The driver spoke to the woman slowly and gently, and she answered him, a satisfied smile on her face. The driver turned to Picard. “She says that she does, but she can’t tell you his name, because he’s a gypsy magician who would put the evil eye on her.”
“Of course,” said Picard, handing her one of the bank notes.
“Zoltán Lajos,” said the woman, receiving the money. Her husband was flat on the ground, staring into the face of the acrobat. His children were seated around him, with less fear of the little creature. They knew it for the toy it was, and the oldest boy took the acrobat in his hands and wound it again.
“Ask her where Zoltán Lajos is from.”
The driver spoke to the woman and she shook her head. Picard crossed her palm once more and she began talking in a guttural, nearly primeval dialect, the driver translating.
“Zoltán Lajos is from Dog Slope Mountain. She’s seen him in the town of Dunabogdany. This was many years ago when she was young and beautiful.”
“A
toy like this,” said Picard, to the hotel clerk in Dunabogdany. “Very detailed, complicated workings. Made by a man called Zoltán Lajos.”
The hotel clerk examined the piece for a moment, then handed it back. “Our Mother of Holiness Church. They have such a piece there. They wind it and play it for weddings. It’s supposed to bring the couple good luck.”
“And does it?”
“I was married there and my wife left me for a fiddler.” The clerk smiled. “Good luck for me, yes. Bad luck for the fiddler.”
“This church...”
“Just beyond the square.” The hotel clerk pointed, and Picard left the hotel, crossed the square and entered the church. It was quiet, nearly deserted. He walked up the aisle, past a few kneeling women in black, and entered the south vestibule. It contained only the usual announcements, some folding chairs, a small painting of the risen Christ. Picard crossed in front of the altar and entered the north vestibule, which held several glass cases filled with objects of importance in the historical life of the parish—antique vestments, a piece of timber from the original and now vanished church which the present one had replaced, an elaborate music box on which two dancers stood, their arms around each other. They were dressed in the costume of bride and groom and the handiwork in the figures was that of Robert Heron, or a close disciple. Picard exited by the vestibule door and crossed the stone walk toward the parish house, a sleepwalker’s air around him again, for he knew little of churches and their ways. The café was his church, and good food his communion.
* * *
“What is your interest in Zoltán?”
“I’m from the Paris police,” said Picard, showing his identification to the abbot.
The abbot nodded his head. “He made wonderful toys for the children, for the whole community. He was much loved when he lived here, for he had a gifted and generous nature. But his heart was angry. It caused his undoing.”
“In what way?”
“He quarreled with a man, a local gambler. They fought. Zoltán stabbed him, the man died.”
“Was Lajos imprisoned?”
“Certainly.”
“In the state prison at Vác?”
“That is correct.”
“Was he born in this region, Father?”
“He came to our town with the gypsies many years ago.”
“He doesn’t look like a gypsy.”
“No, he does not. But then, he never said he was. He said...” The abbot hesitated.
“Yes, Father?”
“He said he was Egyptian.”
“I’m told he possessed the evil eye.”
“His greatest evil was his temper. It brought ruin to his soul.”
“But what of this power he is supposed to have, to bring harm to others at a distance, by manipulating—the forces of nature.”
“If he had such powers why did he stab Anton Romani in a public tavern?”
“Thank you for your help, Father,” said Picard, standing.
The abbot rang his bell and the housekeeper came to show Picard out, down the long hallway of the parish house. His eyes were drawn to the painted dome of the entranceway—a pastel fresco to which age had given a luminous patina. Angelic spectators looked down at him from the rim of the inverted bowl, and Picard could not help smiling. It looked for all the world like a great crystal ball. In the center of it floated a pair of crossed golden keys, like signposts toward heaven. He pushed out through the door. He too possessed a key now, the master key needed to turn the lock on Ric Lazare. The toast of Paris had made the unfortunate mistake of killing a man in the open, with witnesses enough to convict him.
* * *
The warden of the state prison gestured toward Picard with his cigar. “Lajos was a born acrobat, climbed the side of our building like a fly.” The warden pointed out the window to the high stone walls. In the distance, beyond the walls, the triumphal arch of Empress Maria Theresa commanded the skyline. Picard stared at her for a moment, feeling his own triumph nearing.
“I knew he’d scale the wall some day,” said the warden. “We all knew it. We’d seen him demonstrate acrobatics to the other prisoners.” The warden relit his cigar. “An ideal prisoner in many ways, I hope you can bring him back. Taught wood carving to the men. He seemed to enjoy prison life. Told me once that it was good to spend a certain amount of time in solitary confinement. Here’s the full dossier on him.”
Picard went through it quickly: Zoltán Lajos convicted of the murder of Anton Romani. Weapon an ice pick, during a quarrel over some dice Lajos had entered the game with. Romani lost the game, with an ice pick driven through the center of his forehead. Because Romani was an ex-convict, the death penalty was not brought. The warden received the dossier back. “You’ve got Lajos pinned?”
“I’ll have him here inside a month.”
“He’s a slippery devil. Be on your guard.”
“I’ll bring him, but will your prison hold him?”
“More suitable arrangements can be made.” The warden rose, showing Picard toward the door. “Stop in Debrecen, Inspector. The police there have had dealings with your man.”
* * *
The inn beside the railway station was small, but held a stage in back, roofed over by carefully tended vines, beneath which a gypsy ensemble played. The goulash was served with sweet fritters and gherkins, and the wine was tokay, “the wine of kings, monsieur,” said the waiter, pouring for Picard.
“Enough,” said Picard, holding up his hand. The small bottle was three-quarters gone, and the waiter seemed eager that he should finish it and begin another.
The gypsies played softly and Picard ate slowly; each table was lit by a candle concealed inside deep-blue glass; the candle flames quivered as the inn door opened and the wind rushed in, accompanying a young woman. She was dressed in a long sand-colored cape, had a proud and independent air—releasing her cape into the waiter’s outstretched hands and then following him to a table not far from Picard. And she too was brought the wine of kings.
Her presence caused a notable flurry among the gypsy musicians, whose playing became instantly more seductive. At the same time, their music continued to influence Picard’s elbow, as he pressed on with the kingly wine, watching the woman all the while. Artificial violets were entwined round her large purple hat, but there was nothing artificial about the expanse of soft flesh that showed above the neckline of her jacket. Picard rose from his table and walked into the back garden of the inn, where he returned a portion of the wine of kings to the soil, taking a breath of air and collecting his senses. The train does not leave until morning. There’s time for a dance.
He paused at the edge of the little vine-covered stage and passed a bank note to the gypsy cymbalom player, who received it with a knowing smile. Of course we will play a tune of enchantment, for that is our greatest pleasure. The fiddler stepped from the stage and made his way slowly round the room, followed by his associates.
The waiter stepped beside Picard. “We call it
mulnatni,
monsieur. Enjoying oneself with the gypsies.”
Picard perceived that the woman’s body was already moving, just faintly, in time to the fiddler’s cunning song. She will spin her skirts tonight; her pretty legs will show.
The fiddler had begun an almost obscene display of musical ornamentation as he approached with his men to the woman’s table. Grace notes, trills and flourishes filled the air and the guitar player began to sing.
“What is he saying?” asked Picard.
The waiter paused a moment to open another noble bottle, pouring for himself and Picard. As their glasses touched he said quietly,
“... they taught to me, those gypsies three,
when life is saddened and cold,
how to dream or play, or puff it away,
despising it threefold.”
Picard accepted a cigar from the waiter and they puffed away together, the smoke making him dizzy and he not caring, smoking to ease his nervousness as he prepared himself for the advance. His mind blew away, his body followed, light as a candle flame burning in blue glass, flickering, dancing, bewitched by music, wine, and the woman’s high-heeled boot. He kept his gaze upon it, saw it moving discreetly beneath the table as the music gradually enveloped her. Slowly he took in the whole of her body with his look and when he reached her eyes he found that she was looking back at him.
“He
was called Bruno Bari when he operated here,” said the Debrecen Chief of Police. “I’m quite sure it’s the same fellow. Had an outstanding salon, entertained our finest citizens, and peddled an elixir of eternal life.”
“Elixir?”
“An interesting scheme. It separated the aged Count Stephan Magor from a number of old family diamonds. Will you join me in coffee? Help yourself to the cream... the recipe for immortality required that the Count be starved for sixteen days, then bled, then given some white drops, bled again, and starved for thirty more days. The old boy went into convulsions, his hair and teeth fell out, and in this state he surrendered a good deal of his private property to Bruno Bari.”
“Did he achieve his immortal wish?”
“He wears false teeth and a wig, and suffers, I am told, from a delusion that he will last another fifty years, after which he will need a few more of the white drops.”
“There were no charges brought against Bari?”
“It was too sensitive a case for us to touch, because of the Count’s political position. And after one other minor incident we lost sight of Bruno Bari altogether.”
“What was the other incident?”
“Not the sort of thing you can jail a man for.”
“How so?”
“Sándor Zetti is one of the great merchants of the Hortobagy. He owns tremendous farm acreage there. Bruno Bari had the good fortune to steal Zetti’s wife.”
* * *
The estate of Sándor Zetti consisted of vast grazing land on both sides of the Hortobagy River. The master of the estate was out with his men, herding the horses. Would the Inspector care to ride out and join him?
Picard mounted a spirited black horse with a single white star on his forehead. A stable boy led the way on a second horse, out onto the plain. The day was bright, and unseasonably warm. Picard enjoyed the sleek powerful body of the horse between his legs. His injured testicle performed its usual hide-and-seek game, creeping away from the horse’s spine and taking refuge in the Inspector’s abdomen. He felt it hiding, felt the painful tug in his guts. He pulled his stomach tight and concentrated on the horse’s flowing mane, the bobbing head, the sound of the hooves.
In the distance, he saw the flying cloaks of the Hortobagy horsemen, and the dust from their racing mounts.
Ranks closed up and Picard was racing alongside the horsemen, whose whips were cracking over a herd of splendid horses.
The men’s faces were dusty, weather-beaten, and their moves instinctively graceful. Picard matched them to the best of his abilities as they circled the herd, his cloak rising up as exuberantly if not as brightly as the loose purple capes of the horsemen. The air was filled with whipcracks and thundering hooves, and Picard rode joyously over the sprawling plain, in company with the men, lifting his cry with theirs, turning the horses with them.
When the herd was finally calmed and the dust had started to settle, a man as barrel-chested as Picard came riding up. He was obviously master of the estate, his eyes sweeping over it, and over Picard, with the look of a man used to having his way.
Picard held out his police shield. “I’m searching for Bruno Bari.”
“When you find him, please inform me.” They trotted side by side, while the other horsemen raced ahead.