On his way into town, Arkady parked behind the apartment complex by Dynamo Stadium, where a blue militia-precinct lamp on the corner announced what looked like an all-night bar. In the street, a drunk and his wife had a domestic conversation. He said something and she slapped him. He said something else and she slapped him again. He leaned into the blows as if he agreed with her point of view. Another drunk, in good clothes lightly dusted, walked in circles, as if one foot were nailed to the sidewalk.

Inside the station, the desk officer was helping to subdue a drunk who, stripped to the waist and blinded by methanol, was trying to fly, beating his tattooed arms against the wall and leading a chorus of drunks who shouted from separate tanks. Passing through, Arkady showed his ID, not bothering to open it. He might be dressed in odd sizes, but in this crowd he looked pretty good. Upstairs, where all the doors were padded in gray upholstery, a bulletin board displayed photos of Afghan vets on the force. In the Lenin room—the meeting place for political reinforcement and morale—militiamen were sacked out on long tables, towels across their faces.

Jaak’s key opened a door to a room with a linoleum floor and yellow walls. Since a precinct “undercover” room was home to different detectives working different hours, the furniture was sparse and the decoration was anonymous: two desks facing each other at the window, four chairs, four hulking prewar safes made of iron plate. A car poster, a soccer poster and a scene of a world’s fair were taped to the wall. A corner door was open to a pissoir, a foul nosegay to the room.

The desks shared three phones: an outside line, an intercom and a dispatch connection to Petrovka. The drawers held old sheaves of wanted faces, car descriptions and calendars that went back ten years. Around the legs of each desk chair the linoleum was scarred by cigarettes.

Arkady sat down and lit a cigarette. He realized he had always believed that one day Jaak would decamp for Estonia, be reborn as an ardent nationalist and heroically defend the fledgling republic. He had believed Jaak had the capacity to have a different life. Instead of this. The difference between him and Jaak was not so great, dead or alive.

The first phone call he made was to his own office.

He was answered on the second ring. “Minin here.”

Arkady hung up.