-So, the citizens of that you're вытворяете? — asked finally, a policeman, when he got tired looking at all this leapfrog.
Taxi driver raised himself on his hands over the seat and, seeing the policeman, всполошился the seat next to me, yanked lifted посиневшего already Grisha and answered:
"Nothing special, comrade chief. Wanking!
-Балуетесь?! — surprise looking at Охромова, incredulously asked the policeman.
-Балемся, wanking, — скооговоркой stuck to his guns taxi driver, trying to convince the police Sergeant.
-Come on, вылазьте of the car! Now we understand, how you балуетеь! — shouted the Sergeant. -Vasya! Come here! he called someone from the darkness. -There's something strange is happening.
The taxi driver as a cork from a bottle jumped out of the car, переползши through me and barely alive Охромова, pale and terrible as death itself.
-Citizen of the head, here everything is all right! Here, look: I was carrying two glorious прнишек, cadets. All is well...
"The fuss you there made with пассажираи?
-Yes you are! What's the fuss?! So simple, pampered, and only!
-Pampered?! Well it is self-indulgence! That фамиьярности with passengers? You see, he barely alive sits! — Sergeant showed finger on Охромова.
-Yes friends are my, very good. Relatives almost... here is the one with which I struggled, so the son of my childhood friend. Beside his friend. But, as you can see, PAL-I, and not bothering. And I've, for fun struck up a fuss... Yes you guys ask, they will tell you, — отправдывался as he could, sly taxi driver.
To standing on the street, the driver and Sergeant, came up somebody else, and we heard the voice of the Sergeant he explains the and trying to interrupt him babbling our driver, frightened trying to insert into the conversation at least one of his word.
"You know, Vasily, I look inward, and the Hulk on the boy and choking him, that is the only force.
-Yes we jokingly, citizen of the head, in joke!..
-Good jokes! Yes the poor guy, already hoarse. I heard something. And now blue sits, полупридушенный.
-And the second one who's there? "I heard someoneunfamiliar voice.
-With him, probably rode, " replied the Sergeant, " Yes confused, apparently.
-Come on, show me your papers, comrade driver! — again said the stranger.
Now, not now! readily responded our driver-мордоворот.
On the street lit flashlight: policemen examined the documents.
Grisha, it seems, came to himself, but he was wrong, he was from a spasm in his throat, but however, found the strength to pick up the gun and put it between the front seats, putting next to the switch-gear boxes.
In this time have looked to us, shining in the face of the lantern and asked:
-Who is the victim here?! Who strangled?
-Yes, not a victim I replied, trying to be as smoothly and calmly, Охромов, we really amused.
A ray of light for a few seconds buried his face Охромова.
-Amused... are you joking. You cadets? — asked the same voice. The man's face and his figure was not visible in t blindeмноте behind bright, blinding beam of the flashlight.
-Yes, cadets, " said I, feeling that Gриша still unable to speak long, and every second of may fall on the cough from першащих throat spasm. -Do not you see?
On the form of the cadets, and who you knows! Documents can be your show?!
"Sorry, " I continued, giving the opportunity to rest and recover Охромову. -But we also did not introduce themselves. I, for example, you absolutely do not visible. What are you in rank and in General.
-Lieutenant of militia Panchenko, head of the operational patrol, " came from the darkness. -Yes you вылазьте out of the car. There'll see!
-Well, well, " I said and took out his military ID.
Two minutes policeman studied my documents, luminaries the case is my face lantern, and then bringing them back again turned to the driver:
-Why stay in a wrong place?
-My fault, comrade head, correct it! It so happened!
-How come?! A very sensible answer. You may think that you are not the driver of this vehicle, and, in лушем case, the passenger, like these guys. No, you have to drive us to the post of GAI, but there really let you road service understands. I I think that just so "without holes", it will not be.
-What did they, citizen of the head?! What have I done? Let's here some work this out."
-Quarter, — sounded almost inaudible полушепот policeman. He took the driver away from the machine.
-Quarter?!
We are still cheap're such a bunch. Thank you us still should.
After a moment's pause in the dark зашуршали papers.
"Let's beat it, right quick. Where did it bring in? — the voice of Sergeant.
-Yes here we turn now, on a country road. Why I stopped that slipped past.
-Yeah, and the fight began with them? asked sarcastically Lieutenant.
-Yes, no, I say that we fought, and fought...
-Okay, tired of your nonsense. Get outta here, Yes, quickly! And rejoice that we today are so kind! Caught you on the hot hand! — again said Sergeant.
-Jackals! — was a taxi driver, sitting down in her place behind the wheel. -Wow! As from the ground grown! You're lucky guy! Rejoice that it all happened, not that I would have finished I were you, I am certain of it! I better not angry, I'm a nervous, any anger been in the basement without blinking an eye! While you're here with his пукалкой jump! The fool!
Policemen went forward to where the burned two red eyes of the patrol car. The taxi driver turned on the lights, and see how they got into the machines and then watching us as long until our driver, seeing such a thing, not passed back and turned right onto a dirt road.
Grisha already quite went and stretching out her hand forward, he felt his gun and hid it запазуху.
Machine, jumping on a bumpy dirt road away from the road a few hundred meters, snatching out of the dark headlights slender poplars, lined up right from the road smooth straight and stopped, as we asked on the edge of a forest plantations, граничавшей with the edge of a huge once ветущего, and now abandoned and wild the garden. The place was very wild and dark.
I was afraid that flared up between Grisha and a taxi driver deadly quarrel breaks out now with new force, and then nothing will help and will not change our destiny, but they, as if in collusion, behaved quite peacefully towards each other and even correctly.
We disembarked and without any gave the taxi driver "троячку", fearing that he required no more. Now, he paid policemen quarter. However, he himself was not right and wrong: with clients do not argue. Nevermind m not more one and a half kilometers, but видитель and is not thought to give us even rouble surrender, took the floor for granted, and even remained dissatisfied. He silently slammed the door, развернулс, giving slid off the muddy dirt, showering us splashes of black slurry, and gave gas quickly away. Machine for a minute has staggered out in the dark two red eyes of its size.
Greg looked at his watch with a luminous фосфорическим dial and said:
-I guess, not too late.
I had no strength to talk to him after what happened. Only now I felt, how much effort is spent during this rather short time. However, I all the same asked:
"Where did you get the gun?
-Camel! wearily, but not without sarcasm answered Охромов, and I felt the resentment in his voice and rebuke, probably because I couldn't help him there in the car. "Do you want me to such a thing was naked? It's you, perhaps even a pen knife was not picked up.
I didn't answer and thought that too poorly know Охромова and his life.
-Why are we still taxi let go — I complained to break the awkward silence, reigning between us, although actually what I said had me to the highest degree of care. -Back will have to foot stomp.
-Can you be thinking of generally, what are you saying?! 'retorted and almost flew at me with his fists Охромов. -Why do I need the extra witness?! Already and the enough that he's my gun and Shine, in which case may застучать as not Fig delat! We so badly run, not having anything else to really do!
-Well, you himself only and guilty I said reprovingly Grisha, too наччиная горяччиться. Apparently, the nerves we were excited to the utmost. -Why have you got a gun? No need to was not in it. I doubt that you could shoot at him, and he knew it. After all, it is you as a son заломал, and gun your not helped. Раздразнил only human. If you now start your fool wave, then imagine what would happen then.
-Shut up! threatening hissed through clenched teeth Охромов, hissing like a snake, and I am not really saw how much felt in the darkness of his savage grin.
Time for the quarrel was most inconvenient. Besides Охромова still had a gun, and I shish with oil, какон correctly noticed, I haven't bothered to take care of their own security. "It was naivety or глупост, or committed not knowing how to behave in such circumstances? And, although BPId whether Охромов they would have begun and before my nose waving a gun: it was at least stupid though his behavior on the verge of danger as it turned out unpredictably — I still fell silent.
So, without talking more with each other, we stood in the darkness ten, fifteen minutes. In the sky above us is already in full glory soy stretches of stars. There were countless. In the city there's no such a starry sky even in the most clear and cloudless nights, because the streetlights and the light from hundreds of thousands of light bulbs, which lit at night in the Windows of houses, yards and porches, dissipating your dim light, have together created a dense veil of ghostly yellowish haze, which lights up the sky for those who watch it from afar, which absorbs a large part of the stars of the small-medium brightness. Their distant light unable to break through this self-illuminating the night mist, like a hat covering the top city улиы. Now in the sky above us was the veil, and thousands of thousands of celestial fireflies fun wink to each other in a dizzying, bottomless height. Entire sky from horizon to horizon was littered with the subtlest starry lace, and I thought that once, long ago, when the city streets nights were buried in the darkness of the same, which was now around us, no wonder it was to become a teacher or Галлилеем, watching every evening on the roof of his house majestic silence full of the stars of the sky.
Over us brightly burning bulk of the stellar sand лечный path, crossing from one edge of the sky with its uneven universal expensive. In some places the stars coalesce white spots, so close they were to each other, and on black velvet sky онигорели like the facets of a diamond. I suddenly a distinct feeling of flight of our planet, this huge space of the house of mankind, a tiny islet of life and warmth in the infinitely vast, cold and бесприютном space, among dumb, majestic and distant stars. It seemed to me that there is even the atmosphere, and everywhere sparse space безбрежье, and we Охромовым astronauts, who left his space ship, and came into the open space. The proximity of this lifeless black universal ocean attacked soul indescribable, but fleeting, almost ghostly cold immense fear in front of the infinity of emptiness and nothingness.
Chapter 22.
Enchanted night firmament, dotted with glittering, almost tangible, night luminaries, and I did not notice that we are on a dirt road vehicle approaches. Only when the light its headlights slashed by us several times, wresting from the darkness of our pieces of the surrounding us trees low, squat, feral completely яблонек, I noticed her.
-Go! — Охромов слюнул and shoved his hands in his pockets press shudder all body exactly fever and cowering from quickly наползающей coolness, which, despite the very middle of the summer already ruled nights in the local regions.
-They? — I asked.
-Probably. Who else will go over the desolate and unsafe road? It is better to give a hook on a city than to meet here with such faces as these! Moreover, after the rain the land washed away the dirt. The road was slippery... except they be no one else.
Suddenly, just metres of two or three hundred to the place where we stood Gregory car, going directly to us, suddenly he turned to the right and disappeared in the thicket of the garden.
"Hm-m! weird! They or didn't they? Now I don't understand! There совхозные greenhouses... the former is now a ruin. Maybe it's someone coming dial brick or any other building materials? And maybe it and they make some tricky workaround, ' mused aloud Охромов.
We stood there for another five minutes in the dark, ignorance and uncertainty, stress expecting every minute that somebody emerges from the darkness. But nothing happened: machine as through the earth has failed. Was not heard, neither it nor any of its passengers.
Suddenly we saw that the highway-road turns another machine. This time we were even able to see what she passenger. A few minutes later she came very close.
It was a grey "Volga" is one of the most recent versions. The color of her guess in glares of подфарников. The car was completely new, probably, not had time to never go on the sink, because in the mirror, varnished housing reflected the major stars burned in the sky. Engine machines decayed, and when opened the door of the cabin in the light of the landing lights I could make out six men, one of whom was driving, and four of them huddled in the back seat.
Охромов approached the car, greeted all, when sitting in it popped out, shaking all turns hands and something spoke to one of them, which, apparently, was among all the main. The conversation lasted for about three minutes. The others stood and listened carefully. Then came closer to me. Someone turned on a flashlight and sent a beam of light into my face. I instinctively winced and загородился palm of the hand, blinded by the bright light.
-And who is this? — I heard a rough voice.
"It's me, " replied Охромов, -my friend. He helped me. I for one wouldn't do it.
-And sell? — asked again imperious voice.
-No, you! — enlisted for me Grisha. -I Chetsre-year know. Reliable guy.
"Look, it's your business. Only bear in mind, the fee I on two not going to increase. You tell him in half, and you want to... Maybe your friend just so you helped?.. Yes you face-open or afraid? — I realized that it appealed to me.
At me have lit a minute or two, looked, then the W voice again cut, disbanded the silence of the night:
Let me show you brought.
This proposal I have all the inside sank and sank. I felt a natural animal horror bull provided to the slaughter.
Speaking walked up to the stacks of paper, which lie on the road, then sent a beam of the flashlight on the mounds notebooks and journals, leaned over to him and began to think. The rest got around him. I've seen Охромов stood with them, trembling with fear. I guessed there his shadow among others, arising in the rays of the lantern. He was shaking like a leaf, and only the fact that no one in this moment paid no attention to him, has not issued us.
