Liza Alexandrova-Zorina - The Little Man

Seeing Savage lean against the bar window, Lapin came closer, treading gingerly over the crisp crust of ice that covered the pavement. He tripped over Coffin's chair and it fell sideways like the gangster who'd been shot, and Savage turned round at the sound. He saw Lapin, hands hidden in his pockets, looking at him like a beggar expecting a handout, his eyes expressing the bitterness of his father's tears, and his dreams like stale crusts. Turning up his collar, Savage hurried away, melting into the blue-grey twilight.

Lapin raced to the window, trying to make out who he had been looking at in the dense half-light. Someone's glance tickled the back of Saam's neck and he turned to see the investigator, his nose flattened against the glass. Lapin thought he could see a jagged wound gaping on the gangster's throat and put his hands over his mouth, afraid to cry out, while his heart thrashed like a fish caught in a net.

The light swayed in the wind and the shadows staggered from side to side like drunkards as Lapin stood, an unmoving exclamation mark, and from a distance people took him for a post. «Fate has so many twists and turns no-one's immune,» he thought, staring into the void, unable to tell whether Savely Savage had indeed given him a wink or whether he'd merely imagined it.