Yalta Boulevard by Olen Steinhauer

caught up to Jan Soroka, smiled, and nodded at Lia. Worry drew the edges of her puffy lips lower. Petre, whose face was marred by a brown blemish across the left cheek—a birthmark—looked up at him and squinted.
    “Do you have a minute?”
    Jan didn’t slow his pace. “Right now?”
    “Just a few questions. About Pavel Jast.”
    “I don’t know him very well.”
    “But you’ve talked with him.”
    “A couple times, yes. Everyone has to talk to him at one time or another.”
    “But about me,” said Brano. “Did you talk with him about me?”
    Jan stopped, while Lia continued on with Petre. “Why do you think we talked about you?”
    “Because he tried to frame me for murder.”
    “And I would be involved?”
    “We both know you’re involved in the end.”
    Jan looked at the ground, but there was no nervousness in him. He said, “Jast was spending a lot of time around my house. He’s an obvious guy. So I approached him myself.”
    “He never told me this.”
    “Of course he didn’t. It was embarrassing for him. I told him that if he wanted to talk with me, we would go have a beer and do it like men.”
    “What did he want to know?”
    “The same things you want to know, Comrade Sev.”
    “And what did you say about me?”
    “I asked what he knew about you. This was a few days before you arrived, but I thought perhaps you would show up. You’re Bóbrka’s most famous son.”
    “I’m hardly that.”
    “Now you’re being modest. It’s a funny thing to see.”
    Brano looked at him with an obscure face. “And what did he say about me?”
    “He acted like he didn’t know anything about you. At first. But then he admitted he might be able to contact you when you came.”
    “And this is what you wanted? To contact me?”
    “I considered it. But you took care of it for me. You found me out in the fields. How did you do that?”
    “Why did you want to contact me?”
    “Because I don’t believe in avoiding problems, Comrade Sev. I believe in facing them.”
    “Is that why you ran off to Vienna?”
    Jan’s lip twitched as he glanced at his wife and son waiting beyond the bus stop. “Funny, Pavel Jast didn’t believe me, either. I went to Szuha. But yes, you’re right. I was avoiding problems—running away from my marriage.”
    “How much longer do you plan to stay here?”
    “In Bóbrka? Not much longer. I’ll need to return to the Capital and get back to work soon.”
    “Okay,” said Brano. “We’ll talk later.”
    “I’ve no doubt.” Jan raised a hand, then jogged to catch up with his family.
    At Bieniek’s, he collected the papers on anyone he knew. His mother, Pavel Jast, the Sorokas, Klara and Lucjan, Zygmunt the bread man, Eugen, and Captain Tadeusz Rasko. Then he spread the papers across the floor and sat on the couch. He felt strongly that the answer was here, because, despite Bieniek’s inept conclusions, his eye for detail was unerring. He was a camera-eye to the anomalies of Bóbrka.
    He picked up the one closest to him— MYMKO, EUGEN —and learned that his mother’s assistant had masturbated in the cemetery on the cold night of 15 November. Bieniek was not impressed. On 31 December, during the New Year’s gathering in front of the church, he had been particularly forward with the young daughter of Piotr Stepniak; his attempts, though, had been rebuffed.
    Brano reached for WITASZEWSKI, LUCJAN .
    His brother-in-law had begun attending Pavel Jast’s games of luck in December. Bieniek speculated that life with Klara was not what it could have been, because why else would he leave her for Jast’s smoke-filled shack three nights a week? Bieniek was a romantic, but he was also practical. He noted that during most of any given day, Lucjan could be found drinking with his workers on the grounds of the still-under-construction Ignacy Lukasiewicz Petroleum Industry Museum instead of working.
    Captain Tadeusz Rasko was hardly controversial, as evidenced by only two brief