Chapter 2: Marik

– He’s five years old. It’s damp, dark and scary. Mom ordered to sleep, the child began to whimper, but after receiving a ringing slap, he shut up, knowing the maternal temperament, it made no sense to argue.

The boy lay down on a narrow short bed in the utility room, it was terribly uncomfortable, but the bedroom would be occupied for a while, Mark bent his knees and listened to the voices from the kitchen - this is how a big fan of other people’s keyholes grew up.

Since then, the teenager has had the habit of sleeping in bed, bending his legs, and during the day, in an attempt to compensate for the night’s inconveniences, walking on skinny legs, sticking out his chest like a turkey for greater importance. The young man was disproportionately built - a beautiful pumped-up torso was supported by tall thin limbs with an incredibly long foot, so he learned to hide the imperfection of his figure under clothes carefully chosen by his mother.

The boy did not remember his father, Arkashka, he knew from the stories of his mother and her friends that he was a treacherous and cunning stray peasant.

The fruit of a short romantic love was named Marik, according to Mark Arkadyevich’s passport, a rare foreign name in a remote area of populated areas of the Universe. The boy was born premature and weak, unlike his older sister, stocky Kira, who looked more like a mare than a maiden, the son became his mother’s favorite.

Bright, free and therefore crazy, Munira often attracted men to her, taking advantage of this.

What could she do? With the birth of a son, it became more difficult to live in the northern regions alone to raise a sick child, oh, it’s not sweet, so today a night guest appears in the apartment and a drunk woman laughs at the drunken jokes of the cavalier.

Recognizable intermittent short sighs coming from the room allowed Mark to get up and tiptoe to the door, clinging to the keyhole, the child saw how the neighbor was dragging his mother by the hair, hitting her backhand, the woman was on her knees...

At such moments, Mark knew that adults were not up to him, the boy gloatingly enjoyed the sight of two naked bodies, holding his breath, imagined himself in the place of adults, sniffed, pulled his little hands between his legs, and with wet pants went into his hole-closet. In the morning, as usual, his mother scolded for a wet bed, Mark only glared angrily.

The touchy Marik from childhood was distinguished by cruelty and an evil disposition, idolized and hated his mother at the same time, the blue-eyed, curly-haired young man wore the hypocrisy of a greedy liar under the mask of beauty.

The guy had a notebook in his pocket – names, surnames, dates, events ... nothing escaped the young weasel, secretly eavesdropped–spied on the neighbor’s life, wrote at night, and wrote just in case during the day.

The boy was disliked at school, there were no friends or relatives, only the older sister, who left home as a teenager, sometimes filled her life with her presence.

Fat and ugly-evil Kira was his only salvation, the children of Munira together came up with games where little Marik was necessarily a cute prince, and his sister was his maid. And so two frozen loneliness grew up on the outskirts of a village lost in glaciers.

Mark whined loudly like a puppy, “Kira has not been around for the second decade, her lost sister in life, never having laid down her family, left early in agony, but continued to come in dreams.

Ketanov reached the nerve endings, temporarily cutting off the impulses from the bones crushed into a hole, the pain receded, the man fell into a terrible dream.

Night. Late snowy autumn. The overturned sky. A chilling darkness, and not a light for hundreds of miles. The howl of the wind is like the howl of a jackal. He’s in the pack, one of many. A mangy, toothless hyena.

If Mark could have seen that he was not alone in the apartment, he would have howled even more terribly - the dead father was sitting at the feet of his rotting son and grinning unkindly. Arkady did not leave a chance for salvation, he knew that his son, unknowingly, accelerated the meeting with his ancestors, and that the crooked narrow path of Mark’s life had become wider and more spacious, it was already easier for him to walk along it, only the paving stones of desires were getting darker.

The intersection has been passed, Mark will no longer turn off the route, there is no longer a woman nearby who can hold, the man himself cut the bonds yesterday. The paths parted with the former, Mark marked the beginning of the end of his earthly suffering.

The Pinkertons

– We pretend to be happy.

It turned out badly, but all Julia could do now was to pretend. People ... people ... people ... empty conversations pass like sand through your fingers, the only desire lives inside – to leave, to disappear so that she does not find herself, but anyway, it did not work out to hide completely during the day, Julia has only one opportunity – to dissolve into a slow time, become invisible, but even if it does work Zakhar will find it anyway.

Her boss is special. An expert widely known in narrow circles.

The amazing reality of the woman seemed to be a mockery of fate - Julia worked as a financier in a detective agency with a specific niche, no less dangerous than contract killings - specialists were engaged in exposing husbands and wives who had gone on a spree.

Clients turned to Zakhar for sensitive situations, and Yulia, through the dry figures of the reports, was partly involved in all kinds of searches for the missing and the missing.

Childhood friend Zakhar, a former cop, he is also the only owner, after retiring on seniority, founded an agency where young volunteer detectives worked to pick up the boss, and now three people were discussing a new order in the office.

The customer is Sergey Maksimov. The man is a media personality, an enviable bachelor.