With every step, the road seemed longer and life shorter and he couldn't understand why he was looking for justice where no hope or love existed and people's hearts were as dark and empty as their stomachs.
No sooner had the people started forgetting about Karimov's trial than news of a fresh attack came. There was an attempt to cover it up but it was blurted out by a warrant officer at the military unit after more than his usual amount to drink and the next day the town was buzzing like a hive.
The phone rang in the office of the new chief of police whom people sometimes called Trebenko out of habit.
«Now what's going on over there?» the general ground out with ill disguised irritation. Dismissal hung in the air.
«It's the military,» the chief offered by way of an excuse, wiping his sweating forehead. «They've got their own investigation. It's got nothing to do with us.»
«It never does have anything to do with you.» The general swore and slammed down the phone.
Gossip spread through the town like rats and, sensing a story, the visiting journalists turned back, microphones at the ready that were more scary than guns.
Whether he had been attacked or not, no-one could say, but the unit commander wasn't seen in public for several days. When he did put in an appearance, everyone noticed that he was finding it hard to walk and every step hurt.
Whispers in town rehashed what the warrant officer had said in his cups: that, after drinking a whole bottle, some other officer had lain in wait for the commander and thrown a heavy box of tinned meat down on him from a window. As he threw it he shouted, «Die, bastard!» The commander had a narrow escape when the box hit him in the small of the back. He was confined to bed for several days unable to move, leaving the doctors to marvel at his heroic health.
The mayor summoned the chief of police and the prosecutor who bent over their drinks scratching their stubborn necks. After Karimov's arrest, the phone calls from the centre had stopped and the turbulent little town had been left in peace to its own devices. And now once again, their seats threatened to be pulled from under them and, as they poured out the bitter liqueur, they racked their brains as to how to hush up the scandal. When Saam turned up at the door, the chief of police had the feeling that his chair had turned into a stake.
«Four heads are better than three,» grinned the gangster, examining the label on the bottle.
Saam was less violent than the cruel Coffin. He knew how to negotiate and haggle and, if necessary, to lie low. If people didn't talk, he would loosen their tongues like ties. If they talked too much, he'd tear them right out. If Coffin had clenched the town in his fist, Saam had it under his thumb.
«Life is a theatre!» he declared, blowing his nose onto the floor and perching on the edge of the table. The men shuddered. «Ten actors can play the same part and the audience will believe water is tears and paint is blood.»
«No blood, please!» said the mayor in a fright.
«We'll put a marked card in the deck and when the time comes we'll take it out,» said Saam, trying another angle.
«What have cards got to do with it?» The prosecutor frowned.
Saam spat and straddled his chair.
«In short,» he said, abandoning metaphors. «We'll replace the officer who's lost the plot with one of our own and there you go!»
The others turned his suggestion down outright.
«What's done can't be undone,» said the mayor, knocking his glass over. «And the army's not your theatre.»
«Everything's got to be legal and above board!» said the chief of police with a shake of his head using one of Trebenko's favourite phrases.
«Laws are there to be broken,» objected Saam with feigned indifference. «And courts are there to be bought off.»
The men heard the hidden threat in his voice and, with a dismissive gesture, decided things couldn't get worse.
«Do what you think best,» said the mayor, giving in. «Just don't drag us into it.»
At that point, Saam noticed with surprise that the fat mayor had a tiny, darting shadow like a mouse.
«For the first time in my life I felt like a man,» smiled the officer when the door into his cell opened like the gates of heaven. «It's like I haven't lived.»
«Then you haven't died either,» retorted the gangster, taking the already lifeless body by the feet.
They put the body in the boot. Saam, who had a weakness for rituals, demanded that the ill-fated box of tinned meat that he'd thrown at the commander should go in with him.
When the journalists showed up at the army unit along with an inspection team, it appeared there had been a false alarm and the attack had been a fiction. The unit commander talked about lumbago as he clutched his aching back swathed in a woollen shawl. The officers he lined up in front of the barracks were smooth-shaven and well turned out. The inspectors questioned everyone, leafing through their records, and by evening they were enjoying the steam at the lakeside banya.
The hapless officer had no family and the neighbour on the same floor who had been worried about his drinking companion was told he'd left the forces. Removal men with coarse faces and broad shoulders took the furniture out of his flat and loaded it into an ancient container. For several days the neighbour drowned his sorrows in drink, telling the walclass="underline" «We drank together for so many years and he never even bothered to say goodbye.»
«And no theatricals,» warned Pipe before he left. He took his speaking device out of his pocket the way he used to pull a gun. «No accidents, heart attacks or suicides. Look after him like the apple of your eye. Otherwise, I'll send in my boys and they'll kill you, your kids and your friends, and raze the town to the ground.»
His mechanical voice turned Saam inside out: when he thought about the old man, he winced and ground his teeth. The gangsters carried out Pipe's instruction and didn't lay a finger on Savage. When they came across him in the street, they stepped aside, their evil looks at his back like penknives stuck in wood.
Once, they called him over, pointing him to a car parked at the side of the road. Clasping his briefcase to his chest, Savage looked around to call for help but the gangsters pinned his arms to his sides and pushed him onto the back seat. The fair-haired driver switched off the ignition and slammed the door, leaving him with Saam who leered as he picked his teeth with a matchstick.
«Well, hello, Savely Savage!»
Savage felt terror return, standing out on his forehead in beads of sweat. Saam thought back to the evening when Coffin died and was astonished that it was Karimov he saw aiming the gun.
«We spent a long time looking for you,» Saam said, shaking his head. «Some of us never came back. They died out there in the forest…»
Savage remembered the old hunter, his neck torn and bloody like a rag, and nausea rose in his gullet.
«You know, it's a piece of piss to turn a popgun into a firearm,» Saam said, scratching the back of his neck. «But people are pretty quick getting rid of a gun with a history attached…»
Savage felt a stabbing pain in his chest but he hid his fear under his coat and licked his dry lips.
«Lawbreakers leave a trail of broken necks.»
«It can't be easy playing with fate,» the bandit grinned, letting the words go over his head. «Let alone playing Russian roulette.»
«It's not easy to play against people who never lose,» replied Savage, amazed there was no trace of his stammer.
They fell silent and exchanged glances via the windscreen mirror. Each waited to see what the other would say. Savage was aware that his back was soaked while Saam was fighting the desire to turn round to get a better look at him.