Jana choked back a giggle. Through it all, Trokan was maintaining his sense of humor. He muffled the phone again, then came back on. “She is promising to leave me forever, and is now packing her clothes. God grant that she keeps her word.” There was a long sigh. “I have about a minute before she goes to the kitchen and gets cups to throw at me. So, quickly. As discussed, they want to share their information with yours from Ukraine.”
“I can send them the report I’ve written.”
“Not good enough, nor complete enough. They also want you to meet someone who may have seen Koba. He may be able to provide other information as well. You are to stay in Strasbourg as long as they need you.”
“I have other cases.”
“Seges will continue with them.”
“I cannot agree to that, Colonel.”
“I didn’t ask for agreement.” There was the sound of crockery breaking in the background. “She is now throwing cups at me.”
“I am sorry.”
“I didn’t ask for that either. Just follow your orders. The command comes from the minister as well.” There was another crash; this time, the phone was dropped. Trokan yelled at his wife, then came back on. “It’s a command, Inspector. Do it!” He hung up.
Jana slept fitfully the rest of the night, then rose early to call Seges and tell him to pick her up. She took a cold bath to fully wake up, re-packed, and moved her suitcase to the front door. Seges was five minutes early and in good spirits. He cheerfully picked up her bag and stowed it in the car. Jana decided Seges was too happy to see her leave and wondered what he was up to at the office, before deciding he was just glad to see her depart.
Before they drove into Austria and to the Vienna Flughafen, where her flight was scheduled, she directed Seges to take her to the wine store that Makine, or Koba, as she now thought of him most of the time, had operated in Bratislava’s Old Town.
“I am supposed to see a witness this morning. It would be better for me if I drop you at the airport so I can get back on time to interview the witness.”
“On which case?”
“The shotgun murder of the son.”
“The pretty niece? You’re planning to see her? A good-looking girl, the niece.”
“The niece is good-looking; yes.”
Seges’s cheerfulness was now explained.
“She can wait. The wine shop!”
Seges lost much of his happy expression but drove to the wine shop through the winding streets of Old Town. The place had just opened for the day. A hostess was setting a large sandwich board in front of the shop to advertise the wine tastings of the day and promote the Italian imports they were trying to fob off on the public as premium wines.
Jana and Seges walked inside. There were two employees in the shop: a hostess still bustling around with her opening chores, and a chunky man with a shaved skull and features that looked like they had been pressed flat with an iron. The man stood behind the counter drinking a beer. Not much of an advertisement for his wines. Jana walked to the counter and sat opposite the man on one of the tall wooden stools at the service bar area for customers.
Jana stared at the flat-faced man, whose small, almost colorless, eyes stared back. She recognized him for what he was: an enforcer type, a bouncer and general all-around thug who would beat you to a pulp if his employer wanted it done. Killing would not be beyond the man if he was paid enough. The hostess came over to Jana, her best smile on her face.
“We have a tasting of a dessert wine today. Hungarian. Their best,” she bragged. “Only 10 crowns for a glass and if you buy, we deduct it from the price of the bottle.”
The flat-faced man growled at her, “They’re police. They don’t want wine.”
The hostess’s eyes widened and she backed away, holding the bottle she had proffered as if it might contain mouthwash. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Jana continued to stare at the thug. The man looked down, pretending to be busy, pushing glasses around, moving bottles, only looking up after he realized that the police officer sitting in front of him was not going to go away.
“How did you know I was a police officer?”
“I’m good at that.”
“Lots of dealings with police?”
“Some.”
“Your name?”
Seges whipped out his pad and ballpoint. The thug’s bald head swiveled between the two cops, coming back to Jana as the one who presented a threat.
Yes, a thug, Jana confirmed to herself. The man was waiting for a blow; he had received blows in the past, and he had picked her as the one who would signal when the beating was to begin. She had his attention.
“I asked for your name. You are too slow. Now I want your identity card.”
The thug reached into his pocket and held it out to Jana. Jana deliberately waited, increasing the man’s tension, before indicating that the card was to be given to Seges. Seges jotted down the information from the card.
“The owner of this place, he died in a car crash.”
“I know.”
“When did you find out?”
“Two days ago.”
“Who told you?”
“The new owner.”
The hostess decided she would give Jana a drink after all, sliding a small glass of Tokay onto the bar in front of her. “No charge for you. House compliments.” She skittered away.
Jana continued to look at the thug as she picked up the glass, inhaled the bouquet, viewed the light amber color, and finally took a sip. She made a face, setting the glass back on the counter, glad to be rid of it.
“Despite what the bottle says, it is not Hungarian. Probably Slovak. From the border area. Maybe they slip it over to Hungary so it can be ‘bottled in Hungary’ to add to its price.” Jana let her irritation show. “Who is the new owner?” she continued.
“I don’t know.”
“Then how did you know there was a new owner?”
The thug blinked as he considered the question. “He telephoned. He told me he was now the owner; he knew the old one had died.”
“That’s all? No name?”
“Nothing. No name.”
Jana held out her hand to Seges for the thug’s identity card, scanning it, then looked back at the thug. “Is this your real name?”
“Of course.”
“How do you know it is your real name?”
“It’s on the card.”
Jana laid the card on the countertop, face down. “Not because of the card. You know your name because your mother told you so.”
The thug thought about Jana’s statement as if it were a new concept. “She told the government, and they gave me the card?”
“Good. Now, who told you the man who called up was the new owner, besides the voice on the phone?”
“The old owner. He said he might sell the business to a Ukrainian.”
“And the man who called you was Ukrainian?”
“He could be. Well, he had some kind of accent.”
Jana looked over at Seges. “Give him your card.” Seges pulled one of his cards out of his breast pocket, slapping it down on the bar in front of the man. Jana slid off her stool. “Have the new owner call Warrant Officer Seges when he finally arrives at ‘his’ new business.”
The man’s head bobbed slightly on his thick neck to indicate that he understood.
Jana walked out of the shop, Seges behind her. “This man, the ‘owner,’ will not call.”
Seges jerked his thumb back in the direction of the bar. “I don’t think that clod in the bar knows how to dial a phone, or read, or anything that was taught in primary school. That’s the reason we win, you know. It is not that we are so smart, but they are so dumb.”
“Perhaps.” Jana agreed, but didn’t like Seges’s patronizing tone.
They got in the car, Seges put it in gear, and they headed down the street toward the highway that would take them into Austria and to the airport.
Jana settled in for the ride, mulling over the new information, trying to fit it in with everything else. “The owner knew, before he died, if he truly was the one who died in the crash, that he was leaving and that someone else would become the ‘owner.’ Again, an organization is at work. Someone was prepared to take over. They didn’t want to give up that miserable little wine shop with the doctored bottles of wine. Why? Because it makes too much money for them.”
“Not from that wine.”
“They use the store’s account books to launder money, criminal proceeds from other activities. It costs them nothing for a crap inventory. They declare nonexistent, very large sales to their imaginary high-volume customers, and then bank sums of gray money, funds acquired from criminal enterprises.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Call the Financial Police, then the Tax Police. Tell them about the place and what we suspect. They need to do a workup on the records, registered ownership, licenses, books, past tax reports. Everything.”
“They will take months to act on my request, if they act at all.”
“Maybe there will be a miracle.” She looked back at the town as they swung onto the highway, still feeling fatigued from the last few days of nonstop turmoil. “A nice place, Bratislava.” She closed her eyes and sank back into her seat. “But, I think after all, I will be glad to get to Strasbourg.”
Chapter 15
I
t is not an error that has simply “occurred,” he thought, when the information came to him. Everything is deliberate, purposeful, as it always was at times like this.
He looked out the large French doors of the red-roof-tiled, white adobe-like building toward the Adriatic and the Dalmatian coast of the mainland hidden in the distance. Small whitecaps were starting to appear, pushed by an East-West wind, but it was still calm enough, he decided, for a swim.
The man opened the doors and walked down the steps carved into the island’s black lava base leading to the edge of the small inlet. There he shed his white pants and light blue sweater, laying them neatly at the base of a scrub bush. He paused for a moment—slim, streaks of gray in his hair, very tanned—to look back at the house once more, remembering when he had acquired it. Nothing had needed to be done to the structure, and the furniture had come with the house, enabling him to step through the front door and be comfortable.
It was good that way: no chores, no need for workmen to disturb him, nothing to be shipped in except the necessities of life. And, except for additional communication equipment he had acquired over the years, and the piece or two of furniture that use and age forced him to replace, or a tile on the roof that needed to be repaired, the place was unchanged.
He had appreciated it when he obtained it, so why change? In many respects, he was like an animal that maintained a consistent lifestyle. His usual routines had worked to keep him alive, and he would continue to follow them.
He slipped into the water, walking until it was up to his waist, then smoothly, silently, dove into the sea, effortlessly breast-stroking to the outer limit of the inlet. As anticipated, the water, cold by other people’s standards, was perfect for him. His metabolism had the uncanny ability to adjust rapidly to extremes of hot and cold.
When he got past the last protection of the inlet, the water began to exert a more insistent push. No matter, the exercise was good, toning up his already supple body; he merely lengthened his steady stroke to accommodate the swell. After stroking a kilometer beyond the inlet’s breakwater, he dove, swimming along the seabed to visit his Venus.
He had found the marble statue of a half-nude woman, a Venus, standing upright on the seabed a year after moving to the island. Of course, he had never mentioned her presence to anyone. That would have meant visitors and the disturbance of his interludes with her. Once in a while, he conjectured about her origin: She might have been part of some ancient shrine, but he thought not. She was probably cargo on a ship that had foundered eons ago, depositing her in the sea, the wreck and its other contents long since dispersed.
As he always did, he swam up to his marble “Siren of the Waters,” as he thought of her, kissing her on her water-warmed lips, then gradually left her below as he rose to the surface. When he broke the surface, he faced his island and immediately saw the two men darting from one part of the outside of the house to the other, depositing packages that somehow adhered to the walls.
It was clear to him what the men were doing; it was equally clear that he neither could nor would try to do anything about their actions. Finished on the side of the house within his vision, the two disappeared around the corner, and he heard the faint sound of a small boat engine starting, quickly passing out of his hearing. From the direction of the sound, he assumed that the men had been put ashore from a larger boat on the windward side of the island.
No matter for the moment. He turned his back to the island and, angling to his left, began swimming toward a very small islet barely visible, about two kilometers from where he was. Not a big swim for him, and he could rest on his back from time to time if he needed. Abruptly the sky lit up with a series of flashes, muted rumbles following the light. He paid no great attention. The house was over with; the island the house had stood on did not exist for him any more. The smaller dot on the sea he was swimming to was all that mattered—and, of course, the materials which he had providentially stored there. From that island, he would go to Dubrovnik, walk down its marble-paved center street, find a restaurant he knew where he would enjoy a fish dinner, then rest and do what he always did: Like Jesus Christ, he would resurrect himself.
Chapter 16
S
trasbourg is a French town still leaning to Germany. It is an old town trying to pretend it is a new one, all the while trumpeting its ancient traditions. It is a small provincial town wearing the clothing of a large cosmopolitan one. And even though it is located on France’s border with Germany, and so is a backwater for much of France to its west, it is now the home of the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. No fools when it comes to money, the French had the EU foot the bill for the modern edifices that house the bureaucracy and its showpiece necessities of fountains and statues and flags dotting the area to make it impressive to tourists.