Men in Space (12 page)

“A refugee, then,” says Mladen.

Tyrone places the gun’s muzzle to his lips, all pensive.

“I suppose he is. Must be going insane from lack of ass!”

Heidi swigs at the Stoli while she tries to work out what these two are talking about. Nick comes over, takes a swig and wonders out aloud:

“Where’s Jaromír got to anyway?”

These turn out to be ominous words: not thirty seconds later Barbara comes back in all white and shaking, followed shortly afterwards by Roger who’s sporting a huge cut above his left eye. Go figure.

“Jesus!” Heidi says to him. “Let me look at that.”

She takes off her glasses, lays them on the table and looks at the cut. It’s deep all right: his right eyebrow has split in two, a deep pink gash with hair on either side. Mladen suggests pouring Stoli on the cut to disinfect it, which she does. Nick says he’ll go get Angelika to look at it, because she’s a medical student. Heidi casts an anxious glance towards I.M. – but he’s off in a corner deeply engrossed in some conversation with Anton, and seems oblivious to all the bloodletting that’s just gone down. Heidi knocks back another swig of Stoli and notices that the floor is kind of at an angle but the podium is at a different one and the ladder at a third which, well, whatever. Nick leads Angelika over to Roger. Angelika is stoned, and then some: her pupils have contracted down to pinpricks. She looks at Roger’s cut and kind of purrs:

“Does this hurt?”

She pulls the skin apart. Roger yelps and jerks his head away. Nick says:

“I think that means it does,” and Roger says:

“He came up from behind. We were kissing in the doorway, sitting down. I think he used his foot,” but very matter-of-fact, not angry or resentful – and in fact Heidi reckons he’s enjoying all the attention, besides which, well, he got the
girl and gets to play the hero … One of the Cal stoners has followed Angelika through; Angelika turns to him and says:

“Hey, Jimmy! Look at this!”

She pulls the skin apart again, and Jimmy goes:

“Wow! Pussy!”

Roger yelps again, and Barbara, still shaking, says:

“This doesn’t help him!”

Angelika says something back to her in Czech which Heidi doesn’t understand; they launch into some heated discussion, and it seems for a moment that another fight is on the cards. But Angelika calms down, switches back to English and announces:

“This needs sewing.”

“Stitches,” Nick says.

“Right,” says Angelika. “We should go to the hospital at Karlovo Náměstí. Hey, Nick! You have to come too.”

“Oh yes?” says Nick.

“I want to show you some still lifes.”

She starts explaining what she means, but as Heidi tries to listen the whole room begins to lose its proportions: the ladder, for example, seems to proceed sideways and the pictures have moved off the bedsheet screen and this scruffy thin guy who’s maybe Jean-Luc is coming at them with a paintbrush and her glasses aren’t there on the table any more and the music’s coming out of Mladen’s mouth or maybe from this black queen’s pistol which she never found out
whoops!
and in fact now, yup, here it comes she’s going to pass out …

She wakes up who knows how much later, lying on a bed. There are still some people there but not so many. Nick, Angelika, Mladen, Barbara and Roger have all split, presumably to get this eyebrow stitched up. The band people are packing all their stuff away. Heidi turns over on the bed and finds maybe-Jean-Luc kneeling on the floor beside it, working on his damaged painting. He sees she’s woken up and smiles. She asks him if he understands some English and he shrugs:

“It
de
-pend.”

“I’ve lost my glasses,” she says.

Eyes unfocussed, maybe-Jean-Luc scrutinizes her face, dips his paintbrush in his tin and paints what she can only presume is a pair of spectacles around her eyes. Ivan Maňásek appears beside her.

“Nick asked me to take care of you,” he says. “Perhaps you’d like to accompany me in pursuit of a late meal at the Intercontinental. I seem to have been considerably fortunate in a financial way this evening.”

He’s still got the duvet wrapped around his shoulders. Heidi turns away from him and pukes.

* * * * *

“Can’t we switch a light on?” Nick says, whispering.

“No. That would show from out of the top windows there. Just wait. Your eyes will get accustomed.”

They do. After half a minute Nick can make out maybe twelve tables, plus drainage channels running along the floor past each of these, like an irrigation system cutting across fields in ancient Egypt. Plus, a row of sinks along one wall and, beside these, a set of metal trunks. Plus, of course, Angelika, very pale-skinned, beside him, slipping off her leopard-skin, or possibly fake-leopard-skin, coat.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“You don’t have to whisper. There’s a ventilation system in the hall that makes a lot of noise.”

Nick breathes out heavily, then in again – and winces.

“What’s that sharp smell?”

“It’s formaldehyde. They use it to preserve the parts.”

“And all these slabs, these tables …”

“That’s where we do the cutting.” She makes slicing motions with her hand across his chest, then down towards his stomach. Nick says:

“I think I’d faint if I had to do that.”

“Many people do this the first time. I didn’t. I loved it. My favourite part’s when you take the face off. You cut round the neck, then peel the whole skin upwards. The face comes off like a mask. Did I tell you about the Helicopter Murder?”

“At the situationist show? Were you there?”

“Where?”

“That show, in the summer. By Mánes. There was a helic …”

“No, no. Listen: the Helicopter Murder happened in Průhonice Park. Just outside the city, to the south. A boy was found murdered, with his vital organs removed. Residents of nearby villages saw a helicopter descending towards the park, then taking off again half an hour later. That means that the doctor only had twenty minutes to perform the removal of the organs. Quite incredible: the helicopter must have had a mini operating theatre in it – or at least ice boxes, disinfectant, all the knives you need …”

“That’s horrible! Some kid just went out for a walk and …”

“Exactly. Do you want to see some parts? They’re in these trunks here, separated into groups.”

“Well … Shouldn’t we get back to the casualty room with the others?”

“We have lots of time, Nick. They have first to shave the eyebrow off, then clean the area, then stitch, then put a plaster over it. It’ll take them at least half an hour. That’s why the doctor in the helicopter must have been phenomenal.”

Angelika pronounces this
phee-
nomenal, all breathy. She takes him by the hand and leads him towards one of the trunks.

“Ready?” she asks him.

Nick nods apprehensively. Angelika swings back the trunk’s lid. Inside the trunk is a pile of legs: maybe ten or fifteen of them. They’re single legs, not pairs, cut off below the waist.
They’re slightly yellow. Angelika lifts one out and holds it up.

“Right leg,” she says. “A man’s. Not so old. Maybe forty. Want to hold it?”

“No.”

“Go on. Just while I take my jumper off.”

She rolls it into his arms. It’s very light. She peels her jumper away from her torso, takes the leg back and returns it to the trunk. She closes the trunk, leads him to another one and opens it.

“Arms.”

They’re yellow as well. The fingers are taut, arthritic. The
vrátná
at AVU. Nick turns away.

“You’re not enjoying this, are you?”

“Well, it’s just that …”

“It’s OK, Nick. I just wanted to show you where I study. We can stop looking at the bits now.” She looks down, plays for a while with the buttons on her shirt, then asks him: “Who was that man in the suit tonight?”

“He used to be my neighbour. Anton. When I lived in Korunní.”

“Oh, that place. Yeah. I saw him earlier today, yesterday, in the gallery.”

“Who?”

“Him. Anton. In your friend Gábina’s dad’s gallery.”

“How’s that working out?”

“Working for Gábina’s dad? Fine. Thanks for putting me in touch. Hey Nick.”

“Yes?” The buttons are being undone now.

“I think your flatmate Ivan Maňásek’s a psychopath.”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s just a little …”

“Do you know what he did to me tonight?”

“When?”

“Under the duvet.”

“No.”

“He bit me! He bit me on the leg. Just here.”

She takes Nick’s hand and places it to her thigh. Her flesh is sending a large amount of heat through her tights into Nick’s fingers. He leaves them there. Angelika’s staring at his face intensely.

“He doesn’t seem to have pierced through the fabric,” Nick tells her. “If I were you I’d …”

But she’s not listening, has already leant forwards and kissed him. He kisses her back. She pulls him to his feet and leads him over to the table where her coat is lying.

“On the autopsy slab?”

“Why not?”

* * * * *

 … able to infer, from overhearing Subject’s end of a phone call received at 12:45 [twelve forty-five] a.m., that the artwork in question was almost certainly in his custody. I was, further, able to infer from his side of the dialogue that Associate Markov would be visiting his residence the following day in order to transfer the artwork to the studio of an artist, although why this should be done was not clear to me. On taking stock of the situation, I concluded that the best course of action was to enter Subject’s property that night, arrest him and recover the painting. Although I had 2 [two] colleagues with me, I nonetheless decided to radio Headquarters in order to request armed and uniformed back-up. To my great surprise, my request was denied – and I was instructed, moreover, that on no account was I to effect an arrest or to attempt in any way to take possession of the object. I was informed that this instruction had come “from the top”, although I must admit that it is no longer entirely clear to me who or what “the top” is any more.

I was told to return to Headquarters. On expressing my anxiety that this would leave Subject, and hence the artwork,
unsupervised, I was informed that, besides myself and my team, 3 [three] more men were maintaining visual surveillance of Subject’s property. I did not know this, and wonder why I had not been told. Was this lack of coordination between sections of our reconfigured department accidental, or did it serve a purpose? On my return, I was sent straight to a room I had never visited before, a third-floor office whose newly plasterboarded walls and soft acoustics indicated to me that it had only recently been created. Here I found Lieutenant Forman seated behind a desk beside another man whose name and exact status I was not able to ascertain, but whose demeanour indicated to me that, alongside the Lieutenant, he was in charge of a body to which I was answerable: part of Interpol, perhaps, or perhaps a new body within the CCP created by the merging of several other bodies, divisions, departments, either on a permanent basis or temporarily, for the purpose of this particular investigation, or perhaps also of other ones connected to this investigation, or at least connected to investigations to which this one is connected. It is not for me to ask about such things, simply to answer when called: that is enough for me; I am satisfied with that. Lieutenant Forman and his new colleague asked me what I knew of Subject’s intentions for the artwork; I informed them that he intended to have Associate Markov transfer it to an artist’s studio the following morning. On learning this, the 2 [two] men asked me to leave the room, instructing me to stand by awaiting further instructions.

These came the following morning. The visual surveillance team of whose existence I had been appraised just hours ago had observed Associate Markov transferring a package, as foreseen, to a new location. This location, I was told, was an apartment building in Smíchov: Lidická number 5 [five]. Scrutiny of that building’s residents, I was further informed, indicated the presence there, on the top floor, of an artist, one I.P. Maňásek – an individual who, it turned out, had
been placed under surveillance previously, during the period between February 1987 [nineteen eighty-seven] and November 1989 [nineteen eighty-nine]. I was to establish, or re-establish, an audio surveillance regime at his studio, and at any others which might subsequently transpire to fall within the orbit of his activity vis-à-vis the artwork.

I carried out this instruction with immediate effect: unable to find the files that might have indicated to me the location and transmission frequency of any listening device left over from the previous surveillance period, and aware in any case that any such device’s mercury battery would have corroded by now, I had men posing as engineers install 2 [two] drop transmitters in I.P. Maňásek’s studio, the repeaters being planted, due to the transmitters’ height, within the tops of street lamps. Signal-to-noise ratio was satisfactory, although not ideal, in part due to the presence of tram wires running through the area between repeater and listening station, in part to the proximity to my listening station of a body of water, viz. a carp tank; and I apologize in advance for any glitches in the recordings made at this location. In addition to the drop transmitters, a phone tap was installed. I also took with me a directional microphone.

The phone tap bore immediate fruit. Within 20 [twenty] minutes of its being activated, Maňásek placed a call to a female acquaintance. During the course of this call, he let it be known that he intended to replicate the artwork, and sought advice from his female acquaintance on the best means to do so. Besides proffering the requisite advice, his acquaintance offered to come round and visit with a view to helping him in his endeavour. He accepted the offer. Subsequent tracing of the call indicated that the female acquaintance was one Klárá Jelínková. I immediately ordered that a tap be placed on her phone too. I then reported back to Lieutenant Forman that, without any doubt, Ivan Maňásek was engaged in copying the stolen painting. Lieutenant Forman informed me that he
knew this already, and that I should carry on listening to and reporting on the activities of all involved in this process. This I have done, and will continue to do until instructed otherwise.