Boris Akunin - Special Assignments

Momos glanced at the repulsive fat man, who was already getting into his sleigh, with more interest now. Well, well, what colourful characters there did seem to be in Moscow.

And he cares nothing for the police?'

The ragamuffin spat. 'What police! He hangs about in the apartments of the Governor himself, Prince Dolgorukoi. But of course, Eropkin's a general now! When they were building the Cathedral he put up a million out of his profits, and for that he got a ribbon from the Tsar, with a big star and a position in a charitable institution. He used to be Samson the Bloodsucker, but now he's "Your Excellency". He's a thief, an executioner, a murderer.'

'Well now, I don't expect he's actually a murderer,' Momos said doubtfully.

'You don't?' said the drunkard, looking at the other man for the first time. 'Of course, Samson Kharitonovich Eropkin wouldn't get his own hands bloody. But did you see that mute, Kuzma? What about that whip? He's not a man; he's a wild beast, a guard dog on a chain. He won't just kill anyone; he'll tear them limb from limb while they're still alive. And he's done it too - there have been cases! Ah, son, the things I could tell you about what they get up to!'

Well come on, you tell me. We'll sit for a while, and I'll pour you a glass,' Momos invited him. He was in no hurry to get anywhere, and he'd obviously run into an interesting sort of fellow. You could learn all sorts of useful things from people like that. 'Just let me give my little boy twenty kopecks for the carousel.'

They took a seat in the tavern. Momos asked for tea and rusks; the drinking man took a half-bottie of gin and salted bream.

The man with the story to tell took a slow, dignified drink, sucked on a fish tail and began working his way up to his subject: 'You don't know Moscow, so I suppose you've never heard about the Sandunovsky Baths?'

'Of course I have - those baths are famous,' Momos replied, topping up the other man's glass.

'That's just it: they're famous. I used to be the top man there in the gentlemen's department. Everybody knew Egor Tishkin. Let your blood for you, and trim a corn, and give you a first-rate shave - I could do it all. But what I was really famous for was the massage business. Clever hands, I used to have. The way I used to drive the blood through their veins and stretch their bones had all the counts and the generals purring away like kittens. And I could treat all sorts of ailments too - with various potions and decoctions. Some months I raked in as much as fifteen hundred roubles! I had a house, and a garden too. I had a widow who came round to see me - her husband used to be a clergyman.'

Egor Tishkin downed his second drink with no ceremony, in one, and didn't bother to take a sniff at his fish.

'That louse Eropkin singled me out. He always used to ask for Tishkin. The number of times I was even called out to his house. As good as at home there, I was. I used to shave his ugly, bumpy face, and squeeze out his fatty tumours and cure his impotence for him. And who was it saved him from his kidney stones? Who put his hernia back in? Ah, Egor Tishkin used to have golden fingers then. And now he's a naked, homeless beggar. And all because of him, all because of Eropkin! I tell you what, son: get me another drop. My soul's burning up.'

When he'd calmed down a bit, the former bathhouse master continued: 'He's superstitious, Eropkin. Worse than an old countrywoman. He believes in all sorts of signs: black cats, and cocks crowing and the new moon. And let me tell you, my dear man, that Samson Kharitonovich used to have this amazing wart in the middle of his beard, right smack in his dimple. All black, it was, with three ginger hairs growing out of it. He used to really pamper it, used to say it was his special sign. He deliberately let the hair grow on his cheeks, but he had his chin shaved to make the wart more obvious. And it was me that took that special sign of his away ... I wasn't feeling too well that day - had too much drink the night before. I didn't use to indulge very often - only on holidays - but my mother had just passed away, and I'd been taking comfort, the way you do. Anyway, my hand was shaking, and that was a sharp razor - Damascene steel. And I sliced Eropkin's damned wart clean off. Blood everywhere, and the screams! "You've destroyed my good fortune, you cack-handed devil!" And Samson Kharitonovich starts sobbing and trying to stick it back on, but it won't hold - it just keeps falling off. Eropkin went absolutely wild and called Kuzma. First he works me over with that whip of his, but that's not enough for Eropkin. "Your hands should be torn off," he says, "all your crooked fingers torn out one by one." Kuzma grabs hold of my right hand, sticks it in the crack of the door and slams it shut and there's this terrible crunch... I shout out: "Father, don't destroy me, you'll leave me without a crust of bread, at least spare the left one." But it was pointless: he mangled my left hand too ...'

The drunk waved one hand in the air and for the first time Momos noticed the unnatural way his fingers stuck out without bending.

Momos poured the poor fellow more drink and patted him on the shoulder. 'This Eropkin's a really ugly brute,' he said slowly, recalling the benefactor's bloated features. He really disliked people like that. If he hadn't been leaving Moscow, he could have taught the swine a little lesson. 'So tell me: do his taverns and dosshouses bring in a lot of money?'

'Reckon it at something like thirty thousand a month,' answered Egor Tishkin, angrily brushing away his tears.

'Oh, come on. You're exaggerating there, brother.'

The bathhouse attendant sat up suddenly: 'I ought to know! I tell you, his house was like my own home. Every day God sends, that Kuzma of his goes off to the Hard Labour and the Siberia, and the Transit Camp, and the other drinking establishments Eropkin owns. He collects up to five thousand in a day. On Saturdays they bring it to him from the dosshouses. There's four hundred families living in the Birdcage alone. And what about the pickings from the street girls? And the loot, the stolen goods? Samson Kharitonovich puts all the money in a simple sack and keeps it under his bed. That's his way. He once arrived in Moscow as a country bumpkin with that sack, and he thinks he came by his wealth because of it. In other words, he's just like an old woman - believes in all sorts of nonsense. On the first day of every month he gets his earnings out from under the bed and drives them to the bank. Driving along in a carriage and four with his dirty sack, as pleased as Punch. That's his most important day. The money's secret, from illegal dealings, so on the last day he has trained bookkeepers sitting there drawing up false documents for the whole bundle. Sometimes he takes thirty thousand to the bank, sometimes more - it depends how many days there are in the month.'

'He keeps that sort of money at home, and no one's robbed him?' Momos asked in amazement, becoming more and more interested in what he heard.

'Just you try robbing him. There's a brick wall round the house, dogs running around in the yard, the menservants - and then there's that Kuzma. That whip of Kuzma's is worse than any devolver: he'll slice a mouse running past in half for a bet. None of the "businessmen" ever bother Eropkin. They'd only come off worse. There was one time - five years ago it was -when one hothead tried it. They found him later in the knacker's yard. Kuzma had torn all his skin off in strips with his whip. Neat as a whistle. And no one said a word; everyone kept mum. You can be sure Eropkin has the police in his pocket. The amount of money he has, there's no counting it. Only his wealth won't do him any good, the tyrant - he'll die of stone fever. He's got kidney stones, and with Tishkin gone there's no one to cure him. You don't think the doctors know how to dissolve a stone, do you? Samson Kharitonovich's people came to see me. "Come on, Egorushka," they said, "he forgives you. He'll give you money too - just come back and treat him." I didn't go. Maybe he forgives me, but he'll never have my forgiveness!'