Wolves Eat Dogs Read Online Free Page B

chess clubs. And, because Zhenya was so shy of authority, Arkady went through arrest records. Six possibles turned up, but they all proved to be serving long terms in seminaries, Chechnya or prison.
    When Zhenya and Arkady were at the very top of the wheel, it stopped. The attendant on the ground gave a thin shout and waved. Nothing to worry about. Zhenya was happy with more time to scan the city, while Arkady contemplated the virtues of early retirement: the chance to learn new languages, new dances, travel to exotic places. His stock with the prosecutor was definitely falling. Once you’d been to the top of the Ferris wheel of life, so to speak, anything else was lower. So here he was, literally suspended. Poplar fluff sailed by like the scum of a river.
    The wheel started to turn again, and Arkady smiled, to prove his attention hadn’t wandered. “Any luck? You know, in Iceland there’s a kind of imp, a sprite that’s just a head on a foot. It’s a playful imp, very mischievous, likes to hide things like your keys and socks, and you can only see it from the corner of your eye. If you look straight at it, it disappears. Maybe that’s the best way to see some people.”
    Zhenya acknowledged not a word, which was a statement in itself, that Arkady was merely transportation, a means to an end. When the gondola reached the ground, the boy stepped out, ready to return to the shelter, and Arkady let him march ahead.
    The trick, Arkady thought, was not to expect more. Obviously Zhenya had come to the park with his father, and by this point, Arkady knew exactly how they had spent the day. A child’s logic was that if his father had come here before, he would come again, and he might even be magically evoked through a re-creation of that day. Zhenya was a grim little soldier defending a last outpost of memory, and any word he passed with Arkady would mute and dim his father that much more. A smile would be as bad as traffic with the enemy.
    On the way out of the park, Arkady’s mobile phone rang. It was Prosecutor Zurin.
    “Renko, what did you tell Hoffman last night?”
    “About what?”
    “You know what. Where are you?”
    “The Park of Culture and Rest. I’m resting.” Arkady watched Zhenya steal the opportunity to take another turn of the fountain.
    “Relaxing?”
    “I’d like to think so.”
    “Because you were so wound up last night, so full of…speculation, weren’t you? Hoffman wants to see you.”
    “Why?”
    “You said something to him last night. Something out of my earshot, because nothing I heard from you made any sense at all. I have never seen a clearer case of suicide.”
    “Then you have officially determined that Ivanov killed himself.”
    “Why not?”
    Arkady didn’t answer directly. “If you’re satisfied, then I don’t see what there is for me to do.”
    “Don’t be coy, Renko. You’re the one who opened this can of worms. You’ll be the one who shuts it. Hoffman wants you to clean up the loose ends. I don’t see why he doesn’t just go home.”
    “As I remember, he’s a fugitive from America.”
    “Well, as a courtesy to him, and just to settle things, he wants a few more questions answered. Ivanov was Jewish, wasn’t he? I mean his mother was.”
    “So?”
    “I’m just saying, he and Hoffman were a pair.”
    Arkady waited for more, but Zurin seemed to think he had made his point. “I take my orders from you, Prosecutor Zurin. What are your orders?” Arkady wanted this to be clear.
    “What time is it?”
    “It’s four in the afternoon.”
    “First get Hoffman out of the apartment. Then get to work tomorrow morning.”
    “Why not tonight?”
    “In the morning.”
    “If I get Hoffman out of the apartment, how will I get back in?”
    “The elevator operator knows the code now. He’s old guard. Trustworthy.”
    “And just what do you expect me to do?”
    “Whatever Hoffman asks. Just get this matter settled. Not complicated, not drawn out, but