“You wanted to know about stockings?” His tone was a shade less light.
I sat up. “Not really. I thought I did. But you are a most observant man. I think you will save me a lot of time by answering just a few simple questions. Because you realize by now that I am also an observant man.”
“You want to know about my customers.”
I nodded.
“Mostly women, mostly young. They can’t afford much, but it gives them great pleasure when they buy even a single pair. A few people want to buy in bulk, twenty or thirty pair, but I don’t do that. They only want to resell them at a profit, and I do not consider myself a wholesaler.”
“What about the midrange?”
“You mean, between one pair and thirty.” He paused. “You mean, perhaps, five.”
“Five, or seven.”
“You want to know who bought singles, not pairs?”
I shrugged. “Man or woman?”
“Man. Unfriendly fellow, not very well mannered, and he seemed in a hurry.”
“Ugly.”
“You might say that.”
“A scar.” I drew a scar down the right side of my face.
He smiled. “Other side. It’s not nice to play games, Inspector.”
“Anything that stood out about the stockings he bought? Color? Style? Size? Very sheer?”
“They had club monograms. Bars have taken to ordering them for their girls. I might get the order on one visit, and by the time I return with the goods, the place that ordered them has gone out of business. Or they have decided they don’t want the whole order.”
“CB.”
“Club Blue. They ordered ten pair last fall when I was here. But
they ended up only taking eight pair. And the way they had them monogrammed, sort of randomly on the ankle and up the inside of the thigh, a lot of girls don’t like them. So I had these two pair.”
“But the man in a hurry?”
“He took three.”
“You couldn’t sell him two pair?”
“He was adamant, said he was accountable for the funds, and that he was told only to buy three. That’s all he would take.”
“Why didn’t you just throw in the fourth for free?”
“Inspector, please, we are talking about universal forces, something like gravity. You think I’m a rug merchant?”
“The man was in a hurry, he was unfriendly, you said. You noticed a lot more. He paid in dollars?”
“Euros. Big bills. I couldn’t make change, and he absolutely refused to go to a bank to do so. Finally, we went over to another vendor, a seller of undergarments, a fine gentleman, who could get his hands on some change.”
“You remember when this was?”
“The last week in March, a few days after I arrived and made the deliveries of the orders from last year. I do that first, make the deliveries, renew acquaintances, that sort of thing. Then I set up shop and sell the remainder of my inventory. Then it’s time to go home.”
“I’m happy to say this time you don’t need to hurry home.”
“It’s not a problem. I can be on the train tomorrow.”
“No, you’re welcome to stay another week, maybe even two.”
“Stay? Here? Inspector, I appreciate the offer but cannot possibly accept.”
“You cannot possibly refuse. I’m forbidding you from leaving. I may have more questions, and I can’t wait until you return six months from now.”
“I’m happy to give you my phone number in Russia.”
“If you try to leave, you will be apprehended. You may think the border controls are lax and a little money will make them even more so. Don’t make that mistake.”
“What will I do for the next few weeks? I can’t just loiter in the streets.”
“You can sit and watch for signs of more pent-up demand.”
“What about a bath?”
“I don’t think I can help you there. I’d advise you try checking into a hotel for a few days. Give the front desk my name if they make any trouble, but I don’t think they will.”
“That will take all of my profits.” He leaned back against the tree again. “Will you have me followed every day?”
“If you want.”
“How can I get in touch with you?”
“Just tell our mutual friend. If you don’t mind my asking, what did you do with that single, last stocking?”
Logonov looked surprised. “What else could I do? I sold it to a woman with one leg.”
When I got back to the office, my phone was ringing.
“O here.”
“I’ve been calling all afternoon. Your mobile phone is switched off, and no one knew where you were. Is that how your ministry operates?”
It was Han, and he didn’t sound happy. “This isn’t the complaint line, Han. What do you want?”
“You were talking to a Russian near the train station. I want to know why and, more important, why you didn’t tell me you were going there.”
“I was out for a stroll, that’s all. There are some big gingko trees near the station, have you noticed?”
“You weren’t talking to trees. You were talking to a Russian. He sells stockings. We have our eye on him, and I don’t want you sticking your nose in the middle of it.”
“Eyes, noses, that’s a lot of body parts, Han. Easy to get them confused, if you’re not careful.” So, apparently someone else had seen the fake stamps, too. It could be Yakob wasn’t really from Odessa. “Well, don’t worry, I told him not to leave the country for a few weeks.”
“You what? Hold on.” There was a brief conversation off-line, not very pleasant, from what I could tell. Han’s voice came back on. “Listen carefully, Inspector, I’m not kidding around. You have nothing else to do with that Russian, or any Russian, until I tell you it’s alright. Meantime, you figure out a way to get back to that stocking salesman and let him know that you’ve changed your mind. He can leave.” Again, some shouting from off-line, nothing I could make out. “In fact, tell him it would be better if he left.”
“I don’t suppose you want to tell me what this is about?”
“You don’t want to know, you don’t need to ask.”
“Difficult to stay clear, Han, if I don’t know where my business ends and yours begins.”
“For instance.”
“The Russian. I don’t need details. But he’s part of my investigation. I just can’t give him up on your say-so. Is he your body?” There was silence. “Look, I don’t care if he’s yours or not, but he’s already in my report”—not true—“and if I just cut off contact with him, it will raise questions.” Another silence, then again a conversation in the background. Not a conversation really, more like someone had lost a vital body part, then some very blunt words, though I couldn’t catch everything; Han must have had his hand over the phone. When he came on the line again, it didn’t sound like he was in the mood to chat.
“Inspector, this conversation is over. And keep your mobile phone on all the time. If I call, you’d better answer.”
I put the phone down and looked at my thumbs. They had warning flags all over them.
W
hat makes us different, O?”
Rarely am I at my desk after midnight; rarely does the Sad Man say more than a word or two if we run into each other in the morning when the shifts change.
“Some of us stay out of other people’s apartments unless they’re asked in.” My mood was not the best, all things considered.
Yang shrugged. “The chief told me to go, so I did. That’s not what I meant.”
“But you never went in, did you?”
“No. It wasn’t my idea to snoop around your place without your permission. So why are you mad at me? Especially if I kept out.”
“But you would have gone in if you could have.”
“Meaning?”
“You didn’t turn around on your own. It was the old lady kept you out, wasn’t it?”
Yang frowned. “She’s tough.”
“Why didn’t you just go to the side entrance?”
“I did. She was waiting for me.”
“She moves pretty fast for someone her age. She’s smart, too. What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. When I opened the door, she was standing there with her arms crossed. I told her she could be cited for interfering with the work of an investigation. She snorted.”
“So you just backed out. But if you could have sneaked past her, you would have gone in.” I paused, thinking I’d calm down, but I didn’t. “If you’d had some gumption.”
Yang pretended not to hear my last remark, but I could see it had struck home. I wished I hadn’t said it.
“She’s an old lady, O, why should I hassle her? She did her job.” Yang looked sadly around my room.
“And you? What was your job, Yang?”
“I went for a smoke and a walk around. But I saw something while I was leaving. Two guys.”
Yang was uncomfortable. He looked over his shoulder, down the hall toward Min’s office.
It was already the longest conversation I’d had with Yang in years. “Go on.”
“Two guys, not SSD. They didn’t dress like SSD, they didn’t walk like SSD, not even when SSD is trying to pretend to be someone else. Clean shirts, nice cuffs.”
“So, not SSD. So, what?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Also not military intelligence. Something else, not like I’d ever seen. Maybe a new group that they haven’t told us about. I walked.”
“You followed them?”
“Nah, I was just walking behind, and they were walking in front. I happened to see the license plate on their car. It’s a special series, I think.”
“And this concerns me, my apartment, or the wallet?”
“Maybe none of them. There’s probably someone else in your building it concerns. Some old war widow, or the high school teacher
that lives below you. Sure, that’s it, they sent two guys with nice cuffs out in a car with special series plates to play hide-and-seek with a high school teacher.”
That Yang could be sarcastic was a revelation; maybe it was a good sign. That he had stumbled on an unidentified surveillance team was not such a good sign.
“Well,” I said, “what if this teacher is up to something? Could be this teacher has a black-market radio; very likely, this teacher skipped a key lesson in the social studies section. I don’t teach social studies.” No sense avoiding the obvious question, so I asked it. “Why would I be of interest to anyone?”
Yang threw the wallet on my desk. “This.”
“I thought you said you didn’t make it to my apartment?”
“I didn’t, not when Min sent me.”
“You went there another time?”
Yang shrugged. “So, get mad. If someone saved me a lot of trouble, I might be grateful.”
“What trouble?”
“When I got there, a man was just opening your door. I coughed, and he limped down the hall. Cool as could be, didn’t miss a beat. Went a few doors down from yours and let himself in. He was a tall fellow, though a little stooped. Pretty good clothes for your neighborhood. Couldn’t see his face. You might try putting at least one bulb in the hallway; I’ll get you one. Maybe some locks, too. Doesn’t your building believe in locks?”
“We don’t fancy light in our building; it ruins our sense of sacrifice. Locks suggest a lack of trust. This man, maybe he mistook my room for his. It happens once in a while.” Actually, I’d never heard of it happening before, in all the years I’d lived there. Even the drunks knew their own doors. “How’d you get past the old lady?”
Yang put his finger to his lips.
I put the wallet in the very back of the drawer, right next to a piece of persimmon wood that I had been keeping for a slow day, something to pass the time. “Alright, I owe you a favor. What is it?”
There weren’t going to be any slow days; I took the persimmon out of the drawer and slipped it in my pocket.
“Answer my question. Just do that for me. Why are we different?”
“Different, meaning what?”
“Apart. Separate. You are you, I am not. Why?”
“Is something the matter with you being you?” Maybe after years of not talking to people, the man had lost the knack. He wasn’t making sense.
Yang finally moved all the way into my office. “Mind if I sit?” He pointed to the chair but then walked slowly to the other side of the room, so we were talking across a space, however small. “I’m serious. What makes us different?”
“You ask a question I really hadn’t thought about before.” I was feeling my way along and watching Yang closely. “But now that you mention it, we are different. I’m older, I have more time in the Ministry. You’re taller than I am—which is a point I never underestimate, height—and probably smarter. Your mind works better than mine; you observe things I can never see.” Yang waited, motioned for me to continue, but I didn’t want to continue. It was going to get painful in a minute. The only things left would be unpleasant. “That’s about it, I’d say.”
“You know better, O, there’s more to it.” He looked at the floor for a long time. “I’m sad, you’re not.” Already it had the makings of a mournful list. “I have bad luck, yours is good. You have shown bravery, I am a coward. Your grandfather was a hero, mine was a traitor who went south. What would you do if someone’s life were in your hands, if by your sacrifice you might save them?”