June 26, 1993
Saturday
5:40 PM
The face looked familiar. I didn’t even bother guessing. I glanced at the guy who’d sat down at our table and remembered the passenger who’d been kicking in the subway car door.
— Meet each other. This is Roman, my buddy. This is Anatoly Stepanovich, a good man.
I had to mumble «Pleasure to meet you» for the fourth time that day. In response I got «Wait over there,» got up, banged my hip on the edge of the table, and covered the distance to the next table in five painful steps.
Ugh.
I focused my gaze on what was happening. Figured out that Anatoly Stepanovich wasn’t just «a good man» but the one in charge of everybody scurrying around. A massive fellow pushing forty, he looked like a teddy bear — not the brown kind, the flaxen-haired kind. A sort of Winnie-the-Pooh, aged, gone gray, and flushed red.
He told the cops coming up to the table what to do and paid no attention to anything else. Didn’t even glance at Anastasia Igorevna, who’d descended on him with questions. With a well-practiced motion he pulled his ID out of his pocket, traced a circle in the air with it, flipping it open at the top of the arc and snapping it shut and back into his pocket at the bottom. The bookkeeper was steered off to the side by the elbow. That job fell to a laconic sergeant whose entire vocabulary consisted of the phrase: «Wait, you’ll be called.» The sergeant repeated the line to everyone languishing in the hall, including the head of the medical crew that had shown up after the police.
I looked around and spotted a whole crowd of people — cooks, waitresses, and other unidentified figures, seated at the tables like schoolchildren. An officer was going around handing everyone a sheet of paper. I got one too, and looked around for a pen. Shifted my gaze to Zhorik, who was laying out the outline of events for Anatoly Stepanovich.
I sharpened my hearing and tried to memorize Zhorik’s version. As it turned out, he’d stopped in with a witness — that is, me — for a bite to eat. They’d just taken a sip of beer, hadn’t even gotten their salad yet, when four heavily built men, above-average height, no distinguishing features, walked into the hall. Showing personal animosity toward each other, the men proceeded past. Then came sounds resembling the pop of tires blowing out. Four tires blew out total, exactly as many as a normal car has. Not one more. What kind of car, and why the tires turned out defective — no idea. He himself was in shock, and here he was, giving his statement. That’s it.
Anatoly Stepanovich nodded, sighed, and jotted notes on the sheet. As soon as Zhorik went quiet, he set his pen aside and clarified:
— That’s all?
— More or less. Enough for the record.
The policeman moved the sheet into a folder, snapped it shut, clicked the clasp, and looked at Zhorik. Making it clear the time had come for a couple of off-the-record words. Zhorik leaned in closer and let it out:
— Listen up, Tolyan, here’s how it is. The bodies in the yard, that’s the local roof. This joint’s hooked into them, blah blah blah. Looked like some kind of sit-down. Who exactly they were meeting with, you’ll figure out yourself. Sounds like your own buddies are running something on the side. Ballistics-wise, here’s the deal: they got dropped from the second floor, but why do you need that headache? The bulls got down on their knees and took their fate from some passerby with a piece. Stick to that version. And by the way. The bulls were hard up for guns, badly! Two traffic cops got wasted yesterday. You saw the bulletin. Anyway, you’ll find the Kalashnikov and the Makarov behind Krasny’s greenhouse. Soon as you spot a fresh patch of dirt, start digging. I’ll draw you the address right now.
The policeman snorted, drummed his fingers on the table. Then, either shaking off a spell or setting down the weight of his doubts, he sighed, got up from the table, and, walking pigeon-toed, headed over to Anastasia Igorevna, sitting next to the bartender. He picked up the sheets from their table and started reading, brow furrowed, lips moving.
Zhorik came back to my table and winked:
— Remember what to say?
— More or less.
Zhorik grunted, pulled a Moleskine out of his pocket, made a note with a comment: — Anatoly Stepanovich Vyrubov, major. Wants to make general. Not a chance, not while he’s running field detectives. Needs to move up to central command, but how? Dumb as a bumper, this one. Gotta think on it.
Turning halfway toward Anatoly Stepanovich, Zhorik listened in on the distant interrogations.
The policeman was reading back testimony, asking questions about what he’d read, reading it back again. The chief accountant and the bartender answered, stumbling and getting confused. The plot roughly matched Zhorik’s, minus the details. In particular, there may have been five heavily built men, not four. Yes, the deceased had definitely visited the establishment before, but hadn’t stood out in any particular way… No, there was no way to explain what happened, no theories to offer, no, no, no… Nobody had seen or heard anything, and so on and so forth, nothing observed whatsoever…
Having listened to testimony scant on details, Anatoly Stepanovich came back to our table, stood there a moment studying the three beer mugs on it. Asked:
— What’s Krasny’s last name?
— Simple one. Krasnov, — Zhorik answered and handed the policeman a napkin with some scribbling on it. — Here’s his dacha address. Don’t pull in the regional guys on this one. Handle it yourself. You’ll crack it hot off the trail. And don’t forget: ballistics expertise, off to the side! Got it? Bag the rest for a couple of weeks. Marinate them in pretrial detention and let ’em go, so they know who’s sheriff in this town. One favor from me: seal up the joint for a couple of days. We’ll hash out our own business later. I’ll ring you tomorrow or the day after. Deal?
The policeman took the napkin and tucked it into the breast pocket of his windbreaker. Stood there a moment, snorting thoughtfully. My eyes slid over the gray trousers with thin red stripes down the side. Nothing about the outfit had changed. Exactly like that unfortunate evening in the metro.
I remembered the commotion in the subway car, the hysterics, the kicked-in door… and a fog wrapped around me. My insides turned inside out, shoved upward through my esophagus. Managing to choke down the wave of nausea, I toppled sideways but didn’t fall. Zhorik caught me and hauled me off to the bathroom.
