Fall of Matilda

New life.

One of the old two-story buildings on the embankment of the river Volga and was the new home of Matilda. The whole second floor was occupied by her apartment. The cabinet was in the back of the apartment. There was a table, near the wall, on the table was a large monitor with a flat screen, the size of an average TV set, a writing set, a keyboard and a small table lamp. The computer was next on the dresser. There was a printer and a scanner. Above the chest of drawers on the wall, the old grandmother's photographs in the Italian baguette had found their shelter. There were not many of them. With St. Petersburg Matilda did not have already anything connections, only memories of childhood and school. The house where her childhood passed was not the same as before. The stolen apartment of her childhood was now a stranger, the neighbors too, almost all were others. It was 1994, and today Matilda celebrated her birthday in her posh apartment with a view of the Volga River. Matilda was sitting in a comfortable beech chair, wrapped in a blanket. Outside the window blow a cold wind and broke rare snowflakes on the window. On a low table in front of Matilda was a bottle of dry wine, an empty glass and a pot of cactus. Cactus replaced flowers for Matilda, buy them at this time in Tver was problematic. Also on the table was a saucer with young cheese, green olives with seeds in a green cup and a saucer with onions cut into large pieces.

"The older the wine, the younger the cheese," thought Matilda, sipped a little wine from the goblet, then broke off a piece of cheese with a fork and sent it into her mouth. She was alone, and she was not bored alone with her thoughts. "It would be nice to have a cat or a dog, or even better, a real man," she thought, but then deflected those thoughts.

"I cannot take this responsibility now," decided Matilda, "I need to think about my education and go to college. Probably, it is better for me to choose an economic faculty." She reasoned, "It would be very interesting to work as a financier in an international company or in a bank. It is necessary to enter the institute in absentia, and try yourself as an entrepreneur. Starting tomorrow, I will register my activities. The realtor agency is what I need." Matilda thought, "Especially since I have several apartments for sale and one office space, I will use it for my company office."

Outside the window, on the thin ice of the river Volga the fishermen were already winding fishing rods. Matilda took the olive with her fingers and bit into it. After the olives, a slice of onions and a slice of black bread were sent on the taste buds and absorption.

"What a poor little soul I am! I'm drinking an expired wine," thought Matilda with a smile, and added to the goblet a dry wine from the cellars of the 1982 Ijevan Wine Plant. Getting out from under the blanket, Matilda went to the cabinet and brought a fresh issue of the magazine 'Around the World'. Then she also settled comfortably into an armchair and wrapped up in a blanket. The articles were interesting. Matilda read it slowly, enjoying the reading and illustrations.

Tver goats.

It was 1999 year. There were few visitors. To attract visitors, at the entrance to the building Matilda placed a glowing in the evening billboard with huge letters 'Real Estate Agency'. It was a small room of one hundred square meters on the first floor. The windows faced the courtyard of the building and the main square of the city – the Lenin square. Matilda did not seek proposals for the sale of apartments in newspapers and did not offer other people's apartments for resale. This was distinguished by her real estate agency from everyone else in this city. For five years, she managed to sell only seven of their apartments and she had two more small apartments for sale. The office was also in her property. Simultaneously with the rise in prices and the dollar, Matilda was forced to raise the price of her apartments for sale. It would be more correct to say that there was a rapid devaluation of the ruble and a fall in its rate to the rest of the world's currencies, but the media chose more appropriate expressions. At the beginning of its activity, Matilda assumed that with money from the sold apartments she would look for ads about cheap apartments in good areas of the city, and then resell them is already more expensive. But from the very first attempt to buy such an apartment, Matilda refused this idea. To deceive the poor tenants and say that their apartment is worthless, Matilda could not. The clients were an unemployed young man of 27 years and his pregnant wife. They expected to sell the apartment, which they inherited and then to rent some dwelling. This young head of the family was unemployed, and he had a rare profession – a refrigeration engineer. Matilda told them about the true value of their property and advised the young man to look for a job in Moscow. She handed a hundred dollar bill to the pair with the words, "you do not have to return it, but you have to call me and tell me when you find a job in Moscow. I want to be sure that I helped you." Matilda was born in the USSR and capitalist ideology was alien to her. In her heart she was a Komsomol member. But people in her saw only an athlete, a young lady and just a beauty.

Once, she exchanged a small apartment from her fund with an additional payment for a larger one. Subsequently, Matilda hardly sold this large four-room apartment, but eventually returned the money spent on it. Since then, she began to store her money on a foreign currency account in one of the Moscow banks. She also decided to finish with the business, finish the institute successfully and find a good job in Moscow. Her teachers could give good advices.

"Perhaps I will work in the government and can to change the economic situation in the country," suggested Matilda.

In one of the days, one might say, by the will of the case, a deputy of the municipal duma with her assistant came to her real estate office. Most likely, the location of her office played. She, as usual, sat in her working chair and studied one of her textbooks on economics, which she took in the library of All-Union Correspondence Financial Economic Institute. Black Bentley drove up to the office door. First the passenger of the front seat come out and opened the door to the passenger of the rear seat. "An important person," thought Matilda. She got up, left the table and greeted the guest.

"Dobronravov Arnold Veniaminovich, a deputy of the City Duma," introduced the guest. He had a large size and shapeless body. Rather, the body had the shape of a whirlwind expanding to the center of the body.

"Very pleased," Matilda answered, and she introduced herself too, "I heard that you are the owner Company 'Volga-Stroy Invest'. So how can I help you?"

"Evil tongues say so, I'm only a deputy and servant of the people," Dobronravov said, and began to look for a place where he could drop his heavy body.

"Sit on the couch, please," suggested Matilda.

"Thank you," said Dobronravov, and, sitting down, continued, "I'm interested in office real estate."

"Unfortunately, I do not have such real estate, except for my office," said Matilda, then for some reason she returned to the table with her smooth and confident gait, took a powder compact with a mirror from the table, opened it and lightly powdered her nose. Then she closed the box, took her business card, and approached the servant of the people with such graceful and unhurried gait so close that he had to look at Matilda from the bottom up. Matilda handed him her business card with the words, "I can give you my office, and it will be cost you five to six times more than similar offices in this quarter. There is a lot of parking space in front of the office, and most importantly, the building of the Regional Administration is nearby. Not everyone can buy such a neighborhood."

Arnold Veniaminovich looked at Matilda without taking his eyes off her. Matilda smiled and asked, "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Dobronravov was silent and wanted to say something, but Matilda added, "I think that for such man as you, this money will not be of much importance. I think you are the man who knows how to make money and get what he wants as a result."

"Well, I'll think about it," said Dobronravov, "now I need to go, we'll have coffee next time, will not we?"

"I'll be glad to see you," Matilda said, and smiled at him again.

Saying goodbye, Arnold Veniaminovich was going to leave, but Matilda, instead of words of farewell, said, "Only in this case, I will remain without office and without work. I have to leave this beautiful city to Moscow. There I had suggestions for work in the Ministry of Finance. I'll graduate this year from the All-Russian Correspondence Financial Economic Institute and the teachers have already recommended me as the best student of the course to my colleagues in the Ministry of Finance. It is a pity to leave this city. I liked it so much!"

"Well, I'll think about it, too," said Dobronravov and left.

A man in a black suit, waiting Dobronravov at the door, went to the car and opened the door to the servant of the people. The servant of the people sank into the car seat and now his thoughts were not about the company 'Volga-Stroy Invest', but about his people, and specifically about this cute, intelligent and sincere girl with the figure of Aphrodite. Dobronravov fell in love with Matilda like a schoolboy. All day he caught himself thinking that he only thinks about her.

Even late at night, falling asleep, Dobronravov decided that he could use Matilda in his company 'Volga-Stroy Invest' and could invite her to the position of the general director, not lower, but it is necessary to limit its functions and duties. "Moreover, there is an executive director who will sign all the necessary documents, including those that Matilda will not have to see," the servant of the people thought, falling asleep with thoughts of his people.

Sledgehammer.

Sledgehammer was furious. One beginner merchant refused to pay tribute.

"Lame," Sledgehammer asked, "and did you politely explain to the huckster, who is the boss in Zavolzhsky district? And tell me, how did he knock you out with one blow?"

"He is rabid," answered Lame, "it is impossible to talk with him. He must be just beaten."

"Indeed? You've already beaten him, I see," Sledgehammer smirked, "and what's the name of store?"

"Everything for fishing and hunting," Lame replied.

Sledgehammer pulled a new Glock 17 out of his pocket, took out the store and stared stupidly at the cartridges.

"Call out Fix," said Sledgehammer, "I do not want to kill anyone, we'll go parrot the boy."

At the same time, Sledgehammer returned the magazine to the clip and hid the gun in the inside pocket of the jacket.

After half an hour a tinted jeep with three daredevils rolled along the embankment of the Volga River, making a couple of turns, and stopped sharply near the new store "Everything for fishing and hunting". At the entrance to the store the group stopped – Sledgehammer was interested in a sign near the door.

"Literacy for that is – to read signboard very ease," said Sledgehammer, quoting the Russian poet Mayakovsky. Behind his shoulders were the full 10 classes of Soviet high school. "Entrepreneur Khlipko O.V." read aloud Sledgehammer.

"Well, let's go and see what this Khlipko is like," said Sledgehammer with a smirk, and, feeling a surge of energy, went with the comrades inside the store.

"Just don't fire unnecessarily, you have the iron fist, ram him between his horns once," Lame said, trying to not show out the fright.

"Not pee in pants, Lame, we'll just talk. And you, Fix, don’t touch the gun," Sledgehammer turned to his second comrade, "if need be I'll pull out."

Entering the store, Fix silently looked around, spit out the chewing gum on the floor and said, "Where is this flimsy guy?"

Then, seeing the one old visitor of the store, Fix said, "hey, Antiques, the store closed for tax audit, get out."

"Fix, you didn't have been learned the politeness to talking with old men?" Sledgehammer said indignantly. Then he went up to old man, patted him on the shoulder and said, "Excuse him, sir, this dude is crazy. Do you want to buy something for fishing?"

"No, I just went to look, a light expensive here," said old man and slowly went out.

There were posters, fishing tackles on the walls, tents, sleeping bags, inflatable boats and various utensils on the shelves, hand-made hunting knives was lying under glass showcase. It was knives with multilayered steel with embossed leather covers to them. Sledgehammer was examining the knives and only now noticed the little dude about thirty-five years old, coming out of the cabinet. This was an entrepreneur Oleg Khlipko.

"Hello," said Oleg Viktorovich, "how can I help you?"

Oleg and Sledgehammer's views met. Sledgehammer, as an experienced boxer, instantly appreciated the opponent.

"He is sinewy and swift," thought Sledgehammer, "the second average weight, the protruding joints of his fists identified him as a fist fighter. No wondered he knocked out the Lame with one blow."

However, feeling his superiority in weight, growth and the number of battles conducted in the ring and street, Sledgehammer did not confuse the calm and confident eye look of the store's owner.

"Are you asking how to help? By money," Sledgehammer answered cheerfully, and he and his companions began to laugh loudly.

"Are you from the Bank?" Oleg Viktorovich asked.

"From the bank ‘Sledgehammer’," said Lame and everyone giggle again.

Oleg looked at Lame and recognized in him today's visitor, which had tried to extort the money. "It's good that them is not from the Bank," Oleg thought, and this calmed him even more.

"Good humor," Oleg said, not hiding his joy, "but what concretely did you want?"

"For short," Sledgehammer began his speech, "you will give me money every month for our man. Just if you want your business work and make a profit. You'll pay to us, we provide your safety. If you pay regularly, you will not have the visitors from epidemiological service, firemen, cops or other bastards. How much will you pay – we'll now determine," looking at the goods, finished his speech Sledgehammer.

Fix took out his pistol, smashed the glass showcase with a handle, and took the knife he liked in an embossed leather cover. "A good knife, thank you, bastard," said Fix, and smile.

"It's not funny anymore. It's sad," said Oleg Viktorovich to Sledgehammer and continued, "you will no need money, the Ambulance will come for free."

"Dude, you probably don't understand who you're talking to," said Sledgehammer and approached Oleg at arm's length. Sledgehammer was half a head taller and once again felt his superiority.

"Well, Sledgehammer, why do you talking to him? Hit him between his eyes," Lame intervened in the conversation, standing three meters to the right of Sledgehammer.

"Lame, did I let you to speak?" slightly turning the body to the right asked Sledgehammer. And instantly from this position, he made a blow his Crown Knocking Hook on the right. But before Sledgehammer's fist reached its goal, as at this very moment, Sledgehammer felt a sharp pain in the left temporal bone below the temple. How Sledgehammer was falling, he could not remember. Sledgehammer usually was able to withstand the blows, but now he came to his senses only in a minute. Slowly rising, Sledgehammer found the enemy by his eyes, but did not hurry to move towards him. As if from afar he could hear the screams and curses of Fix. And Fix at the same time held the pistol on his outstretched hand in the direction of the Oleg. Oleg was completely calm, and this made Fix even more nervous. Then Oleg began to slowly raise his hands to the top to the level of his shoulders and slowly approach Fix. "And where were they only taught to hold the pistol on his outstretched hand?" thought Oleg, moving closer to Fix and depicting his own defeat.

"Probably he taught from movies, Hollywood," thought Oleg and spoke loudly and calmly, "you won, you're a tough guy!"

The gun rested against Oleg's forehead. In such situations, Oleg were more than once, and not only in training, but also in real combat operations, while serving in hot spots and in the intelligence battalion. "You won, you're a tough guy," once again heard Fix, and at that very moment, there was a lot of pain in the brush area, and also suddenly his own gun pointed at his left eye appeared in the face. Fix looked at the muzzle of the gun and realized the futility of his life, which would take several grams of lead. Fix knew perfectly well what a shot head looked like, and with horror presented his own head with an inlet and an exit aperture of a bullet.

"When my brains will fly apart, where will I be?" thought Fix. He began to retreat to the door and tried to say something like "do not shoot," but he could not find the words. Then Oleg unnoticeably turned the lever of the safety lock, since he did not intend to shoot, and habitually lowered the gun to his hip at the level of the belt. He was in some confusion too.

"Put the knife on place," Oleg said quietly. Fix complied. Returning the knife, Fix felt better.

"Now he will not kill," realized Fix.

Usually, Oleg killed the enemy in any convenient way for himself and had moved to a certain point on the map. Now, he could not kill his enemies and quit his business – at home wife and little daughter waiting for him.

Sledgehammer disturbed the pause, "everything in the car! He clearly ordered, and, continuing to retreat to the exit, extended his index finger in the direction of Oleg.

"You're cadaver," Sledgehammer confidently said to Oleg and, without looking back, moved with his comrades to the car.

"Get behind the wheel," – said Sledgehammer to Lame, "you're the chauffeur today."

"Where we go?" Lame asked.

"To your home," Sledgehammer replied, "we need to think about," he added, and sat down in the backseat.

Oleg returned to his small office at the end of the trading floor. All this time the young saleswoman-cashier Svetlana was hiding there. She was terribly frightened. Before the visit of suspicious guests, which Oleg saw in the monitor of a street surveillance camera, he invited Svetlana into the office and asked to stay there for a while. Now, seeing the monitor that the uninvited guests have left, Oleg Vladimirovich said, "Svetlana Vitalyevna, you are clever, did not utter a word. Now you can go home and tomorrow you have a paid day off. Remember, you did not see anything and did not hear, you had a break, and you sat in headphones and listened music. This is in case the cops have any questions."

"Okay, Oleg Vladimirovich. Can I go?"

"Yes, of course, Svetlana, and do not worry, everything will be fine."

Oleg was a debtor of the bank "Narodny", with a loan and high interest. The store was rented by Khlipko in his name, with the right of subsequent repurchase from the construction company ‘Volga-Stroy Invest’, owned by Mr. Dobronravov, who simultaneously dealt with affordable housing as a deputy of the Tver City Duma. In Oleg's office, there was a desk with a computer, two armchairs, a monitor for two hidden surveillance cameras, operating in continuous recording mode, an electric kettle and several cups. Oleg took a small towel, carefully wiped Makarov pistol Makarov, and quickly disassembled it into small parts, while wiping every detail of the gun, putting all the details in a common heap in the center of the towel. When he had finished, he wrapped the details in a towel and put it in the briefcase.

Then he took out a sheet of A-4 and wrote a handwritten statement about his finding details which looked like a details of pistol. – A statement to the Police department? – Oleg thought about the cap of the statement. – No! He would have to walk across the bridge, but the Police department was on this side of the Volga. So it's on the way to the Prosecutor's Office across the bridge.

Oleg was an inconspicuous lean man and did not arouse suspicion among the cops, he put on his jacket without wasting time and left. Closing the door, Oleg lowered the jalousies by remote control and moved toward the River Station along the waterfront. It was getting dark. Turning to the bridge and passing a few meters in the center of the bridge over the river, Oleg took out a towel from the briefcase with the details, stopped and threw the details into the Volga River. Then he crumpled the towel and threw it following into the river too.

"The next affair tomorrow," thought Oleg, and leisurely went home, where his wife, daughter, and cherry pie were already waiting.

In the meantime, Lame had already uncorked a bottle of vodka and poured in little glasses.

"For some reason, I do not want to drink," Sledgehammer said and tipped little glass to his throat.

"And what is the reason of drink?" Fix asked.

"For commemorate your pistol Makarov," Lame said, and laughed.

"It's good that the pistol was left for dude," said Sledgehammer, turning to Fix, "I gave you gun to you get rid of it, but not for your cakewalk two weeks with it."

"It would be nice if the cops make a search in the store of a dude and find a gun," Lame said, wrapping a cigar with marijuana.

"And will you going inform to cops or who will do it?" Sledgehammer asked, looking at Lame.

"You have the ace among the cops there, the cop whom you saved," hinted Lama, lit a bush and took a deep dragged on.

"So, I didn't understand, do you suggesting me to blow the whistle?" Sledgehammer asked.

Lame, coughed, he realized that he said too much. This conversation could be end badly for him. He had been selling drugs for a long time in the district and enjoyed authority, only because he was often seen in the company with Sledgehammer.

"No," said Lame, clearing his throat with cough, "I mean that you shot Chub with Elephant, and did not touch the cop, although he saw you."

"Well, he did not inform the cops about, as we agreed, but now he tosses information to me. When I shot the bastards, I did not know that they had a cop attached to a chair in another room. What? Did I have to kill the innocent, just because he's a cop?" asked Sledgehammer.

Lame, trying to change the topic of the conversation continued, "So it was not without reason as he was tied to a chair and tortured. The money not found still. The TV said that all the criminals were killed while robbing the bank, and then garbage said that the two criminals managed to leave. So may be Chub and Elephant were these bastards, and they just have the money stashed away? And you killed them, and everyone knows about it. On the street, people say that you have money, and everyone knows that you have killed these freaks."

"Knows everything, but can't to prove it," said Sledgehammer, "you're not only lame, and you're also stupid as all the nares. Look, if the Chub and Elephant had this money, they would be tortured in the police. And here just the opposite is obtained – they themselves tortured garbage and wanted to know something. So, who has this money? Somebody of garbage has this money."

Fix got tired of listening to smart conversations, and sparkling his fixed tooth in smile, he said, "Sledgehammer, you can’t eat bacon, it’s pork."

"I myself decide with what laws I should live," replied Sledgehammer.

"Well, what did you decide about the dude? Will we throw him a couple of grenades tomorrow?"

"Couple? We have only a couple of them. One will enough," said Sledgehammer, "by the way, where did you hide them?"

"I did not hide it anywhere, there are in the glove compartment," Fix said.

"Well, it's funny," said Sledgehammer, "you bought a nice jeep, but you didn't have enough money to buy a brain."

"So what about the dude then?" asked Fix.

"I'll talk to him myself tomorrow. If he does not agree, we will explode his store in the evening. For short," continued Sledgehammer, turning to the Lame, "you're walking around the district in the morning, looking for some VAZ vehicle without signaling, in the evening it may be necessary. And we will ride with Fix to dude. We'll throw a grenade in the evening, when there will not be a dude. We will not blow up dude. Just a store. Understood? Yes?"

"I understand, Sledgehammer, you always discourse correctly," Fix said and turned to Lame, "Well, you sit there, let's pour it, you see, my wrist is swollen."

"Yes, for hit the woman at her face your wrist is not swollen, but for pour vodka the wrist is swollen," sarcastically said Lame, spilling the remains of the first bottle in little glasses.

"What the woman?" asked Sledgehammer.

"Well when we took vodka in the store, Fix hit a woman at her face," said Lame.

"So she hit me, I did not want to beat her. Instinctively I gave her kick riposte, and she fell from her hooves," said Fix for self-justify.

"Come on, let's go into more detail," Sledgehammer said.

Fix was not eager to talk and his silence was interrupted by Lame, "we stand next to the ticket office, in front of us is a sympathetic chick, Fix approaches her, takes her boobs by hands and says, 'what a cool boobs! Let's go with us to rest culturally'."

Sledgehammer stops laughing for a second and asks, "so what then?"

"And then what? Then chick with a turn of her palm struck on the Fix's beak. I thought the Fix's fixed tooth will fly out," answers Lame and continues to laugh.

Finished laughing, Sledgehammer lights a cigarette, makes two deep puffs, then with disgust kills the cigarette in ashtray. He silently looks at Fix at close-range, as if he sees him for the first time and asks, "Fix, and why are you not laughing? Everyone laughs, but you do not have fun?"

Fix wanted to say something, but Sledgehammer continued, "Probably you want people thinks in the district that my people are scumbags? Are you on the team, or are you on your own? So say then that you are an honest freier. Maybe you want people tell on the street that sledgehammer's people live not according to the concepts?"

The silence reigned. Then Sledgehammer continued, "And if somebody will touch a tits of yours sister, and then he hits her on the face, will you like it? I will not surprise if tomorrow any freier move a blade to yours throat."

"Well, I was wrong, let's forget," said Fix, and handed the second bottle of vodka to the Lame, "let's, open it, and pour it into the glasses.

"It is enough for me," said Sledgehammer. "Don't sit behind the wheel drunk," he said to Fix, "spend the night at the Lame’s home. Now I'll go home. In the morning, come to me at 11 or 12 to Bald's cafe. I'll be there."

"So let me call a taxi," Lame suggested.

"No, I want to take a walk. I got breathed with your cigarettes. Well, good-bye," said Sledgehammer and left.

Everyone knew that Sledgehammer rented an apartment on Schmidt Boulevard and was temporarily registered in it, but where Sledgehammer spends the nights, no one knew.