Moscow. Autumn, the beginning of the 1990s.
“Sometimes you need a crash in the system,
And go by touch in the dark of the moon,
And even you should mess with wrong guys
To appreciate those who don’t tell lies.”
***
They worked in threes, it was so accepted, and no one argued with that. Two could come to terms but it was much more difficult for three people...
Yefim lit a cigarette, staying in the cherry car and waiting for Nazar and Oleg to take away the dough.
Nazar went first, followed by Oleg. In the afternoon in this semi-basement room, it was quiet and deserted. Prostitutes slept after night work, and the main staff came here in the evening, then everything came to life here. The gambling business flourished, the girls worked, the money flow functioned well and smoothly.
Varlam kept this casino and brothel under his control. Today was the end of the month that meant you needed to take tribute.
Nazar slightly slowed down in the middle of one of the many narrow corridors of the semi-basement brothel. Inner flair never failed him. The fact that there was something unclean, he felt immediately. After that, he caught movement on his side, but Oleg's voice came from behind.
"Nazar!"
He knew that there was no need to turn around ... but it was Oleg, he was his ... and Nazar turned around.
And then there was a pain in the head and darkness...
***
"Where am I?" Without recognizing his voice, Nazar whispered hoarsely.
A dimly discernible shadow all in white approached him.
Nazar decided that he was in paradise. A frail figure of a girl with huge gray eyes examined him, and then he heard her angelic voice.
“You woke up... in the hospital, but where else ...for two days you didn’t open... haven't opened your eyes,” said the angelic voice, correcting herself. "Shall I give a drink?"
Nazar nodded, though most likely he blinked since he didn’t feel his body at all. Only by feeling the moisture on his lips, he realized how he wanted to drink.
The angel in white was still telling something and then melted into the twilight of the evening, which leaked through the window.
Nazar was sorry that paradise was so strange ... he thought it was different. His thoughts began to disappear again, and he fell asleep, feeling himself already alive, but not yet completely returned from heaven to earth.
***
"Your name, surname, patronymic, year of birth, where were you born, where are you registered?"
Nazar shifted his gaze from the white ceiling to the one who so cruelly destroyed his paradise. A policeman was sitting on a chair opposite him with a notepad. Probably, this question had been repeated for the tenth time already, judging by his irritated voice.
Seeing the lieutenant's shoulder straps and the face of a young servant of the law, so ideological and fanatical in his outburst in the fight against crime, Nazar finally realized that he was not in paradise and that he was alive.
A young lieutenant spent an hour torturing him with his questions. To the questions about himself: name, surname, date of birth, study, residence permit and so on, of course, Nazar answered with all his honesty, but as soon as a naive lieutenant, encouraged by his compliance, began to find out what Nazar was doing in that basement, here he lost his memory and intellect. Nazar asked the lieutenant ten times about what he was talking about, sincerely tried to recollect what happened before his injury, but he could not remember anything.
And the lieutenant believed him...
And how you would not believe if the patient had a concussion after all this took its toll on brain functions.
Having signed the interrogation report, the young policeman left.
Nazar wearily closed his eyes, scrolling through the memory of all the latest events. He clearly, to the smallest details, remembered everything. And the last thing he remembered was the voice of Oleg, to which he turned...
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