Read Online Butterfly Skin by Sergey Kuznetsov - Free Book Online

rightly, there were plenty of psychotic killers in the Soviet Union, and everyone knew about them, even though there was never anything in the papers.”
    “Aha,” Alexei says with a nod, “my parents told me about Mosgas.”
    “Who?” Ksenia asks, and Alexei is surprised: five years is a big difference. An entirely different generation, they never knew the Soviet regime, they learned about psychotic killers from
The Silence of the Lambs
. He explains:
    “Well, he pretended to work for the Moscow gas supply, checking for leaks. He used to ring the doorbell and say ‘Mosgas,’ and when people opened the door, he hacked them to death with an axe. There was even a joke about it. The husband comes to the door: ‘Who’s there?’ – ‘Mosgas.’ – ‘Come in, come in. The axe is in the bathroom, my mother-in-law’s in the kitchen.’”
    Ksenia smiles and says:
    “But they caught him when he went to a building where they already had electric cookers.”
    A strange kind of joke, Alexei thinks and then, seeing his baffled expression, Ksenia explains.
    “I’ve never had a gas cooker. Why would I open the door if I heard the word ‘Mosgas’? For me that would be as strange as opening the door to the words ‘Mosmunicanal’ or “Transsib.’”
    She puts down her empty cup and reaches for the dessert. Thin, strong hands with the nails bitten down, not so nice, but if she took care of herself, she’d be way sexy. A ring at the door. Mosmunicanal. Ksenia in the doorway, the psycho just outside. Alexei thinks her icy tone and steely composure would probably be of help.
    “
…
But to get back to the question of whether the same murderer is responsible for all these crimes
,” she reads aloud, “
then the killer’s ostentatious behavior could be misleading: once the press has written about this, any murderer could fake the psychotic’s signature. I think our press was rather hasty in spreading panic about this.
”
    “Interesting logic,” says Ksenia. “We shouldn’t spread panic because there might be several psychos in Moscow and not just one. We certainly have some remarkable people living in this city.”
    “Well, a killer doesn’t have to be a psycho,” says Alexei, taking his interviewee’s side, “it could be a domestic killing that the murderer disguises as one of a series.”
    “A domestic killing with the sexual organs cut out and signs of torture,” says Ksenia, wiping her fingers with a napkin. “Like I said, we certainly have some remarkable people living in this city.”
    Alexei nods, then can’t resist asking:
    “But it’s a good interview, isn’t it?”
    Just look, he thinks, six months ago I’d never have believed anyone who told me this girl’s opinion would matter to me. Maybe it doesn’t even matter now: all I’m doing is asking the boss’s opinion about new material. That’s perfectly normal.
    “Yes, it’s good,” Ksenia replies with a nod, “but this is already the tenth interview on this story. It’s all done right, it’s all good, but what’s going to make the reader, well, I don’t know, remember it, I suppose? Make it different from the other dozen?”
    “Of course,” Alexei says, “it would be better if we caught the murderer. But that only happens in Hollywood movies.”
    “No,” replies Ksenia, getting up. “It’s not our job to catch the murderer. But the thought nagging away at me is how we can come up with something else, make this a serious subject of discussion.”
    Five years’ difference, oh yeah. Make this a serious subject. As if it was still the late eighties and Perestroika, when people really were interested in serious subjects.
    “And another thing,” Ksenia says, “There’s something I wanted to ask you, not to do with work. What do you know about this man?” And she mentions the name.
    “Why do you want to know?” Alexei asks.
    “It’s not for me,” says Ksenia. “It’s for a girlfriend of mine. She’s wondering whether