A naïf might ask why Minin hadn’t gone to the Lenin’s Path Collective. Arkady knew from experience that there were two types of investigations: one that uncovered information, and the more traditional type that covered it up. The second was actually more difficult since it demanded someone to cover the crime scene and someone to control information in the office. As Arkady’s superior, Rodionov had to be the man at the collective. Minin, hardworking Minin, upgraded Minin, would be entrusted with gathering all the evidence and dossiers that showed any connection between the martyred General Penyagin and Rudy Rosen.

Arkady pulled out the short list of phone numbers he had taken from Penyagin’s Party book. The first he recognized as Rodionov’s; the other two were Moscow numbers but were new to him. He glanced at his watch: two A.M., an hour when all good citizens ought to be home. He picked up the outside line and dialed one of the unfamiliar numbers.

“Yes?” a man’s voice answered, calmly coming awake.

“I’m calling about Penyagin,” Arkady said.

“What about him?” “He’s dead.”

“That’s terrible news.” The voice stayed well spoken, soft, calmer than before. “Did they catch anyone?”

“No.”

There was a pause; then the voice corrected itself. “I mean, how did he die?”

“Shot. At the farm.”

“Who am I talking to?” The very polish of the voice was unusual, Russian birch painted with foreign lacquer.

“There was a complication,” Arkady said.

“What complication?”

“A detective.”

“Who is this?”

“Don’t you want to know how he died?”

There was a pause at the other end. Arkady could almost hear an intelligence becoming fully alert. “I know who this is.”

The line went dead, but not before Arkady had recognized Max Albov’s voice, too. Even if they had met only for an hour, because it was recently and in Penyagin’s company.

He dialed the other number, feeling like a night fisherman dropping a hook in black water to see what would bite.

“Hello!” This time it was a woman, wide awake, yelling over a background of television babble. She had a lisp. “Who is it?”

“I’m calling about Penyagin.”

“Wait a second!”

While he waited, Arkady listened to what sounded like an American relating a tedious story interspersed by explosions and the popping of small arms.

“Who is this?” A man came on the line.

“Albov,” Arkady said. Not that he was nearly as smooth as the journalist, but he modulated his voice a bit and there was that racket on the other end. “Penyagin’s dead.”

There was a pause, not a silence. With a musical segue, the American in the background moved on to a different story. The small-arms fire continued, though, with echoes that suggested a luxury of space.

“Why are you calling?”

Arkady said, “There were problems.”