The Ultimate Werewolf (36 page)

She felt like weeping. She could not see the package. But she could not leave it. And then, there, by the dead woman's outstretched right hand it lay on its side. She picked it up and lifted her head to thank the God that only a year ago she dared not acknowledge in public.

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"Her name was Olga Stashov," said the owl of a man who identified himself as a policeman.

His name was Inspector Nikulin. He never gave his first name. He had watched the woman doctor treat and suture Katrina Ivanova's arm, provide medication and announce that . . .

"Dog bite. I've given her a tetanus shot. If you do not find the animal by morning so we can check it for rabies, she will have to have rabies shots."

"There have been only two cases of rabies from dog bite in Moscow in the past four years," Katrina said weakly as the doctor helped her up. "Fourteen other cases presumed to be caused by rats."

"Most interesting," said Inspector Nikulin. "Now I will tell you something, Comrade. Do you know how old I am?"

"No," said Katrina looking over at her coat and package on the chair in the corner.

"I am almost sixty years old," he said. "I should not be working nights. I should be treated with some dignity, but I am politically what is called a reactionary."

"I don't . . ." Katrina said as the doctor interrupted with, "I have other patients," and departed from the small, hot emergency surgery room.

"I will retire next year," Nikulin said, "and I've lost all interest in the human condition. I have seen too much."

His eyes opened wide and Katrina tried to stand.

"I don't feel well," she said. "I'm tired."

"Of course you're tired. You've had a busy night. A dog bit you and you shot a naked woman in the snow," he said, sitting heavily on the only chair in the room, his hands plunged deeply into his pockets in spite of the heat. "You shot her with gold bullets."

"Silver," Katrina corrected, easing her feet to the floor.

"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. You murdered a woman who was wandering naked in the snow at midnight. You shot her with a bullet of silver. This was after the dog . . ."

"It wasn't a dog," Katrina insisted, moving to her coat. "And I didn't shoot her. I shot the . . . thing."

"Which," he said with a sigh, "ran away leaving no trail of blood but depositing the freshly shot corpse of a woman who had, coincidentally, also been shot with silver bullets."

"I do not lie," said Katrina. "As God is my witness."

"Katrina Ivanova," said the Inspector, shaking his head and picking up a clipboard with a sheet of paper and a small photograph clipped to it. "In spite of the stupidity of the past year, I am still of the opinion that there is no God to witness what we do, but I have seen strange deaths in the past forty years. Headless corpses, secret rituals, sexual manipulations resulting in agonizing death, but this makes no sense. We could not find the woman's clothes. Did you throw them in the river? We will find them."

"No," said Katrina.

"Was she your lover?" Nikulin tried.

"What?" Katrina said, turning in indignation. The turn sent a bolt of pain through her arm now bandaged and in a sling, and she had to steady herself on the side of the bed.

"Would you like to know who this dead woman was?" he asked.

"No," said Katrina, and then, "Yes."

"Olga Stashova is a ballerina with the Bolshoi Ballet," he said with a most exaggerated sigh, showing Katrina the sheet of paper on the clipboard in his hand. Katrina looked at the sheet and at the photograph pasted to it of a very pale, beautiful woman with sunken dark eyes and even darker hair. "Which means that if the newspapers and television hear of this they will make a hell of my life and my superiors will be asking me questions I can't answer. I tell you it was easier in the days of Stalin. No newspapers would be able to touch this and we'd simply lock you up in a mental prison."

"I'm sorry," Katrina said.

Nikulin shrugged with irritation.

"Do you know why I don't simply throw you in the mad house even with your crazy story?" he asked, but before she could either answer or gesture he went on. "Because of your arm. Something did that to you and it happened near the body of the woman. The snow stopped falling. We followed your trail of blood. Did a helicopter come from the sky and take the dog? Give me answers, Ivanova. I'm not curious, mind you. I'm simply weary. Make up a lie. I'll be happy to accept it so I can go home."

"I have no lie," she said knowing that she was feverish. "I do not lie."

The Inspector stood up and brushed back the little lock of grey-black hair that fell over his forehead.

"All right," he said. "We have your gun. We have your address. You're too sick to do any harm. Go home. Ask the doctor to get you a cab. We'll come and get you when we need you, or the hospital will call you if we can't find the dog and you need shots."

"But the dead woman," Katrina said bewildered. "I . . . you think I shot . . ."

"I think she committed suicide," the Inspector said looking at Katrina. "She just returned a few months ago from a vacation in Romania.

She had some kind of breakdown. It was on the television. She went to the river, threw her clothes in and shot herself."

"But the creature," Katrina said.

"Comrade Ivanova," the Inspector said with great patience. "You are not by law allowed to own and carry a firearm. The penalties are severe. Make our lives easier. Go home. If we need you, we will know where to find you. It is almost morning. In a few hours, I will go to Olga Stashov's apartment and search for evidence of both her mental state and evidence that the weapon was hers. Who knows? Perhaps I'll find bullets. I think I will, though they won't be silver. What do you think?"

"I am not feeling well," Katrina said. "I must go home and rest."

For the first time since she had seen him, Inspector Nikulin smiled, a rather dyspeptic smile but a smile nonetheless. Katrina Ivanova wanted very much to go home, to wake Agda, to tell her the tale, to receive comfort, sympathy, and to give Agda the present which she still clutched in the bag, which she picked up with her purse.

But Katrina did not go home. When Inspector Nikulin had shown her the clipboard with the photograph of the haunted face of Olga Stashov, Katrina had read the address. And though it was unlike her, something possessed Katrina Ivanova and she was quite sure that she would not sleep this morning till she knew the answer to the questions the policeman wanted to ignore. Katrina was quite sure that her sanity depended on finding that answer.

The policeman had not volunteered to drive her home, and since she was not going home this did not in the least disturb her. It was almost two in the morning when she stepped out into the street to find a cab. Fortunately, one was sitting in front of the hospital, its driver a small man with wisps of hair that stuck up from a freckled balding head. An oversized coat was bundled around his body and he was taking a secret drink from a bottle which Katrina knew was vodka when she opened the rear door. The driver, who had not noticed the potential fare, was so startled that he dropped the bottle.

Cursing as she closed the door behind her, the driver retrieved the bottle and said,

"I'm going home now. I'm through for the night. Get out."

Katrina calmly gave him the address on Malaya Molchanovka Street, not far from the embankment where Olga Stashov had been shot to death two hours earlier.

"I'm going home," he repeated, turning to face her over the top of the seat. "Home. Get another cab. There are three thousand cabs in Moscow."

"There are 16,154 cabs in Moscow. The one I am in will take me to Kalinin Prospekt," she said. "I am not getting out."

The man glared at her, but Katrina did not budge. Considering what had happened to her this night, his effort at intimidation was a joke as pale as the face of the dead ballerina against the swirling snow. She placed her purse and the bag containing the gift for Agda in her lap.

"What happened to your arm?" the cab driver said, the surly edge now blunt, not sharp.

"I was attacked by an animal," she explained.

"You want a bottle of vodka? I can sell you . . ."

"Drive, please," Katrina said.

The driver shrugged, patted down a few wisps of hair, which ignored his effort, and drove. He went through the empty streets to Kalinin Prospekt, made a right turn in front of the 17th-century Church of Simon Stylites into Vorovsky Street, and then a quick left down Malaya Molchanovka Street. About a hundred yards past the house where the poet Mikhail Lermontov had once lived the driver stopped the cab and pointed at a four-story apartment building.

"That's it," he said. "Four rubles."

Katrina paid without complaint and got out. The car had been poorly heated but the slap of cold as she stepped out, arm throbbing, made her consider getting back into the cab. The driver did not give her the I opportunity. He pulled away quickly, skidding tires sending the rear
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end of the cab swaying for a moment before he righted the car and disappeared down the curved street.

The very real possibility existed that Katrina would not be able to get into the building. Even if she got into the building it was unlikely that she could get into the apartment even if someone were inside. But she had to try. When the sun came up, Nikulin the policeman would come, would find what he wanted to find and that would be the end for him and the world, but not for Katrina. She had seen what she had seen. She was a practical woman with an arm in pain. She was a woman who needed to understand, who needed to know how that woman had appeared with Katrina's bullets in her.

Katrina moved to the door of the apartment building, pushed it, and found it open. Inside the small lobby was warm and the names of the tenants—there were not many of them—typed clearly in little slots on a neat wall. A small telephone hung on a hook near a row of buttons for each apartment. Katrina pressed the button marked "Stashov" and picked up the phone. Nothing. She pushed again. Again nothing. She was about to give up when a voice came crackling on the line.

"Thank God," said a man on the other end.

"My name is . . ." Katrina began, but the man, who seemed to be sobbing, cut in.

"Do you have a key?"

"No," she said.

"Not a key to the door, any key?" the man said through tears.

"Yes."

"Put it in as far as it will go and turn it slowly right till the lock clicks. Then pull sharply. Hurry. For the sake of God, hurry."

Katrina put the phone back on the hook and moved to the inner door, removing the key to her own apartment from her purse and placing purse and her precious bag on the floor. She did what the weeping man had told her, but it was not easy. She had only one good hand and it took two hands, one to turn the key, the other to pull the door. In spite of her agony, she removed her left arm from the sling and pulled the door toward her when the key clicked. It wasn't nearly as painful as she thought it would be, but she hoped she would not have to go through such an effort again. She picked up her things and went in.

Finding the apartment was no trouble. It was on the first floor. Even before Katrina knocked she saw that the door was slightly open. But she did knock. There was a sound, a plaintive sound within. She knocked again and the sound was repeated, but the man did not come to open the door. She pushed the door open slightly and called, "Are you there?"

This time the voice of the man, muffled by a door beyond, called, "Yes, yes, oh, God, yes. Come in."

And Katrina entered.

The apartment was dark except for a very small light in a room beyond. Katrina paused where she stood and as her eyes adjusted she could see that she was in a very large apartment indeed, that she was standing in a large foyer just before the living room of which drapes were closed tightly. She moved forward cautiously, slowly as the man called,

"Where are you? Get in here. Get in here. Hurry."

Katrina moved forward, found the partly open door from which the voice came, and pushed it open. The smell was a sour punch to her chest, animal and foul, filled with memories of dead cats and a rat she had once found behind a can of peaches in her mother's pantry.

It was from this door that the distant light had come, a light which illuminated the room in dank yellow and sent shadows that Katrina knew she would never forget. Before her stood a cage, a simple cage like those at the zoo, a cage large enough to hold an ape, with bars the thickness of her wrists; and within the cage stood a man, a man in a suit holding two of the bars in white-knotted fists and looking at her.

"Get me out," he said. "You must hurry."

Katrina hesitated.

"Get me out," he pleaded. "I've got to find her."

"Find her."

"Olga, my wife," the man said.

He was a tall man, about forty, with a day's growth of beard and the wild eyes of a man who was truly afraid. Katrina saw the speaker on the wall just outside the cage where the man could reach it.

"What are you doing in there?" Katrina asked, stepping forward.