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fortochniks
?” he asked, smiling to himself. “Then you
want to do it soon before the winter comes and all the windows are
closed! But you need an address. That’s what you need, my boys.
Somewhere worth the pickings!” He produced a leather notebook with
old bus tickets and receipts sticking out of the pages. He opened it and
began to thumb through.
“How much is your share?” Dima asked.
“Always straight to the point, Dimitry. That’s what I like about you.”
Fagin smiled. “Whatever you take, you bring to me. No lying! I know a
lie when I hear one and, believe me, I’ll cut out your tongue.” He leered
at us, showing the yellow slabs that were his teeth. “Sixty per cent for
me, forty for you. Please don’t argue with me, Dimitry, dear boy. You
won’t get better anywhere else. And I have the addresses. I know all the
places where you won’t have any difficulty. Nice, slim boys, slipping in
at night…”
“Fifty-fifty,” Dima said.
“Fagin doesn’t negotiate.” He found a page in his notebook. “Now
here’s an address off Lubyanka Square. Ground-floor flat.” He looked up.
“Shall I go on?”
Dima nodded. He had accepted the deal. “Where is it?”
“Mashkova Street. Number seven. It’s owned by a rich banker. He
collects stamps. Many of them valuable.” He flicked the page over.
“Maybe you’d prefer a house in the Old Arbat. Lots of antiques. Mind
you, it was done over last spring and I’d say it was a bit early for a
return visit.” Another page. “Ah yes. I’ve had my eye on this place for a
while. It’s near Gorky Park … fourth floor and quite an easy climb. Mind
you, it’s owned by Vladimir Sharkovsky. Might be too much of a risk.
How about Ilinka Street? Ah yes! That’s perfect. Nice and easy. Number
sixteen. Plenty of cash, jewellery…”
“Tell me about the flat in Gorky Park,” I said.
Dima turned to me, surprised. But it was the name that had done it.
Sharkovsky. I had heard it before. I remembered the time when I entered
Dementyev’s office at Moscow State University. I had heard him talking
on the telephone.
Yes, of course, Mr Sharkovsky. Yes, sir. Thank you, sir
.
“Who is Sharkovsky?” I asked.
“He’s a businessman,” Fagin said. “But rich. Very, very rich. And quite
dangerous, so I’m told. Not the sort of man you’d want to meet on a dark
night and certainly not if you were stealing from him.”
“I want to go there,” I said.
“Why?” Dima asked.
“Because I know him. At least … I heard his name.”
At that moment, it seemed almost like a gift. Misha Dementyev was my
enemy. He had tried to hand me over to the police. He had lied to my
parents. And it sounded as if he was working for this man, Sharkovsky –
assuming it was the same Sharkovsky. So robbing his flat made perfect
sense. It was like a miniature revenge.
Fagin snapped the notebook shut. We had made our decision and it
didn’t matter which address we chose. “It won’t be so difficult,” he
muttered. “Fourth floor. Quiet street. Sharkovsky doesn’t actually live
there. He keeps the place for a friend, an actress.” He leered at us in a
way that suggested she was much more than a friend. “She’s away a lot.
It could be empty. I’ll check.”
Fagin was as good as his word. The following day he provided us with
the information we needed. The actress was performing in a play called
The Cherry Orchard
and wouldn’t be back in Moscow until the end of the
month. The flat was deserted but the
fortochka
was open.
“Go for the things you can carry,” he suggested. “Jewellery. Furs. Mink
and sable are easy to shift. TVs and stuff like that … leave them behind.”
We set off that same night, skirting round the walls of the Kremlin and
crossing the river on the Krymsky Bridge. I thought I would be nervous.
This was my first real crime – very different from the antics that Leo and
I had got up to during the summer, setting off schoolboy bombs outside
the police station or pinching cigarettes. Even stealing from the back of
parked cars wasn’t in the same league. But the strange thing was that I
was completely calm. It struck me that I might have found my destiny. If
I could learn to survive in Moscow by being a thief, that was the way it
would have to be.
Gorky Park is a huge area on the edge of the Moscow River. With a
fairground, boating lakes and even an open-air theatre, it’s always been
a favourite place for the people in the city. Anyone who had a flat here
would have to be rich. The air was cleaner and if you were high enough
you’d get views across the trees and over to the river, where barges and
pleasure boats cruised slowly past, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
another Stalin skyscraper, in the far distance. The flat that Fagin had
identified was right next to the park in a quiet street that hardly seemed
to belong to the city at all. It was too elegant. Too expensive.
We got there just before midnight but all the street lamps were lit and
I was able to make out a very attractive building, made of cream-
coloured stone, with arched doorways and windows and lots of
decoration over the walls. It was smaller and neater than our apartment
block, just four storeys high, with a slanting orange-tiled roof.
“That’s the window – up there.”
Dima pointed. The flat was on the top floor, just as Fagin had said, and
sure enough I could make out the
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