Nothing else could be squeezed out of the old man.
But what he had already said was enough to start the hunt.
“Feels like Koreiko’s hand,” thought Ostap. The president of the Chernomorsk Branch of the Arbatov Bureau for the Collection of Horns and Hoofs sat down at his desk and recorded the dummy chairman’s speech on paper.
He did, however, leave out Funt’s thoughts on the complex relationship between Valiadis and Briand.
The first page of the underground investigation of the underground millionaire was numbered, punched through properly, and filed away.
“So, are you going to hire a chairman or not?” asked the old man, putting his mended panama back on. “I can tell that your bureau needs a chairman.
I’m not asking much: 120 rubles a month while I’m outside, and 240 while I’m in prison.
There’s a one hundred percent surcharge for hazardous duty.”
“Well, I guess we are,” said Ostap.
“Submit your application to the Vice President for Hoofs.”
CHAPTER 16 JAHRBUCH FUR PSYCHOANALYTIK
The workday in the Finance and Accounting Department at the Hercules started at 9 A.M. sharp, as usual.
Kukushkind had already raised the flap of his jacket to wipe his glasses, preparing to inform his colleagues that working at the banking firm of Sycamorsky and Cesarewitch was far less unnerving than working at this Sodom, the Hercules; Tezoimenitsky had already turned in his swivel chair towards the wall and reached out to tear a page off the calendar; and Lapidus Jr. had already opened his mouth wide to welcome a piece of bread slathered with chopped herring when the door opened—and in came the accountant Berlaga.
His unexpected appearance caused much commotion in Finance and Accounting.
Tezoimenitsky slipped on his rotating saucer, and the calendar page remained in place for the first time in perhaps three years.
Lapidus Jr. forgot to bite into his sandwich and just moved his jaws idly.
Dreyfus, Chevazhevskaya, and Sakharkov were flabbergasted.
Koreiko raised his head and lowered it again.
Old Kukushkind quickly put his glasses back on, forgetting to wipe them for the first time in his thirty years of service.
Berlaga sat down at his desk, as if nothing had happened, and opened his ledgers, ignoring Lapidus Jr.’s expressive smirk.
“How are you feeling?” asked Lapidus anyway. “How’s your heel nerve?”
“It’s fine now,” said Berlaga without raising his head. “It’s as if it doesn’t even exist.”
Up until the lunch break, everybody in Finance and Accounting fidgeted on their stools and cushions, dying of curiosity.
When the alarm bell finally went off, all the bright lights of bookkeeping gathered around Berlaga.
But the fugitive hardly answered any questions.
He took four of his most trusted friends aside, made sure that no one else was listening, and told them about his incredible adventures at the insane asylum.
The fugitive accountant’s story was interwoven with numerous interjections and intricate expressions that are omitted here for the sake of coherence.
THE STORY OF THE ACCOUNTANT BERLAGA, detailing what happened to him at the insane asylum, as told by himself in the strictest confidence to Borisokhlebsky, Dreyfus, Sakharkov, and Lapidus Jr.
As we already know, Berlaga fled to the insane asylum to escape the purge.
He was hoping to wait out the dangerous period at this medical institution and return to the Hercules after the storm was over and the eight men with gray eyes had moved on to the next organization.
His brother-in-law slapped the whole thing together.
He got hold of a book about the manners and customs of the mentally ill, and after much discussion, they selected delusions of grandeur from the available manias.
“You won’t have to do anything,” explained the brother-in-law, “you just have to yell in everybody’s face:
‘I’m Napoleon!’ or
‘I’m Emile Zola!’ or
‘Prophet Mohammed!’ if that’s what you want.”
“How about the Viceroy of India?” asked Berlaga naively.
“Why not?
Crackpots can be anything they want.
So, the Viceroy of India, yes?”
The brother-in-law spoke with authority, as if he were at the very least a junior intern at a mental hospital.
In reality, however, he was just a salesman who pushed subscriptions to lavishly printed book sets from the State Publishing House. The silk-lined bowler hat that he kept in his storage chest was the only reminder of his past commercial greatness.
The brother-in-law rushed to the phone to call an ambulance, while the new Viceroy of India took off his tunic, tore up his cotton undershirt, and just in case, poured a bottle of the best, premium-quality iron gall copying ink onto his head.
Then he lay on the floor face down and, when the orderlies arrived, started bellowing:
“I’m none other than the Viceroy of India!
Where are my trusted nawabs and maharajas, my abreks and kunaks, my elephants?”
Listening to his megalomaniacal ravings, the brother-in-law shook his head in doubt.
He wasn’t convinced that the abreks and the kunaks fell under the purview of the King of India.
But the orderlies just wiped the premium-quality ink from the accountant’s face with a wet cloth, picked him up, and stuffed him into the ambulance.
The shiny doors slammed shut, the siren went off, and the vehicle whisked Viceroy Berlaga to his new domain.