Wolves Eat Dogs (37 page)

Arkady grunted to hold up his side of the conversation. Carrying a body through a dense wood was like passing a jack through the tines of a comb. "Karel," he said.

"Karel was the fumigator, and he did a good job. Unfortunately, he got sloppy and must have picked up a grain or two of cesium. I tried a million times to explain radioactivity to Karel, and I don't think I ever got through."

"Why would he do it?"

"I was his friend. The Woropays', too. I listened to them, to their crazy ambitions. They were just boys from the Zone, they were never going to be New Russians. We were each in our different ways getting even."

"For what?"

"Everything."

Arkady was too exhausted to plumb that. "Not everything. Tell me one thing."

"Eva."

"What about her?"

"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.

Arkady said, "Would you mind stepping out of the shadow?"

"You want to see me when I kill you?" Alex asked.

"If you don't mind."

Alex moved forward into the silvery light.

Arkady waited and gave Alex no reason to turn. There was a moment's perplexity on Alex's face as he seemed to wonder why Arkady was such an easy victim.

Then Alex twitched. He was dead standing, he was dead dropping, he was dead sprawled on the ground, and Oksana's shot had not been much louder than the snap of a twig. As she stepped out from the crazy chairs, she freed her arm from a sling she'd used to steady her rifle, similar to the single-shot bolt-action rifles that Arkady had seen at the Katamay apartment in Slavutych.

"I'm so sorry. I left my rifle with my bike. I barely got back in time," she said.

"But you did."

"This beast killed my little brother." She kicked Alex.

"He's dead." Arkady tried to steer her away.

"He was the devil. I heard every word." She got one good spit in before Arkady calmed her down and mopped up Alex's face. There wasn't a visible mark on him. His eyes were clear, his mouth set in a knowing smirk, his irises and muscle tone just starting to go slack. Arkady had to press his finger into Alex's ear to find the bullet's borehole and a dot of blood.

"Will they arrest me?" Oksana asked.

"Does anyone else know that you supply skins for your grandfather to mount?"

"No, he'd be embarrassed. You knew?"

"I assumed the skins were from Karel until I saw his condition. Then I knew they were from you."

"Can they trace the bullet?"

"A sophisticated lab could, but there are a lot of swamps around here. Tell me about Hulak." Arkady could barely stand, but he had a feeling that Oksana was a rarely seen moth, that he could talk to her now or never.

"He told my grandfather he was going to get your money and give you a taste of the cooling pond."

"You waited in a boat?"

"I fish there sometimes."

"And shot Hulak."

"He had a gun."

"You shot Hulak."

"He was dragging my grandfather into things."

"And you protect your family?"

Oksana frowned; her baldness exaggerated every expression. No, she didn't like that question. She made room for herself on the couch and rested Karel's head in her lap.

Arkady asked, "Do you know how your brother got so sick?"

"A saltshaker. He told me he was adding cesium to a saltshaker when he dropped a grain. Maybe two. He wore gloves, and nothing should have happened, but later, he ate a sandwich and..." Her face twisted. "Do you mind if I sit here for a while?"

"Please."

"Karel and I used to sit like this a lot."

She reached over her brother's shoulder to smooth the folds of his hockey shirt, place his hands together, primp his braids. Oksana became more and more absorbed, and gradually Arkady understood there were not going to be any more answers.

"I have to go," Arkady said.

"Can I stay?"

"The city is yours."

Arkady drove Alex's truck down the river road, down to the docks and the scuttled fleet, over the bridge and the hiss of the weir. His motorcycle was in the back of the truck. There was no other way to get there in time. For what, he didn't know, but he felt enormous urgency. Along the housing blocks, virtually empty, always virtually empty, and the twin track of a car path through a field of swaying ferns, to a garage half hidden by trees and a bank of lilacs.

He turned off the engine. The white truck seemed to fill the yard. The cabin was silent and had about it an air of darkness and grief. Wind softly heaved the trees, and the screen door slammed.

Eva was in her bathrobe, her eyes blurred, but she held her gun steadily with both hands. She stumbled across the ground in bare feet, but the sights stayed fixed on him. She said, "I told you if you came back, I'd shoot you."

"It's me." He started to open the door and get out of the truck.

"Don't get out, Alex." She kept moving forward.

"It's all right." Arkady swung the door open and stepped down so she could see him more clearly. He was ashamed, but he wasn't going away. Besides, he was exhausted. This was as far as he could go. She stepped closer until she could not miss before she distinguished him apart from the truck. He knew he didn't look good. In fact, the way he looked would have scared most people off. She began to shake. She shook like a woman in icy water until he carried her inside.