To me vengeance, I will repay
Alexander Kolosov
© Alexander Kolosov, 2023
ISBN 978-5-0060-2438-0
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
To me vengeance, I will repay
every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy
Chapter 1
Everything got mixed up in Milutins house when his wife and children found out that the head of the family had disinherited them. And nothing at the beginning of the Sunday feast foretold how the festive dinner would end for them. It was customary for the whole family to gather at the dinner table once a week, on Sundays, to celebrate the end of the week. And to express their admiration for the generosity of the head of the family, Sergei Ivanovich, who honored them all with his attention on that day.
Milutin, a stout and completely bald man with an ocular beard and buttery eyes, liked to sit at the head of the table and listen to the praise he received from
his housemates. A man of hard fate, who had made his fortune in the antiques trade in the wild 90s, he could rightfully be proud that he was now among the richest collectors in the capital, having avoided many troubles on his winding path to success and big money.
At first today was no different from previous Sundays. Except that during dinner there was a verbal skirmish between his daughters, Marfa and Aglaia, who found no better subject than to discuss in the presence of their father alive who of them, after his death, would get his collection of pictures. At last the squealing cries of his daughters made Milutin lose his temper and he got up from the table and ordered them to stop:
Sergei, in the end, they have a right to know what and how much they will get after you die. We all walk under God, its time to think about the children. Or do you want your collection to go into the hands after your death?
His wifes words had a most unexpected effect on the collector. He laughed so hard that his monstrous laughter silenced his daughters, who were in a frenzy. Everyone stared at him in bewilderment, but he laughed and laughed and gave everyone present the creeps. He was leaning on the edge of the table with both hands, and arching his back like an enraged beast, standing on its hind legs, its
teeth baring through the protruding hair of its dishevelled red beard. It was the way animals behave when cornered. His laughter was drowned out in a cough through which he managed only to wheeze the word Choke.
He coughed as if he had come to his senses, collapsed on a chair without strength, and repeated quietly:
Choke on it!
What did you say, I dont understand you? forgetting to take the smile off his face, his wife anxiously stared at him, What does this choke mean?
And that means, at last Milutins voice returned to him, you all get nothing from me. None of you three will get a ruble of my money, or a scrap of canvas from my collection. I have bequeathed all my property to him, Vanka-Kain, he shook his head in the direction of his adopted son, and to your hateful Pronyakin all my pictures, including the gallery building. Hows that for a turn, eh? And he laughed again.
Mama, hes crazy! cried Aglaia, and Marfa threw a plate at her father in a rage, but missed, and the plate crashed to the floor with a deafening rattle.
Youre not yourself, the wife grinned happily, and licked her teeth like a toad before eating a fat fly. The doctors will help you, well hospitalize you immediately. Im going to call a doctor I know at the regional psychiatric hospital and hell come and get you. You obviously have a nervous disorder, possibly temporary insanity. Girls, help me tie up your father before the doctor arrives, before he runs away from us and does something bad.
Both daughters jumped up as if on cue and rushed to their father, but his son Ivan, who had been sitting silently at the table the whole time, staring at his plate, came to Milutins rescue. The skinny boy stood in the sisters way, holding the table knife out in front of him like a sword, holding it with both hands.
I wont let you go, he shouted and started waving his knife in different directions. Run, Daddy, Ill hold them off.
Oh, you ungrateful brat, you want to go to jail? shouted Milutins wife, turning her whole body in his direction, Ill send you to a juvenile facility as soon as we get rid of your father.
Those few seconds were enough for Miliutin to run out of the room, barricading the door behind him:
Run along, Ivan, he shouted to his son from behind the door, Run to
Pronyakin, he will tell you where to find me.
***
Milutin pulled on his felt boots with cropped cuffs, stomped his feet, checking how comfortably the foot settled on the sole. He stepped out onto the porch of the country house and breathed in the clean air, filled with the scent of the pine forest. It was the only place he felt completely safe now. The perimeter of the whole plot was surrounded by a three-meter deep fence, gates and gate locked from the inside. Only he had the keys. The second set was with his son, who was due to arrive.
I feel in my heart that I have managed to sneak away from my sisters, he convinced himself, recalling his own escape. Back at home, Milutin called an old friend, the lawyer Orlovsky, and told him in detail how his wife and daughters wanted to get rid of him, declaring him insane:
Valera, I wouldnt be surprised if they killed me. My life is in danger. Im afraid of them. If anything happens to me, know that they did it.
To all the lawyers objections that he was exaggerating, Milutin excitedly shouted into the receiver that Orlovsky simply did not know them as well as he did. Not satisfied with one call to a friend, he made at least a dozen more calls to
everyone whose numbers he could remember, until his son arrived from town with the latest news about his wife and daughters.
Tell me, tell me! cried Miliutin, running around the table in his office, excitedly, What are they up to?
Daddy, calm down, his son tried to sit him down, but he wouldnt let go, and kept circling around the room, Theyre planning to declare you insane. While I was sitting in my room, where Marfa and Aglaia had locked me up after your
escape, I overheard their mother making telephone arrangements with some private medical service. They will arrange for your forced hospitalization when she gives them the exact address where to look for you.
Theyll find out sooner or later that Im here, Milutin grasped his head in horror, We must escape from here at once. It is urgent! Go and look round, while I am getting ready, to see if we are being followed. If you see anything suspicious,
run back at once. If I fall into their hands, I wont live. You hear me! You hear me!
Daddy, calm down, the son waved his hands and went out of the office and came back in a minute with a glass of water, Here, sit down, drink the water and calm down. And Ill go and see, as you ask.
Milutins son put the glass on the table, went out on the porch, and, before he went to look around, shouted once more through the ajar front door, Daddy, drink some water! Do you hear me? Drink some water!
***
Petty Officer Bezdolny is a truthful man and always says what he thinks. This time, he was not shy about his choice of words when he stepped through the open
gate to station 71, where he had been sent to check an anonymous call he had received from the dispatcher that a murder had occurred here.
Holy crap, the foreman whistled, they live pretty lucratively, you cant tell.
Yes, people know how to live, junior sergeant Otchenashev agreed with him, following Bezdolny into the gate. Ive heard that a hundredweight of land here costs as much as a good car. And here will be not less than a hectare.
So keep your eyes open, the foreman told him, Dont touch anything without my knowledge. Otherwise youll get tired of writing explanations. We are not here for profit, but only by the will of those who sent us here. This master obviously has his own candle factory.
Maybe even two, Otchenashev said, looking enviously at the well-groomed lawn and the alpine rocks on it, Do the rich also have problems?
The more money, the more trouble. Now lets go to the gingerbread house and see what we can find there.
God forbid, objected the junior sergeant as he followed the petty officer into the unlocked house. In a minute the petty officer was already calling the control room and reporting:
Hello, this is 13. We got a dead body here. Its fresh. Please send an investigator with a task force.
The dead man was sitting in a chair with his head back and his hands on the table. While Bezdolny was on the phone, Otchenashev examined the dead man from all sides and noticed a piece of paper sticking out from under his hand. He pulled it out carefully and showed it to Bezdolny. It had I was killed for a cause scrawled across it as if it had been written by a child. Without interrupting the phone conversation with the dispatcher, Bezdolny took the note he had found from the junior sergeant and crumpled it into a ball and shoved it into the back pocket of his uniform pants.
What about the evidence? objected Otchenashev, to which the foreman threatened him with his fist and, having finished talking on the phone, explained:
We dont need evidence in a case that has no prospect of being solved. Let the investigator and the forensic scientist decide if he clinched it himself or if he had help. And you and I didnt see anything suspicious here. My mothers woman, you are not Megre, and I am not Sherlock Holmes, after all. They dont make movies about such cases as we investigate, and they dont present them with awards.
***
I, Vitya, am accustomed to all kinds of work from an early age. I can chop down a house. I can build a stove. I can make candy out of any junk. I started my first business back in Perestroika, before the break-up of the USSR, cackled
Pronyakin, beating his chest and at the same time helpfully looking up into the eyes of the artist Ohaltsev, wishing to make the most favourable impression on him. Thats why I was so fond of Sergei Milutin, too, because we had similar fates. The whole 90s we were walking under God, risking our lives. And heres something like this. Such a thing! I still cant believe hes not with us anymore.
Okhaltsev, all rounded and smooth as a seal, with a gray lock of hair and a neat skippers beard, moved his eyebrows and, from time to time, pulled importantly: Yes, however, he obediently put his shot glass under another shot of cognac, which was served to him by Pronyakin. At last, after another cry from Pronyakin, to the effect that he could not believe that Miliutin was not with them, Okholtsev scratched his beard and let it out:
And I believe hes dead. Too many people wished him dead. You, Kirill, have no idea how many lives he ruined and how many he threw away for money. If I were one of them, Id definitely give anything to get revenge. And here its no longer a question of price, but of principle.
Vityunya, before he died, he called me and shouted into the phone that they wanted to kill him. That his life was in mortal danger. He was so excited that he
couldnt speak coherently. And do you know who he suspected of organizing his murder? Ohaltsev shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands, gesturing for a name: His wife and daughters! Can you imagine?
I cant imagine, Ohaltsev hiccupped frightenedly and raised his eyebrows up in surprise. Its not like her. Anything but murder. She and Milyutin may not have been a perfect couple, but she is not capable of murder. To kill, at the very least, you have to be capable of going all the way, crossing the line. Its something you do only out of desperation: those who have nothing left to lose.
Pronyakin smiled enigmatically and wagged his finger at Okhaltsev:
You, Vitya, dont know the most important thing, he paused and, pouring the rest of the cognac from the decanter into Okhaltsevs shot glass, slowly stretched out, He-i-i-i-i-i-i-l-i-xed an-i-i-i-i-xed an-i-i-i-i inheritance. He bequeathed everything to me and his adopted son Ivan. Wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o- o-o-o-o-o!
I dont believe it, it cant be. Why would it be? Okhaltsev looked at him with amazement.
Miliutin himself told me so. Why should I lie, Pronyakin shrugged him off, holding an empty decanter of cognac in his hands, After the funeral the will will be read, and then you will know for yourself. His lawyer Orlovsky knows about it. Milutin told me that Marina was cheating on him from the beginning of their marriage, and that his daughters were not his.
The worse for you, exhaled Okhaltsev after drinking the cognac in a gulp, The worse for you.
Why is that? wondered Pronyakin.
His whole inheritance was cursed. He was cursed a long time ago, about ten years ago, and the curse has been on him ever since. If all his possessions go to you, the curse goes to you. I would refuse.
Well, no, said Pronyakin, tapping his empty decanter on the table, Im not one to believe in superstitions. Garçon! he shouted at the waiter, raising his hand, Another three hundred of the best cognac and something to eat.
Youre a risk-taker, Kirill, Okhaltsev shook Pronyakins hand respectfully and exhaled, anticipating the continuation of the feast. Just like Miliutin.
Chapter 2
After the funeral and before the wake, Pronyakin had a feeling similar to that experienced by young men before a battle. His heart was pounding and his
thoughts could not stop at anything. The funeral was attended by a great number of people, from the nouveau riche, to whom Miliutin had supplied paintings and antique furniture, to the unknown artists who came out of curiosity to see the burial of the richest collector in the city. After the funeral was over, Milutins close
friends and the entire family gathered in the central exhibition hall in his gallery in
Zamoskvorechye for a memorial service.
The wake was presided over by Orlovsky, an old family friend and part-time personal lawyer of the deceased. He sat proudly at the head of a huge table in the middle of the room, surrounded on both sides by Milutins daughters and his widow, dressed for the occasion in all black, giving the floor to those who wished to speak. It looked as if Orlovsky were holding an auction, drawing numbers in line for the right to speak in praise of the deceased.
Pronyakin waited patiently for his word, and all the time he felt that this evening must be a decisive one in his destiny. At last it was his turn. Orlovsky beckoned him to speak by a wave of his hand. Pronyakin stood up, looked round the huge table, and, overlapping the disorderly murmur of their voices and the clatter of knives and forks on their plates, uttered a loud and distinct voice:
Miliutin has been murdered, gentlemen! And his family did it to him. There was an ominous silence in the air. The sound of a fly hitting the window-glass and the roar of a heavy cars engine in a lane somewhere in the distance were heard.-So they took their revenge on him, for he had bequeathed all his property and money
to his son Ivan, and had given me his collection of pictures and this building, where we were now remembering our dear Serezha with the kindest words. It was
a matter of honor for me to punish his killers, for he was not just a friend to me. He
was a brother to me. No, not so I said, he was just a part of me, and I will not rest until I get my revenge. I have hired a detective and he will prove how these ungrateful women killed their father and husband.