be checking.”
“I’d be happy to accompany you gentlemen there right now.”
Like they’ll go anywhere with me. No doubt they’ve got other idiots to wait for.
They’re lying, the bastards! They’re no kind of protection, just street trash. But there are three of them, and they’re stronger than me. Any argument from my side will result in fisticuffs, and I know who’s going to come off worse.
“When you come back, go into that doorway over there. It’s flat seven. There’s a box in the hallway. If none of us are there, that doesn’t mean we’ve left. We guard everything round here, see? So put your stuff in the box. We’ll be checking.”
It’s the same stairwell where I found that jerry-rigged alarm. It’s all a simple shakedown. They hang around outside the shop – or as close as they dare to get for fear of catching a bullet. I doubt the shopkeeper’s guards think much of their activities. Doesn’t mean these arseholes can’t catch me on the way, though. And I’ll get more than a punching if I’m not careful. I know their kind. They don’t give a shit.
My backpack loses much of its weight. I get another slap round the head in the way of goodbye, and get round the corner fast.
So, there’s another Makar round here, too. It’s just a simple racket for now, but soon they’ll get stronger, work out what they’re doing, and attract more scumbags to their ranks. Am I going to have to spend my whole time running away from bastards like this?
If only I was armed, but where am I going to get a gun from? A pocket knife won’t be enough to get rid of them. Nor will the axe, for that matter. There’s too many of them, and I don’t even remember the last time I used it to cut someone. How long ago was it? That’s right, never. Do I really plan to start? Not now, certainly.
There is, of course, a chance of finding a gun while I’m gutting flats. But even with a crew the size of Makar’s that didn’t happen very often. For some reason folks round here don’t keep much in the way of arsenals at home. It’s hopeless. So, what can I do? Pondering the matter fruitlessly, I drink half a bottle of cognac and slump into Vitya’s shagpad.
Something jolts me awake in the middle of the night. I jump out of bed. What’s the matter? Something must have woken me, but what? I pace round the room, banging my knees on the vast bed every other step. Fuck-fuck-fuck. That’s it! That guy, the one who was killed by the “Bears” in the second shop. He shot at them, didn’t he? He did. There was firing that didn’t sound like an automatic weapon. And then the bad guys opened fire on him. Though why are they the bad guys? They even threw me a couple of tins of food. Then off they went, and I don’t remember seeing any other guns on them but their assault rifles. What would they need anything else for? Which means the dead guy’s gun is still there.
It must be lying round there somewhere, but when I get to the shop and look around, I just can’t work out exactly where it could have got to. So, let’s think logically. My brain seems still to be working more or less.
A shot, followed almost immediately by bursts of fire from the Bears. No screams, sounds of footsteps, or any other noises. Which means they downed him almost immediately, and he dropped dead more or less on the spot. He’s still lying there, arms outstretched and beginning to stink.
Let’s work on the assumption that most people shoot right-handed. There’s no reason to think this guy was any different. Then, when they pumped his chest with at least five rounds, he went straight down where he was standing. Which means his gun must have ended up somewhere over here…
I crouch down and catch sight of a glint of light off the metal of the gun barrel. The gun must have flown under the overturned shelves, and that’s why I never saw it. The previous owner had for some reason sawed off the stock, almost all the way to the pistol grip, as I believe they call it. The gun wasn’t all that big to start with. You could fit it under a coat, or even a suit jacket, without attracting attention. A semi-sawn-off, I guess you’d call it. Normally, they saw off the barrel. I’ve seen them in museums. But then you can only fire point-blank, while with the barrel still intact you’ve got a fair chance of hitting something at up to fifty meters. If you can shoot straight, that is.
I don’t know exactly what type of hunting gun it used to be – I’m no expert, after all. But you can let loose down a corridor without even bothering to aim too carefully. You reload it by pulling the piece of wood under the barrel towards you. From the movies again, I know that that makes it a pump-action.
I should take a look at the dead guy, but his pockets have been turned out long before I got there. It was probably those Bears who did it. There’s unlikely to be anything left. And I’ve no great desire to go anywhere near that corpse. The smell is awful, and I’d probably just catch some disease.
The gun was lightly covered with rust. This I noticed once I’d already got it home. Never mind, there’s some sunflower oil in the little office kitchen, and that’ll do for now. Then I’ll find some motor oil in one of the flats and give it a proper greasing. After tinkering around for a while, I manage to strip the gun down. As I thought, the shooter hadn’t managed to chamber another round. I pulled an empty cartridge smelling of gunpowder out of the barrel. According to the marking on the bottom, it’s a twelve-gauge. That’s a big hole – almost two centimetres across. Shit, so how big’s a twenty-gauge? You’d need to put it on wheels. Or am I confusing something? I must be, because I remember they used to talk about a twenty-gauge as a ladies’ gun. It must be some kind of inverse proportion. As for ammo, there were only three shells. Two of them had a flying duck drawn on the casing, while the third had four zeros stamped on the paper at the tip. So? What does that mean? Which one should I put in first?
Having cleaned off the gun, I put it back together. Turns out it’s a lot easier than reassembling a printer after servicing. That’s something else I did once upon a time, and it wasn’t just printers I fixed, there was some more serious kit as well. I try using the pump-action, pulling the wood under the barrel backwards and forwards. The barrel jumps up.
No, it’s not my game. I just can’t get the hang of swinging round and aiming quickly. What about those amazing manoeuvres they do in the movies? But then again, that’s the movies. Where everybody shoots like a trained sniper. Whereas my doubts in my ability to shoot accurately are well-founded. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to hit a door at ten meters!
For ammo, I’ll have to go and see the shopkeeper – he’s bound to have some! He must be supplying his guards, which means he’s got a store. Or at least he knows where to find some. Which means I’d better start looking for more empty bottles.
So once again I’m back in the basement at the water pipe. I really do need to think of something else. While this water business does stop me dying from hunger, the career prospects are rather limited. How much of this water does the shopkeeper need? And sooner or later even plastic bottles are going to be scarce. Then what? I don’t have an answer yet.
When he frisked me this time, the guard showed no surprise at what he found.
“Got yourself a piece, eh?”
“Just a little one,” I agree.
There’s no point dicking around. I want to be friends with these guys.
“See the box over there?” asks the guard. “Put it in there.”
The guy behind the grille with the assault rifle tenses. You never know.
The shopkeeper (whose name, it turns out, is Artemiy) chucks all the bottles into a crate.
“What
