“Yup,” the moustached man supported him, “One would nearly think rough justice is the only option in this situation. Wish I could just burn down Borscht's lair with napalm, and give the others a good solid mob thrashing too, not bothering about judges and juries.”

“No, lads,” the elder man took the floor again, “Everything must happen according to the law. Of course, even with this gypsy, we could just…” He gave Anna a quick questioning look, “Now, what floor are we on?”

“Twelfth.”

He spent a moment estimating something, then nodded.

“That would suit just fine. So, we could just drop her from the balcony, and claim that she fell while attempting to escape.”

The gypsy woman's eyes, wide to start with, widened further at these words.

“No loss of time, no formalities, and most importantly no repeat offences; she would never again use her base skill to harm people. As it is, she will serve her well-deserved time and then go right back to her dirty business again. But we must,” he sighed, “we have to follow the law, so now we shall, all together, go to the station and draw up the protocol in regard of a crime,” For some reason, he glanced all over Anna, “Are you ready?”

She nodded:

“Yes, of course.”

The policeman kept a narrow gaze on her.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Anna confirmed, though she did not understand the strange stare.

The guardian of the peace shrugged, turning his intent eyes away:

“Well, then, let's go.”

The gypsy was taken out of the apartment. Anna followed the others, just as she was – in a blue fluffy dressing-gown and red slippers with furry white poof-balls.

Anna and the elder policeman took the passenger lift down. The others brought the swindler to the exit in the bigger cargo one.

There was a police car at the apartment block entrance; the stripe on it was the same colour as Anna's dressing-gown. The policemen placed the gypsy in the back part, behind bars; Anna was welcomed into the front part as a regular passenger.

At the local police station they went together through several twisty corridors. Then the two armed policemen in uniform took the gypsy away somewhere. The third one, in civvies, pointed to a wooden bench, polished by the backsides of many people who spent time on it before:

“Please take a seat here. I will prepare the papers and call you up to sign them. Don't worry, we will formalize everything quickly, and you can go home soon enough. We'll take you there in our car, as fast as the blue flashing light…” He smiled: “The great cleanup won't be derailed.”

Anna looked at the bench. A girl clad in leather – pants, jacket, and boots – was half-sitting, half-laying on it, leaning on an armrest. Like Anna, she was a brunette of average height, build and breast size. They somehow resembled each other, except Anna was somewhat older and dressed in a “home casual” style.

The girl's eyes were closed.

“Er?..” Anna was lost for words after looking at her prospective bench mate.

The policeman frowned and waved his hand dismissively.

“A junkie. Probably stoned. Don't be afraid, she's not dangerous…”

Having said that, he disappeared behind one of the doors. Anna glanced cautiously at her new neighbour, then sighed and, despite her misgivings, sat down on the very edge of the bench. Thinking that she should probably tell her unsuspecting husband that she ended up at the police station, Anna probed into the pocket of the dressing-gown. Her phone was not there. It remained on the kitchen table…

Her quiet coexistence with her bench-mate lasted a few seconds. The girl suddenly started shaking. She sat up, clasped herself with her arms, then opened her eyes. Her gaze tossed about the corridor, doors, Anna. It seemed that the girl was trying but failing to control herself. The junkie quaked more and more, and then suddenly focused a threatening look at Anna:

“Give it to me, quick!”

“What?” Anna did not understand anything.

The girl's eyes flashed with fury:

“Whaddaya mean, what? The usual! Give it to me!”

“What's the usual? What do I give you?” Anna stayed confused.

The junkie appeared to burn through her with a laser gaze:

“You forgot, didn't you?”

Anna herself nearly started shaking from the girl's stare:

“I never even knew.”

The gaze slowly faded, then Anna's bench mate closed her eyes and frowned.

“Damn! Damn! Damn! That's not you!” She flung her eyelashes open again, turning her head in all directions. “And where are you then? Now, where are you? Where are you? Where?!”

A stream of very rude words followed. Then another, even stronger. After failing to find whoever she was looking for, the girl stared at Anna pleadingly:

“You sure you don't have any?”

By this time Anna knew exactly what the girl meant, so she shook her head softly:

“I'm sure I don't. I don't do drugs. Perhaps at a banquet I might have a bit of sweet liqueur or a glass of champagne.”

The girl continued with another dirty tirade, devoted to one of the natural events of human physiology. Then she froze for a second and started a feverish rummage of her own pockets. After fishing out some bits of paper, a few coins, but none of what she was looking for, she hugged herself again, trying to hold back and soften the shaking.

“Now, she's really…” Anna quietly pitied the girl, who suddenly beamed and, after a quick glance to the sides, unzipped her pants and pushed her hand behind the zipper. When she got it out again, Anna noticed a small shiny paper bag on the palm.

The girl on the bench flipped the content of the bag into her mouth, licked the paper and immediately closed her eyes in bliss. First the muscles of her neck turned off and her head fell onto her chest. Then her back relaxed; the girl started a slow slide from the bench onto the concrete floor.

Anna swooped up the junkie, trying to sit her down again, but the girl just kept sliding off. Then Anna laid her down on the bench, head on Anna's lap. Amazingly, the junkie's hair was clean and had a lovely smell. Her leather pants and jacket were new and expensive. A gold pin with a real diamond shone on the lap. Anna sighed, reminded of how she nearly lost all her jewellery and cash to a hypno swindler.

She glanced at the door were the policeman left, wondering how soon she'd be let go. If the procedure were to linger, not enough time might be left for a proper great cleanup. And Anna really wanted to achieve a perfectly organized house by the time her husband and kids came back; with everything sparkling and shiny, no longer annoying her, the true mistress.

Suddenly, the girl opened her eyes, smiled and said very clearly:

“You are so kind and nice… You're like Mommy… I remember her. She was so… so… like Mommy… and Dad, he… he would do to her… and she could not, she could not bear…” The girl shuddered. “You know, I don't have much time left, either. You think I like this? I am just blacking out the pain. Tomorrow, perhaps today, I'll kick the bucket.” She slowly moved her hand to her chest, pulled the pin out of the leather of the jacket and stuck it into the lapel of the blue dressing-gown. “It's a gift…”

Anna did not have time to answer, as the girl's eyes rolled, her lips frozen in a blissful smile, her body going completely limp. A blue vein on her neck pulsated quickly, then started to slow down.

Seeing that the blood in the girl's body was slowing its circulation, Anna struggled to understand whether her new acquaintance was just out for a while, or really dying in the arms of a stranger. Again, Anna glanced at the door where the policeman went; perhaps a doctor should be called?

She did not have time to decide that, either. The next moment, another event took all of her attention. There was some sort of rumble at the other end of the corridor and then grey smoke billowed from there, quickly filling every bit of space around her.

Anna had no idea what to do. Escape? But she would not leave the senseless girl in the apparent start of a fire. Yet she hardly had the strength to carry the limp body. Also, in this thick smoke, the woman would have to find any doors or walls by touch alone.

She still could not see an actual fire, but the smoke continued to thicken. Anna became scared. She never was in a fire before, or any smoke like this, and of course she did not have a gas mask on her. She started to think she would die here along with this done-for junkie.

Anna started to cough, growing weak. Her consciousness was leaving her. She still kept the girl's head in her lap, but started to slide down to the floor herself, saying a silent farewell to her husband and children. But she did not end up on the floor. Suddenly someone swooped her up and put her firmly onto the bench again. Anna saw a face before her eyes.

At first she thought that it was a hallucination, that she was now out completely, as there was just one huge eye on the man's face. Yet her lingering senses told her that the man now stooping over her was wearing a protective mask, designed to break through the smoke. To rescue people, to get those trapped by the fire out.

Her saviour bowed closer to Anna, nearly touching her face with his mask, then moved his head close to her gown-covered breast. He appeared to be inspecting the fire victim. It seemed to Anna that he was trying to work out whether she is alive, whether she needs to be carried out of the smoke-filled building. Pulling the last remains of her strength together, she shook her head, showing herself not dead yet, and at the same time pointed at the girl lying nearby.

The masked man nodded in understanding and lifted Anna in his arms. The junkie girl's head slid off her lap and hit the bench with a loud thump. The girl did not come to her senses, and the saviour did not notice her at all. He was quickly carrying Anna away, somewhere, into the smoke.

Highway star

She was quite exhausted, yet conscious. She heard some kind of voices, shouting, door slamming, then a strange hiss. And she could only see smoke. A thick smoke, hiding everything else.

For a short time the masked man strayed about the corridors. Then, after yet another turn, he bent down a bit and brought his rescue out from the smoke-filled building, right through a broken window. Upon feeling fresh air, Anna started to catch her breath, coughing, tears running from her smoke-irritated eyes. Because of the tears, everything around her was fuzzy. Anna still could not discern anything around herself, so she shut her eyes, trying to quiet them down and to regain her breath, to gather enough strength for standing up on her own.

Yet when Anna recovered her senses completely, it turned out that her saviour was no longer carrying her in his arms. Instead, she was sitting in front of him on a motorcycle, which started down the street at a crazy speed, weaving its way among the cars. “He is probably taking me to hospital,” she thought. “To the family doctor? Or the ophthalmologist? Hopefully not to the gynaecologist!”

Anna threw back her head to see the face of her saviour and to tell him that she did not need any doctors at all, that she was all right and it'd be better to just bring her home, to the unfinished great cleanup and coffee.

She did see his face, and she was abashed. Now the man had no mask on. She was amazed at the abyss of his blue eyes. It seemed that she could dive into them and resurface at some sultry Copacabana beach.

She also noticed how this smoothly shaved face was handsome like crazy. His proud curved nose inspired her, and the mane of light curly hair was pure rapture. She definitely saw this man before. A long, long time ago…

When Anna was in junior high school, her entire room was plastered in rock star posters. Among them was a calendar, sporting a huge photo of a motorcyclist with the very same blue eyes, proud curved nose and curly light hair waving in the breeze…

Anna ended up so carried away looking at her saviour that she forgot what she wanted to tell him. Noticing her gaze, he smiled, flashing level, perfectly matched snow-white teeth:

“So you've come round? Sorry that I had to smoke things up so much. But I wouldn't be able to get you out otherwise, way too many cops out there. And I couldn't even wait. I saw Borscht's car when I was coming up to the cop-shop. His men might have gotten to you first…”

Anna had no idea what her saviour was talking about, yet she still could not take her gaze off him. Seeing strain in her eyes, the tamer of the bike hastened to reassure her:

“My name is Herman. Don't worry, our mutual friend has sent me. He found out the cops grabbed you, so he asked me to help out. Very soon you will be completely safe.”

An answer like that, of course, ended up perplexing Anna even more. Which friend could have sent for her? Why would she need rescue from the police? It appeared that she was, actually, completely safe right there…

Yet Anna did not ask Herman anything. Her neck started to hurt and get numb, so she turned her head back to its natural position, looking at the road right before her and immediately becoming horrified. She did like the racer on the photo, but she never rode an actual motorcycle before. When she was not yet married, she refused guys who offered her rides. This contraption, normally driven by reckless youngsters who would periodically break their arms and legs, ending up walking around on crutches or even staying in bed in plaster casts for quite some time, never seemed reliable to her. So Anna never got further than some photo shoots in the saddle of a stationary motorbike. But now…

They have now left the normal city streets and were racing down a highway at an unbelievable speed, overtaking cars with ease. Anna kept closing her eyes tight, expecting the motorcycle to crash into a truck or van: “Now… no, right now!” Yet by some miracle she and Herman would slip through tiny openings between cars, dodging little bumpers and huge bumpers, trailers, flatbeds. The cars that they left behind kept beeping and flashing their lights, but her saviour did not mind this at all, he just raced and raced the motorcycle forward.

Anna turned her head again to say something to Herman after all, but he anticipated her question again:

“I know you love the bikes. I would never trust anyone with my steel horse, but you're fine. So, all right, here you are!”

He took her left palm, placing it on the left handle of the bar. Then he put her right palm on the right handle. And the next moment he withdrew his own hands from the handle-bar, lightly hugging Anna's waist:

“You're on your own now, enjoy!”

Anna was horrified even more. The hard shiny road was dashing at her. Nearby cars still remained behind swiftly. The motor of the bike was roaring. The wind kept hitting at her face, leaving her eyes in tears. Her breath kept running away after it. It was all awful… awfully gratifying! The old song, “Highway Star”, seemed to play in her ears.

Anna used to listen to that song pretty often, as she looked at the pictures of Deep Purple and of that motorcyclist on her wall. Ah, how she used to dream, imagining herself blazing along the highway with him!

Later, when she moved out of her parents' home, rock music fell by the wayside. But now it was certainly the “Highway Star” ringing in her ears, roaring, tearing at the muscle of her very heart. How could she forget there was a song like this? Why did she not know that, along with it, one could really break the speed of sound?

Dizzy with the swift pace, Anna drove on for some time before finally noticing that cars ceased to beep and flash their lights. A few side glances revealed that the drivers' wide-eyed gazes were glued to her. “Probably there are few girls who can drive a motorcycle like I do,” she thought, before lowering her eyes and seeing the true reason for her current highway stardom.

The flaps of her dressing-gown were fluttering in the powerful headwind, revealing her thighs all the way to the well-worn yellow panties. The blue gown came undone at the breast, too, proudly showing off the unwieldy beige bra, intended strictly for home wearing only, to all and sundry. The belt stayed tied, the only reason preventing the fluffy garment from leaving its wearer entirely.