“That sounds exhausting. Did you introduce some of these?” He pointed to a photo of a man in a cowboy hat with his meaty arm wrapped around an embarrassed woman transported from Moscow? Murmansk? Smolensk?

“I’m here only part-time, but I have put some very nice couples together. The problem is we don’t usually do Russian and Russian.”

“I noticed.” His eyes fell on a stack of American visa forms.

“Well, what can I say about Russian-American matches? Nothing in common, true. But Russian women don’t want a Russian man who lies on the couch and does nothing but drink and complain about life. American men don’t want an American woman who’s either spoiled or aggressive. We serve mature, traditional men who want women whose intelligence and education does not get in the way of their femininity.”

The cell phone vibrated in Arkady’s jacket pocket and he checked the caller ID. Zurin. Arkady turned the phone off. “I’m sorry.”

“We’re not just a Web site and a telephone. We’re not a club or a dating service. We don’t just take fifty dollars and send you a list of e-mail addresses of God knows what kind of women, or of women who have moved or married or died. At Cupid we take you by the hand and lead you to your soul mate. May I?” She opened what looked like a wedding album and turned the pages for him. On each was a professional-quality photograph of an attractive woman in a gown or tennis gear; her first name-Elena, Julia, or whatever-and her vital statistics, education, profession, interests, languages, and a personal statement. Julia, for example, yearned for a man with a good heart and his feet on the ground. Once or twice Tatiana stopped at a page to mutter, “She’s been on the shelf awhile. Maybe…”

Arkady noticed a blonde named Tanya in a ski outfit who looked like she could have a good man’s heart for dinner.

“A dancer, I believe.”

“Not only a dancer, a harpist. She plays at the Metropol. I just saw her.”

“Take my word, she’s not your type.”

As distant as Tanya had seemed with the harp, her smile in the picture was fully charged. Her ski suit was made of tight silvery material only very good skiing could justify. The signs in the snow behind her were black diamonds.

“Anyway, she’s taken,” Tatiana said. “Not available.”

“Well, if I were interested in someone else, what is Cupid’s fee?”

“American men pay for quality,” she said. For $500, Cupid promised three serious introductions, preparation of the man’s special “fiance visa” to Russia, and if romance bloomed, all the legal paperwork for her visit to his American hometown. Travel and hotel were his responsibility. “We make sure you find your soul mate.”

She opened another album and flipped through photos of satisfied couples at the front door of a house, at a fireplace, around a backyard grill, by a Christmas tree.

“If I don’t find my soul mate in three tries?”

“We discount for the next three.”

“Maybe because I’m Russian the price could be adjusted even further.”

“I’d have to ask the owner.”

“Who is?”

“Zoya. You nearly met on the stairs.”

“I met a man who said he ran an agency like this. His name was Filotov.”

“Hardly. Zoya’s in charge.”

“Now that you mention it he didn’t seem the type. He had a short fuse.”

“When he drinks.”

“When does he drink?”

“Every day.”

“He seemed…” Arkady paused as if looking for the right word.

“Disruptive. He advised some girls to get tattooed. An American adult is going to marry a tattooed Russian girl? I think not. Filotov even told them where to hide it, but sooner or later, the American finds it. He’d have to be blind not to.”

Arkady was afraid to ask more than “Any particular tattoo?”

“I wouldn’t know. I tell the girls, if you have a tattoo join a motorcycle gang, don’t waste our time.”

“What about the American? How do you know he isn’t a serial killer and has two or three dead Russian girls in his freezer?”

“My God!” The matchmaker looked around as if someone else might hear. “We don’t joke about such things. What an awful imagination.”

“It’s a curse.” He thought of Petya’s matchbook and decided to go for broke. “Have you ever heard of a gentlemen’s club called Tahiti?”

Ice formed on Tatiana’s gaze.

“Perhaps you should try another agency.”

While Arkady returned to his car, he called the Izvestia editorial office and was told that Ginsberg, the reporter who wrote the newspaper article about Isakov’s heroic OMON troops, was covering “the pizza trial,” the case of the ex-Black Beret who killed a pizza deliveryman. The trial was being heard in a new courthouse still under construction.

“How will I recognize Ginsberg?” Arkady asked.

“Unless there’s more than one hunchback there shouldn’t be any problem.”

8

Igor Borodin sat sweating in a cage of bulletproof glass. He had gone to fat since his OMON days, his suit stretched to the breaking point, and he had shaved badly. Winter sunlight sifted from high windows onto the emblem of a double eagle above the judge’s bench and filtered down to the jury box, the advocates’ tables and, separated by a wooden rail, the public. The colors were the pastels and wood tones of a Swedish kitchen and the smell of sawdust and plaster was a reminder that much of the courthouse was still under construction. Arkady tiptoed to the last available seat, next to an olive-skinned woman in a black dress and shawl. A row back a short man with a grizzled beard was making notes. Half of the public section was taken over by men in the blue and black camouflage suits of Black Berets, a corps of hard individuals whose faces expressed impatience with the judicial process. One man was missing an arm, another’s face was seared a slick violet and some simply had the hollowed-out look of war veterans. The room was overheated and most people held their coats on their laps; one of the Black Berets had opened his shirt enough to display the tattoo of an OMON tiger. Nikolai Isakov and Marat Urman had the place of honor in the front row. Isakov showed no reaction to the sight of Arkady, although Arkady had the impression of intense blue eyes watching through a mask. Urman saw Arkady and shook his head.

It was the second day of argument. The facts were that Makhmud Saidov, twenty-seven, married, with one child, had delivered a pizza to the apartment of Borodin, thirty-three, housepainter, divorced. Saidov expected a tip and was disappointed. While waiting for the elevator Saidov wondered aloud when Russians would learn that pizza deliverymen around the world depended on tips. Borodin reopened his door. Words were exchanged. Borodin left the door a second time, returned with his service pistol and shot Saidov fatally through the head.

The defense was that Saidov had verbally abused Borodin, a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress. While insults were not sufficient excuse for murder, they had triggered a reaction in Borodin that he had no control of. In fact, according to a psychiatrist, Borodin fired the gun in what he sincerely considered to be self-defense. He didn’t see a pizza deliveryman; he saw a terrorist who had to be stopped.

“But he was not a terrorist,” whispered the woman to Arkady. “My Makhmud was not a terrorist.”

Borodin took off his jacket. He was rapt, as if hearing a story new to him. From the public seats his old comrades sent him thumbs-up and the citizens in the jury box were thoroughly hooked. Juries were a reform urged by the West. Defense attorneys had always been supplicants, judges omnipotent and prosecutors ran the show. The show had a new audience now.

Borodin’s attorney called Isakov to the witness podium, established the detective’s illustrious record as a captain in the Black Berets and asked about Borodin’s. Isakov’s answer was not necessarily to the point, but it was effective.