have petitioned the city, the state senate and the president himself to bring this architectural obscenity to a halt. I am costing them millions of dollars. That’s why they want me out of the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why they want to kill me.” Platonov smiled. “I outfoxed them. I stayed here. I never would have made it home safely.”
“Who did you outfox?”
It struck Arkady that the conversation was taking a strange turn. He spied an electric samovar on a side table. “Would you like some tea?”
“You mean, has the old man been drinking? Does he need to sober up? Is he crazy? No.” Platonov dismissed the cup. “I’m ten moves ahead of you, ten moves.”
“Like leaving the front door unlocked and falling asleep?”
Platonov forgave himself with a shrug. “You agree then that I should take precautions?”
Arkady glanced at his watch. Zurin had called him half an hour ago. “For a start, have you informed the militia that you feel your life is in danger?”
“A hundred times. They send an idiot along, he steals what he can and then goes.”
“Have you been attacked? Been threatened by mail or over the phone?”
“No. That’s what all the idiots ask.”
Arkady took that as his cue. “I have to go.”
“Wait.” For his age, Platonov maneuvered around the game tables with surprising speed. “Any other suggestions?”
“My professional advice?”
“Yes.”
“If millionaires want to raze this building to erect a palace for lowlifes and whores, do what they say. Take their money and move.”
Platonov sucked up his chest. “As a boy, I fought on the Kalinin Front. I do not retreat.”
“A wonderful sentiment for a headstone.”
“Get out! Out! Out!” Platonov opened the door and pushed Arkady through. “Enough defeatism. Your whole generation. No wonder this country is in the shit can.”
Arkady climbed the stairs to his car. Although he didn’t think Platonov was in any real danger, he drove only a block before returning on foot. Staying away from streetlamps, he slipped from doorway to doorway until he was satisfied they were clear of anything but shadows and then lingered another minute just in case, perhaps because the wind had dropped and he liked the way the snow had gone weightless, floating like light on water.
No militia guarded the Chistye Prudy Metro station. Arkady tapped at the door and was let in by a cleaning lady who led him across a half-lit hall of somber granite and around turnstiles to a set of three ancient escalators that clacked as they descended. Maybe they weren’t so old, only used; the Moscow underground was the busiest in the world and to be virtually the only one in it made him aware how large the station was and how deep the hole.
His mind returned to the excavation outside the Supreme Court. There they were, eminent judges with the modest ambition of upgrading their basement cafeteria, adding perhaps an espresso bar, and, instead, they had unearthed the horror of the past. Stick your shovel into the ground in Moscow and you took your chances.
“The people on the train must be crazy. He’s been dead for fifty years. It’s a disgrace,” the cleaning woman said with the firmness of a palace guard. She wore an orange vest she smoothed and straightened. The outside world might be scribbled with graffiti and reek of piss, but it was generally agreed that the last bastion of decency in Moscow was the underground, discounting the gropers, drunks and thieves among your fellow passengers. “More than fifty years.”
“You saw nothing tonight?”
“Well, I saw that soldier.”
“Who?”
“I don’t remember his name, but I saw him on television. It’ll come to me.”
“You saw a soldier but not Stalin.”
“On television. Why can’t they leave poor Stalin alone? It’s a disgrace.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“I think you’re right. I think there’ll be disgrace enough for everyone.”
“You took your time.” Zurin was waiting at the bottom, cashmere coat worn impresario-style on his shoulders and a froth of anxiety in the corners of his mouth.
“Another sighting?” Arkady asked.
“What else?”
“You could have started without me. You didn’t have to wait.”
“But we do. This is a situation of some delicacy.” Zurin said the sighting had taken place, as before, on the last car of the last train of the night; even to the same minute-0132-testimony to Metro punctuality. This time two plainclothes officers had been stationed on the car in case. As soon as they noticed signs of a disturbance they radioed the driver not to leave the platform until all thirty-three passengers of the last car were off. The detectives had taken preliminary statements. Zurin handed Arkady a spiral notebook open to a list of names, addresses, telephone numbers. I. Rozanov, 34, male, a plumber, “saw nothing.” A. Anilov, 18, male, soldier, “maybe saw something.” M. Bourdenova, 17, female, student, “recognized him from a history course.”
R. Golushkovich, 19, male, soldier, “was asleep.” V. Golushkovich, 20, male, soldier, “was drunk.”
A. Antipenko, 74, male, retired, “witnessed Comrade Stalin on the platform.”
F. Mendeleyev, 83, male, retired, “witnessed Comrade Stalin wave from the platform.”
M. Peshkova, 33, female, schoolteacher, “saw nothing.” P. Peneyev, 40, male, schoolteacher, “saw nothing.” V. Zelensky, 32, male, filmmaker, “witnessed Stalin in front of Soviet flag.”
And so on. Of the thirty-three passengers, eight saw Stalin. Those eight had been detained and the rest released. The platform conductor, a G. Petrova, had seen nothing out of the ordinary and was also allowed to go. The notes were signed by Detectives Isakov and Urman.
“Isakov, the hero?”
“That’s right,” Zurin said. “He and Urman were called to another case. We can’t have good men wasting their time here.”
“Of course not. Where is this other case?”
“A domestic dispute a couple of blocks away.”
The platform clock read 0418, the same as Arkady’s watch. Time until the next train stood at 00, because the system wouldn’t start up again for another hour. Without a background rumble of trains the platform was an arcade of echoes, Zurin’s voice popping up here and there.
“So, what do you want me to do?” Arkady asked.
“Nail things down.”
“Nail down what? Someone on a subway puts on a Stalin mask and you pull people off their train?”
“We want to keep the lid on.”
“On a hoax?”
“We don’t know.”
“Are you thinking of mass hallucination? That calls for exorcists or psychiatrists.”
“Just ask some questions. They’re old, it’s past their bedtime.”
“Not theirs.” Arkady nodded toward a rail-thin man chatting up the schoolgirl. She plainly had trouble resisting flattery.
“Zelensky is the provocateur, I’m sure. Do you want to start with him?”
“I think I’ll end with him.”
First, Arkady walked to where the last car had stopped. A service gate and doorway stood at the platform’s end. He hoisted himself up on the gate and saw nothing but electrical cables on the other side. The door was
