“I’m ready!” Starkov laughed, and immediately became serious, as if he himself commanded in the manner of Ostap Bender: “Oh, well, leave the laughter!” “Is the ‘object of work’… hmm…ready to work?”
Petrov, right over Starkov’s head, immediately waved his captain Andrey, who was leaning against the window sill.
“Bring him!”
They didn’t have to wait long: after two minutes Andrey pushed a lusty, red-haired and utterly pimply teenager, who was trembling like a classic bath leaf, into Petrov’s office.
“Sit here!” commanded Andrey, seating the newcomer on a chair. The chair was choosen even earlier – in strict accordance with the classics: strictly in the center. “Having arranged a temporary resident”, Andrey stood behind him: this was a classic also.
Petrov slowly – in spite of his lively character, he had already acquired a belly, even more “outstanding” in the context of his “meter with a cap” – got out of the table and approached the person under investigation.
“Did you kill the girl?”
This was a characteristic feature of the lieutenant-colonel: to straighten the road to the truth as much as possible. He never “suffered of all these approaches”, but he worked directly in the forehead – when with words, and when with deeds.
The youngster shook his whole body, although it was possible to confine his head.
“N-no…”
Petrov made a small circle near the chair and the “work object” sitting on it and again “went abreast”.
“Why did you stick a stick in the vagina?”
The “object” shook even more vigorously.
“What stick?”
“What stick?!” baldness of the lieutenant-colonel began to turn purple. “Now you find out, what stick is it!”
He returned to the table, rummaged in the drawer for a few seconds, and took out a rubber hose measuring eight inches in diameter. He patted the hose across the palm of his hand, approached the “object” and spread his legs wide apart, as if strengthening the point of support.
“Do you see this thing in my hands?”
The youngster, from somewhere below, gazed with caution at the “strange object”.
“I see.”
“Do you know what it is?”
Instead of answering, the youngster shook his head.
“Do you want to know?” the lieutenant colonel continued to approach him.
This time the answer was silence: the “object” had not yet decided, which answer would be less painful for him.
“But I will still say,” Petrov smiled somehow not kindly. “This is a rubber hose, but not simple, but filled with sand. Do you know why? And in order for people like you, then did not run to the forensic doctors for a certificate of injury! That’s because this thing leaves no traces! But what kind of ‘unforgettable sensations’ it gives, you cannot even imagine!”
The state of the “object” could already be defined by the words “neither is alive, nor is dead”. But the lieutenant colonel of this “intermediate state” was clearly not enough.
“Don’t you believe me?”
This is a tricky question: “I do not believe.” – “Then get it!”, “I believe.” – “Then confess!” The youngster gave an answer with his head – vertically: he ventured to “believe”. The lieutenant colonel slightly “passed back”: both in the sense of an onslaught, and simply moved one step back.
“Then answer: is it your comb?”
“W-what comb?”
Without looking back at Starkov, Petrov sent a palm over his shoulder, into which Alex promptly put the comb. Petin Jr. glanced at the comb and dropped his head.
“It’s my comb…”
“And the sneakers? Yours?”
Sneakers from Czechoslovakia were immediately offered to the “object”. Starkov raised an eyebrow in surprise: it doesn’t matter who got it, but the guys didn’t lose all the time in vain.
Petin glanced fearfully at the sneakers.
“Mine… probably…”
“What about this crap?”
Petrov stuck a plaster cast from the track right under his nose.
“Is it also yours?”
“What is it?” youngster flinched.
“It’s your sneaker, which was noted at the scene of the murder! The expertise has already proved that it is yours! Answer me, son of a bitch: did you kill?”
Petin convulsively shook his head, but he was prevented from completing the process by a rubber hose, that had passed impressively along his back.
“Aw!”
“It’s not ‘ay!’, but only the very beginning!”
“Mister policeman, I did not kill!” Petin whimpered.
“Still lying, you bastard! If you didn’t kill, how did your comb and the traces of your sneakers end up at the scene of the murder? Answer me!”
The hose was again the stimulating response. But the answer turned out to be the same, however, “in double volume”:
“Aw, aw!”
Petrov turned to Starkov.
“Bro, do you want… how to say this?”
“Do I want to see the sightseeing of the district department of internal affairs?” Starkov came to the rescue with a grin.
“Yes!”
Starkov shrugged.
“Well… I think half an hour is enough for me… I will give you as well… and to him…”
As soon as Alex closed the door, he heard three times from the office… no, not “hurray!”: “Aw, aw, aw!” Starkov, who had already set the direction to the dining room for the footsteps, suddenly stopped, silently moved his lips with a pensive look for a few moments, and turning abruptly, he headed in the opposite direction.
In the opposite side was the office of the head of CID (criminal investigation department), Major Lapin. The major, like all real detectives, who did not tolerate bureaucracy, gnashing his teeth, poured over the papers.
“Well, what, bro,” he instantly and even readily broke away from the papers, “did this son of a bitch confess?”
“Not yet. And I doubt…”
Wincing painfully, Starkov patted the earlobe. Lapin puzzled his lips in surprise.
“You think, that it’s not him?”
“God knows,” Starkov shrugged uncertainly. “He is shy for this business… Bro, have you sent a man to check his entourage yet?”
“We have already checked!”
Lapin even jumped up from the table.
“We got sneakers… and so on!”
“Have you been to school?”
The major turned his eyes away.
“Bro… we did not have time… But don’t worry: I will send a detective right now!”
“Do it, bro,” Starkov nodded approvingly. Let him ask the schoolchildren,