Jostling in the empty metro car, Nastya mentally drew a chart of next steps. First: clear up the question of the kiosks security. Why was it so vulnerable that night? Did none of the kiosks there have an alarm system or just that one? Who could have known that the kiosk would be unprotected that night?
Second: why was that particular kiosk robbed? Not another in another part of town on another street? Because no one was guarding it or because the thief lived nearby?
Third: how did the thief know that the kiosk had the tapes he wanted? Did he come by and check it out? Or did he break in here knowing that the selection was pretty much the same all over town?
Fourth: did this kiosk rent tapes? If so, perhaps the thief had rented from them, more than once, and thats why he knew their inventory. And if he frequented the place, he might have overheard information on the night-time security. All the video rental places had to be checked, they had to get their log books and copy down the names of people who rented those films. It was an ocean of work, but it had to be done. It was a real clue.
Fifth: why did he steal the tapes instead of simply buying them without any hassles? Too expensive? And keeping boys on drugs for weeks and weeks wasnt expensive? Or he could have rented them, which was much cheaper, and made copies. Of course, he needed a second VCR for that. Didnt he know anyone who could lend him one?
The man who robbed the kiosk didnt fit Nastyas idea of the man who abducted the boys and kept them for long periods in his home prison and stuffed them full of drugs. Of course, she shouldnt be trying to tie them together. The logic of madmen did not resemble the logic of normal people. Perhaps it was essential for him to steal the tapes. Maybe he got high on it.
When Nastya got out at the Shchelkovskaya station, it was dark. The workload and the many cigarettes of the day had given her a headache and she wanted a little walk. She started past the bus stop, but remembered that it was late and that Lyoshka would certainly be worried. Better take the bus. She had not borrowed her husbands car, so Alexei could be sure that she had not gone to see Solovyov. She wouldnt have gone all that way without a car. But he would be worried anyway. Especially since last year she was almost killed right in front of the house when she was coming home late from work. That time she was saved by a miracle, a man who then died a few days afterward. There wouldnt be a second miracle, no point in counting on that.
The bus ride was four stops. Nastya got out and into the wake of a couple headed in her direction. The road from the stop to the house was unpleasant in every way unlit, deserted, full of potholes, so that a late evening walk brought no joy. The self-engrossed couple walked Nastya to her entrance and moved on, probably in search of happiness or at least some privacy.
It was dark in the entryway, too, but not as scary since it was home base. As she got out of the elevator on her floor, she suddenly flashed on Solovyovs house. The spacious hallway, the wide porch.
Her keys were hiding in the depths of her enormous bag, and Nastya couldnt get her hands on them. She gave up the fruitless search and rang the bell. To her surprise, it was quiet on the other side of the door. Maybe Lyoshka was watching TV and did not hear the bell? She rang again. No reaction. She had to find her keys.
Alexei was not home. Nastya remembered that their car had not been parked downstairs. That was strange and somehow unpleasant. She undressed quickly, wrapped up in a warm robe, and sat down in the kitchen in front of a large bowl of cut-up tomatoes and cucumbers with parsley and dill.
She liked her apartment, where she was always happy, cozy, and peaceful. Of course, it was tiny, a studio, where two people couldnt fit in the hallway, with a small bathroom, but Nastya didnt feel crowded. Even together with Lyoshka she felt comfortable. It was only after seeing Daydream Estates that her own apartment started seeming wrong. And not because Nastya had never seen good housing before. Not at all. Just take her half-brothers apartment a palace, it took an hour to walk through it. She visited Alexander once or twice a month, but that never made her think the apartment on Shchelkovskaya was alien, dark, and ridiculous. Maybe because her brother was not like her in any way. He had a different education, a different worldview, a different profession. Alexander Kamensky was a businessman, a banker, a wealthy energetic man with a good head for commerce. So the fact that he lived in a different way seemed perfectly natural to her.
But Volodya Solovyov was of the same breed as Nastya. A man with a talent for foreign languages who made his living that way. An ordinary liberal arts person. Not an MBA. A translator. Nastya could work just like that in a publishing house, translating books, if she had not chosen the police, rotting corpses, weeping victims, and the dubious pleasures of exposing criminals. The fact that she could be living like Solovyov made her eye more critical as she looked around her apartment.
Why do I live in a hovel? she thought, chewing her salad without tasting it. Why? Im not poor, by general standards. Doctors and teachers make much less, not to mention pensioners. Where does the money go? I have just enough to last from paycheck to paycheck. I guess I just dont handle it right. And heres another problem: I dont have any free time. That means that I have to buy expensive food. When I was in college, I used to buy kidneys at the butcher store, which were very cheap but took a half day to prepare. First you had to soak them for four hours, then boil them, and then roast them. I dont have time for that now. Im lucky to get home by ten and I leave at eight in the morning.
She didnt have time to shop during the day and she had to shop in the convenience stalls near the metro, which were very expensive. In the olden days you could buy sausage that was mostly filler, disgusting stuff, but if you worked on it for a half hour you ended up with something edible. First you had to cook it in water with spices, then slice it and place on a thick piece of bread, add ketchup, sprinkle on chopped herbs and garlic, cover with a slice of cheese and then pop into the oven or a covered skillet over low heat. After those manipulations the starchy sausage could be used for food with some pleasure, but it all took time. Who had time when you got home at ten fainting with hunger? Thats why you buy prosciutto, which costs three times as much, but is delicious and does not require cooking. You slice and eat.
Anyway, even if Nastya started economizing on food, she would never save enough for a house like Solovyovs. It was a different level of income. She could not understand why a person knowing three languages could live in such a comfortable and beautiful house while another person knowing five languages and also of use to society by doing hard, dirty but very necessary work, why this second person was forced to live in a cramped tiny apartment. She did not doubt for a minute that her former lover was an honest man. He wasnt a crook or a cheat. And his money was clean, honestly earned. There was an injustice, an incorrectness, in our life today, thats all. And the result of that incorrectness was the difference between Nastya and Solovyov, which, really, should not have existed at all.
She caught herself thinking about Solovyov with pleasure. And of the fact that she would go sec him again tomorrow.
You are wrong, Anastasia, she said wearily to herself. You should be working, but you keep thinking about pleasure. Toss that out of your head, youre not of an age when mistakes are easily forgiven. Especially, the second time around.