saw an enormous shadow growing on the concrete wall over the graffiti.
The dog groaned. There was a sound of flesh slapping the wall—a horrible, viscous noise—and then everything was quiet except for the sound of stomping feet, which died down in the distance.
Lights came on in the windows of the neighboring buildings.
“We’re leaving,” Aspirin said, not thinking clearly, led solely by instinct.
“One minute,” the girl said, “I need to get Mishutka.”
“We don’t have time—”
But she had already entered the archway, picked something off the pavement, patted it clean, and pressed it against her chest. Aspirin glanced over her head: the immediate courtyard was empty. However, in the opposite far corner of the courtyard, the dead body of the pit bull lay on the ground.
At least, one half.
“Let’s go,” the girl said.
“Yes . . . let’s. Um. Go.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her away, trying to stay in the shadows and avoid the eyes of the sleepy residents, whose heads were now popping up in the windows and balconies all over the street.
“Weird night tonight,” Vasya the concierge said when they got to his building. “Did you hear all these dogs barking like crazy? I heard someone shriek—scary stuff. Any trouble on your way home?”
“No trouble,” Aspirin lied. “But I met this—this kid here.”
The girl watched the concierge with polite interest.
“In the middle of the night?” Vasya marveled. “Were you all by yourself?”
“I was with Mishutka,” the girl clarified.
“Ah,” the man said, humoring the little girl.
Aspirin didn’t see how anything was funny about it.
The elevator arrived. Luckily, Aspirin caught a glimpse of Vasya’s face through the narrow gap in the shutting doors; he stepped forward, preventing the doors from closing.
“The child is lost,” he explained to Vasya. “Tomorrow morning I will call the police—need to find her parents. But I couldn’t leave her on the street, could I? Not with wild dogs and whatnot.”
The concierge’s eyes softened. “Yeah. These . . . these people leaving kids all over the place. If it were up to me, I’d execute people like that in the public square.”
Being reminded of executions in the streets, Aspirin took a deep breath, stepped back, and pressed 5. The girl said nothing; she simply gazed up at him, stroking her bear’s head.
The elevator made a grinding sound and stopped at the fifth floor. Aspirin had to take a few more deep breaths before his hands stopped shaking and the jumping key found its way into the keyhole.
“Come in.”
The lights switched on. The girl just stood in the middle of a spacious entrance hall, squinting—just like back in the courtyard. Aspirin shuddered.
Without taking off his shoes, he went to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and found a bottle of brandy. He poured a splash into a teacup and downed it. If he felt any better, the effect was marginal.
The girl remained standing in the middle of the hallway, but now her shoes were off. Aspirin was surprised by her perfectly clean socks, new, white with narrow red stripes.
“What is your name?” he asked, breaking the silence.
She gave him a reproachful look. “What is yours?”
“As—” he started, but then bit his tongue because “Aspirin” was not exactly an appropriate introduction. From what he’d gleaned of her attitude, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be impressed by his alter ego. “I’m Alexey.” He walked over to the hall closet, rummaged around, and pulled out something. “Here, put these on.”
She stuffed her feet into a pair of women’s slippers, about five sizes bigger than her own.
“Are you hungry?” he asked coolly and nearly howled from frustration with this situation. It was just so unnatural, so false—all this nonsense: slippers, kitchen, pelmeni, tea . . .
Where the hell did this girl come from?
And what was he supposed to do with her?
“I am not hungry, but Mishutka is,” the girl said solemnly. “Do you have any honey?”
“I guess . . .” The request—to feed her stuffed animal—seemed the most normal thing this little girl had done all night.
In the kitchen she sat on a stool, put her bear on the edge of the table, and folded her hands in her lap. Mishutka sat leaning to the side, staring ahead with button eyes, plush paws limp by his sides.
A shard of glass protruded from one of the paws.
Shuddering inside, Aspirin removed the glass with a napkin and tossed it into the trash.
“Mishutka says thank you very much. So how about that honey?” the girl asked.