The Land Across (27 page)

“The Rathaus woman tells this?” I could see Naala was interested.

“No. She can’t remember the names. I know about it because I broke into the shop and saw some of Russ’s dolls. That shop next door, with women’s clothes? It’s where the shawl came from.”

After that, Naala was quiet until our sausages came. There was bread and butter and mustard, and lots of other stuff with them. So while she was thinking hard, I built a sandwich,
kabanos
and grilled garlic on nice soft white bread.

Finally she said, “It may be that Rathaus is hiding in that shop.”

I shook my head. “He isn’t there. I looked.”

“They let you search?”

Head shake again. “I broke in. I told you that.”

“You perhaps break into prison.”

“I’ve been in prison already,” I explained. “I was put in for nothing and locked up in there until you got me out. I figure I might as well do whatever’s handy. Then if I have to go back I won’t waste a lot of time thinking how innocent I am. Hey, if the American embassy knew about me, would they try to get me out?”

“You are rich and famous?”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve got it. Don’t laugh at me.”

“I am not laughing. You find much in one day. I am try to think of one in JAKA who sometime find out so much so fast, but I cannot. We send a letter to Papa.”

“Papa Iason?”

“Of course no. Papa Zenon.”

She clapped her hands, and when the waiter came she got paper and an envelope from him. I watched her write for a while, and that was when I remembered the girl with the red pen. The guy I had punched out in the coffee shop was not the one who had been sitting with her in the other café. I was pretty sure of that. When Naala had finished, I asked her what she had said.

“I say that we are not his enemies, and he is not ours. Friends is better. We are search for Rathaus, Papa for those who work magic by the help of devils. These are not the same, but we believe Rathaus know who they are, also that they know where Rathaus hide. They are key to him, and the hand is key to them. We are given the hand by His Excellency, as he know. Let us work as one.”

“That sounds good,” I told her, “only you said you couldn’t find the hand.”

Naala smiled. “I do not say we have it still. Also, it may be we find it tonight, you and I. Too soon it is to say it is forever gone.”

“Okay.”

“At end I say let us meet for breakfast in the Great Square Café. It is where we see him this morning.”

She had been folding the paper while she talked. She waved to our waiter, and when he came over she showed her badge and gave him the letter and some money. He nodded a lot, listening to her instructions, and when he left he was almost running.

“Will he read it?” I asked her.

“This I do not think, but perhaps I am wrong. If he read, he will not learn much. What is he to do? Say to Rathaus the JAKA look for him? Rathaus already know, I think. Tell to the magic workers, ‘The archbishop does not like you?’”

I ate and thought. Pretty soon my sandwich was gone, and I had hardly tasted it. Finally I said, “You’re after something Papa Zenon knows. Or anyway, something you think he might know. Something you want to find out.”

Naala laughed. “To you I am glass. Two things.”

“Will you tell me?”

“If you wish. First I desire to know what it is Papa Iason tells by which Papa Zenon know the woman who brings the hand is your Martya.”

I said, “I see what you mean. Yeah, we’d sure like to have that.”

“Also does Papa Iason know where is Rathaus? He will not tell Papa Zenon this, I think. But Papa Zenon is more clever than him. He may know Papa Iason knows, or know he does not. This will be most useful for us.”

“You ought to have somebody follow Papa Iason. That’s how they would do it back in America.”

“Amerika have more operatives than we, perhaps. We cannot waste three on this priest. If he knows, it is not waste and so is good. But we must know he knows this.”

“You could assign one.”

“To which hours? Shall he begin at nine and go home at five? If Papa Iason go, night is most probable, but night is most hard, too. Two operatives by night, then. Or three. Five should be enough, perhaps. Now this. A man come to see Papa. Our operative do not see his face. He go away. Should two operatives follow? Or it is better they stay to watch the house?”

So more thinking for me. Finally I said, “Could you put a bug on his bike?”

“I have ask for this already. Tomorrow it is done, perhaps. We will find out.”

“Got it.”

“Let us go back. What is the name of the shop you find that have the dolls?”

“I couldn’t read it. I’ve been trying to catch onto the sounds of your letters, but I’m not very good at them yet. You get fancy, like English.”

“Then is easy for you.”

“I wish it was.” I was fishing in my shirt pocket. “I didn’t steal anything from that shop, but I took a business card. There was a little stack of those on the counter.” I handed the card to her.

“This is good.” She pointed to a corner. “Here is name of owner.”

“That’s what I figured it was.”

“It is a name I already hear. Do you know this?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t read it. I told you.”

“Then I read for you. ‘Abderos Narkatsos.’”

It sounded familiar. I scratched my head.

“You say Ferenc Narkatsos.”

“That’s what Yelena said. That was the guy who always hung around her.”

“It is the same family? That would be good to know. Tomorrow I will find out.”

I said, “I don’t see where that’s a clue at all.” I had finished my sandwich by then and was sipping wine.

“Nor I. But when you investigate and here is the same thing twice, you look more. This I will do.”

That was the gist of what we said that evening, and pretty soon we got up to go. There were cops at Horváth’s, one talking to some man I had never seen before, and one eating some kind of sweet roll. The girl who had been sweeping, the girl with the red pen, was out of sight if she was still around. Naala did not stop, so neither did I. I stuck my right hand in the side pocket of my jacket, I guess because I was trying to look cool.

Only there was a hand in there already. It took hold of mine and gave it a little squeeze, like it wanted to be friends.

17

FROM THEIR DARK PLACES

We were both tired. I had drunk a couple of glasses of zip-code wine at the café, and more wine back in Naala’s apartment. Not a whole lot—it might have been three glasses. About like that, and Naala had killed the bottle, so we were fuzzy when we got into bed. One of us would go to sleep and the other one would wake that one up doing stuff. It went on for quite a while.

Of course we both went to sleep eventually. When I woke up the first time and looked at the clock, it was five a.m. Or that is the way I remember it. I had a headache, but I found some aspirin and took two before I went back to bed. I knew it was aspirin from the smell, and the taste when I bit one.

You will probably think I was worrying about the hand the whole time. Well, you are right, but you are wrong, too. I had jerked my own hand out of that pocket as quick as I could get it loose. Boy, did I! After that I kept trying to believe it had not really happened. Most of the time I did, but sometimes I knew it had been real.

When we finally got up that morning it was almost time to meet Papa Zenon. We got dressed as fast as we could, no shaving or anything, and off we went. I had on the wool sports jacket. I never put my hands in the pockets, but I could tell from the way the jacket hung that pocket was empty. About the time we got to the café, I patted the outside and it was empty all right.

Papa Zenon was there already, with coffee and a plate of Eggs Minsk in front of him. He put down the one he had been eating, stood up, wiped his hand with his napkin, and shook hands with us, Naala first. A real gentleman.

We sat down and he offered us his eggs. Naala shook her head but I took one.

Papa Zenon sat, too. “The anchovies, I suppose. Many people object to those.”

“I like them,” Naala told him, “but I have not been up long. For me, coffee first. After it, pastries.”

I bit into mine. They are sort of like eating a deviled egg, only hot from the oven.

“You have just left your beds? If so, it was I who made you leave them. I apologize.”

“I set the time,” Naala said. “You did not reply to my letter.”

Papa Zenon smiled. “It seemed unnecessary. I am here.”

“So are we. Now we fence, you and I. The foils clash. They separate to clash again. Tell me, for what prize do we contend?”

“For command, perhaps, if we join forces.” He was still smiling.

“That cannot be. I cannot put myself under your orders, nor could you, a priest, put yourself under mine.”

The waitress was at Naala’s elbow. She and I ordered, and the waitress left.

“I watched His Excellency this morning.” Papa Zenon sounded like he was talking to himself.

“You rise early, in this case. Grafton and I were up late, and so slept late also.”

“May I inquire what kept you up?”

“You may, and later I may tell you.”

Papa Zenon chuckled. “Let me guess. A young woman died at the Harktay yesterday. You spoke to members of her family.”

“We did not, but I wish very much to know why you think it might be so. I find this interesting.”

Papa Zenon spread his hands. “From you, I withhold nothing. Can you say the same?”

“I will say this. If we join forces as I proposed, I will withhold nothing.”

“Then I am the more generous. Yesterday evening, I spoke with His Excellency. Another priest was present. His Excellency mentioned the hand, which the other priest wished to see. His Excellency explained that he had given it to an operator of the agency we know, and happened to say also that you had turned it over to a young foreigner who was assisting you. At this the other priest looked a trifle surprised.”

“Yes?”

“When we were alone I asked why, and he told me he had been asked to say the funeral mass of a prisoner. When he inquired as to the circumstances of her demise…” Papa Zenon paused. “It is always prudent to do this. There is a danger of unseemly speech in the homily. One seeks to minimize it.”

Naala’s coffee had arrived. She spooned sugar into it, but her eyes never left Papa Zenon’s face.

“He learned that the unfortunate woman had not died unattended. A foreigner associated with the agency we have had reason to speak of had been at her bedside, or so he was told. A young man.”

“Her name was Yelena,” I said. “I don’t know her last name.”

“You were there to extort information from her.”

I shook my head. “Just to ask her a few questions. She was awfully weak, though. She couldn’t tell me much.” Maybe I should have shut up after that, but the look on Papa Zenon’s face forced it out of me. “I held her hand while she died.”

Everybody was quiet for a minute or two after that. I guess I could have been looking around the Great Square Café then, so I could give you a big description of it now, the army officer and the girl he had probably paid to spend the night with him and all the rest of that shit. But the truth is that I was just staring down at the tablecloth and thinking about Yelena and sugar bowls. In the States we have sugar bowls at home because we trust the people there. In restaurants you get your sugar in little paper packages, because the government knows better than to trust you. Yelena had probably died because somebody made a crazy mistake. America is full of crazy people who might put anything into a restaurant sugar bowl if they got the chance, and maybe you are one of them. Cocaine or sand or powdered bleach. Rat poison. Anything. It had always seemed to me that life in America was a whole lot better than life where I was then, but in some ways it has to be a lot worse because it drives so many people crazy with hate. I have gone on a lot about a crazy country, and while we were quiet and the café was emptying out and quieting down I wondered if my own country was not crazier.

Naala touched my arm. “Papa is speak to you. You do not hear him, I think.”

I apologized like you do.

“I do not ask what she tells you,” Papa Zenon said, “but I would much like to know what questions you asked her.”

I asked Naala if we were partners.

“Already partners I do not think. You may tell him if you think it wise. Or not. You must decide.”

I nodded. “I’ll tell you, Papa, if you’ll tell me how you knew Martya was here.”

“This I must tell before, I think, because you do not trust me. I must speak first?”

“That’s all right. I’ll trust you.”

“Ah! I win the bargain.” He grinned. “We priests are bad bargainers, all of us. Rarely do I win. Tell me and I tell you what you wish to know. Also I show you. That is better.”

Two things happened at once then, neither one of them in words. Naala stiffened up, and I felt the hand come out of my left jacket pocket. At first I thought it was hers, but it was not. I sipped coffee, choked a little, coughed, and sipped some more.

“You are disturbed, my son.” Papa Zenon sounded really sympathetic. “I have spoil your breakfast. I apologize.”

“Not me, Papa. I was just trying to remember all the questions. I think I’ve got them now. I asked how she was feeling, and didn’t people get her mixed up with Rosalee. You probably know who Rosalee is.”

“You will tell me?”

“Sure. She’s Russ Rathaus’s wife. She and Yelena looked quite a bit alike, which was why I was talking to Yelena.”

Papa Zenon nodded. “I see. If one cannot question a witness one questions another who resembles her. Science progresses.”

Naala said, “We explain this later, it may be.”

“After that, I asked Yelena if there was anybody who might want to kill her.”

Papa smiled. “I see.”

“She said no. Then I asked if there was anybody who hung around her a lot when she didn’t want him to. We call those guys stalkers in America, but I don’t think I told Yelena that.”

“Your next question?”

“There wasn’t any. She wanted a nurse, and I tried to get one for her but nobody came. Then she wanted to sit up, so I cranked up her bed. After that all I did was hold her hand, but she jerked it away just before she died. She was shaking and everything by then.”