Fenimore rubbed his face hard with both hands.
– Is the track lags in timing?
– He says, in places. He walked one leg objectively for a week. And it is strange there also…
– What?
– He was fed up trying to explain, and I – trying to get it. Muttered something. Just as I said – a schmuck, cannot steal or lie in wait. He still reads Phonics by syllables. Said that he had sort of to jump on a springboard. And there is a couple kilometers at a jump.
– You mean, there is a springboard?!
– Exactly. A difficult track. But was given to a fool.
Fenimore thought. Rain was knocking on the tent, like someone was throwing peas into the pan.
– Okay, won’t be clarifying all particulars, it’s your body. But did he enter the point itself?
– He says, he got scared. That means he really didn’t enter. What are you assuming there, Vadik? And how much is for me?
– Slow down for a second. One more question: was he there at daytime? In the evening?
This was a very precise question, based on the honest answer Fenimore could buy a Nabis’ guy. That is why Nabis crossed his hands on the chest, slightly leaned back on the box and stayed silent waiting for the answer to his question, which was surely more important.
– I am looking for a life water there, – Fenimore said.
Nabis shrugged his shoulders a little, and smoothly (not too much) shook his head: what did you say? Keep it simple, as for the horse.
– A place where you can collect and take out some health.
Fenimore was talking seriously.
– And my stake in it?
– But don’t you need just some health? – Fenimore asked with an interest. – Pour into a flask and carry with you. Someone injured you, you take a sip, and here you go – alive again. Genghis Khan would die for such a thing.
– And then would strangle you. Not funny, Vadik.
– Not funny, – Vadim agreed. – In short, I am suggesting you a artel. I am the head, you are the main. Collecting people by agreement. We have veto right, all that shit. Ours seventy percent are always half-and-half. And we are not walking by bumpers, neither beak nor huz.
– And your contract?
– I promised to Petrovich not to jump off till February. Here he is right, everybody needs phones in the Zone, and we will need them.
– Am I in the share with phones?
– Next month they will bring honey ointment for your back, Lida Lebedeva told me.
– Not a shitty partner you are.
– Very much so. Not giving you or me a change to scrounge.
Diplomatic lever got switched in Nabis off the point.
– It sounded ambiguously, – he noticed.
Fenimore was silent for few seconds.
– Well, let’s discuss the work of Stanislav Lemm. You said, Sergey, that you had the thickest volume at home? – He drummed on his teeth with nails, like in the movie about “ShKID”351. – Or shall we move directly to women, Nabis? Where to get them from, how to touch them?
Diplomacy, fuck it. If Nabis was happy to see someone in his brood, that was Fenimore. Or himself in his, in worst case scenario. He had to sit down at the same place where he stood up. And to pay penalty, straight away until it became rough.
– Okay, Vadik, sorry. Colonel with nerds got me into political correctness today from early morning. Yes Sir, happy to serve, thanks, I am so grateful. Just loaded off some extra dirt, but not to where I should. Sorry.
