"Smith, Martin Cruz - Gorky Park" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

Three people killed in an open area at close range from the front with a single gun. Shot and then cut open.

Pribluda. The Kliazma River.



The Moscow town prosecutor's office was south of the river on Novokuznetskaya Street in a section of nineteenth-century shops. The office building itself was divided down the middle into a yellow two-story side and a gray three-story side. The investigators in the yellow half looked out onto a sad and tiny park where citizens called for interrogation could sit and despair. In the park were a flower bed the size of a grave and empty flower urns on swivel bases. From the other side of the building, the larger side, the prosecutor looked down on a playground.

Arkady entered the investigators' door and took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. Chief Investigators Chuchin (Special Cases) and Belov (Industry) were in the hall.

'Iamskoy wants to see you,' Chuchin warned.

Arkady ignored him and went on to his office at the back. Belov followed. Belov was the oldest investigator and owned what he called 'an indefatigable affection' for Arkady. The office was three meters by four, brown walls around pine furniture and one double-cased window, embellished by street and transport maps and an unusual photograph of Lenin in a lawn chair.

'You're hard on Chuchin,' Belov said.

'He's a pig.'

'He does necessary work.' Belov scratched a balding crew cut. 'We all specialize.'

'I never said pigs weren't necessary.'

'My very point. He deals with social garbage.'

Vsevolod Belov of infinite baggy suits. A mind scored by the Great Patriotic War like a wall once raked by machine-gun fire. Fingers webbed with age. Greathearted and an instinctive reactionary. When Belov muttered about 'Chinese bandits', Arkady knew there was a mobilization at the border. When Belov mentioned 'kikes', synagogues were shut. When in doubt on any social issue, he could go to Belov.

'Uncle Seva, who dyes his hair and wears a sports jacket with a false foreign label?'

'Bad luck,' Belov commiserated. 'That sounds like musicians or hooligans. Punk rock. Jazz. That sort. You won't get any cooperation from them.'

'Amazing. Hooligans, then, is your opinion.'

'You'd know better than I with your intelligence. But, yes, such a masquerade as dyeing the hair and the false label indicates hooligans or someone with strong musical or hooliganistic tendencies.'

'Three of them shot with the same gun. Sliced up with a knife: no papers. With Pribluda first to sniff over the bodies. Does that remind you of anything?'

Belov pulled his chin in and his face wrinkled like a fan.

'Personal differences between the organs of justice should not interfere with the greater work,' he said.

'You remember?'

'I think'  Belov's voice strayed  'that with hooligans there was probably a gang war involved.'

'What gang wars? Do you know of any such gang wars in Moscow? Siberia or Armenia, perhaps, but here?'

'I know,' Belov insisted, 'that an investigator who avoids speculation and keeps his eyes on the facts is never misled.'

Arkady let his hands fall flat on his desk and smiled. 'Thank you, Uncle. You know I always value your opinion.'