Dangerous Evidence

13

Lisa Malyshko had made up her mind. Her new life was going to be beautiful. She would go to Sochi in the nicest train available. But first, she would dress herself up in the best boutiques. Money she would have aplenty. But, to actually get her hands on it, she would have to remain in Moscow a day or two longer.

Lisa returned to the computers at the station. It was stuffy here, in the corner under the low ceiling. Lisa pulled off her hat and unbuttoned her jacket. The guy in charge of the Internet kiosks smiled upon seeing the bright-red lips plastered across the girl’s sweater. The girl instinctively turned in profile and opened her mouth a little. She knew this posture embellished her sexiness.

But, damn! This wasn’t one of her clients. It was about time she started dropping this stupid habit.

Both her reflexive reaction to the guy’s wolfish look as well as the sweater that triggered it – which she had often shared with her now-dead friend – all reminded her of her former occupation. Both girls had been brunettes. Both had similar bodies. Even their past lives resembled each other.

Katya Grebenkina had been born in the small town of Grayvoron. Her mother had conceived her as a result of a fling with an officer stationed at a nearby base. She had given the girl her father’s last name in the hopes of collecting alimony. Half a year later, the officer was transferred to Transbaikal. He vanished without a trace. Katya thought her mother unlucky. She cursed her provincial little town and dreamed of becoming a famous model. Her mother never missed a chance to rebuke her and blamed her daughter for her inability to find a new husband.

Having barely graduated, Katya went to Moscow and applied at a modeling agency. The agency’s handsome manager, who later turned out to be a pimp, filled her head with a bunch of nonsense. He seduced the ignorant and provincial girl and convinced her that without a portfolio, makeup, a first-rate hairstylist, brand-name clothes and shoes, no one would take her on as a model. Of course there was only one way to earn the money she needed and, luckily, it wasn’t even very tedious work – one could say, it was even pleasant. That was how seventeen-year-old Katya became a prostitute.

Meanwhile, back home, Katya’s mother met a foreign gentleman on the Internet and eloped to Greece. From her first letter, Katya figured out that her mom had traded the backwoods of Russia for the backwoods of Greece, where she was forced to dote over a Greek retiree and beg him for money to go see a dentist. Katya did not write back.

Lisa Malyshko had been born in Voronezh Region – in a village beside the Don federal highway. The entire life of the village revolved around serving truckers at the motel, the café and the sauna. Lisa never knew her father. Her mother would concoct a different story about him every day. Most likely, she had become pregnant by a random driver, whom she could no longer recall. The good-looking woman liked to have a drink and had a mischievous laugh. The neighbors would quietly remark that she “put her balls before her brains.” She was constantly hanging around the roadside café where little Lisa was allowed to take whatever she liked from the kitchen.

Lisa’s mother died between the wheels of a truck when she tried to cross the highway drunk one night. Lisa was sixteen at the time. The café’s owner seized his opportunity at the wake: He plied the girl with alcohol and then raped her.

“Now you’re going to serve me instead of your mom,” he told the shattered Lisa the next morning. “What, you thought I was going to feed you out of the good of my heart?”

Lisa endured the rape for two weeks, until the owner of the cafe decided to let one of his relatives have a go. The relative – who had just been released from prison and who, besides being starved for women, turned out to be somewhat of a sadist – did quite a number on the girl. After that, Lisa made her decision. She cleaned out the café’s register and hitched a ride to Moscow. She had no illusions about who she was going to be. It was better to work as a prostitute and get paid for it than endure being raped over a bowl of soup for the rest of her life.

Lisa Malyshko was certain that if she had had a father, he would have defended her and her life would have turned out otherwise. However, finding her mythical father seemed impossible. Katya Grebenkina’s situation was not even worth comparing: At least she knew the exact age of officer Igor Vasilevich Grebenkin – and where he worked.

“What if he’s a general by now?” Lisa would goad her friend. But Katya would simply wave her off. Finally, Lisa took the initiative herself and located Igor Grebenkin on the web.

This was how the newly-uncovered father came to Moscow to see his daughter. Their long-expected reunion, however, had turned into a horrific tragedy.

Recalling these things, Lisa also remembered that it was forty days since the death of Stella, with the funny last name of Sosuksu. Stella had only been eighteen and never laughed at anything. The first time Lisa saw Stella smile was when – having told Birdless Boris and his preoccupied clients to go to hell one evening – all three girls had gone to Sparrow Hills to see a grandiose fireworks show.

A crowd had gathered. In the sky overhead, bright flashes burst and broke into thousands of shimmering fires. Katya and Lisa were warming themselves with gulps of brandy and yelling, “Because we feel like it and not because it’s what the client wants.” They kept prickling Stella, trying to get their impassive friend to loosen up. Stella tripped, flailed her arms and struck a skinny young man, knocking off his glasses. Mumbling an apology, she replaced the broken glasses onto his flummoxed face and could not contain her smile. The young man replied in kind.

His name was Oleg Deryabin. He was a PhD student – a botanist – who was doing his research right there in Moscow State University’s Botanical Garden in Sparrow Hills. He was the kind of guy who got mocked in school, but Stella fell for him. After that, she would take any opportunity she could to run off and spend time with Oleg.

One day in the fall, Stella showed her girlfriends their humble little lovers’ retreat in the botanical garden – a derelict conservatory nestled among ancient apple trees. The girls munched on apples they found on the ground and fantasized about all kind of impossible nonsense that only happens in romantic comedies. The naïve rustic girl from sunny Moldova was the most vocal of the three. She went on in detail about her future plans for her future happy life.

And yet dreams come true much more often in the movies than in real life. Birdless Boris located Oleg Deryabin and showed him photos of Stella participating in orgies. “Professionals don’t spread their legs pro bono,” the pimp told the botanist – mostly to scare him. “You owe me, fellah.” The young man, who hailed from an intellectual family, could not forgive his girlfriend’s betrayal. When he saw her again, he called her words that Birdless himself would use in times of anger.

Overcome with grief, Stella stepped off the roof.

Lisa forced herself to forget her friends’ deaths and typed yet another query into Yandex. She had goals and she wasn’t about to abandon the path she’d settled on. Yandex returned the addresses of three specialized stores. Lisa chose the first one and wrote it down.

Her hand checked the envelope in her pocket. It was almost empty, and yet even these dregs would more than suffice for her immediate plans. Tomorrow she would be rich, but for now she needed to find a place to sleep. It would be too dangerous to go back to her apartment and the train station was patrolled by pushy cops who had a sixth sense when it came to prostitutes – they would find something to make a problem out of and then try to get a free ride.

Then it came to her. Not for nothing had Lisa recalled the pavilion in the botanical garden in Sparrow Hills.

“Thanks, Stella. Now I know where I can spend the night.”

14

Feeling fooled and seething with rage, Alex Bayukin stormed through the emergency exit and out of Wild Kitties.

Wait till I get my hands on you, Birdless.

The narrow parking lot and sidewalk were filled with cars. A solitary taxi stood waiting at the club’s entrance.

Damn it! If the pimp has a car, he’s long gone.

Alex tucked his gun behind his belt and ran up to the taxi.

“Did you see a guy with long hair? He’s a friend of mine. Did he get into a taxi?”

“I’ve been here ten minutes. There haven’t been any other taxis.” The taxi driver was smoking, flicking the ash out of his open window.

“Did you see any car leave at all?”

“All I know is I haven’t had to move for anyone,” the taxi driver shrugged. “You need a ride or what?”

Alex understood what the driver was getting at. The taxi was blocking the only way out of the strip club’s parking lot. All of a sudden, one of the cars standing off to the side honked and abruptly fell quiet.

“I’ll get a ride from my friend,” Bayukin muttered, turning in the direction of the sound.

Looking carefully, he saw a white Honda with someone inside. Alex crept up to the car from behind and squatted. Two men were conversing in raised voices. Judging by the rocker’s mane, Birdless Boris was behind the wheel. A tense man in a hat of reddish fur was sitting right behind him.

“Touch the wheel again and I’ll strangle you,” the man threatened.

The pimp, his head pressed to the headrest, was babbling excuses.

“I don’t know anything! I saw her this morning and that’s it. I took my cut and left.”

“That’s a lie. Katya could not have jumped on her own.”

“She’s not the first. Who knows how a whore’s mind works?”

“You piece of shit!” The man in the hat tightened the garrote over the pimp’s throat.

“Let me go…” Birdless’s voice grew hoarse and faint as he tried to break free.

After a short struggle, the passenger eased the tension. The pimp began to cough.

“Look, you’re right,” Boris agreed after regaining his breath. “The whole thing doesn’t seem like Katya. She wasn’t the type to start drama like that. If anything, she was more liable to off me first – and then maybe do herself in too. But be that as it may, I have no idea what happened back at the apartment. Like I told you, I wasn’t there!”

“What are you hiding from then?”

“Who likes talking to the cops?”

“Far as I’m concerned, you’re guilty either way. You turned my daughter into a prostitute. I was going to kill you either way.”

“For what? She agreed of her own – ”

The pimp’s frightened explanation was cut off by more croaking and the sound of a body thrashing.

This crazed pops is going to end him, Alex began fretting. Then I won’t find out anything about the envelope at all.

He rose, tore the rear door open and struck the passenger on the temple with the butt of his gun. The blow didn’t land perfectly flush, but it was enough to tear the skin and knock the man unconscious. Grebenkin’s hands relaxed, loosening the garrote.

Alex pushed him to the other side, sat down in his former place and shut the door. The pimp was sputtering and rubbing his throat. His teary, agitated eyes were trying to make out his unexpected savior in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t get your hope up, creep. It’s me again,” explained Alex and stuck the gun’s barrel into Birdless’s back. “Where’s the envelope?”

The pimp began thrashing hysterically.

“What’s is with you people?” he screamed. “Leave me alone!”

“The envelope, you goon.”

“The envelope! The envelope! What is your fixation with the envelope?”

“Looks like I shoulda let this other guy finish his job. Are you going to give me the envelope or not?”

“You’re all crazy!”

“You’re not going to trick me this time. Do you have the envelope on you or not?”

Boris’s hand unwittingly touched the shirt pocket under his vest. Alex noticed this gesture and broke into a crooked grin.

“Don’t bother. I’ll just help myself.”

Alex’s right hand pressed the barrel to the pimp’s temple, while with his left he reached over Boris’s shoulder. Alex had been so focused on his interrogation that he had failed to notice Grebenkin open his eyes. Realizing the delicacy of the situation, Grebenkin decided that he too must act. Surreptitiously, he drew a nonlethal pistol that had been modified to shoot live rounds, pointed it at Alex and pulled the trigger.

Two gunshots sounded mere hundredths of a second apart. The bullet from the nonlethal gun struck Alex in his shoulder, causing his trigger finger to slip – and nine grams of lead propelled Boris Manuylov’s brains out of his head. Dirty blood splattered the window pane, greasily rimming the hole the bullet had left.

Grebenkin pulled the door handle, tumbled out of the car and took off running. In his haste, he failed to notice that he had lost his ushanka hat.

Finding himself wounded, Alex Bayukin also realized that it was time to flee. He got out of the car and felt the wound. The bullet had glanced his shoulder, tearing off a clump of skin. The shock drowned out his pain.

The envelope! The scorching thought pulsed through Alex’s mind. I came here for the envelope.

He opened the driver’s side door and, restraining his disgust, reached toward the dead pimp. His hand fished out a clean envelope with something flat in it from the dead man’s pocket. Alex stuck his prize in his pants’ rear pocket and hurried away down the dark street.

The road led him to the subway station. The pain, awaking in his shoulder, almost paralyzed his right arm. Alex sat down on the edge of a ventilation hatch and gritted his teeth. He needed to think. He was without his jacket, which he had left in the club, and his shirt arm was soaked with blood. Someone would definitely notice a passenger like him on the subway. It was dangerous to take a taxi too, since taxi drivers were a naturally observant lot. Plus, he needed medical attention and it was unlikely that his general-father would be willing to risk his dodgy reputation to ask around for a surgeon.

Alex got out his phone. His left thumb poked at the buttons and found a number in the brief address book. Luckily, Alex had a friend in Moscow who would come to his aid under any and all circumstances.

He pressed the call button and waited for the familiar voice to answer.

“It’s me.” Alex confessed relieved. “I’m wounded and can’t call an ambulance.”

For a moment, the phone was silent.

“Where are you?” came the curt question at last. “I’m on my way.”

15

The next morning, Operatives Marat Valeyev and Ivan Mayorov were walking down a hallway of the Investigative Committee building. Even their gaits suggested their different personalities. Fit and charming, Valeyev held himself upright and took precise, measured steps. His eyes, however, automatically darted to every pair of passing legs belonging to his female coworkers. On the other hand, tall and dirty-blond Vanya Mayorov wavered constantly between a long stride and a short one. He kept trying to get his partner’s attention.

“Marat, Galya insists that we give you some money for your apartment.” When Ivan spoke, his powerful arms seemed to aid him in finding the necessary words.

“It’s your apartment, Vanya. You’re living in it. Anyway, you’re paying to feed that insatiable feline specimen – that’s enough for me.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Ivan Mayorov had found true love for the first time in his life. His beloved was Police Lieutenant Galya Nesterova, who worked the passport desk in the same building. Vanya was prepared to propose formally, but Galya kept trying to put it off: “Let’s at least wait until you make captain, Mayorov. Then we can commit to a mortgage.” Initially, Vanya and Galya had been renting an apartment on the outskirts of Moscow, but then they quarreled with the landlord after he raised the rent unexpectedly. Valeyev came to their aid, offering them his tiny studio. By that time, Marat had already basically moved in with Elena Petelina and would only stop by his apartment to feed Genghis, his tomcat.

“It’s just too awkward, Marat. We’ve been living there a month already and haven’t given you a dime.”

“Forget it! I was on vacation for two weeks. Someone would’ve had to take care of that cat anyway. How’s old Genghis doing without me?”

“Can’t say he’s had the time to give you much thought. I now understand what the expression ‘as anxious as a tomcat in March’ means. Genghis slips out of the window every night to go prowling. He can’t get enough. You know how fiercely he looks at Galya when she does her morning exercises?”

“Be vigilant, Vanya. Don’t leave your woman in such a situation. Genghis is a real dog!”

“Get out of here!” Vanya noticed the glint of mockery in Valeyev’s eyes and pushed his partner in the shoulder. “Watching Genghis, I start feeling a little like an animal myself.”

“Just a little? Certain women are convinced that men are pure animals and nothing more,” Marat recalled a recent barb of Elena’s. “The only difference is that we’ve learned how to dress ourselves.”

As he related this to his partner, Marat opened the door with a stencil that announced “Senior Detective E.P. Petelina.”

The mistress of the office overheard the last phrase, nodded to the operatives and, without interrupting her work, remarked, “A famous scientist claims that a lion’s behavior and a man’s behavior have much more in common than that of a man and a woman.”

“At least he chose to illustrate his comparison with the noble lion,” muttered Valeyev.

“He was just flattering you guys.”

“We should also establish whether this supposed scientist is a man himself or one of those…” Vanya pursed his lips effeminately in imitation of a homosexual applying makeup.

“Here, I’ll give you his address,” Petelina reached for her address book with a very serious face.

“Why?”

“So you can check out your theory. You can meet him mano-a-mano and conduct an investigative experiment, as it were. Make sure to videotape it, so we can all be sure.”

“I’m certain you’ll take a liking to him,” Valeyev piled on.

Vanya widened his eyes, noticed his partner’s barely-restrained laughter and frowned.

“Detective Petelina…”

“Alright, you have learned to dress yourself!” Petelina flashed a smile and looked up strictly. “I hope that in this case, you’ve come to pay me a visit in your capacity as operatives. What’s your report on that assignment I gave you? Where’s the pimp Boris Manuylov?”

“He didn’t come home last night,” replied Valeyev. “The insert in the door was there this morning.”

“You think he’s panicked?” the detective mused, twirling the pencil in her hand. “I swung by the morgue that they took Ekaterina Grebenkina to. Interviewed the orderlies. Two men came by to see the deceased; neither of them resembled Manuylov. The first was aged about thirty with a prickly look and short hair. He said he was her friend. The second one was about sixty with a cane – a real, old-fashioned aesthete.”

“The murderer is unlikely to show up at the morgue.”

“Unless he needs to get some vital clue. Both of these guys were interested in the girl’s belongings, particularly her purse. It’s a good thing we have it. I checked its contents but didn’t see anything very interesting.”

“Perhaps the murderer’s fingerprints?”

“I already submitted it for tests.”

“Detective Petelina, are you certain that this is a murder case?” Mayorov asked doubtfully. “After all, there was a similar suicide earlier. The second girl could have just jumped out of desperation.”

“She didn’t jump. She fell backwards.”

The desk phone rang. Petelina picked it up, recognized the caller and put him on speakerphone.

“It’s Dr. Lopakhin, the medical examiner,” she explained to the operatives.

“I completed the autopsy. You’ll have the full report within the hour. For now, I can tell you the following,” reported Lopakhin. “The blood alcohol level correlates to one hundred grams of strong liquor, no more. There are multiple internal fractures that are indicative of the fall she suffered. Cause of death was a severe blood hemorrhage in the brain and was basically instantaneous. I also examined her fingernails as you requested. I found nothing that suggested that the girl struggled for her life. And another thing: I found particles of what looks like cement among the hairs on her nape. I collected them so that your Tadpole, as you call him, can run tests on them.”

“Thank you, Dr. Lopakhin.”

“Don’t thank me for my infernal work. The older I get, the younger become those who end up on my table. There’s no justice in it,” Lopakhin sighed. “Am I showing my years?”

“You’re just reminding us that if a victim pays a visit to your table, then we must make sure that the guilty party pays a visit to the defendant’s bench.”

“Godspeed your search, Lenochka. Good luck.”

The medical examiner said his farewells.

“According to Ustinov’s findings,” Petelina explained to the operatives, “the bottle was first opened on the roof. It’s missing about three hundred grams of brandy, and the victim, as we just heard, only drank one hundred.”

“So someone else was definitely up there with her.”

“Someone prudent enough to keep their fingerprints off the bottle. Find me that pimp, Valeyev.”

“To contend and to seek – to uncover and bring to justice,” Valeyev recited the operative’s motto and slapped his partner on the shoulder. “Alright, Vanya. Enough daydreaming about that scientist. Let’s go find us that Manuylov.”

At this moment, Colonel of Justice Yuri Grigorevich Kharchenko, Petelina’s boss, briskly entered the office.

“Lena, you never stopped by last night after your vacation. Now your poor old boss is forced to come down here to welcome you back.”

Petelina flushed.

“Colonel Kharchenko, I brought you a souvenir actually.” She waved to the operatives. “You guys can go.”

“No, no, let them stay – in case you’ve decided to bribe me and I need witnesses.”

From her desk’s top drawer, Petelina produced an elephant miniature carved from teak.

“This is the symbol of Thailand. They have more elephants there than anywhere else in the world.”

“Thank you. I have something for you too. I’m not sure it counts as a present but… Didn’t I hear you mention Manuylov just now?”

“Yes, we are looking for a Boris Manuylov alias Birdless. He’s the pimp and known associate of one Ekaterina Grebenkin, who died yesterday under mysterious circumstances.”

“Well, your Manuylov has turned up. He won’t be able to answer your questions, though. He’s missing more than just a finger these days: Part of his head is gone too. He was shot point blank while sitting in his car last night.”

“Last night?”

“Yes. I’m putting you on that case as well, Lena. The evidence gathered during the preliminary examination will be delivered promptly. I reckon that the pimp’s murder and the death of his, erm, employee are somehow related. It’s only logical you work both cases. What do you say? Is this a present or just the opposite?”

“Well, for Captain Valeyev and Senior Lieutenant Mayorov here this certainly is a present. There’s no need to go chasing after a dead man, after all.”