"Smith, Martin Cruz - Red Square" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Martin Cruz)

Kilims on the living-room floor. On the wall, matched portrait photographs of a violinist in formal clothes and his wife at a piano. Their faces had the same roundness and seriousness as Rudy's. The front window looked down on Donskaya Street and, over rooftops, north towards the giant Ferris wheel slowly rolling nowhere in Gorky Park.

Arkady moved on to an office with a Finnish maple desk, Stairmaster, telephone and fax. A power-surge protector at the outlet, so Rudy had used his laptop computer in the flat. The drawers held paper-clips, pencils, stationery from Rudy's hotel shop, savings book and receipts.

Minin opened a closet and slapped aside American tracksuits and Italian suits. 'Check the pockets,' Arkady said. 'Check the shoes.'

In the chest of drawers in the bedroom even the underwear had foreign labels. Bristle brush on the television set. On the night table, travelogue videotapes, satin sleep mask and alarm clock. A sleep mask was what Rudy needed now, Arkady thought. Safe but not foolproof, was that what he had told Rudy? Why did anyone ever believe him?

One of the street sweepers had followed him as silently as if she moved in felt slippers. She said, 'Olga Semyonovna and I share a flat. We have Armenians and Turkmen in the other rooms. They don't speak to each other.'

'Armenians and Turks? You're lucky they don't kill each other,' Arkady said. He unlocked the bedroom window for a view of a courtyard garage. Nothing hanging outside the sill. 'The communal apartment is death to democracy.' He thought about it. 'Of course democracy is death to the communal apartment.'

Minin entered. 'I agree with the chief investigator. What we need is a firm hand.'

The sweeper said, 'Say what you want, in the old days there was order.'

'It was rough order but it was effective,' Minin said and they both turned to Arkady with such expectation that he felt like a mad dog on a pedestal.

'Agreed, there was no shortage of order,' he said.

At the desk, Arkady filled in the Protocol of Search: date, his name, in the presence of Ц here he entered the names and addresses of the two women Ц according to search warrant number, entered Citizen Rudik Abramovich Rosen's residence, apartment 4A at 25 Donskaya Street.

Arkady's eye was caught by the fax again. The machine had buttons in English Ц for example, 'Redial'. Gingerly he lifted the phone and pushed the button. The receiver produced tones, a ring, a voice.

'Feldman.'

'I'm calling for Rudy Rosen,' Arkady said.

'Why can't he call himself?'

'I'll explain when we talk.'

'You didn't call to talk?'

'We should meet.'

'I don't have time.'

'It's important.'

'I'll tell you what's important. They're going to shut the Lenin Library. It's collapsing. They're turning off the lights, locking the rooms. It's going to be a tomb like the pyramids at Giza.'

Arkady was surprised that anyone associated with Rudy cared about the state of the Lenin Library. 'We still have to talk.'

'I work late.'

'Anytime.'

'Outside the library, tomorrow at midnight.'