Which didn’t really describe the new, smaller, blacker Rudy Rosen riding on the airy springs of his chariot. It didn’t capture his transformation into tar and bone, the particular nakedness of a belt buckle hanging in the pelvic saddle, the wondering sockets of the eyes and the molten gold of his fillings, the pants stripped for speed, the way his right hand gripped an invisible steering wheel as if he were cruising through hell and the fact that the pearlized wheel had melted like pink taffy on his fingers. It didn’t convey the mysterious way bottles of Starka and Kuban vodka had liquefied and pooled, how hard currency and cigarettes had vanished in a puff. “Everybody needs me.” Not anymore.

Arkady turned away and saw that as black as Rudy Rosen was, Minin’s face registered nothing but satisfaction, as if this sinner had suffered barely enough. Arkady took him aside and aimed him at some of the searchers among the militia who were stuffing their pockets. The ground was strewn with goods abandoned in the panic of the evacuation. “I told them to identify and chart what they found.”

“You didn’t mean for them to keep it.”

Arkady took a deep breath. “Right.”

“Look at this.” Polina probed a corner of the backseat with her hairpin. “Dried blood.”

Arkady went over to the Zhiguli. Jaak was in the backseat questioning their only witness, the same unlucky man Arkady had met when he was waiting to talk to Rudy. The mugger with too many zlotys. Jaak had tackled him just inside the fence.

According to his ID and work papers, Gary Orbelyan was a Moscow resident and hospital orderly, and, by the looks of his coupons, due for a new pair of shoes.

“You want to see ID?” Jaak said. He pulled back Gary’s sleeves. On the inside of the left forearm was the picture of a nude sitting in a wineglass and holding the ace of hearts. “He likes wine, women and cards,” Jaak said. On the right forearm was a bracelet of spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs. “He loves cards.” On the left little finger, a ring of upside-down spades. “This means conviction for hooliganism.” On the right ring finger, a knife through a heart. “This means he’s ready to kill. So let’s say Gary did not wash up in a basket of reeds. Let’s say Gary is a multiple offender who was apprehended at a gathering of speculators and who should cooperate.”

“Fuck you,” Gary said. In the daylight his broken nose looked welded on.

“Still have your forints and zlotys?” Arkady asked.

“Fuck you.”