He scowls and bangs his pipe on the ashtray in annoyance. “That’s none of your business,” he says. “I’m warning you as an old friend: give up this nonsense, give it up for good. If they catch you a second time, you won’t walk away with six months. And they’ll kick you out of the Institute once and for all, understand?”
“I understand,” I say. “That much I understand. What I don’t understand is what son of a bitch squealed on me…”
But he’s staring through me again, puffing on his empty pipe, and flipping merrily through his file. That, then, signals the return of Sergeant Lummer with case 150. “Thank you, Schuhart,” says Captain Willy Herzog, nicknamed the Hog. “That’s all that I needed to know. You are free to go.”
Well, I go to the locker room, change into my lab suit, and light up, the entire time trying to figure out: where are they getting the dirt? If it’s from the Institute, then it’s all lies, no one here knows a damn thing about me and never could. And if it’s from the police… again, what could they know about except my old sins? Maybe the Vulture got nabbed; that bastard, to save his sorry ass, would rat on his own mother. But even the Vulture doesn’t have a thing on me nowadays. I think and think, can’t think of a thing, and decide not to give a damn. The last time I went into the Zone at night was three months ago; the swag is mostly gone, and the money is mostly spent. They didn’t catch me then, and like hell they’ll catch me now. I’m slippery.
But then, as I’m heading upstairs, it hits me, and I’m so stunned that I go back down to the locker room, sit down, and light up again. It turns out I can’t go into the Zone today. And tomorrow I can’t, and the day after tomorrow. It turns out the cops again have me on their radar, they haven’t forgotten about me, and even if they have, someone has very kindly reminded them. And it doesn’t even matter now who it was. No stalker, unless he’s completely nuts, will go anywhere near the Zone when he knows he’s being watched. Right now, I ought to be burrowing into some deep dark corner. Zone? What Zone? I haven’t set foot there in months, I don’t even go there using my pass! What are you harassing an honest lab assistant for?
I think all this through and even feel a bit of relief that I don’t need to go into the Zone today. Except how am I going to break it to Kirill?
I tell him straight out. “I’m not going into the Zone. Your orders?”
At first, of course, he just gawks at me. Eventually, something seems to click. He takes me by the elbow, leads me to his office, sits me down at his table, and perches on the windowsill nearby. We light up. Silence. Then he asks me cautiously, “Red, did something happen?”
Now what am I supposed to tell him? “No,” I say, “nothing happened. Well, I blew twenty bucks last night playing poker—that Noonan sure knows how to play, the bastard.”
“Hold on,” he says. “What, you mean you just changed your mind?”
I almost groan from the tension. “I can’t,” I say through my teeth. “I can’t, you get it? Herzog just called me to his office.”
He goes limp. Again misery is stamped on his face, and again his eyes look like a sick poodle’s. He takes a ragged breath, lights a new cigarette with the remains of the old one, and says quietly, “Believe me, Red, I didn’t breathe a word to anyone.”
“Stop it,” I say. “Who’s talking about you?”
“I haven’t even told Tender yet. I got a pass for him, but I haven’t even asked him whether he’d come or not…”
I keep smoking in silence. Ye gods, the man just doesn’t understand.
“What did Herzog say to you, anyway?”
“Oh, not much,” I say. “Someone squealed on me, that’s all.”
He gives me a funny look, hops off the windowsill, and starts walking back and forth. He’s pacing around his office while I sit there, blowing smoke rings and keeping my trap shut. I feel sorry for him, of course, and really this is rotten luck: a great cure I found for the guy’s depression. And who’s to blame here? I am, that’s who. I tempted a child with candy, except the candy’s in a jar, out of reach on the top shelf… He stops pacing, comes up to me, and, looking somewhere off to the side, asks awkwardly, “Listen, Red, how much would it cost—a full empty?”
I don’t get it at first, thinking he wants to buy one somewhere else, except good luck finding another one—it might be the only one in the world, and besides, he wouldn’t have enough money. Where would a Russian scientist get that much cash? Then I feel like I’ve been slapped: does the bastard think I’m pulling this stunt for the dough? For God’s sake, I think, asshole, what do you take me for? I even open my mouth, ready to shower him with curses. And I stop. Because, actually, what else could he take me for? A stalker’s a stalker, the money is all that matters to him, he gambles his life for the money. So it follows that yesterday I threw out the line, and today I’m working the bait, jacking up the price.
These thoughts shock me speechless. Meanwhile, he keeps staring at me intently, and in his eyes I don’t see contempt—only a kind of compassion. And so I explain it to him calmly. “No one has ever gone to the garage with a pass,” I say. “They haven’t even laid the route to it yet, you know that. So here we are coming back, and your Tender starts bragging how we made straight for the garage, took what we needed, and returned immediately. As if we went to the warehouse. And it will be perfectly obvious,” I say, “that we knew what we were coming for. That means that someone was guiding us. And which one of us three it was—that’s a real tough one. You understand how this looks for me?”
I finish my little speech, and we silently look each other in the eye. Then he suddenly claps his hands, rubs them together, and cheerfully announces, “Well, of course, no means no. I understand you, Red, so I can’t judge you. I’ll go myself. I’ll manage, with luck. Not my first time.”
He spreads the map on the windowsill, leans on his hands, hunches over it, and all his good cheer evaporates before my eyes. I hear him mumble, “Three hundred and ninety feet… or even four hundred… and a bit more in the garage. No, I won’t take Tender. What do you think, Red, maybe I shouldn’t take Tender? He has two kids, after all…”
“They won’t let you out on your own,” I say.
“Don’t worry, they will,” he says, still mumbling. “I know all the sergeants… and all the lieutenants. I don’t like those trucks! Thirteen years they’ve stood in the open air, and they still look brand-new… Twenty steps away, the gasoline tanker is rusted through, but they look fresh from the assembly line. Oh, that Zone!”
He lifts his gaze from the map and stares out the window. And I stare out the window, too. There, beyond the thick leaded glass, is our Zone—right there, almost within reach, tiny and toylike from the thirteenth floor…
If you take a quick look at it, everything seems OK. The sun shines there just like it’s supposed to, and it seems as if nothing’s changed, as if everything’s the same as thirteen years ago. My old man, rest his soul, could take a look and see nothing out of place, might only wonder why there isn’t smoke coming from the factories—Is there a strike on? Yellow ore in conical mounds, blast furnaces gleaming in the sun, rails, rails, and more rails, on the rails a locomotive… In short, the typical industrial landscape. Except there’s no one around: no one living, no one dead. Ah, and there’s the garage: a long gray tube, the gates wide open, and trucks standing next to it on the lot. Thirteen years they’ve stood, and nothing’s happened to them. Kirill got that right—he has a good head on his shoulders. God help you if you ever pass between those vehicles, you must always go around… There’s a useful crack in the pavement there, if it hasn’t filled with brambles. Four hundred feet—where’s he measuring that from? Oh! Must be from the last marker. Right, can’t be more than that from there. These eggheads are making progress after all… Look, they’ve laid a route all the way to the dump, and a clever route at that! There it is, the ditch where the Slug kicked the bucket, all of six feet away from their route. And Knuckles kept telling the Slug, “You idiot, stay away from those ditches or there will be nothing left to bury!” A real prophecy that was—nothing left to bury indeed. That’s the Zone for you: come back with swag, a miracle; come back alive, success; come back with a patrol bullet in your ass, good luck; and everything else—that’s fate.