His job at the fitness club had ended disgracefully a week ago, when, printing the next menu, Eddy, for the sake of mischief, changed its heading. In the new version the proud Queen of the Beach became Queen of Cellulite. According to Murphy’s Law, precisely this distorted menu was sent for radio ad preparation, and no one, of course, checked anything until the very last moment. Eddy’s boss did not appreciate the joke and, ejected from the quiet creek of cocktails and vitamin salads by a hostile coastal current, Eddy drifted further along the river of life.
Money quickly ran out. And then, his beloved sister Zozo, taking a long weekend, went off to a holiday centre near Moscow, where she attempted to arrange her fate once again. Daphne and Methodius had also disappeared somewhere, but Eddy hardly remembered them: there was no time for it. He, I repeat, was hungry and angry.
The doorbell tenderly chimed once, again, and suddenly had a fit. Khavron was surprised. He was not expecting anyone. “Who’s there?” he asked.
“Telegram!” he heard the reply.
Eddy opened the door. But, alas, he never got the telegram. If, of course, one does not count the telegram smacking his chin with a fist. He did not manage to dodge. The dusty doormat with the Demerdzhi Mountain was thoughtfully laid under his fallen body.
Nevertheless, Eddy had not lost consciousness and, lying on the mat, he watched three men stepped over his body and entered the apartment. The first was a stout, clean-shaven person in a white turtleneck and black jeans, over whose belt hung a fat and probably sweaty belly. The companions of the stout person were two typical mobsters dressed in tracksuits and sneakers. They differed from each other only in that one had auburn hair and the other had a scar across his cheek.
After slamming the door shut, the owner of the fat belly kicked Eddy.
“F***!” Eddy gasped.
“You’re it, you! Get up, sailor! We’ll talk!”
“Thanks. Better if I stay down. Had a rough day, you know,” Khavron declined, pensively touching his chin. He figured that if he got up, then he would most likely get it again.
“I said, get up!” the fat man said through his teeth and kicked him again.
Eddy got up reluctantly. He could understand intonations. They dragged him into the room and pushed him rudely into an armchair.
“I came to have a talk with you sailor to sailor. My name is Felix,” the stout person stated, straddling a chair.
Eddy wanted to ask why he called him sailor, but wisely kept silent. Call me sailor, just do not make me swim.
“Sailor, do you know why debts exist? In order to repay them! My job is to get money from those who don’t want to do this voluntarily,” Felix continued. The phrases poured out of him as if from a gramophone. Considerable experience and deep professional conformity were sensed.
“I don’t owe anything,” Eddy started to argue gloomily.
Refusing to own up, he hurriedly pondered over with which of his numerous debts this visit was connected. He owed a pile of people, but merely token amounts. In any case, there was no smell of a scuffle anywhere. At the most they would throw a cutlet or a tomato at him.
The fat man clicked his tongue. “Two years ago you worked in the Egypt restaurant?”
“Uh-h…” Eddy said, not daring to deny this. “Possibly. I worked in many places.”
“In the bar?”
“Well…”
Felix patted his cheek. “Smart boy, sharp! Remembers everything! So, sailor, you and your partner sold booze there and pocketed part of the takings. Then you quit. Your partner continued the previous stunt. He recently got caught… We already spoke with him,” the fat man looked at his own fist. “He repented and already paid a penalty. Besides that, he told us about you.”
“A real friend,” Eddy uttered miserably. Intuition advised him that denial was not the best idea in this case.
Felix chuckled approvingly. “Here’s a smart boy, understood everything! A real sailor! On the whole, three thousand from you, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
“Three thousand what? Roubles?” Khavron inadvertently blurted out and almost flew over the armchair. He did not even notice when the fat man swung. The pugnacious hulk definitely had a boxing past.
“No offence, sailor! Roubles aren’t considered here! This is so that you’ll be smarter. You’ll return the money?” Felix said.
“Yeah. No problem!” Eddy said maliciously, touching his cheekbone. “Oh yes, I forgot! I’ve donated it to the freezing of Antarctica! Please call my banker next week…”
The fat man’s fist took off again. This time Khavron caught the movement, which started in the hip, but, not having time to dodge, he again nuzzled his ear into the armchair.
“Listen, you! Keep your hands to yourself! What, do I look like one who has money?” Eddy yelled.
Frowning, Felix turned to his boys. The redhead, with great mental strain on his face, was cleaning his nails with a switchblade. The fellow with the scar was yawning openly, examining his sneakers. His long horse face was moody. Both were clearly bored with the routine work.
“What do you think? Does he not have money?” the fat man asked.
“Looks like it,” the redhead reluctantly said through his teeth. “The apartment is hopeless. No car, no computer, equipment is trash. Even if we clean out everything, it won’t run up to five hundred bucks… In short, the fellow is in deep.”
“Alright, sailor. You convinced me!” Felix said. “We believe you don’t have the money. We’ll give you three days to find the necessary sum. You get it – lucky you. You don’t get it – it’s on you. Today I hit you with one-third strength. Next time, three of us will hit together. And another thing, sailor, don’t even try to hide. If you do try, we…”
“Let me guess! Something like I’ll strongly regret it?” Khavron clarified by inquiring.
The fat man unstuck his massive backside from the chair. “Don’t be a smartass! I also see that you’re sharp,” he acknowledged.
The dour threesome marched past Methodius’ empty bed, also incidentally squinted without interest at his childhood photo, and flowed out onto the landing. “You, sailor, don’t relax too much! Or else you’ll be ugly!” the redhead said in farewell and made a crisscross motion with the knife, as if painting Eddy’s face.
Waiting until the door was closed, Khavron flung a sneaker at it and, propping up his head with his hands, put himself at the mercy of gloomy thoughts. Since Eddy had no prospects of getting money, his thoughts did not linger for long on this dead-end subject. They glided further, turning to the most abstract things.
“My mama must have looked at a zebra in the zoo while carrying me in her belly. Since then, my entire existence has been in stripes. Huge black and teensy-weensy white!” Eddy thought, leafing page after page through his life full of trouble.
Gradually he reached childhood, and in his memory, his nurse popped up as a bloated blue drowned man. Thin white lips with small dry cracks. Greyish short nose. Coarse thick hair on the chin. He moves every time she speaks. Here, his nurse grabs his arm painfully, pulling him to herself, takes off the dark glasses, and he sees terrible eyes without pupils.
“Aren’t the treasures of the Dnieper Rapids enough for me? Gold, weapons from dozens of shattered boats. The money that your parents paid me, I would make from mud. One day your life will bring you to a crossroad, and I’ll be there again! For the present, let your mother remove this dead bird!” the voice crackled softly. The toddler grows numb in soundless weeping. He vaguely feels that if he cries out, the witch’s dry fingers will close around his throat.
And again, although years had already passed, Eddy felt horror and the terrible dryness in his mouth. For decades, the old woman had become his nightmare.
“Pooh!