years ago.
“I have an appointment with Leon tomorrow,” she said.
Leon was her doctor and Porfiry Petrovich’s. Leon was also her cousin.
“The headaches?” Rostnikov asked.
“Yes, but they could be caused by many things.”
Rostnikov nodded and resumed eating. They both feared the return of the tumor or a new one, but there was nothing to say that would enlighten them or give them hope.
It was almost midnight. Rostnikov would have to be up early and he had yet to do his weights, remove his leg, and quite literally hop into the shower to shave and wash. He hoped the water would at least be tepid. He had done his best to ease the flow of heating gas. His efforts had proved to have dubious success.
Rostnikov’s hobby was plumbing. Plumbing fascinated him. The pipes in the wall, the sinks, were all part of a system not unlike that of the human body that disposed of waste. Pipes and sinks were things that he could repair. There were many things he as a policeman dealt with every day that he could not repair.
The entire building in which the Rostnikovs lived counted on him and not the post-Soviet owners to take care of everything from leaking faucets to major assaults on the rusting system.
When they could, the two little girls accompanied him in his efforts. Nina was particularly fascinated by his efforts and tools. The older sister, Laura, joined them when she had nothing else to do.
He finished the food in his bowl and wiped it clean with a piece of heavy grain-filled bread.
“More?” Sara asked.
“Yes, please.”
She brought him more and smiled as he began working on another bowl.
“You are a great cook,” he said.
“When we first married, I believed that, but I have learned that you will eat almost anything and declare that it is delicious.”
“Your cooking is special,” he said. “Your chicken
“Our son is as undiscerning about food as you are. Almost every morning when he still lived with us he had the same breakfast as you, a large bowl of hot kasha with milk and sugar, and declared it delicious.”
Rostnikov said nothing. She was right. He too thought the morning bowl of kasha was delicious. He had thought so since childhood.
“Finished,” he said with a grin. “It was delicious.”
“And I am a great cook.”
“The greatest in all of Russia and all the former member states of the Soviet Union.”
Getting up took great effort. It was not just his leg but also a weariness in his bones. For some reason he thought of the boy on the bench that afternoon. What was his name? Yes, Yuri Platkov. He wondered if the boy would be back the coming afternoon. Rostnikov had enjoyed their conversation. The coming day was supposed to be mild, without either rain or snow. Trusting forecasts could be disappointing in Moscow.
He still had the chance of six hours’ sleep if he moved quickly and efficiently. Six hours would be fine. He would be one hour short of that goal. At 5:00 a.m. the phone would ring to inform him that the Maniac had struck again.
Aleksandr Chenko had eaten not one but two sandwiches of radishes and sardines. He had turned on the television when he came home but absorbed almost nothing that passed in front of him.
Aleksandr could not stop thinking of the man, the barrel of a detective who had looked right at him in Bitsevsky Park. It would be right to make him the next victim, but when would that be? The need was there and the passion was in him. He needed to kill again soon. His chessboard called to him. He needed it as others might need a third sandwich. He felt the need in his stomach, his heart, his throbbing head.
If he was to make a place for himself in history, he would have to act quickly. The policeman would have to wait. Aleksandr’s watch told him it was almost midnight. He moved with certainty to the hook on the wall near the door to the hall. He removed his jacket from the hook and put the jacket on.
Aleksandr locked his door behind him and moved down the silent stairwell to the basement. He encountered no one. He wouldn’t have been surprised to run into one of the other tenants in the building wandering in drunk and loud. There were several who would have made excellent additions to his list, but he did not want the police to be this close, not yet.
Aleksandr turned on the light. Behind a pile of boxes against the wall was a loose brick. He flattened himself between boxes and wall and removed the brick, first with the tips of his fingers and then with his hand. He reached into the now-open space and found the handle of the hammer. He closed his eyes as the familiar feeling of almost sexual pleasure electrified his hand and moved over his entire body. He shuddered as he carefully withdrew the hammer and placed it on top of the boxes. It took him only seconds to put back the brick and slither back into the light.
As he stepped toward the light, he looked back knowing that he would see his shadow, bent in half by the juncture of floor and ceiling, clutching the hammer.
It was midnight now. He turned off the light and headed up the stairs and out the building to head for the park to find a stranger to murder.
Taras Ignakov was content, as content as a homeless man in the park could be on a cold day in Moscow. He wore a brown sweatshirt that had the words “Property of the Cleveland Browns” written across the front. Over the brown sweatshirt he wore a heavy black wool coat two sizes too large for him. He had gotten the sweatshirt and coat by telling the rabbi in the little black Jew cap at the synagogue on Poklonnaya Gora that he was a Jew. Maybe the man was not a rabbi. He had no beard. It did not matter. The man told Taras he did not have to be a Jew to get used clothing that had been donated by the small congregation. The Jew had looked at him carefully when he came to the door. Synagogues had been bombed and attacked in the past year. Taras had learned that from an overheard conversation.
Nonetheless, Taras had wandered around wondering if he could or should trade the very nice coat to the fake Catholic priest who was always willing to look at decent clothing, jewelry, shoes. The coat would surely be worth a bottle of vodka. The one thing Taras would not trade was the watch in his pocket. It was the vestige of humanity to which he clung. When he had sunk so low that he had to exchange it for vodka, he would no longer have the right to think of himself as anything but an animal. He was reasonably sure that day would eventually come, eventually, but not tonight.
Taras had for the moment forgotten where to find the man who pretended to be a Catholic priest. It would come to him. Yes, in the bar off the Arbat. The pretend Catholic priest would not be there at this hour. Besides, it was too far a journey for tonight. Now Taras needed a place to sleep.
Taras walked, walked in thick socks and heavy army boots. He could not remember where he had found the boots. There was a hole the size of a large coin in the toe of the left boot. Taras had filled it in from the inside with newspaper. He had wrapped both feet in newspaper. The boots, like the coat, were too large.
But Taras had hope. With three newspapers, fished from the garbage behind a restaurant where he sometimes delved into the garbage for something edible, he walked. His boots sloshed through shallow puddles made by melted snow.
The reason Taras Ignakov was filled with hope as he trudged through the night was the bottle in his coat pocket. Luck had been with him. A parked car. The door open. The almost full bottle on the floor. And it was Putinka vodka, the vodka claimed to be good for relaxing and overcoming fatigue. Good. He had drunk most of it while standing in the doorway of a bookstore far from the car. There was still a lot of vodka remaining in the bottle.
He touched the watch in one pocket and then caressed the bottle with his hand in the other pocket. He decided he would drink half of the remaining contents slowly and save the rest for tomorrow. He would do this when he got to a spot where he could sleep for the night without being disturbed by the police.
Normally, Taras walked with his shoulders slumped and head facing down. Now he looked up, wondering where he was. He had walked for hours, many hours. He needed to abandon his plan and drink the rest of the vodka.
