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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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Wolves
Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith |
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Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Patience The Russian Columbo, Arkady Renko, returns in Martin Cruz Smith’s latest novel, Wolves
Eat Dogs, the fifth installment in the Renko
series. Both Here’s
an excerpt, from the end of Chapter 7, pp. 134-144, including a reference to
the book’s title: Alex carried the rifle, and Arkady carried a cage that had a one-way gate baited with
greens. Step by step, the woods around them changed from stunted trees to
taller, sturdier beeches and oaks that produced a dappling of birdcalls and
light. Arkady asked, “Did you ever met Pasha Ivanov or Nikolai Timofeyev?” “You know, Renko,
some people leave their problems behind them when they go into the woods.
They commune with nature. No, I never met either man.” “You were a physicist. You all went to
the “They were older, ahead of me. Why this
focus on physicists?” “This case is more interesting than the
usual domestic quarrel. Cesium chloride is not a carving knife.” “You can get cesium chloride at a
number of labs. Considering the economic health of the country, you can
probably persuade a scientist to siphon off a little extra for either
terrorism or murder. People steal warheads, don’t they?” “To transport cesium chloride would
take professional skill, wouldn’t it?” “Any decent technician could do that.
The power plant still employs hundreds of technicians for maintenance. Far
too many for you to question.” “If the person who used
cesium in “To those hundreds of
technicians.” “Not really. The
technicians live an hour away. They commute by train to the plant, work their
shift and go directly home. They don’t wander around the Zone. No, the person
who cut Timofeyev’s throat is part of the security
staff, or a squatter or poacher.” “Or a scientist living in
the Zone?” Alex said. “That’s a possibility,
too.” There weren’t many of those, Arkady thought.
There was no scientific glory work being done at “Cesium is a complicated
way to kill someone or drive them crazy. “I agree,” said Arkady. “And hardly worth the effort, unless you’re
sending a message. The fact that neither Ivanov nor
Timofeyev complained to the militia or their own
security, in spite of a threat to their lives, suggests that some sort of
message was understood.” “Timofeyev
had his throat cut. Where’s the subtle message in that?” “Maybe it was in where he
was found—at the threshold of a village cemetery~ Either he drove all the
way from Moscow just to go to that graveyard, or someone went to a great deal
of trouble to put him there. Who noticed his throat was cut?” “I suppose someone who
went into the freezer. I can tell you that people were very unhappy there was
a body inside. They had to clean everything else out.” “Then why go into the
freezer except to look at the body?” “Renko,
I had never appreciated before how much detection work was groundless
speculation.” “Well, now you know.” Trees continued to grow
taller, shadows deeper, roots more ancient and interlaced. Arkady waded through fronds of bracken and had the
illusion of spiders, salamanders, snakes scurrying ahead, a subtle ripple of
life. Finally Alex stopped Arkady at the edge of
blinding light, an arching meadow of wide-open daisies and, here and there,
the red flags of poppies. Alex motioned him to crouch and be quiet, then
pointed to the top of the meadow, where two deer stared back with dark liquid
eyes. Arkady had never been so close to deer in the
wild. One was a doe; the other had a wide rack of antlers, a hunter’s prize.
The tension in their gaze was different from the placid observation of zoo
deer. Alex whispered, “They are
fat from grazing at the orchards.” “Are we still in the
Zone?” Arkady found it hard to believe. “Yes. What you can see
from the road is a horror show—Pripyat, the buried
villages, the red woods—but much of the Zone is like this. Now slowly stand.” Both deer went still as Arkady rose. They balanced more particularly but held
their ground. Alex said, “Like the hedgehog,
they’re losing their fear.” “Are they radioactive?” “Of course they’re
radioactive, everything here is. Everything on earth is. This field is about
as radioactive as a beach in For a minute Arkady heard nothing more than the mass drone of field
life or his hand slapping a bug on his neck. By concentrating on the deer,
however, he started to pick up their thoughtful chewing, the individual
transit of dragonflies amid a sunlit cross fire of insects, and in the
background, a squirrel scolding from a tree. Alex said, “The Zone has
deer, bison, eagles, swans. The Chernobyl Zone of Exclusion is the best
wild-animal refuge in Arkady turned his head as slowly as possible
and saw a row of yellow eyes behind the trees. The air grew heavy~ Insects
slowed in their spirals. Sweat ringed Arkady’s neck
and ran down his chest and spine. The next moment the deer bolted in an
explosion of dust and flower heads, took the measure of the field in two
bounds and crashed into the woods on the far side. Arkady
looked back at the birches. The wolves had gone so silently that he thought
he might have imagined them. Alex unslung
his rifle and ran to the birches. From a lower branch, he freed a tuft of
gray fur that he carefully placed inside a plastic bag. When he had put the bag
in a pocket and given the pocket a loving pat, he tore a strip of bark off
the birch, placed the strip between his palms and blew a long, piercing
whistle. “Yes!” he said. “Life is good!” Eva Kazka
had set up a card table and folding chairs in the middle of the village’s
only paved road. Her white coat said she was a doctor; otherwise, her manner
suggested a weary mechanic, and she didn’t tame her black hair back as much
as subdue it. On either side of this
outdoor office, the village slumped in resignation. Window trim hung loose
around broken panes, the memory of blue and green walls faded under the black
advance of mildew. The yards were full of bikes, sawhorses and tubs pillowed
in tall grass and bordered by picket fences that leaned in an infinitely siow collapse. All the same, set farther back from the
main street were, here and there, repainted houses with windows and intricate
trim intact, with a haze of wood smoke around the chimney and a goat cropping
the yard. A benchful
of elderly women in versions of shawl-and-coat-and-rubber-boots waited while
Eva looked down the throat of a round little woman with steel teeth. “Alex Gerasimov
is crazy, this is a well-known fact,” Eva said as an aside to Arkady. “Him and his precious nature. He’s a perfectionist.
He is a man who would drive a car into a pole again and again until it was a perfect wreck. Close.” The old woman closed her
jaw firmly to signify nothing less then complete cooperation. Arkady doubted that, from the shawl tied tight around her
head to her boots hanging clear of the ground, she was over a meter and a
half tall. Her eyes were bright and dazzling, a true Ukrainian blue. “Maria Fedorovna,
you have the blood pressure and heart rate of a woman twenty years younger.
However, I am concerned about the polyp in your throat. I would like to take it out.” “I will discuss it with Roman.” “Yes, where is Roman Romanovich? I expected to see your husband, too.” Maria lifted her eyes to
the top of the lane, where a gate swung open for a bent man in a cap and
sweater, leading a black-and-white cow by a rope. Arkady
didn’t know which looked more exhausted. “He’s airing the cow,”
Maria said. The cow trudged dutifully
behind. A milk cow was an asset precious enough to be displayed for
visitors, Arkady thought. All attention was fixed
on the animal’s plodding circuit up and down the street. Its hooves made a
sucking sound in the wet earth. Eva’s fingers played with
a scarf tucked into the collar of her lab coat. She wasn’t pretty in an
orthodox way; the contrast of such white skin and black hair was too exotic
and her eyes had, at least for Arkady, an
unforgiving gaze. “There’s no house here you
could use for more privacy?” Arkady asked. “Privacy? This is their
entertainment, their television, and this way they can all discuss their
medical problems like experts. These people are in their seventies and
eighties. I’m not going to operate on them except for something like a broken
leg. The state doesn’t have the money, instruments or clean blood to waste on
people their age. I’m not even supposed to be making calls, and Maria would
never go to a city, for fear they wouldn’t let her return here.” Arkady said, “She’s not supposed to be here
anyway. This is the Zone.” Eva turned toward the ladies
on the bench. “Only someone from Maria said, “At our age,
you go into the hospital, you don’t come out. Eva asked Arkady, “You’ve seen those television shows with the
bathing beauties dropped off on a tropical island to see if they can
survive?” She nodded to Maria and to her friends on the bench. “These are the
real survivors. The doctor introduced
them: Olga had a corrugated face and filmy glasses; Nina leaned on a crutch; Kiara had the angular features of a Viking, braids and
all. Their leader was Maria. “An investigator of what?”
Maria asked. Arkady said, “A body of a man was found at
the entrance of your village cemetery in the middle of May. I was hoping that
one of you might have seen or heard someone, or noticed something odd or
maybe a car.” “May was rainy,” Maria
said. “Was it at night?” Olga asked. “If it was at night and it was raining, who would even go
outside?” “Do any of you have dogs?” “No dogs,” Kiara said. “Wolves eat dogs,” said
Nina. “So I hear. Do you know a
family called Katamay? The son was in the militia
here.” The women shook their
heads. “Is the name Timofeyev familiar to you?” Arkady
asked. “I don’t believe you,” Eva
said. “You act like a real detective, like you’re in “Is the name Pasha Ivanov familiar to you?” Arkady
asked the women. Eva said, “You’re worse
than Alex. He values animals above people, but you’re worse. You’re just a
bureaucrat with a list of questions. These women have had their whole world
taken away. Their children and grandchildren are allowed to visit one day a
year. The Russians promised money, medicine, doctors. What do we get? Alex Gerasimov and you. At least he’s doing research. Why did “To get rid of me.” “I can see why. And what
have you found?” “Not much.” “How can that be? The
death rate here is twice normal. How many people died from the accident? Some
say eighty, some say eight thousand, some say half a
million. Did you know that the cancer rate around Chornobyl
is sixty-five times normal? Oh, you don’t want to hear this. This is so
tedious and depressing.” Was he in a staring
contest with her? This had to be like a falconer’s dilemma, holding a not
completely trained bird of prey on the wrist. “I did want to ask you a
few questions, maybe someplace else.” “No, Maria and the other
women can use a little amusement. We will all concentrate on one Russian
stiff.” Eva opened a pack of cigarettes and shared them with her patients.
“Go on.” “You do have drugs?” Arkady asked. “Yes, we do have some
medicine, not much, but some.” “Some has to be
refrigerated?” “Yes.” “And some frozen?” “One or two.” “Where?” Eva Kazka
took a deep draw on her cigarette. “In a freezer, obviously.” “Do you have one, or do
you use the freezer at the cafeteria?” “I have to admit, you have
a single-mindedness that must be very useful in your profession.” “Do you store medicine in
the cafeteria freezer?” “Yes.” “You saw the body in the
freezer?” “I see a lot of bodies. We
have more deaths than live births. Why not ask about that?” “You saw the body of LevTimofeyev.” “What if I did? I
certainly didn’t know who he was.” “And you left a note that
he hadn’t died of a heart attack.” Maria and the women on the
bench looked to Eva, Arkady and back as if a tennis
match had come to the village. Olga removed her glasses and wiped them.
“Details.” Eva said, “There was a
body dressed in a suit and wrapped in plastic. I’d never seen him before.
That’s all.” “People told you that he
had had a heart attack?” “I don’t remember.” Arkady said nothing. Sometimes it was better to wait, especially
with such an eager audience as Maria and her friends. “I suppose the kitchen
staff said he had a heart attack,” Eva said. “Who signed the death
certificate?” “Nobody. No one knew who
he was or how he died or how long he had been dead.” “But you’re fairly expert
in that. I hear you spent time in Eva’s eyes lit. “You have it backward. I was with a group of
doctors documenting Russian atrocities against the Chechen population. “Like slit throats?” “Exactly. The body in the
freezer had its throat cut with one stroke of a long sharp knife from behind.
From the angle of the cut, his head was pulled back, and he was kneeling or
seated, or the killer was at least two meters tall. Since his windpipe was
cut, he couldn’t have uttered a sound before dying, and if he was killed at
the cemetery here, no one would have heard a thing.” “The description said he
had been ‘disturbed by wolves.’ Meaning his face?” “It happens. It’s the
Zone. Anyway, I do not want to be involved in your investigation.” “So he was lying on his
back?” “I don’t know.” “Wouldn’t someone whose
throat was cut from behind be more likely to fall forward?” “I suppose so. All I saw
was the body in the freezer. This is like talking to a monomaniac. All you
can focus on in this enormous tragedy, where hundreds of thousands died and
continue to suffer, is one dead Russian.” The old man turned the cow
in the direction of the card table. Despite the heat, Roman Romanovich was buttoned into not one but two sweaters.
His pink, well-fed face and white bristles and the anxious smile he cast at
Maria as he approached suggested a man who had long ago learned that a good
wife was worth obeying. Eva asked Arkady, “Do you know how Roman tugged on Arkady’s sleeve. “Milk?” “He wants to know if you
would like to buy some milk,” Eva said. She twisted her scarf with her
fingers. “Would you like some milk from Roman’s cow?” “This cow?” “Yes. Absolutely fresh.” “After you.” Eva smiled. To Roman she said,
“Investigator Renko thanks you but must decline.
He’s allergic to milk.” “Thank you,” Arkady
said. “Think nothing of it,” said Eva. “He must come to dinner,” Maria said.
“We’ll give him decent food, not like they serve at the cafeteria. He seems a
nice man.” “No, I’m afraid the investigator is
going back to Life in the
zone and life for Arkady remains touch and go
throughout Wolves
Eat Dogs. Readers can count on Arkady to
patiently place one foot in front of the other, and pose one question after
another, and observe one thing after another as he patiently figures out what
has happened. Enjoy the pleasure of quickly turning all 350 pages of Wolves
Eat Dogs. Steve Hopkins,
January 25, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the February 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Wolves
Eat Dogs.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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