Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

“She didn’t do it,” said Rostnikov. “Mistakes can be made, as they clearly were in the case of the prominent Yevgeny Pleshkov.”

Silence except for the rain hitting the window.

“I see,” said the Yak. “All right. The woman is of no consequence to me. What do you intend to do to insure that she. .?”

“She has relatives in Odessa,” said Rostnikov, “but I don’t think she will leave the grave of her child.”

“Would she go to Odessa if the body of her son were moved with her and a reasonably impressive headstone placed over his grave?” asked the Yak.

“Perhaps, yes, I think so. I will have to ask her.”

“Do so,” said the director, moving behind his desk. “If she decides to cooperate, and I’d like you to be your most persuasive, tell Pankov that I want him to make the necessary financial arrangements.”

Rostnikov closed his notebook, put his pencil in his pocket, and stood up. It was the director’s turn to look down at the work on his desk, pen in hand.

“Your wife,” he said. “I understand that she did not need the surgery.”

The fact that the Yak knew did not surprise Rostnikov.

“Fortunately not.”

“Good,” said Yaklovev. “I am not without compassion, Porfiry Petrovich. I may have little of it, but that which I do have I husband and give out only to those I respect.”

“Thank you, Director Yaklovev. Will that be all?”

“New assignments tomorrow,” said the Yak. “New successes.

New enemies. That will be all today.”

The cemetery was empty except for two badly matched figures, a man in a black raincoat and a hood and a woman in a raincoat of crackling gray plastic.

They walked together to the sound of pounding rain, knowing where they were going. They had been there before, the grave of THE DOG WHO BIT A POLICEMANNN275

Valentin Lashkovich. In the day since they had last been here, a headstone, life size, with an image of Lashkovich etched in the dark stone, had replaced the old one. Lashkovich on the stone was thinner than he had been in life, his dark suit nicely pressed.

The flowers on the grave were fresh, bright and varied, though the rain was beating down the petals. There were many wreaths and bouquets. The grave was completely covered with brightness. As in the deaths of other Mafia members, Emil Karpo knew the number of flowers would dwindle till, in less than a week, there would be none.

Raisa and Karpo looked down at the grave, their feet growing wet as the rain soaked the ground.

Karpo leaned over, gathered an armful of flowers, and handed them to Raisa. He took an even bigger armful. Then the woman led the way as the rain came down even harder.

The grave she led him to was in a far corner where the graves were close together and there were only stones set flat in the ground with the names of the dead chipped neatly but simply into them.

The one for Raisa’s son was no different than the dozens of others.

Karpo knelt and placed his armload of flowers on the small grave. Raisa did the same. Mathilde was buried in another place and time, and flowers from the grave of a killer would never do.

But Raisa did not seem to mind.

“The sky is crying for my child. It waited for me to be able to come here and cry with it.”

She expected no answer and received none.

The two stood over the grave as the rain seeped through their protective covering. They said nothing. There was nothing that either of them wished to say. They stood for almost forty minutes, when the rain suddenly stopped.