“You could have followed him to the hotel intending to confront him, but you came upon him killing the woman.”
Albina poured the tea and considered her options.
“That is exactly what did happen,” she said. “But I was not there to save her.”
“I suggest you call a lawyer and then turn yourself in to the police. I assume you are full of regret for what you have done.”
“No,” said Albina with a very small smile. “Are you sure you will not have some cookies?”
Ivan Medivkin, a man of considerable height, strength, and weight, was subdued, cuffed, and seated in the interrogation room with the two detectives.
“When I get up, I will get free and kill whoever beat Fedot Babinski after I get him to confess.”
Iosef sat in a wooden chair. He tugged his shirt from under his arms. He knew he was sweating in the room that reeked of the smell of human bodies.
“I do not think much of your plan, Ivan Medivkin,” said Iosef. “You proclaim your innocence and plan a murder.”
“Not a murder. An execution,” Ivan amended.
Iris Templeton put on a clean white blouse and a comfortable blue cotton skirt. She straightened her skirt and stood up. Then there was a knock at the door. She almost asked who it was when Sasha, gun in hand, emerged from the bathroom and motioned for her to be quiet and move to the bathroom as he walked slowly to the door and slowly opened it as the knocking continued. During the night, Sasha had changed rooms, moved into the room directly across from that of Iris Templeton, but he had awakened at her side.
Sasha threw the door open. In front of him now at the threshold stood a very muscular man with a shaved head and another man, a thin man with very white hair.
“Breakfast?” said the man with white hair.
He sounded cheerful, cheerful enough that Sasha hesitated, but only for an instant, only long enough to see the guns suddenly appear in the intruders’ hands.
“Come in,” said Sasha, dropping to the floor. The two men came in firing at the bed and looking toward the bathroom. Then Elena came out of the room across the hall behind them firing her weapon. Sasha did the same. The noise was familiar but not welcome to the two men in the doorway. Then both intruders fired, the white- haired one at Elena, the bald one at Sasha.
At this point, Elena stepped back and three SWAT-uniformed policemen armed with automatic weapons came out from behind her. The bald man dropped his gun and went to his knees.
The white-haired man dashed toward the open doors of the elevator at the end of the corridor. He had propped the doors open with a small wedge of wood so that he and the bald man could get away quickly after they killed Iris Templeton.
The man hobbled, grunting, leaving a trail of blood on the gray carpet. Sasha went after him. The man had a foot in the door of the elevator when Sasha landed on his back. The man twisted his hand behind him and fired his weapon. Sasha tore the gun from his hand, battered his face against the floor, and rolled onto his back.
“Are you all right?” asked Elena, who stood over Sasha as he moved over onto his back, from which vantage point he could see a small, old chandelier.
“I am,” he said. “Iris Templeton?”
“Unhurt. She crawled to the bathroom when the shooting began. The two men with guns were remarkably poor shots.”
“Just like in an American movie.”
Sasha was fascinated by the dozens of lights in the small chandelier in the ceiling directly above him.
A pair of policemen in protective wear hurried down the corridor dragging the bald prisoner, who looked back over his shoulder at Sasha.
“I think they will both live,” said Elena. “I will have them put into separate small cells.”
“The older one, make him comfortable. The bald one, give him some food and water and something to drink. . ”
“I know,” said Elena.
They would play the two men against each other. Maybe Chief Inspector Rostnikov would take care of that part of this. If they were lucky, one of them might turn Pavel Petrov in and with the tape from Sergei Bresnechov, Tyrone, they might be able to arrest Petrov.
Over Elena’s shoulder appeared the face of Iris Templeton.
“Are you shot?” she asked the fallen detective.
“No,” Sasha said. “I just want to lie here for a while. I like the view.”
12
Had his father ever come home sober from the furniture factory where he worked? He must have, but Aleks could not remember such a time. He was certain that his background must be known to the police. He was certain a dolt of an officer had or would come to the conclusion, with the help of a no-nothing psychologist, that in killing the alcoholic old men in the park Aleks was killing his father. Aleks did not want to kill his father. He was alive, still working, and quite available if Aleks wanted to kill him.
Perhaps Aleks could take this opportunity to lull the policeman into a nighttime stroll in the park from which only Aleks would return.
Aleksandr Chenko decided to take a walk. His apartment had begun to feel like a tight suit his parents had made him wear for a parade at the Kremlin. He had been eight years old and he was too short to see much of anything, though he could hear the grinding of tanks and the claps of marching boots. Aleks remembered the tight and itching suit and the fact that he had wet his pants. He had not told his parents, and when he got home he had hurried to the bathroom, stripped himself naked, and stepped into the shower. The shower had been cold. It was always cold. He ran it on his penis and between his legs where the redness itched.
Aleks’s father had shouted at him when he came out, called him a fool while his mother just shook her head and looked at the pile of clothes her son brought out.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to kill his father.
13
“Once more I tell you, I do not know who killed your boxer, but I do know it was not your giant,” said Paulinin. “He was there, but DNA insists on another wielder of the weapon.”
“You are sure?”
There was a long pause and then Paulinin said, “When have you known me to speak without certainty?” He hung up before Iosef could say more.
Then Iosef said, “Who do you know who did not like Fedot Babinski?”
“His wife,” said Zelach. “Her knuckles.”
“Knuckles?” asked Ivan.
At the entrance gate of Petrovka stood a young man who held on to the fence’s iron bars and shifted from one leg to the other. He had told the guards whom he wanted to see, though he did not know the
