probably would not. Ivan began to raise his hands.
“That will not be necessary,” said the man with the gun.
“Thank you,” said Ivan.
“We have been waiting for you,” the man with the gun said.
“You knew I would come here?”
“Where else would you go?”
They met on neutral ground, the British chain Costa Coffee shop on Pushkinskaya Square. Colonel Yaklovev could not bring himself to suggest one of the new Starbucks or the Moka Loka and did not want to go to a Shokoladnitsa coffee house, where there was a slight chance he might be recognized. Yaklovev was secretly addicted to frothy flavored lattes, particularly those made at Shokoladnitsa. With Moscow’s ratio of one coffee house for every 3,187 people, however, it was not difficult to come up with a suggestion that General Misovenski did not veto.
Coffee houses were especially good places to meet in public.
They were crowded and noisy and the two men were unlikely to be recognized. Indeed, without their uniforms, they simply looked like businessmen out for a coffee break.
A few people might comment that Yaklovev looked somewhat like Lenin or that the dark Misovenski with deep-set eyes looked a little like the British actor Ian McShane.
Given the subject that they were going to discuss after having a satisfying sip of their drinks, both men felt confident that the other would not be recording the conversation. What they were about to discuss could lead to the fall of both men.
“It is good,” said the General in the gravelly voice that was familiar and forbidding to his department of 220 men and women.
The Yak put his cup down and nodded his agreement.
He did not like drinking coffee from paper or Styrofoam cups. He thought the coffee before him only minimally satisfying. To avoid the possibility of future profiling for the General’s files, the Yak had ordered a straight medium-sized black coffee.
“If Aleksandr Chenko is arrested and brought to trial,” said the Yak, “he will very likely tell the prosecutors and the court that he is related to Prime Minister Putin and that you had him in your grasp a year ago, as many as twelve murders ago, and that you let him go to protect the reputation of Prime Minister Putin.”
The Yak, with evidence provided by Emil Karpo, knew that Chenko bore no relationship to Putin. The familial tie was an invention of Chenko.
“I am listening,” said the General, offended by the lack of political subtlety being shown by this man he outranked.
“I have that evidence, or at least a copy of it, in my possession,” said the Yak as a young and pretty girl with long black hair bumped into their table. The girl said, “Oops,” and moved her coffee cup away before it spilled on either man.
“And what do you propose?” asked Misovenski.
“If Chenko does not make it to trial, perhaps does not even make it to arrest, my office will be given credit for catching the worst serial killer in the history of Russia, and neither your office nor mine will have to embarrass Prime Minister Putin. You can simply issue brief congratulations to the Office of Special Investigations. My name need not be mentioned. The case will be closed. We can both control the flow of information about Chenko, perhaps even manufacture a suitable biography.”
Since Karpo did not have the imagination for such a task, the Yak had given the assignment to Pankov, who would certainly stain any hard copy with sweat. He would sweat, but he would do a good job.
The General nodded to show his approval.
“It will have to be accomplished soon,” said the Yak.
“You have a person in mind for the task?” asked the General.
“Yes,” said the Yak, deciding he could drink no more of this coffee in a cardboard cup, listen to no more of the babble of boys, the chatter of women, the laughter of girls.
“You approve then?” asked the Yak.
“Yes,” said the General, rising.
Protocol and his superior rank meant that the General should choose his moment of departure and that the Colonel should remain in place till the higher-ranking officer had left.
“You have not finished your coffee,” the General added.
“Perhaps in a moment or two.”
Another nod from the General and he made his way through the evening crowd and out the door.
Yaklovev left as soon as he could, dropping his half-full cup in a trash container whose lid opened greedily.
Igor Yaklovev had written nothing, but he had come well prepared. Before the meeting he had carefully gone over the Bitsevsky Maniac files pulling out names, searching. An hour before the meeting with Misovenski, the Yak had narrowed the list down to five. Half an hour before the meeting his list was down to two, and now, after this meeting, the list was down to one.
The only problem might come from Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov or one of his people who might get hurt or even killed. It would be tragic but acceptable, though the Yak would far prefer not to lose Rostnikov. The Chief Inspector was vital to the Yak’s plans, but even that could be dealt with.
He had decided who would kill Aleksandr Chenko.
Two dented cans of Norwegian salmon.
In twelve years, Aleksandr Chenko had not been responsible for a single dented can, not one can. Nor had he broken a jar or caused a hole in a box of cereal or noodles or anything else.
He had watched the blue-and-white cans roll across the aisle. He had heard them clunk to the floor and wobble in three directions. Customers had been present. He wanted to tell them that nothing like this had ever happened to him before, never, but he said nothing, just chased down the cans and gently dropped them in the carton on the flatbed before starting to return them to the shelf with great care.
That was when he had found the two dented cans.
He would have to tell Juliana Horvath, the storeroom supervisor. He hoped she would not make the dented cans a subject of extended conversation, but he knew she would acknowledge this event in some way. And she did.
Juliana Horvath was just over fifty, stocky, homely, with short, straight dyed yellow hair. She was neither too smart nor too stupid for her position, and she took it seriously.
Aleksandr had carefully restacked the cans in the same display form as before, replacing the dented cans with new ones. Everything was even, symmetrical. A customer would sooner or later remove a can, but that did not matter. Aleksandr would have done his job.
As it turned out, Juliana Horvath had simply accepted the two dented cans and made a small
“You look pale,” said Juliana Horvath in her slightly hoarse cigarette-destroyed voice.
“I am fine,” Aleksandr had said.
“You do look a bit-” Ilya Grosschekov had started to observe, but Aleksandr had cut him off with an uncharacteristic firm, “I am fine.”
“It is just two dented cans,” said Juliana Horvath.
They had no real pride in their work. They came, did the job, collected their pay. Aleksandr took pride. What was the point of working eight or ten hours a day if one did not derive satisfaction from what one did? As it was for cans of Norwegian salmon, so it was for the lost souls in the park.
When he checked out later, Aleksandr had walked slowly, full cloth grocery bag in hand, containing the two cans of Norwegian salmon that he had purchased, to Bitsevsky Park. He had come there earlier, on his lunch break, on this cool, clear, crisp day, in search of the policeman with the artificial leg, but the policeman had been at none of the benches. Aleksandr had eaten his cheese and lettuce sandwich on a fresh roll while he searched.
