Those Finns could fight. Better than the Japanese.”
He picked up a small metal part from the table and squinted at it as he held it up.
“I am here to talk about the mine,” said Karpo.
“Talk.”
“There are hidden caves in the mine. Small caves that children can crawl through.”
