So I just live with it.”
“Is anybody filming here?” asked Bender, slowly coming back to his senses.
“What filming, are you kidding?” replied the bearded doorman weightily.
“Last year, they shot a silent picture about ancient Rome.
They’re still in court over it, on account of criminal wrongdoing.”
“Then why are they all running like that?” inquired the grand strategist, pointing at the stairs.
“Not all of them are running,” said the doorman. “Comrade Suprugov, for example: he’s not running.
He’s very businesslike.
I keep thinking I should go ask him about the beard: is it going to be extra pay or a separate invoice . . .”
Hearing the word “invoice,” Ostap went to see Suprugov.
The doorman was telling the truth.
Suprugov wasn’t jumping up and down the stairs, he wasn’t wearing an Alpine beret, nor foreign-made golf breeches that looked like they belonged to a tsarist police lieutenant.
Suprugov offered a pleasant respite to one’s eyes.
He was very abrupt with the grand strategist.
“I’m busy,” he said, sounding like a peacock, “I can give you no more than two minutes of my time.”
“That will do,” began Ostap.
“My script, The Neck . . .”
“Get to the point,” said Suprugov.
“My script, The Neck . . .”
“Can’t you just tell me what you want?”
“The Neck . . .”
“More to the point!
How much is due to you?”
“Some deaf man . . .”
“Comrade!
If you don’t tell me right now how much is due to you, I’m going to ask you to leave.
I’m very busy.”
“Nine hundred rubles,” mumbled the grand strategist.
“Three hundred!” said Suprugov firmly. “Take your money and leave.
Keep in mind that you stole an extra ninety seconds from me.”
Suprugov wrote out a note to Accounting in a bold hand, handed it to Ostap, and reached for the phone.
Stepping out of the Accounting office, Ostap stuffed the money into his pocket and said:
“Nebuchadnezzar was right.
There’s only one businesslike person here—and that’s Suprugov, God help us.”
Meanwhile, the running on the stairs, the whirling, the screaming, and the racket at Chernomorsk Film Studio No. 1 reached its peak.
The lieutenants were snarling.
Assistant directors were leading a black goat, marveling at how photogenic it was.
Consultants, experts, and keepers of the cast-iron seal all bumped into one another and guffawed hoarsely.
A woman messenger with a broom whisked by.
The grand strategist even thought for a moment that he saw an assistant in light-blue pants soar above the crowd, skirt the chandelier, and settle on a ledge.
At that moment, the clock in the hallway struck.
“Bonnng!” went the clock.
Shrieks and screams shook the glass pavilion.
Assistants, consultants, experts, and film editors were all streaming down the stairs.
There was a wild scramble at the exit.
“Bonnng!
Bonnng!” continued the clock.
Silence began emerging from the corners.
The keepers of the cast-iron seal, the managers of commas, the administrators, and the lieutenants were all gone.
The messenger’s broom flashed for the last time.