Budapest Noir (23 page)

“I don’t want to take revenge,” said Gordon, shaking his head.

“Sure you do. Otherwise, why would you be here? You came here because you’re thirsting for revenge—either because the girl was killed or because you were beaten up. I don’t know which, and I don’t really care. Or are you angry only because they threatened your girlfriend? Krisztina is her name, right?”

Gordon didn’t reply. He didn’t ask her how she knew; he just sat there, motionless, watching the woman.

“In your shoes I’d be angry, too,” Margo continued. “Infernally at that. You have every reason for revenge—whether because someone died who didn’t deserve to, because they punched a hole right into your self-respect, or because you’re worried for your girl.”

“So the reason you didn’t say anything is because you were afraid I’d fly into a rage,” said Gordon.

“That’s right,” said Margo. “Don’t go telling me your pride and your sense of justice haven’t been wounded.”

“Let’s just drop it,” said Gordon with a wave of his hand. “Tell me about them instead.”

“Fanny . . .” But Margo here fell silent, incredulously shaking her head. Gordon saw with satisfaction that she had taken the bait. “What people are you talking about? What do you want to know about Fanny’s family?”

“I didn’t say a thing about her family,” said Gordon. “I know almost everything about them. But it seems there’s one thing you don’t know. You see, Fanny was . . .” Now it was Gordon who fell silent.

“Pregnant!” Margo shouted. “Why didn’t you tell me that before, you rotten scoundrel?” She sat up angrily in the armchair.

“Because I didn’t think it necessary.”

“And now you do?”

“And now I do,” said Gordon, leaning forward. “Help me, Margo. Just help me a little.”

“So you want to do something, after all? Catch the murderer and drag him off to the police? Not even you can seriously be thinking that.”

“Enough of this already!” snapped Gordon. Margo gave him a surprised look. “The other day you tossed me a scrap of information that allowed me to figure everything out. Practically everything. And now I’m here again. I didn’t go to the police with what I know, but to you, Margo.”

“I see,” replied Red Margo. “But why?”

“I came here because I’m interested in what happened to Fanny. Because it doesn’t leave me cold. Trust me, Margo. I don’t want anything more than to know what you know, too.”

“There’s just no satisfying you,” said Red Margo.

“You’re off on that point, but I don’t want to prove you wrong.”

Margo stood up, went to the table, poured herself another gin, and turned to the window. For a while she just looked down at the street, but finally she downed the gin and adjusted her robe, drawing it tight even at the neck, and sat back down in the armchair. “Go ahead—ask away.” Again her eyes sparkled with fear.

“I know why Fanny’s father disowned her. I also know how she wound up with you, by way of Csuli. And that her love, Shlomo, is now in New York. But I don’t know what Fanny was after.”

“I do,” replied Margo. “To put aside enough money to follow the boy. Even her mother gave her funds.”

“All I knew was that they met,” said Gordon. “So she gave her money, too?”

“You think a mother is capable of tearing her child out of her heart just because that’s what her husband says?” asked Margo with contempt.

Not wanting to ratchet up her temper, Gordon didn’t say a thing.

“One time they met up by chance on Rákóczi Street. Fanny worked at night, you see, and she counted on everything—except that she’d meet up with her mother.”

“When did that happen?”

“About a month ago. But Fanny didn’t tell her mother what she was up to. How she was making money. If you can call it money, those couple of wretched pengős the pimp left her every night. All she told her mother is that she was working; she didn’t say anything more. And right then and there her mother gave her two hundred pengős.”

“Did they meet again?”

“Yes. Twice. The second time the mother gave her four hundred pengős; and then even more, almost six hundred.”

“That would have been plenty for a train ticket to Hamburg,” said Gordon, “and from there for a ship to New York.”

“That’s true, but Fanny didn’t want to arrive with an empty pocket. She knew that the rabbi hadn’t given his son any money, that he’d put him in the care of relatives and forbade them from giving the boy a cent. Fanny wanted her and Shlomo to start a new life without the two of them being penniless. But the third meeting with her mother turned out badly.”

“What happened?”

“After their first meeting, the mother hired a private detective to figure out where Fanny was working. The man somehow got his hands on that picture Skublics took. The mother showed it to Fanny and demanded an explanation. When Fanny saw the picture, she ran away.”

“When did that happen?”

“Last Sunday.”

“On the fourth.”

Red Margo nodded.

“And?” asked Gordon.

“And? I saw Fanny for the last time on Tuesday morning. Last Tuesday. On Wednesday I heard that a dead girl had been found on Nagy Diófa Street. When I found out what she had on, I knew right away it was her. On Saturday morning you came by, pounding at my door. And asking questions.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at.”

“I didn’t even know who you were,” said Red Margo. “For all I knew, you were from the secret police or were a private eye. Look at me. Go ahead, just look at me.” Gordon tried, but she averted her eyes. “Do I look that stupid? Like I’d tell everything to just any old bum who comes knocking? So the same thing would happen to me that happened to Fanny?”

“I’m neither a secret policeman nor a private eye,” said Gordon.

“Now I know.”

“And what happened to Fanny’s money?”

“You know,” she said, “I always did tell her not to keep it on her. Because that could spell trouble. You know what she replied?” Gordon shook his head. “That she might decide at any moment to buy the ticket to New York. She wanted to leave on October 28 on the
President Harding
. And she didn’t trust anyone, not even me. Maybe she was right.” Red Margo stared straight ahead.

“I understand,” said Gordon.

“You think the mother . . .” said Margo, raising her eyes.

“No,” said Gordon, shaking his head. “I hope not. I met her a couple days ago. I don’t think it would have been her.”

“Then what will you do now?” asked Margo.

“Sure you want to know?”

The woman didn’t answer. She rose from the chair, poured herself another gin, and found a box of matches among the glasses. She lit a cigarette and replied, “You’re right,” turning away. “I don’t need to know.”

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Gordon. “Why did you open up to me at all when I first came knocking?”

Red Margo said nothing at first. She returned to the armchair, leaned back, and adjusted her hair. She crossed her legs, then looked at Gordon from under her long eyelashes. “Isn’t it obvious enough?”

“Maybe,” said Gordon, holding her gaze.

“What’s wrong with that?” she asked, and amid a smile she pursed her lips. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing.” He cleared his throat. Gordon looked at the clothing strewn about the place: leftovers of a recent liaison. He stole a glance at the unmade bed that seemed to sprawl out in the other room, and at the thin streak of sunlight that shone upon it. Margo followed his gaze. Gordon now looked at the woman stretched out in the armchair opposite him—at her nightgown, her full round bosom, her slender ankles, her succulent lower lip. “Nothing in the whole damn world,” he added, all at once catching Margo’s gaze. He now saw clearly the fear in her eyes.

“Are you that scared?” he finally asked.

Margo did not reply.

“Don’t tell me you realized only now what sort of people your customers are and what they’re capable of.”

Almost imperceptibly the woman winced.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Too long,” replied Red Margo.

Gordon rose from the armchair. “I’m off.” But he only stood there, staring at Margo. “That there,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the bedroom, “would have been only a reward for me doing the dirty work instead of you, huh?” The woman didn’t answer. “I know you’re afraid of them. And you’re right to be.”

“What do you think I should have done?” she asked.

“Everyone does what they know best,” said Gordon.

“What are you getting smart with me for?” Looking down, she added, “You don’t understand a damn thing.”

“You’re right,” said Gordon. “I don’t understand a damn thing.”

“You said you’re going. So go.”

Gordon was already at the door when she called after him: “Wait.”

He turned and looked at the woman. The sun lit her face from behind, and he couldn’t see her eyes. “Nothing,” Red Margo said softly before turning back to the window.

G
ordon just caught a tram on Crown Prince Rudolf Square and got to the Abbázia in fifteen minutes. This time the waiter led him to his regular table, where he took Gordon’s order—a coffee and a brioche. On appearing with the tray, the man also handed him a sheet of paper.

“A note left here for you, Mr. Editor,” said the waiter, and left. The message was from Jenő Strausz, who had tried telephoning Gordon at nine-thirty to say he’d be at the Ironworks Sport Club in the afternoon. Gordon put away the paper and looked up at the clock on the wall. Almost noon. He pored over the papers and drank his coffee but left the brioche untouched. He then paid and left.

D
espite the nippy autumn weather, Mór’s balcony door was open. Gordon shook his head with irritation and went upstairs to his grandfather. He knocked. No answer. He sighed. The old man must have nodded off by the stove. Gordon knocked once more, this time with more force, at which the door began to open with a creak. On its own. His stomach was in knots. Slowly he opened the door all the way, then stepped inside. Through the dark vestibule he headed toward the kitchen. He heard no noise and smelled no smoke, but this made him all the more uneasy. Gordon was just passing the bedroom when the door suddenly opened. He spun around and there saw Mór, holding a kettle of respectable size above his head with an iron grip.

“Hey, Opa, what are you doing?” he asked with great relief.

“I must have forgotten to lock the door,” said the old man, lowering the kettle. “A bunch of fresh chestnuts just arrived at the market from the hills, so I went out, bought a couple of kilos, and told myself I’d get started on the cooking right away. I went into the kitchen but forgot to lock the door on my way into the flat. Then you knocked, and . . .”

“I understand, Opa.”

“No matter who it was, with that kettle I would have let them have it,” said Mór.

“Without a doubt.”

They went to the kitchen. “I need your help, Opa.”

“No, son,” said Mór, shaking his head.

“No?”

“I’m not doing a thing until you tell me what you found out. I need to know why you wound up in danger and so did Krisztina.” He sat down at the table and waited.

Gordon pulled out a chair, sat down opposite his grandfather, and told him the whole story. He didn’t leave anything out. Not even that he knew who had left the dead chicken in front of Krisztina’s door. Nor that he’d been to Margo’s. And certainly not what he’d learned about Szőllősy. Mór listened in silence, asking not a thing, even though he clearly had questions. When Gordon finished, the old man stood up and went to the window.

“I don’t understand this, son,” he said.

“What don’t you understand?”

“What happened, I understand. But I don’t understand how this sort of thing can happen.”

“These things happen everywhere, Opa.”

“You know, son,” Mór began, “your grandmother and I really did have a privileged life back in Keszthely. We had everything—everything. Your father had a lovely childhood. They say that was an era of peace. I myself was ten years old when Buda and Pest united. We used to visit Budapest and Vienna. True, not often. Your grandmother would have gone even more, but I didn’t want to. Keszthely is a small town by comparison, but there were people of all sorts of backgrounds living there, too. Germans, Jews, and even a few Poles.” He sighed. “No matter. I don’t understand what’s going on here. I don’t understand a thing about this country of ours. The war, I understood. They shot at us; we shot back. By the end, that got murky, too. And what came after, that was even more muddled up. It’s been almost ten years since I moved to Budapest. I might have followed your parents to America. Not that I would have understood that country, either, but at least I would have known it was foreign. A foreign country, foreign language, foreign culture. This country here is my own, and I still don’t understand it.”

Gordon waited for his grandfather to turn around. “I know, Opa. I know.”

“So, what can I do?”

“I want you to get on your nicest suit and your surliest expression and go to Kaiser Wilhelm Road.”

“And?”

“Go up to the head office of the Arabia Coffee Company and look for András Szőllősy.”

“And?” asked the old man, knitting his bushy brows.

“Tell him you were sent by an advisor to István Bárcziházi Bárczy. The undersecretary must speak with him in a confidential matter. So confidential that he couldn’t say even by telephone, which is why you were sent in person.”

“You can’t just do that, son. Even I know who István Bárcziházi Bárczy is. He’s the prime minister’s right-hand man. And Horthy’s trusted advisor.”

“Don’t you worry, Opa. There won’t be any trouble. I guarantee you that Szőllősy won’t ask any questions.”

For a while the old man just sat there pondering the matter. “If you say so, son,” he finally said.

“I say so, Opa.”

“Good. So I go into his office and say that one of István Bárcziházi Bárczy’s advisors sent me. And?”

“Say he wants Szőllősy to get home by five o’clock, because he’s going to pay him a visit. There’s been a change in the German situation that they must discuss. No one is to know.”