“I’m waiting for you in the old place. A fox”.
“Genealogy and genetics will not forgive me if the graduate student is in a difficult situation. It will become the pride of any institute for the development of the brain with glued receptors, axons and nervous zones of influence on the motor organism and support apparatus. A family of five will force him to choose what to do at such a difficult time when my summer plans flew into tartars – going nowhere, to the gulf of hell,” the experienced detective inspired herself, hoping that this paradoxical type would emerge from the boundless cosmos.
“Well, let him rest on his laurels. Apparently, he does not care about the fate of my wallet,” the girl reasoned to herself with sarcasm on the verge of skepticism and irony, burying herself in the iPhone. She received a sudden response from a man in a sport suit leaning on the open window of the car:
“I’m here, a beautiful one.”
“I see. Listen to my instructions for a responsible job,” she immediately went to a business, checking it for moderation and patience.
The graduate student smiled knowingly.
“The lazy is always a prude and a hypocrite,” he quoted the famous akyn Kunanbayev, moving away from the window, but turning to the passing employees of the departmental institution. “So consider the great teachers and philosophers.”
“Hi. I see that your track in the history of criminalistics will not do without my participation, so I hasten to help,” she said skeptically, noticing his tired face and rumpled appearance.
“I can add more, Voltaire said: “Work (job) eliminates boredom, vice and poverty.”
“Glad to see you. Well prepared for the meeting with me,” she was distracted, smoothing her tactlessness towards her employee. “How are the scientific personnel in your area?”
“Some of them want to get the degrees of masters of all natural sciences, including astrology, cartography, cabbalistic rituals, phantasmagoria, mysticism, white and black magic, without me,” he listed the names that had nothing to do with him.
“Do they really dream of becoming members of the Royal Society of London?”
“Learning is light, and the ungifted people seems will steal diplomas,” the graduate student insistently inspired respect for himself, not departing from the window of the car, so that the woman-detective looked at him with condescension and oppressive fatigue.
“Are you talking about yourself?”
“I have a propensity for a dynamo, a perpetuum mobile, various navigational aids, and I’m negatively affected by the lack of money on the way to the university,” the graduate student explained, the habit of writing off homework without understanding the essence of the problem.
“Well, do not push such a trivial end to the students’ seat in lectures and practical classes at the tables in the classrooms… Tell me straight, poor fellow, tired of messing around?”
Alice happily noticed the first wrinkle on his forehead and remarked his outstanding abilities to herself.
“Money is needed to pay for the study of my eldest daughter at the university abroad beyond my understanding of reality,” the arrogant workaholic complained, advancing for himself always the largest tip, coming dry out of the water.
“How much you earn, so much and you will receive. No more no less. In the meantime, take on travel expenses,” Alice became agitated, explaining to her assistant the rules of the game, when she took out two hundred dollars from the “glove compartment” and put the currency into the outstretched hand to Oleg Tkachik without traces of manicure, as payment for parking in the proper place.
“Now tell me what must be done?”
Proud postgraduate Oleg produced the impression of a medieval noble knight of the Freemason’s Order with his free behavior and strong physique.
“I want to find out how you found out about my whereabouts?”
“It’s much easier than you think. I waited here for your appearance since yesterday. The last time we broke up at this corner. Have you forgotten?”
“You have not forgotten how to lie. I hardly believe your words.”
“And thank you for that,” said with a trembling sense of gratitude, according to the detective, a free mason.
“I gave money for a flight to the resort zone, or rather to Kislovodsk. There I already ordered two tickets. We leave at seven in the evening, so you’ll manage to get ready. Business does not require urgent. I will explain the reasons on the way. Prepare for the heavy losses of close relatives. This is very serious…” she said the last words with a mourning expression.
“Can you cover at least the outline of what is at stake?”
“You will be allowed to attend the sanatorium with healing springs ‘Glory to Sport’. You’ll take a room there or somewhere nearby,” Alice said, not paying attention to his idle questions. “Take with you the most necessary for mountaineering.”
“So I would say right away that you decided to teach me the basics of mine-rescue work,” the excitement that appeared on the face of a loyal employee was replaced by disappointment.
He squeezed inwardly, imagining himself swaying in the cradle of a funicular amidst mountain cracks with a depth of more than a thousand meters.
“Do not worry. On the way to the plane, I’ll bring you up to date, but for now I need to look for important information in the archive.”
“Alice, I agree. We’ll be in touch. It is not necessary to canonize the heroes without me and put a monument to the broken hopes on the grave.”
“You will learn how to behave yourself; you will participate even in the Intercontinental race for survival. Now, be content that you have children which you need to take care of. That is, educate, train and protect against bad influence.
“Clear. Do I have to step back and go into the shadows?”
“You’d better be a self-sufficient person, not a celluloid boy in errands.”
“And you still have to understand when you’ll call me to give false testimony; I will not come to see you.”
“Have agreed.”
Oleg resigned without a murmur, having received long-awaited dollars, for which he was ready to fly even to the end of the world. His previous business trip to Crimea fell through the poor orientation in the cellars of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, where he wanted to spend the night. But he was led out by obstinate monks, warning that if he once again encroached on the relics of the holy of holies, he would not even be able to exist in hell after death, but would immediately fall into purgatory. From such seditious words the unfortunate graduate student almost stopped his heart. But the nostalgia for their native places and the craving for daylight prevailed. After this incident, the Crimea became closed to him at the direction of the detective.
A year ago, when the detective-woman arrived in Kiev to a distant family, he and operatives Regimov and Seregin were asked to investigate the case of complex, even fatal events that occurred in the monastery. When the tourists, following the guide in the underground catacombs, found the corpse of the murdered monk, they were terribly frightened. They summoned experienced operatives to find the culprit in such a terrible tragedy. Alice remembered that then they parted ways with Tkachik in the strangest way. He wandered around without looking at souvenirs, on the territory of the Lavra – a unique Orthodox shrine, founded in 1051 by monks Anthony and Theodosius, located in the center of the Ukrainian capital, on the right bank of the