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and protective.
    â€œI know you?” he said.
    â€œInspector Karpo. Police.”
    Two little girls, about ten or eleven, in matching school dresses strolled by arm in arm and giggled at the two men, whispering.
    â€œIt’s just dominoes,” Mikiyovich said, holding up a double two to prove his point. “I’m not gambling.”
    â€œThe man who wept,” Karpo said. “The sniper.”
    Mikiyovich let out a small sigh of relief and gummed a bite of sandwich.
    â€œI told the other man from the police everything,” Mikiyovich said, looking at his sandwich, the tiles, anything to avoid the tall man who blocked the sun. “I’m on my lunch break. I’ve only got—”
    â€œI was told I could find you here,” Karpo interrupted. Karpo had read the report of the interview. It had been brief, and had he any other reasonable leads, he would not have bothered with this requestioning, at least not yet, but the chance existed that a new lead might arise.
    Mikiyovich shrugged, resigned. He wondered if the man above him had only one arm or was scratching his stomach.
    â€œHe wept,” Mikiyovich said, raising his arms, the remnant of sandwich in one hand, a domino in the other. “I was getting some air on the roof at nine.”
    â€œYou went to the roof to drink,” Karpo corrected.
    â€œNever,” Mikiyovich said indignantly.
    â€œYou had been warned about getting drunk on duty, so you went up to the roof,” Karpo went on. “If you lie to me again, we go to Petrovka for a talk.”
    â€œI went to the roof to drink,” the man said, shifting himself inside of his slightly oversized uniform.
    â€œAnd,” Karpo prompted.
    Behind them on the Prospekt a Zaporozhets-968 automobile tried to pass a bus and caught a piece of the bus’s rear fender. Bus driver and car driver raised their fists at each other, and the car sped on.
    â€œThere’s nothing to tell,” Mikiyovich said, sighing. “In the dark I heard something, a snap, something, maybe a gunshot, maybe not. It came from the far end of the roof overlooking the front of the hotel.”
    â€œYou saw nothing?” Karpo said.
    â€œNothing,” Mikiyovich said, shaking his head firmly to emphasize his lack of information. “Too dark and I was not curious. I am not a coward. I was in the army. I have a medal for the Battle of Leningrad.”
    â€œAnd you knew Lenin,” Karpo said without a trace of sarcasm.
    â€œI saw him once when I was a boy,” the man said proudly.
    â€œI do not doubt that you are a hero,” Karpo said. “What did you hear?”
    â€œCrying, just crying.”
    â€œMan or woman? “
    â€œWho knows?”
    â€œGuess,” Karpo prodded, moving slightly so the sun would fall directly on the man as he tried to look up at the policeman.
    â€œA man,” Mikiyovich said.
    â€œOld, young?”
    â€œMore young than old,” the man said. “I’m guessing.”
    â€œBig or small man?” Karpo went on.
    â€œBig or small—how should I know? Can I see in the darkness?”
    â€œDid it sound like a big or small man? The weeping, any movement.”
    â€œA regular man,” the old man said. “He wept. He coughed. A regular man.”
    â€œHe coughed?” Karpo asked.
    â€œHe coughed,” Mikiyovich agreed, coughing to demonstrate how insignificant the sound was.
    â€œWhat kind of cough?”
    â€œWhat kind of cough?” the old man repeated as if he were talking to a madman but remembering that this was a police madman. “I don’t—”
    â€œDeep, the cough of a smoker, a sick cough?”
    â€œThe first time a little cough, more like clearing the throat, and the second time a cough like when you have the grippe. Who can remember such things?”
    â€œYou remembered,” Karpo said, turning his back and walking away.
    Mikiyovich shrugged his shoulders