by Sergey
“Frightened?”
“You are scared all the time. But it’s understandable. It’s pretty terrible here. Even Mishutka can feel it—he seems so sad all the time. May I take a little honey for him?”
“You may,” Aspirin said neutrally. “Tell me something, Alyona . . . They must have really scared you. No wonder you’re practically shaking at the mere sight of that.”
“Please don’t talk about him,” Alyona asked softly. “Not now.”
“Then you are scared.”
“I am,” the girl admitted sadly.
“What sort of an organization do they have? A cult?” Aspirin asked with a great deal of caution. “Hypnosis, perhaps? Demon worshippers?”
Alyona curled up in an easy chair, covering her knees with a towel, looking like a little terry cloth snow pile.
“Are you afraid of demons?” she asked staring into Aspirin’s eyes.
“What is there to fear?” Aspirin giggled. “It’s people I am afraid of. Like your buddy there.”
“He’s not human.”
“Is he a demon?” Aspirin giggled again. “And you spoke with him in demon language?”
Silently, the girl studied her left hand with a hangnail on the index finger.
“Do you have manicure scissors?”
“In the bathroom,” Aspirin responded automatically. “Just admit it, you and he are in cahoots, aren’t you? You’ve played a nice trick on me, haven’t you? He wouldn’t have taken you anyway, right?”
The girl climbed off the chair and turned toward the bathroom, the end of the towel trailing after her.
“He would have taken me,” she said without looking at Aspirin. “You are a coward and a traitor—without a doubt. But you helped me once again.
“And that matters.”
The bathroom door locked behind her.
Tuesday
“And so, my darlings, Tuesday morning is a Tuesday morning, and it is always quite sad, because here we are facing a new working day, but there is a tiny little circumstance that should comfort both you and me—and the said circumstance is that it is not a Monday morning, hence we’re one baby step closer to our Holy Grail, also known as the weekend . . .”
This sort of rubbish came out of him naturally; he was quite capable of producing this string of words in his sleep or under anesthesia. One of his buddies once pointed out—not without a hint of envy—that Aspirin’s verbal ejaculation had nothing to do with the higher function of his nervous system, but was rather a purely physiological act, like sneezing or defecation, and the joy it brought his listeners was of a purely physiological nature.
That buddy of his wasn’t entirely wrong.
“And here we have our first caller on the line. Let’s see—who do we have here? Inna is on the line, hello, Inna. Are you home or at work? You’re home? See here, Inna, the entire country is envious of you, because the rest of the country is at work at this moment. We’re going to play a game, you know the rules, but let me remind the rest of our listeners—I am going to think of a word, and Inna has to figure out which word I am thinking about. Inna, you have one minute, you can ask me questions, and I will answer. And—go.”
Today was Tuesday, and he was supposed to be at Kuklabuck at eight in the evening. Aspirin hadn’t expected to get any rest the night before, but by half past midnight he was gone—and didn’t wake up until six in the morning.
Alyona was asleep in the chair when he left his bedroom, wrapped in the towel, the chestnut brown teddy bear with the plastic eyes pressed against her chest. A small T-shirt, jeans, striped socks, and white panties were drying on the radiator. Aspirin stood in the bathroom for a long time, staring at the clothes, trying to understand what to do, where to run, and whom to call.
At eight in the morning he was live on the air. Half an hour before that he managed to get hold of Whiskas.
“You should have told me the truth from the start.” Whiskas did not hide his annoyance. “What the hell was all this nonsense about some random girl, and you picking her up out of pity?”
“She’s not my daughter! I am telling you—I was set up. Her documents are fake. They speak some sort of weird language. Albanian, or something like that. They are going to murder me, and because of her they will inherit my apartment!”
“That’s paranoia,” Whiskas snorted into the phone. “You are not exactly feeble, you are a public figure of sorts, so why would they want to take a risk like that?”
“When you see my cold body in the morgue . . .”
“Take your Prozac and let me sleep. I worked all night, you know.”
Whiskas hung up.
Aspirin wasn’t feeling all that well, so he decided not to drive and instead called a cab; he had twenty minutes before the start of his show. The girl in the towel woke up and raised her head.
“I am leaving,” Aspirin said. “Get dressed and get out of here. I am not leaving you alone in the apartment.”
“Where should I go?” she asked, still not quite awake.
“I don’t care where you go. To the playground. All children need fresh air. Quickly, my cab is waiting.”
“Can I come with you?” The girl was already in the bathroom, which he would have given her credit for, if he was feeling generous.
He wasn’t.
“No. I am going to work.”
“My jeans are still wet.”
“They will dry on you. Or go without pants, your choice.”
“May I please stay?”
“No.”
“May I sit in your office? I will be very quiet.”
“I said no!” Aspirin barked. “You will sit outside!”
The girl came out of the bathroom. The dark spots weren’t completely gone from her T-shirt—on a closer look, one could trace where the blood had dripped from her nose. Aspirin winced.
“Move it.”
He pushed her out of the apartment and emitted a mental sigh of relief—here was a hint of progress. The girl was out of his home and her questionable birth certificate was in Aspirin’s bag. That left very little in terms of possible pressure on him. Almost none.
“Wait! I forgot Mishutka.”
“He can wait.” Aspirin pushed the elevator button.
Twelve minutes remained until the live broadcast. The car was waiting by the entrance.
“Sit here.” He pushed the girl toward the bench.
“May I please come with you?” she asked once more.
“You may not.”
He slammed the car door. The cabbie drove confidently, passing on the right, crossing the solid line—Aspirin would never be brave enough to drive like that. At the studio he was met with reproach, but he ignored it; he slammed the soundproof door, slipped into his place in front of the microphone, pulled on headphones, and began, “And good morning to you, my darlings! DJ Aspirin is with you this morning, and that means that your boring hours at the office, in front of the monitor, behind the wheel, behind the desk, or any other place you consider your working space just became a little bit less gray, a little more colorful because with you, right here, right now, is Radio Sweetheart! Radio Sweetheart reaches out with its soft paw, touches your ears, and here you are—at the top of the hour, our next artist assures you that everything will be just peachy.”
He turned off his mic and received a stream of invectives from his producer. He asked for a cup of coffee. To the producer he said, unnecessarily, “Oh, Julia, if you only knew what happened to me.”
To Julia’s rather logical inquiry about what exactly happened, he only sighed heavily and said nothing.
Some time had passed. Pop music played. Young’uns called and asked for more pop music. Aspirin ate sandwiches, drank coffee, and thought about pop music taking over, even the young people, and that tonight Kuklabuck was hosting an interesting band that was riding the hip-hop wave and doing it well. Those guys had recorded two videos, but had no chance of making it on television, because pop music had taken over . . . and his
thoughts went around and around like this.
By the end of the fourth hour, he’d forgotten about the girl and about his own problems. He no longer thought of anything at all. Words poured out of him like sweetened water.
“Inna, your first question!”
“Is it a male or a female?”
“Bravo! You must have a degree in linguistics! It is neuter.”
“Does it exist at home or outside?”
“Both—it can be found at home or outside. Anything else?”
“Is it soft or hard?”
“Hmm . . . that depends. It can be hard. But not too hard. It can be cut with a knife.”
“Is it animate or inanimate?”
“Oooh, Inna! How would you cut something animate with a knife? Let’s say it used to be animate, but now it is not. What else?”
“Is it standing or lying down?”
“Usually it’s lying down.”
A pause filled with heavy breathing.
“Inna, your time is almost up, and all of us are waiting for your answer. If you guess right, you will be going to the movies tonight—two tickets are waiting for you. Only a few seconds left . . . Here comes the signal! Time’s up! So what is it that I was thinking about?”
“A bench?” the invisible Inna suggested.
Even his ever-patient producer rolled her eyes.
“Well,” Aspirin said. “Inna, I do believe you’ve earned those tickets. We care about the effort, not the results. Besides, you know the word ‘inanimate,’ and that’s impressive all on its own. I was thinking of bacon, bacon was my word, simple, oh so simple. Stay on the line, so we can tell you how to claim your prize!”
It was time for the weather report. It promised thunderstorms and torrential downpours. After the weather report there would be a five-minute ad block, which meant Aspirin had time for a quick cigarette with his coffee.
In his shirt pocket, his cell phone twitched and played the theme from Star Wars.
“Aspirin, for God’s sake! Is your phone not on mute?”
“Julia, easy, we’re not on air right now,” he murmured, pulling out the phone. He didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Alexey.” It took Aspirin a few seconds to recognize the voice of Vasya the concierge. “Your place . . . well, there is this situation in your apartment, and we need you to come home.”
“What happened?” Aspirin felt cold.
“I think you’ve been robbed.”
Aspirin realized he’d forgotten to activate his alarm—again.
“If you think I am being robbed, you should call the police.”
“But it’s the screaming . . .”
“Who is screaming? The robbers?”
“Yes . . . I thought . . . you haven’t left anyone in the apartment, have you?”
Alyona’s sad face flashed in front of Aspirin’s eyes; he thought of the way she stared at the cab pulling away.
“The girl . . . ,” he murmured.
“Your girl is here, I took her into my room. So, should I call the police?”
“Call them!” Aspirin yelled. “You should have done that right away!”
The line went dead.
A police car and an ambulance were parked by the entrance, surrounded by the curious neighbors—because how could anyone stay away? Voices caught his ear:
“Alexey, is that your apartment?”
“What happened?”
“Did you hear the screams?”
A stretcher covered with a sheet was being carried out at that very moment. For a second Aspirin thought it was a dead body. A moment later he saw a jaundiced, blood-covered face. “The dead body,” he moaned and swore under his breath.
“Is your apartment number fifty-four?” an officer asked him. He nodded numbly. “This way, please.”
The door to his place was ajar; Alyona stood at the threshold, and she did not seem frightened in the least. On the contrary, she smiled as soon as she saw Aspirin. “You cannot imagine what happened here!”
The rug in front of the door was covered with some kind of wood chips or shavings. Did they drill around the lock?
The door opened fully. A round-cheeked policeman peeked out. “Are you the owner?”
“I am. What happened?”
“Come in.”
Aspirin stepped inside and nearly passed out. The hallway was covered in blood. Not in that there was a lot of blood (which there was), but blood was everywhere—the mirror, the floor, the walls, the furniture. His apartment had been turned into an abattoir.
Alyona stood nearby, seemingly unphased.
“You should take the child out of here,” the cop said. “It is a crime scene after all.”
“Go sit outside,” Aspirin managed through rubbery lips.
“I sat outside all day,” Alyona snapped. “And what’s so bad in here? So there is some blood, big deal.”
Aspirin caught the cop’s eyes. “Children these days,” he croaked. “Movies, games . . . blood everywhere.”
“Your identification,” the cop demanded coldly.
Aspirin dug up his driver’s license. The cop studied the document thoroughly and skeptically, as if not quite believing its authenticity.
“The child’s identification?”
Aspirin barely contained a howl. Glancing at Alyona (she was smiling), he found the laminated birth certificate in his bag. The cop studied Alyona’s identification just as thoroughly.
“Proof of residency?”
“What happened here?” Aspirin said, tired of the questions already, his voice slightly higher and thinner than he wanted. “What happened to my apartment?”
Men in light blue scrubs came out of the living room carrying another stretcher. The stretcher was turned sideways, pushing Aspirin into the blood-splattered wall. He saw a young face with marks of degradation; the man on the stretcher was unconscious. Three deep scratches crossed his cheek and one ear dangled on a thin strip of skin.
“We’re off, all right?” one of the men in scrubs said, holding the door with his foot.
“Go ahead,” the cop allowed.
The door closed behind them.
Aspirin wished he could have gone with them, and never returned.
“Could they have been mentally disturbed?” Aspirin asked hopefully, taking in the scene, and not seeing how anything else might be possible. Or, at least—as Alyona stood next to him—not wanting to imagine anything else.
The senior police officer screwed up his face with distaste. The junior officer asked, “What about the weapon?”
Aspirin took yet another look around the apartment. Shelves where he kept his CDs had been turned over as if someone had clutched them trying to get up. There was blood on the sofa, and brown spots covered the rug. Everything else seemed undisturbed—his books, paintings, a souvenir candlestick from Venice. Nothing was broken or moved from its place.
“Don’t touch anything until the forensic examination is completed,” the junior police officer said for the umpteenth time.
“Of course I’m not going to touch anything,” he said in disgust. “But how am I supposed to sleep in here?”
“Sleep in the bedroom. It’s clean.”
“Thanks a lot,” Aspirin sighed.
Obviously, he wasn’t going to make it to Kuklabuck tonight. Aspirin called Kostya Foma, his colleague cum adversary, and begged him to take his place, come up with an alternative plan, and figure something out. He described the events of the day in such vivid colors that even Foma seemed to have believed him. At least he promised to help.
“Just think about it,” the officer said after Aspirin hung up. “We arrive, the locks are broken, the apartment is knee-deep in blood, and these two people are screaming, blood-curdling screams—‘Help us!’ ‘Let us out!’—that sort of thing. Your door is nice, solid oak—heavy lock and all that. And when we finally managed to open it . . . well, it was shocking. Each man had multiple wounds made with sharp objects—like someone was
trying to shred them.”
“Who?”
“Exactly—who?”
“Well, it wasn’t me! I was on the air,” Aspirin said quickly.
The cop looked at him in surprise.
“I’m on the radio. DJ Aspirin.”
The cop now gazed at him with a look of puzzlement. Trying to smooth over the awkward moment, Aspirin asked, “So what does this all mean? What do you think happened?”
The officer shrugged. “One is still unconscious. The other one says that yes, they targeted your apartment—broke the lock, entered, started ransacking it. And then they were attacked by a monster. That’s exactly what he said—a monster. With fangs and claws. A furry one. Standing on its hind legs—the size of a man.”
Aspirin thought about the pit bull. “It’s delirium tremens, clearly.”
He didn’t think it was clear, at all.
The police didn’t seem to think so either. “What about the weapon?” the younger police officer asked again.
“I have no idea. Did they attack each other?” Aspirin said.
“Why would they do that?”
“How else do you explain all this . . . mess!”
“Don’t worry,” Alyona said cheerfully, standing at the threshold, as usual. “I will wash up everything, it’ll be like new.”
She pressed her teddy bear closer to her chest.
“Brave kid,” the senior officer murmured. “You’re lucky she was outside.”
“Yes,” Aspirin said. “Quite lucky.”
“Is your apartment equipped with a security system?” the younger officer asked.
“Yes. But I forgot to turn it on.”
“That’s a shame.” The senior officer sounded judgmental. “It’s because of forgetful people such as yourself—”
“What? I asked for this?”
The officer shrugged. “You might as well have left the door open.”
“And that explains all the blood?” Aspirin was starting to get angry.
Another shrug. “Just saying.” The senior officer looked down at his notes. “By the way, where is your dog?”
“I’ve never had dogs. Or cats, or birds, or hamsters,” Aspirin stated.