All the time Sardar Kareem was writing in his room, in the adjacent room Aman-Jalil was with his gangsters, bored, gnawing on chocolate tiles with nuts, a fine product from the shores of Columbus, washing down the delicacy with raw water from the tap, emitting an unpleasant smell of chlorine… One of the gangsters sat on the bedside table, pressing an empty glass against the thin partition, serving as a wall and separating the two rooms, listening to what Sardar Kareem was doing, another sat on a chair by the door, from time to time stretching, and the third was sitting in the wide, unloved bed, and with the usual thoughts, he inspected the girls from the front.
In the early hours, one of the henchmen picked the lock on Sardar Ali's door, and all three silently entered the room. Sardar Kareem was fast asleep, worn out by the road and his worries. Aman-Jalil poured chloroform from a flask onto a handkerchief and, nodding to the henchmen, pressed it to Sardar Ali's face. Meanwhile, the henchmen held Sardar Ali's arms and legs. After a few struggles, Sardar Kareem went still. Aman-Jalil surveyed the room and, seeing papers on the table, approached and started reading.
– He wrote quite a lot! – the henchman who had quietly come up to the table remarked.
Aman-Jalil quickly hid the papers in his briefcase, took out some photos—ones where Gulshan's face wasn't visible, only her naked body, yet anyone would recognize Sardar Ali in the naked man—and tossed them onto the table. He then retrieved a blank sheet of white paper from his briefcase and instructed the henchman:
– Write in Farsi: "Flip a coin, or else these photos will end up with the Great Iosif Besarionis. One day to decide."
The henchman reached for the pen Sardar Kareem had been using, but Aman-Jalil slapped his forehead.
– Forgot about your own fingerprints, fool? – he reminded the henchman. – They're on file in many databases.
He handed him a pencil… Once the note was written, Aman-Jalil quietly opened the window, gave a signal, and two henchmen lifted Sardar Ali from the bed and threw him into the courtyard. The dull thud of impact was barely audible. Leaving the window open, Aman-Jalil quickly left the room, ensuring it was empty and left no traces. The henchmen followed him…
At the reception, Aman-Jalil lingered, took a bottle of French cognac from his briefcase, and demonstratively poured himself a drink using a small glass that screwed onto the bottle. The concierge and henchmen watched enviously.
– Want some too? – Aman-Jalil asked affectionately.
– Of course, yeah! – the henchmen mumbled, swallowing saliva, while the concierge promptly fetched three glasses from under the counter.
Aman-Jalil poured them full.
– Drink up, you've earned it!
They eagerly gulped down the cognac and… collapsed dead on the floor in unison. Aman-Jalil carefully poured the cognac from his glass back into the bottle, tightly closed it, stashed it in his briefcase, and left the hotel. His car was already waiting, and Ahmed's private plane awaited at the airfield… The newspapers, briefly reporting a mysterious poisoning in the hotel lobby, said nothing of Sardar Ali's death. Nadir had tried to protect his friend's name from slander. The naive man, believing in people's better qualities, had been asked to display their worst.
"Where did he stash his comrades?.. They flew to the capital together, but only one returns. He must've exposed his henchmen to gunfire, while he remains unscathed. Look at that nose, like a parrot's beak, all the growth must've gone into his nose… The inquisitors have it easy, see what cognac he drinks, French, and won't even share. No matter, our mountain 'Navesh' is just as good, one guy told me: the Saka chief only drinks that, two crates fly out every month, he drinks it all himself… And this tough chief enjoys Ahmed's complete trust, otherwise the plane wouldn't be at his disposal… But where did he stash his comrades?.. Maybe he left someone behind to keep watch? Ha! Watch! Even a child could figure out these henchmen, they're so obvious from a mile away. And why fly a plane to keep watch? Isn't there anyone in the capital to do that? More than enough. But if there's no one to watch, then why?.. Forget about others' business. Better keep an eye on the helm, avoid falling into a pit. Generally, the less you know, the longer you live… Gurg was talking about the annotations, where did he disappear to, who knows? Not even his wife knows… 'Without the right to correspondence'… For everyone else, the man is dead. Maybe he's alive somewhere, but is that living? No wine, no kebabs, no khachapuri, no Sudanese chicken, no women… A-ra, what is there?.. No one knows what there is or if there's anything. Like the afterlife: everyone knows it exists, but no one knows what's there. You won't know until you get there. And who wants to get there ahead of time? I swear, no one!.. The big-nosed one smiles, satisfied… Drinking such cognac, everyone would be satisfied… And not offering any to a fellow countryman… Not very comradely, eh!"
Aman-Jalil caught the pilot's envious glance and a devilish smirk played on his thin lips.
"I won't treat you, or you'll crash my plane, not because I care about the plane, feel free to crash it, but count me out," Aman-Jalil thought, pretending to pour himself cognac and drinking it, tilting the empty glass into his mouth. He didn't forget to nibble on a "Lux" chocolate, convincing the pilot more than if he had seen the cognac flowing down Aman-Jalil's throat. Alright, enough pretending, leave half for the pilot to shut his mouth… I wonder who he's bringing along?"
Aman-Jalil spilled a bit of cognac on his collar, waiting for the car to suddenly shake.
– Hey, driver, watch out, is there a pothole or something?
– You think this is a main avenue? Let's switch seats: you take the wheel, and I'll drink the cognac. Deal?
– Hold the bottle, it's exactly half full, honest… Just swear you'll finish it at home, they're already saying I'm getting all my friends drunk, the mullah almost hinted at it right in my face after the morning prayer. Don't you know?
– Small, isn't he? I don't drink at work!
Aman-Jalil stood up, discreetly wiped the bottle and handed it to the pilot.
– Drink up, elder, and understand!
– What am I understanding?
– Understand, I say.
– And what's that?
– I don't know, they say in the capital.
– Maybe it's a curse word?
– Maybe, but it sounds good.
– No, not a curse word: understand, learn, that's what it means…
– Clever! Listen, how clever you are, eh!
– Did you think…
Aman-Jalil suddenly saw a small black fly, it flew past Aman-Jalil and landed on the pilot's helmet.
– Wow, look, a fly on your head, don't move, I'm going to kill it now.
– Are you planning to shoot it with a pistol?
– Why with a pistol, dummy, then I'd have to shoot you in the head too, a fly is smaller than a bullet, don't you understand… Don't move.
Aman-Jalil took out a thread from his rubber band, his eternal companion, he always had these threads, carefully unraveling the most ordinary rubber band that held his underwear together. In a second, the killed fly fell onto the