Russian Roulette (Alex Rider)

ФОРТОЧНИК

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FORTOCHNIK
For the next few days, we barely left the flat. Dima was worried the police would be looking
for us and I also had my concerns. Forget Estrov. I was now wanted for theft and for
assaulting a police officer. It was better for us not to show our faces in the street and so we
ate, drank, played cards … and we were bored. We were also running out of cash. I never
asked Dima what he had done with the rubles he had taken from me and it wasn’t as if we
were spending a lot of money but somehow there was never enough for our basic needs.
Roman and Grigory brought in a few rubles now and then but the truth is that they were
too unattractive to have much success begging and Roman’s stutter made it hard for him to
ask for money.
Even so, it was Roman who suggested it one night. “We should try b–b–b–burglary.”
We were sitting around the table with vodka and cards. All we had eaten that day was a
couple of slices of black bread. The four of us were looking ill. We needed proper food and
sunlight. I had got used to the smell in the room by now – in fact I was part of it. But the
place was looking grimier than ever and we longed to be outside.
“Who are we going to b–b–burgle?” Dima asked.
Roman shrugged.
“It’s a good idea,” Grigory said. He slapped down an attack card – we were having
another bout of Durak. “Yasha is small enough. He could be our fortochnik.”
“What’s a fortochnik?” I asked.
Dima rolled his eyes. “It’s someone who breaks in through a fortochka,” he explained.
That, at least, I understood. A fortochka was a type of window. Many apartments in
Moscow had them before air conditioning took over. There would be a large window and
then a much smaller one set inside it, a bit like a cat flap. In the summer months, people
would open the fortochkas to let in the breeze and, of course, they were an invitation for
thieves … provided they were small enough. Grigory was right. He was too fat and Roman
was too ungainly to crawl through, but I could make it easily. I was small for my age – and
I’d lost so much weight that I was stick-thin.
“It is a good idea,” Dima agreed. “But we need an address. There’s no point just breaking
in anywhere, and anyway, it’s too dangerous. His eyes brightened. “We can talk to Fagin!”
Fagin was an old soldier who lived three floors down in a room on his own. He had been
in Afghanistan and had lost one eye and half his left arm – in action, he claimed, although
there was a rumour he had been run over by a trolleybus while he was home on leave.
Fagin wasn’t his real name, of course but everyone called him that after a character in an
English book, Oliver Twist. And the thing about Fagin was that he knew everything about
everything. I never found out how he got his information but if a bank was about to move a
load of money or a diamond merchant was about to visit a smart hotel, somehow Fagin
would catch wind of it and he would pass the information on – at a price. Everyone in the
block respected him. I had seen him a couple of times, a short, plump man with a huge
beard bristling around his chin, shuffling along the corridors in a dirty coat, and I had

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thought he looked more like a tramp than a master criminal.
But now that Dima had thought of him, the decision had been made and the following day
we gathered in his flat, which was the same size as ours but at least furnished with a sofa
and a few pictures on the wall. He had electricity too. Fagin himself was a disgusting old
man. The way he looked at us, you didn’t really want to think about what was going on in
his head. If Santa Claus had taken a dive into a sewer he would have come up looking much
the same.
“You want to be fortochniks?” he asked, smiling to himself. “Then you want to do it soon
before the winter comes and all the windows are closed! But you need an address. That’s
what you need, my boys. Somewhere worth the pickings!” He produced a leather notebook
with old bus tickets and receipts sticking out of the pages. He opened it and began to thumb
through.
“How much is your share?” Dima asked.
“Always straight to the point, Dimitry. That’s what I like about you.” Fagin smiled.
“Whatever you take, you bring to me. No lying! I know a lie when I hear one and, believe
me, I’ll cut out your tongue.” He leered at us, showing the yellow slabs that were his teeth.
“Sixty per cent for me, forty for you. Please don’t argue with me, Dimitry, dear boy. You
won’t get better anywhere else. And I have the addresses. I know all the places where you
won’t have any difficulty. Nice, slim boys, slipping in at night…”
“Fifty-fifty,” Dima said.
“Fagin doesn’t negotiate.” He found a page in his notebook. “Now here’s an address off
Lubyanka Square. Ground-floor flat.” He looked up. “Shall I go on?”
Dima nodded. He had accepted the deal. “Where is it?”
“Mashkova Street. Number seven. It’s owned by a rich banker. He collects stamps. Many
of them valuable.” He flicked the page over. “Maybe you’d prefer a house in the Old Arbat.
Lots of antiques. Mind you, it was done over last spring and I’d say it was a bit early for a
return visit.” Another page. “Ah yes. I’ve had my eye on this place for a while. It’s near
Gorky Park … fourth floor and quite an easy climb. Mind you, it’s owned by Vladimir
Sharkovsky. Might be too much of a risk. How about Ilinka Street? Ah yes! That’s perfect.
Nice and easy. Number sixteen. Plenty of cash, jewellery…”
“Tell me about the flat in Gorky Park,” I said.
Dima turned to me, surprised. But it was the name that had done it. Sharkovsky. I had
heard it before. I remembered the time when I entered Dementyev’s office at Moscow State
University. I had heard him talking on the telephone.