2

Let the kid not think that he was so frightened by his announcement. You never know where he's going. We will discuss all this later, but for now we need to probe it and in more detail, as if it were really not the last time such an opportunity.

I will leave you the last...

Drrrrr!..

Oh, what a day it is today, Marat hurried to find the damn vibrating alert in his pocket, but he had already died. Literally.

Angrily twirling the lifeless Blackberry between his fingers, Marat limply dropped the device that had become useless, to be sure, crushing it from above until it crunched with his heel. He already knew how it was. The kid really did not like any electronics. Probably, he was afraid of wiretapping, but not only. She burned close to him only on the way.

- Again?

- I apologize. Hurry, completely out of my head.

And why is he fawning over the boy? He decided to throw it anyway.

“It doesn't matter, I'll leave you the final instructions, and this time everything must be as clear as possible.

But the fact that?

Have I ever broken...

“We both know that yes,” the boy interrupted him, without listening to the end.

Well, let's say it was the case, a long time ago, according to the first. So the kid, as a return, appointed their next meeting with meaning at the cemetery. Marat, as he remembered now, was Vagankovskoye, at the graves of the Giorgadze brothers. Here, even a stupid person will immediately understand everything, and even the one who successfully survived in the nineties, and even more so. A bolder hint would only be to score a conversation in Pakhra. Marat chuckled to himself, it would be funny to meet now with the fighters on the arrow. The kid probably thinks that Marat really never saw him in person. He saw, he saw everything, and the kid never pulled on an expert on such topics. However, at that time Marat was smart enough to understand the hint and not run into more analyzes.

“I apologize again.

Something moved again in the shadows of the booth.

- Okay.

A thick cardboard envelope slipped through the slot in the ventilation grill.

- Here you are.

On photo paper? The boy was definitely crazy.

Were you fond of photography as a child? Here, brush up on the skill. Do not scan, do not photograph, no photocopies, otherwise you will light up the ends.

Where did he come from… ah, well, at least yes. Marat carefully accepted the envelope and, to be sure, slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket, just the right size.

- And what should I do with it?

- In the photo room, print it out, read it aloud, speak into the dictaphone, cassette. Put the film in your safe with a magnetic shredder, I know you have it. Light up the paper after recording and burn it.

That's it.

- What's the point? Is it pale there?

It was still not enough for him to run from the office.

“Nothing that could set you up if you follow the instructions, but if this data falls into the wrong hands, this is where you might have problems.

- So, it's definitely fawn. Why do I have these hemorrhoids?

- As you know. I'm not trying to persuade you, if you change your mind, just open the envelope in the light.

Marat glanced wistfully at Kolya, looming in the window of the Gelendvagen. You're not doing well to me, boy, oh, not well.

- What's inside something?

- Everything is as usual. Your path to a brighter future. To a very bright future.

- Mine or yours?

- Your. There's nothing else for me to do here.

A boy is falling over a hillock. But from what?

“Maybe I should back off too?”

- See for yourself. Open the envelope, and then decide.

- Let's say I decide to back off, everything will be fine between us?

- There is nowhere more even, the expense of garlic. But if the envelope remains unopened or disappears, then we may have problems. And these problems will have to be solved somehow.

Okay, let's say.

“But if I just fuck off, what are you doing?”

“You don’t think I only talk to you, do you?” One way or another, I'll find someone who dares. After all, it pays well.

Marat was silent. It dripped unpleasantly down the collar. No matter how wet this envelope is and does not tear.

- So, is that all?

- That's all.

Sluggishly waving his left hand in a farewell gesture, Marat wandered back.

Not how he imagined their parting conversation, oh, not like that. And most importantly, it did not foreshadow anything. As soon as he began to think about some kind of quiet harbor where he could successfully spend the rest of his days, he began to slowly buy real estate with a view of the Thames and Central Park, so here it is.

Sit now, guess what the kid thought of himself. What if in this envelope it’s not just pale, but such pale, for which the same office will then write you a quiet death in the closet of a London hotel. And what, he went too far with pleasures in the intoxicating air of Foggy Albion, with whom it does not happen.

However, the boy is right, let's not rush to a decision. The envelope burned Marat's shirt right to the heart, but we will survive this trouble, as it was sung in the Soviet cartoon. Hurry slowly, advised the classic, and he was also more than ever right. No one requires Marat to make a decision right here in the sun, so why invent something in the heat of the moment.

Having knocked on the tinted glass of the Gelendvagen, Marat silently made a grasping movement with his palm. The driver, Kolya, made an uncomprehending face for a second. I had to repeat the movement. What are you staring at, I know you have it.

The glass obediently lowered, and a metal flask comfortably lay in the palm of his hand.

Throwing back his head gratefully, Marat took three good sips and only then turned around.

No, it didn't seem to.

Above the freshly painted booth, sparks were already flying with might and main into the clear midday skies.

If the transformer were connected to something, one would think that it overheated in the sun and shorted out at once.

Already the first greasy clouds of smoke climbed into the sky. Marat turned his neck, can't you see the boy? But no, the same cracked asphalt field was basking in the sun around. Even the dogs are gone.

Well, no, kid, you won't fool us with such tricks.

Let's go before the firemen come.

Kolya looked inquiringly at the blazing booth, but wound up without question.

I had to turn to the center through some garages, but it’s better this way, there is less chance of crossing with noisy red cars, whose sirens were already resounding over the dusty industrial zone.

Carefully shifting to the left to better cover the driver's seat, Marat glanced sideways at Kolya, but he enthusiastically turned his neck, looking for the missed exit to the departure. The paper envelope obediently fell into his palm. Previously, the kid's tips worked as if by magic, by themselves, just do what you are told, and you will be in chocolate.

But now a deadly mechanism seemed to be ticking in front of Marat, albeit dressed in the form of a pack of photographic paper in a mocking old-fashioned “unibrom” package, GOST such and such.

For connoisseurs of vintage, therefore. With grain to.

Marat really got carried away as a child, taking a parental bath at night with a scandal. He and Tolik ride on the Karpaty moped, dad's fifteenth birthday present. He and Tanya on Vodniki (she then refused to shoot without a bra). Over time, the fashionable "FED", therefore, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky in an odorous leather holster broke one day and disappeared somewhere on the mezzanine. I didn’t have time for photography - the university, the first successfully resold batch of 286th computers, the first run over by Lyubertsy. It was a long time ago.

Okay, kid, let's see where your photo paper takes us both. You need to get a red lamp somewhere. It’s not for Kolya to send for her on the Gelendvagen.

Looking at the red traffic lights flashing outside the window under the tired quack, Marat went deep into his thoughts, it was necessary to decide something as soon as possible, and preferably before the nimble kid had time to get out of the country.