07 - Rostnikov's Vacation by Stuart M. Kaminsky

Author:Stuart M. Kaminsky [Kaminsky, Stuart M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _rt_yes, Crime, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, onlib, Political, International Mystery & Crime, Police Procedural, USSR, __NB_fixed
ISBN: 978-1-4532-7353-1
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-09-19T21:12:00+00:00

EIGHT

“AND NOW?” YAKOV KRIVONOS said as he watched the thin woman with stringy hair tear away Jerold’s pants.

“Nothing changes,” said Jerold, who was lying on his stomach in the position the stringy woman had guided him.

“Nothing changes,” Yakov agreed, looking around the room.

The room smelled of medicine and tobacco, and the woman, in a baggy black dress with somber purple circles, did nothing to enliven it. She barely spoke and acted as if Yakov were not even in the room.

Yakov had driven more than twenty miles on the Kashira Highway to Gorki Leninskye and to the small house where the woman who now worked on Jerold’s pants had opened the door and ushered them in without a word.

“I need my gun,” said Yakov, walking around the small room that had been set up as a surgery. “I need my music. When are you getting me another Madonna?”

“Now you need me,” said Jerold as the stringy woman cut away the leg of his pants. “Later, you will have Madonna.”

Yakov paused in his wandering about the room to look at the bullet wound in Jerold’s right side. He knew it would be worth seeing. The front seat of the car he had stolen was soaked with Jerold’s blood, and though Jerold had neither moaned nor complained, his voice had dropped just a bit during the ride, and his breathing was definitely heavy. By the time they had reached this house, Jerold was definitely quite pale.

Jerold’s wound was dark and round, big enough to put a finger in. Yakov wondered if Jerold would scream if he suddenly poked his finger into the wound. Would the doctor who displayed no emotion scream if Yakov then licked his bloody finger? These were important questions. Questions that should be in a song, a song Yakov should, would, write. Carla had thought his idea of writing songs was ridiculous. She had never said so, but he knew what she thought. He had wonderful ideas for songs. Maybe he would get a group together quickly and perform at the Billy Joel after he killed Yuri Blin. No, he would be in Las Vegas. It was gone. The question he wanted to put into a song. It was gone. Carla had suggested that he write his ideas in a little notebook. Perhaps he would. When Jerold gave him the money, he would write songs, learn to play the guitar, get the best teacher.

“The bone is not broken,” the stringy woman doctor said. She had put on a pair of rubber gloves and probed the wound. Jerold had not uttered a sound.

“I can remove the bullet.”

“Remove it,” said Jerold, turning on his side to look at her.

“You will need blood,” the woman said, moving to a sink in the corner in which she dropped me bloody rubber gloves.

“Then get it,” said Jerold.

The woman looked at him and nodded, and then she looked at Yakov.

“I’m going out in the woods to play music on Walther and Blackhawk.”

The woman looked at Yakov, who met her eyes.

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