Red Square Read Free Page A

seat,' Arkady said, 'a cashbox. The tray is empty and charred. Under the tray are small metal contacts, four batteries, perhaps the remains of a transmitter and tape recorder. So much for surveillance. Also on the seat is a metal rectangle, perhaps the back of a calculator. Key in the ignition is turned to 'Off'. Two other keys on the ring.'
        Which brought him to the driver. This was not where Arkady excelled. In fact, this was where he could have used a long walk and a cigarette.
        'With the burned ones you have to open the camera aperture all the way just to get any detail,' Polina said.
        Detail? 'The body is shrunken,' Arkady said, 'too badly charred to be immediately identifiable as male or female, child or adult. Head is resting on the left shoulder. Clothes and hair are burned off; some skull shows through. Teeth do not appear salvageable for moulds. No visible shoes or socks.'
        Which didn't really describe the new, smaller, blacker Rudy Rosen riding on the airy springs of his chariot. It didn't capture his full transformation into tar and bone, the particular nakedness of a belt buckle hanging in the pelvic cavity, the wondering sockets of the eyes and the molten gold of his fillings, the trousers stripped for speed, the way his right hand gripped the steering wheel as if he were cruising through hell, and the fact that the pearlized wheel had melted like pink toffee on his fingers. It didn't convey the mysterious way bottles of Starka and Kuban vodka had liquefied and pooled, how hard currency and cigarettes had vanished in a puff. 'Everybody needs me.' Not any more.
        Arkady turned away and saw that as black as Rudy Rosen was, Minin's face registered nothing but satisfaction, as if this sinner had suffered barely enough. Arkady took him aside and aimed him at some of the searchers among the militia who were stuffing their pockets. The ground was strewn with goods abandoned in the panic of the evacuation. 'I told them to identify and chart what they found.'
        'You didn't mean for them to keep it.'
        Arkady took a deep breath. 'Right.'
        'Look at this.' Polina probed a corner of the back seat with her hairpin. 'Dried blood.'
        Arkady went over to the Zhiguli. Jaak was in the back seat, questioning their only witness, the same unlucky man Arkady had met when he was waiting to talk to Rudy. The mugger with too many zlotys. Jaak had tackled him just inside the fence.
        According to his ID and work papers, Gary Oberlyan was a Moscow resident and hospital orderly, and, by the looks of his coupons, due for a new pair of shoes.
        'You want to see his ID?' Jaak said. He pulled back Gary's sleeves. On the inside of the left forearm was the picture of a nude sitting in a wine glass and holding the ace of hearts. 'He likes wine, women and cards,' Jaak said. On the right forearm was a bracelet of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. 'He loves cards.' On the left little finger, a ring of upside-down spades. 'This means conviction for hooliganism.' On the right ring finger, a knife through a heart. 'This means he's ready to kill. So let's say Gary did not wash up in a basket of reeds. Let's say Gary is a multiple offender who was apprehended at a gathering of speculators and who should cooperate.'
        'Fuck you,' Gary said. In the daylight his broken nose looked welded on.
        'Still have your forints and zlotys?' Arkady asked.
        'Fuck you.'
        Jaak read from his notes. 'The witness states that he spoke to the fucking deceased because he thought the deceased was someone who owed him money. He then left the nicking deceased's car and was standing at a distance of approximately ten metres about five minutes later when the fucking car exploded. A man the witness knows as Kim threw a second fucking bomb into the car and then ran.'
        'Kim?' Arkady asked.
        'That's what he says. He also says he burned his fucking hands trying to save the