The air tasted of ashes, and the odor lingered on the teeth. Writers sat with telegram blanks to compose messages at five kopecks a word, men wadding up rejected attempts, women sitting more thoughtfully over theirs. Family groups collaborated in a circle of heads, usually brown heads with bright scarves. Occasionally a guard wandered in to make sure that no one stretched out on a bench, so the drunks in the hall made every effort to keep their bones assembled in a sitting position. There was an expression: “A Russian is not drunk while there’s a single blade of grass to hold on to.” Maybe it was a law, Arkady wasn’t sure. On the other side of a high counter, clerks maintained a quiet hostility. They held their own prolonged and whispered phone calls, turned their backs to read novels in privacy, disappeared for discreet naps. Their understandable grudge was that their shift gave them no chance to shop during working hours. Clocks above the counter showed the time: 0400 in Moscow, 1100 in Vladivostok, 2200 in New York.

Arkady stood at the counter and studied the two identical photographs, one of a Russian prostitute in Israel, the other of a well-dressed German tourist. Was either identification correct? Neither? Both? Jaak probably had the answer.

On the back of a telegram blank, he drew Rudy’s car, the approximate positions of Kim, Borya Gubenko, the Chechens, Jaak and himself. On the side, to give her a name, he added Rita Benz.

On a second blank, he wrote “TransKom” and listed Leningrad Komsomol, Rudy and Boris Benz.

On a third, under “Lenin’s Path Collective”: Penyagin, Rudy’s killer, maybe Chechens. From the blood, maybe Kim. Rodionov absolutely.

On a fourth, under “Munich”: Boris Benz, Rita Benz and an “X” for whoever had asked Rudy, “Where is Red Square?”

On a fifth, under “Slot Machines”: Rudy, Kim, TransKom, Benz, Borya Gubenko.

Frau Benz was the connection between the black market and Munich, and the contact between Rudy and Boris Benz. If Borya Gubenko had slots, too, was he part of TransKom? Who better to introduce Rudy to his unlikely associates at a Komsomol gym than a former football idol? And if Borya was in TransKom, then he knew Boris Benz.

Finally Arkady drew a diagram of the farm, indicating road, yard, pens, barn, shed, garage, fire, Volvo, pit. He marked it with an estimate of distances and an arrow north, then added a diagram of the barn, with a sketch of the pail and cheesecloth of gore.

He thought of the pet shop under Kim’s apartment and the shelf of dragon’s blood and the blood in Rudy’s car. This reminded him of Polina. Public phones took only tiny two-kopeck pieces, but he found one in his pocket and dialed her home.

Her voice had the lower register of half-sleep, then was instantly awake. “Arkady?”

“Jaak is dead,” he said. “Minin is taking over.”

“Are you in trouble?”