their lesson with his own hands, and they kowtowed to him and said thank you very much. In all the years he’d been there, only one pair of shysters had ever gone for him with a knife – escaped convicts, they were, not from Khitrovka. He beat the two of them to death with his massive great fists, and the police superintendent gave him a medal. Everyone respected him for it, and the Council gave him a gold watch for the inconvenience.
So once Senka had settled in a bit, it was clear enough that Khitrovka wasn’t such a terrible place. It was more cheerful there, and freer, and it goes without saying that he ate better. In winter, when it got cold, it would probably be tough, but then winter was still a long way off.
HOW SENKA GOT TO
KNOW DEATH
It happened about ten days after Senka saw Death that first time.
He was hanging about on the Yauza Boulevard, in front of her house, spitting at the bollard they tied the horses to and staring at the half-open windows.
He already knew where she lived, the lads had shown him and, to tell the truth, this wasn’t the first day he’d spent cooling his heels here. Twice he’d been lucky and caught glimpses of her from the distance. One time, four days before, Death had come out of the house wearing a black shawl on her head and a black dress, got into the fancy gig that was waiting for her and driven off to church for mass. And just yesterday he’d seen her arm in arm with the Prince: dressed up like a lady, wearing a hat with a feather in it. Her beau was taking her somewhere – to a restaurant, maybe, or the theatre.
He took a gander at the Prince at the same time. Well, what was there to say, a superb figure of a man. After all, he was the most important hold-up artist in all of Moscow, and that’s no small potatoes. The governor-general, Simeon Alexandrovich, had it easy, he was born the tsar’s uncle, no wonder he was a governor and a general, but just you try climbing up to the top of the heap and making yourself mister big, number one, out of all the crooks in Moscow. It was a real rags-to-riches story. And his sidekicks were all really grand lads, everyone said so. They said some of them were really young too, not much older than Senka. Would you believe some people’s luck, ending up in the Prince’s gang straight off like that, when you were still green and sappy! They had respect, any girls they wanted, more money than they could ever count, and they dressed up like real fancy dandies.
When Senka saw him, the famous bandit was wearing a red silk shirt, a lemon satin waistcoat, and a crimson velvet frock coat. He had a boater perched on the back of his head, gold rings with precious stones on his fingers and calf boots that shone like mirrors. A real sight for sore eyes! A dashing light-brown forelock, blue eyes with a bold stare to them, a gold crown glinting in his red teeth, and a chin like chiselled stone, with a dimple right in the middle of it. They’re not just a couple – a real picture, that’s what they are, Senka thought, and sighed.
Not that he had any stupid dreams in his head that should give him reason to sigh, God forbid. He wasn’t trying to get Death to notice him either. He just wanted to get another look at her, so he could properly make out what was so unusual about her and why his insides clenched up tight, like a fist, the moment he laid eyes on her. So he’d been wearing down his soles here on the boulevard for days now. As soon as he finished thieving with the lads, he went straight to the Yauza.
He’d examined the house thoroughly from the outside. And he knew what it was like on the inside too. The plumber Parkhom, who fixed Death’s washbasin, told him the Prince had set up his lady love in real classy style, even laid in water pipes. If Parkhom wasn’t lying, then Death had a special room with a big china tub that was called a bath, and the hot water flowed into it straight out of a pipe, from this boiler up on the wall – gas-heated, it was. Death got washed