‘Probably not,’ Zacharias admitted.
‘Have I asked you about your war plans? Yes, certainly, they are most interesting theoretical exercises and I would probably find them fascinating war games, but have I asked about them?’ His voice was that of a patient teacher.
‘No, you haven’t, Kolya, that’s true.’
‘Robin, I am not worried about B-52s. I am worried about Chinese bombers. That is the war my country is preparing for.’ He looked down at the concrete floor, puffing on a cigarette and going on softly. ‘I remember when I was eleven. The Germans were within a hundred kilometers of Moscow. My father joined his transport regiment – they made it up from university teachers. Half of them never came back. My mother and I evacuated the city, east to some little village whose name I can’t remember – it was so confusing then, so dark all the time – worrying about my father, a professor of history, driving a truck. We lost twenty million citizens to the Germans, Robin. Twenty million. People I knew. The fathers of friends – my wife’s father died in the war. Two of my uncles died. When I went through the snow with my mother, I promised myself that someday I would defend my country, too, and so I am a fighter pilot. I do not invade. I do not attack. I defend. Do you understand this thing I tell you, Robin? My job is to protect my country so that other little boys will not have to run away from home in the middle of winter. Some of my classmates died, it was so cold. That is why I defend my country. The Germans wanted what we had, and now the Chinese want it, too.’ He waved towards the door of the cell. ‘People like … like that.’
Even before Zacharias spoke, Kolya knew he had him. Months of work for this moment, Grishanov thought, like seducing a virgin, but much sadder. This man would never see his home again. The Vietnamese had every intention of lulling these men when their utility ended. It was such a colossal waste of talent, and his antipathy to his supposed allies was every bit as real as he feigned it to be – it was no longer pretense. From the first moment he’d arrived in Hanoi, seeing first-hand their arrogant superiority, and their incredible cruelty – and their stupidity. He had just achieved more with kind words and not even a liter of vodka than what they and their torturers had failed to do with years of mindless venom. Instead of inflicting pain, he had shared it. Instead of abusing the man beside him, he had given kindness, respecting his virtues, assuaging his injuries as best he could, protecting him from more, and utterly regretting that he’d necessarily been the agent of the most recent of them.
There was a downside, however. To achieve this breakthrough, he’d opened his soul, told true stories, dredged up his own childhood nightmares, reexamined his true reason for coining the profession he loved. Only possible, only thinkable, because he’d known that the man sitting next to him was doomed to a lonely, unknown death – already dead to his family and his country – and an unattended grave. This man was no fascist Hitlerite. He was an enemy, but a straightforward one who had probably done his utmost to spare harm to noncombatants because he, too, had a family. There was in him no illusion of racial superiority – not even hatred for the North Vietnamese, and that was the most remarkable thing of all, for he, Grishanov, was learning to hate them. Zacharias didn’t deserve to die, Grishanov told himself, recognizing the greatest irony of all.
Kolya Grishanov and Robin Zacharias were now friends.
‘How does this grab you?’ Douglas asked, setting it on Ryan’s desk. The wine bottle was in a clear plastic bag, and the smooth, clear surface was uniformly coated with a fine yellow dust.
‘No prints?’ Emmet looked it over in considerable surprise.
‘Net even a smudge, Em. Zilch.’ The knife came down next. It was a simple switchblade, also dusted and bagged.
‘Smudges here.’
‘One partial thumbprint, matched with the victim. Nothing else we can use, but smudges, uniform smudges, the prints department says. Either he stabbed himself in the back of the neck or our suspect was wearing gloves.’
It was awfully warm this time of the year to wear gloves. Emmet Ryan leaned back, staring at the evidence items on his desk, then at Tom Douglas, sitting beside them. ‘Okay, Tom, go on.’
‘We’ve had four murder scenes, a total of six victims. No evidence left behind. Five of the victims – three incidents – are pushers, two different MOs. But in every case, no witnesses, roughly the same time of day, all within a five-block radius.’
‘Craftsmanship.’ Lieutenant Ryan nodded. He closed his eyes, first mentally viewing the different crime scenes, then correlating the data. Rob, not rob, change ??. But the last one did have a witness. Go home, ma’am. Why was he polite? Ryan shook his head. ‘Real life isn’t Agatha Christie, Tom.’
‘Our young lad, today, Em. Tell me about the method our friend used to dispatch him.’
‘Knife there … I haven’t seen anything like that in a long time. Strong son of a bitch. I did see one … back in ’58 or ’59.’ Ryan paused, collecting his thoughts. ‘A plumber, I think, big, tough guy, found his wife in bed with somebody. He let the man leave, then he took a chisel, held her head up -‘
‘You have to be really pissed off to do it the hard way. Anger, right? Why do it that way?’ Douglas asked. ‘You can cut a throat a lot easier, and the victim is just as dead.’
‘A lot messier, too. Noisy …’ Ryan’s voice trailed off as he thought it through. It was not appreciated that people with their throats cut made a great deal of noise. If you opened the windpipe there could be the most awful gurgling sound, and if not, people screamed their way to death. Then there was the blood, so much of it, flying like water from a cut hose, getting on your hands and clothes.
On the other hand, if you wanted to kill someone in a hurry, like turning off a light switch, and if you were strong and had him crippled already, the base of the skull, where the spinal cord joined the brain, was just the perfect spot: quick, quiet, and relatively clean.
‘The two pushers were a couple blocks away, time of death almost identical. Our friend does them, walks over this way, turns a corner, and sees Mrs Charles being hassled.’
Lieutenant Ryan shook his head. ‘Why not just keep going? Cross the street, that’s the smart move. Why get involved? A killer with morals?’ Ryan asked. That was where the theory broke down. ‘And if the same guy is wasting pushers, what’s the motive? Except for the two last night, it looks like robbery. Maybe with those two something spooked him off before he could collect the money and the drugs. A car going down the street, some noise? If we’re dealing with a robber, then it doesn’t connect with Mrs Charles and her friend. Tom, it’s just speculation.’
‘Four separate incidents, no physical evidence, a guy wearing gloves – a street wino wearing gloves!’
‘Not enough, Tom.’
‘I’m going to have Western District start shaking them down anyway.’
Ryan nodded. That was fair enough.
It was midnight when he left his apartment. The area was so agreeably quiet on a weekday night. The old apartment complex was peopled with residents who minded their own business. Kelly had not so much as shaken a hand since the manager’s. A few friendly nods, that was all. There were no children in the complex, just middle-aged people, almost all married couples sprinkled with a few widowed singles. Mainly white-collar workers, a surprising number of whom rode the bus to work downtown, watched TV at night, heading to bed around ten or eleven. Kelly moved out quietly, driving the VW down Loch Raven Boulevard, past churches and other apartment complexes, past the city’s sports stadium as the neighborhoods evolved downward from middle- to working-class, and from working-class to subsistence, passing darkened office buildings downtown in his continuing routine. But tonight there was a difference.
Tonight would be his first major payoff. That meant risk, but it always did, Kelly told himself, flexing his hands on the plastic steering wheel. He didn’t like the surgical gloves. The rubber held heat in, and though the sweat didn’t affect his grip, the discomfort was annoying. The alternative was not acceptable, however, and he remembered not liking a lot of the things he’d done in Vietnam, like the leeches, a thought that generated a few chills. They were even worse than rats. At least rats didn’t suck your blood.