flung his hands up in the air: ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anything like that from you. It’s a p-present.’
He didn’t know Tashka! She put her hands on her hips. ‘You clear out of here with your paper money. I takes presents from a client or a mate. If you don’t want to horse around, you ain’t a client, and I’ve already got a mate – Senka.’
‘Well, mademoiselle,’ Erast Petrovich said to her with a bow. ‘Anyone should be honoured to have a m-mate like you.’
Then Tashka suddenly shouted out: ‘Scarper, Senka.’
She flung herself at Masa and sank her teeth into his left hand, the one holding the end of the bar. The Japanese was taken by surprise and opened his fingers, so Senka made a dash for the door.
The gent shouted after him: ‘Wait, I’ll f-free your hands!’
Pull the other one. We’ll get ourselves free without help from the likes of you.You still haven’t made us pay for thieving. How do we know if you’re going to give us a bashing? And anyway you can’t be far enough away from some freak that even Boxman’s afraid of – that’s what ran through Senka’s mind.
But Tashka, that Tashka! What a girl she was – pure gold!
HOW SENKA GOT RICH
Senka might have scarpered, but he still had to get rid of this iron lump. He walked along, pressing his hands to his chest, with the ends of the bar turned up and down, so they wouldn’t be so obvious.
He had to clear out of Khitrovka – not just because it was dangerous with that Erast Petrovich about, but so no one he knew would see him looking silly like this. They’d laugh him down for sure.
He could go into the smithy, where they forged horseshoes, and tell them some lie or other about how the iron bar had been twisted on him out of mischief, or as a bet. They were big hefty lads in the smithy. Maybe they didn’t have a grip to match the handsome gent’s, but they’d unbend it one way or another, they had tools for doing just that. But not for a kind word and a nod, of course – he’d have to give them twenty kopecks.
And then it hit him: where was he going to get twenty kopecks from? He’d given his last fifteen-kopeck piece to the mole yesterday. Or maybe he should diddle the blacksmith? Promise him money then do a runner. Even more running, Senka thought with a sigh. If the blacksmiths caught him, they’d batter him with those big fists of theirs, worse than any Japanese.
So there he was, walking down Maroseika Street, wondering what to do, when he saw a shop sign: ‘SAMSHITOV. Jeweller and goldsmith. Fine metalworking’. That was just what he needed! Maybe the jeweller would give him something at least for the silver coin, or even those old kopecks. And if he didn’t, Senka could pawn Sprat’s watch.
He pushed open the door with the glass window and went in.
There was no one behind the counter, but there was a red parrot bird, sitting on a perch in its cage, and screeching in a horrible voice: ‘Wel-come! Wel-come!’
Just to be safe, Senka doffed his cap and said: ‘Good health to you.’
It may have been a beast, but it clearly had some understanding.
‘Ashot-djan, the door’s not locked again,’ a woman called from the back of the shop in an odd, lilting voice. ‘Anyone at all could come in off the street!’
There was a rustle of steps and a short man popped his head out from behind the curtain. He had a deep-set face and a crooked nose and a round piece of glass set in a bronze frame on his forehead. He sounded frightened as he asked: ‘Are you alone?’
When he saw that Senka was, he ran to bolt the door, then turned again to his visitor. ‘What can I do for you?’
Someone like him could never unknot an iron bar, thought Senka disappointedly. So what was that about metalworking on the sign? Maybe he had an apprentice.
‘I’d like to sell something,’ Senka said, and reached into his pocket, but that was no mean feat with his hands shackled together.
The parrot began to mock him: ‘Sell something! Sell something!’
The man with the big nose said: ‘Shut up, shut up, Levonchik.’ Then he looked Senka up and down and said, ‘I’m sorry, young man, but I don’t buy stolen goods. There are specialists for that.’
‘You don’t need to tell