Boris Akunin - He Lover of Death

She laughed and tousled Senka’s hair. ‘Keep away from the flames, little gnat,’ she said. ‘You’ll singe your wings. I’ll tell you what you should do. You heard what the Prince said about the treasure? You know Siniukhin, the pen-pusher? He lives under Yeroshenko’s flophouse, in the Old Rags Basement. A miserable man with a red nose like a big plum. I went to Siniukhin’s place once, when his son was sick with scarlet fever –I took the doctor. Go and warn him to take his family and get out of Khitrovka fast. Tell him the Prince is going to pay him a visit tonight.’

A swift was all right, no offence taken, but Senka drew the line at that ‘gnat’. She understood, and started laughing even harder. ‘Stop sulking. All right, then, I’ll give you just one little kiss. But no nonsense.’

He couldn’t believe it – he thought she was mocking a poor orphan. But even so, he pursed his lips up and pushed them out. But would she really kiss him?

She didn’t cheat, she touched his lips with hers, but then she started pushing him away.

‘Off you go to Siniukhin, run. You can see what a wild beast the Prince has turned into.’

As he walked away from her house, Senka touched his lips gingerly with his little finger – oh Lord, they were burning up! Death herself had kissed them!

It wasn’t Senka’s fault he didn’t get to the pen-pusher, there was good reason.

He made an honest effort, set straight out from Death’s house for Podkolokolny Lane, where Yeroshenkov’s flophouse was. It had apartiments with numbers upstairs – as many as a thousand people would snore away up there – and down below, under the ground, there were these massive deep cellars, and people lived there too: ‘diver-ducks’ who altered stolen clothes, paupers who had nothing, and the pen-pushers were the kind that settled there. Pen-pushers were a heavy-drinking crowd, but they tried not to overdo it, they needed to keep hold of a pen and set the words out right on paper. That was their trade, scribing letters for the unlearned: begging, weepy letters as often as not. They were paid by the page: one was five kopecks, two was nine and a half, and three was thirteen.

It wasn’t a long way from the Yauza Boulevard to the Yerokha (that was what Yeroshenko’s flophouse was usually called), but Senka never got to where he was heading.

When he turned the corner on to Podkolokolny Lane (he could already see the door of the Yerokha), Senka spotted something that stopped him dead in his tracks.

There was Mikheika the Night-Owl, and standing beside him, holding him tight by the shoulder was a short-arse in a check two-piece and bowler – the same Chinee Senka had nicked the green beads off the week before. Once you’d seen someone like that, you never forgot him. Big fat cheeks the colour of ripe turnips, narrow slits for eyes, a blunt little nose, but with a hook in it too.

Night-Owl was acting calm and grinning. What had he got to be afraid of? There were two Khitrovka lads standing behind the Chinaman (the pudding-head didn’t have a clue). Mikheika spotted Senka and winked: just you wait, the fun’s about to start.

Well, he couldn’t not watch, could he?

Senka came a bit closer, so he could hear, and stopped. The Chinee asked (the way he spoke was funny, but you could still make it out): ‘Night-Owr-kun, where your friend? The one who run so fast. Thin, yerrow hair, grey eyes, nose with freckurs?’

Well, well, so he’d remembered everything, the yellow pagan, even the freckles. But the question was, how had he managed to find Mikheika? He must have just wandered into Khitrovka and run into him by chance.

But then Senka spotted a battered old cap with a cracked peak in the Chinaman’s hand. Now, that was crafty! He hadn’t just barged in by accident, he’d come on purpose, to look for his beads. He’d twigged that the lads were from Khitrovka (or maybe the cabbies had given him the hint, they were an eagle-eyed bunch), come dashing over and nabbed Night-Owl. Mikheika didn’t know his letters, and he drew an owl on all his things so they wouldn’t get nicked. And now look where that had got him. The oriental titch must have walked around with the cap, which had been dropped on Sretenka Street, asking whose it was. And now he’d found out, he was in trouble. Old Slanty-eyes had made a big mistake, coming here and grabbing Night-Owl by the sleeve. That flat pancake face was in for a good battering.

Mikheika answered back: ‘What friend’s that? All those Chinese radishes must have gone to your head. I’ve never seen you before.’

Night-Owl was showing off in front of the lads, naturally.

The Chinaman waved the cap. ‘And what this? What bird this?’

And he jabbed his finger at the lining.

What was the point, though? The lads would fling a load of seventy-kopeck lead pellets in his face, and that was all he’d take home. Senka even felt sorry for the heathen. Pike, a smart lad from Podkopaevsky Lane, quick on his feet, had already gone down on all fours behind the gull’s back. Now Night-Owl would give Yellow-cheeks a shove and the fun would start. He’d leave with no pants, and they’d rearrange his teeth, and his ribs too.

There were gawkers grinning at the sight from the square and the lane. Boxman set off along the edge of the market, with an open newspaper in his hands – he stopped, looked over the top of the grey page, yawned and tramped on. Nothing unusual, just another gull getting what he had coming.

‘Oh, oh, don’t frighten me, mister, or I’ll wet me pants,’ Night-Owl mocked. ‘But thank you most kindly for the cap. Please accept my regards, and this too, out of the generosity of my heart.’

And he smashed his fist into the Chinaman’s teeth!

Or, rather, he aimed for the teeth, only Slanty-eyes bobbed down, Night-Owl’s fist flailed at empty air, and the swing of it spun him right round. Then the Chinaman lashed out with his right hand and left leg, at the same time: his hand caught Mikheika round the back of the head (only gently, but Mikheika dived nose first into the dust then didn’t move), and his heel smacked into Pike’s ear. Pike went flat out too, and the third lad, a bit older than Pike – Drillbit, his moniker was – tried to hit the nimble heathen with his brass knuckles, but all he caught was empty air, too. The Chinee leapt sideways and smacked Drillbit on the chin with the toe of his boot (how could he fling his legs up that high?), and Drillbit fell flat on his back.

So before the gawkers could even drop their jaws, the three lads who’d tried to fleece the pagan gull were stretched out on the ground, and not getting up in a hurry.

People shook their heads in wonder and went on their way. But the Chinee squatted down beside Mikheika and grabbed his ear.

‘Ver’ bad, Night-Owr-kun,’ he said. ‘Ver’, ver’ bad. Where beads?’

Mikheika started shaking all over. And for real – he wasn’t putting it on. ‘I don’t know about no beads! On me mother’s grave! In the name of Christ!’

The Chinaman twisted his ear a bit and explained what he wanted. ‘Littuw green baws, on thread. They were in bunduw.’

Then didn’t Night-Owl go and yell: ‘That wasn’t me, it was Speedy Senka! Ow, my ear! That hurts! There’s Senka, over there!’

Why, the Judas! Couldn’t even stand a simple ear-twist. He needed a bit of training from Uncle Zot!

The Chinaman swung round to where Night-Owl was pointing, and saw Senka. Then the heathen got up and walked towards him –moving softly, like a cat. ‘Senka-kun,’ he said, ‘don’ run. Today I have soos, not geta – I catch you.’

And he pointed to his half-boots. As if to say: not sandals, like the last time.