policemen faced him, guns drawn, the small machine guns they held with two hands, more menacing than revolvers. One of them shouted in Czech, looking at the blood on his pants.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear-”
Another shout. He pointed Nick toward the wall with the gun and said something in Czech, brisk. Now the gun was being jerked up, a signal to raise his hands. When he did, staring at the gun, the other frisked him, patting up and down his sides.
“I was going to call-”
Then a storm of Czech, perhaps to each other, their voices rising in frustration when he didn’t answer.
“I don’t understand.” But then he did. When they snapped on the handcuffs and pushed him out of the room, the gun poking at his back, he understood, dazed, that he was being arrested.
Chapter 12
There were people on the lawn now, huddled over the body, some in uniform, one old lady standing behind, clutching at her winter coat-the neighbor, finally? — but they wouldn’t let him stop, pushing him with the guns down the path. He bumped his head against the car when they shoved him in, the sharp crack of pain the only thing real in what seemed to be a cartoon. His wrists, clamped behind him, were caught in the metal cuffs. One of the policemen in the front seat swiveled around, pointing the gun at him, and he watched the barrel bounce against the seat as the car took off down the rough road. A pothole could set it off. He closed his eyes. No siren, just the racing car, rumbling now over cobbles, taking a corner too fast, the speed itself official. He was pitched forward when they stopped, almost into the gun, then doors slammed and a hand pulled roughly at his arm.
The building was a blur, bulletin boards and clicking typewriters, heads looking up. They’d take him to a desk now, to someone who spoke English, so he could explain.
Instead he was thrown into a chair and photographed, the flash blinding him, then yanked down the hall to a bare room. Not a cell. A plain table, two chairs, a picture of Husak on the wall. They pushed him down into one of the chairs, hands still behind his back, delivered another volley of incomprehensible Czech, then left. The door slammed.
No one came. What should he do-kick the door, demand to see someone, to have his one telephone call? But there were no rights here. He was a foreigner with blood on his clothes. Maybe they were watching him. He looked around. No mirror, just blank walls, Husak looking down. The bump on his head throbbed. They couldn’t leave him here, throw away the key-a child’s fear. An interior room, one small window facing a wall, the light always the same, no way to tell the time until it was dark. The story was the important thing now, what to say. The truth would start another web, catching him, sticking to him like his pants. He looked down. Would it never dry? He felt his eyes fill again. You always brought me luck. But he hadn’t. Dancing, careless, while his father made a new plan, an emergency exit that hadn’t opened. Why the change? He sat back, still dazed, and waited to see what would happen.
It was at least an hour before they came, or had waiting distorted his sense of time? His hands were numb. The two policemen again, with another, not in uniform, his fat neck spilling over his collar. He gave an order, the cuffs were taken off, and while Nick rubbed his wrists, the new man leaned over the table, glaring and talking into his face. When Nick didn’t answer, signaling that he didn’t understand, he said, “Ach,” a sound of disgust, and sent one of the policemen out. Now they all waited, the big man in the suit pacing. Eventually there was a knock on the door and another man in a suit came in. This one was slight, with a moustache, and his eyes took Nick in like a jeweler. Then he listened to the big man grumble in Czech. He turned to Nick.
“This is Chief Novotny,” he said, pointing to the big man. “Criminal Investigation Department.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“He’d like to ask you a few questions,” he said formally, sidestepping it. “I will translate. My name is Zimmerman.” He caught Nick’s glance. “Sudeten,” he explained, “but Czech.” An unexpected courtesy, almost social.
Novotny snapped at him, evidently telling him to get on with it. He nodded. Good cop, bad cop. Novotny handed him Nick’s passport. What had happened to Molly’s?
“You are Nicholas Warren.”
“Yes.”
“And how do you come to be in Holeckova this morning? In Pan Kotlar’s flat. You were acquainted?”
“We met at a concert last night.”
“Concert?”
“Yes, Benny Goodman.” The sound of it absurd, even to him. Novotny grunted. “He invited me to come for coffee.”
“A kaffeeklatsch,” Zimmerman said. “Why?”
“He used to be an American,” Nick said. Used to be. “I think he wanted-”
“News from home,” Zimmerman finished.
“Something like that.”
“So early. In the morning. Not the afternoon coffee.”
“I’m leaving Prague today. It was the only time. So I went. But he was-I found him on the grass. He was dead. He’d been dead for a while.”
Zimmerman looked at him sharply. “How do you know?”
“His skin was cold.”
“I see. You examined him?”
“To see if he was alive. That’s why the blood.”
Novotny interrupted in Czech; the other answered him, annoyed but polite. Then he turned back to Nick.
“But you went into his flat?”
“To call the police.”
“But you didn’t.”
Nick pointed to the policeman. “He got there before I had the chance. Someone else must have called.”
“Yes. You were there long?”
“A few minutes. Look, what’s this all about? He was dead. Do you think I killed him?”
“I don’t know, Mr Warren. I don’t know that anyone killed him,” he said carefully. “Do you have reason to believe someone did?”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“No. Last night, at the concert, how did he seem to you? Was he upset in any way?”
Desperate, Nick wanted to say. But had he been, or did it just seem that way now? “I don’t know. I don’t know what he was usually like. He seemed all right to me.”
“So you were surprised, this morning.”
“Of course. It was-horrible.”
There was another exchange of Czech, then Novotny went to the door, said something, and came back with Nick’s canvas bag. By the body. Why had he forgotten? Novotny handed Zimmerman Molly’s passport and the tickets.
“You were going on from coffee? To the station?”
Caught. “Yes, later.”
He opened Nick’s passport. “Your visa includes an entry permit for a car. You are aware that it is illegal for you to sell a car to a Czech citizen?”
“I didn’t sell it.”
“A present, then, perhaps? You were not by any chance leaving it for Pan Kotlar?”
A hopeless tangle now. “No, why would I do that?”
“If you had just met. Yes, I agree. But you were traveling by train?”
Think. “It was acting up. I was going to have it fixed and come back for it.”
“You’re very trusting, Mr Warren. To leave a car.”
