button eyes. An empty honey jar stood on the floor by the chair leg.
No wonder the girl is up, going through my things, he thought. She’s hopped up on all that sugar.
“So you’re Grimalsky, Alexey Igorevich, and you are thirty-four years old,” the girl said in the voice of a public prosecutor.
“Listen,” Aspirin managed through gritted teeth. “Take your bear and go. I don’t want you here, and I don’t want to see you ever again. I am counting to ten.”
“Or what?” the girl inquired. “What happens at ‘ten’?”
“That’s what I get for trying to be a good Samaritan,” Aspirin murmured bitterly. “For letting a lost child spend the night.”
His legs and back ached after last night’s chase. His mouth felt dry and gross. A miniature hammer banged slowly and triumphantly in his right temple, either from the situation, the brandy from last night, or a combination of the two.
“Or,” he said, passing his guest, picking up his passport, and feeling marginally more confident, “or I will call the police.”
“And what are you going to tell them about me spending the night at your apartment?”
Aspirin finally allowed his mushy knees to buckle, lowering himself onto a stool. The girl watched him with interest.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just curious—what does a grown man say to the police about letting little girls stay with him overnight?”
God . . .
“Listen,” Aspirin said thickly. “I don’t know who taught you this filth, but—there is such a thing as forensic evidence, medical expertise, you know? I don’t want any of this, but . . . everyone will know that you are nothing but a dirty little blackmailing shit, do you understand?”
The girl moved her bear from her lap to the table and folded his paws in a more relaxed manner.
“Then it’s true,” she said indifferently.
“What?” Aspirin tried not to shout, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had such restraint at the moment.
“He said . . . he always tells the truth.” The girl looked pensive, her blond eyebrows forming an unfinished sign for eternity.
“Listen, my dear,” he said with disgust, “why don’t you get the hell out of here. Otherwise, I promise not to conduct a single good deed in my entire life. I won’t even share a can of tuna with a hungry kitten.”
“Oh, I am terrified—you are soooo scary. As they say, don’t try to scare a porcupine with a naked ass, right?” she smirked. “You make it sound as if you’re the king of good deeds. A bona fide Santa Claus.”
Aspirin got up. He wanted to grab the little bitch by her ponytail and drag her over to the door and beyond. Instead, he waited a second—then burst out laughing.
Really, this was utterly comical. He was arguing with a preteen. Why would he need to worry about what an underage delinquent says?
Still giggling, he went back to his room and picked up his phone.
“I don’t get it,” Victor Somov, nicknamed Whiskas, asked Aspirin. “You brought an underage girl into your apartment?”
“She’s just a kid. I thought—”
“You brought her into your apartment?” Whiskas repeated.
“Well, yeah, kind of.”
A pause.
“I don’t get it,” Whiskas said again. “What for?”
“I wasn’t myself,” Aspirin admitted. “She was by herself after midnight. And then there was this pit bull coming at us, and then . . .”
He stopped, not sure how to tell the rational Whiskas about the irrational terror that overtook him in that courtyard.
“Were you sober?” Whiskas asked.
“Yes—I drove home. I don’t drink when I am behind the wheel.”
“Good for you,” Whiskas commended him with mock sincerity. “Did you enter your home alarm code in front of the girl?”
“I didn’t set the alarm yesterday.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I forgot.”
“Pure genius,” Whiskas said, his voice full of wonder at the idiots born on this earth. “Aspirin, one of these days I am going to send a couple of thugs over just to teach you a lesson.”
“Please don’t,” Aspirin said, then cocked an ear—in the living room the nasty child had opened the piano and was now hitting random keys. “Listen. I think she’s crazy.”
“Not as crazy as you,” Whiskas assured him testily. “See if there is anything missing in your apartment. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Sounds good,” Aspirin said with relief.
In the living room the girl continued to press random piano keys like someone who’d never seen a piano before. Aspirin glanced at his watch wondering whether twenty minutes was enough time for the strange little creature to destroy the instrument. He hoped Whiskas would hurry.