In the hot tracks

“First we lived poorly, then we were robbed.”

Twenty-five years ago, in the city of Lviv, there was one, wildly popular TV program about urban hooligans, alcoholics, “nonsense”, well and generally - about those who stopped the restructuring acceleration. I can’t remember if she had a name. Probably there was something.
The head of the program - Pavel Bogdanovich, he is its unchanging host, all the time wanted to bring into the transmission of some drive and serious crime, he was tired of the stories about the stolen toilets from the "Keramzávod", about the days of a trembling man, or the tulips removed from the city club:
“We are in the seventh department of the militia, behind me you see Olga Nikolaevna Trushchak, controller of finished products of the Polyaron plant.
A citizen of Trushchak, under the cover of the night, smashed more than ten tulips near the monument to Ivan Franco, for which she was detained.

Further, the host hanged the Mhatov pause, depicted the titanic work of the brain, about the fates of the country and thoughtfully gave the smartest thought:
“I thought here, comrades – is it not because Olga Nikolaevna Trushchak works as a controller at the factory, that she cannot control her own actions?”

In short, all this was quite tiny and did not save even the wise thoughts sounding in the frame.

Pavel Bogdanovich dreamed of serious affairs: cruel robberies, robbery, well, in the extreme case - rape, and most importantly, to film the program not only in the police or courtroom, but directly at the time of the crime, well, at the bad end - immediately after.
And one day we were lucky - a familiar captain of the militia called Paul Bogdanovich in the middle of the night and said:
- Gather your eagles, here I have an apartment theft, if you have time, then you can take off as we work on the exit. It is on Lenin Street, in the area of the tank.
The boss immediately called everyone - it was his star hour, even if, a real opera band on a real apartment theft. After an hour we were already on the spot, unplugging the cables and installing the cameras (Your submissive servant worked in that filming group with a modest "lightlight").

In the end, the plot turned out to be very combat, though, not as fierce as the boss dreamed, but still much more alive, than about some lazy, furry tulips:
“We are in the very center of the events, behind me the windows of the just robbed apartment. Do you hear the sirens coming? It was the opera group. Let us rush after them, and you, dear friends, will now see with your own eyes their difficult work of uncovering this terrible crime.”

Then a couple of correct words said the captain, and at the end of the plot, at the snack, we showed the voicing of impotent anger, the most victim - the owner of the apartment. He rubbed the liquid hair on his head and stood: "Oh, what a magnetophone, what a magnetophone, I am a fool, all my life dreamed of such, fool, what a magnetophone, I will never forgive myself this...!" (his tears were the most real and made an indelible impression on our viewer).

Now, let me tell you what’s left behind the picture:
The owner of the apartment - a quiet fifty-year-old alcoholic, returning from the village, where he spent his vacation, approached his house and noticed that the window was suspiciously opened.
The man got up on his socks, looked into the room - doubts disappeared, someone visited the apartment.
Without entering, in order not to wipe off the traces of crime, the owner called from the machine to the police and began to wait, and after an hour we were all in place.
The victim and the captain entered the apartment, and we with the camera and the microphone on the "shelf" stumbled behind them.
Careful captain (playing well on the camera):
“Please don’t worry, focus, look around and say – What has changed? What is missing from things?
The owner went into the kitchen:
– Oh! The wine bottles. I didn’t have those bottles. I always take my own, and there is a full battery.
The bottles? well well. And yet?
Here is the candle on the table. I never burn candles, but I have a lamp.
In your absence, the thieves organized a small prototype here.
Comrade Captain, look at my Rubik Cube!
And what?
Well how what? It is completely assembled by flowers, and I can't do that, I have never even folded one side.
Thieves know how to collect rubik cube – it’s good, it’s a clutch. The victim, you better say – what is missing?
Yes, here are the cards, not mine, I don’t play cards.
What is missing?

Here, we all the filming group looked side by side and somehow immediately realized that nothing could go missing from here. No one needs a buffet with torn glass, or coloured curtains with cigarette burns. The man lived, well, not rich: a radio spot, a iron bed, rugged pelvis on the closet, on the walls painted photographs of village relatives, wreaths, slugs, sex clothes, this is probably all good. Clearly nothing to survive.
But here, everyone present suddenly noticed something brilliant under the kitchen table. They pulled out a miracle - it turned out to be a huge Japanese two-cassette magnetophone.
There was silence, even the operator stopped filming.
More foreign object in this apartment is difficult even to imagine.
At the time, to accumulate on such a magnetophone, it took two years: neither to eat, neither to drink and not to breathe, plus a little more to go into debt.
The victim looked at the miracle of Japanese nature, licked his dry lips and, crying, spoke:
“That...comrade captain, since I have already suffered from the thieves, maybe their magnetophone will remain with me, in the form of a... this, compensation?
What kind of heroes will he be with you? Turn off the camera. What did you hurt? The fact that the thieves collected your ruby cubic of flowers while you were on vacation? So you do not have to pay for the loss, rather you owe them.
So yes, the magnetophone I take, it is probably from another theft and in general, you have such an expensive thing? The neighbors will know, they will strike. So say thank you for being saved.
- Comrade Captain, please God, leave the magnetophone, suddenly the thieves will come after him, what will I tell them? They will kill me.
Send them to me, I will tell them everything. Goodbye, I have the honor.
"Oh, what a magnetophone, what a magnetophone, I am a fool, all my life dreamed of such, fool, what a magnetophone, I will never forgive myself this...!