Moscow Noir Read Online Free

abroad.
    “I’m swimming in oil! She’s black and she’s mine!” Stary said this with carnivorous relish, as though he was talking about a naked and capricious African princess who gave herself to him at night with shrieks, tears, and moans. It tormented and affronted me in the most idiotic, awkward, and ridiculous way. When the boss used this expression, which he did very often, an ill-fated black princess appeared before my eyes: moist, nimble, shapely, and bearing a certain resemblance to Halle Berry. A second later, her image was replaced by that of a red-haired girl. The one Stary really did fuck. Foxy. Does Foxy moan when she comes? Does she close her whitish fox eyes, or do they go large and glassy, like those of a stuffed animal? These questions preoccupied me a great deal.
    “Are you listening to me?”
    “Yes, boss, of course!”
    What does she smell like? What does she taste like?
    “So, anyway, I’m doing pretty good. And I’m a superstitious man, so I think I owe something to the Big Guy. But I’m not going to light up any candles. Because candles won’t cut it. I think I should do something for charity.”
    What about the shape of her nipples? What color are they? And what about her freckles? Freckles sprinkled her pale skin like gold dust. Does she have them all over?
    “You seem like a smart guy. So I want you to think up some kind of charity event. A real tearjerker. Something to make everyone bawl. So that I seem like a father to everyone, you know what I mean? So they’ll think of me afterward when the time comes. You know, elect me. You get it. So, think something up. You got imagination.”
    That’s when I created the ChaBa.
    It was the end of December, my time was almost up, Stary was eating sushi, and Foxy was throwing money to the wind. I thought up the idea for ChaBa in a whirlwind of inspiration and despair. I thought of ChaBa because I thought that a little money wouldn’t hurt me, in the end.
    “Merciful Monsters Charity Ball,” I announced proudly.
    “What’s that?” said Stary, stabbing a morsel of sushi with one of his chopsticks.
    “A costume ball and masquerade. Real fancy. Real stylish. We’ll have Ksyusha Sobchak, Zemfira, Renata Litvinova, Zverev, I don’t know who else, maybe Fedya Bondarchuk, some red-carpet types, Rublyevka wives, a couple oligarchs, some ministers, I dunno.”
    “And?”
    “And everybody dresses up like monsters. They eat, drink, dance, get high, fuck, and the whole thing will be on TV.”
    “What’s the point?”
    “There’ll be invitations, which the merciful monsters will get only after making a donation to some charity organization like, I dunno, Destitute Russia. Yeah, Destitute Russia. All profits go to the poor and homeless.”
    “Homeless …” Stary murmured absently.
    It was a smart move on my part. Stary always had a soft spot for the poor and the homeless. That is to say, always since the day he hired an underage redheaded whore for five bucks and took her from Kursk station to his place, a humble three-story mansion overlooking the Yauza River. He fucked her, fed her, kept her warm, and decided to keep her for good, like a lost cat. From that day, Stary imagined himself to be the protector of the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.
    He often got on my nerves, telling me about their first night together. How she started weeping when he told her she could stay …
    “Monsters, huh? I like it! There was a movie called Monster’s Ball . Yeah, a movie … with, you know, what’s-her-name in it.”
    … And how she couldn’t calm down, and kept on sobbing like a baby so that she couldn’t even say her name. (Carefully and kindly, Stary first threw away the used condom, then offered the girl shelter, and then decided to introduce himself.)
    “What’s her name, the black one …”
    “Halle Berry.”
    “That’s right, Halle Berry.”
    … And how she told him through her tears, “M-m-my name is