Chapter 1: The Return
Sunday morning in March of seventy-two turned out to be exceptionally vile — the kind where it's better not to open the curtains at all. By noon, the sky over London, already gloomy since dawn, had finally lost all hope of a break and gave birth not even to rain, but to some kind of icy water dust, generously seasoned with rare but spiteful sleet. The spacious squares of Kensington, where on weekends there's usually no room for an apple to fall due to chrome-glinting Jaguars and a motley crowd, were deserted. People had taken cover — some in homes, some in pubs, where neon desperately tried to pierce the gray veil. Rare passersby, hunched under umbrellas, hurriedly scuttled towards cars, splashing onto the sidewalks water that no longer had time to drain into the sewers. The usual roar of engines was replaced by the muffled hiss of tires on wet asphalt, and even cab drivers in their black Austins gazed wistfully at the empty streets through windows spattered with mud.
However, Mr. Jonathan Reed, sitting in his apartment in Chelsea, felt surprisingly serene. Perhaps it was precisely the foul weather outside that made his modest refuge especially cozy. His apartment was small — just two rooms, furnished with that Spartan simplicity which he himself called "practical minimalism." From the only window, the view was not of the bustling King's Road, but of a quiet inner courtyard, where the rain diligently watered the scrawny bushes, but today this seemed not a drawback, but an advantage.
The morning had gone well: the February reports for "Hawk's Emporium" had finally been reconciled down to the last penny, and the windows on Sloane Street, judging by phone calls, were shining with new spring collections, attracting rare but moneyed passersby. And the main thing was that Stan Hawk was supposed to return today. Reed was already looking forward to handing over all the papers to him personally and, at last, lifting the burden of operational management of the empire from his shoulders, which was growing by leaps and bounds. And then, with any luck, in a month, a vacation. And he dreamed not of a little house in a pine forest, like any normal tired clerk, but of Cornwall, of the smoke-filled hall of some pub in St. Ives, where he could drown in a saxophone and forget what a morning meeting was.
He walked over to the table, where in a place of honor stood his faithful Olivetti, on which he, tired of life in solitude, typed his diary. Over time, a simple hobby had turned into a ritual from which he had not strayed for a single day. He took out a clean sheet, fed it into the typewriter, and tapped out the date:
March 5, 1972. Sunday.
He thought for a second and added:
Since early morning today there has been rain with sleet. The war in Ireland still rumbles on, but here in London, the only battle is for wallets and attention. Stan is returning today. I wonder what he's brought back, besides money.
From outside, from the courtyard, came the sharp sound of a car door slamming, then heavy, confident footsteps on the wet asphalt. The footsteps approached his window, slowed down, and for a moment, a dark, blurry shadow loomed outside the window, as if someone had tried to peer inside, shielding their face from the rain.
A knock at the door cut short his musings — sharp, imperious, having nothing in common with the polite trill of the bell.
Reed startled, took off his glasses, and automatically rubbed the bridge of his nose — a gesture that betrayed slight nervousness. He approached the door, not even thinking to ask "who's there?", and pressed his eye to the peephole. On the landing, in the light of a dim bulb, stood a figure in a long, soaking-wet khaki trench coat. No hat. Water dripped from short, stiff hair onto a wide, as if hewn from stone, tanned face. Stan Hawk.
Reed opened the door.
"John," the guest uttered. His voice sounded low and slightly hoarse, as if Hawk had either been silent for a long time, or had just recovered from a bad cold.
"Stan?... God, it's really you!"
He slapped the guest on the chest, feeling solid muscle under the shirt, then grabbed his hand and shook it, as if checking if he was real. Finally, stepping back a step, he examined him from head to toe.
Hawk stepped over the threshold, with one movement shrugged off his wet coat onto the coat rack by the door — so casually, as if he did it here every day. And immediately swept the apartment with a quick, tenacious gaze of a man accustomed to assessing everything and everyone: the bare walls, the bookshelves, the old Olivetti on the table.
"Well, how are you, old man?" Hawk asked, his voice low and tired.
"Getting old slowly," Reed answered hastily. "And business... business is not bad. In January and February, turnover grew by about twenty percent... Stan, eight months! An eternity. Sit down, for God's sake."
"Yeah, I'll sit down," Hawk sank heavily onto the edge of the sofa.
"Living modestly," he remarked without a hint of irony or approval, simply stating a fact.
"It's enough. Sit down."
"Hungry? I can rustle up... well, a sandwich of some sort, some ham. Or order a pizza?"
"That'll do. Whatever you have."
"A drink? There's a bottle of bourbon, not bad. But only one glass, a proper one."
"I'll drink from the bottle if I have to," Hawk grinned.
Mr. Reed bustled about, opening the mini-fridge, rummaging in the cupboard. He took out a bottle of Jim Beam, then put it back again, pulled out a plastic container with something, a few packets of crackers. His hands trembled slightly. Finally, he gathered a modest meal on the table in front of the sofa: corned beef, crackers, a jar of olives, and that very bottle. The first sip of bourbon from a disposable cup restored some of his composure.
Hawk ate in silence, with the focused look of a man who hadn't eaten normal, non-canned food for a long time.
Then, taking the glass, he threw back his head and downed half of it in one gulp, without even wincing. Then he sank into the armchair opposite the sofa and swept the room with his gaze again, but now there was something else in it — as if he were looking for something specific, but just couldn't find it.
"How's the Emporium?" Hawk asked, staring at the blank wall.
"Excellent. Turnover for January-February is up twenty-two percent. We took on new clients from the investment business, plus a few acquaintances from theatrical circles. Expanded the men's accessories department. The windows..."
"I saw the windows when I was driving by," Hawk interrupted, without turning his head. "Brilliant. Tacky to the point of being loud, but exactly as it should be. It works."
He finished the rest of his bourbon and set the glass on the coffee table.
"What about the world?" Reed tried to fill the lingering pause. "Up there, they only talk about politics. Heath, Ulster..."
"The world?" Hawk smirked with the corners of his lips, but there wasn't a drop of amusement in that smirk. "The world is always the same, John. Boards and pieces. Heath plays chess where the pawns are soldiers and bombs. He wants to leave the board with honor, to leave the opponent so weakened that the next player can easily deliver checkmate."
"And the price? The price in lives?"
"What difference does it make?" Hawk finally turned his head and looked directly at Reed. His eyes were the color of wet asphalt — hard, fathomless, alien to any kind of reflection. "The price is always paid by someone else. Even those we don't bomb, but strangle with sanctions, cannot stop us. And they can't now. Their strength lies in patience. And ours in steel and pounds. The weak always pay for the games of the strong. That's the law of the jungle. Only the jungle is now global, and the teeth and claws belong to accountants and generals."
"And is that fair?" Reed asked quietly.
"Fairness," Hawk pronounced the word slowly, as if tasting it and finding it disgustingly bland. "Fair is what the strong survive. Everything else is sentimental nonsense for losers. Otherwise, the world would turn into an almshouse for losers. And that, you'll agree, would be the greatest injustice of all."
Reed took a sip from his glass, feeling the warmth of the bourbon spread through his body, but inside, somewhere under his ribs, it treacherously grew cold. He looked at Hawk, at this man who, in eight months of absence, had seemingly re-forged himself anew — into a hard, cold metal.
"Alright," Reed shook his head, changing the subject. "How are things with you? Any success in Asia?"
Something familiar flickered in Hawk's eyes — that same cold, calculating excitement that Reed had only ever noticed in him during the riskiest deals.
"Remember how much liquidity I withdrew?"
"Four hundred thousand. Everything that could be taken out without paralyzing the business here."
"And how much do you think I brought back?"
Reed thought, making an estimate. "Half a million? A million?"
Hawk smirked again, poured himself more bourbon — straight from the bottle into the empty glass.
"Over two million. In cash and transfers to Zurich. And that's just what you can touch. The rest is invested in assets that will skyrocket as soon as the world comes to its senses from this war. Oil, metals, precious stones."
Reed froze. Two million in seventy-two wasn't just a fortune; it was money that changed the rules of the game. Money that could get you through any door.
"Don't worry," Hawk continued, and in his voice, for the first time that evening, instead of weary indifference, there was a muted, deeply buried satisfaction. "The money is honest. As honest as money made on the edge of the abyss can be. I took a lower percentage than the sharks around me. Worked on volume and speed. Capital spun like crazy. And I was damn lucky. Every day I staked everything. And not just money, but sometimes my life too. But now I know what I'm worth. Not by some empty, loud title passed down by inheritance. But by the weight of gold in my bank vault and by the fear in the eyes of those who thought I was just another gigolo who got lucky with a wife."
"And was that the only reason you went there?" asked Reed. "For pretty numbers in an account?"
Hawk rose sharply, and his shadow fell over the seated Reed, like a predator looming over its prey.
"For self-affirmation, John. This stable business of yours here... It was a throne I had unworthily ascended, everyone around me kept saying. A swindler who stole Mrs. Mayer's inheritance, they called me. To them, I was an adventurer who had latched onto money. Have you already forgotten how they looked at me? As if I were feeding from a bowl that had been mercifully handed to me. That I had no brains of my own." He spoke quietly, almost in a whisper, but each word struck like a hammer on an anvil.
"Now let them look. I, alone, with no kith or kin, in eight months earned more than all the generations of their ancestors put together over half a century. Between bribes and the real threat of being found dead in my own hotel room, I did what they'd have sweated over in their air-conditioned offices until the Second Coming. For me, it was better to risk everything in the big game than to be an eternal debtor to the ghosts of the past."
Reed nodded silently. This, of course, was the Hawk he knew.
Hawk exhaled, and the tension suddenly released him. He sank back into the armchair and downed the rest of the bourbon in one gulp.
"And what's new here, besides the numbers? In the city."
"In the city, it's all the same. Music louder, skirts shorter, and prices higher. The Emporium stays on trend."
"And the clients? Montgomery, Lord Charles... did he order anything?" Hawk's voice became half a tone more even, as if he were talking about tomorrow's weather.
Reed grew inwardly alert.
"He buys often, but only on credit. Mostly small things. Flasks, ashtrays."
"And how are his affairs?"
"Rumors have it he's completely broke. The bank might repossess his mansion in Chelsea by the end of the year."
Hawk nodded slowly, his fingers drumming a rhythm on his knee.
"Tell me... his daughter — Diana, I think her name is? Is she married?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and sticky, like that icy sleet outside the window. Reed felt the room grow even colder.
"No. Not married. They say she's very beautiful, but... with a loud name and empty pockets. Nowadays, that's not the best match for suitors."
Hawk said nothing in reply. He looked out the window, at the gray, hopeless light, and on his face — usually so impenetrable, locked with all bolts — appeared a strange, detached expression. Like the shadow of a thought he had already turned over in his mind a thousand times and was now simply fitting onto reality.
"My dear John," he said finally, rising. "You have no idea how glad I am to see that everything here is under your watchful control. Tomorrow morning at the store, then. We'll talk about expansion."
And without waiting for a reply, he took the damp coat from the rack and left, closing the door behind him with a soft, almost silent care.
Jonathan Reed remained sitting in the silence, broken only by the howling of the wind in the ventilation shaft. He looked at the Olivetti, at the unfinished entry sticking out of the typewriter. He finished his cold bourbon, walked to the table, rolled the paper forward, and added just one phrase to today's date:
He has returned. And he brought with him not only money, but a new goal. Her name, it seems, is Diana Montgomery.