again—see how the years have treated him. I just wanted to find out, you know, if his karma had taken a turn for the better.”
“So?”
“Well, same as ever. He’s gotten really weird … he’s drinking, I guess. Or shooting up. Not too good, anyway, from what I could see. But I tell you, I did enjoy seeing him. In the sense that, you know, nothing has changed. Because sometimes you think, you know, everything’s okay for me, things are working out, money’s piling up. You’ve got everything you need. And then suddenly something unexpected happens—just out of the blue. And,
“Do you know a Gleb Mezentsev?”
“A little. Through Pasha.”
“Do you know what happened to him?”
“No …”
“He was in a car crash. Two months ago.”
“Whoa … what happened to him?”
“He’s in the hospital.”
“Hurt bad?”
“Pretty serious.”
“Hmmm … I guess that’s how it goes.”
“Pasha and Gleb were friends, weren’t they? I’d like to see Pasha, to talk to him. Could you give me his phone number—the one you reached him at? I’m looking for him, but everyone says he disappeared …”
“His number? Sure.”
I tossed my cigarette butt away, folded my arms behind my head, and stretched. A girl sitting directly across from me glanced over and then mechanically turned away. I just as mechanically slid my gaze above her head, a bit to the right: slid it along the concave facade of the Radisson, along the pseudoclassical colonnade of the station, along the bent stainless steel pipes in the center of the fountain, which were supposed to represent the horns of the bull who abducted Europa, according to the Belgian sculptor. A gift, you understand, to the city.
They’d probably be ashamed to erect something like that in the middle of Brussels.
A shaggy black dog gulped voraciously from the fountain. Little children waded in up to their knees. The girls sitting across from me finally stood up and walked by me, passing to my left toward the bridge, their heels clicking along. I thought to myself that if I had been here with Dmitry, like in the old days, an exciting little encounter with them would have taken place—at least a 70 to 80 percent chance of it.
I can’t say that I really envied his garrulous nature. His ability to get along with anyone, anywhere, at any time, and talk about whatever came up could be tiresome. But his very communicativeness bewitched me sometimes—in its universality and inexplicability. I couldn’t figure out what attraction Dmitry held for people of all ages, social backgrounds, and IQs. He didn’t have, say, Gleb’s brains. He wasn’t especially charming or handsome. He didn’t have the rudeness that is so attractive to girls. On the contrary, Dmitry’s manner and appearance were characterized by a faint, slightly intentional goofiness. A person without much education and wit, he played the role of an enfant terrible. And in this niche he enjoyed condescending but indubitable success, even when he behaved like a complete idiot. Everyone teased him, but at the same time they sought him out and called him incessantly (often without any reason whatsoever), and gathered around him in remarkably large, motley crowds. He affected people like a beautiful woman or free drinks: in his presence people began to chatter loudly, guffaw, and swagger. Guys gave themselves over as drinking buddies, girls as lovers. From the day he was born, Dmitry hadn’t had to lift a finger to find either business partners or bedfellows—in spite of the fact that the guy never stayed loyal to either.
I was no different from his other friends. I was glad to drink with him, prepared to lower my standards of intellect and wit, and was forgiving about minor and not so minor character flaws; I generally took on a protective role, even when our social and financial status suggested the exact opposite …
I thought about our spontaneous encounter last week. There was something very strange, and at the same time very predictable, in the repetition of the classic scenarios of the old days—two people with a bottle on the grassy slope across from Europe Square. Right above the station we saw a golden slash through the gray clouds. Dullish rays fell in fan-shaped sheaves on the shimmery heights of the construction site, its signal lights winking on the straining arms of the giant insectlike cranes. (When we used to sit here back then, there weren’t any cranes.) Below, from the Rostov embankment, a steady hum rose up, interspersed with bellowing horns and the gunning of engines. A Miller beer ad the size of a small building hung above the square, where everything ended for me …
We sat and drank, like before—both of us understanding perfectly well that it would never again be like it used to be. And then it dawned on me that Dmitry had started this phony demonstration of solidarity to prove to himself the absolute and fundamental inequality between us; two people who don’t differ in any fundamental way, neither superior to the other, yet one of them receives everything and everyone without asking, and the other is shunned and doesn’t even get what he has honestly earned. And neither one is to blame for this. And this is nobody’s fault. No one is to blame for anything—actually, there is never rhyme or reason to anything whatsoever.
It’s all just the way it is. For no reason. Just because. Just—because.
I looked up and met someone’s searing gaze. A fairly unpleasant one. It belonged to a burly man who had suddenly materialized in front of me; someone of about fifty with the broad, crudely chiseled mug of a charismatic antihero. The fellow was walking toward me—uncertainly at first, but with every step more and more purposeful. I realized right away who it was. I was about to get up when the guy stopped abruptly, shoved his hand inside his coat, and, staring at me from under his brow, clapped a cell phone to his ear.
* * *
Kostya from the Criminal Investigation Department called; he was a great resource for Felix here in Moscow.
“Hello?” Felix answered in a quiet, curt voice, not taking his eyes off Pasha Korenev.
“You’re trying to find out about Dmitry Lisin?” Kostya asked cautiously, his voice full of concern.
“Yeah.”
“Were you able to see him?”
“Yes. Yesterday.”
“Well, that’s lucky,” Kostya snickered. “Just in time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I happened across his name this morning. I thought of you right away. The report on the explosion on Sirenevy Boulevard came in from the eastern precinct.”
“What explosion?”
“You haven’t heard? At 2 Sirenevy Boulevard. It looks like a gas main burst. Several apartments were destroyed, three people died. One of them was Lisin. He lived in the apartment right above the one that blew up.”
“A gas main?” Felix repeated slowly, looking at Korenev, who sat serenely in the same spot.
“That’s what they suspect. The cause hasn’t been determined yet.”
“It wasn’t gas, Kostya. I mean, maybe it was gas—but it wasn’t an accident. It was murder.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” Felix barked, then hung up.
He approached the bastard, who stared calmly back at him and seemed like he was about to hold out his hand in greeting; but Felix’s facial expression stopped him.
“Pasha …?” Felix asked, surprised at the hesitancy of his own voice.
The bastard nodded. “Felix …?”
A plain, pale fellow, who seemed paradoxically both younger and older than his thirty-some years. Absolutely average, a somehow ineffably unprepossessing appearance. At the same time, a certain detail that Felix didn’t catch—probably something in the guy’s eyes—triggered his memory of the words of the late Lisin:
They stood there facing each other—Korenev, calmly expectant. Felix suddenly realized he didn’t know how
