“Hello? Doctor, you still there?” said the voice on the other end. “I could tell you things that have come to light in other documents just beginning to surface nowadays. For example, Beria’s not the only one to blame for the purges and execution of prisoners. After the war, he was involved in the A-bomb and nuclear power (glory be his name), and construction, and a number of other things. There were people whose hands were just as bloody as his. They were the ones who assassinated him. Are you interested in hearing more?”
“I am,” I said honestly, “but not now. I have a crazy man walking the streets. Thank you very much, Sergey.”
What happened after 1973 in terms of maniacs in overcoats? Nothing, really. They were dormant. Why was that? And why has that suddenly changed? I remembered the construction site, all the dozens of new houses that had risen up in the past few months on Khodynka Field. The large wasteland of the former restricted airfield was no more. It was crawling with …
Construction workers.
Construction workers clambering up and down the stairwells of the new buildings, dumping garbage by the surrounding fences, excavating … and excavating some more for the foundations of new buildings.
I had one slim chance left, and I used that chance the next day.
Because the foreman of the defunct brigade of two vanished construction workers from Moldavia was still occupying a lone structure in the next courtyard.
“So they’re not coming back, eh?” I asked the foreman, and sat down on the porch next to him.
He shook his head furiously.
“Too bad,” I continued. “Say, uh, they borrowed a book from me… about space invaders. You seen it?”
“No,” replied the foreman mournfully, and again shook his head. “Haven’t seen it.”
“I understand.” I was moving closer to my goal. “I just need the book. It’s the cops who need the rapist. But the book is still mine, you see—”
“My guys are no rapists. They’re good guys,” the foreman said, finally able to muster a coherent sentence. “The book … go ahead and look around. There’s no book in there.”
I could hardly believe my luck. I went inside the little house where the construction workers had stayed. A strong, unpleasant odor from a portable toilet assaulted my nostrils. Then, in an instant, I saw a dull gray garment hanging on a coatrack right in front of me.
The rest was easy.
“By the way, I need to do a paint job,” I said. “This thing here, is this your work coat? How much do you want for it?”
“That’s no work coat,” answered the foreman. “The guys left it here. You can have it. Instead of the book. Go ahead, they won’t be needing it. They’re not coming back. Their families keep calling and calling …”
Holding the gray overcoat at arm’s length, I asked: “Where did you work before? Wasn’t there a construction site over there? On the other side of the field, by that concrete fence? I believe that’s where I met your guys.”
“Oh, sure,” said the foreman. “The finishing team arrived when we were done over there. And we moved here. And now … we’re done here too.”
I remember at one point I felt the urge to bury my face in the coat and inhale the smell of a cellar and potatoes. It took me some effort not to do so. I threw it down on the landing in front of my door. I had no intention of bringing the thing into my apartment. I went inside and found a large shopping bag, put the overcoat in it, and left it in front of the door. Then I scrubbed my hands thoroughly. In a closet I found a bottle of flammable liquid for barbecuing and dropped it into the bag as well.
I was in a hurry. It was getting late, and I didn’t want to leave the coat outside for the night. Someone might take it.
Then I was in that deserted edge of Birch Grove Park. An empty bench, and the remnants of the bunkers protruding from the ground.
I dumped the coat onto the surface of the nearest bunker, on the concrete slab covered with moss. I poured the liquid onto the coat and set fire to it with my lighter. Thick, oily smoke billowed up and gravitated to the concrete fence and beyond, where the floors of the nearby buildings mounted into the sky.
It burned very, very slowly.
“Now why did you do that?” The thin, tremulous voice came from somewhere below.
No, I wasn’t scared. Even when I noticed that someone had been sitting on a nearby bench the whole time. It was … an old lady? That’s right, just an old lady in a light summer coat and a funny straw hat trimmed with two wooden cherries. The red paint on one of them had almost completely peeled off. But her cheekbones burned with the same color, in an almost invisible network of blood vessels. When I saw those liver spots on her powdered cheeks, I thought in panic, How old is she? Why didn’t I notice her before?
Or maybe she hadn’t been there when I set fire to the coat?
“Do you think it’s about the coat?” the old lady asked in a childish—no, not childish, but teacherish—voice, high as a violin string. “It was just fabric. Good fabric too. Very durable. That was silly. Just plain silly.”
