Black Knight in Red Square (6 page)

Tkach heard a sound behind him and turned to see the second man, whom Rostnikov had thrown out of the elevator, reach into his pocket. He kicked the man in the stomach and was satisfied to hear an escape of air not unlike the one he had let out when the leader punched him.

Without a word, Rostnikov herded the four muggers into the elevator with kicks and pushes and motioned Tkach in, giving a sour look at the whimpering leader.

Then he pushed the elevator button for the first floor.

“I—” Tkach began, trying to put his clothes back in order.

“Not now,” said Rostnikov abruptly, “I have important work for you to do. You do speak French, don't you?”

“I speak French,” said Tkach.

“
Bon
,” said Rostnikov, turning so that neither Tkach nor the muggers could see the satisfied grin on his face.

P
ROSTITUTION, OF COURSE, DOES NOT EXIST IN THE
Soviet Union. It has not existed since 1930. This disease of exploitative societies, according to the official
Soviet Encyclopedia
, “has been liquidated in the Soviet Union, since the conditions engendering and nourishing it have disappeared.” Lenin said that “lack of self-control in sexual matters is a bourgeois characteristic, a sign of demoralization.” Therefore, following a brief flurry of free love movements after the revolution, the Soviet Union effectively ended the sexual exploitation of women.

Which is why it took Emil Karpo almost half an hour to find the prostitute he was looking for in Moscow. Normally, time and duty permitting, Karpo met Mathilde in the Café Moscow off Gorky Street at seven in the evening on the first Wednesday of each month. They would then go to the apartment Mathilde shared with her aunt and cousin, who would be conveniently absent for an hour. Mathilde worked as a telephone operator during the day and as a prostitute at night. She was a
sekretarsha,
or “secretary,” not a full-time
prostitutka.

Mathilde was not at the Café Moscow, but the waiter who set her up with clients stood leaning against the wall, his black bow tie clipped on at an odd angle. His name was Anatoli, and he was somewhere between forty and sixty. His hair was thin, his body sluggish, and his expression sullen. He saw Karpo coming and feigned indifference as he turned to start a conversation with another waiter.

“So,” he told his friend, “if I can get an extra ticket, and you want to pay the twelve rubles, you can have it.”

“Twelve rubles?” asked the man incredulously, removing the black papirosi cigarette from his mouth. “I wouldn't pay more than seven.” The papirosi had a long cardboard filter and smelled like burning rope. Karpo, who never drank, smoked, or even considered abusing his body, was revolted by all smoking and drinking, which meant he had much to be revolted by in Moscow.

“Anatoli,” Karpo said, stepping behind the waiter.

The other waiter glanced up at Karpo, smelled cop, and headed for the kitchen. Anatoli turned slowly and gave Karpo a bored look.

“Yes?” he said.

“I must see Mathilde immediately.”

“Impossible,” said Anatoli with a near chuckle at the absurdity of the request.

“You misunderstand,” Karpo said softly, putting his good right hand on the waiter's shoulder. “This is not a request. It is an official police order.”

The waiter winced in pain and began to sink, but Karpo pulled him up. A pair of late lunching customers saw the disturbance and, pretending they hadn't noticed, hurried to pay their bill and leave.

“Mathilde,” he repeated. “I am not going to arrest her or you.”

“You'd better not,” said Anatoli, reaching up to massage his aching shoulder. “It would do you no good for your superiors to know about you and her.”

He got no further. Karpo's hand was around his neck, and Anatoli found himself looking into the emotionless face.

“That would embarrass me,” Karpo whispered, “but it would not cost me my job. It would, however, lead to your detention and sentencing as a panderer, and you are well aware of the penalty for that.” He released him roughly. “Where do I find Mathilde?”

Anatoli's clip-on tie had come loose on one side and dangled as he touched his throat and let out a rasping sob.

“Home,” Anatoli whispered, and cleared his throat. “She called in sick to the telephone office.”

Karpo turned and headed for the door.

“She's not alone,” Anatoli said.

Karpo continued on through the door and out into the street. In ten minutes, he was on Herzen Street, heading for a long row of almost identical ten-story apartment buildings. He entered the fourth building at a little before two in the afternoon and began the climb to the seventh floor. His left arm still throbbed occasionally, but the doctor had assured him that the throbbing would eventually go away. Karpo wasn't so sure. He also wasn't entirely sure he wanted it to go away. What he wanted was full use of the hand and arm. A little pain, like the great pain of his headaches, was a challenge to him. It was a test of his endurance, his dedication. The world was full of obstacles, pain, human frailty. The challenge for the state and the individual was to overcome the frailty. Karpo had done admirably with a few minor exceptions. He considered Mathilde, whom he had known for almost seven years, a major frailty.

Karpo did not hesitate at the door. His four knocks were sharp and loud, and the familiar voice called, “Who is it?”

“Karpo,” he replied. Behind the door he could hear frantic scrambling and a man's voice, but it took no more than ten seconds for the door to open. Mathilde stood before him, the front of her green dress closed except for one button at the waist. Her dark brown hair fell loose to her shoulders. She was not pretty in the conventional way, but she was handsome and strong. Certainly, she was confident and sturdy. Even now one hand was on her hip as she faced Karpo in the doorway.

“You're a week and five hours early,” she said.

“I have some questions to ask you,” Karpo replied. “Send him home.” His eyes had not left her face. For a moment she looked angry, but then she must have remembered that anger had no effect on the man who stood before her. Secretly she felt sorry for Karpo, but she would never tell him so, because she knew that the slightest display of her feelings would send the gaunt, serious man away, never to return. She stepped back, allowing him to enter, and closed the door to the one-room apartment behind him.

“Mikol,” she said, without turning around. “Come out.”

The door to the bathroom opened slowly, cautiously, and a thin young man came out. He was barely more than a boy, in fact, dressed in work pants and a white shirt. He was trying to put his tie on as he emerged, and his long, straight brown hair fell over his eyes. At first he looked at Karpo with a touch of defiance but on seeing the specter before him, the defiance vanished.

“I'm afraid you must leave now, Mikol,” Mathilde said gently. “This man is an old friend. He is in the government, like your father. You understand?”

Mikol finished with his tie, unsure whether he should shake hands, say something to Mathilde, or just make for the door. He did the last, hesitating at the door as if to say something to Mathilde.

“I will talk to you on Monday,” she said.

Mikol nodded, glanced at the unsmiling Karpo, and left, closing the door behind him.

“His father is an assistant to the transportation commissar,” she said. “I've known the father almost as long as I've known you. Would you like some tea?”

“Yes,” he said, ignoring the unmade bed in the corner near the window. “I've come for your help.”

She walked into the kitchen alcove and began to fill the teapot. Over the sound of water splashing into the aluminum pot, she said, “Personal or business?”

“I have no personal interests,” he said seriously.

Mathilde turned, pot in hand, eyebrow raised, and cocked her head.

“I have personal needs, perhaps,” he amended.

“You are a flatterer,” she said with a grin. She put the pot on the burner and turned to Karpo, her arms folded in front of her.

“Do you miss many days at your job?” he asked.

“Mikol's father arranged for me to have the day off,” she explained.

Karpo nodded knowingly. He was not at all naive. Corruption was rampant in the Soviet Union. One man, even a small dedicated group of men and women, could not hope to stamp it out completely. But one had to keep trying, keep behaving as if it were possible. That was what gave meaning to one's life.

“I must find a prostitute,” Karpo said as Mathilde sat down at the table.

“Well, you have come to the right place,” she said, waving him to the seat beside her.

“I did not mean you,” he explained. “I must find a prostitute who works near the Metropole Hotel, one whom a man might pick up late at night without attracting notice, one a taxi driver or clerk might have quick access to.”

Mathilde looked puzzled. “What—”

“It is part of an investigation,” he explained, and she knew she would get no more from him. She shrugged, discovered the open button on her blouse, buttoned it.

“Could be quite a few taxis.” She sighed. “There are maybe a dozen who work out of cabs in that area, but if it was late, it would probably be a railroad prostitute, one of the cheap ones who work the stations. More likely, the one you're looking for went to the Metropole restaurant with her pimp or her husband. Probably works the place.”

“A name,” Karpo said, staring at her with unblinking eyes.

Mathilde smiled. “You don't even close your eyes when you're…” She hesitated. She had been about to say “making love,” but the act for Karpo had nothing to do with love.

“The name,” Karpo repeated.

Behind them, the kettle began to boil, and Mathilde rose to make the tea.

“What night?” she said, her back turned.

“Wednesday,” he replied. “Yesterday.”

“Her name is Natasha,” Mathilde said. “She goes one night a week, Wednesdays, to the Metropole. She doesn't dare go there any oftener than that for fear someone might get suspicious and turn her in. Normally in the afternoons she works one of the railway stations in Komsomolskaya Square. Try the Leningradsky station. She's about thirty-five, on the thin side, short blond hair, fairly good teeth, no beauty, but when she gets dressed for a night at the Metropole, she can pass, especially with a foreigner who is drunk. Is that what you wanted?”

She returned with the tea and placed a cup before him.

“Yes,” he said, his eyes meeting hers.

They drank quietly, saying nothing for almost two minutes.

“You've never been here in the daytime,” she said finally.

“Until today,” he agreed, finishing his tea.

“Since you are here…” she began.

Somewhere deep within him, Karpo had the same thought. It was as if she read his mind, exposed his need and turned it into a vulnerability.

“I think not,” he said rising. “I prefer our regular arrangement.”

“As you wish,” Mathilde said with a slight nod.

As it must be, Karpo thought to himself, and he departed without another word.

The Leningradsky station was alive with people when Karpo arrived. He showed his identification to the policeman at the entrance who was posted there to keep out all those without tickets.

The hard wooden benches were crowded with peasants in ragged clothes. Some of them may well have been there for days, unable to find someplace in the city to sleep. All hotels were essentially beyond their means. Even if they were not, the chances of a peasant being given a room were nonexistent. If the peasant knew no one in the city or could find no one who would allow him and his wife and possibly a child or two to sleep on the floor for a few rubles, his only choice was to live in the railway station till his train came. The better dressed travelers sat a little straighter, sought others like themselves, or buried their faces in books to keep from being identified with the lowest levels of Soviet society.

Karpo moved to the dark little snack bar in the corner and watched the woman behind the bar. She had a clear case of asthma, made no better by the smokey station. She was ladling out chicken soup for a man in a rumpled business suit. When she finished, she shouted over her shoulder at one old woman who was washing the dishes.

Karpo caught the attention of the asthmatic woman.

“Natasha,” he said softly. Just then another customer, reasonably well dressed but in need of a shave, ambled forward but when he saw Karpo's vampirelike face he decided to wait.

The woman had not been looking at Karpo. As she turned and saw him, her sour expression turned docile.

“My name is not Natasha, Comrade,” she wheezed.

“There is a woman who works the station—blond, thin,” he explained. “Her name is Natasha.”

“I know of no such person,” the woman said, looking around in the hope that a customer would save her from this man.

Karpo leaned forward, his eyes fixing on the woman's. He could smell her sweat. There was no room behind the bar for her to back away. Behind her the dishwasher asked if something was wrong. The woman said nothing and gasped at the face before her. Then her voice came out in a small whisper.

“She's here. The far corner, over by the second gate, behind the…”

But Karpo had turned and was gone. He pushed through the crowds, moving slowly, his eyes scanning the room. He spotted a prostitute almost immediately, but she was hefty and had dark hair. He went on, and in a few more minutes spotted the thin blonde. She was asking a gentleman for a light for her cigarette. At this distance, she looked rather elegant, but as Karpo pushed toward her, the look of elegance faded. Her face was hard, her hair brittle and artificially colored, her teeth uneven and a little yellow. Looking at her, Karpo thought that her nights at the Metropole were probably numbered. Soon she would be spending more time at the railroad stations, and soon after that she would only be working nights.