The Red Horseman (15 page)

Everyone in Washington reads my newspaper every
day, from Hillary Clinton right on down. Everyone,
including all the people in the Senate and House
of Representatives.

Tell him that.”

After an Uzi-burst of Russian, Yocke
continued. “I am here to interview Yakov Dynkin,
a Jew who was convicted of arranging the sale of a
private automobile for profit. I understand he was
sentenced to five years in the gulag at hard
labor.”

The warden’s face lost its friendliness as Gregor
translated. Yocke didn’t understand the words, but
he understood the tone. The interpreter said, “Yakov
Dynkin is not here. No Jews are here.”

“Has he been shipped to the gulag?”

“No,” was the answer that came back. Just no.

Yocke thought about it. Dynkin wasn’t here and he
hadn’t been shipped to the gulag. “Have they turned
him loose with a pardon or probation?”

The warden merely frowned.

Yocke extracted a press clipping from his
jacket pocket.

He handed it to Gregor and pointed at the
appropriate paragraph. “Two weeks ago
Tass said Dynkin was here. There it is in black and
white.”

Gregor stared at the clipping.

“Go on! Show him that and tell him I wish to see
Dynkin and write about what wonderful treatment he
is receiving here at Butyrskaya even though he was
convicted of violating a law that was repealed a week
before he was arrested.”

Slowly, as if this were costing him a major portion
of his pension, Gregor passed the piece of paper
across the desk.

The warden refused to touch it, so it came to rest in
the empty spot on the desk in front of him. He
bent over and looked at the English words without showing
the slightest glimmer of comprehension.

After a few seconds the warden picked up the
offending paper and handed it back to Yocke’, who
accepted it. Another spray of words.

“He says you are wrong. Dynkin is not here.
No Jews are here.”

“Where are they?”

“He doesn’t know. Is there anything else he
can help you with?”

“Couldn’t he consult his records or something and
tell me if Dynkin has ever been here? Or when
he left. Or where he is.”

Gregor considered.

“These people do have records, I assume,
something scribbled somewhere to tell them who is rotting in
what hole . . .”

Gregor spoke to Yocke as if he were a
small boy incapable of understanding the obvious. “He
is not here.”

“Who are you working for? Him or me? Ask him the
question.”

“But he has told you the answer. What more could
he possibly say? The warden is a powerful
senior official. If he says the man is not
here, then he is not. That is all there is to that.”

Jack Yocke smiled at the warden. He then
turned the grin on Gregor.

“This fat geek is lying through his teeth.

These greasy Commie bastards railroaded
Dynkin for making an honest ruble just because he’s a
Jew. They’ve got him locked up somewhere in the
large intestines of this shit factory. This pompous
son of a bitch knows the whole prosecution was a
farce to fuck Jews and embarrass Yeltsin and his
people, make them took like lying hypocrites when they go
begging in America and Europe for foreign aid.

Dynkin sold a car for a profit and these old
Commies are grinding him into hamburger.”

Gregor’s face was frozen,
immobile. Even his eyes were blank.

“Ask him if it’s true that about a hundred and
twenty thousand people are still imprisoned in labor
camps for doing business that is legal in Russia
today. Ask him.”

Gregor put his tongue in motion. After a few
syllables from the warden, the translator told
Yocke, “He doesn’t know.”

“Ask him how Russia can establish a free
marketeconomy if it keeps all these people in
prison for earning a profit.”

Gregor looked at his shoes.

“Ask him!”

The translator’s head moved from side to side,
about a millimeter.

Yocke flashed another broad grin at the
warden. “Come on, Gregor.

There’s a story here. These Commies ain’t got
religion. They’re still the same filthy, diseased
assholes they always were. They screwed Dynkin
to get at Yeltsin.

You can see that, can’t you? They can’t get away with
it if we tell it to the world.”

Gregor’s face looked as bad as Lenin’s,
who had been dead for over sixty years.

“Don’t chicken out on me again,” Yocke
pleaded.

“Think up something that will open up this pig’s . .
.”

But Gregor was leaving. He stood and nodded
obsequiously to the warden while he jabbered away like
a parrot with a hard on. The warden expended the effort
to get to his feet. He tugged his jacket down
over his gut and adjusted his tie. He grinned at
Yocke and thrust out his hand.

At a loss for what to do next, Yocke closed
his mouth, gave the warden’s soft hand a token pump,
then followed the retreating Gregor.

Going down the corridor Yocke demanded,
“What did you tell that fat screw?”

“Screw? What is a screw?”

“A prison guard. A power pervert.”

Gregor gave Yocke a look that was about an
equal mixture of contempt and amazement and kept
walking.

Outside in the street, Gregor exploded.
“You can’t talk to a powerful person like you did in
there. This is Butyrskaya! Are you insane? Do you
know nothing?” He sprayed saliva.

“My newspaper sent me to get a
story,” Yocke snarled.

“That asshole was lying! He didn’t even look
at the records. What a crock! You people have held
your nose so long that you can’t smell shit when you’re
in it up to your ears. You’ve been fucked by these people for
seventy-five years because you bent over and grabbed your
ankles and held the position. You gutless wonders
will-was

Gregor spit at Yocke’s feet. “You are
a little boy throwing pebbles at a great bear. The chain
holding the bear is very rusty, very weak. If you arouse
him you will end up in his belly and no one at your rich
newspaper in Washington USA will ever know what
became of you.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. You
will be gone. You and your dirty words and stupid questions and
your notebook where you write your words making fun of
us. Gone forever, Mister Jack Yocke. Think about
that if you have any brains to think with.”

They went to Gregor’s tiny Soviet sedan and
shoehorned themselves in.

Sitting there with his kneesjammed against the
dashboard, Yocke said, “Why don’t you drop the
krulak act and stop feeding me bullshit?”

“Why don’t you stop acting like stupid Yankee
billionaire looking down his nose?”

“I will if you will.”

Gregor inserted his key in the ignition, then
glanced sideways at Yocke.

“Standing in Soviet Square while gunmen shoot
bullets was the most grotesque’-he had to search for
words–the most dumbest stupid thing I have ever in my
life seen. Everyone ran because those who shoot don’t
want anyone to see their faces. We stupid
Russians think of that real quick.” He bobbed his
head once and snapped his fingers. “Even if stray
bullets don’t kill you the gunmen will if you stand
there like you are watching old men play chess. And you
hung there on the side of the speaker’s platform, an
ape in the zoo. You weren’t shot-a miracle, like
an immaculate conception. Truly there is a
God and he looks after grotesque stupidly
Americans.”

Jack Yocke’s embarrassment showed on his
face. “Well, that was sorta .

.”

Gregor pointed at the prison. “In there, you
shot your mouth.”

“Shot my mouth off.”

“Yes. Off. Shot mouth off. Can warden speak
English?”

Gregor shrugged grandly. “Was the office
bugged by people who tape and listen?” He shrugged again.
“Can the people who tape and listen speak English?”
Another shrug. “Will the warden tell something he has
been told not, to tell to you, an American
reporter to write in your glorious important
foreign newspaper God knows what?” He lifted
his hands and raised his eyebrows.

“Rub it in.”

“Okay.” He used his knuckles to rub
Yocke’s head.

“There. It’s rubbed in. You Americans!”

“So what happened to Yakov Dynkin?” Yocke
asked as he tried to smooth his hair back
into place with his fingers.

“We could spend the afternoon thinking possibilities.
He is dead. Moved to another prison. Maybe
sick. Maybe re leased. Maybe in Siberia.

Maybe used to clean up mess at Chernobyl.
Whatever, for us he is no more.”

“Then why did the warden say no Jews were here?
Most liars don’t expand the tale beyond what is
necessary.

“Oh?”

“Why tell a whopper if a little lie will
do? If Dynkin’s dead-was

“I don’t know.” Another shrug.

“Let’s try to find Dynkin’s wife. I have
her address written down here someplace.”

Gregor turned the key and the engine caught after
only three seconds of grinding.

The apartment building was one of dozens in a
sprawling area outside the second Moscow loop.
They all looked alike, five stories high,
splotchy plaster, flat roofs, not a tree in
sight. They found the one they wanted because it had a
number painted on one corner.

Yocke looked it over and began to compose his
story in his head. The adjectives, nouns and verbs
came effortlessly as he looked at the appalling,
dreary buildings and tried to imagine what it would be
like to call one of these concrete cell blocks home.

But he kept his thoughts to himself. Gregor
probably lived in an apartment house like this. Or
wished he did.

When Gregor parked and killed the engine,
Yocke laid a hand on his arm.

“Let’s see if we can reach an understanding between us.
I’m a foreigner, a stranger. I’m here because the
American people are interested in Russia and
my newspaper wants to print the stories. All
I want to do is understand. If I can understand what is
going on, I can write it. But I need to get the
truth. I need to get it anyway I can.”

Gregor stared straight ahead. “In Russia
there is no such thing as truth. There is only what you
write, and it is good for someone and bad for someone
else.”

That comment seemed to give Yocke no opening, so
he attacked in another direction. “Are you for
democracy?”

Gregor considered. “Maybe.”

Yocke frowned. Aloud he said, “For
democracy to work, people have to know what is really
happening. My job is to find out. was t Come on,
Jack! You sound like a candidate for county sheriff.
Even you don’t believe that treacle. You are
employed by the owners of the newspaper to make them
money, to write stories that sell newspapers.
To keep the long green flowing they aren’t too picky
about who they screw, an attitude they share with
hundred-dollar, have-anice-day hookers. Now that
is truth as red, white and blue as a Harley
tattoo.

“This isn’t America,” Gregor
explained patiently, damn him!

The reporter grasped his door handle and pulled.
“It’s a hell of a lot closer than you think,” he
muttered through clenched teeth.

Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington sat in
General Yakolev’s car in the alley behind KGB
Headquarters while they waited for the driver
to return the keys. Toad was in the front beside the
driver’s seat. He stared at the cut-stone walls
morosely. Herb Tenney was in the belly of the beast
and that was a good place for him, he told himself.
Unfortunately Herb would be out dancing in the
sunbeams in about an hour.

Jake Grafton had properly rejected his
spur-of-themoment proposal to send Herb on to his
next incarnation The complexities of the proof problem
troubled Toad not a whit: he knew Herb was
guilty-but there undoubtedly were other people involved in
Herb Tenney’s slimy little mess; there had to be.
Maybe as few as three or four others, maybe the
whole damned CIA, all sixteen thousand of them
slopping through kimchi right up to their plastic photo
ID badges. As usual Grafton was right.

Why trade the devil you knew for heaven knows how
many you didn’t?

And just what was Herb’s mess? If the CIA were
merely squashing billionaires like stinkbugs, that
could be forgiven as some kind of kinky weekend sport,
sort of like tennis with live grenades. If they
switched to American billionaires they could
probably get a TV contract and sell
tickets.

No, if that were the game they wouldn’t be so
twitchy.

So what was going on?

Keren was a newspaper mogul, wasn’t he?
Perhaps his papers had uncovered something the CIA
didn’t want unred. Now that made sense.

Arms for Iran? Cocaine cove for guns?
Maybe something to do with the last American election.

But all of this was pure speculation. He was trying
to guess what the puzzle looked like after getting a
fuzzy glimpse of one small piece.

Toad glanced over his shoulder at the admiral in
the backseat. He too was looking at the grim
secret police headquarters and the grotesquely
ugly buildings across the street, but his face showed
no emotion.

You’re never gonna be an admiral,
Toad-man. Never!

You don’t have the cool for it.

His mind turned from that happy subject to his
serious contemplation of the murder of a fellow human
being. He had been serious, he reminded himself
guiltily. What if Grafton had said yes?
Then it would have been his responsibility. No,
Toad told himself, then it would have been the
responsibility of both of you.

Are you that frightened of Herb, Toad asked himself.

Yes!

In spite of the mild temperature, Toad
Tarkington shivered.

Toad almost went to sleep in the afternoon briefing, a
technical seminar on how properly to dispose of
nuclear warheads. The speakers were physicists and
chemists and weapons designers, all of whom were in
love with their subjects as far as Toad could tell.