Field of Mars by Stephen Miller Read Free Book Online Page A

overcome his fear, slipped around Ryzhkov and was heading for Hokhodiev, who had turned his attention to the valves on the samovar, screwing them this way and that. ‘Are you interested in this item, excellency?’
    â€˜What? Oh, no. Just looking. Nice stuff, some of this.’
    â€˜Yes, thank you, thank you.’ The old silversmith settled the samovar back on its base.
    â€˜They can’t pray for all that time,’ the girl was still complaining. She had put on a jacket.
    â€˜Probably not, but just lock up, now. We’ll stick around to make sure, eh?’ Ryzhkov said, and headed for the door.
    â€˜Everything’s closed upstairs,’ Dudenko said, looking the girl over as he passed behind her at the bottom of the stairs.
    â€˜Look,’ the girl started, still not giving up. ‘This doesn’t make sense—’
    â€˜ Don’t ,’ said Ryzhkov, tired of it all, tired of cajoling. The girl stopped when she heard the edge in his voice. All of the policemen were looking at her. Ryzhkov reached into his pocket and pulled out his disk. He held it up so the Jews could all see that they weren’t just ordinary cops. ‘We don’t want to make any trouble. It shouldn’t be that hard for you to find somewhere to spend the day. Go and sit in a restaurant, but hurry up. We have others. We have a whole list to do before the procession starts.’
    He turned to the old man. ‘Tell her what’s what,’ he said quietly.
    â€˜Yes. Yes, of course.’
    They went outside and stood around watching the street start to fill up. Women, children, families all dressed up for the occasion. Little flags on sticks for the children to wave when the Imperial family passed by. Dudenko looked around and saw Ryzhkov’s sour expression and then looked away out into the street. Sometimes it was better to just leave Ryzhkov alone when he was looking like that.
    â€˜What’s wrong?’ Hokhodiev asked, seeing Ryzhkov’s expression and watching him reach up and rub his jaw. ‘Are you sick? Toothache?’
    â€˜I don’t know, maybe.’
    â€˜Hmm. You’re not going to make a mess, are you?’ Hokhodiev asked, frowning.
    â€˜No. It’s not like that,’ Ryzhkov muttered. The pain went away as fast as it had come.
    Ryzhkov consulted the list and they moved further down the wide limestone pavements of the Nevsky. They followed the Jews to make sure they didn’t just come straight back. Dudenko still had his eyes on the girl. Hokhodiev looked over and nudged the young man out of his reverie. ‘You could convert, eh? I think she liked your dominating personality back there, you know? Having you visiting her bedroom, and all,’ he laughed.
    â€˜Go screw yourself Kostya,’ Dudenko said, but he still kept looking at the girl.
    â€˜Here we are. This place here.’ Ryzhkov had found the next address. They ascended a narrow staircase that led to a set of offices used by three different suspect newspapers. The names of the publications had been painted on one of the glass doors, Beacon, Russian Alert! and Popular Knowledge . They banged on the main door that was marked as the entrance, and then went along the corridor banging on all the doors but no one answered. Ryzhkov got Dudenko to find the dvornik, a kind of combination caretaker, porter and concierge for the building, and extract him from his shack in the courtyard. Absurdly the dvornik had forgotten his pass keys, so Ryzhkov fished out his picks and in a few seconds they had broken into the offices.
    Inside was a musty collection of desks, writing lamps, battered typewriting machines, and cluttered bookshelves. There were piles of paper on every surface. In one corner was a small hand press, something you could use to whip off a few hundred radical leaflets in half an hour and then wipe clean.
    â€˜We ought to seal this place, eh?’ said Hokhodiev, but Ryzhkov