Red Chameleon Read online

  Adriana Shepovik snored gently, a slight breeze touching her face through the open window. Vera felt nothing for her. Then the pain in her stomach punished her and told her to feel. She tried, tried to imagine her mother alone, as she would be, but Vera could feel nothing but its truth. Vera would not be, and her mother would. Her mother would live without meaning, but she would live and suffer. She was good at suffering, had turned it into an old woman’s art.

  Vera took seven or eight deep breaths and then a series of short ones before taking five of her pills. She had bought the pills from a clerk in the medical-supply store. He had been furtive, demanded extra money, refused to give the name of the pills, insisting only that they would temporarily eliminate pain. He guaranteed it. He was right, but the pain stayed away for only short periods, and more and more pills were required to relieve it.

  Vera made her way to the metro station and glanced at the sky as she went. There was the possibility of rain, which would be fine. Her original plan was to wander around till night and move to the station she had picked out, but the pain might come again. She didn’t have much time. Maybe if it rained, if the rain came, it would grow dark, would provide an artificial night. She had a sense of incompleteness. It was like reading a newspaper. If a word from a story caught her eye, she had to read the whole story even if the subject didn’t interest her or the story would haunt her. Things once begun had to be finished, and she had decided within herself that she must destroy at least one more soldier or policeman, one more at least. Was that too much to ask after what she had been forced to suffer? If a God existed, would he not grant her this wish, look down at her and say she deserved that satisfaction? If a God existed, he could simply take the soul of the policeman and do with it what he would do, anyway, at some point, as he would do with Vera’s soul if one existed. Vera didn’t think one existed. One’s satisfactions and rewards and revenge came in this life, no other.

  She tried to look at no one as she rode the subway, not even at the two sailors who talked in the far corner. She stood, swaying slightly with the movement of the car, trying to hold her upright trombone case close to her so no one would feel its weight and sense its shifting contents. At the Kropotkinskaya metro station, groups of young people carrying little bags jostled past her, hurrying toward the huge Moskva Swimming Pool. She let them flow by her and began her walk and her wait, wishing the sky to darken, hoping she could put off taking more of the pills, which, she knew, created a pleasant disorientation that might hamper her aim and shake her resolve.

  She walked around the outside wall of the pool, listening to the screams and voices within. At the Kropotkin embankment beyond the pool she leaned over the stone wall and watched the boats going down the Moscow River. She watched for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes, grew restless, felt the pain returning, and started back toward Volkhonka Street. People sped past her now, but she moved across the massive Pushkin Fine Arts Museum. She knew the story of the museum, had visited it frequently, particularly as a child in school when it was thought she had some artistic talent. The building had been erected at the turn of the century. It was, she knew, the largest museum in the Soviet Union outside of the Leningrad Hermitage.

  She clutched the trombone case to her, ignoring the looks of guards and visitors. The crowd was large, and she let herself wander, seeing but not absorbing the Greek and Roman collection, the stone statues that would be there long after she was gone. Before she could begin to hate them, she wandered into the picture gallery where she stepped on the foot of a small boy, who screamed.

  The boy’s mother looked at Vera, ready to fight, but something in Vera’s face stopped her, and she settled for, “That’s all right, Denis. Some people are blind pigs.”

  Vera walked on past Botticellis, Rembrandts, Rubenses, Van Dycks, Constables, Gauguins, Picassos, and Van Goghs. Once they had given her satisfaction. Now they sickened her with their suggestion of timelessness. Vera would leave nothing behind her, no Olympic records, no paintings, her only art of creation one of destruction, a protest.

  She had to take more pills. There was no help for it. She shifted the trombone case to her other hand and pulled the bottle out of her pocket. There were not many of the green pills left, perhaps a dozen or so. She would have to go back to the man who had sold them to her, the man who sickened her with his corruption. She placed the case between her legs, poured out some pills, threw them into her mouth, and forced them down dry. It was painful, but the pain in her dry throat distracted her from the pain in her stomach. She stood while people moved about her, the practiced move of Muscovites who watched without making it clear they were doing so. Everyone gave the impression of minding their own business except for a heavyset babushka who walked over and said, “If you’re sick, you shouldn’t be walking the streets. You should be home, not giving diseases to other people.”

  Vera looked at the angry old woman, who was saying exactly what her own mother would say to a stranger on the street. Either pretend the other person isn’t there or walk right up to them on the street and chastise them for not sharing your moral commitment.

  Vera looked at the woman with vague curiosity. She stared down the old woman, who eventually backed away, shrugging and angry.

  The sky was darker when she stepped back outside, and she felt some sense of hope. It was going to rain. No doubt. It would rain. She felt dizzy, slightly dizzy, but also somewhat euphoric as she crossed Kropotkin Square and was almost struck by a bus at the corner of Gogol Boulevard. When she started down Kropotkin Street and passed the entrance to the Soviet Peace Committee Building, the sky rumbled distinctly.

  “Let’s hurry,” a man growled at a young woman in high heels who gave him an angry glare as they passed Vera.

  The street was filled with people, many people, especially soldiers. There were policemen, too, an ample supply. The trick would be to get to her destination, set up, and pick her target just before the rain came or just after it ended. During the rain people would get off the street. She would have to be clever, precise, careful. She would have to remember everything her father had told her about shooting.

  She hurried, as well as her failing body would allow, toward her destination, ignoring the people she passed, thinking only of her task, trying to forget the painting in the museum. It had been by some minor English realist. She couldn’t remember what the subject had been, a landscape surely, but what had been in it? It gnawed at her, told her to turn around, go back, complete it, but she didn’t have the time. Not now. Not today. Perhaps later or tomorrow, if there was a tomorrow. There had to be a later or tomorrow. She could not end her life without knowing what was in that painting and without taking her father’s rifle out one more time and finding the right target.

  Even had she not been absorbed in her thoughts, even had she glanced back as the sky rumbled and darkened even further, it is doubtful that she would have noticed the tall, vaguely Oriental, pale man behind her with his right arm in a black sling.

  Earlier that morning Emil Karpo had been sitting at his desk at Petrovka going over his file and waiting. He had prepared his description carefully and felt confident that it was more than guesswork. Rostnikov was nowhere to be found, and time was passing. He could have gone directly to the Gray Wolfhound, but he had no time or patience for clowns, and so he prepared his description and took it directly to each of the militia supervisors for each district, making it clear that they were to give it not only to those assigned to the various buildings but to all the police on the street, all the uniformed guards in public buildings, and all the officers who had taken up positions on key rooftops.

  Emil Karpo was not a man to be ignored. Seven of his supervisors had simply accepted the description and agreed to pass it out quickly. They had no desire to prolong conversation with the Vampire, the Tatar with the dead brown eyes. It was easier to do what he requested. Besides, they might be the next victim of the Weeper, and it would be best to cooperate. A few of the military supervi
sors balked or sulked, but eventually they all agreed, and Karpo went back to his desk to drink cold tea and wait. The description had been simple. Look for a man or woman, of recognized size and strength, carrying a case long enough to hold a rifle. It might be a music case, a fishing case, anything. The person would probably be alone and might behave erratically.

  By seven in the morning the reports had begun coming in. Karpo listened, believing it was too early in the day for the Weeper to appear but not taking any chances. He had actually dispatched two cars to pursue leads by noon, but they had proved negative. One had turned up a carpenter going to work, another a member of the ballet orchestra. At nine he discovered that the Gray Wolfhound had ordered the rooftop surveillance to begin at six that night, since the Weeper always struck at night. Karpo tried to reach Colonel Snitkonoy to get the surveillance to begin immediately, but the colonel was out. And then the call had come from the guard at the Pushkin Fine Arts Museum, and he was on his way after telling the guard to follow the woman and call her whereabouts back to the museum office where Karpo was heading.

  The dispatcher of automobiles was surprised to get a call from Inspector Karpo. He couldn’t remember a single time Karpo had ever ordered a car. The legend was that Karpo thought it a waste of Soviet dollars that could be better spent on real needs. The dispatcher, who felt uneasy even hearing the voice of the Vampire, responded without a word and assigned the driving task to one of the older officers whom he wanted to punish for a minor act of assumed insolence.

  Karpo said nothing when the car pulled up in front of the building. He got in the back and cradled his senseless arm. His eyes caught those of the driver watching him in the rearview mirror, and Karpo stared back at the mirror, unblinking. He kept his dark eyes fixed on the mirror for five full minutes, so that each time the driver looked up, he saw his pale passenger solemnly glaring through him. The driver sped onward, wanting to get this assignment done as soon as possible and vowing never to get on the wrong side of the dispatcher again.

  Luck had been with Karpo, though he did not think of it as luck. It simply happened. Had he not spotted the museum guard in the crowd on Kropotkin Street, he would have gone to the museum, waited for the guard’s call, and eventually have caught up with the woman. But Karpo saw her, dark and heavy, carrying the case, walking like a somnambulist, her lips moving as she carried on a conversation with herself.

  “Corner, stop,” Karpo said, and the driver gladly pulled over with a screech, almost running down a couple with a small child between them. “Go back,” Karpo said, and got out of the car. The car was gone before the pale policeman reached the sidewalk.

  The uniformed guard was startled when Karpo tapped his shoulder. He let out a gasp, turned in fear, and recognized the. assistant inspector. The guard was about fifty, his tie stained with sweat.

  “She’s—” he began.

  “I see,” Karpo said softly, watching the woman amble ahead, clearing a path with her trombone case. “Go back to the museum.”

  “I’ll go back to the museum,” the guard repeated, and Karpo moved past him through the crowd as the first drops of rain came from the dark, angry sky.

  SEVEN

  “AND SO I HAD OFFICER Zelach follow Assistant Inspector Tkach as a backup,” Rostnikov explained as he sat in the chair in front of Deputy Procurator Khabolov’s desk. “When Tkach took more than twenty minutes inside the building, Zelach followed instructions and called me. I—”

  “My car,” Khabolov said, standing suddenly behind the desk, his sad hound face quivering, his hands held behind his back to keep them from spasms of anger and frustration.

  The office smelled slightly bitter, like the waiting room of a steam bath. When Anna Timofeyeva had occupied it, the office had always smelled to Rostnikov of tea and paper.

  “Your car—” Rostnikov sighed, sympathetically shifting slightly to take some pressure from his leg. “Tkach and I risked our lives to save your Chaika, our very lives, but there was no dealing with the madwoman.”

  Khabolov’s hand came out to accuse or attack, but he controlled it and raised the palm to push the stray hairs atop his head. The battle was joined and clear. Rostnikov would feign sympathy, and Khabolov would know he was lying but be unable to accuse him. Khabolov would pick, question, punish, but not allow his emotions to show, not let it be seen that he was punishing, though he knew that Rostnikov would understand. And so the two men faced each other and pretended.

  “I appreciate your willingness to risk your very bodies for material goods,” Khabolov countered, returning his hand behind his back.

  “I felt that the deputy procurator’s official vehicle was more a symbol of the authority of the state than an item of personal and material satisfaction,” said Rostnikov, somberly folding his hands on his lap.

  Khabolov looked down at Rostnikov, searching for even a hint of insolence, but there was none there. The deputy procurator’s eyes moved down to the report on his desk. He had to lean forward slightly to read it.

  “You were unable to save my automobile, but you managed to break the shoulder of one suspect, the ribs of another, and the skull of a third.”

  “They resisted arrest.”

  “Do you expect the government to pay for repairs on your suit?”

  Rostnikov looked down at this torn sleeve. He had been given no time to change clothes; instead, he had hurried back to Petrovka to write his report and get to the deputy procurator’s office.

  “Of course not,” Rostnikov said. “It was, like your Chaika, ruined in the line of duty, but we must all make sacrifices for the state and accept our share of responsibility.”

  “You are an insolent man, chief inspector,” Khabolov said, leaning forward with both hands on the desk.

  “I am a weary man, comrade procurator, and I have a sniper and the killer of an old man to pursue. May I be excused?”

  Khabolov’s face flushed and turned red, though not quite as red as the flag that stood in the corner. His eyes went narrow, and Rostnikov recognized an official look designed to send fear into the guilty and. nonguilty alike. Rostnikov was too weary to feign fear. He simply looked up placidly. The excitement of the morning had passed. The body fluids had coursed through Rostnikov in that makeshift garage. It had been no more than ten minutes, perhaps less, but it was such minutes that made being a policeman most enjoyable. Generally, so little was actually concluded, and that which was concluded normally came to pass through patience and paper and telephone calls and long hours of talking and compromise. Porfiry Petrovich felt tired and pleased. Even with his eyes open and fixed attentively on Khabolov, he imagined the falling Chaika and smiled deep within himself.

  “You may not be excused,” Khabolov said, sitting behind his desk to indicate a new phase of conversation. There was a heartbeat of hesitation in the dog-faced man that drew Rostnikov’s interest.

  “Chief inspector, you are to drop your investigation of the murdered Jew completely and concentrate on the Weeper.”

  “Very good,” Rostnikov agreed. “I’ll put it aside till the Weeper is caught and then—”

  “You are to turn your files on the case over to me and drop the investigation completely and indefinitely—no, forever,” Khabolov cut in with irritation.

  “On my own time I would like to check the procurator’s files for a—”

  Khabolov was now perspiring, though the window was open, sending in a slight but adequate breeze. Something quite odd was going on, and Rostnikov began to observe his superior with curiosity.

  “You no longer have access to the procurator’s files,” Khabolov said, reaching for a random file to indicate that the meeting had ended. With eyes down at the paper in his hand, he added, “For political reasons, which you may know.”

  There was no arguing with Khabolov. Rostnikov knew this. It wasn’t that Khabolov couldn’t be maneuvered, swayed, tricked. Given time, Rostnikov was sure he would solve the man, find ways to deal with him, but the abrupt air of th
e man, coupled with his clear nervousness, made it evident that the order to drop the investigation came from somewhere above Khabolov.

  And so Rostnikov barely nodded.

  “That is all,” said Khabolov without looking up, and Rostnikov stood, propping himself up with the back of the chair, and moved slowly to the door and out. He had things to do, his jacket to change, and the murderer of Sergeant Petrov to catch. Perhaps the murder of Abraham Savitskaya and the mystery of the missing candlestick could wait. Perhaps.

  By the time he got back to his tiny office, the rain had begun to fall. The single small window wouldn’t open; it hadn’t opened for months. Rostnikov had intended to fix it himself, though such initiative was frowned upon. There were repairmen assigned to such things, though the repairmen seldom came even after the proper forms were filed, approved, and forwarded. To get the window repaired through proper channels, Rostnikov would need the signature of Deputy Procurator Khabolov, and the price for such … Sitting behind his desk, Rostnikov smiled privately. A plan came. He watched the rain hit the window for about five minutes, doodled three-dimensional cubes of various sizes for a few more minutes, and scrawled out the work” order to have the window fixed.

  On the way out, he checked Karpo’s desk, found a note indicating that Karpo was pursuing a lead, and called to Zelach, who sulked at his corner desk, his shaggy head hovering over a document.

  “Zelach,” Rostnikov said, moving past two investigators arguing over where they would have lunch. One of them, Irvinov, was a giggler. Everything seemed to amuse him—sex, food, death. His laughter was nervous and made Rostnikov uncomfortable. He had long ago decided that Irvinov’s nervous laughter was much like that which Rostnikov’s son, Josef, had displayed when he was a child. Josef had channeled the nervous laughter into a bemused, ironic smile. The thought of Josef softened him.

  “Yes, Comrade Rostnikov,” Zelach said.

  “You did very well this morning,” Rostnikov said gently. “You were instrumental in crushing that car-theft ring. I’ve just commended you to the deputy procurator. You have been noticed.”