“You’re curious?” Arkady noticed a woman who came out of the elevator and froze, bags swaying like pendulums, at the sight of two men sitting on the floor beside a car. “Curious about what?”

Stas shifted onto a more comfortable elbow. “About a lot of things. You’re supposed to be an investigator, but you look to me like a man in trouble. You know, when that shit Rodionov, your boss, was in Munich, the consulate made a big fuss about him. He even visited the radio station and gave us an interview. Then you come and the consulate wants to bury you.”

“What did Rodionov say?” Arkady asked in spite of himself.

“ ‘Democratization of the Party … modernization of the militia … sanctity of the investigator’s independence.’ The usual cock in the usual vigorously moving hand. How would you like to do an interview?”

“No.”

“You could talk about what’s happening with the prosecutor general’s office. Talk about anything you want.”

The elevator arrived again and the woman with the bags backed in with the briskness of someone going for the authorities.

“No.” Arkady offered Stas a hand up. “I’m sorry about the mistake.”

Stas stayed on the floor, as if he didn’t mind being a heap of bones, as if he could win an argument from any position. “It’s early. You can hit people this afternoon. Come to the station with me now.”

“To Radio Liberty?”

“Wouldn’t you like to see the world’s greatest center of anti-Soviet agitation?”

“That’s Moscow. I just came from there.”

Stas smiled. “Just visit. You don’t have to do an interview.”

“Then why would I come?”

“I thought you wanted to see Irina.”

Now that he was in Stas’s Mercedes, Arkady couldn’t believe that he had ever thought it was a German’s car. The passenger seat was covered by a balding rug. The backseat was hidden under a nest of newspapers. With every curve, tennis balls rolled around his feet and with every bump volcanic clouds rose from the ashtray.

In a magnetic frame on the dashboard was a photo of a black dog. “Laika,” Stas said. “Named after the dog Khrushchev sent into space. I was just a kid and I thought, ‘Our first achievement in outer space is starve a dog to death?’ I knew right then I had to get out.”

“You defected?”

“In Helsinki, and I wet my pants I was so scared. Moscow claimed I was a master spy. The English Garden is full of spies like me.”

“The English Garden?”

“You’ve already been there,” Stas said.