Red Square Page 6

  The vodka queue also stalled, held up by a customer who had swooned on his way into the shop and dropped his empty. The bottle rang as it rolled to the gutter.

  Arkady wondered what Irina was doing. All morning he had denied to himself that he was thinking about her. Now, with the chiming of the bottle, the very strangeness of the sound, he saw her having her midday meal not on the street but in a Western cafeteria of gleaming chrome, brightly lit mirrors, smoothly rolling trolleys bearing white porcelain cups.

  'Meat or cabbage?'

  It took him a moment to return.

  'Meat? Cabbage?' the vendor repeated and held up identical-looking pies. Her own face was as round and coarse, her eyes sunk in a crease. 'Come on, everyone else knows what they want.'

  'Meat,' Arkady said. 'And cabbage.'

  She grunted, sensing indecision rather than appetite. Maybe this was his problem, Arkady thought, lack of appetite. She got his change and handed over two pies embellished by paper napkins dripping grease. He checked the ground. No dead flies, but the ones buzzing around looked depressed.

  'You don't want them?' the vendor asked.

  Arkady was still seeing Irina, feeling the warm pressure of her and smelling not the rancid fumes of grease but the clean crispness of sheets. He seemed to be moving quickly through progressive stages of insanity, or else Irina was moving from oblivion to the unconscious, then to the conscious areas of his mind.

  As the vendor leaned over the barrow, a transformation took place. In the middle of her face appeared what was left of a girl's embarrassment, of sad eyes lost between jowls, and she shrugged apologetically with round shoulders.

  'Eat them, don't think about it. It's the best I can do.'

  'I know.'

  When Jaak brought the sodas Arkady awarded him both pies.

  'No, thanks.' Jaak recoiled. 'I used to like them before I started working with you. You ruined them for me.'

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  On

  Butyrski Street

  , past a long shopfront of lingerie and lace, was a building of barred windows with a driveway that dipped by a guardhouse down to entrance stairs. Inside, an officer issued numbered aluminum tags to Arkady and Jaak. A grille with a heart-shaped pattern slid open and they followed a guard across a parquet floor, down a stairwell with rubber treads and into a corridor of calcined stucco lit by bulbs in wire cages.

  Only one person had ever escaped from Butyrski Prison and that was Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB. He had bribed the guard. In those days a ruble meant something.

  'Name?' the guard asked.

  A voice behind the cell door said, 'Oberlyan.'

  'Article?'

  'Speculation, resisting arrest, refusal to cooperate with proper organs – what the fuck, I don't know.'

  The door opened. Gary stood stripped to the waist, his shirt tied turban-style around his head. With his rakishly broken nose and torso of tattoos, he looked more like a pirate marooned on a desert island for a dozen years than a man who had spent one night in jail.

  'Speculation, resisting and refusal. Great witness,' Jaak said.

  The interrogation room had a monastic simplicity: wooden chairs, metal desk, ikon of Lenin. Arkady filled out the protocol form: date, city, his own name under the grand title 'Investigator of Very Important Cases under the General Prosecutor of the USSR', interrogated Orbelyan, Gary Semyonovich, born 3/11/ 60, Moscow, passport number RS AOB 425807, Armenian nationality...

  'Naturally,' Jaak said.

  Arkady went on. 'Education and specialization?'

  'Vocational. Medical industry,' Gary said.

  'Brain surgeon,' Jaak said.

  Unmarried, hospital orderly, not a Party member, criminal record of assault and possession of drugs for sale.

  'Government honours?' Arkady asked.

  Both Jaak and Gary laughed.

  'It's the next question on the protocol,' Arkady said. 'Probably just looking to the future.'

  After he wrote out the exact time, the questioning began, going over the same ground Jaak had covered at the site of the crime. Gary had been walking away from Rudy's car when he saw it blow up, and then Kim threw in a second bomb.

  'You were walking backwards from Rudy's car?' Jaak asked. 'How did you see all this?'

  'I stopped to think.'

  ' You stopped to think?' Jaak asked. 'What about?'

  When Gary fell silent, Arkady asked, 'Did Rudy change your forints and zlotys?'

  'No.' Gary's face went dark as a cloud.

  'You were pretty mad.'

  'I would have twisted his fat neck.'

  'Except for Kim?'

  'Yeah, but then Kim did it for me.' Gary brightened.

  Arkady drew an 'X' in the middle of a page and handed Gary the pen. 'This is Rudy's car. Mark where you were, then mark what else you saw.'

  With concentration, Gary drew a stick figure with trembly limbs. He added a box with wheels: 'Lorry with electronic goods.' Between him and Rudy, a blacked-in figure: 'Kim.' A box with a cross: 'Ambulance.' A second box: 'Maybe a van.' Lines with heads: 'Gypsies.' Smaller squares with wheels: 'Chechen cars.'

  'I remember a Mercedes,' Jaak said.

  'They were already gone.'

  ' They? ' Arkady asked. 'Who were they? '

  'A driver. I know the other one was a woman.'

  'Can you draw her?'

  Gary drew a stick figure with a big bust, high heels and curly hair. 'Maybe blonde. I know she was well-stacked.'

  'A real careful observer,' Jaak said.

  'So you saw her out of the car, too,' Arkady said.

  'Yeah, coming from Rudy's.'

  Arkady held the paper a couple of ways. 'Good drawing.'

  Gary nodded.

  It was true. With his blue body and busted face, Gary looked just like the stick figure on the page, rendered more human by his picture.

  The SouthPort car market was bounded by Proletariat Prospect and a loop of the MoscowRiver. New cars were ordered in a hall of white marble. No one went inside; there were no new cars. Outside, gamblers laid cardboard on the ground to play three-card monte. Construction fences were papered with offers ('Have tyres in medium condition for 1985 Zhigulis') and pleas ('Looking for fan belt for '64 Peugeot'). Jaak wrote down the number for the tyres, just in case.

  At the end of the fence was a dirt lane of used Zhigulis and Zaporozhets, two-cylinder German Trabants and Italian Fiats as rusty as ancient swords. Buyers moved with eyes that scrutinized tyre tread, mileometer, upholstery, dropping to one knee with a torch to see whether the engine was actively leaking oil on the spot. Everyone was an expert. Even Arkady knew that a Moskvitch built in far-off Izhevsk was superior to a Moskvitch built in Moscow, and that the only clue was the insignia on the grille. Around the cars were Chechens in tracksuits. They were dark, bulky men with low brows and long stares.

  Everyone cheated. Car sellers went to the market sales assistant's wooden shack to learn – depending on model, year and condition – what price they could demand (and on which they would pay tax), which bore no resemblance to the money actually passed between seller and buyer. Everyone – seller, buyer and sales assistant – understood that the real price would be three times higher.

  Chechens cheated in the most devious way. Once a Chechen had the title in his hand, he paid only the official price, and there was as much chance of a seller getting the rest of his money as taking a bone from the jaws of a wolf. Of course the Chechen turned around and sold the car for full price. The tribe amassed fortunes at the SouthPort market. Not off every sale – that would destroy the incentive that brought fresh cars – but off an intelligent percentage. Chechens culled the market as if it were a flock of sheep that was all their own.

  Jaak and Arkady dropped halfway down the queue and the detective nodded towards a car parked by itself at the end of the lane. It was an old, black, once-official Chaika sedan with a scalloped chrome grille rubbed to a mirror finish. Curta
ins were drawn across the side windows of the back seat.

  'Fucking Arabs,' Jaak said.

  'They're no more Arab than you are,' Arkady said. 'I thought you were free of prejudice. Makhmud is an old man.'

  'I hope he's got the strength to show you his collection of skulls.'

  Arkady went on alone. The last car for sale was a Lada so dented that it looked as if it had been rolled to the market end over end. Two young Chechens with tennis bags stopped to ask where he was headed. When Arkady mentioned Makhmud's name, they escorted him to the Lada, pushed him into the back, felt his arms, legs and torso for a gun or a wire and told him to wait. One went to the Chaika; the other got in front, opened his bag and turned to slide a gun between the two front seats so that the muzzle nestled in Arkady's lap.

  The gun was a new single-barrel 'Bear' carbine cut to half-length and retooled for shot. The visors of the car were fringed with beads, the dash decorated with snapshots of grape vines, mosques, and decals of AC/DC and Pink Floyd. An older Chechen got in behind the wheel, ignored Arkady and opened the Koran, droning aloud as he read. He had a heavy gold ring on the little finger of each hand. Another got in beside Arkady with a skewer of shashlik wrapped in paper and handed pieces of meat to everyone, including Arkady, not in a friendly fashion, more as if he were a despised guest. All they needed were mustachios and bandoliers, Arkady thought. The Lada pointed away from the market, but in the rear-view mirror he occasionally caught sight of Jaak examining different cars.

  Chechens had nothing to do with Arabs. Chechens were Tartars, a western tide of the Golden Horde that had settled in the fastness of the Caucasus Mountains. Arkady studied the postcards on the dash. The city with the mosque was their mountain capital of Grozny, as in 'Ivan Grozny' – 'Ivan the Terrible'. Did that twist the Chechen psyche a little-bit, growing up with a name like that?

  Finally the first Chechen returned, accompanied by a boy not much bigger than a jockey. He had a heart-shaped face with raddled skin and eyes full of ambition. He reached into Arkady's jacket for his ID, studied it and slipped it back. To the man with the shotgun he said, 'He killed a prosecutor.' So by the time Arkady got out of the car, he was accorded some respect.

  Arkady followed the boy up to the Chaika, where the rear door opened for him. A hand reached out and pulled him in by the collar.

  Vintage Chaikas had a stately Soviet style: upholstered ceiling, elaborate ashtrays, banquette seats with corded piping, air conditioning, plenty of room for the boy and driver up front and Makhmud and Arkady in the back. Also bulletproof windows, he was sure.

  Arkady had seen pictures of mummified figures dug from the ashes of Pompeii. They looked like Makhmud, bent and gaunt, no lashes or eyebrows, skin a parchment grey. Even his voice sounded burned. He turned stiffly, as if hinged, to hold his visitor at arm's length and stare with eyes as black as little coals.

  'Excuse me,' Makhmud said. 'I had this operation. The wonder of Soviet science. They fix your eyes so you don't have to wear glasses anymore. They don't do this operation anywhere else in the world. What they don't tell you is from then on you only see at one distance. The rest of the world is a blur.'

  'What did you do?' Arkady asked.

  'I could have killed the doctor. I mean, I really could have killed the doctor. Then I thought about it. Why did I have this operation? Vanity. I'm eighty years old. It was a lesson. Thank God I'm not impotent.' He held Arkady steady. 'I can see you right now. You don't look very good.'

  'I need some advice.'

  'I think you need more than advice. I had them keep you down there while I asked some questions about you. I like to have information. Life is so various. I've been in the Red Army, White Army, German Army. Nothing is predictable. I hear that you've been an investigator, a convict, an investigator again. You're more confused than I am.'

  'Easily.'

  'It's an unusual name. You're related to Renko, that madman from the war?'

  'Yes.'

  'You have mixed eyes. I see a dreamer in one eye and a fool in the other. You see, I'm so old now that I'm going around a second time and I appreciate things. Otherwise you go crazy. I gave up cigarettes two years ago for the lungs. You have to be positive to do that. You smoke?'

  'Yes.'

  'Russians are a gloomy race. Chechens are different.'

  'People say that.'

  Makhmud smiled. His teeth looked oversized, like a dog's. 'Russians smoke, Chechens burn.'

  'Rudy Rosen burned.'

  For an old man, Makhmud changed expression quickly. 'Him and his money, I heard.'

  'You were there,' Arkady said.

  The driver turned. Though he was big, he was almost as young as the boy beside him, with acne clustered at the corners of a pouty mouth, hair long at the back, short at the sides, bangs a spray-painted orange. It was the athlete from the Intourist bar.

  Makhmud said, 'This is my grandson Ali. The other is his brother Beno.'

  'Nice family.'

  'Ali is very fond of me, so he doesn't like to hear this sort of accusation.'

  'That's not an accusation,' Arkady said. 'I was there, too. Maybe we're both innocent.'

  'I was at home asleep. Doctor's orders.'

  'What do you think might have happened to Rudy?'

  'With this medication I have and oxygen tubes, I look like a cosmonaut and I sleep like a baby.'

  'What happened to Rudy?'

  'My opinion? Rudy was a Jew, and a Jew thinks he can eat with the devil and keep his nose from being bitten off. Maybe Rudy knew too many devils.'

  Six days a week, Rudy and Makhmud had taken Turkish coffee together while they bargained over exchange rates. Arkady remembered seeing the fleshy Rudy across the table from the bone-thin Makhmud, and wondering who would eat whom.

  'You were the only one he was afraid of.'

  Makhmud rejected the compliment. 'We had no problem with Rudy. Other people in Moscow think the Chechens should go back to Grozny, back to Kazan, back to Baku.'

  'Rudy said you were out to get him.'

  'He was lying.' Makhmud dismissed the idea like a man used to demanding belief.

  'It's hard to argue with the dead,' Arkady noted as tactfully as he could.

  'Do you have Kim?'

  'Rudy's bodyguard? No. He's probably looking for you.'

  Makhmud said to the front of the car, 'Beno, could we have some coffee?'

  Beno passed back a thermos, small cups and saucers, spoons and a paper bag of sugar cubes. The coffee came out of the thermos like black sludge. Makhmud's hands were large, fingers and nails curved; the rest of him might have shrunk with age, but not the hands.

  'Delicious,' Arkady said. He felt his heart fibrillate with joy.

  'The mafias used to have real leaders. Antibiotic was a theatrical promoter, and if he liked a show he'd hire the whole hall for himself. He was like family to the Brezhnevs. A character, a racketeer, but his word was good. Remember Otarik?'

  'I remember he was a member of the Writers' Union even though his application had twenty-two grammatical errors,' Arkady said.

  'Well, writing was not his main occupation. Anyway, now they're replaced by these new businessmen like Borya Gubenko. It used to be that a gang war was a gang war. Now I have to watch my back two ways, from hit men and militia.'

  'What happened to Rudy? Was he part of a gang war?'

  'You mean a war between Moscow businessmen and bloodthirsty Chechens? We're always the mad dogs; Russians are always the victims. I'm not addressing you personally, but as a nation you see everything backwards. Could I give you a small example from my life?'

  'Please.'

  'Did you know that there was a ChechenRepublic? Our own. If I bore you, stop me. The worst crime of old people is to bore young people.' Even as he said this, Makhmud clutched Arkady's collar again.

  'Go on.'

  'Some Chechens had collaborated with the Germans, so in February 1944 mass meetings were called in every village. There were soldiers an
d brass bands; people thought it was a military celebration and everyone came. You know what those village squares are like – a loudspeaker in each corner playing music and announcements. Well, this announcement was that they had one hour to gather their families and possessions. No reason given. One hour. Imagine the scene. First the pleading, which was useless. The panic of looking for small children, for grandparents, forcing them to dress and dragging them put of the door to save their lives. Deciding what you should take, what you can carry. A bed, a chest of drawers, a goat? The soldiers loaded everyone into lorries. Studebakers. People thought the Americans were behind it and Stalin would save them!'

  In Makhmud's stare, Arkady saw black irises locked like the lens of a camera. 'In twenty-four hours there wasn't a Chechen left in the ChechenRepublic. Half a million people gone. The lorries put them on trains, in unheated freight carriages which travelled for week after week after week in the middle of winter. Thousands died. My first wife, my first three boys. Who knows at what siding the guards threw their bodies out? When the survivors were finally allowed to climb down from the carriages they found themselves in Kazakhstan, in Central Asia. Back home, the ChechenRepublic was liquidated. Russian names were given to our towns. We were removed from maps, histories, encyclopedias. We disappeared.

  'Twenty, thirty years went by before we managed to return to Grozny, even to Moscow. Like ghosts, we make our way back home to see Russians in our houses, Russian children in our yards. And they look at us and they say, "Animals!" Now you tell me, who has been the animal? They point fingers at us and shout, "Thief!" Tell me, who's the thief? When anyone dies, they find a Chechen and say, "Murderer!" Believe me, I would like to meet the murderer. Do you think I should feel sorry for them now? They deserve everything that's happening to them. They deserve us.' Makhmud's eyes became their most intense, dead coals come alive, and then dimmed. His fingers unclenched and released Arkady's lapel. Fatigue folded into a smile across his face. 'I apologize, I wrinkled your jacket.'