Methodius Buslaev. Ticket to Bald Mountain

“I happen to be everything to him! Friend, comrade, and brother,” Khavron replied irritably.

“‘Comrade’ in what sense?” the curly hellhound asked uneasily.

“Don’t chatter, young man! In the universal sense. I must see him immediately. Before the broadcast. I have a sensation.”

“Dearie, everyone here has a sensation! If only some would be worthwhile!” the young person started to babble with relief. “You should phone and leave a message. How did you get in here, as a matter of fact? Who issued you a pass?”

“Julius Caesar,” Eddy blurted out.

“Julius Caesarevich? There’s no such person listed in our editorial staff!” the red-lipped one stated. “From this I conclude that you don’t have a pass… Leave, dearie, for good! Phone the secretary tomorrow strictly between ten and two and give him your predictions. They won’t take you any other time.”

“And who’s the secretary?” Eddy asked.

Mischievous dimples appeared on the curly hellhound’s cheeks. “I’m the secretary. Don’t interfere with work!” he said.

Eddy felt that he was beginning to get angry. Behind the red-lipped one’s back, he suddenly saw a door, gleaming with the gold placard A. Morzhuev. “I tell you, I have a sensation! I need your boss!” he repeated quietly, looking at the cherished glimmer, hypnotized.

“And I insist that he won’t receive you, dearie! Go away!”

Realizing that the negotiations had reached a deadlock, Eddy decisively moved the young person from his path and, like a tiger, rushed to the office. The hellhound leaped and tried to grab him by the pant leg, but, having missed, he tremblingly embraced a chair leg. Making use of this suddenly flaring passion, Eddy burst through the cherished door.

The work abode of the popular TV host more resembled the boudoir of an aged beauty. An Italian settee with an arched back lounged in the corner. A plaster boy on a small table surrounded by colognes and compacts was removing a splinter from the sole of his foot. The most amusing, however, was an enormous telephone with a handset in the form of two kissing lovebirds.

But, alas, these were only details. The main thing – its owner – was missing from the office. No matter how Eddy stared at the Italian settee and the leather swivel armchair, still preserving the imprint of the grandee who sat on it, he still failed to spot the precious flesh of Andrew Richardovich. The TV host was absent. The red-lipped bulldog was guarding an empty booth.

Eddy left the office and, walking past the hellhound, who was calling someone on the cell phone in a panic, went out into the hallway. After pondering a little, he went down one floor, approached the most solid-looking door and, making use of the secretary’s absence, pushed without hindrance into the commanding citadel.

The plainly furnished office was enormous, like a football field. A fierce-looking bald man was sitting at the table, on which it was possible to play billiards, and browsing papers. “Who are you?” he asked without raising his head.

“Simply a guy,” Khavron found it difficult to reply.

“That means, a nobody,” baldy summed up affirmatively. “Second question. Do you know how much my time is worth?”

Eddy shook his head honestly.

“Then I’ll tell you. I scratch my nose and it’s your monthly salary. All clear?”

“I’m unemployed. Turns out you scratched your nose for free,” Khavron parried.

Baldy chewed his lips and stretched a finger to a button; however, he did not press it but instead asked with sudden interest, “Who sent you?”

“I came myself. On my own feet.”

The bureaucrat tore himself from the papers with annoyance. “The answer is on the level of delirium. I ask: where were you before you came to me?”

“Well… ehh… the floor above. In the rooms of Prophet.”

“Last name?”

“Whose? Mine? Khavron!”

“I’m not interested in yours. The one who sent you!”

“I don’t know the last name. Red-lipped. White silk striped shirt. He’s their secretary,” Eddy snitched with relish.

The bureaucrat made a note on paper. “Clear… What do you need from me? Speak quickly and leave.”

“I’m looking for Morzhuev.”

Baldy chewed his lips. “For what purpose?”

“I brought him a prophecy.”

“That’s all? And they sent you to me for such nonsense?”

“Yes,” Eddy confirmed, visually sensing the clouds thickening over the hellhound.

Baldy glanced patiently at his watch, then at one of the numerous papers on his table. “I suspect that Prophet is now recording. Look in the dressing room. Second floor. First studio. Get out, please! I hope we’ll never see each other again!” he said almost amiably.

Satisfied with his own enterprise, Khavron hurried to leave.

* * *

The famous TV host Andrew Richardovich Morzhuev sat on a stool in front of the vanity table, allowing the makeup artist to powder his nose, which beamed to the whole of Russia. Morzhuev was of small stature, slightly bloated, and not as formidable in life as on the TV screen. Along his brow, enlarged at the expense of his hair loss, roamed skeptical wrinkles, an indicator that Morzhuev was soon getting ready to unleash on the spectators with their absurd predictions.

“You too? How many times can it be said: leave me alone! The broadcast script has already been written!” he started to reel off petulantly when Eddy squeezed into the dressing room. “What do you have there? Parade of the speaking skeletons? Legions of fly-bombers will invade Stakankino tomorrow? No?”

The TV host tore the towel from his shoulders and elegantly flung it at the mirror. Then he rose grandly from the chair and shot Eddy his authoritative incinerating gaze. “Oh, heaven, no peace for me!” he exclaimed in a tragic voice. “Yesterday some psycho ambushed me at the entrance and began to assert that the code of the universe was encoded on ant legs. And last week, another psycho prophesied that aliens will come flying and take away everyone who has their windows open. You’re not from their team by any chance? Is your window closed?”

“No,” said Eddy, “but I know precisely that…”

Morzhuev cut him off with a beautiful hand movement. “And really, who are you?” he rumbled. “Modern Nostradamus? Why should I believe you? And then, keep in mind, I have a weekly show. Viewers won’t wait two hundred years to verify whether the capital will be moved to Tynda. If you have imminent predictions, lay them out. But if not, the exit is over there!”

“The Prophet” extended a finger to show Eddy the door in another spectacular gesture, but the gesture was spoiled by the appearance of a familiar red-lipped face. Behind the secretary’s back loomed a detachment of on-duty police. “There he is, this maniac! He broke in and attacked me! I barely escaped!” the secretary hissed.

Two sergeants and one sergeant-major moved forward. The makeup artist fearfully dropped the brush. Andrew Richardovich Morzhuev crossed his arms majestically on his chest. To buy time, Eddy quickly shielded himself from the police with a chair and providently hung onto the lapels of Morzhuev’s studio suit. It turned out to be a fatal mistake.

“My suit! He’ll tear it!” Morzhuev unexpectedly began to squeal delicately.

The two sergeants and one sergeant-major, snorting with official zeal, moved in and detached Eddy’s feet from the floor. Khavron wisely did not resist the representatives of authority, but did not let go of the grandee’s suit. The red-lipped secretary smiled venomously.

“An imminent prediction, here it is. Tomorrow, the picture Boy with a Sabre will be stolen from the restoration workshop at the Pushkin Museum! It’ll vanish in broad daylight from the guarded premises. The video camera will record nothing. Someone will put a sock on it. A price tag will be on the sock!” Khavron shouted.

Morzhuev stopped straightening his suit and glanced at Eddy with interest. The sergeant-major and both sergeants paused. Eddy was about to cheer up, but Morzhuev’s gaze had already gone out. “Take the furniture away!” he said to the police, turning away.

“Don’t forget about my fee! The address… You didn’t write down the address! I need money!” Khavron shouted, transported carefully at best out the door.

“Everyone needs money! The address will be in the report!” the sergeant-major announced with maternal tenderness.