by Pavel Kornev
"Drinking by one's lonesome is bad form," she noted, looking around the mess the leprechaun had made. "You could have called me."
"I don't think that's a good idea," I answered, tying my neckerchief.
"Will you drink with me?"
"I'd drink you both under the table."
The girl smiled and asked:
"You can't control him at all?"
I didn't answer, though, just stored my Roth-Steyr in my belt holster, stuck my Cerberus in my pocket and headed for the exit.
Elizabeth-Maria handed me the rag bundle and advised:
"You could stand to shave."
"Certainly," I called back, rubbing my scruffy chin with my fingers, but I still didn't waste the time getting myself in order.
I went down to the first floor, walked out onto the porch and looked at the sky. Up above, there were wisps of cloud darting about. They threatened to completely cover the sky in very short order, but there was no rain yet, just the shaking tops of trees and sharp gusts of piercing wind.
It was brisk; too brisk for this time of year. I could now feel the incoming bad weather without any storm warnings whatsoever. But whether the storm would break out this evening, or tomorrow or at the end of the week, was still a complete mystery. And so, I had a nearly impossible time figuring out what clothes I should wear into town.
I decided to save myself the new expenses and returned home to change into my old suit. I pulled boots on my feet, and threw my canvas jacket on over top. Only in the realm of headwear did I remain true to form, taking my derby hat down off the shelf.
Elizabeth-Maria was looking at me contentiously, but didn't make any commentary on my appearance, just asking:
"Should I expect you for lunch, dear?"
"No, I'll be back by dinner time," I answered and went out the door, exerting a certain amount of effort to hold back a "I hope."
The last thing I wanted was to burden myself with the excessive attention of the succubus. In recent days, the infernal creature had been behaving herself entirely incorrectly, and I was even starting to get the creeping suspicion that the image of a sappy beautiful red-head I created had started to make an impact on the underworld native. But I shouldn't delude myself. The only thing stopping the beast dwelling inside Elizabeth-Maria from tearing me to pieces was our agreement.
FIRST, I WENT to visit Ramon Miro.
Glancing warily from side to side, I went down Calvary to Dürer-Platz, caught a cab there and ordered him to drive to the coalhouses.
Ramon's shift hadn't yet managed to finish, and I found him at his guard post. My hulking partner threw himself back into his chair and was holding an icepack on his face. But when I appeared, he threw it on the table and winced in shame. Or was he wincing in pain?
I first noticed that my friend had a decently-sized bruise around one eye, and his nose was swollen. I leaned up to the doorframe and shook my head:
"Rough night, eh?"
My hulking partner stayed silent.
"Who did that to you?" I asked, reformulating my question.
"Doesn't matter."
"This isn't connected with our dealings, I hope? It wasn't our former colleagues working you over, was it?"
"Not them," Ramon declared and, his right hand raised, showed me his scraped knuckles.
It was a convincing enough argument, and I only clarified:
"Were you asked where we went after the Chinese Quarter?"
"Yeah, some red-headed goon came by. A detective sergeant, I think."
"He came here?"
"No, to my house. As I’m sure you understand, I didn't tell many people about my new place of employment."
"And what did you tell him?"
"Everything as we agreed."
"So, you fought with someone else?"
"That's enough, Leo!" Ramon flared up. "Stop!" He picked up his damp ice bag again, placed it against his cheek and asked: "How's the reward coming?"
I just chuckled back:
"The reward will come through soon enough. I'd rather you tell me what happened to your face."
Ramon sighed fatefully and confessed:
"It’s from an underground fistfight. They paid me two hundred francs. Now can we drop it?"
"You need money that badly?" I grew surprised.
My hulking partner got up from the table and started pacing from corner to corner as he finished his water glass.
"My cousin, who has a workshop in Foundry Town," he sighed, "is planning to buy the building next to his. If I can find six thousand by the end of the month, he'll cut me in on the profits."
"Six thousand?" I snorted. "Well, well."
"One thousand I've already got saved up," Ramon said. "I'll scrape together another five hundred somehow. Three thousand from you, right? Nothing changed?"
I opened my wallet and pulled out my partner's share. Demonstratively counting the bills, I handed them to Ramon.
"Take this."
"Great!" Ramon's face instantly lit up as he raked in the money. "The Judeans didn't try to cheat you?"
"They're a business-like folk," I shrugged my shoulders and noted significantly: "So, that means you have to hunt down another fifteen hundred?"
"I can handle it," the hulk barked.
"Before the end of the month?" I questioned.
Ramon cursed out in anger and asked:
"Leo, what do you want from me?"
"I've got a job. Won't take more than a day or two. I'll pay five hundred."
My friend clearly didn't want to get caught up in another adventure, and he inquired without any interest:
"What kind of work?"
"As usual, I need cover."
"Have you tracked down the Count?"
"No, I am preparing to track down the strangler."
"Forget it!" Ramon exploded. "That degenerate would eat us bones and all without so much as choking!"
I peeled back from the doorframe, dusted off a dry old stool, sat on it and said just one word:
"Flamethrower."
"What?" the hulk was taken aback.
"Flamethrower," I repeated. "I have a flamethrower."
"And you're planning to use it in the city?" Ramon asked, making a "screw loose" gesture. "Have you gone totally mad?"
"I hope it won't reach that point. I took one such monster down last night at home without any flamethrower."
"At your house?" Ramon was taken aback.
"At my house," I confirmed calmly. "And I don't think he was the last. So, it's in your interest to help me burn out their nest. Just imagine the kind of nastiness they could dream up."
"Devilry!" my hulking partner exclaimed, then stayed silent for a long time. Afterward, he clarified: "You’ll pay five hundred and you've got a flamethrower?"
"If we actually have to use it, I'll toss you another couple hundred. Even the inspector general doesn't make seven hundred a day!"
"He doesn't have to take these kinds of risks!" Ramon got down off his chair and walked around his post. "Alright, what about your uncle?"
"He's hiding, but sooner or later he'll have to reach out. I've got him right here!" I said, showing my friend a tightly clenched fist.
Ramon nodded and voiced his counter-offer:
"One thousand per day."
"Five hundred."
"Leo, thanks to you, I almost kicked the bucket yesterday!"
"And who saved you?"
"And who lured me into that mess, more like?"
There was a certain rationality in my friend's words, but I wasn't going to pay such an insane sum.
"Five hundred, Ramon. Five hundred and not a centime more. I'm not financially solvent enough to offer better."
"Five hundred is too little," said my partner, not wanting to meet me half-way. "Why take such risks? Five hundred is two fights in the ring!"
"Sure, but think about what will become of your countenance after those two fights!" I reminded him, twisting my fingers before my face.
/> "At least I won't be strangled by a malefic!"
"Alright!" I relented. "You can have a thousand! But only if you have to shoot. Five hundred and five hundred. Agreed?"
"Hands in."
I got up from the stool and leaned on my cane.
"Get the armored vehicle in order and come after me to the Charming Bacchante."
"And the flamethrower?"
"It'll all be there."
I said. After giving Ramon a salute, I went outside.
IT WAS TOO EARLY to rustle up the right people, so after the coalhouses, I headed to Albert Brandt's.
But I didn't go up to see the poet. I first stopped into a barber shop not far away, then took a seat on the street table under the cabaret’s awning and asked the owner's sleepy nephew to bring me coffee, sugar and a saucer of cream. I decided I'd put that with the croissants I bought on the way and have breakfast.
The weather went bad right before my eyes. There were little ripples of molten lead scurrying about the canal. The wind blew down the chimneys, and the cloth awning buffeted. The sky finally was stretched over with dark clouds. I found it surprisingly pleasant to drink the sweet hot coffee with milk and feel like a normal person.
Albert Brandt appeared when there were just crumbs remaining of the croissants.
"You could have come up," he grumbled out, wrapped up tight with a blanket around his shoulders.
"You’re already up?" I asked in surprise, looking at the time. "This is early for you."
"This is my kind of weather," Albert explained, going into the cabaret’s bar for some mulled wine and returning to the table. "You look like you didn't sleep well, Leo," he noted.
"I didn't sleep well," I laughed back with a nervous smirk.
"Problems?"
I just held my finger above my head.
"Can I help in any way?" my friend asked.
"I'll manage on my own."
"Are you sure?"
"You understand, Albert," I sighed after finishing my coffee, "I feel like I'm running on a rail. And now, I can't get off. Either I run to the finish line, or I die. There isn't a third option."
"Is it all that serious?"
"I don't know," I laughed. "I just don't know. I'm just not sure of anything anymore. My talent has gone rogue, and it seems that everything around me is a figment of my imagination, and as soon as I turn around, reality dissolves into a gray slum."
The poet took a long sip of his glass of hot wine, then said as he looked out at the canal:
"Everyone is visited by such thoughts from time to time, Leo."
"But, unlike them, I could actually pull that off."
"I don't think you have such a twisted imagination," said Albert Brandt, shaking his head. "Leo, curses! Read the papers! Could you seriously have imagined all that? Explosions, strikes, wars! The world is falling apart. The world order is crumbling. The Empire is splitting at the seams! And the miracles of science? Every day something new happens, every day!"
"I do not claim the role of creator," I replied with a shrug of my shoulders. "I'm just moping."
Albert stared at me in determination, then finished his mulled wine in one long gulp and suggested:
"If you want, I could take you to Baron Dürer's reception."
"I want to, but I shouldn't," I refused.
"Why not, if I may ask?" Albert squinted, rubbing his sand-colored beard. In the end, his blue eyes lit up, as if my illustrious friend was intending to use his gift of persuasion.
I shook my head.
"First off, it wouldn't be very polite of me to impose on you," I announced to the poet. "You were, after all, planning to take the lady of your heart, right?"
"Incognito," Albert confirmed. "But that doesn't matter. True friendship, Leopold..."
"Second, I don't want to. I don't want to see Elizabeth-Maria with her fiancé."
"You could at least try..."
"No!" I cut him off. "I cannot. And third, you're forgetting about the rail. I'm not exaggerating when I say I'm not feeling right. These affairs cannot bear delay. I'll be busy today."
"You won't be free by four?"
"No."
"Alas. Dürer's receptions are simply unforgettable."
"The aluminum king can allow himself many extravagances," I shrugged my shoulders. "Do you know if he's related to the Dürer?"
"I have no idea," Albert replied, waving it off frivolously.
"Are you going to read the poem about Procrustes?" I then asked.
Albert started thinking.
"No," he decided. "First, I've got to whip it into shape."
I nodded, looking all around in contemplation, then glanced at the clock.
Ramon was late, and I didn't like that one bit.
But just as soon as I started worrying, around the corner came the armored vehicle to the crackling of its powder engine. The unwieldy self-propelled carriage crawled unhurriedly along the embankment and turned down the neighboring street; I then gathered my things.
"See you tomorrow!" said Albert, extending his hand to say farewell.
The poet held me back and warned:
"If you need help..."
"I know who to turn to," I laughed and walked off after the armored vehicle, leaning on my cane now not so much because my leg hurt as because I'd grown accustomed. My leg had almost totally stopped bothering me today.
When I'd climbed into the passenger seat, Ramon, sitting behind the wheel, noted with reproach:
"You were in no hurry!"
"You either," I said, tapping my finger on the clock face.
"I had time to wash the mud off the carriage while I waited for you," Ramon shrugged. "I filled the trotyl and poured water into the radiator, too. And plus, I had to go home to change clothes."
The former constable had chosen his clothing, a cloak with police patches removed and a peaked cap with no insignia, by design: many locals would not realize this was only a former police officer if we had to stop on a lively street or leave the car somewhere.
"I hope you didn't park the armored car in your own yard?"
"Who do you take me for?" the hulk objected, turning off the narrow street onto a boulevard. "I parked it two blocks away."
"We'll have to get rid of it," I decided. "Otherwise, they might connect us with the robbery of my uncle's estate. We left tire racks."
Ramon gave a nervous shiver and suggested:
"Well, maybe we should put it in the river?"
"Maybe, but it’ll have to be at night," I sighed. After that, I told him: "Turn your head."
Ramon got surprised, but did it.
"You've got quite the bruise," I chuckled.
"It'll be gone soon," he frowned and barked: "Tell me where to go."
I told him the address, and my partner laughed:
"Well then, I’m glad we’ll be in an armored vehicle!"
"I don't think there'll be problems."
"Leo!" Ramon gasped. "You're a quarter Russian, and already quite the handful. There are a countless number of such people there!"
"Let's go, already."
I’d decided that first, we would pay a visit to Sergei Kravets, the tattoo artist from the neighborhood settled primarily by Russians and Poles. The old man knew tattoos like no one else. It was another question as to whether he would be frank with us, though. I had big doubts on that account. But it was worth a try.
AFTER ARRIVING, Ramon acted like police normally act on raids. He blocked off the intersection with the armored vehicle, dragged out the semi-automatic rifle from the back seat and stood up near the car holding it ready. A light drizzle was now coming down, and that played into our hands. Patrolmen didn't like such weather, and even the most cautious among them preferred to wait out their shift in warm and dry liquor-houses. The risk of finding former colleagues today was minimal.
"Just don't take long," Ramon warned me, looking nervously around.
"If something happens, shoot into the air," I warned him a
nd walked into the boot-maker's shop.
"It's been a long time, Leo," the old craftsman sighed bitterly. "I can't tell. Are you still a cop or not?"
"That’s a complicated question," I answered, pulling out the wrapped piece of Moor's skin from my pocket. "I need your help."
"I see that's one of your habits," Sergei Kravets pursed his lips.
"I'll try not to bother you in the future," I promised and unfolded the fabric. "But now, I'm interested in finding out who might have done these fresh tattoos."
In shock, the old man stared at the piece of black skin and even backed up against the wall.
"Get out of here, Leo!" He demanded. "Just get out of here on good terms!"
"Please don't tell me this was your work."
Kravets caught his breath, dripping some kind of aromatic infusion into a cup with his shaking hand, and draining a few gulps.
"I didn’t do this," he then sighed.
"But you know the man who did?"
"This is beyond the pale!" the old man flew into a rage. "You could get life in a work-camp for that, Leo! I'll tell you what that is! Egyptian magic! And also, you cut off a person's skin! Antiscientific activity, spying and murder! And you came with that to me? This is high treason!"
I looked expressively at the old boot-maker and gave a compassionate nod.
"All the more reason to be surprised, Sergei, that you keep such things in your workshop."
"Me?" Kravets was taken aback. "You brought it here!"
"Not at all," I shook my head.
"You can't do this to me! You aren't even a cop anymore!"
"Look outside..."
The old man just shrugged. There was no way he could’ve missed the crackling of the powder engine.
"Either answer my questions here, or in the Newton-Markt," I then told him. "I, for one, prefer to save us all time."
The bluff worked. Sergei Kravets frowned and grumbled:
"This is the last time I help you, Leo. The last time! Don't you ever come around again!"
"I don't remember this happening before..."
"This is the first and last time!" the old boot-maker cut me off. He took an electric torch from one of the shelves, turned it on and, in the electric light, the faded gray tattoos lit up silver.
"Witchcraft," Sergei grumbled. "I don't associate with such people."