“Like much of life.” Arkady searched his desk for cigarettes. No sleep? A little nicotine would take care of that. “What we have here is a black market, not the usual daytime variety for ordinary citizens, but a black market at night for criminals. Neutral territory and a very neutral victim in Rudy Rosen.” He remembered Rudy’s description of himself as Switzerland.

“You know, this was like spontaneous combustion,” Jaak said. “You get together enough thugs, drugs, vodka, throw in some hand grenades and something’s going to happen.”

“A type like that probably cheated someone,” Minin suggested.

“I liked Rudy,” Arkady said. “I forced him into this operation and I got him killed.” The truth was always good for embarrassment. Jaak looked pained by Arkady’s lapse, like a good dog that sees his master trip. Minin, on the other hand, seemed grimly satisfied. “The question is, why two firebombs? There were so many guns around, why not shoot Rudy? Our witness—”

“Our witness is Gary Orbelyan,” Jaak reminded him.

Arkady continued, “Who identifies Kim as an assailant. We saw Kim with a Malysh. He could have emptied a hundred bullets into Rudy more easily than throwing a bomb. All he had to do was pull the trigger.”

Polina asked, “Why two bombs instead of one? The first was enough to kill Rudy.”

“Maybe the point wasn’t just to kill Rudy,” Arkady said. “Maybe it was to burn the car. All his files, every piece of information—loans, deals, paper files, disks—were on the backseat.”

Jaak said, “When you kill someone, you want to leave the area. You don’t want to have to start moving files.”

“They’re all smoke now,” Arkady said.

Polina changed to a happier subject. “If Kim was close to the car when the device ignited, maybe he was injured. Maybe it was his blood.”

“I alerted hospitals and clinics to report anyone coming in with burns,” Jaak said. “I’ll add lacerations to that. I just find it hard to believe that Kim would have turned on Rudy. If nothing else, Kim was loyal.”

“How are we on Rudy’s place?” Arkady asked while he followed the at-once tantalizing and repellent smell of stale tobacco to a bottom drawer.

Polina said, “The technicians lifted prints. So far they’ve only found Rudy’s.”

In the back of a drawer, Arkady found a forgotten pack of Belomors, a true gauge of desperation. He asked, “You haven’t finished the autopsy?”

She said, “There’s a wait for morgue time, I told you.”

“A wait for morgue time? That’s the ultimate insult.” The Belomor lit with a puff of black fumes like diesel exhaust. Hard to smoke it and hold it away at the same time, but Arkady tried.

“Watching you smoke is like watching a man commit suicide,” Polina said. “No one has to attack this country, just drop cigarettes.”

Arkady changed the subject. “What about Kim’s place?”