... in which Veksel critically evaluates arthouse cinema, becomes acquainted with contemporary literature, and displays paternal feelings
Pushing aside overturned chairs and carefully stepping over dead bodies, Veksel crossed the devastated auditorium. With a soft, catlike gait, he carefully avoided the dark bloodstains on the shaggy carpet, stopped in front of the screen flickering in the dim light, and looked around once more.
"Well, guys... What a movie..." muttered the old thief, trying to suppress his growing excitement.
He took out his old cell phone again and, without looking, dialed the last number. The phone rang again with long, relentless beeps. "Well, at least the battery hasn't died yet," Veksel encouraged himself mentally. "Yes... What happened here?"
Veksel had seen all kinds of things in his life, but even he was stunned by the bloody scene surrounding him now. The man stared at the corpse of a girl with her eyes gouged out, sprawled in front of the screen. On her fashionable black sleeveless shirt, obviously for contrast, was a once light-colored tie, now red with blood dripping from her face.
"When you tie your tie, take care of it: it is the same color as the red banner," Veksel suddenly remembered the rhyming lines from his pioneer youth. Who was this "pioneer" in life? A student? A meaningless office worker? Could she have imagined that this trip to the cinema with her friends would be her last? What was she thinking in her last moments?
Veksel's gaze slid over the poster on the door.
"Art house," the man read mechanically and sighed sadly. "Yes... Some kind of art house."
Suddenly, he realized that in the silence of the room filled with corpses, he could hear soft music. The cell phone in his hand was still persistently dialing the cherished number. There was no doubt about it — the phone was ringing somewhere nearby.
Veksel carefully examined the floor, peering at the dead faces, but the melody was definitely coming from somewhere else. Following the sound, he left the cinema, crossed a small corridor, and found himself in the main room of the book club, where neat rows of bookshelves stood opposite a cozy café. The music grew louder until Veksel finally identified its source—a large pile of orange synthetic fur lying in a puddle at the bar counter next to an overturned coffee machine.
Apparently, a considerable amount of various liquids had spilled out of the bar, which had been destroyed in the fight. The machine, which had not been turned off but had been knocked over onto the floor, short-circuited, and the person in the orange suit, stepping into the puddle, received an electric shock.
Veksel hastily dragged the furry away by the scruff of its neck and, leaning it against the wall, pulled off the fox head attached with Velcro.
Under the mask was a face well known to the man, now almost white with blue lips.
"Marisha... What happened? How?" Veksel muttered, completely losing his composure, trying in vain to feel his daughter's pulse on her neck. Marina was dead. And, apparently, had been for quite some time. The man sank to the floor next to the corpse.
For the first time in his entire life, Veksel felt truly helpless. Neither the fear of being caught, nor arrest, nor even further imprisonment had such an effect on the old thief as the sudden realization of the death of the person closest to him.
In those moments, he remembered all his past conversations with Marina. The money Veksel had saved up over the years would be enough for the girl to study and live on. Not so much that she could live it up, but she could be as well off as any rich kid of a deputy. However, what Marina really inherited from Veksel was a stubborn character and a strict adherence to her own principles. And in her opinion, taking money from her thief father was unacceptable. After several arguments, the girl dug her heels in and, gritting her teeth, decided to work for herself. "Any job. The main thing is to be honest! Not like you," she threw in her father's face at the time. And what? Where did that lead? What does the old man have to live for now? For whom? Sinking deeper and deeper into such soul-destroying thoughts and letting a stingy tear roll down his wrinkled cheek, the man suddenly felt a movement.
He slowly turned his head and froze. Standing before Veksel was Marina, whom he had mentally buried just a minute ago. But before the experienced criminal could decide what to do: mourn or rejoice, two fluffy orange paws clamped onto his neck. Marina, or rather what she had turned into, threw her entire weight on her father, trying to strangle him like a fox strangling a chicken.
Managing to wriggle free, Veksel immediately jumped back to a safe distance.
"What are you doing, daughter? Don't you recognize your dad?" he cried, watching Marina slowly turn her empty gaze on him, preparing for another jump. However, the element of surprise was no longer on her side. The man easily dodged the sharp but clumsy jump of the distraught girl in her ridiculous costume.
"Don't joke like that, Marisha..." Veksel tried to reason with his daughter, but she seemed not to hear him at all.
With her next jump, the girl finally caught Veksel, pinning him against one of the shelves, from which books rained down. Teeth gnashed near the thief's face, trying to reach his neck. Without looking, Veksel grabbed the nearest volume he could reach from the shelf and shoved it between Marina's clacking jaws.
"You're too small to open your cakehole on me!" the man hissed angrily and, taking advantage of the delay, deftly twisted his daughter's arm behind her back. This simple trick worked. A minute later, he was already pressing her to the floor with his knee, and his belt was tightly wrapped around both of her arms, which were behind her back. Marina growled menacingly, biting the spine of the book, but did not think to open her mouth.
Five minutes later, Veksel loaded the struggling girl into the back seat of a burgundy Lada 9, parked right on the sidewalk. To be on the safe side, he wrapped her several more times in the fluffy fox costume he had found in the glove compartment with duct tape. That concluded the educational moment.
Veksel sighed heavily, looked worriedly at Marina, who was still writhing, and only now examined the book he had successfully used as a gag. The title of the latest hyped bestseller "Guzel Closes Her Piehole", seemed ironic to the old criminal. However, even in the camp, he had preferred the classics. Starting the engine, he spun around briskly in front of the book club and drove away along the snow-covered road.