Chapter 3
“Gomorrah” Receives Guests

The harder the nut of a soul, the harder one must hit it against a stone in order to reach the meat.

Henri Alphonse Babu, Kenyan thinker

Can never go upwards rolling down.

Law of universal gravitation

On an April evening of 201*, the well-known floating restaurant with the flirtatious name of Gomorrah,⁵ situated in a quiet park by the Moscow River, was not receiving strangers from five in the evening. The extensive parking lot in front of Gomorrah was cordoned off. Brawny men in austere suits not hampering movements approached vehicles driving up and politely requested them not to park. Automobiles made U-turns and drove off. Someone had time to notice that a small truck with the sides lowered was occupying the centre of the area. In its body was something bulky, covered.

However, they did not chase away all automobiles. They let some through, those who sat inside did not show a permit, only lowered the glass slightly. Far from all of the cars “approved” by security were luxury class. Among them were old foreign brands, beat-up Zhigulis,⁶ and neutral microbuses. At close to seven in the evening, eight motorcycles in a single group drove up.

Another curious detail was that exactly four people always got out of the dashing right-hand-drive Toyota with cracks on the windshield, the insanely expensive Porsche, the obscurely tinted SUV, and the microbuses. Each team of four kept together and as a single organism went up the clattering metallic gangway leading into Gomorrah. The teams of four were mixed. There were not so many muscular guys in good shape. There were enough women, old men, girls, and young people looking like students.

In the parking lot – a stretched-out field of asphalt divided into blocks by twin round bushes – the vehicles that arrived made up large groups. In each were thirty automobiles with one more in front. In the middle group, eight motorcycles replaced two cars.

After destroying the precise geometry, a powerful Hummer rushed past the astonished guard pointing out to it the parking spot at the head of the central herd of automobiles and, having flown about a hundred metres, rammed the side of a new Bentley. From the blow, the Bentley turned over twice on the spot. The front wheels flew off the bank, but the car did not fall off, instead it was hanging steadily on its bottom.

A girl of sixteen, pert and pretty, got out from the driver’s side of the Hummer. The better look you had of her, the more puzzled you would be, although, it seemed, all of her was in sight. In order to form an initial and completely lasting impression of a man, one needs ten minutes. That of a girl is two seconds. And two more, because it will surely appear that you understood everything incorrectly. And two more… And again… With the last two seconds invariably stretching to infinity.

The girl approached the Bentley, pushed it appraisingly with a foot, then again returned to the Hummer and began to back up, intending on toppling the Bentley into the river. “Anya, stop!” a displeased voice demanded from the Hummer. “But Dad!” protested the girl. “It’s the Tills’ car! And they’ve attached themselves to me, by the way!” “All the same, stop! I forbid it!” “But Dad! I’ll only finish it and immediately stop!” “ANYA!”

The Hummer stopped angrily. The girl jumped out in annoyance and turned her back to the car, showing that she was extremely offended. Another girl, somewhat three years older, got out from the Hummer after her. She approached Anya from behind and, after first lowering a hand onto her shoulder, said something quietly. Anya shrugged her shoulders. Without paying this any attention, the older girl continued to talk. A little later Anya started to laugh, grabbed her by the wrist, and impatiently pulled her towards Gomorrah. “Run! You’ll have a great time!” she promised. “We’ll see,” answered the older one. It was noticed that she had doubts about this.

From the back of the Hummer stepped out a rather dry, tall, and round-shouldered man in a black suit, holding a large old-fashioned umbrella with a bent handle. The rather prominent shoulder blades of the man and the shape of the umbrella’s handle amazingly echoed each other. They echoed in such a way that in the wrong evening light it could seem that this umbrella was carrying the man, or two umbrellas were carrying each other… On the whole, one never knows what will appear in the wrong evening light.

The head of security, a stout man with catlike movements and bulldog eyes, ran up to him. “Albert Fedorovich!” Bulldog eyes attempted to smile, but lost the smile in his cheeks. “Everyone’s here! Both Beldo and (an embarrassed look at the Bentley)… eh-eh… the Tills. They’re only waiting for you!” The man with the umbrella stopped. He turned. Colourless and flat fish eyes met dog eyes. The bulldog became ill at ease. There are no cowardly piranhas. Cowardly bulldogs are rare but possible. “And Guy’s only waiting for me?” he asked with suspicion. “Guy’s not here yet.” “Had to start with this! Get to work, Vtorov! Showing friendliness isn’t part of your direct responsibilities! Anya, let’s go!”

The man with the umbrella glanced around at the girls and made his way to the boat. The iron bridge resting on high buoys began to make a chomping sound. An empty plastic bottle floated out from under the bridge and, hitting against the side, was dragged away slowly by the current. The extensible doors of Gomorrah opened and closed.

A young guard from the new recruits ran up to bulldog eyes. “Who was it in the Hummer? Dolbushin himself?” he asked excitedly. The head of security looked at him suspiciously, checking if he had heard how they shouted at him. No, he did not. Or was pretending that he had not. “Dolbushin, head of fort two!” he said unwillingly. “And who rammed the Tills’ car? His daughter?” “He seldom brings her,” Vtorov screwed up his face, as if all his teeth started to ache at the same time. He imagined that he had to explain to Till Sr. what he was busy with when the Hummer knocked his car into the river.

“Ah-h…” the young one drawled. “The girl’s not bad. I wouldn’t mind her.” “Her father also wouldn’t mind shooting you,” Vtorov clarified. The young one pertly evaded. “And who’s the second one?” “First time I’ve seen her,” Vtorov said dryly. “Maybe a friend of the daughter. Maybe a new recruit.” “Ah-h…” again the young one drawled. “And why is Dolbushin with an umbrella? Afraid to get wet?” “Somehow you meet him in the alley. You with a crossbow and he with the umbrella,” bulldog eyes advised irritably and, as a sign that the conversation was over, took a step towards the river.

Dolbushin and his daughter disappeared into Gomorrah at around seven thirty. At quarter to eight Vtorov with uneasiness pressed his headset with a finger, answered something curtly, and gave the sign to his people. Security began to bustle. Two ran up to the jeep and, having jumped into the body, pulled off the tarpaulin. Under the tarpaulin turned out to be a combat arbalest of an intimidating size.

One of the men – swarthy, with a healthy bald spot similar to the rind of a watermelon – having jumped into the jeep, took aim and looked uninterruptedly at the bright red dot. The tip of his tongue, stuck out, with bluish veins on the underside, slid along his lips. His partner – with a crew cut and a complex spider tattoo from the wrists up to the elbows – set in motion the pneumatic windlass and put into the trench an arrow with a three-edged tip. According to its shape, this was precisely an arrow and not a shorter and more massive bolt.

“Estimated time: thirty… twenty-five… twenty…” he muttered, continuously looking at his wrist. The watch intertwined with the tattoo, disrupting its intricate figure. The red dot of the reflex sight poked into the breaks of the endless violet cloud like crumbled cotton, unhurriedly creeping in the direction of Pechatnikov. The forefinger with the phalanx blue from pressure froze on the trigger. Broth-like drops of sweat on the melon-like bald spot flowed together into islands and continents.

Suddenly a voice, like many splinters glued together, began to rattle in the headset of the shooter. The voice squeezed into the ears, cut into the brain. “Yes, Guy!” not taking his eyes off the sight, the arbalester reported. “An observer at Strogino spotted him fifty seconds ago. He’s probably flying in our direction. Yes, looks like the same screwy one, which… Ooph!!! Here he is!” The steel “arms” of the arbalest straightened. The tattooed fellow was working like a robot. The pneumatics barely had time to cock the bowstring and a new arrow was already lying in the trench. The cat-and-dog-like chief of security flew to the jeep, “Well? Got it?” “Something flickered… Seems it shouldn’t have missed the mark!” the arbalester answered doubtfully and suddenly bent down, saving his head.

A column of water shot up the Moscow River about fifty metres from Gomorrah. Terrible, soundless, glassy black. It seemed the river had grown a terrible finger piercing the clouds. The glass finger stopped in the clouds and, shattered, came down onto Gomorrah shuddering from the impact. It swept the security along the parking lot. It plucked the shooter and his assistant off the jeep, flipped them over, and almost drowned them in the shallow, furiously seething water running off into the river.

The chief of security got up, holding onto the side of the jeep. Water was flowing from him. There was blood on his right cheek. A siren howled. Ten cars on the edge, on which most of the weight of the water had come down, had their roofs crushed. Contrary to expectation, Gomorrah suffered little damage. Several hatches were knocked out, the dome of the winter garden sagged, and the gangway was torn off. The Moscow River had already licked clean its wound and was running as if nothing was the matter.