Wolves Eat Dogs Read Online Free PDF Page B

person could argue whether a white decor was timid or bold, Arkady thought, but there was no denying that Rina had done a professional job. The entire room glowed, and the chrome of the wet bar cast a shimmering reflection over the photographs of Pasha Ivanov and his constellation of famous and powerful friends. Ivanov's world was so far away from the average Russian's that the pictures could have been taken by a telescope pointed to the stars. This was the closest Arkady had gotten to NoviRus. He was, for the moment, inside the enemy camp.
    When Arkady got to the sofa, Hoffman wrapped his pudgy hands around Arkady's. "Okay, I took a disk with confidential data from Pasha's computer: shell companies, bribes, payoffs, bank accounts. It was going to be my insurance, but I'm spending it on you. I agreed to give it back when you're done. That's the deal I made with Ozhogin and Zurin, the disk for a few days of your help. Don't ask me where it is, it's safe. So you were right, I'm a venal slob. Big news. Know why I'm doing this? I couldn't go back to my place. I didn't have the strength, and I couldn't sleep, either, so I just sat here. In the middle of the night, I heard this rubbing. I thought it was mice and got a flashlight and walked around the apartment. No mice. But I still heard them. Finally I went down to the lobby to ask the receptionist. He wasn't at his desk, though. He was outside with the doorman, on their hands and knees with brushes and bleach, scrubbing blood off the sidewalk. They did it, there's not a spot left. That's what I'd been hearing from ten stories up, the scrubbing. I know it's impossible, but that's what I heard. And I thought to myself, Renko: there's a son of a bitch who'd hear the scrubbing. That's who I want."
     
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    Inn the black-and-white videotape, the two Mercedeses rolled up to the street security camera, and bodyguards—large men further inflated by the armored vests they wore under their suits—deployed from the chase car to the building canopy. Only then did the lead car's driver trot around to open the curbside door.
    A digital clock rolled in a corner of the tape. 2128. 2129. 2130. Finally Pasha Ivanov unfolded from the rear seat. He looked more disheveled than the dynamic Ivanov of the apartment photo gallery. Arkady had questioned the driver, who had told him that Ivanov hadn't said a word all the way from the office to the apartment, not even on a mobile phone.
    Something amused Ivanov. Two dachshunds strained on their leashes to sniff his attaché case. Although the tape was silent, Arkady read Ivanov's lips: Puppies? he asked the owner. When the dogs had passed, Ivanov clutched the attaché to his chest and went into the building. Arkady switched to the lobby tape.
    The marble lobby was so brightly lit that everyone wore halos. The doorman and receptionist wore jackets with braid over not too obvious holsters. Once the doorman activated the call button with a key, he stayed at Ivanov's side while Ivanov used a handkerchief, and when the elevator doors opened, Arkady went to the elevator tape. He had already interviewed the operator, a former Kremlin guard, white-haired but hard as a sandbag.
    Arkady asked whether he and Ivanov had talked. The operator said, "I trained on the Kremlin staircase. Big men don't make small talk."
    On the tape, Ivanov punched a code into the keypad and, as the doors opened, turned to the elevator camera. The camera's fish-bowl lens made his face disproportionately huge, eyes drowning in shadow above the handkerchief he held against his nose. Maybe he had Timofeyev's summer cold. Ivanov finally moved through the open doors, and Arkady was reminded of an actor rushing to the stage, now hesitating, now rushing again. The time on the tape was 2133.
    Arkady switched tapes, back to the street camera, and forwarded to 2147. The pavement was clear, the two cars were still at the curb, the lights of traffic filtering by. At 2148 a blur from above slapped