by Pavel Kornev
My hands were shaking. The key just wouldn't fit into the hole. While I was messing with the lock, a neighbor came outside.
"Someone was looking for you," she said, overcoming the distaste that could so easily be read on her stretched-out face. "A commanding type. Solid build."
It was as if the lady was surprised that such a respectable person would know someone like me, who invites women to his place and opens champagne in the middle of the night, but I just nodded and hurried to hide in my house. I ran up to the second floor, walked into the bedroom and pulled the satchel out from under my bed, which contained the electricity gun I’d snatched in the vault.
I simply couldn't see another way to incline the hypnotist to working together. He was too slippery a guy, too skilled a manipulator. And I couldn't hit him; I know that if I did, I'd lose control a bit, not knowing my own strength, and send him to meet his forefathers. And who could tell me anything then?
Just like that I would come, do my thing and leave. Quiet, calm and without emotions.
Quiet, calm, without emotions. Quiet and calm. Without emotions.
I stood for a few minutes in the entryway, meditating, then hid the double-barrel pistol under my jacket and went out into the yard. I took a look around and walked across the square to the lake quay, where Grandier’s apartment was located.
The street was built-up with two-story buildings of four apartments each, meticulously homogenous, like gymnasts in uniform. Before each of them were fashionable, identically green lawns. Behind the windows, there were hanging pots filled with colorful flowers. The small back yards were separated from one another with green shrubbery and the post boxes were painted an identical shade of blue.
Everywhere you looked, there was calm and delight.
I slowed my gait opposite house number four, looked around and quickly ran up onto the porch. The shared hallway was not very long: one door to the left, one to the right, then a stairwell to the second floor. There was a little platform with a small balcony that came out into the back yard, then two more doors.
I knocked on the right one and stood to the side, pressed up against the wall.
The mime lived an unconcerned life; the peaceful atmosphere of the quiet street spoke to that unambiguously. The lock clicked and he cracked the door, saw no one, leaned out and looked into the hall. I struck him in the throat.
Quickly and abruptly, I aimed to get the bulge of his Adam's apple between my splayed-out thumb and pointer finger.
Roman Grandier's eyes bulged in silence and I squeezed his neck in my hands; I kicked him aside and walked into the room.
"Roman, who's there?" I heard from the neighboring door.
I jerked the double-barreled pistol up from under my jacket and hurried toward the voice. A thick rug muted the sound of my footsteps. The mime, meanwhile, didn't manage to warn his friend, squeezing out just an indistinct wheeze. If Roman had not collapsed to the floor senseless a moment later, my appearance would have been a complete surprise to Maestro Marlini, but even still, the hypnotist was only throwing open his window when I caught his bare back in my sights and pressed down on the trigger.
With a muted clap, the room was clouded with powder char. The electrode dart had hit between his shoulder blades and abruptly jerked through him with an electric shock. The strong blow threw Marlini chest-first on the window-sill. He frantically latched into it, but quickly started shuddering in minor convulsions and slinked onto the floor.
The electricity turned out stronger than his incredible self-control.
"Electricity is a pretty reliable thing," I thought, returning to the entryway. Grandier had already begun to get up off the floor, but I didn't waste another round on him, just smacked him in the head with my pistol handle. After that, I locked the door and dragged the limp card-taker into the bedroom.
Marlini had reached the window sill again by that time. I twisted his wrist and dragged him further into the room. The belt of a robe made a perfect replacement for handcuffs; I used them to crane the hypnotist's hands over his head, winding through the iron back of the Queen-sized bed. It was the only one in the room.
The maestro, still reeling from the electric shock, turned his head and I hurried to catch him by the neck. I could sense a frequent pulse with my fingers. I pressed slightly and the hypnotist woke up, then drifted off again. I brought him to his senses with a harsh slap of my free hand.
I wasn't prepared to give up the initiative in this conversation, so I said with a smirk:
"Did you know that constrictors don't strangle their victims, but simply squeeze until the blood stops flowing?"
The maestro opened his mouth, but didn't manage to say anything: my fingers were squeezing his neck again, and Marlini's head fell involuntarily to his chest.
And here's the thing: a man might be a genius, but if his brain isn't getting enough oxygen, he won't even be able to put two words together.
I stopped pressing his artery and warned the hypnotist:
"If you try to pull any tricks, I'll squeeze and not let go. You might even like how it feels. But after a certain time, your brain will die and you will turn into a drooling idiot. A vegetable. Blink if you understand."
Marlini's eyelashes shuddered. I sensed a fear fluttering up in his soul and slightly weakened my grasp.
"What is happening here?" I asked and immediately understood that I had made a mistake, asking too general a question. I corrected myself, pressing into the hypnotist's neck. "No, no. Don't answer. Better say..."
My thoughts got confused in my head, and I simply could not decide where to start the questioning.
"Why?" I growled in the end. "Why did you do all this?"
"I don't know," the maestro whispered. "I was paid."
"By whom and for what?"
"Who paid me, I don't know. Money and letters came through a courier..."
"And what were you hired to do?"
"Control people, isn't it obvious?" the hypnotist cringed. "Forcing them to make a certain decision at the right time, and making them imagine it was by choice..."
I slightly balled up my fingers, forcing the hypnotist to go silent. His even and measured tone was making me sleepy.
"What were your instructions about me?" I asked, getting to the important stuff.
My illustrious talent was gradually reeling in the maestro’s growing sense of fear, but his self-control had no weak points, and it took a surprisingly long time. Fortunately, the lack of oxygen had an effect on the hypnotist’s mental capacities, and not a positive one, so he didn't deny anything.
"Get you into town, lead you to the cabaret to meet Black Lily, then give you the chance to do her a favor..."
I squirmed.
"And what does she have to do with this?" I interrupted the hypnotist.
"I don't know! From time to time, I had to use some control on her, but nothing serious."
"For example?"
"The last time, she was meant to end up at the spiritualist seance," Marlini answered, breathing heavily. "I'm not lying! Devil! I was just trying to earn my keep! It wasn't my idea!"
For some reason, I didn’t doubt the maestro's sincerity one bit.
"What are you supposed to push me toward now?" I asked, continuing my interrogation.
"You're spent material, Leopold! No more instructions, just keep you in the city! The police can handle this without us! They had an easy enough time finding the Indian’s body, don't you think?" The hypnotist laughed hoarsely and immediately started hissing in pain. "Let me go..."
Without weakening my grasp, I bowed over him and said weightily:
"And now listen carefully to me. Your answer to the next question will determine your fate. If you lie, there are no good endings for you. Got it? Blink if you've got it."
The maestro blinked.
"How was I found? And why me precisely? Why was there no fear to torch my dirigible?"
They hypnotist said only one word:
"Zuri
ch!"
I exhaled noisily.
"So, that was you? You're the one who sent the killer?"
"It was I!" Marlini confirmed calmly. "Nothing personal, it was just that you could see my deepest intention, and I could not get that out of my mind. It was eating away at me day after day, breaking my concentration and making it hard to think. My cellmate suggested a solution and it sounded good to me. His connections, my money... You really should have died!"
"But everything went wrong..."
The hypnotist smiled:
"After taking three bullets in the back, you stood up and disemboweled the shooter with your bare hands. I was impressed. Very impressed! I didn't rush the second attempt and shuffled you back into the deck for future use. And now, that time has come! Revenge is a dish best served co..."
Marlini cut off half-word, started fidgeting and jerking his bound hands. His eyes bulged. I counted to three and only let up on his neck after that.
"More details! Tell me more about the reason you dragged me into this matter!"
The hypnotist rasped for some time, his mouth open wide, then looked at me with hatred and said:
"My employer was seeking a malefic. One who could take the power of an infernal creature and redirect it elsewhere. But malefics are too dangerous. They're all total psychos. I simply would never manage to keep one of them under my control! And so I suggested you. After all, I know you are capable of such things. I know everything about you!"
"Shut up!" I demanded, thinking over what I'd heard.
Take the strength of Maxwell's demon and redirect it...
At who? How? Why? I only had more questions.
But the hypnotist wouldn't settle down:
"To me, boy, you're an open book! It would cost me nothing to impel you to leave for the New World on the route of my choosing, and whenever I want. But the cabaret? Haven't you realized why the steward put on a film in your dirigible showing a performance by Isadora Duncan? You really don't know? It was to draw you into the Three Lilies, like a lamb to the slaughter! Your consciousness contains a veritable horde of suggestions that were all by my hand! And, now, you'll never figure out what you did of your own volition, and what I made happen!"
"Shut your mouth!" I demanded, trying to settle my heartbeat. It was making me feel nasty. Sweat cropped up on my face. Marlini's ceaseless chatter had given birth to an unbearable migraine.
"But I can help," the hypnotist offered insinuatingly. "Want to know all my moves? We can come to an agreement. Believe me, it's in both of our best interests!"
"Believe you? A born liar? I haven't totally lost my mind yet!"
"There's a notebook," Marlini admitted. "My diary. Everything is written there. After all, you want to know if your friend forgave you on his own, or had to be mind-controlled, right? And whether she really liked you, and who was just an image of my creation? And figuring out your own feelings? Oh, I had to do a lot of work there! And I could also tell you how to gain the love of that red-headed thing, the daughter of the inspector general. I spent a good deal of time digging around in her head, too..."
The maestro was a masterful manipulator, but he understood nothing of fears. To him, the most important thing in the world was his own exceptionality. No matter what happened, he needed to control everyone and everything around him. All I needed was ignorance of a few things. And if I had help from some outside interference to overcome some worn-out phobias and shameful weaknesses, I didn't see anything wrong with that. In fact, I appreciated it. It was like visiting a psychoanalyst. After all, people pay pretty good money for meetings with Jung and Freud, what did I have to be ashamed of? Absolutely nothing.
And if something happened beyond my will, then what the devil?! A result is a result! And the most important thing was – I didn't want to change anything. Let everything remain as is. I was satisfied. I was feeling fine with my situation as it was. I didn’t want to know anything.
But I didn't explain any of that to the hypnotist, just clenched my fingers. The maestro started rasping, his legs curling up. Very soon, he went limp, his dark eyes going dead, then he himself became... less than living.
After that, I took a seat on the bed and started wiping my hands with a handkerchief in detachment. The leprechaun came out of nowhere and carefully walked up to the hypnotist, trying to feel a pulse. Not able to, he stared at me.
"Bugger!" he squeezed out. "You killed him! Leo, you killed this man!"
The leprechaun ran headlong to the window, grabbed a geranium by the stalk and pulled it out of the pot, together with the roots and soil. He then ripped off the flower. After setting the plant back down, the pipsqueak turned and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his soiled green camisole.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" he moaned out. "You weren't protecting yourself, or trying to stop a criminal, you just flew off the rails. Leo, this isn't even about money, jealousy or revenge! You just up and killed this man."
"Well, yeah," I answered calmly. "I just up and killed him. And now, he won't crawl into my head ever again. No one will."
"Cretin! You killed him out of fear! This is the first time you've killed because of your own fear! You allowed him to choose for you! And with your talent! Have you gone totally batty?"
I just shrugged my shoulders.
Overall, the leprechaun was right. I was afraid that the maestro would keep manipulating me. I was afraid to hear the truth. I got afraid and allowed fear to get the upper hand.
There was no way this could end well.
But what choice did I have? What was left for me to do?
I asked as much to the leprechaun. He didn't answer at all, just cursed out and went into the kitchen. Surprisingly laconic. He was probably afraid to fly out the window.
My head started spinning. I started breathing measuredly, trying to calm down. After that, I forced myself to cast off the unwelcome internal excruciation, got up from the bed and picked up the electricity gun from the floor.
The leprechaun returned from the kitchen with a bulbous bottle. He looked at the label in disgust and cringed:
"Strawberry liqueur! Bugger! What do you expect from guys like this, eh?" But he still threw back his head and pecked at the mouth, pouring the strong sweet garbage into his belly. Then, when a knock came at the door, he gagged and spewed liqueur around half the room.
"Open up, police!" barked out from the corridor, and my heart ran off on its heels, but only for the moment, in surprise.
The constables, who'd been called because of the loud banging sounds, were obviously under the impression this was just a typical family conflict, or they'd have simply broken the door down, which is why I grabbed the unconscious mime under the shoulders, hoisted him up on the window sill and threw him right into a flower bed.
A dampened crash came from outside, and I heard a shout from behind the door:
"Someone jumped out the window!" Then, I heard their boot soles patter down the stairs.
I waited for the constables to run outside, then went into the hall and slammed the door behind me. The risk remained of running into neighbors, but I was lucky on that count – there was no one on the second story landing. I quickly went down, left the building and started walking down the sidewalk.
No one stopped me or shouted out. All I heard was racy cursing from the guardians of public order, who were trying to drag the fallen tenant from the planter.
I was sure what would happen next: no one would even listen to this buffoon with priors. His friend's murder would be put on him, whether the facts lined up or not.
That didn't worry me.
I started feeling bad when I got home. And as for how – my knees started giving out, and my arms were shivering. My face covered in perspiration. I washed up and leaned heavily on the sink basin, but the feeling of throwing up had already passed. Why did I start feeling like that? The murder? Nonsense! This wasn’t the first time I’d been up to my elbows in blood.
The only thing
it could have been was the very astute observation made by the leprechaun. That was all wrong. Today was the first time I'd killed out of fear, with a sober mind, calculated and cynical. I did the right thing, but the wrong way. And no matter how many times I mentally returned to the situation, I couldn't even see the slightest chance of things going differently.
Incidentally, it didn’t matter. After all, it wasn't all about the hypnotist. Someone was playing with me. Someone wanted to harness my abilities.
Liliana was somehow caught up in the story. It wasn't for nothing the hypnotist had been made to acquaint me with her. And also, the notes with the demand to take part in the gala-concert must have been sent purposefully. I had no idea what the point was in all that, but I was certain of one thing: if I could find Lily before the performance and take her to the city, I would be breaking this person's game once and for all.
Or was that exactly what they expected me to do?
It was very strange to doubt the freedom of my will and doubly strange to believe that all my actions were predetermined by someone else. For a certain moment, I felt pity that I hadn't agreed to look at the hypnotist's journal, but I instantly threw that thought out of my mind. Empty regrets wouldn't change anything now.
I adjusted my neckerchief, put on my dark glasses and left the house.
It was time to get down to business. And if Liliana didn't appreciate my impulse, what could I do? I'd have to drag her by force.
Probably, I had gotten too deeply immersed in my own thoughts, so when someone called out to me from behind, "Lev Borisovich!" I even shuddered in surprise.
It was Krasin. He was waving his hand and careening unsafely out of the wide-open doors of a horse-drawn carriage that was bearing down on me. Yemelyan Nikiforovich must have been the very same "commanding and solid" gentleman who'd tried to find me this morning.
"Lev Borisovich! I've practically sent dogs out to search for you!" Krasin said confirming this guess and jumping heavily to the earth.
"And what is it, Yemelyan Nikiforovich?"
"Tickets!" Krasin laughed. "I've got two tickets to the gala-concert tonight! Won't you join me?"