on Monday. That’s where I think they are.”
The KGB man in charge shouted an order, and seconds later the store and the driveway in front of it were empty. They had purchased nothing, not even thanked her.
The world, Bella thought, is getting to be a very strange and dangerous place. Perhaps she should buy a gun.
The KGB had been just as efficient earlier that morning when Zelach called following the incident in Sonia Kotsis’s rooms. Rostnikov, Tkach, and Zelach had all explained what had taken place to the investigator in charge.
“And,” the man questioning them had said, “you believed this was all about a missing bus driver?”
“Who,” Rostnikov said, “had gotten drunk and stolen his bus.”
“And the girl was …?” the man probed.
“Someone told me she knew the driver,” said Tkach.
The KGB man smiled and shook his head in disbelief.
“I know you, Rostnikov,” he said. “You’ve stepped on too many tails. Why did you come here with guns if you thought this was just about a drunken bus driver?”
“We expected no trouble,” Rostnikov explained.
“No trouble,” Zelach added a bit too emphatically.
“I arrived first,” said Tkach. “And was surprised to hear the woman, Sonia Kotsis, confess that this case involved terrorist activity. I had asked Inspector Rostnikov to join me here. He came. She opened the door, and this man came out with a gun.”
“Officer Zelach responded instinctively and saved our lives,” said Rostnikov.
“Rostnikov,” the KGB man said, leaning forward, “you are stepping on tails again. Who is going to believe this story?”
“I’ve kept Colonel Snitkonoy informed about every step of this investigation,” Rostnikov said. “And I plan to report to him directly after leaving here.”
The KGB man sighed and told the three policemen to put their reports in writing, to make no copies, and to hand-deliver the originals to KGB headquarters at Lubyanka as soon as possible. They were then dismissed.
On the way down the stairs from the apartment, Tkach stopped.
“The flowers will die,” he said. “We should do something.”
“They will die in any case,” said Rostnikov.
“Porfiry Petrovich,” Tkach said softly, “I can’t stand thinking of them slowly dying in that cart, in that dark corner.”
“Zelach, you like flowers?” asked Rostnikov.
“I don’t know,” said Zelach as they reached the bottom of the dark stairway leading down from Sonia’s rooms.
“You are not a romantic, Zelach. You shoot well, but you are not a romantic,” said Rostnikov, stepping over to pull the flower cart out of shadows.
“I’d rather shoot well,” said Zelach.
“Take flowers to your mother, Zelach,” Rostnikov said, handing a bunch to the policeman.
Tkach looked at the last six clusters of flowers on the cart.
“Let’s give them away,” Tkach suggested.
“By all means,” Rostnikov agreed, reaching over to scoop up bunches of flowers and handing them to Zelach, who took them awkwardly. Then he turned to Sasha Tkach and whispered, “You did well upstairs, Sasha. Don’t go insane on me. We have enough madmen in this country. We need more sane ones who worry about flowers.”
“I’ll be all right,” Tkach said, stepping over to the cart and looking down at it. A sheet of paper was taped to the inside of the cart, not hidden but not exposed either. Tkach picked it up, looked at it, and handed it to Rostnikov. On the paper was a list, apparently a list of things Sonia would have done that day had she lived to do them. The list read:
Rostnikov looked at Tkach.
“Inspector, the flowers are dripping on me,” said Zelach.
Rostnikov folded the note and put it into his pocket. “Then,” he said, “let’s take them out into the sun.”
When Karpo returned to Petrovka and moved to his desk, he found a bunch of flowers in a drinking glass in the corner. He looked around the office to see whose joke this might be and saw Rostnikov waving at him from beyond the glass window to his office. Karpo moved between the desks, past a woman in uniform carrying a stack of files, and into Rostnikov’s office, where the inspector sat, pen in hand, drawing something on the pad before him. Next to the pad was a bunch of flowers just like those on Karpo’s desk.
“You like the flowers, Emil Karpo?”
“I neither like nor dislike flowers, Comrade,” he said. “I understand their ritual, symbolic function for State events but find nothing personal to respond to. The time it takes to purchase and place them is time better spent on productive tasks.”
“I gather you have just thanked me for giving the flowers to you,” said Rostnikov. “Enough of flowers. Morchov. I returned and found a note from the colonel to report at three on the investigation and condition of Andrei Morchov. It is ten minutes to that hour.”
Karpo gave his report while standing, and Rostnikov ceased his drawing to listen, nod, and ask a few questions.
“And,” Karpo concluded, “I believe I should be given an official reprimand or dismissal for my improper conduct of this investigation.”
“You like the boy,” Rostnikov said, standing with both hands on the desk. His left leg had given him the warning that if he did not attend to it, it would punish him.
“It would seem so,” said Karpo. “And I allowed that response, which I do not understand, to interfere with my performance of duty. I should have acted more decisively. Had I done so, Comrade Morchov, a valued member of the Politburo, would not have been at risk, would not have been shot.”
“But he is alive and will be well, Emil Karpo. And no one is going to Lubyanka,” said Rostnikov. “What troubles you, Emil?”
“Emotion has no place in an investigation,” he said without emotion.
“For me it is everything in an investigation,” said Rostnikov.
“Not for me,” replied Karpo. “I cannot carry on the scope of my mission, my responsibility, if my judgment is clouded by personal response. We are quite different people, Inspector.”
“So I have noticed, Emil Karpo,” said Rostnikov with a sigh. “So I have noticed. You are not reprimanded. You are not dismissed. I need you. But first look at this.”
Rostnikov turned the pad of paper upon which he had been drawing so that Karpo could see the elaborate tangle of curved and intertwined parallel lines.
“Do you know what this is, Emil Karpo?”
“No, I do not,” Karpo said, looking at the pad.
“That is the water pipe system in my apartment building,” said Rostnikov with satisfaction. “The light paths are the incoming pipelines and the shadowed ones the outgoing. A building can be seen as a replica of the human body. It has a furnace, which is the heart of the body, and a vascular system of pipes to distribute the heat.”
“Interesting,” said Karpo without interest.
“I have a point, Emil,” Rostnikov-said, pausing to check his watch. “It is not a coincidence that this metaphor exists, that buildings, institutions can be seen as replicas of the human body. Man makes the world in his own image. He believes the most efficient way for things to work is the way that he works. Are you following me?”
“Yes, Inspector, but not anticipating where we are going.”
“I’m fascinated by plumbing, Emil Karpo,” said Rostnikov. “I fancy when I repair it that I am a surgeon, a specialist, and the building is my patient. And I gain satisfaction from this because I know that the system can be
