A Whisper to the Living

other bullet went through my arm and scraped a bone.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A bit.”

“May I see the bullet holes?” asked Yuri.

Rostnikov awkwardly leaned forward, pulled up the leg of his pants, and pushed down his sock. The sight of the washtub of a man displaying his artificial leg for the boy in the slushy cold caused usually weary commuters to hesitate, look, and continue. A few considered informing the police. More simply averted their eyes and walked on.

The boy looked at the dent on the artificial leg, which the policeman pointed out.

“To show you the wound in my shoulder would require me removing my coat, shirt, and undershirt and you would see only a white bandage. I am sorry.”

“Do not be. You found him, for which I am pleased.”

Rostnikov pulled up his sock, dropped his trouser leg, and sat back.

“My grandfather, who has been known to stumble around the park and on the street, might have been next.”

“And you have great affection for your grandfather?”

“No. Maybe. Sometimes. You are telling me a great deal about your case. Do you usually go about telling boys in the park what you are doing?”

“No, I do not. I suppose I like you.”

“I like you too. Another carrot?”

Rostnikov looked down at his hand. The carrot was gone. He had not even noted its passing.

“I think not,” said Rostnikov.

“Then it is over. No reason to return to this bench, the park.”

Rostnikov let out a small grunt as he watched a young woman make a dangerous crossing of the street. She held a large purse in one hand and kept her small hat in place with the other.

There were still the copycats to deal with. He was not prepared to share that information with the boy on the bench.

“Perhaps I will find myself back here from time to time,” said Rostnikov. “It is a pleasant place to watch pretty girls, to think, to find stimulating conversation.”

“You like superheroes?” said Yuri.

“X-Files. My son gave me an ‘I Want to Believe’ T-shirt some years ago. I frequently sleep in it.”

“Your son?”

“He is a policeman too and probably older than your mother and father.”

“Then you are old?”

“As old as Moscow itself.”

“I am going to be a policeman,” said the boy. “Of course I am only eleven, so I may change my mind.”

“Return to this bench and keep me informed of your various changes of mind.”

“I should go home now.”

“We should both go home now.”

The boy bounced up. Rostnikov positioned his nonexistent leg and pushed himself up slowly with a hand on either side of him.

Yuri Platkov held out a thin right hand and Rostnikov took it lightly with respect.

“It is nice to see you again. My name is Yuri Sergievich Platkov.”

“And mine is Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov.”

“That sounds like a very old-fashioned name.”

“I am a very old-fashioned man.”

The sun had begun to rise by the time Emil Karpo reached the street on which he lived. He had traveled without luggage and had not slept going or coming back from London.

One block away, he could see a gathering in an alcove near the entrance to his building. As he moved quietly closer, he could see that it was a group of six boys, bezprizorniki, children of the streets, homeless, dangerous. They were all bent over, looking down at something he could not see, calling out encouraging words.

Karpo touched the shoulders of two of the boys in his way. They looked up at him and parted. In the doorway was a boy with a stick. He was perhaps fifteen years old. He was dirty, as were they all, and their clothes were odd in size and they were obviously not slaves to fashion. The older boy was jabbing a black cat trapped against the door. With nowhere to go, the cat sat back and waved a paw at the prodding stick.

The boys called out, “Get him, Borka. Kill him. Let’s eat him.”

Karpo leaned over, took the stick from the boy called Borka, broke it, and dropped it on the pavement.

Borka, whose face was lopsided to the left, stood up in anger. He was almost half a foot shorter than Karpo, who knelt to pick up the cat, which did not resist.

Karpo tucked the cat under his right arm and faced the boy as he rose.

The boy could not decide whether to search for a way to back down or attack the intruder. There were six of them and only one of him. Every boy in the group had been through fights over food or shelter in which their lives were at stake. They would win, though something about the man’s pale, expressionless face made Borka hesitate.

“Give us your money and we will let you pass,” said Borka, moving to block the entrance.

“I cannot do that,” said Karpo.

“Why not?” asked one boy to his left.

“Because I am a police officer.”

Karpo pulled his badge from his back pocket and held it up.

Borka glanced at it and said, “We have faced policemen before.”

“Then,” said Karpo, returning his wallet to his pocket. “We shall have to see how you manage with this one.”

A caw of insults came from the mouths of those surrounding him as he moved to the door and removed the key from his pocket.

“Meduk, asshole.”

“Govniuk, shit head.”

Karpo could sense one of the boys, not Borka, step behind his back. He turned and faced a boy of no more than ten with a six-inch piece of pipe in his right hand.

The insults stopped. There was a mad look in the eyes of the boy and Borka stood at his shoulder.

“Bash him, Nicki,” a boy in the semicircle called.

As the boy was about to strike, Emil Karpo softly said, “No,” and the boy lowered his weapon. Karpo entered his apartment building and with his free hand made sure the door was locked behind him.

“We know where you live,” called Borka.

The threat meant little to Karpo. They would not want to do battle with a policeman, a policeman who would certainly have a hidden gun. There was nothing to be gained from confronting this unblinking ghost. The gang would almost certainly not return.

After climbing the stairs, he checked the door for the telltale hair that would inform him whether he had had company. There were no signs of company. He entered and put the cat down. The room was cold. The window was open. Nothing had been moved. Nothing had been touched. The narrow bed was hunched in one corner. The chest of drawers stood against one wall, with the freestanding closet at its side. Under the window stood a small, round wooden table with two chairs, and at the foot of the bed against the wall was a small sink and counter, with minimal dishes and utensils and a microwave. A few groceries, most conspicuously a large box of instant oatmeal, were lined up next to the microwave.

The entire remaining wall was covered with notebooks dealing with the investigations of all cases with which Karpo had been involved. The unresolved ones, the ones he worked on in the evenings and on his days off, were neatly labeled to the left on plain wooden shelves he had built.