August 18, 1998
Tuesday
9:42 a.m.
Onlookers crowded outside the Proma building behind a cordon of red-and-white tape, police shuffling around inside it. I was walked through blackened corridors reeking of ash and something sour, into Ida’s office -- the one room the fire had spared.
Ida perched on the guest sofa. Behind her desk, sniffling, sat a man with colorless eyes who introduced himself:
– Captain Palchikov.
– Roman Peskov.
– The explosion happened at three in the morning. What were you doing at that time?
– Sleeping.
– Fine. Now you’ll sign a statement not to leave the city, and sign where indicated, – the captain announced.
I signed the A5-sized slip. Refused to sign anything bigger. Caught Ida’s eye -- she was flatly forbidding it with her face.
I set the pen down. Ida rounded on the captain:
– Cap! Hey! Care to crack open the criminal code sometime? No interest in waiting for a lawyer? What’s the rush?
The captain waved me off, letting me go. Good. Except I had no idea where to go. My office was charred and flooded.
On my way out I ran into Yana. Realized I needed to start giving orders:
– Here’s the plan. I’m going home. You go find the IT people, have them forward calls from my line to yours. If anyone calls, answer – we’ll have a statement tomorrow! And take over the HR director’s office on the fourth floor. He’s starting a two-week paid vacation today. Draft the order. Clear?
– Yes!
– Everything else as usual. See you tomorrow!
Then I pulled the guard Sergei aside: – Watch my office. Nobody goes in, nothing comes out.
I got home at ten. Took two phone calls, one after another. The first from a friend of Zhorik’s. That’s how the caller introduced himself, and before I could wonder «Since when does Zhora have friends?» he informed me I was suspect number one, since the fire benefited the holding’s owner -- meaning me.
«There’s no benefit in this holding, just loans...» I mused, melancholic.
The unfamiliar friend kept piling it on: violations found in business dealings, tax shortfalls, my name coming up in murder and embezzlement cases...
«Right now they’re interrogating the chief accountant and the security chief. They’re saying a lot of interesting things, so...» the caller trailed off vaguely.
Hm. There hadn’t been a chief accountant at the holding since Zhorik built his monstrous scheme, in which twenty-five chief accountants were on the books, one per each of twenty-five limited-liability companies. Meanwhile the one accountant who actually knew where all of Proma’s money moved simply didn’t exist. Money flowed from account to account, and each Proma bookkeeper could only trace their own little stream. Marina handled the official side -- the twenty-five taxpayers and minimizing payments split between the Elista and Khryakino tax inspectorates. Yurik and Konstantin, the head of the audit department, watched the river and its tributaries. Only I knew where the flow ended up. The scheme, built three years earlier, was unbreakable. There was no security chief either, for that matter. There was Yasha, an official candidate of sciences, head of a "research group." Nobody called him a security chief. Except behind his back, as "the Deputy." The comparison to Yevgeny Pavlovich Leonov drove Yasha into a fury.
– What should I do? – I asked the stranger, just in case.
– Disappear. They’ll start packing you up tomorrow.
The second call came in. A hoarse voice hit like a blow to the head:
– Hey, Roma. It’s Biba. Why’d you go and do that, huh? Took the place off good people and then vanished! Yok-makaryok! We’re out here huffing and puffing, turning Miami-Dade upside down, and you’re in Moscow gluing on a beard and stretching a chamfer. Don’t you do that! Take care of yourself.
I didn’t get a word in before he hung up. Hm. That call made no sense either. My house is in Broward, not Miami-Dade. Strange. Then again, if some Biba is calling from Miami, things are bad in a way that’s almost funny. Better move to Khryakino, closer to the security detail. Then again -- what would I even do there?
I walked through the apartment, gathering cash from pockets and nightstands -- half a hundred bills with Franklin’s face and a couple of ruble stacks I’d gotten out of the habit of carrying. At the bedside table I froze. The grenade was gone. It had been migrating from shelf to shelf around the apartment until it ended up in the nightstand. Now it had vanished. Made no sense. None of it made sense.
I stepped outside. No one was staking out the entrance, no one was tailing me.
Where to go? What to do? I pulled out my communicator, scrolled through the list of Moscow contacts. Couldn’t find a single one who’d put me up for a couple of days.
