“I didn’t make it up.”
I reached for my drink, but it was empty. I couldn’t believe the coincidence. It couldn’t have been a coincidence-that was obvious. But I couldn’t see anything clearly yet. “So what’s the connection?”
“I’ve told you all I know.”
“Nestor witnesses Sergei’s murder,” I said, thinking it through slowly. “And soon after goes to a work camp.” But I couldn’t follow the thought through because it was time for us to meet the train.
77
It crawled to us and stopped, its brakes gasping. The rain had given its hull a bright sheen, washing away a little of the dirt. The doors opened and spilled passengers onto the platform. We each took a side of the crowd, watching faces under newspapers held like umbrellas. As the crowd thinned, I saw Louis holding a small, beaten suitcase. I motioned toward him, and Leonek nodded.
Leonek retreated to the other side of the engine as I sat on a bench that faced the opposite direction. I wanted to hide my height. Then I leaned forward as if to tie my laces and looked back between my legs. His feet shuffled past. Ten seconds more. Then I stood slowly and turned around. His back disappeared into the main hall, followed by Leonek’s.
I tossed Leonek my keys and waited by the front door. As he started my car and swung around to get me, Louis climbed into a taxi.
We followed it south. Leonek had to speed up suddenly at some corners, nearly running down irate pedestrians, and below the passenger’s seat I pressed my foot into the imaginary brake. “Turn on the wipers.”
“Rain’s not so bad.”
“Turn them on.”
The streets narrowed, and the taxi stopped at the Hotel Metropol. Louis went inside.
I said, “Let’s give him a minute to get to his room.”
Leonek parked across the street, and we checked our pistols for cartridges.
The lobby’s low ceiling gave the white room a feeling of immense breadth. The men lounging on the upholstered chairs with issues of The Spark didn’t seem to notice us, but I still wondered how many of them were state security men-this was a hotel that housed foreigners, after all-and if they knew anything about Louis. The clerk was a young man who set his fingertips on the counter when he spoke; “Good evening, comrades! Two rooms or one?”
“We’re looking for one of your guests.”
I showed him my certificate, and that made him more eager. “Well of course, Comrade Inspectors. Do you have a name?”
On a hunch, I tried Nestor Velcea first.
He went through a ledger, tapping his fingers happily on the page, but found no Velcea.
“I’m sorry, comrades. Perhaps,” he said, then lowered his voice. “Perhaps an alias? ”
Leonek looked at me, but I shook my head, “Maybe you’ve seen him. About this tall.” I held my hand at shoulder-height. “Blond hair. Missing a finger on his left hand.”
“A finger missing? Oh, that’s good. But no, no one like that.”
I leaned on the counter. “All right. Let’s have Louis Rostek, then.”
78
I knocked, and Leonek waited beside the door, so that he could not be seen through the viewhole. I knocked again and waited. The light in the viewhole darkened a moment, then brightened. I knocked and said, “Louis? This is Ferenc. Georgi’s friend. Maybe you don’t remember me-”
A crash came from inside the room. I pounded with a fist.
“Louis? You all right in there?”
Something fell to the floor; Louis groaned.
I threw my shoulder into the door, and the second time it popped open. The room was empty. I ran to the bathroom and found Louis climbing to his feet. The window was broken. I helped him up. “What are you breaking things for, Louis?”
His face was deep red, and the fear popped into his eyes when he saw Leonek over my shoulder. “Oh God, Ferenc. Oh God.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down. Nothing to worry about.”
He shook his sweat-damp hands and came with me back into the main room. Leonek was trying to latch the broken door shut, but couldn’t, so he leaned against it. I set Louis on the bed.
“What do you think I’m here for? To kill you?”
Louis looked up at me, his big eyes shivering in their sockets. “Well…what are you here for?”
I sat and put my arm around him; he flinched. “Well I’m certainly not here to kill you. Where would you get an idea like that?”
He looked at Leonek, then at me, the terror just beginning to subside. “Nothing.”
“You’re on the fourth floor,” said Leonek. “You would’ve broken your neck out there.”
Louis looked at the open bathroom door, then shook his head and, unexpectedly, laughed. “You’re right about that one. I’m not cut out for this.”
“Is there a bar in here?” I asked, and Louis nodded at a cabinet. I poured him a vodka. He took it quickly, so I poured him another. “Better now?”
Louis nodded. “You were the last person I expected to see on the other side of that door, Ferenc. How’s the writing coming?”
“We’ll talk about that later. First, let’s talk about our mutual friend.”
“Georgi?”
“Nestor.”
He made a valiant attempt to hold my gaze, but the color rushed back into his glistening cheeks as he dropped his eyes to the bed-sheets. “I don’t know who that is, Ferenc.”
“Sure you do, Louis. He’s why you’ve come back here, isn’t he?”
Louis shrugged. “Nah. I’ve got to go to some Union meeting. International cooperation and all that.” But he was still staring at the sheets.
“Let me tell you a story,” I said.
Louis finally looked up, but at Leonek. He nodded in my direction. “ Writers. Always a story.”
Leonek nodded a polite agreement.
I got up and poured myself a vodka. “In this story, there is a brilliant painter. He’s ahead of his time, way ahead of his time. But no one knows this, because he’s also an eccentric. He doesn’t show his paintings to anyone, he doesn’t even sign the paintings. He’s that eccentric. Well, he is sent to a work camp. Happens to a lot of people. But after a while another painter-an untalented painter who can’t make any headway on his own-comes up with a brilliant idea. He takes those paintings, signs his own name, and gladly shows them off. He’s not so eccentric, just a little unethical. And this works. It works so well that his shows even travel into Western Europe-to Paris, even.”
“Paris?” said Louis, his fingers tapping his glass uncontrollably.
“This is bad luck for the unethical artist, because a very close friend of the jailed painter lives in Paris. He recognizes the work, and quickly deduces what happened. He decides that this artist sent his friend to the work camp, then stole his paintings. So what does he do?”
I watched Louis chew the inside of his mouth. But he did not speak.
“He returns here and goes to the work camp. He’s such a good friend that he even risks himself by bribing the camp commander to have a word with his friend. And there he tells his friend the story of his incarceration.
