Читать книгу Diamond lady. Prose in english - Natalia Patratskaya - Страница 4

The door of Zoe to the apartment of Agnes was opened by Georges.

– I’m to Agnes. I have to take the money for the work, «Zoe blurted out, feeling that she had come at the wrong time.

– Zoe, thank you! You helped me so much! Said Agnes with a benevolent smile that Georges never left her face after her arrival.

– Agnes, I need to talk a little bit with you. Desirable without witnesses, – said Zoe and glanced at Georges.

– Go to another room. We’ll talk there, «Agnes said, leading Zoya away from the man.

– Can I take another look at diamonds? I liked them very much, Zoya asked and immediately grabbed a death grip on diamonds as soon as Agnes opened a beautiful painted treasure box.

In her hands, the transparent stones seemed even larger and attracted by their magnificent brilliance of the faces.

– Agnessa, how did the diamonds come to you? Sorry, but I also want such magnificence! – exclaimed quite sincerely Zoe.

– Oh, better not ask! On the day of our acquaintance, my husband promised me to donate diamonds, but I didn’t believe him, but he took and presented a whole set! Apollo said that he bought diamonds at the Silver Hoof store.

– Where is your husband now? What is his profession? Where does it live? Who lives with? – Zoe asked questions, as if not hoping to get an answer.

– I would know where he lives, so I would have gone to him a long time ago, but he does not tell me. I do not know who and where he works. He does not send money to me, «Agnes yelled to justify her lonely life.

– Apollo – cutter. Agnes is a deceiver, – the parrot spoke about his beloved master, sitting in a golden cage.

«Agnessa, the parrot says Apollo is a cutter,» Zoe said.

– Oh, traitor! Yes, he worked as a grinder, once said the word «cutter».

– Does the diamond cutter work? – asked Zoe.

– Oh! He works as a diamond cutter! «I didn’t think about it,» said Agnes thoughtfully.

– Apollo can make the same diamonds for me? Your diamonds have a very interesting cut.

– I do not know. We did not talk about diamond processing. If he comes here again, then I will ask him, «Agnes mumbled. – Yes, here’s your money, I’m sorry for not giving it away right away.

– Goodbye, Agnes! I hope that the next time you meet with your husband, will you remember my request?

«I will try to help you,» Agnes replied, closing the door.

Zoya went outside and got into Musin’s car.

– Musin, you are right. In this business with diamonds, there must be a lot of interesting things hidden. Agnessa’s husband works as a diamond cutter, but where it is unknown.

– So you need to find out where in our country diamonds are processed! Do diamond factories! All jewelers we can not get around in a lifetime.

«Well, I’ll find out about the factories,» assured chef Zoya.

In order not to suffer from the struggle with his own conscience, Apollo got himself entertainment – admiring his appearance. He collected the diamonds he brought home to decorate his own person. Having made a diamond lamp, he decided to make a diamond set for himself: a cross, hoops on his wrist, a hoop on his head. Sometimes he took smaller diamonds.

In the evening, having tightly closed the windows with curtains, he turned on the light in the crystal chandelier, put a diamond cross on his chest, diamond hoops on his wrists and performed a diamond dance. He hung big mirrors on one wall of a single room. He preferred music without words. Jazz music sounded more often in the room.

Diamond sparks reflected in the mirrors, a diamond lamp radiating magnificent light. He needed a spectator, he needed a silent spectator! He went to the society of disabled people and looked out for a girl who could not and could not speak. He told the chairman of society that he needed a silent girl to do his homework.

The girl was blinded by the brilliance of diamonds and crystal, but could not talk about it, she understood that it was her job: to look at the dancing man, clap her hands, clean the apartment and sometimes cook food. The work was simple, so the girl felt completely calm.

She decided that the man performs the shaman’s dances, just sparkles with it. Apollo was pleased with her calmness, which she displayed at the sight of the shining rays of diamonds. He never drove home to himself. The girl was the first to see his diamond dance.

At the Diamond Plant, they were wondering about the loss of diamonds the size of a cherry pit. To search for the missing diamonds have connected the competent authorities, checked all the people working at the plant. There were no results.

And suddenly a long-awaited call sounded in the director’s office:

– German Petrovich, private detective Musin is talking to you. Didn’t a cherry bone-sized diamonds disappear in your factory?

– What?! Repeat! I understood correctly? Are you talking about cherry-sized diamonds? – happily exclaimed the director.

– Yes. I ask about cherry-sized diamonds!

– Dear you man! For any information on this issue we guarantee a large award! Come on! Immediately! You will miss a passport do not forget to take with you!

– Zoya, you have to go to the Diamond Plant, located in the Diamond City. Let’s go together? – addressed Musin to his partner.

– No, I will do business here, and you go alone, everything is almost clear.

Musin was allowed to go to the factory and escorted to the director’s office.

– Mr. Musin, lay out everything you know on the question of diamonds the size of a cherry pit! Do not conceal your knowledge from me, «the plant manager asked.

– German Petrovich! The fact is that in our city a single woman, Agnes Arkina, lost three diamonds the size of a cherry bone. There is a chance that her husband Apollo is a diamond cutter.

– Agnes?! It can not be! Apollo Arkin works for us! It is clean as a glass! Not a single detention. He has a wife Agnes, I learned all the data cutters. Oh, a mountain from the shoulders. But how does he endure diamonds? He was never suspected! He was not glowing anywhere! Did not sell! Did not participate!!!

– I do not know this. And Agnes knows little about him. She said that on the day of her acquaintance he promised her diamonds and presented her.

– Specify when he promised her? – anxiously asked German Petrovich.

– He promised her to donate diamonds before the army, before he started working for you.

– So, he has long been all over! Well done man! And we break our heads! – the director said and leaned in the direction of local communication: – Verochka, immediately call me the chief of security of the plant! There is work for him!

«German Petrovich, I will call the chief of security,» came a female voice.

In the office of the plant director entered the head of security. The director addressed him:

«Captain, Musin works as a private investigator.» He found three diamonds the size of a cherry pit. Talk to him.

Musin with the head of the plant security left the director’s office.

The plant manager put a pill under his tongue, leaned back in his chair, took off his tie.

– Verochka, open the window! He shouted, undoing the collar of his shirt.

– Now, German Petrovich! Do you need a doctor? – with fear asked Vera.

– No, I already feel better. Do not let anyone to me for about twenty minutes.

– Well, German Petrovich! – Said the secretary and left the office.

The director thought for a moment and remembered that as a child his friend stuck a cherry seed in his nose. It was an association with the size of the diamond.

– Vera, call the captain!

«They haven’t left yet.» Now he will come to you, German Petrovich.

– Captain, you were not looking for diamonds in your noses? – the director addressed the security chief with a joking smile, holding his hand on the left side of the chest.

– No, German Petrovich! What kind of joke? You feel bad? Call a doctor?

– I feel good! Substitute the cutter Apollo Arkin! Toss him diamonds the size of a cherry bone, and then look for them in his nose!

«It will be done,» the captain smiled and left the office.

Oh, what a woman was sitting in front of Musin! Silver woman. No, she was not covered with gray hair. Dyed black hair waves around the ears. On eight fingers out of ten, silver rings and rings flickered.

Musin wanted to raise her black curls, he was sure that she had silver in her ears too. The divine smell of perfume enveloped a silver woman. Perfume with the smell of freshness! What a taste! He did not want to leave the reception room. It would have been sitting in the exciting waves of spirits! But he got up and went out: he no longer had affairs in the director’s office, they paid for his work.

A fresh wind eclipsed the smell of perfume and disappeared into space. Musin went to the store, bought a silver hare and a silver chain. He put the chain around the hare’s neck and returned to the silver woman. Vera smiled, picked up the hare. Seeing a decent silver chain on a hare, she laughed and put it around her neck.

– Thank! I liked your gift!

Passed a couple of days. The captain invited Apollo to the steam room after work. Plasticine flowed from the sinuses of the nostrils, and the diamonds fell into the palm of the hand. No other diamonds were found. Apollo was dismissed from the factory and exiled to the settlement.

At Agnes home fell solitude. Her husband Apollo was sent on a business trip to the Cold City, where the diamonds on the trees do not grow.

In the Cold City, more precisely in its vicinity, the same berries grew, behind which the house went to the Apollo forest. Cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries always keep the health of the northern inhabitants of the country. Dried, salted mushrooms are white meat on a winter day, a magic wand of all feasts.

The deep river is a pleasure to ride in motorboats, and fish on the table. Flour, sugar will be brought – and you can live in the northern region. Still, vodka would not be brought to these healthy places, and the police would be engaged in another kind of activity.

Gas workers and oilmen, residents of the Cold City, often worked on a rotational basis. They left for a couple of weeks to new jobs, then returned home for two weeks. Fishing for men is a pleasure.

For the coolest men, hunting for meat is a pleasure and food extraction. Although you can have pets and do not run through the taiga for animals and birds. One thing is to say: there is something for men in the northern region to do in order not to be hungry and cold.

Lespromkhoz – it is like Magnitka mountain: if there are trees of necessary species nearby, then the forest industry enterprise justifies itself. They exhausted local reserves – and there was no profitable mountain.

The people are not without oddities: some leave these places in the cities, and from large cities people come to rest in the Cold Region, then they will come again and again. You look: turns into a local resident.

In the Cold City there was a police station, and in some villages there were no police officers. Musin, working as a district police officer, fixed the settlers. Apollo liked him, so he left him to work as his assistant. Letters from various cities of the country from wives of miners came to the police station.

Here is an excerpt from a letter from a woman: «My husband left for your city to rest, but forgot to return. What did you do with him: mushrooms, berries or fish-bird? Husband brought you cranberries from you, but returned home, and now you are lost for months, half a year at home we do not see him.»

In such cases, Musin tried to find a go-go berry getter and found, and Apollo helped him. But it was not always possible to return people from these reserved places, people got used to it and did not go home. Freedom felt the joy of generous nature and forgot about everything in the world.

Cold City is a small town by big concepts. In it, people traveled with gifts of nature from villages and villages, from distant places. To large cities far, closer to him. Hence, the city was not deprived of business people.

The buyers of the gifts of nature always liked to come to the city, it was possible to fight with them, it was possible not to touch them. Buyers have always been willing to pay off. Musin was known as a principled policeman, and his retirement would be freedom for buyers, dealers and many more business people.

However, the people respected the policeman Mussin, and his jokes, jokes, knew by heart:

– I spent a minute by the river, once shot, and drags a duck.

– In the house cranberries and lingonberries? You live without knowing the hard times.

– In the river fishing rod dived, immediately sank with a fish.

Is it really so? The cold region – the water region, washed by the seas-oceans, crammed with rivers, lakes. Is this a town-like paradise? What to protect in such harsh conditions? Fish in the river? So it is much more in the lakes of the region, and even more in the sea-ocean. The land of forests and water, the edge of pines, spruces and birches.

Here are the pines and cut down the local timber industry enterprise, and the birches in the northern terrain do not differ in height. To live in the village, you must have modest requests. Although in such places are secret millionaires! Why not? There are no high society evenings, luxury cars are not needed here, more all-terrain vehicles are appropriate here. And people save money.

And such was the call Musin from a woman:

– Musin, I need security, I saved money, help me buy a car.

And it’s not a joke.

People worked, got used to a modest life, and life in recent years in the Cold Region has become better. The wages of the gas industry workers and the oil industry increased, and again they, like geese, drew to the south – spending money. Houses are built in southern cities in order to warm bones in old age. But the trouble is: they will go there as if on vacation – and again they are pulled into the frosty waters of the region and into the taiga.

Musin has a new job: guarding the rich beggars. It is difficult to guess who is rich, who is poor. But no, no, yes, they also ask Musin, along with Apollo, to be guards in houses that are not always seemingly worthy of protection. Musin did not violate his principles and guarded. It would be possible to put security devices for the countryside, and they are put.

Quail – drunk – cause Musina – calm down. Calm down. The people of the policeman, while in a drunken state, especially esteemed. The policeman can cope with many cases for private payment, and maybe in good conscience. Solid character, honest look, the conscience of the Cold City – policeman Musin. Helping ordinary people…

And how to determine: a simple person or a rich man? Justice seek? In what? The life experience of Musin suggested that people who are constantly looking for some kind of justice, when they find her, do not know what to do with it. There are people who constantly resent for any reason, but experience says that Musin will not add to the bad character of people.

Small business flourished in the Cold City. All need licenses: shooting, fishing, picking berries. In the Cold City, the development of technology was not particularly involved, more and more oil, gas, mushrooms, berries, fur, fish.

Apollo gorged on local berries for the rest of his life.

The computers got to the cold lands, first of all they were put into the bookkeeping to cheat money. And people also wanted to play-work for them, but there was a time – there were not any in the stores. Apollo out of boredom decided to take a new toy. And how to take away a computer from the bondage of the accounting, so that no one would notice the loss of himself?

He spent a long time at home in front of the mirror, changed his appearance, thought out his outfit. Belly pulled in profile viewed himself. He looked at his TV. Finally I thought: he will have a TV instead of a monitor. And he needs a keyboard and an iron box. Decided – fulfilled. Apollo swirled among the accountants, and hid in a pantry.

Itself understands: not to take everything away at once. The box is big and heavy, this is where the floppy disks are inserted. I decided that he did not need diskettes, but he needed overseas boards. He opened the box and decided that he would take what instead of brains. Apollo hung the keyboard on his back, took the board in the bag, hung it on his stomach. He decided that he would create the guides for the boards at home.

In the morning, when the accountants put on make-up, Apollo slipped out in a raincoat, slightly plump. The bookkeeper did not immediately miss the keyboard, the computer was in place. Then they look, but there is no system unit. Called Musin.

«Musin, we have a strange thing missing here.» Part of the computer has disappeared. One is, and the other is not, – said the woman, whose computer is gone.

Musin himself had not mastered the computer at that time, but had heard about him. He scratched his clever head and decided that only a local craftsman could create such a trick. And the golden hands of masters can be counted on the fingers. They will make them from a tin can, at least for a computer case, even for any device. And everything will work, oddly enough.

Policewomen Musin asked the women in accounting if they had not seen a strange man or acquaintance. And those in one voice:

– Not!

Mussin decided to bypass the local radio amateurs. But the children were the first to talk. One guy runs and shouts: «And we have a computer!» And who screamed? Moussin went to Apollo, but he did not have time to hide the stolen goods, and he was very keen on tinkering the guides for the boards. Musin forced him to return the computer to the accounting department and asked him not to commit thefts anymore.

Oh, and here is the important call from the first-aid post from Zina’s medical assistant:

– Musin, help, with a young woman gold was removed!

– Where? When? Say more, please!

– The first case occurred with a girl. She walked off the train, broke her heel, sprained her leg, the guy at the train station helped her up, and the ring quietly removed her finger. She came home, the granddaughter of old man Kharitonovich.

– Who quietly took the gold?

– Specialist.

– And now what happened?

– With the last train went Agnes, she came to our town to your assistant Apollo. So, a peasant of an indefinite appearance caught up with her, began to tear her earrings from her, and rudely so, her ear was a little torn. Agnes got angry and began to defend herself; she was wearing a light coat. In the mud they fell, fought. He took off her earrings with diamonds and a diamond ring. A strong man. And the coat was – a lump of dirty cloth, even throw it away. Musin, think of who could do this, and the town is small, everyone knows everyone.

«Zina, you puzzled me well,» Musin said.

– Musin, do not cry the blues, you have an assistant Apollo, and so you know everything in our region more than anyone.

An experienced policeman and search is not necessary. Zina at the station pulled the ring from the roadway, it is difficult to find him, it seems, not a local guy. Those who broke the diamonds from the ears of Agnes and took the ring – you need to think about it.

One of the visitors, who came for the berries, but there is nothing to leave for. Out of desperation, such people go to all. No, to work in the forest industry, the trees would be chopped, the road would have earned.

Agnessa is also good: to wander in diamonds without a familiar companion at night, I could tell Apollo about my arrival, and there would be a whole coat, and gold with diamonds would have been there. And the thief, if he did not leave already, he will find, and left – he will not find. I gave the thief gold to the conductor, and look for fistulas in the wind in the field.

Another call:

«Musin, they found a drowned man in the river.» The fisherman abandoned the line, but she caught on to something, he thought that the snag was an unknown man, a golden ring was worn on the little finger of the woman.

«Here is the criminal,» thought Musin and called the assistant nurse Zina.

– Zina, call the granddaughter of Kharitonovich, we are going to recognize the gold. It was found.

«Already found, Musin?» Here, thanks to you!

«Who dropped the guy in the river? Really himself?» Thought Musin, although he knew that this task would be more difficult, but they would decide simply: the drowned man himself was guilty.

Musin in the Cold City as a call man: raise, find, give, calm down.

Telephone call:

«Musin, the man has been knocking on the door for two hours, what to do?» «A man is breaking to Zina, but they are not letting him in,» said her neighbor.

– Isn’t it he who drowned the peasant with the women’s ring in the river?

– Musin, and how can we know? Fedor is now breaking the door. So you come.

– Fedor? I know this. And you can’t figure it out without me? Okay. Food

The voice of Fedor from behind the door:

– What, the policeman called? Zina, what are you, just this one? I am a policeman myself!

– Fedor, we called the policeman Musin, because of you, we have already changed the door, but you will not break through this door, but everything is scary.

Fedor’s scream:

– Everything, I faded, be!

– Baba, Fedor ran away? Asked Musin through the door.

«Run, darling, run,» Zina replied, opening the doors to Musin.

– Tell me in more detail: what, why, where, how?

– Fedor arrived by train, goes to the platform, and a man with a ring climbs into his car, and he knows the ring, he bought them, we don’t have any more such rings in the city. The ring flashed into his eyes. Fyodor did not know what to think, maybe the girl gave him his gift. Oh, Fedor was angry! He grabbed the guy by the collar and dragged to the river. On the shore, they found out the relationship, found out, and the newcomer fell into the water, and the water was cold, swallowed, my dear…

– So Fedor killed the visitor?

– And who knows, who knows?

– Yes, you can not figure it out right away. I have a letter, I was looking for a woman of my peasant, he looks like a drowned man by all signs, «Musin said.

– What is being done on this world! «It’s a pity a woman, but a man is not,» said the neighbor.

The problem arose with the ears of Agnes. Coat had to throw out. Diamond earrings are gone. Her broken ears hurt. Cones on them began to grow. Bad with ears. She remembered the words of the mother that it was impossible to pierce her ears…

Sits silent. Agnesse’s ears were sewn up in the first-aid post, but they hurt a lot. Sits and thinks that gold with diamonds will no longer wear! And such indifference in her appeared to everything in the world from her own pain, from ears that had been spoiled forever! On her ears grew bumps instead of lobes. Scary to watch. Her hair cut and covered her ears.

Musin found a letter where a woman is looking for a man. Reread. And in the eyes of him were the sick ears of Agnes. He wrote her a letter to her, they say, they found a drowned man, who looked like the one described in the letter, did not write only about the fact that he attacked the woman and removed the gold.

Cold in the village. We decided that the corpse will wait until the arrival of the woman.

Baba quickly arrived after receiving the letter. She recognized the drowned man, it was her husband. The woman did not insist on conducting the trial. Having learned the details of the incident, she said that the man was cocky. I asked to help bury him here, where he died, so as not to bring home, not to bring up the whole thing there again. It was felt that from the peasant of this she really got it during his lifetime. The case was closed.

Fyodor came to his senses and told Musin that he was innocent, they both bathed in the river, but he was local, he was accustomed to cold water, so he swam. A visitor quickly disconnected from the cold, and even water swallowed. It was evident that he could not be pumped out, so he did not pull him out of the water. Yes, and very cold.

The town is calm.

Fedor died. And you know how? Fedor, a shirt guy, bought another bottle of vodka at the kiosk, walked, pleased with life, joked with her neighbors. Came home, put the bottle on the table. Mother put him dinner and went to the store. On the way I chatted with my neighbors. It happens to everyone! Came home – Fedor dead in the hallway lies a layer…

Healthy man. At the morgue, they thought a bit what to write in order not to spoil the biography. Wrote a clever title about a blood clot. And it must be said, half a year ago, the fortune-teller of her mother told that something would happen to her Fedor so that she was ready for anything.

Alien man, it seems, was not quite a simple man. They avenged him. Mother Fedor talked to the policeman. Musin decided that the newcomer was an authority in his city, his wife was very afraid of him, so she refused to take them to her city. Musin clasped his head.

Mother Fedor told him:

– So, the vodka was poisoned, they did not find the bottle of vodka at home. A neighbor told me about the bottle, who had seen Fedor with a bottle of vodka. Fedor did not buy vodka. In the morgue do not write that he was drunk. He opened the bottle in front of me, I gave him dinner and left.

Musin began to pester questions. What was in the absence of mother Fedor? Who detained her dear? Who came to them in her absence? Why did Fedor lay in front of the front door? You can not raise all the questions if you look superficially: everything is clean and smooth, there are no guilty, and there is no person.

He sighed and went to the five-story house on the fifth floor, to the familiar. Who would know how high the fifth floor is with respect to small houses! From the fifth floor, as with a TV tower, you can see the whole district, the whole town as on a palm! If there are also windows on two sides of the house, then you all know, you see everything.

People stuck to the pipeline – you can see, fought on the banks of the river – and you are aware of the event. Man pulled a computer out of accounting – and you saw a strange man. And you are silent.

What to say! Life will not give, since anyone knows about the apartment observation. «My hut is on the edge, I see a lot, I don’t know anything,» nobody canceled this principle. But Musin knew this quality of the fifth floors and, if necessary, gradually clarified the necessary data.

– Kharitonovich, it’s me, Musin, open the door, you need to talk.

– Musin, where are you going? Give people a break!

– Kharitonovich, I pray with God the God, open the door! Shouted Mussin.

– Ah, to hell with you, come in! – grumbled Kharitonovich, opening the door.

Two friend-foe sat in two old tattered chairs. Apollo remained standing at the front door.

«Tell me what you need,» said Kharitonovich.

Musin briefly described the situation with Fedor.

«You know what I tell you, Musin?» I saw a stranger at Fedor’s house. You know, I’m retired. My legs walk badly, so I look out the window out of boredom. Why did you notice him? The stranger went into the house empty-handed, and went out with a bottle of vodka and chatted with her, it seemed she was half empty. And Fedor came into the house with the same bottle. And on the bottle, I have a bright look.

– Well, thank you! And the man did not recognize?

– Not. Not ours, it is similar from a distance to the alien.

Here is an observation post!

– Kharitonovich, do not give you vodka, and take cigarettes, you like these.