by Pavel Kornev
The snack-shop was called The Phoenix. I already knew it, but never felt much like myself on these little streets.
"He'll be in at one," an elderly waiter wearing a white apron told me. He was standing at the entrance door and looking outside through a rain-splashed window. And he was speaking, naturally, not about the chef in the kitchen.
I glanced at my timepiece and hung my derby-hat and cloak on a free hook on the rack. Then I took a seat at the window, which gave me a view of the whole intersection, and I thought about what to order.
"Tea and blini with honey," I said when the waiter arrived, much to my own surprise, "and potato vareniki. With salo and fried onions."
My father and I had come into The Phoenix once every month or two. First, we would knock on the unlabeled door across the intersection, then we would come here. And despite our chronic lack of funds, dad was never cheap and ordered all the sweets I ever asked for. Pastries with whipped cream, sweet pies, rooster-shaped lollypops, ice-cream...
While waiting for my order, I pulled a pile of papers from my briefcase and looked them all over quickly, paying special attention to the crime blotter. But no, there was no mention of our attempt to detain the werewolf, nor the explosion outside the city. Not in the Atlantic Telegraph, the Capital Times or the Bulletin of the Empire, which was to say nothing of the Stock-Market Bulletin.
Nothing. Silence.
Seemingly as one, all the newspapers’ top headlines were dedicated to Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison’s upcoming visit to New Babylon; the sharp-tongued newspapermen were declaring almost directly that the Sublime Electricity conference was fated to end in bloodshed. There was a bit less written about the fact that the heir to the throne was once again in the hospital for observation, but they couldn't sensationalize that story any further no matter how hard they tried. Everyone had learned of Crown Princess Anna's weak heart soon after her birth.
At that moment, the waiter placed a deep dish of vareniki on the table in front of me and a little saucer of sour cream.
"Shall I bring the rest now?" He inquired.
"Post haste," I nodded, and soon before me there was a Russian-style teapot, a dish of blini and a little pot of honey.
I closed my eyes, enjoyed the fragrant aromas of my childhood, gulped it all down, then, without any remorse whatsoever, stood to my feet, threw a rumpled fiver on the edge of the table and set about putting on my coat and hat.
The waiter didn't say a word. He remembered me from times gone by.
As I already said, these were the very same people and the very same faces; nothing ever changed here.
Without buttoning up my cloak, I crossed the street and, without knocking, the door swung open. Not long after that, a hunch-backed man in a gray rain slicker came through it. His head jumped, ducking under the low door jamb. He stood up straight and announced:
"I have a few questions."
The hunch-backed bootmaker looked me from bottom to top and smiled.
"Not nice ones, I suppose?" He supposed. "I heard you became a policeman, Leo."
"Everything flows, everything changes," I brushed it off and shrugged my shoulders. I then set my briefcase on the edge of the table and took my package out of it, which was just barely starting to thaw out.
The old craftsman turned the piece of canvas over, and raised his confused gaze to me.
"What is that, Leo?" He pushed away the illustrious gentleman's forearm, which had been torn out in the explosion.
"I need to know who made this tattoo," I said calmly, as if we were talking about shoe repair.
His trade as a bootmaker had never brought much money in this quarter, and Sergei Kravets made ends meet by doing tattoos for local criminals. Every time the police found a dead body covered with tattoos, they would go to the bootmaker, demanding that he tell them the name of the victim. He never told them a thing, but he would immediately lock up his shop and go off to tell the bad news to the victim's kin.
I knew perfectly well of his principles, but had no doubt whatsoever that I would get an answer in any case.
The craftsman threw himself back into his chair and looked at me with an incomprehensible expression. In his weak eyes, I could see reflections of the kerosene lamp.
"That wouldn’t be right," he declared.
"It was you who said the questions would be unpleasant," I reminded him.
The craftsman shook his head.
"They say you're not a policeman anymore," he declared pointedly.
"Everything flows. Everything changes." I repeated.
"Leo, did you kill this man?"
I just shrugged my shoulders, neither giving a 'yes' nor a 'no.'
I simply didn't know the answer to the question.
Sergei Kravets came to his own conclusions on what that meant, lit another lamp and got out a powerful magnifying glass. He studied the tattooed rune and announced:
"This is very old work."
"How old?"
"Based on what I can see, the man lived most of his life with it."
I nodded. That was most likely true. And in that this man was older than seventy, the man who had made it was long dead now.
"I will not tell you any names," Kravets continued as I expected. He then went silent and added: "You know something, Leo? This could actually have been done by anyone."
"What do you mean?"
"The symbol is flawless. There isn't a single smudge. If you want my opinion, this is not a tattoo in the traditional sense. It's a kind of brand. Someone arranged lots of needles together in a special stamp."
"I see," I sighed and clarified: "Anything else?"
"No," the craftsman shook his head.
I rolled the arm up in canvas and returned the package to the briefcase.
"There isn't anything else you want to ask?" Kravets stopped me.
The question hit a sore point. I turned slowly and leaned on the door frame.
"You don't know the answer!" I retorted to the craftsman. "He wouldn't have told you!"
"You're right," confirmed the old boot-maker.
"Then what are you talking about?"
My father had sent me to get my tattoos here exclusively. He had never explained, and I still couldn't decide for myself if it was all just the raving of a drunk, or if my tattoos had some sort of sacral hidden meaning.
"The left arm," Kravets stated. He left a sketch for the left arm and even paid in advance.
"No," I answered and quickly went out the door.
No, no, no.
I was not going to go through that again.
I needed answers. Answers, not more riddles.
On the street, I threw the severed arm down the first gutter opening I came across.
WHEN I CAME INTO the Charming Bacchante, I was chilly, soaking, and hungry. There were blini and vareniki dancing before my eyes the whole way there. By the end of my journey, it even started clouding my vision a bit. In the cabaret, I asked them to make me a few sandwiches and an herbal tea. I took a nut pudding that caught my eye and walked up to Albert's apartment holding a tray laden with food.
The poet was working. Based on the sweeping movement of his arms, he was drawing, but when I arrived, he immediately put his notebook in the upper drawer of his desk and even locked it with a key.
I caught the aroma of women's perfume and couldn't resist a smirk:
"Am I to understand that your unknown beauty decided to pay a visit to this den of iniquity?"
"You don't understand the first thing about real feelings!" Albert waved it off and wondered caustically: "Are you alone today, or has your imaginary friend come along again?"
"You're missing him already?"
"Touché!" Albert Brandt threw up his hands and asked: "What have you brought?"
"Two sandwiches, some nut pudding..."
"News!" The poet interrupted me. "What is the news about Procrustes?"
I frowned, finished my glass of herbal infusion and advised him:
"Forget about Procrustes. You'd be better off writing an ode to the Sublime Electricity. Tesla and Edison are coming here for a visit."
"Tesla and Edison come and go. Procrustes remains."
"Procrustes died a long time ago."
Albert grew offended and turned to the window. I just shrugged my shoulders and started eating. I then took the emptied tray and put it in the bin, where the billiard ball I'd brought from the Chinese Quarter was still lying, and I articulated obligingly:
"By the way, Alexander Dyak was a huge help."
"How nice for you!" The poet grumbled, looking outside.
"Come off it!"
"Leopold, you're surprising me!" Albert exploded. "You say you know how fleeting inspiration can be! This isn’t just some commissioned work. This is my heart's own bidding! I was having fun with the topic of Procrustes, but you're ruining everything. Your disbelief is sapping all my enthusiasm!"
I looked at the poet in sympathy, but didn't apologize.
"Albert, he's dead," I assured my friend and lay back on the ottoman. "And he's been dead for a long time."
"You can't know that for sure!"
"Yes, I can. Sometimes, I visit his grave. So I can say that the slab is right where it's always been. He's there, under two meters of dirt, Albert."
On hearing these words, the poet had a stroke. He spent some time batting his eyes in silence, then he walked up to the ottoman, hung over me and clarified:
"What did you say? You go to his grave?"
"Sure," I confirmed with artificial carelessness. "Procrustes was my father."
Albert pushed my legs off the couch, took a seat next to me and pursed his lips:
"If this is some kind of joke..."
"How could I be joking?" I sighed and stared at the ceiling.
"Enough playing around!" The poet objected. "The werebeast curse is transmitted genetically by the male line! It's a hereditary disease. Hereditary! But you, as far as I know, have never shown an inclination to howl at the full moon! How is that possible, huh?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I do not know."
"You don't know?"
"You don't think I've wracked my brains over this? I know one thing: I do not suffer from his disorder. I'd feel it."
"Maybe it's just waiting to come out? What if you're still in the latent period?"
"Albert, that is balderdash! The latent period ends in the teenage years. Anyone could tell you that. And I don't howl at the moon, I'm not afraid of silver, and my body doesn't heal over all wounds."
"I do not know; I do not know..."
"So you want me to be a werebeast that bad, huh?" I laughed uncontrollably. "Drop it! Maybe it's all the curse. My father changed very much after my mother died. He became different. Nervous and anxious. It was like something broke inside him. We were always going from one place to the next. It felt like we were on the run. We never stayed anywhere for long. My father always thought he was being followed. He was connected with underground cells of Anarchists and Christians. He walked the very edge, and drank a lot. And sometimes, he flew off the handle."
"Killed people," the poet corrected me, no longer doubting what I was saying.
"No, flew off the handle," I shook my head. "He did business with dangerous people, and sometimes, these people thought they could put undue pressure on him. They were mistaken. And then we would have to move to a new place."
"Did you ever actually see him... kill?"
I nodded.
"Once, we were coming home late, and a gang of Egyptians tried to get the drop on us."
"And?"
"It took three days for a volunteer effort to find all the limbs strewn around the park," I frowned from the fairly unpleasant memories. "My dad, meanwhile, couldn't stop drinking for a week. He didn't like to kill, but he couldn't stop it when it came over him."
"But he never touched you?"
"No."
"How did he die?"
"As I said, he didn't know when to stop. He drank himself to death."
Albert stood from the ottoman and spent some time walking in silence around the apartment, thinking over what he'd heard. Then, he began to speak out loud.
"Anarchists, Christians, police, criminals. Dark streets, a child. That changes everything. That changes everything completely!"
He looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time and asked:
"Leo, I apologize, but I need to be alone for a bit."
Without another word, I got up from the ottoman, took my cloak and walked out the door. I was already near the stairs when Albert poked his nose out after me and shouted:
"Hold on! What are you doing tomorrow evening?"
"I have no idea," I answered. "Why?"
"Don't make any plans! I have two vouchers for the next showing of Moon Circus," the poet told me, and hid in his room.
My mind made up to figure out the details, I returned to his apartment but, when I glanced inside, Albert was already leaning over the table writing feverishly, from time to time dipping his quill in the inkwell.
Not wanting to distract the poet, I went down to the first floor, took a seat at the table farthest from the stage and, looking at the gray canal and raindrops falling from the sky, tried to figure out what had changed in me after my recent admission.
I had never before actually told anyone about that, and I didn't particularly enjoy remembering it.
Why did I tell Albert? For his poem? Nothing of the sort. For some reason, I felt like I needed to confess. But no matter how hard I tried to figure out why, I couldn't.
But then, Ramon Miro came in from outside and I had to think about something else.
"Ramon!" I waved at the squat man, calling him over to my table. "Take a seat!"
He walked into the bar and we were brought another pot of hot herbal infusion.
"Thank you," Ramon shivered, taking the cup. A small puddle quickly formed under the hook he'd just hung his soaked-through cloak on.
"What did you find out?" I asked my friend after he had taken a few sips, and was warming his shivering fingers on the hot cup.
Ramon frowned peevishly and admitted:
"Not much. I wasn't able to find the workshop where they made the fake, but my cousin promised to find out something about it."
"Are you sure the box was even made in Foundry Town?" I doubted.
"Ah, that's right!" The squat man slapped his palm on his forehead. "I totally forgot to say! There was a Judean they told me about getting information on aluminum goods. So finding the workshop is just a matter of time."
"Is anything known about the Judean?" I perked up my ears.
"They don't know who he is," Ramon sighed. "No one could even give a comprehensive description. His collar was raised, and his hat was low on his head. That's all they ever said. We need to find the craftsman he gave his order to. That guy will be able to describe him. And also, they say he had a noticeable burn on his cheek."
"The Judean?"
"Yes, on his cheek."
I took a deep sigh, tapped my fingers on the edge of the tabletop, then asked:
"Maybe it wasn't a burn, but a birthmark?"
"Do you have someone in mind with a birthmark on their face?"
"Yeah, Aaron what's-his-name... Malk!" I cursed out. "The manager's assistant! And he definitely had access to the bank's safe! At the very least on the day of the robbery!"
Ramon got up from the table, shook off his cloak and asked in a business-like manner:
"Will we take him ourselves?"
"Look at who's asking!" I exclaimed, not at all burning with the desire to share this information with the police. "There's somewhere we need to go first..."
WHEN I LEFT THE GUN STORE with the ten-caliber Winchester, Ramon, waiting for me in the carriage, had a drastically different facial expression.
"What's that all for, then?" He was taken aback.
I got out of the drizzle sprinkling down from the sky by goin
g under the canvas top and ordered the cabby to drive to the Judean Quarter, then asked my friend:
"Is there a chance the werewolf is looking for the box?"
He frowned, but still admitted:
"Yes."
"If the werewolf is tracking the same person as we are, could we coincidentally end up at the same place where he is?"
Ramon threw himself back in the seat and admitted:
"We could."
"Guns don't hurt him, right?" I snorted and took the box of rounds Alexander Dyak had created from my briefcase. "It's important to note that this is not silver. Your mission will be to hold the werewolf at a distance for at least a few minutes while we wait for the poison to take effect."
"Will it work, though?" Ramon asked with doubt, loading bullet after bullet into the tube magazine under the barrel.
I showily loaded a clip of silver bullets in the Cerberus, and gave a meaningful smile:
"You just worry about hitting him. Sound good?"
"I hope it won’t come to shooting," Ramon frowned.
"I'm actually hoping it will!"
IT WAS NO DIFFICULT TASK to find Aaron Malk's apartment. After getting the advance from Mr. Levinson, I had also asked him for a list of bank employees including everyone, regardless of whether they had survived the attempted robbery or not. Exposing inside men was the first thing they taught in police courses. In my early days, I’d thought that hard to justify. I hadn’t ever even used it before, but now I was left only to thank my old instructors for pounding that information so deep into my brain.
In no particular hurry, the horses ran down the deserted streets. The carriage wheels splashed the puddles in every direction, both those that could only scare pedestrians, and those that would cover them with dirty water. By evening, the weather had cleared up. The low dark clouds had begun to leave the city, but together with twilight, a milky film of fog crawled over the city. The street lamps burned out orange spheres in it and were almost never very bright. Very little could be made out, even at a distance of a few dozen steps.
The feeling of the hunt came over us.
"I don't like this fog," Ramon muttered, getting out of the carriage. "I can't see a damn thing..."
I nodded and looked around cautiously. The street, lined with identical tenement buildings, stretched out along the very edge of the Judean Quarter. There was now a group of crooked-looking young boys staring intently at us as they leaned on a wall, sitting on the stoop under the front door overhang.
