"May second. He was found on May Day."

Imagine, Arkady thought. One day Felix Gerasimov is the respected and honored director of a scientific institute well enough funded to have its own research reactor in the middle of Moscow, a reactor he's earned not only through his groundbreaking work in theoretical physics but also through his willingness to engage in the down-to-earth problems of nuclear this and that (test-site pollution and spontaneous explosions in the hinterland), all the signs of a politically shrewd careerist. And then the political system collapses. The Communist Party lies as gutted as Reactor Four. Bankrupt. The director and his faculty (including Ivanov and Timofeyev) have to walk around the institute in blankets and dump "hot water" on the sly. That did, indeed, seem like twists enough for one career.

"Arkady, are you there?"

"Yes. Call Petrovka-"

"In Moscow?"

"Yes. Call headquarters and see if there's any record of a suicide attempt by the son, Alexander."

"What makes you think there will be?"

"Because there will. Did you get anywhere with his off-time work in Moscow?"

"Sorry. I called, at Bobby's expense, every major hotel in Moscow. Nine have business centers offering interpreting, translation, PCs and fax. But none round the clock, and none employed an Alex Gerasimov. To put not too fine a point on it, a dead end. Lyuba says you're exploiting me."

"Yes, that's why you're in Kiev and I'm in Chernobyl. Any sight of Anton?"

"I have my notes right here." There was a rush of papers falling. "Shit! Fuck your mother! I have to call you back."

Victor really wasn't meant for the hushed confines of a library, Arkady decided. He looked at the doll in the window. Her face was bleached off, but the contours and a ponytail of golden filaments remained, and he glimpsed a shelf of more dolls, as if the house had been entrusted to a second, smaller family. The doorway lured him to the threshold. Close up, the doll's arms bore a gauze of spider-webs that he untangled, and when his mobile phone rang, he almost saw her flinch.

Arkady answered, "Hello, Victor, go ahead."

A raspy voice asked, "Who is Victor?"

"A friend," Arkady said.

"I bet you don't have many. I hear you got someone shot at the cooling pond."

Arkady started again. "Hello, Karel."

It was Katamay, the missing militia officer. Dust motes eddied around the doll as if she were breathing.

"I want to talk to you about the Russian that you found. That's all, nothing else," Arkady said and waited. The gaps were so long it was almost like talking to Zhenya.

"I want you to leave my family alone."

"I will, but I have to talk to you."

"We're talking."

"In person. Just about the Russian, that's all I'm here for, and then I can go home."

"With your friend Wayne Gretzky?"

"Yes."

A seizure of coughing, followed by "When I heard that, I almost split my side."

"Then I won't bother your grandfather and sister anymore, and Dymtrus can have his gun back."

A long silence.

"Pripyat, the center of the main square, ten tonight. Alone."

"Agreed," Arkady said, but to a dial tone.

Victor rang the next instant. "Okay, Anton was at a couple of casinos by the river."

"Why is he spending so much time here?"

"I don't know. Galina wore this tight outfit."

"Spare me." Arkady was still trying to switch gears from the Katamay call.

"Hey, thank God for our little hygienist, or I'd never see Anton. He picks her up after work every day. Goes up to the office like a real gentleman. Took her to a Porsche showroom, churches and a graveyard."

"A graveyard?"

"Very prestigious. Poets, writers, composers all laid out. He put a pile of roses at a gravestone. I looked at it later. Sure enough, the stone said 'Obodovsky'. His mother died this year."

"I'm interested in where he was born. See if you find any record that he lived in Pripyat."

"Bobby is going to be very interested in this."

"Wonderful. Is Anton doing any business?"

"Not that I can see."

"Then why is he hanging around Kiev? What is he waiting for, going to cemeteries and showrooms?"

"I don't know, but you should see the Porsches."

Arkady rode down an avenue not of Porsches but of fire engines on one side and army trucks on the other. Few visitors came to the yard except dealers in auto parts. From row to row, the variety changed from cars to armored personnel carriers, from tanks to bulldozers, all too hot to bury but sinking in the mud. Arkady followed the single power line to the trailer office of Bela, the manager.

Bela had few visitors and he was eager to roll up yard maps and share with Arkady the living comforts engineered into his trailer: microwave, minibar, flat-screen TV and videotape collection. A pornographic tape was already playing, pneumatic sex with the sound down, like background music.

Bela picked a hair off his shoulder. In his dirty white suit he looked like a lily beginning to rot.

"I'm seriously thinking of retiring. The demands of this job are too much."

"What demands?"

"Demands. Customers can't just drive into the Zone to shop for auto parts. This is not a showroom. On the other hand, they want to see what they're buying. So I bring them."

"Bring them here?"

"In the back of my van. I have an understanding with the boys at the checkpoint. They have to eat, too. Everyone eats, that's the golden rule."

"And Captain Marchenko?"

"A mass of envy. However, the Zone administrators in their wisdom have given me control of the yard with no interference from the captain because they understand how unreliable the militia is. I am up before dawn every day to make sure things run smoothly. I am, if nothing else, reliable. Hence, this multitude of vehicles outside is all mine."

Now that Arkady thought about it, there was something Napoleonic in the pride Bela took in his army of radioactive vehicles, in his splendid isolation.

"And with every car a free dosimeter?"

"Don't even joke about such things. You should enjoy life's more beautiful things." The manager held up a box that said Moscow Escort Girls. "I can show you Russian porn, Japanese, American. Dubbed, undubbed, not that it makes a great deal of difference. You're a sports enthusiast? Hockey? Football?" Another shelf of tapes. "Classic films, cartoons, natural history. Whatever tickles your fancy. I'll open a tin of biscuits, pour some liqueur and we'll relax." The manager made it sound like the end of a day on a tropical island.

"Actually, I brought one." Arkady handed over Vanko's tape.

"No label. Some amateur action? A little hanky-panky? Bathroom camera?"

"I somehow doubt it."

"But it could be?"

Bela eagerly switched tapes. As he watched Vanko's tape, the yard manager's face expressed first surprise and then disappointment, as if sugar he had shoved into his mouth proved to be salt.