Read the book “Paper Curtain, Glass Crown” online in full - Elena Mikhalkova - MyBook. Paper curtain, glass crown Elena Mikhalkova paper curtain read online

All characters are fictitious, any resemblance to real or living people is purely coincidental.

“What a wonderful start to the day,” thought Sergei Babkin. And I immediately tried to throw this thought out of my head, because such thoughts - the right way frighten away everything good and lure in its place something dubious and unsympathetic.

The phone softly played Bach's "Joke".

“Hello, Igor Vasilyevich,” Ilyushin said cheerfully. - Glad to hear from you.

And I’m really glad, Babkin thought.

Sergei himself considered Igor Perigorsky a mysterious and eerie creature, like a praying mantis. Formally, Perigordsky was the manager of the Artemis paint club. In fact, he played the role of the Lord God on a territory of twenty hectares and devoted himself to his occupation with a passion that was difficult to suspect in this imperturbable, lean man with endless long arms and huge semicircles of brown eyelids.

“Of course, Igor Vasilyevich,” Makar said calmly, after listening to his interlocutor. - I am your debtor, you know.

And this is where Sergei should be wary. Sergei should wonder why the powerful Perigordsky needed two private detectives, when he is one of those people who serves on errands goldfish and considers it an honor if she is addressed directly.

But Babkin listened with half an ear, thinking that his wife’s birthday was coming soon and it was completely unclear what to give her. Perfume? Ring? When he thought about choosing a gift, he was overcome with existential melancholy.

– Does he need private detectives? – Ilyushin asked into the phone. - Oh, that's how it is. No problem. Let him come.

“A ring,” thought Babkin. – Should it be simple? Or with a stone? And if with a stone, then with what?»

– And to you, Igor Vasilyevich. Total!

Ilyushin put the phone aside and fixed a thoughtful gaze on Babkin.

- Looks like we have a new client.

My friend is a businessman, Perigorsky explained. Dear person in Kazan.

And my friend has a son. Singer. good boy. He had difficulties with the administrator. We need help.

“I don’t understand what they want from us,” Babkin grumbled, working magic over the cezve in anticipation of the client who was about to appear. – Difficulties with the administrator? I translate: they steal. And how can we help?

Ilyushin took a sip of coffee and winced.

– Seryoga, I couldn’t refuse. After what Perigordsky did for us in Venice, we will even undertake to investigate the disappearance of his hamster.

“What is there to investigate,” Babkin snorted. “Périgorsky himself ate it.”

In the hallway the bell broke into small trills.

- And here is my son! – Makar put the cup on the windowsill. - Look, don’t scare the boy!

Babkin headed into the hallway. It must be said that even at that moment he was not tormented by a bad feeling. The clouds did not gather, the parquet did not tremble underfoot. And he opened the door, partly with his thoughts in those clouds where his wife tried on the ring and blossomed into a grateful smile.

And having opened it, he immediately fell from these clouds.

The singer Dzhonik, known to all teenagers, stood in front of him and gloomily twirled a gold signet the size of a dumpling on his finger.

- Hai! – Jonik muttered. -Are you Ilyushin?

“Then move over.”

With these words, the young rapper squeezed past Babkin and went deeper into the apartment. But Babkin remained standing, feeling as if he had been hit on the nose with a fly swatter.

To justify Sergei, it should be said that most people who talked with Jonik, even for a very short time, had a similar feeling. For some, it was accompanied by olfactory hallucinations. The nose persistently told the owner that he had stepped into a pile of foul-smelling substance.

It is all the more surprising that Dzhonik himself, at first meeting, did not at all give the impression of a person capable of causing such an amazing effect. He was a full-lipped young man with expressive dark eyes and somewhat childish, blurry features. Height is average. The voice is nasal and hoarse.

And in this nasal and hoarse voice, Jonik rapped. The song “My home is a slum” was played twice a day on General Radio. And with the hit “I am your wolf, you are my bunny,” Jonik climbed to the top of the chart and sat there all summer, trampling his rivals with his plump leg.

The official legend said that Dzhonik is a child of the gateway. Bastard and poverty. He sang in the streets to earn money for moldy corn. He was imprisoned twice for fighting and theft (single “I won’t return to the bunk”). He wandered around, unloaded wagons, slept in boxes and ate what he himself caught in the Moscow Canal.

According to the generally accepted version, Jonik’s life took a sharp turn when the Bentley of a very famous producer stalled in a traffic jam on Tverskaya and the unlucky owner was forced to go down to the metro.

It was there, in the passage, that he heard the songs of the young rapper.

Until the morning, the producer sat on the spit-stained floor and listened, forgetting about everything. And with the first rays of the sun, he timidly approached the hoarse singer and offered him a multimillion-dollar contract, tours throughout the country and the glory of the king of Russian rap.

And Bentley. Since it was still defective.

Since then, Jonik has become the idol of millions. At least that's what he claimed. He even wanted to change his last name to Kumirov, but someone dissuaded him.

The hall applauded loudly.

- Brothers! Be strong! Be like me!

The listeners hooted approvingly and tried to be like Dzhonik.

The singer emphasized his masculinity with everyone available means. First, he shaved his head, leaving a tuft on the top of his head, like a pineapple. Evil tongues claimed that new haircut gives Jonik a resemblance not to an army sergeant major, but to a sad monkey who failed an intelligence test. But good tongues called them scoundrels, scum and envious bastards for this.

Secondly, he wore camouflage. Wide pants that Jonik lowered slightly, boots two sizes too big, jackets with a thousand pockets. And on top of this camouflage kit of a partisan, sent behind enemy lines, dangled clusters of gold chains as thick as a fatted boa constrictor.

Thirdly, with the indomitable ardor characteristic of youth, Dzhonik smashed and denounced the modern stage. “Your pop idols are false idols! – he repeated in all interviews. “They are raping the people’s brain!”

The journalist, who once had the imprudence to ask what kind of execution Dzhonik’s song “Two Nostrils” subjected the people’s brains, was thrown out of his dressing room by the rapper.

Not by myself, of course. By the hands of the guards.

And of course, fans. “Crowds of women lust after my muscular body! – the rapper sang, patting himself on his tender white belly. “Kamon, baby, don’t pretend you didn’t want me!”

Confirming the image of the most brutal singer in Russia, Dzhonik changed girlfriends faster than they had time to realize what a great man they were lucky to be with. I gave preference to blondes. “Women are my weakness,” the singer repented to the camera. It was one such weakness that he eventually married. The young wife was the winner of one of the Moscow beauty contests. “I know I’m sexy,” she said in a childish voice. “That’s why my Jonik chose me.” As befits a real man, Dzhonik beat his girlfriend from time to time and dragged her by her blond braids. After family scenes, she appeared, proudly sparkling with a bruise, like an order earned in bloody battles. “Until you teach a woman about life, it will be bad,” the singer shared the wisdom of his ancestors that had been revealed to him.

And this man at this moment was lounging in Ilyushin’s chair, legs spread wide, and muttering something incomprehensible.

Elena Mikhalkova

Paper curtain, glass crown

All characters are fictitious, any resemblance to real or living people is purely coincidental.

1

“What a wonderful start to the day,” thought Sergei Babkin. And I immediately tried to throw this thought out of my head, because such thoughts are a sure way to frighten away everything good and lure something dubious and unsympathetic in its place.

The phone softly played Bach's "Joke".

“Hello, Igor Vasilyevich,” Ilyushin said cheerfully. - Glad to hear from you.

And I’m really glad, Babkin thought.

“Of course, Igor Vasilyevich,” Makar said calmly, after listening to his interlocutor. - I am your debtor, you know.

And this is where Sergei should be wary. Sergei should think about why the powerful Perigordsky needed two private detectives, when he is one of those people who has a goldfish on his errands and considers it an honor if they are approached directly.

– Does he need private detectives? – Ilyushin asked into the phone. - Oh, that's how it is. No problem. Let him come.

“A ring,” thought Babkin. – Should it be simple? Or with a stone? And if with a stone, then with what?»

– And to you, Igor Vasilyevich. Total!

Ilyushin put the phone aside and fixed a thoughtful gaze on Babkin.

- Looks like we have a new client.

My friend is a businessman, Perigorsky explained. Dear person in Kazan.

And my friend has a son. Singer. Good boy. He had difficulties with the administrator. We need help.

Ilyushin took a sip of coffee and winced.

– Seryoga, I couldn’t refuse. After what Perigordsky did for us in Venice, we will even undertake to investigate the disappearance of his hamster.

“What is there to investigate,” Babkin snorted. “Périgorsky himself ate it.”

In the hallway the bell broke into small trills.

- And here is my son! – Makar put the cup on the windowsill. - Look, don’t scare the boy!

And having opened it, he immediately fell from these clouds.

The singer Dzhonik, known to all teenagers, stood in front of him and gloomily twirled a gold signet the size of a dumpling on his finger.

- Hai! – Jonik muttered. -Are you Ilyushin?

“Then move over.”

With these words, the young rapper squeezed past Babkin and went deeper into the apartment. But Babkin remained standing, feeling as if he had been hit on the nose with a fly swatter.

It was there, in the passage, that he heard the songs of the young rapper.

And Bentley. Since it was still defective.

Since then, Jonik has become the idol of millions. At least that's what he claimed. He even wanted to change his last name to Kumirov, but someone dissuaded him.

The hall applauded loudly.

- Brothers! Be strong! Be like me!

The listeners hooted approvingly and tried to be like Dzhonik.

The singer emphasized his masculinity using all available means. First, he shaved his head, leaving a tuft on the top of his head, like a pineapple. Evil tongues claimed that Jonik's new haircut made him look not like an army sergeant major, but like a sad monkey who failed an intelligence test. But good tongues called them scoundrels, scum and envious bastards for this.

The journalist, who once had the imprudence to ask what kind of execution Dzhonik’s song “Two Nostrils” subjected the people’s brains, was thrown out of his dressing room by the rapper.

Not by myself, of course. By the hands of the guards.

And of course, fans. “Crowds of women lust after my muscular body! – the rapper sang, patting himself on his tender white belly. “Kamon, baby, don’t pretend you didn’t want me!”

And this man at this moment was lounging in Ilyushin’s chair, legs spread wide, and muttering something incomprehensible.

Babkin would have gotten rid of the insolent man in three seconds, but the expression on Makar’s face stopped him. Ilyushin was having fun. And if Ilyushin was having fun, Babkin could only play the role of a silent hallucination.

“Try to tell everything from the very beginning,” Makar suggested with mocking politeness.

- Hey, what am I doing? – Jonik nervously drummed his fingers on the armrest.

-Are you pretending to be a cow? – Ilyushin suggested.

Jonik stared at him with a gloomy ram-like gaze, before the pressure of which even new gates would have fallen. But Makar, if he wanted, knew how to look as simple-minded as a young dill.

“That’s all Andryukha,” the rapper squeezed out. - Reshetnikov. My administrator.

“Yes,” Ilyushin said encouragingly. - And what happened to him?

Jonik winced. Jonik twisted his mouth. Dzhonik depicted with his face the immense disgust that the behavior of administrator Reshetnikov aroused in him.

- It seems that someone has appeared with him.

- Where did you appear?

The rapper rolled his eyes.

- Yes, it's a big deal... He's having an affair!

“Yeah,” said Makar. - Novel. From your administrator.

- Well. Horned creature!

Ilyushin and Sergei looked at each other, and Babkin felt vague satisfaction, catching the confusion in Makar’s eyes. It seemed that even his partner's mighty intellect succumbed to this task. Makar did not understand how the affair of an administrator unknown to him became a problem for the rapper Jonik.

This is what I informed their guest about.

The young man looked at Makar with contemptuous pity.

“I think they said you’re smart,” he said nasally. - But it doesn’t look like it.

“Mimicry,” assured Ilyushin.

Jonik did not pay attention to his words.

– If he’s having an affair, what does that mean? He's the bitch who's cheating on me, or what? Yes, I’m for it...

And the young man expressively described the torment to which he would condemn the unfortunate Reshetnikov.

- Cheating? – Babkin repeated stunned, forgetting about his role as a silent hallucination.

“Just a minute. What does it mean - cheating?

Jonik glanced sideways at him.

- What, are you stupid too? This freak has found someone for himself. I have a nose for such things!

“Two nostrils,” Babkin recalled out of place.

“I picked him up, such a piece of trash, from a trash heap.” He pulled me out of the mud like a kitten. Where would he be if it weren't for me? And this is how he pays! Yes for this...

Jonik burst into an obscene tirade and kicked the chair.

“Uh-uh...” Makar was puzzled. “The situation is undoubtedly tragic. I sympathize and all that. But how can we help?

The young man smiled wryly.

- What, you really don’t beat me?

He leaned forward, and all the chains clanked ominously, as if promising a long imprisonment in shackles.

2

“Forget even thinking,” said Babkin.

“Never,” said Babkin.

“I’d rather die,” Babkin said.

Makar patiently listened to about ten refusal options and returned to where they started:

– Seryoga, we have no choice. We signed up for this treasure with our nostrils.

– I didn’t sign up!

– Just as I signed up. When he accepted the help of Perigordsky.

- If I had been warned that in return I would have to hunt down someone's lover, I would have sent his help to you know where?

“I guess,” Ilyushin nodded. – But, as the famous song says, minced meat cannot be turned back, and meat cannot be restored from cutlets.

Babkin sat down on the floor and with difficulty suppressed the desire to grab his head and start rocking.

“Do you even understand where you’re sending me?”

- The cream of glamor! – Makar promised. – The best people our stage!

“Panopticon,” Babkin snapped.

- At least you'll have some fun.

- Those who served in the army do not laugh at the circus. Listen,” he looked up at Makar with a pained look. “Why don’t you take on this yourself?”

“I don’t look like a bodyguard,” Ilyushin sighed. “And this is the subject of my endless regrets.” Either way, my widescreen friend.

“I should hit you,” the wide-screen friend said sadly. - But it won’t help.

Sunbeams scattered across the parquet floor and at that moment seemed to Babkin to be the most malicious creatures in the world, not counting his partner. They're teasing, you bastards! They feel good. They have freedom. Run wherever you want, dance on the walls or on the ceiling. And he has to do humiliating work. Which he would never have agreed to in his life if it weren’t for Ilyushin.

“Tracking down someone else’s lover,” Babkin said with disgust. - What could be worse?

– Track down your own? – Ilyushin suggested.

But Sergei did not listen.

– The most brutal singer of the Russian stage! – he drawled with inexpressible sarcasm. - “Beat the perverts!” “Let’s clear our ranks of homosexuals!” Ugh!

Babkin extended his hand for the cup and poured the cooled coffee into himself in one sip.

- Explain to me why this is all? – he demanded. “No one is asking him to tell the truth and publicly admit his inclinations.” But why lie so blatantly?

Ilyushin shook his head condescendingly.

– Seryoga, you’re like a child, by God. Do you think Jonik makes money by selling his songs? No. He sells himself. And the audience that listens to him most readily falls for slogans about the purity of the race and traditional values.

“But any idiot on the street who specializes in tracking down unfaithful wives can do the job for him,” Sergei said gloomily.

Ilyushin laughed.

– So that the day after tomorrow the yellow press will be full of headlines that the rapper Jonik, who talks about his love for blondes on all corners, is a jealous gay? Come to your senses, my naive friend. Any idiot on the street he turns to will, first of all, do the smartest thing in his life and sell this information to journalists.

“What a pity I’m not an idiot,” Babkin muttered.

Ilyushin was about to be sarcastic, but this time he restrained himself. He perfectly saw the comic side of the situation and in the depths of his soul could not help but laugh at his friend, who took what was happening to heart. Makar himself, possessing a detached, cold mind, viewed all this as an anecdote. But at the same time, he understood perfectly well that Sergei’s pride had been dealt a powerful blow.

They were both detectives to the core. But Ilyushin took on the next case because he was curious. It was this that was the driving force behind most of his actions. In another life, Makar Ilyushin would have become a cat, or even more accurately, a stray cat, wandering around rooftops, garbage dumps and back stairs, catching one mouse after another not so much out of hunger, but out of the pleasure of hunting.

Babkin in another life would have become a dog. And not a mongrel, but a full-fledged servant: a Rottweiler or a Russian terrier. He was too independent for a shepherd. It would never have occurred to Sergei to say that he was attracted by the idea of dedication to work; he did not even think of himself in such terms. However, he completed each successful investigation with a feeling of satisfaction, not because the mystery was solved, but because, in a global sense, he and Makar had restored justice. It's done. A real deal that one could talk and think about with pride.

And suddenly - rapper Dzhonik.

The most unpleasant thing was that this little bastard had thought of everything.

3

– Simple surveillance will not yield anything,” Dzhonik said, drawing out his words. - I tried. My Andryusha is encrypted. Worse than this... Stirlitz. But I have one guess who he contacted. And here everything works out well.

When Babkin found out exactly how everything was going well, his short-cropped hair stood on end.

“Party,” Jonik said. - Party. Gathering of freaks.

And, seeing the misunderstanding on the detectives’ faces, he deciphered:

- Bogdan is having a party on Wednesday. He gathers friends at his country house. – At the word “friends,” such a grin ran across Dzhonik’s face that Babkin felt uneasy. - I'm invited too.

Makar raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Jonik nodded, noticing this movement. - I’m shocked. Shaft wants a truce. Okay, I'm not evil. There will be a truce for him.

Then Babkin began to remember something. Even he had heard rumors about a scandal between the young rapper and Bogdan Gregorovich, the king of the pop scene, a handsome two-meter tall man, hot-tempered and capricious like a child. It seems that it started with Dzhonik either coughing or urinating on Gregorovich’s pink limousine. In response, Gregorovich publicly called the rapper a bedbug. And away we go. Insults fell faster than overripe apples, and this performance was watched with delight by spectators, friends and enemies of both.

And now - a party at Gregorovich's house. Where only a select few are likely to be invited.

- So you want us to infiltrate a private party and spy on your administrator and one of the guests there? – Makar was surprised.

Babkin even became amused. Unexecutable order. This means that Jonik can look for someone else for this job.

But the guy grinned again, and Sergei was gripped by a bad suspicion. Looks like they weren't told everything.

– Do you know what’s funny? – Jonik looked around at them. - The fact is that at such parties they party without security. Like, everyone is your own, you can relax.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched contentedly, as if illustrating his own words.

And then Babkin remembered. Even to him, a man extremely far from Russian music, some echoes of the public life of the stars reached him. Paparazzi photographs from nightclubs, restaurants and creative drinking sessions with Jonik appeared in his mind's eye.

And the rapper was never alone in these photos. Always behind him - always! – two big guys rose up.

- How those singing cowards laughed at me! – Jonik grinned. - They scratched their wits at me! “Our golden boy is afraid that he will be stolen!” – he mimicked with shrill notes in his voice. “And I always knew that someday this habit would come in handy.” I'll beat them all yet.

– Do you mean that at Gregorovich’s party you will also be with bodyguards? “Makar already understood where things were going, but he hoped that there was some kind of loophole left.

Jonik shook his head.

- Not with bodyguards. With a bodyguard. One. And this one will go second.

He nodded at Sergei.

The sunbeam lingered on Babkin's trouser leg and, it seems, pityingly stroked it with its paw.

1

- Kesha! – Bogdan called loudly. - Well, where are you?

Innokenty Kutikov, whom Gregorovich introduced to everyone as “my valet,” although the party knew him more as a nanny and the pop star’s closest confidant, appeared, as usual, completely silently. He appeared in the reflection behind the owner’s back, like a cat sneaking up on a flaunting peacock, and with a soft paw pulled down his camisole.

He rolled his shoulders as if trying to free himself from the tight embrace of the suit. Above his waist, his snow-white shirt foamed with lace. Below the singer's waist, he wore family briefs in a flamboyant pink flower pattern.

“I’ll tsk, Bogdan Atanasovich,” Kesha promised insinuatingly. - Untrimmed claws. Like in Tatyana Tolstoy’s novel “Kys”.

They both laughed. Or rather, Gregorovich laughed, and the valet smiled at the corners of his lips. It seemed that at birth he was given a limited number of sounds to use, and he spent them extremely sparingly, not wasting them on nonsense like laughter.

The singer twirled in front of the mirror, turned his left side and arched his neck, meticulously peering at his reflection. The new camisole was luxurious: bright scarlet, stitched with gold threads, with a turn-down emerald collar.

“My stomach is hanging,” Bogdan said sadly. - Keshenka, is it hanging?

“It’s hanging,” confirmed the valet.

Gregorovich immediately turned the color of his camisole.

- You are a ruthless person! - he cried. “At least once in my life I would say: you are beautiful, Bogdan Atanasovich, inhumanly beautiful, I am in love with you, everyone is in love with you, and your stomach is toned, and your waist is incomparable, and your voice is such that nightingales are dying of envy!”

Kutikov shifted from foot to foot and repeated in a boring tone:

– You, Bogdan Atanasovich, are inhumanly beautiful. And your stomach is toned. And the waist is incomparable. And the baritone is wonderful, simply wonderful.

The scream was so strong that it seemed that the mirror shook and began to move in a frightened wave.

- Liar! Let's sycophant!

“How can this be, Bogdan Atanasovich...” Kesha was upset.

“Get out, you flattering bastard!”

The singer furiously began to tear off his camisole and became entangled in the lining.

“You’re vindictive,” the valet reproached, helping him extricate himself from his silken captivity. - Like all fat basses. Elbow here, here... Don’t rip off your panties in the heat of anger, you’ll freeze.

– Who did you call fat?!

– If you start eating hamburgers, you won’t fit into your golden cloak.

- Get out!

- I'm already leaving. I'm going straight to your competitors. I will tell them how your jeans with rhinestones came apart in the middle of the concert. And the pebbles fell in a sparkling rain. Just like in your song. How is it... Param-pam-pam, I will cling to you, param-pam, sparkling rain! – The valet melodiously hummed a well-known hit.

- I hate you! - Gregorovich howled.

Kutikov looked down modestly.

– Thank you, Bogdan Atanasovich. I tried!

The mirror shook again, this time with laughter. Freed from the clutches of his camisole, the singer waved his arms, vigorously rubbed his chest and hugged the valet with feeling.

- But I’m not bad yet, eh, Keshenka?

“The time for self-consolation ended at ten,” he noted phlegmatically. – And now you have a gym on schedule.

- Nazhorny! – Bogdan mimicked. - I want to eat after this!

- You want to eat before him too. And you have guests the day after tomorrow. You must be handsome and thin.

Gregorovich's face darkened.

- For whom to try... Olesya herself is covered in cellulite. Medvedkina counts each spinach leaf. Will Carmelita reproach me? Or maybe Voronoi?

“You invited Mr. Jonik,” Kesha reminded, putting the camisole on the mannequin.

September 29, 2016

Description of the artwork “Paper curtain, glass crown” (Elena Mikhalkova)

New true detective by Elena Mikhalkova

One can only envy Asya Katuntseva: she won not just a dinner with the idol of the whole country, but also among A-list stars! Who knew that the party that started so well would end in murder, and that the glittering world of show business, once you looked at it more closely, would show her its most unattractive sides. Moreover, private detective Sergei Babkin suddenly becomes involved in the scandal. Together with Makar Ilyushin, they will have to plunge into the investigation so that the fragments of the glass crown that slipped from the head of the pop idol do not injure those who are not guilty of anything.

What secrets do public favorites keep from prying eyes? Is the life of stars really as carefree and rosy as it seems from the audience? And what's hidden behind the ornate paper curtain? Read in the new detective story by Elena Mikhalkova!

Download in FB2, EPUB, PDF formats.

Also read Paper curtain, glass crown online.

All characters are fictitious, any resemblance to real or living people is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

1

The phone softly played Bach's "Joke".

“Hello, Igor Vasilyevich,” Ilyushin said cheerfully. - Glad to hear from you.

And I’m really glad, Babkin thought.

“Of course, Igor Vasilyevich,” Makar said calmly, after listening to his interlocutor. - I am your debtor, you know.

– Does he need private detectives? – Ilyushin asked into the phone. - Oh, that's how it is. No problem. Let him come.

“A ring,” thought Babkin. – Should it be simple? Or with a stone? And if with a stone, then with what?»

– And to you, Igor Vasilyevich. Total!

Ilyushin put the phone aside and fixed a thoughtful gaze on Babkin.

- Looks like we have a new client.

My friend is a businessman, Perigorsky explained. Dear person in Kazan.

And my friend has a son. Singer. Good boy. He had difficulties with the administrator. We need help.

Ilyushin took a sip of coffee and winced.

– Seryoga, I couldn’t refuse. After what Perigordsky did for us in Venice, we will even undertake to investigate the disappearance of his hamster.

“What is there to investigate,” Babkin snorted. “Périgorsky himself ate it.”

In the hallway the bell broke into small trills.

- And here is my son! – Makar put the cup on the windowsill. - Look, don’t scare the boy!

And having opened it, he immediately fell from these clouds.

The singer Dzhonik, known to all teenagers, stood in front of him and gloomily twirled a gold signet the size of a dumpling on his finger.

- Hai! – Jonik muttered. -Are you Ilyushin?

“Then move over.”

With these words, the young rapper squeezed past Babkin and went deeper into the apartment. But Babkin remained standing, feeling as if he had been hit on the nose with a fly swatter.

It was there, in the passage, that he heard the songs of the young rapper.

And Bentley. Since it was still defective.

Since then, Jonik has become the idol of millions. At least that's what he claimed. He even wanted to change his last name to Kumirov, but someone dissuaded him.

The hall applauded loudly.

- Brothers! Be strong! Be like me!

The listeners hooted approvingly and tried to be like Dzhonik.

The journalist, who once had the imprudence to ask what kind of execution Dzhonik’s song “Two Nostrils” subjected the people’s brains, was thrown out of his dressing room by the rapper.

Not by myself, of course. By the hands of the guards.

And of course, fans. “Crowds of women lust after my muscular body! – the rapper sang, patting himself on his tender white belly. “Kamon, baby, don’t pretend you didn’t want me!”

And this man at this moment was lounging in Ilyushin’s chair, legs spread wide, and muttering something incomprehensible.

“Try to tell everything from the very beginning,” Makar suggested with mocking politeness.

- Hey, what am I doing? – Jonik nervously drummed his fingers on the armrest.

-Are you pretending to be a cow? – Ilyushin suggested.

Jonik stared at him with a gloomy ram-like gaze, before the pressure of which even new gates would have fallen. But Makar, if he wanted, knew how to look as simple-minded as a young dill.

“That’s all Andryukha,” the rapper squeezed out. - Reshetnikov. My administrator.

“Yes,” Ilyushin said encouragingly. - And what happened to him?

Jonik winced. Jonik twisted his mouth. Dzhonik depicted with his face the immense disgust that the behavior of administrator Reshetnikov aroused in him.

- It seems that someone has appeared with him.

- Where did you appear?

The rapper rolled his eyes.

- Yes, it's a big deal... He's having an affair!

“Yeah,” said Makar. - Novel. From your administrator.

- Well. Horned creature!

This is what I informed their guest about.

The young man looked at Makar with contemptuous pity.

“I think they said you’re smart,” he said nasally. - But it doesn’t look like it.

“Mimicry,” assured Ilyushin.

Jonik did not pay attention to his words.

– If he’s having an affair, what does that mean? He's the bitch who's cheating on me, or what? Yes, I’m for it...

And the young man expressively described the torment to which he would condemn the unfortunate Reshetnikov.

- Cheating? – Babkin repeated stunned, forgetting about his role as a silent hallucination.

“Just a minute. What does it mean - cheating?

Jonik glanced sideways at him.

- What, are you stupid too? This freak has found someone for himself. I have a nose for such things!

“Two nostrils,” Babkin recalled out of place.

“I picked him up, such a piece of trash, from a trash heap.” He pulled me out of the mud like a kitten. Where would he be if it weren't for me? And this is how he pays! Yes for this...

Jonik burst into an obscene tirade and kicked the chair.

“Uh-uh...” Makar was puzzled. “The situation is undoubtedly tragic. I sympathize and all that. But how can we help?

The young man smiled wryly.

- What, you really don’t beat me?

He leaned forward, and all the chains clanked ominously, as if promising a long imprisonment in shackles.

2

“Forget even thinking,” said Babkin.

“Never,” said Babkin.

“I’d rather die,” Babkin said.

Makar patiently listened to about ten refusal options and returned to where they started:

– Seryoga, we have no choice. We signed up for this treasure with our nostrils.

– I didn’t sign up!

– Just as I signed up. When he accepted the help of Perigordsky.

- If I had been warned that in return I would have to hunt down someone's lover, I would have sent his help to you know where?

“I guess,” Ilyushin nodded. – But, as the famous song says, minced meat cannot be turned back, and meat cannot be restored from cutlets.

Babkin sat down on the floor and with difficulty suppressed the desire to grab his head and start rocking.

“Do you even understand where you’re sending me?”

- The cream of glamor! – Makar promised. - The best people of our stage!

“Panopticon,” Babkin snapped.

- At least you'll have some fun.

- Those who served in the army do not laugh at the circus. Listen,” he looked up at Makar with a pained look. “Why don’t you take on this yourself?”

“I don’t look like a bodyguard,” Ilyushin sighed. “And this is the subject of my endless regrets.” Either way, my widescreen friend.

“I should hit you,” the wide-screen friend said sadly. - But it won’t help.

“Tracking down someone else’s lover,” Babkin said with disgust. - What could be worse?

– Track down your own? – Ilyushin suggested.

But Sergei did not listen.

– The most brutal singer of the Russian stage! – he drawled with inexpressible sarcasm. - “Beat the perverts!” “Let’s clear our ranks of homosexuals!” Ugh!

Babkin extended his hand for the cup and poured the cooled coffee into himself in one sip.

- Explain to me why this is all? – he demanded. “No one is asking him to tell the truth and publicly admit his inclinations.” But why lie so blatantly?

Ilyushin shook his head condescendingly.

“But any idiot on the street who specializes in tracking down unfaithful wives can do the job for him,” Sergei said gloomily.

Ilyushin laughed.

“What a pity I’m not an idiot,” Babkin muttered.

And suddenly - rapper Dzhonik.

The most unpleasant thing was that this little bastard had thought of everything.

3

When Babkin found out exactly how everything was going well, his short-cropped hair stood on end.

“Party,” Jonik said. - Party. Gathering of freaks.

And, seeing the misunderstanding on the detectives’ faces, he deciphered:

- Bogdan is having a party on Wednesday. He gathers friends at his country house. – At the word “friends,” such a grin ran across Dzhonik’s face that Babkin felt uneasy. - I'm invited too.

Makar raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Jonik nodded, noticing this movement. - I’m shocked. Shaft wants a truce. Okay, I'm not evil. There will be a truce for him.

And now - a party at Gregorovich's house. Where only a select few are likely to be invited.

“I don’t know why he’s calling me.” – Jonik seemed to read Babkin’s thoughts. – I don’t care. But he will have someone there... I think so, Andryusha hooked up with this someone.

- So you want us to infiltrate a private party and spy on your administrator and one of the guests there? – Makar was surprised.

Babkin even became amused. Unexecutable order. This means that Jonik can look for someone else for this job.

But the guy grinned again, and Sergei was gripped by a bad suspicion. Looks like they weren't told everything.

– Do you know what’s funny? – Jonik looked around at them. - The fact is that at such parties they party without security. Like, everyone is your own, you can relax.

He leaned back in his chair and stretched contentedly, as if illustrating his own words.

And the rapper was never alone in these photos. Always behind him - always! – two big guys rose up.

– Do you mean that at Gregorovich’s party you will also be with bodyguards? “Makar already understood where things were going, but he hoped that there was some kind of loophole left.

Jonik shook his head.

- Not with bodyguards. With a bodyguard. One. And this one will go second.

He nodded at Sergei.

The sunbeam lingered on Babkin's trouser leg and, it seems, pityingly stroked it with its paw.

New true detective by Elena Mikhalkova

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