The organs of law and order are not respected in Russia, nor, for that matter, in the West. People steer clear of them and try by every means to have no dealings with them in common. This was in my favour. In Hamburg tricks involving comprehensive face-smashing, twisting of limbs and blackmail would hardly have worked. There a policeman is the same civil servant who can theoretically be dragged through the courts. So if he were to start shamelessly knocking out jaws and asking stupid questions in a private conversation, such behaviour would seem suspicious. But the Moscow region is not North Rhine-Westphalia for you. Here a genuine servant of the law is a sturdy bloke with fists like pood weights, ready to lay anyone out in a moment. In the mass consciousness, only a big fellow like Zheglov is capable of dealing with bandits. And puny Komsomol Sharapovs should be sent off at once to the conservatoire to finish learning their music, so as not to get under the feet of real detectives. Therefore, when a Barmaley in uniform starts smashing everything in sight left and right, it evokes in the citizenry a sympathetic and even joyful understanding – the man is burning at his work, catching crooks without sleep or rest. That’s the sort of service the man has, the sort of profession.
In short, I shoved the excessively well-fed Mikha face down on the floor, gripping the folds of fat on the back of his neck with iron fingers. Then I repeated the whole legend I had told Sergei.
– You need to go to Mefody, – cracked at once Mikhail, supplier of spirit for Seryozha’s business and, in his other capacity, a research fellow at NIIFarm.
– Who is Mefody? – I asked him sternly, thinking that if things went on like this I would have to put the entire population of Kushchino into the press-up position.
– A bloke. I work with him. He knows everyone.
– Where is he now?
– At NIIFarm.
I looked at my watch. Twenty-one fifteen. A trick?
– What’s he doing there at this hour?
– You can ask him that yourself.
I asked. Courteously and in a friendly manner, without swinging my legs and fists about, but seated in a shabby armchair opposite a bespectacled, scrawny lad with a strange name. It would be a sin to frighten a fellow like that.
– Nothing to do at home. So I sit here, scratching together data for my dissertation, – Mefody answered me calmly, nodding towards a computer monitor covered in star dust.
– I’m told you know all the locals. Who round here amuses himself with gear?
Mefody glanced at me over the top of his glasses, shifted his gaze to Mikhail standing crestfallen by the door and, after a short silence, came out with it:
– I won’t grass the lads up, but I think they work for Mamon.
I turned to Mikhail:
– Do you know where Mamon lives?
– Of course. Every dog knows him.
That’s gratifying. I took the fax Hans had sent out of my pocket and showed Mefody the formula.
– Is this what they’re cooking?
– Yes. Though it’s yesterday’s news, – a fleeting glance at the formula was all Mefody needed. – Lengthen the chain a little and you get a thing more powerful than Goethe’s «Faust». You’ll have a genie out of the bottle.
Got it!
– Mefody, sit here a while.
I went out of the room together with Mikha, whom I took by the arm:
– Listen to me carefully, my dear old pal. Tomorrow evening special forces are going to take Mamon. You can imagine what will be left of his dacha. If out of natural stupidity you take it into your head to warn him about the fuss, then in the first place you’ll go down for the spirit business for about seven years, and in the second place you’ll serve only a very small part of that term. I’ll tell Mamon who led me to him and by whose kindness his dacha turned into a charred ruin. Mamon, you may be sure, will dig you out from under the ground and then send you back there. With a shiv in your side. And if everything goes off successfully tomorrow, you’ll go on churning out your poison. Your amateur enterprise doesn’t bother me in the least. Your well-being now depends only on my silence. Well then? Are we going to keep quiet?
– We are.
– Clear off. And Mefody and I still have things to sort out.
Mikha disappeared down the deserted, echoing corridor, and I went back to Mefody and talked to him about life for an hour or two. Then I made a fascinating excursion through the corridors of the institute. Very instructive. After the excursion I spent a couple of hours in the company of insulating tape, wires, a soldering iron and rosin with solder. Only towards morning did I take a very, very warm farewell of the young titan of science. Returned to the shelter of Magda.