Weren’t you robbed yesterday?”
“No.”
“What do you mean—no?” Ostap grew animated. “Yesterday, by the sea.
And they took the ten thousand.
The robbers were apprehended.
Just make out the receipt.”
“I swear, nobody robbed me,” said Koreiko, and something flickered momentarily on his face. “This is clearly a mistake.”
Not yet realizing the full extent of his defeat, the grand strategist stooped to an unseemly state of discomposure, which later made him squirm whenever he thought about it.
He persisted, he became angry, he tried to push the money into Koreiko’s hands, and in general lost face, as the Chinese saying goes.
Alexander Ivanovich shrugged his shoulders, and smiled politely, but he wouldn’t take the money.
“So, nobody robbed you?”
“That’s right, nobody robbed me.”
“And nobody took ten thousand from you?”
“Of course not.
How could I possibly have that much money?”
“That’s true,” said Ostap, cooling off. “How could a simple clerk have such a pile of money?
So, everything’s fine with you?”
“Everything!” replied the millionaire with a charming smile.
“And your stomach is fine, too?” asked Ostap, smiling even more seductively.
“It’s perfect.
I’m a very healthy man, you know.”
“And no bad dreams either?”
“No, none.”
After that, the smiles closely followed Liszt’s instructions: fast, very fast, much faster, as fast as possible, and still faster.
The way the new friends were saying goodbye, one might have thought they really adored each other.
“Don’t forget your police cap,” said Alexander Ivanovich. “You left it on the table.”
“Don’t eat raw tomatoes before bedtime,” advised Ostap, “it might hurt your stomach.”
“All the best to you,” said Koreiko, bowing cheerfully and clicking his heels.
“See you later,” replied Ostap. “You’re such an interesting man.
Everything’s fine with you.
All that luck—and you’re still at large. Amazing!”
Finally, the grand strategist bolted outside; he was still smiling, even though it was no longer necessary.
He walked briskly for a few blocks, forgetting that he was still wearing the policeman’s cap with the crest of the city of Kiev, which was completely out of place in the city of Chernomorsk.
And only when he walked into a crowd of respectable-looking old men, who were babbling away in front of the covered porch of City Diner No. 68, did he come back to his senses and start assessing the situation rationally.
While he strolled back and forth absentmindedly, immersed in his thoughts, the old men continued to do what they did here every day.
These were odd people, preposterous in this day and age.
Nearly all of them wore white pique vests and straw boater hats.
Some even sported panamas that had darkened with age.
And, of course, they all had yellowed starched collars around their hairy chicken necks.
This spot near Diner No. 68, formerly the fabled Florida Cafe, was the gathering place for the remnants of long-gone commercial Chernomorsk. They were brokers left without their brokerage firms, commissioned salesmen who had faded in the absence of commissions, grain traders, accountants who had gone off the deep end, and other such riffraff.
In the old days, they used to gather here to cut deals.
But it was long-time habit, combined with a need to exercise their old tongues, that kept bringing them to this sunny street corner.
Every day, they read Moscow’s Pravda —they had no respect for the local press—and interpreted anything that was going on anywhere in the world as a prelude to Chernomorsk becoming a free city.
About a hundred years earlier, Chernomorsk was indeed a free city, which brought so much fun and so much profit that the legend of porto franco still shone its golden light on the sunny street corner near the Florida Cafe.
“Have you read about the disarmament conference?” one Pique Vest would inquire of another. “Count Bernstorff’s speech?”
“Bernstorff is a real brain!” replied the other Vest, as if he had known the Count personally for many years. “And have you read the speech that Snowden gave at the electoral meeting in Birmingham, that Conservative stronghold?”
“Goes without saying . . .
Snowden is a real brain!
Listen, Valiadis,” said the first, turning to yet another old fogey in a panama.
“What’s your take on Snowden?”