her.”
“When was this?”
“Week ago.”
“And you think the
“I know they could,” Victoria said smugly. “I know people they killed. Antonio Reyes, the pimp from the Dominican. Donna Ramerez, worked the tourists near the ballet on Paseo San Martí on the Prado. They could have sent someone to the apartment over the roof, climbed down in the dark, or maybe they had wings and floated away. They could have killed her, but they didn’t. Your Russian killed her.”
“There is no doubt in your mind that he killed your friend.”
“She was not my friend,” Victoria said, her face inches from that of Elena Timofeyeva. “For all but the first two weeks I knew her, she abused me, ridiculed me, tormented me. We were lovers for two weeks and then we were … I couldn’t stop. I loved her. I never loved anyone before Maria. Not my mother. Definitely not my father. Not my brothers, not even my grandmother.”
There were tears in the eyes of Victoria Oliveras, but she did not blink or look away. She did not try to hide them.
“I’m not going to be stupid enough to love anyone else again.”
“How old are you, Victoria?” asked Elena.
“Seventy, maybe eighty.”
“You are twenty-one,” said Elena. “I’ve looked at your record.”
Victoria’s eyes scanned the clear-skinned, healthy-looking Russian woman, searching for a sign of the trick she must be playing.
“So?”
“Nothing,” said Elena with a sigh, standing up and putting her notebook away.
“You know something?” said Victoria, standing up as the guard who had brought her to the cafeteria returned and took up a position near the exit. It was evident from the perfectly timed appearance of the guard that the conversation had been listened to and someone had decided it had come to an end. Elena was annoyed because they hadn’t had the courtesy or intellect to hide what they were doing.
“No,” said Elena.
“I don’t like Russians,” Victoria hissed. “I don’t like you. I think you would be a cold grouper fish in bed with a man or a woman. Russians are cold. That’s why fools like Shemenkov lose everything for a Maria Fernandez who warms them.”
Elena nodded to the guard, who moved forward. Elena caught the pain and anger in Victoria’s eyes as she turned, tossed her braid of long hair back, and advanced to meet the guard.
The ride back to Havana was quiet except for the blowout, which required the two drivers to put on a spare that had no tread at all.
When she got back to the El Presidente Hotel just before ten, there was a note waiting for her from Inspector Rostnikov.
“Come to the pool whenever you return. Igor Shemenkov seems to have attempted suicide. The management has informed me that there will be no music tonight.”
This did not promise to be a good morning for the Gray Wolfhound, though he was sure no one in the conference of his senior staff was aware of his foreboding.
The colonel was wearing a perfectly pressed brown uniform with three ribbons of honor and one special medal of valor.
His hands were behind his back, his staunch chin held up, his blue-gray eyes scanning the men seated before him.
Only Rostnikov was missing, and, though he did not wish to admit it to himself, the colonel felt relief at the absence of his senior investigator. Rostnikov never seemed to be paying attention at the morning meetings and had a disconcerting habit of asking questions or coming up with answers that seemed to have little to do with the subject under discussion. On the other hand, Karpo, who was at this morning’s meeting, had the equally disconcerting habit of paying close and critical attention to everything Colonel Snitkonoy said.
Facing the Wolfhound at the right end of the solid wooden table sat his assistant, Pankov, a near dwarf with thinning hair who was a perfect contrast to the colonel. Regardless of the season, Pankov’s perspiration soiled and sagged his small collection of suits; the colonel’s uniform never showed a stain or crease. Pankov’s few strands of hair refused to rest in peace against his pink speckled skull; the colonel’s full mane of perfectly groomed white hair was admired by all who met him, particularly women. When he stood, Pankov came up to the colonel’s chest. When he spoke, Pankov’s insecure high-pitched stammering played the flute to the Wolfhound’s confident baritone. In appreciation of Pankov’s inadequacies, Colonel Snitkonoy treated his assistant with the respect due a faithful dog.
Next to Pankov sat Major Grigorovich, a humorless block in his late forties who wore a neatly pressed brown uniform with no medals or ribbons. The major’s lack of decorations reflected his remarkable ability to survive based on his uncanny ability to determine just how far to go without upstaging, embarrassing, or challenging whoever his immediate superior might be. Rostnikov, when he was in attendance at the colonel’s morning meetings, always sketched in his notepad. One of Rostnikov’s favorite subjects was the major. Grigorovich had once had the opportunity to glance at one of Rostnikov’s sketches. The figure in the picture looked remarkably like the British actor Albert Finney.
Next to Grigorovich, sitting upright, his long-fingered pale hands palms down on the table, sat Emil Karpo, dressed in black slacks, sweater, and jacket.
From the window, Colonel Snitkonoy looked down into the courtyard of the central police building on Petrovka Street. The shrubs and bushes were green from recent rain, and the iron fence had recently been repainted black. The dogs that were kenneled on the opposite wing seemed particularly quiet today. In fact, thought the colonel, they had been growing more and more quiet for some time. Was someone eating them?
The Wolfhound dismissed the idea and forced himself back to the task at hand.
The colonel savored his morning sessions and had recently begun to consider taping them. Then Pankov would transcribe them to be edited into a book that would provide startling models for criminal investigative procedure. Though the colonel was always confident that what he was saying was pointed, correct, and inspiring, two minutes after he had begun he was certain that this was one session he would not have included in his contemplated text.
“Ours is a nation of
He looked at each of the three faces before him and saw complete admiration in Pankov, respectful acceptance in Grigorovich, and nothing discernible in Karpo.
“Do you concur, Inspector Karpo?” the colonel couldn’t resist asking.
“The law,” said Karpo, “is simply a superstructure for the existing system of power, whatever that power may be.”
“Lenin,” said the Wolfhound, glancing at Pankov, who gave him a small smile of awe.
“Marx,” Karpo corrected.
“We are in a new era, an era of landscaping, styling, pruning,” said the colonel, seeking a quick recovery in an immediate attack. “Each tree, each bush and shrub in the new Russia is the people rooted in the soil of all our history from the day the first stone was laid in the Kremlin wall in 1367 …”
And here the colonel hesitated in anticipation of a correction by Emil Karpo. Not hearing any objection, the Wolfhound plunged on, ever deeper into an analogy which he sensed was decidedly weak.
“… through the contributions of Marx and Lenin to the trials of a new, emerging Russia whose leaves and limbs must be carefully contoured to form a beautiful and mighty new forest of pride. Do you understand, Inspector Karpo?”
Karpo, palms still on the dark wooden table, replied, “I am not sufficiently well read in poetry or literature to fully appreciate the allusion, but historically, one might go back not to the stone walls of the Kremlin but to its first fortifications built from the wood of the virgin forest which became Moscow.”
