He Lover of Death (8 page)

Senka whistled. So that was it.

The ace was like the tsar of bandits, there was just one for all of Moscow. The ace used to be Kondrat Semyonich, a really big man, everyone in Moscow was afraid of him. They used to say all sorts of things about Kondrat Semyonich, though. That he’d got old and rusty, he didn’t give the young men a chance. Some condemned him for living a life of luxury, not in Khitrovka, like the ace was supposed to do, but in a house on the Yauza. And he didn’t die like a bandit, from a knife or a bullet, or in jail. He drew his last breath on a soft feather bed, like some merchant.

Anyway, the Council had decreed that the ace should be one of the two: the Prince or the Ghoul.

The case for the Prince was clear enough – he was a man on the make. He’d appeared from nowhere, and the jobs he did were breathtaking. But the problem was he was in too much of a hurry and he was obstinate, those were his only flaws. The grandfathers were afraid that power like that might go to his head.

The Ghoul was a different matter altogether. He was from the old guard – the less showy bandits who’d plodded their way to the top. The Ghoul didn’t have any famous jobs to his name, his deck didn’t fire any broadsides, but people were just as much afraid of him as they were of the Prince.

The Ghoul’s deck didn’t make a living from hold-ups, though, they had a new business, one that was kept very quiet: they skimmed from the grain merchants and shopkeepers. Their kind of businessmen were called ‘milkers’. If you wanted your shop to stay safe, and you didn’t want the sanitary inspector picking on you, or the coppers bothering you – then you gave the milker his dough and carried on trading in peace. But as for those who didn’t pay – who thought they could manage or were just plain mean –all sorts happened to them.

One stubborn grocer was hit over the head from behind in a dark alleyway, he didn’t see who did it. He fell down and tried to get up, but he couldn’t – the ground was spinning in front of his eyes. Suddenly he saw a horse and cart coming straight at him, and the cart held a great heap of paving stones. He yelled and waved his arms, but the driver didn’t seem to hear him. The horse stepped over the grocer, so its hooves missed him, but the wheels of the cart ran right over his legs and smashed them to bits. Now they pushed that grocer around in a chair on wheels, and he paid the Ghoul promptly. And there was an ice-cream seller too, they ambushed his daughter, who was engaged, put a sack over her head and violated her, and not just one of them, no, half a dozen thugs. Now she sat at home and never showed her face outside, and she’d been taken down from a noose twice. If only the ice-cream seller had paid, none of that would ever have happened.

But even the Ghoul wasn’t to the liking of all the grandfathers, Sprat explained. Those who were older and remembered times past didn’t approve of the Ghoul’s trade. Back then it wasn’t done to suck people’s blood like that.

Anyway, today was the day of the meet.

‘They’ll do each other in!’ Senka gasped. ‘They’ll stab each other, or shoot each other.’

‘They can’t, that’s against the law. They can break a few ribs or crack someone’s head open, but that’s all. You can’t take weapons to a meet, the Council doesn’t allow it.’

*

At five o’clock the mediators came from the Council, two calm, slow-moving ‘grandfathers’ who used to be respected thieves. They named the spot for the meet – the Cows’ Meadow in the Luzhniki District – and the time: seven o’clock on the dot. They said the Ghoul wanted to know whether his whole deck should come or what.

They sat the grandfathers down to drink tea in the front room, and all crowded round the Prince at the table. Even the Bosun trundled in from the street, afraid they’d settle things without him.

Maybe shouted out first: ‘Let’s all go! We’ll give the ghoulies a beating to remember.’

The Prince hissed at him:

‘Think before you speak, smartarse. Do we have a Queen with us? No. Death won’t traipse across to Cows’ Meadow, will she now?’

Everyone smiled at the joke, and waited to see what the Prince would say next.

‘But the Ghoul’s Queen is Pockface Manka. Last year she smacked two narks’ heads together so hard, they never got up again,’ the Prince went on, polishing his fingernails with a little brush. He was sitting with his legs crossed and easing his words out slowly – no doubt already seeing himself as the ace.

‘We know Manka, she’s a woman to be reckoned with,’ the Bosun agreed.

‘Right, then. So think on a bit. You’re a cripple, Bosun – no offence meant – what good are you at a meet?’

The Bosun bounced on his stumps and started getting excited.

‘Why I. . . I’ll smack ’em so hard with this mallet – that’s enough to double anyone over. You know me, Prince!’

‘A mallet!’ the Prince mocked him, biting off a hangnail. ‘And the Ghoul’s niner is Vasya Ugreshsky. What good will it do to swing your mallet at him? You see?’

The Bosun went all sad and started sniffing.

‘Now let’s take Sixer,’ said the boss, nodding at Sprat.

‘What about me?’ said Sprat, jerking his head up.

‘I tell you what. Their sixer is Cudgel. He can hammer a six-inch nail into a log of wood with that great big fist of his, and anyone can knock you down with a feather, Sprat. So where does that leave us, my brave gents? With this – at a meet, their deck will leave us for dead, as sure as God’s holy. And then they’ll say the Prince had his whole deck with him, they won’t bother working out who’s too small, who’s crippled and who wasn’t even there. That’s what they’ll say, oh yes they will,’ the Prince declared in response to their dull muttering.

The room was suddenly quiet and downbeat.

Senka was sitting in the corner farthest away, afraid they might throw him out. He wasn’t too upset about them not taking him to the meet, he didn’t much fancy fisticuffs, especially not against real fighters. They’d batter a youngster like him down and trample him into the ground.

The Prince admired his nails, then bit off another hangnail and spat it out.

‘Call the grandfathers. I decide. And not a word! Keep your traps shut.’

Sprat ran off to get the mediators. They came and stood just inside the door. The Prince stood up too.

‘Two of us should go to the meet, that’s my opinion.’ He looked at them merrily and shook his forelock. –The King and one other chosen by the King. Tell the Ghoul that.’

Deadeye sighed and the others frowned but not a word was spoken. It clearly wasn’t on to haggle in front of outsiders, Senka thought.

But even when the grandfathers left, there was no yapping. Once the Prince had decided, that was that.

Sprat winked at Senka:
come on outside.
In the collidor he sniffed as he whispered: ‘I know that spot very well. There’s a little barn there, a good place to hide. We’ll wait and watch them from there.’

‘But what if they see us?’

‘Then we’re for it, no question,’ Sprat said with a careless wave of his hand. ‘They’re real strict about stuff like that. But don’t you get the wind up, they won’t see us. That barn’s a great spot, I tell you. We’ll burrow into the hay. No one will twig, and we’ll be able to see everything.’

Senka suddenly felt afraid and he hesitated. But Sprat spat on the floor and said: ‘You can please yourself, Speedy. I’m running over there right now. While they’re dragging things out, I’ll get there ahead of them.’

Of course, Senka went with him – what else could he do? He couldn’t act scared like some girl. And he really did want to watch: this was serious stuff, a proper bandit meet, to decide who would be Ace of Moscow. How many people had ever seen something like that?

Naturally, they didn’t actually run there, that was just Sprat’s way of talking. The young bandit had a wad of cash in his pocket. They walked to Pokrovka Street, hired a cab and drove out of town to Luzhniki. Sprat promised the driver an extra rouble to drive like the wind. It took them twenty-three minutes – Sprat timed it with his silver watch.

The Cows’ Meadow was just that, a meadow – all yellow grass and burdock. On one side, across the river, were the Sparrow Hills, and on the other side was the Novodevichy Convent, with its vegetable gardens.

‘This is where they’ll have the meet, there’s no other option,’ said Sprat, pointing to a trampled bald patch where four paths came together. ‘They won’t go into the grass, there’s cowpats all over the place, they’ll get their shoes filthy. And that’s the barn right there.’

The barn was rotten – sneeze and it would collapse. It had been built once upon a time to store straw, but it wouldn’t stay standing much longer, that was clear. It was less than a stone’s throw from the bald patch, ten paces or maybe fifteen.

They climbed up the ladder into the loft, full of last year’s straw. Then they settled into the hideaway, pulling the ladder up after them, so no one would get inquisitive and come over.

Sprat glanced at his watch again and said: ‘Three and a half minutes past five. Almost two hours to go. Why don’t we play a hand or two, fifty kopecks a time?’

He pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket. Senka was so frightened his hands and feet were freezing, he had cold shivers running up and down his spine, and Sprat wanted to play cards!

‘I ain’t got any money.’

‘We can play flicks. Only straight ones, mind, no twisting, my head’s not that hard.’

As soon as they’d dealt the cards, they heard voices. Someone had come up from behind, from the direction of the railway.

Sprat put his eye to a crack and whispered: ‘Hey, Speedy, take a gander!’

There were three men walking round the barn. They looked like bandits all right, but Senka didn’t know them. One was huge, with big, broad shoulders and a small head, shaved clean; one was wearing a cap, but even from up there you could still see that his nose had caved in; the third was short, with long arms, and his jacket was buttoned right up.

‘The bastard,’ Sprat hissed right in Senka’s ear. ‘That’s what he’s up to! What a lousy cheat!’

The men came into the barn, but Senka and Sprat could still see them through the cracks in the ceiling. All three men lay down and covered themselves with straw.

‘Who’s a lousy cheat?’ Senka whispered. ‘Who are they?’

‘The Ghoul’s a lousy cheat, that’s who. Those are his fighters, from his deck. The big one’s Cudgel, the sixer. The one with no nose is Beak, he’s the eighter. And the little one’s Yoshka, the Jack. Ah, this is really bad. This’ll be the death of us.’

‘Why?’ Senka asked, frightened.

‘Yoshka’s no good in a fight, but he never misses with that gun of his. He used to work in a circus, snuffing candles out with bullets. If they brought Yoshka it means there’ll be shooting. But our two will have left their guns at home. And there’s no way to warn them . . .’

This news set Senka’s teeth chattering. ‘What’re we going to do?’

Sprat had turned all pale too. ‘Hell only knows . . .’

They just sat there, shaking. Time dragged by, then seemed to stop completely.

Down below it was quiet. Just once they heard a match being struck and caught a whiff of tobacco smoke, then someone hissed: ‘Cudgel, you ugly mug, d’you want to burn us alive? I’ll shoot you!’

There was silence again. And then, just before the clock struck seven, there was a metal click. Sprat mimed for Senka: that was the hammer being cocked.

Oh, this was really bad!

Two light carriages drove up to the bald spot from different directions.

Sitting on the box of one carriage – a classy number in red lacquer –was Deadeye, wearing a hat and a sandy-coloured three-piece suit, and holding a cane. The Prince was sprawled on the leather seat, smoking a
papyrosa.
He was done up like a dandy too, in a sky-blue shirt and thin scarlet belt.

Sitting on the box of the other carriage, which wasn’t as fancy as the first, but still pretty smart, was a woman with hands the size of ham hocks. Her fat red cheeks stuck out from the bright flowery shawl wrapped tight round her head. It looked as though two watermelons had been stuck down the front of her blouse – Senka had never seen breasts like that before. The Ghoul was riding behind, like the Prince. He looked pretty ordinary: stringy and balding, narrow snaky eyes, greasy hair hanging down like icicles. He was no eagle from the look of him, no way was he a match for the Prince.

They met in the middle of the bald patch, but didn’t bother shaking hands. The Ghoul lit up, and glared at the prince. Deadeye and the huge woman stood a bit farther back – Senka supposed that must be the way it was done.

‘Shall we kick up a racket, eh, Speedy?’ Sprat asked in a whisper.

‘But what if the Ghoul only put his men in the barn just in case? Because he was afraid the Prince might try something? Then it’s the shiv for you and me.’

Senka was really afraid of making a racket. What if that Yoshka started firing bullets through the ceiling?

Sprat whispered: ‘Who can tell. . . OK, let’s watch for a bit.’

The men in the meadow finished their
papyroses
and threw them away.

The Prince was the first to speak. ‘Why didn’t you come with your Jack?’

‘Yoshka’s teeth have been bothering him, his cheek’s swollen right up. And why do I need my Jack? I’m not afraid of you, Prince. You’re the one who’s scared of me. You brought Deadeye along. A woman’s a match for you.’

Manka chuckled in a loud, deep voice.

The Prince and Deadeye locked eyes once more. Senka saw Deadeye drum his fingers on his cane. Maybe they’d guessed there was something shady going on.

‘If you want to bring a woman, that’s your business.’ The Prince put his hands on his hips. ‘Lording it over women is all you’re good for. When I’m the ace, I’ll let you run the mamselles of Khitrovka. It’ll be just the job for you.’

The Ghoul didn’t rise to the bait, he just smiled and cracked his long fingers: ‘Of course, you, Prince, are an outstanding hold-up artist, a man on the make, but you’re still wet behind the ears. What kind of ace would you make? It’s barely five minutes since you got your deck together. And you’re far too reckless. Every last nark in Moscow’s after you, but I’m a safe pair of hands. Do the decent thing and stand down.’