Stuart Kaminsky - The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

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.