He Lover of Death, page 5
‘Well, what do you want, kid?’
Senka walked up to him, glanced round at the other lad, who was hanging about by the door, and said quietly, just like he’d been told to:
‘Death’s waiting, she’s desperate.’
Once he’d said it, he felt scared. What if Deadeye didn’t understand? What if he asked: ‘What’s she waiting for?’ Senka didn’t have a clue.
But Deadeye didn’t ask anything of the kind; instead he said to the other lad in a low, polite voice: ‘Mr Sprat, would you please be so good as to conceal your face behind the door.’
Senka realised that he’d told the other lad to push off, but Sprat didn’t seem to twig, and just stood there.
So Deadeye launched another falcon – a knife, that is – out of his right sleeve and it stuck in the doorpost, thwack, just an inch from Sprat’s ear. Then, the lad disappeared in a flash.
Deadeye examined Senka through his specs. The eyes behind the lenses were as pale and cold as two little lumps of ice. He took a square of folded paper out of his pocket and held it out. Then he said in a polite voice: ‘There you are, kid. Say I’ll call round tonight at about eight o’clock . . . No, wait.’
He turned towards the door and called: ‘Hey, Mr Sixer, are you still here?’
Sprat stuck his head back in through the door. So he had two nicknames, then, not just the one?
He sniffed and asked warily: ‘You won’t do that again with the knife, will you?’
Deadeye’s reply was impossible to understand: ‘I know the pen of gentle Parni is not in fashion in our day1 When is our rendezvous, by which I mean the meet with the Ghoul?’
Sprat-Sixer understood, though. ‘At seven,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ the odd man said with a nod. Then he turned to Senka. ‘No, I can’t make it at eight. Say I’ll be there at nine, or maybe not till ten.’
Then he turned away and started gazing at the icons again. Senka realised the conversation was over.
On his way back, cutting through the yards and alleys of Khitrovka to shorten the way, he thought: They’re the real thing, all right! It was no wonder the Prince was Moscow’s number-one bandit with eagles like that in his gang. He thought there was nothing he wouldn’t give for the chance to hang out in the den with them, like one of the boys.
Once he was past Khitrovka Lane, where the labourers were kipping in lines, Senka stopped under a withered poplar tree and unfolded the little package. He was curious to see what was so precious that Death was willing to hand over a fiver to get it.
White powder, it looked like saccharine. He licked it – sweetish, but it wasn’t saccharine, that was a lot sweeter.
He was so distracted, he didn’t see Tashka come walking up.
‘What’s this, Senka,’ she said, ‘are you doing candy cane now?’
That was when Senka finally twigged. Of course, it was cocaine, why hadn’t he guessed? That was why Death’s pupils were blacker than night. That was it, and that meant. . .
‘You don’t lick it, you sniff it up your nose,’ Tashka explained.
It was still early, so she wasn’t dolled up or wearing make-up, and she had her purse in her hand – she must be going to the shop.
‘Don’t do it, Senka,’ she said. ‘You’ll rot your brains away.’
But he still took a pinch anyway, stuck it in his nostril and breathed in as hard as he could. Why, it was disgusting! The tears streamed out of his eyes, and he sneezed and sneezed until his nose started running.
‘Well, you ninny, happy now?’ asked Tashka, wrinkling up her nose. ‘Chuck it, if you know what’s good for you. Why don’t you tell me what I’ve got here?’
And she pointed to her head. She had a daisy and two flowers that Senka didn’t recognise in her hair.
‘A meadow for cows, that’s what.’
‘It ain’t a meadow, it’s three messages. The marjoram signifies “I hate men”, the daisy signifies indifference and the silver-leaf signifies “cordially inclined”. Say I’m going with a customer who makes me feel sick. I stick the marjoram in my hair to show I despise him, and the thickhead’s none the wiser. Or I’m standing here with you, and I have the silver-leaf in my hair, because we’re mates.’
She took the other two out and left just the silver-leaf to make Senka feel happy.
‘And what do you use the indifference for?’
Tashka’s eyes glinted and she ran her tongue over her cracked lips. ‘That’s for when someone falls in love with me and starts giving me sweets and beads and stuff. I won’t send him packing, because maybe I like him, but I still have to keep my pride. So I stick on the daisy, let him suffer
‘Who’s the admirer?’ Senka snorted, wrapping up the cocaine the way it was before. He stuck it in his pocket, and something in there clicked – the green beads he’d lifted off the Chinee. So, since they were on the subject anyway, he said: ‘How would you like me to give you some beads without any courting?’
He took them out and waved them under Tashka’s nose. She lit up.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘they’re really lovely. And my favourite colour, “esmerald”, it’s called! Will you really give them to me?’
‘Yes, take them, I don’t mind.’
So he gave them to her – seventy kopecks was no great loss.
Tashka put the beads round her neck straight away. She gave Senka a quick peck on the cheek and legged it off home, as quick as she could – to get a look in the mirror. And Senka ran off too, to the Yauza Boulevard. Death was probably tired of waiting by now.
He showed her the little packet, keeping her at arm’s length, then put it back in his pocket.
She said: ‘What are you doing? Give it here, quick!’
Her eyes were all wet and watery, and her voice was shaking.
Senka said: ‘Ah, but what did you promise me? You write the Prince a note, so he’d take me into his gang.’
Death dashed at him and tried to take it by force, but she was wasting her time – Senka ran round the table to get away from her. After they’d played catch for a while, she begged him: ‘Give me it, you fiend, don’t torture me.’
Senka suddenly felt sorry for her: she was so beautiful, but so unhappy. That rotten powder was no good for her. And then it occurred to him: maybe the Prince wouldn’t listen to what a mamselle thought about important business, not even the lover he truly adored. Ah, but no, the lads had told him the Prince could never refuse her a thing.
While he was wondering whether to give her the cocaine or not, Death suddenly went limp and dropped her head. She sat down at the table and propped her forehead on her hands, like she was really, really tired, and said:
‘Oh, to hell with you, you little beast. You’ll grow up into a big bad wolf anyway.’
She gave a quiet moan, as if she was in pain. Then she took a scrap of paper, wrote something on it in pencil and tossed it to Senka.
‘Here, may you choke on it.’
When he read the note, he could hardly believe his luck. The sprawling handwriting said:
‘Prince,take this youngster on. He’s just the kind you need. Death.’
HOW SENKA SHOWED WHAT
HE WAS MADE OF
‘I need you, do I? What good are you to me?’
The Prince rubbed the dimple in his chin furiously and gave Senka a scorching glance from his black eyes. Senka cringed, but this was no time to be shy.
‘She told me, “Go to him, Speedy, don’t you have no doubts, you’ll definitely be useful to the Prince, I ought to know,” that’s what she said.’
Senka tried to look at the big man with fearless devotion, but his knees were trembling. The whole gang was standing behind him: Deadeye, Sprat-Sixer, the pair with the same face and another one with fat cheeks (it must have been him who was dozing with his devolvert in his hand). Only the cripple with no legs was missing.
The Prince’s lodgings in the Kazan were right at the end of the collidor that Senka had been led along the day before. From the room with the desecrated icons, where Deadeye flung his knives about, you just had to go a little bit farther and turn a corner, and there was a big room, with a separate bedroom. Senka saw the bedroom only through the half-open door (well, it was just an ordinary bedroom: a bed covered with a coloured counterpane, a flail – a spiked steel ball on a chain – lying on the floor, and that was all he could make out), but the Prince’s sitting room was really grand. The Persian carpet covering the whole floor, so incredibly fluffy it was like walking on moss in a forest; carved wooden chests along the walls (oh, there must be some fine stuff in there!); bottles of vodka and cognac in a row on the huge table, with silver goblets, a well-hacked ham and a jar of pickled cucumbers. Every now and then the Prince stuck his hand into this jar, fished out the cucumbers with the most pimples and crunched on them with relish, making Senka’s mouth water. The big boss’s face was handsome all right, but it looked a bit puffy and creased. He’d obviously done some hard drinking, and a fair bit of sleeping too.
The Prince wiped his mouth with the hem of his silk shirt. He picked up the note again.
‘Has she gone crazy, or what? As if she didn’t know I’ve got a full deck. I’m the King, right?’
He bent down one finger, and Deadeye said:
‘Soon you’ll have as many titles as His Majesty the Emperor. Prince by name and king by nature, and soon you’ll be an ace too. By the grace of God, Ace of all Moscow, King of Khitrovka and Prince of Piss-ups.’
Senka thought the bit about ‘piss-ups’ was too brazen by half, but the Prince liked the joke and roared with laughter. All the others chuckled along. Senka didn’t really get what was so amusing, but just to be on the safe side, he smiled too.
‘When I’m Ace, there’ll be no more banter like that,’ said the Prince, putting down the note and bending his fingers down as he carried on counting. ‘Death’s my Queen, right? You, Deadeye, are the Jack. Lardy’s the tenner, Bosun’s the niner. Maybe’s the eighter, Surely’s the sevener. This ragamuffin’s a sixer at best, and I’ve already got one of those. Right, Sprat?’
‘Yes,’ said the lad from the day before.
Now Senka realised what the Prince was on about. The lads had told him that real businessmen, the ones who lived by bandit laws, had gangs called ‘decks’, and every deck had its own set. A set was made up of eight bandits, and they all had their own position. The top brass was the ‘King’, who had a moll or ‘Queen’; then there was the ‘Jack’, a kind of deputy; and then came the gang members from tenner to sixer. And no one had more than eight in their gang, it had been that way ever since the old days. That must be where the name ‘Jack’ came from, because he often used a black jack.
Senka gave Deadeye a look of special respect: so you’re the Jack. On top of being the King’s right-hand man, the Jack was usually responsible for ‘wet jobs’ – killings, that is.
‘There are no vacancies available presently,’ said Deadeye, using fancy words as usual, but Senka understood what he meant, that there were no free places in the gang.
But strangely enough, the Prince didn’t throw the little squirt out. He just stood there, scratching his head.
‘Two sixers – what kind of deck’s that? Whatever will the Council say to that?’ The Prince sighed. ‘Oh, Death, my little darling, the things you do to me . . .’
And from the way he sighed, Senka twigged that though the Prince might grouse and grumble, he didn’t have the nerve not to do Death’s bidding, even though he was such a big hero. Senka cheered up, stopped feeling wary, straightened his shoulders and looked round at the bandits. He stood proud, as though to say: You can sort this little snag out yourselves, I’ve done my bit. It’s Death’s fault, anyway.
‘All right,’ said the Prince. ‘What’s your name? Speedy? You stay put for the time being, Speedy, without any number. We’ll work out where to put you later.’
Senka squeezed his eyes shut, he was so happy.
Maybe he didn’t have a number, but now he was a real bandit, and more than that, he was in the number-one top gang in all of Moscow! Now then, Prokha, now then, Mikheika, let’s see you choke on that! And as soon as he started getting his share of the swag, he could take Tashka as his moll, so she wouldn’t go lying with anyone and everyone. She could sit at home and lay out her flowers.
The Prince waved his hand towards the table, and everyone but Deadeye poured himself a glass of vodka or cognac and started drinking. Senka took a nip of the brown booze too, just to try it (it was horrible, far worse than any homebrew). Even though he was hungry, he didn’t take a single piece of the ham – he had to fit in right: play a lad who knew the rules, not a starving kid they picked up off the rubbish heap. He kept out of the way tactfully, watched and listened, didn’t butt into conversations – oh God forbid. And the businessmen didn’t even look at him – what would they want with a youngster like him? Only Sprat glanced at him a couple of times. Once he just looked, but the second time he winked. That was something to be grateful for, at least.
The Prince started telling the twins, the sevener and the eighter, about Death. ‘You haven’t been here long, Maybe and Surely, you still don’t know what the mamselle’s like. Sure, you’ve seen her, all right, but there’s more to her than that. When I tell you what I did to get her, you’ll understand. When her old fancy man, Yashka from Kostroma, took a dose of lead poisoning and she was free, I started to make a move. I’d had my eye set on her for a long time, but while Yashka was still alive, I didn’t dare do anything about it. Had great respect from the Council, he did, and back then I was just a simple robber. No deck, no decent den, I didn’t deal in wet jobs, or do any big-time stuff. Sure, I wasn’t exactly the lowest of the low in Khitrovka, but how could I compare with Yashka from Kostroma? But I still thought, come hell or high water, that doll’s got to be mine. That was the first time I did a pawnshop and clouted the watchman with my flail. People started talking about me, and the big loot started rolling in. I start sending her presents: gold, and all sorts of fancy china, and Japanese silk. She sends it all back. If I show up, she throws me out, doesn’t even want to talk to me.
‘But I’m patient, I understand I ’m not big enough for Death yet.
‘Okay, so then I held up this post wagon, beat two men to death. Took forty thousand.
‘I showed up at her place with a gypsy choir, at night. Forked out five hundred roubles to the coppers at the Myasnitsky station so they wouldn’t interfere. I left a satin box outside her door, and there was a diamond brooch in the box, this big it was.
‘And what came of it? The gypsies and their women sang themselves hoarse, and she didn’t open the door, didn’t even look out the window.
‘Well, I think, what the hell else do you want? It’s not money, it’s not presents, that much is clear. But what, then?
‘So I got the idea of trying a different approach. I knew Death was soft on kids. She sent money and clothes and all sorts of sweets to the Mariinsky Home, where the Khitrovka orphans go. Yashka the horse thief once gave her a hundred gold imperials in a basket of violets, and the crazy bint kept the flowers and gave the money to the nuns at the orphanage, so they could build a bathhouse.
‘Aha, I think to myself. If I can’t get you by hook, then I’ll get you by crook.
‘I bought thirty pounds of the very finest Swiss chocolate and three bolts of Holland cloth, and some calico for underclothes. I took it there in person and gave it to the Reverend Mother Manefa. Take it, I said, a present from the Prince to the orphans.’
Here the fat-faced man, the tenner, cleared his throat and interrupted the Prince’s story:
‘Uhu, a right royal present it was, we remember.’
The Prince hissed at him. ‘Lardy,’ he said, ‘don’t you go barging in and spoiling the story. Well, what happens? I go breezing round to Death’s place to see if she’ll treat me any different. She opens the door, only it would have been better if she hadn’t. She comes out, eyes blazing. Clear out and don’t come back, she shouts. Don’t you dare come anywhere near me, and all sorts of other stuff like that. She prods and pokes me out the door, after everything I’d done . . . I took offence real bad, that time. Started drinking –I was wandering round in a haze for a week. And while I was drunk the memory that really stung was the way I’d bought that lousy chocolate with my hard-earned money and even felt the cloth in the shop – to check the quality.’
‘Well, I still say they gave you that cloth for nothing,’ Lardy put in again.
But the Prince said: ‘That’s not the point. I’d tried so hard, my feelings were hurt. Right, I think, you’re too flighty altogether. This isn’t going right. Damn you for that cloth and chocolate. That night I climbed over the orphanage wall, took the window out, broke down the door of their storeroom and started hacking away. I tipped the chocolate out on the floor and stamped on it. I slashed the cloth to shreds – now let’s see you wear that! I cut all the calico to pieces. And I smashed up everything else they had in there. The watchman came to see what all the noise was about. “What are you doing, you bastard,” he yells, “you’re depriving the poor orphans!” Well, I stuck my blade straight in his heart, the blood splashed out all over my arm. I came out of the storeroom all covered in blood, threads hanging off me and my face as black as an Arab’s with chocolate. And there’s Mother Manefa coming straight at me, with a candle. Well, I did her in too. It’s all the same to me, I think, I’ve damned my soul anyway. So screw my soul and the life eternal. I didn’t want any kind of life at all without Death . . .’
‘Yes,’ said Lardy with a nod. ‘That set Moscow on its ear. You might have been drunk, but you didn’t leave any tracks or witnesses. In the end they realised it was you running wild, of course, but there was no way to prove it.’
The Prince laughed. ‘The important thing was that our lot found out about it straight away, and they told Death. When I got back from the orphanage I slept for two days straight, didn’t wake up once. And when I came round, they gave me a note from her, from Death. “Come to me, you’ll be mine” – that was what it said. So that’s what she’s like, Death. Just try to understand her.’
