“I wasn’t thinking about Chechnya.”

“Chechnya is over. We won.”

“It’s not over,” Eva said.

“Well, I’ve heard enough,” Isakov said.

Eva asked, “Why, is there more?”

Arkady said, “The rest of the world puts its money in banks. This part of the world puts its money into carpets and the most prized carpets have red dragons woven into the design. A classic dragon carpet is worth a small fortune in the West. You don’t want to spill blood on that and, as you said, there’s not much else worth stealing in Chechnya.”

“The dead men were thieves?”

“Partners. Isakov and Urman were in the rug business. They rolled out the carpet for their partners and then they rolled it up.”

Snowflakes swam across the glossy surface of the photographs, over the coals of the campfire, across Marat Urman’s purposeful stride, around bodies sprawled on bloody sand.

“Now I see,” Eva said.

Isakov had an ear for nuance. “You’ve seen these photographs before?”

“Last night.”

“You told me you were going to the hospital. I watched you pick up the cassettes.”

“I lied.”

“Renko was with you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

Eva gave Isakov a drawn-out, emphatic “Yes.”

Isakov laughed. “Marat warned me. Look at Renko, look at him, the man looks disinterred.”

Arkady said, “I feel surprisingly good, considering.”

“You don’t care if you’re dead or alive?” Isakov asked.

“In a way, I feel I’ve been both.”

The Walther reappeared in Isakov’s hand.

“Okay, let’s be grown-ups. Marat and I did trade in carpets. So what? In Chechnya, everybody did something on the side, mainly drugs and arms. I doubt that saving a precious work of art from a burning house is against the law. Dealers and collectors certainly don’t ask questions and the Chechens, if you treated them with respect, were trustworthy partners. But that day, when I got the message from a Russian Army convoy that they were a minute away from the bridge, there just wasn’t time to end the lunch, fold the carpets and make nice good-byes. Sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation.”

Eva laughed. When she wanted to deliver contempt she did it well. “You’re a rug merchant? Fourteen men dead for rugs?”

“And in Moscow, murdering members of your own squad,” Arkady said.

“Loose ends.” Isakov motioned for Arkady to be still and patted him down. “You really don’t have a gun. No gun, no case, no evidence.”

“He has the photographs,” Eva said.

“Prosecutor Sarkisian would tear them up. Zurin would do the same.” Isakov aimed the Walther directly at Arkady, a certain threshold crossed. “They’ll probably let me lead the investigation. You don’t have a gun? Maybe this will do. Maybe you found this old gun at the dig. Mainly, you didn’t have a plan. You saw Eva and jumped off your bike. Was it worth it just to win her back?”

“Yes.” He realized that she was what he had come back for out of the black lake he had sunk into when he was shot.

But part of him was thinking in a professional mode. Isakov would shoot him first, then Eva, and then wrap the gun in Arkady’s dead hand to mimic a murder-suicide, all to be carried out on the street at close range and with dispatch. The Walther was a heavy double-action pistol with a long trigger draw and a huge kick. It filled Isakov’s hand. No rush but no hesitation either. Arkady remembered Ginsberg’s admiration of Isakov’s calm under fire.

Was anyone awake at the security monitors, Arkady wondered? In the BMW? He heard far-off machinery, but where was the white van of the militia? Weren’t bakers abroad at this hour, on their way to their ovens? Sovietskaya Street was as still as a tomb.

“No gun, no prosecutor, no case, no evidence.” Isakov did not stand back to shoot Arkady; he tucked the barrel up under Arkady’s jaw at can’t-miss range. “And then your lover left. No wonder you’re depressed.”

“No wonder you’re depressed,” Isakov’s voice repeated from Eva’s coat pocket.

She took the tape recorder from her coat, popped the machine open and held up a cassette. Isakov watched in disbelief as she threw it over the fence. The cassette happened to be white and disappeared on the snowy lawn. The bright lights of a motion detector flashed on and off.

Isakov kept the gun tight on Arkady. “Go get it.”

“There’s a camera at the gate.”

“I don’t care if you go over, under or through.” Isakov let Arkady go and gave him a push. “Get it.”

“Or what? I don’t think that tape is going to be easy to find. You’ll never have time to find it once you fire that old cannon, and you have to find it because it’s a full confession. In chess that’s called a pin.”

A grinding sound announced the approach of snowplows scraping the street. The trucks traveled slowly but majestically in a blaze of light that Arkady and Eva walked next to. From the motorcycle they saw Isakov still in front of the gate, immobilized.

26

Riding to the apartment, Arkady was exhilarated and exhausted, as if he and Eva had crossed a wasteland of betrayal and misunderstanding, and survived. He knew that later they would talk about it and words would diminish the experience, but for the moment they rode the motorcycle in a happy stupor.

Only once she spoke over the noise of the bike, “I have a gift for you.” She took a cassette from inside her coat. “The real tape.”

“You are a wonderful woman.”

“No, I am a terrible woman, but that’s what you’re stuck with.” Waiting for the elevator doors to close they spoke of trivialities, preserving the bubble of the moment.

“Are you still an investigator?”

“I doubt it.”

“Good. We can take a trip to someplace with a sunny beach and palm trees.”

As the elevator doors began to close a cat with spiky fur came on board, arched its back in surprise, and ran off.

“And Zhenya?” Arkady said.

“We should take Zhenya with us,” Eva said.

Why not, Arkady thought? To golden sand, blue water and a regular drubbing on a chessboard. If that wasn’t a holiday, he didn’t know what was. Eva removed her scarf and snapped off the snow as they stumbled out of the elevator on Arkady’s floor. Being happy was like being drunk. He didn’t have the usual ballast.

At the apartment door he asked, “Would you like to see a dragon?”

“Let’s just get Zhenya and go,” she whispered.

Eva entered first. As she turned on the light Bora stepped out of the bathroom. Arkady recognized the same dagger that he had failed to find on the ice at Chistye Prudy. It was double edged and sharp as a razor and Arkady grabbed it only to have his palm sliced open. Bora turned and drove the knife into Eva’s side and carried her backwards over the body of Sofia Andreyeva. Sofia Andreyeva’s throat had been slit, her face white under garish mascara and rouge. The walls and posters were speckled with signs of struggle. Zhenya was barricaded behind a coffee table in a corner of the room, a long knife in one hand. On the table lay a partially assembled Tokarev awaiting its recoil spring and bushing.

Bora wore rubber gloves and an easy-to-wash training suit. He asked Arkady, “Are you laughing now?”

As he drew the knife out of her, Eva sank to the floor trying to catch her breath.

In the corner Zhenya fumbled the spring and it rolled off the table. It was unfair, Arkady thought. They had been so clever, Eva most of all.

Bora had the confident approach of a butcher, ready to open the belly but willing to start carving an arm or a leg. In films this was where the hero wrapped a cloak around one arm as a shield, Arkady thought. No cloaks seemed to be available. Instead, Arkady tripped on the carpet and went down. At once Bora was on top of him, pressing the bruised side of Arkady’s head against the floor.