Wolves Eat Dogs

'You know.' With his finger Alex drew a scar across his neck.

The thorn bush behind the school reached for Taras, and Alex held back branches so Arkady could climb the last steps to the seesaw and chairs. When Arkady caught a ghostly reflection of himself in a window, he looked away before he turned completely into Yakov.

'Don't drop him,' Alex said.

'Why not? You were going to get your truck.'

'No. We'll carry them back to Karel.'

'Back to Karel?' To the other end of the plaza? Arkady thought.

'We're practically there,' Alex said. 'The climb is over. Easy from here on.'

That was it, then, Arkady thought. That's why he was alive instead of dead by the swamp, so Alex could make one trip instead of three. Ever the earnest assistant, Arkady had helped by bringing two of the bodies, Taras and himself. This way there were no tire treads on the ground or blood in the truck. A gun appeared in Alex's hand. Usually the distance from the school to the fun fair was a few minutes' walk. Even at his pace, Arkady wondered, how long could he draw it out?

'You first.' Alex prodded Arkady to get him moving again, this time in front.

As Arkady stumbled forward he remembered a quote by someone about a walk to the gallows focusing the mind. That wasn't true. He thought of favorite music, Irina's laugh, his mother staying in bed to read Anna Karenina one more time, pansies on a grave. He thought of how Eva had called and called again, when all he'd had to do was answer.

'Why?' Arkady asked. 'What did Pasha Ivanov and Timofeyev do to justify the deaths of five people, so far? What could Pasha and Timofeyev have done that made you so insane?'

'Finally, an interesting question. The night of the accident at Chernobyl, what did Pasha and Timofeyev do? Well, you wouldn't think they could do anything; they were just two junior professors at an institute in Moscow. But they would sit up all night and drink with the old man. That's what they were doing when the call came from the Party Central Committee. The Party wanted him to go to Chernobyl to assess the situation, because he was the famous Academician Felix Gerasimov, who had more experience in nuclear disasters than anyone else, the world's number one expert. Since he was too drunk to talk, he gave the phone to Pasha.'

'Where were you?'

'I was at Moscow University, sleeping soundly in my room.' Recollection did slow Alex down.

'How do you know all this?'

'My father didn't write a suicide note when he died, but he sent me a letter. He said the Central Committee had wanted his advice on whether to evacuate people. Pasha acted as if he was just relaying answers from my father.'

Ahead, Arkady saw Karel on the couch in front of the crazy chairs ride. His sister, Oksana, bent over him; she wore the same jogging suit. Arkady recognized her by the blue shine of her shaved head. Walking one step behind, Alex had yet to notice her.

'Pasha asked if the reactor core had been exposed. The Committee said no, because that's what the control room told them. Pasha asked if the reactor was shut down. Yes, according to Chernobyl. Well, he said, it sounded like more smoke than fire. Don't sound any alarms, just distribute iodine tablets to children and advise the locals that they might want to stay inside for a day while the fire is extinguished and investigated. What about Kiev, the Committee asked? Even more important to keep the lid on, Pasha said. Confiscate dosimeters. 'Be merciless for the common good.' Pasha and Lev were ambitious guys. They just told the Committee and my father what they wanted to believe. That was how Soviet science worked, remember? So the evacuation of Pripyat was delayed a day and the warning to Kiev delayed six days so that a million children, including our Eva, could march on an undisturbed, radioactive May Day. Pasha and my father can't take all the credit-there were plenty of other weasels and liars-but they should take some.'

'Your father was operating with faulty information. Was there an investigation?'

'A whitewash. After all, he was Felix Gerasimov. I woke up in the morning to go to class and there he was in my room, sober, as drawn as a ghost, with an iodine pill for me. He knew. Every May Day from then on was a drinking bout. Sixteen anniversaries. Finally he wrote the letter, sealed it, took it to the post office himself, returned home to his pistol and BANG!'

Oksana's head whipped around. Arkady wondered what he and Alex looked like as they approached in the moonlight-perhaps a single extraordinarily ugly creature with two heads, a trunk and a tail. Arkady motioned for her to get away.

'Surprised?' Alex asked.

'Not really. As a motive for murder, money is overrated. Shame is stronger.'

'That's the best part. Pasha and Timofeyev couldn't go anywhere for protection, because then they would have had to reveal the whole story. They were too ashamed to save their own lives, can you imagine that?'

'It happens all the time.'

Oksana slipped around the couch, and only because Arkady had seen her he heard her lightly running off. Maybe fifty more paces to Karel, who waited on the couch, the crazy chairs tilted behind him. Arkady resisted the temptation to run because he doubted he could escape an inchworm in his condition.

Alex said, 'I wrote them. All I ever asked of Ivanov and Timofeyev was for them to come to the Zone and declare their share of responsibility personally, face-to-face.'

'Timofeyev came. Look what happened to him.'

'I didn't say there wouldn't be consequences. Fair's fair.'

'As you often told Karel.'

'As I often did.'

At a shuffling gait, they arrived at the fun fair. Karel stretched languidly from one end of the sofa to the other. His eyes were closed, and the blood had been wiped from his chin and cheek; his beaded hair was arrayed more neatly, and each foot now bore a Chinese slipper. An older sister would do that sort of thing. Arkady thought Alex might notice, but he was too pleased with himself. A gondola creaked on the Ferris wheel overhead. Misery to be a Ferris wheel that never moved. Arkady had never seen a moon so large. A shadow of the wheel fell over the plaza.

Arkady laid Taras on the ground.

Alex simply let Dymtrus roll off his shoulder. The big militiaman hit the ground, his head striking like a coconut cracked open.

Arkady asked, 'Who shot Hulak?'

'Who knows. He had an arrangement with the Woropays on where and what to steal. I assume they killed him.' Alex rolled Dymtrus, who had a back wound, onto his face; he placed Taras, with an entry wound through the chest, on his back; waved the pistol to show Arkady where to stand until he achieved the geometry he wanted: a triangle of dead men-Karel, Dymtrus and Taras- with Arkady in the middle. 'I think this will be a pretty convincing picture of the dangers of drinking samogon while bearing arms. Don't worry; I'll supply the guns and the samogon.'

'So you didn't save me from the Woropays.'

'No, I'm afraid not. You never got past here, but you put up a terrific struggle, if that makes you feel any better.'

'All that's lacking is the pillow you smothered Karel with.'

'Je ne regrette rien? You know, I'd barely covered his face. He gave a few kicks and was gone. I'd say, considering the shape he was in, what I did was a mercy.'

Alex took two steps back from Arkady, into the shadow of the wheel, and raised the gun. Not too far, not too close.

Arkady's mobile phone rang.

'Let it ring,' Alex said. 'One thing at a time.'

The phone rang and rang. When the message came on the caller hung up and immediately hit Redial. It could only be Zhenya, Arkady thought. No normal person would have such maddening persistence. The phone rang until Alex removed it from Arkady's pocket and crushed it underfoot.

That settled, the entire city silent, every window an anxious eye, Alex stepped back and raised the gun again. Oksana crept into Arkady's view at the end of the crazy chairs.