Arkady dove into the Lada. With a crack the door of the Lada went sailing. By the time he pulled himself up, all Arkady saw were taillights dissolving in the dark.

28

"Have you ever tried to carry a car door in the rain?" Arkady asked.

Victor said nothing, only circled his car in disbelief. It was parked outside in the morning sun at the upscale Patriarch's Pond militia station, virtually a "No Lada Zone."

Arkady said, "We're lucky the hinges were a clean break. The man at the body shop never saw one so… immaculate."

Victor said, "It's not my door. This door is held on by wires."

"It will need some work. The main thing is, it opens. Shuts, pretty much. They tried to match the color."

"A black door on a white car? Next time, why don't you just drive it off a cliff?"

"I was on the shoulder of the highway. Someone tried to run me over."

Arkady resisted the temptation to point out that Victor owned a car that already looked as though it had been driven over a cliff.

"I found this." He opened an envelope and shook out the half ticket from the trunk of Vaksberg's Mercedes.

Victor stared. "You got this? What is it?"

"A ticket of some kind."

"Is it?"

Arkady tried to think of something that would cheer Victor.

"The wiper works."

Victor led Arkady to the squad room even as he shot Arkady a sharp glance. "You know kids race on that highway all the time. It could have been one of them getting out of control. Did you see them?"

"No."

"Did you report them?"

"No."

"Did you shoot at them at least?"

Victor had set up laptops and old-fashioned paper dossiers to search among the dead. Each disc held a thousand dossiers and each dossier held a detective's account, interviews, forensic photos and autopsies of women who died of unnatural and unsolved causes in and around Moscow over the last five years. Arkady eliminated domestic squabbles, which still left a crowd since more than twelve thousand Muscovites died of unnatural causes in a year.

Arkady drew a clumsy version of ballet positions.

Victor said, "I didn't know you were such a scholar of the dance."

"It's as if Vera wore a sign saying 'Victim Number Four.'"

"Or her limbs happened to lie in a way that you and you alone construe to be a ballet position. What any normal person would notice was her bare ass."

Victor took a halfhearted swat at a fly that was making a tour of the room's fly strips, plastic spoons and take-out cartons.

"You know this would make some sense if it would do anything for Vera. Her case is closed. There is no corpus and the chances of gaining a conviction without a body don't exist."

"Unless somebody confesses."

"No body, no show. All they have to do is outwait us."

"For a moment, assume I'm right, far-fetched as that may be. If you have a killer who is counting up to five bodies and he's reached five in his mind, he's going to disappear on us. He could go to ground for a year or two and then start all over again with a new set of dance partners."

"We're missing number three."

"That's right. So let's narrow the search to women eighteen to twenty-two, student, dancer, sexually molested, murdered, OD'd, unknown causes. Make it within the last two years before Vera."

"Just two?"

"If I'm right, this is a compulsive character. He doesn't have a Five-Year Plan. He can't wait that long."

He watched the fly make the arduous trek up the wall, across the ceiling and around a light fixture only to reach journey's end as a buzz on a ringlet of flypaper. Arkady got home after midnight and found Anya sitting in the dark.

She said, "I wanted to apologize for how I acted at the train station."

"Well, you seem popular with the kids."

"But not with you."

"You were exhausted, you should have stayed here. Have you eaten today?" Arkady asked.

When she had to think, he went directly to the refrigerator and pulled out leftovers from the night before and put the kettle on for tea.

"I have no appetite," Anya said.

"Who would at this hour?" He sliced sausage and black bread.

"Can I stay one more night?"

"You can stay as long as you need. Did anyone see you when you were out?"

"Just the children. I won't snoop if that's what you're worried about."

"I'm sure you have snooped. You probably opened every drawer in the apartment. You may have opened drawers that haven't been opened in years. Right now, the main thing is nobody sees you. While you're dead, you're safe."

"And when I want to be alive?"

"At the right time. What kind of car does Sergei Borodin drive?"

"A huge American car. Why do you ask?"

"Someone tried to run me down today." Arkady poured two cups of tea. "When a person tries to run me down, I want to know why. Is he a killer or a jealous lover? It makes a difference."

"Go to hell."

It was good, Arkady thought. Her color was back and she started to pick at her food.

"So you're still on the case," she said.

"It would help if we had a witness. You don't have any recollection who attacked you?"

"None."

"But you haven't answered my question."

"First tell me who you are sleeping with," Anya said. "Or is that none of my business?"

"It isn't. But to be fair, no one."

"The woman who was living here, the doctor…"

"Is in Africa. Or Asia."

"You and women," Anya said.

"Not a success story, I'm afraid."

"Why did she leave?"

"Because she wants to save the world. I don't."

"That's not who I see."

"Who do you see?" He expected a gibe.

"I see a man who didn't desert me."

Anya kissed him and pulled back.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Please don't be."

Things were in motion, some secret word had been spoken, because they kissed again. There was still time for Arkady to walk away from a case he did not fathom and a woman he did not understand. He knew there was no case and no investigation. What were the chances of a happy outcome? He could stop now. Instead, he moved around the table and gathered her up. She was incredibly light and he discovered while her body was small it was deep enough for the rest of the world to disappear.

Afterward, still in bed, she dipped a sugar cube into her cup and sucked the sweet tea through.

29

As soon as Itsy saw the amulet in the baby's basket, she mobilized the family, no matter that it was in the dark of night. They had encroached on a Tajik cache of heroin hidden under the crates they had been using as firewood for the trailer stove. The amulet was an eviction notice. A parade of runaways with a crying baby was likely to interest people. However, few people were likely to be outside on such a damp night. Besides, the baby had become too precious to Itsy to give up. She had little concept of the long term. At heart she knew that the long term did not apply to her. All she had were day-to-day survival skills but she had no complaints. School, office, a comfortable old age held no appeal for her. In many ways her life was perfect.

Leo and Peter lagged behind. They were in the heavy eyelids phase of sniffing. Everyone had different stuff. Aerosol, model glue or shoe polish. Itsy wanted the boys along because they were big enough to provide some protection; otherwise, the responsibility fell on Tito, who had trotted along one side of the group and then the other until they reached Kazansky Station, where they huddled and waited for the boys to catch up. A three-week-old baby, even one as well swaddled as Itsy's, was not meant to be out in the damp and cold.

"The boys left their gear," Milka said.

Their sniffing gear, Itsy thought. Their stupid cans and bags.