caffeine I still couldn’t think straight. Instead, I focused on a pitiful papier-mache St. Nicholas in a shoe store window, knowing that, behind the Christmas sculpture, the store was empty. I wondered why the shopkeeper even bothered.
The night crew at the Militia station was getting ready to leave, and when they saw me come in, they nodded their acknowledgment. “Any coffee?” I asked.
Tamas, a young recruit, was putting on his coat. “None in the station.”
“None at all?”
He shook his head regretfully, then yawned.
“I’ve got some in my desk,” I admitted. “I’m willing to share.”
But Tamas didn’t have time for it. He, like the others, wanted to get home to his family. I stopped him at the door. “Anything last night?”
“It’s all on the form,” he said, then unlatched himself from my grip and was gone.
The night form listed calls made over the previous eight hours. There were nine, ranging from simple disturbances-a neighbor’s music was too loud-to someone insisting that she had heard tanks moving in the street. I scribbled down her number and took it up to the homicide office, where someone had left a couple of copies of the morning’s Spark. I didn’t read it. Not yet. Instead, I dialed the number.
A groggy male voice picked up. “What?”
“This is Chief Emil Brod of the People’s Militia. Did you call last night?”
“My wife, comrade.” He was suddenly awake. “No, it’s nothing. Sorry to bother you.”
“It’s all right. But is it true?”
“Who knows? She said she heard it, but I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
I used the percolator and my stash of acorn coffee in the empty lounge. When, a couple of years ago, the stores began replacing real coffee with this sludge, I suffered flashbacks of those desperate years just after the war. Acorn coffee, for me, was the irrefutable evidence that we were sliding in the wrong direction. Ration cards and petrol rationing were one thing, but when you couldn’t get a cup of real coffee anymore, that was a sure sign that everything was collapsing.
Now, people were being shot in the streets.
As the coffee brewed, I read The Spark’s interpretation of last night. It was, not surprisingly, buried on page eight, under a lengthy profile of our most famous ice-skater, Ingrid Tolopov.
PATAK MOB KILLS 6
A riot broke out in Sarospatak’s main square last night when a mob organized by foreign elements threw stones at members of the People’s Militia.
Six hooligans were killed when militiamen were forced to defend themselves. Comrade Mayor Natan Pankov said that he has been dealing with German, Hungarian, and Yugoslav reactionaries in Sarospatak over the previous month. “This is an attack on all of us,” he said. “It’s no secret that the counterrevolutionary uprisings destroying the socialist frameworks of our fraternal countries have been making great efforts here.” A Militia corporal said, “I saw Hungarians breaking shop windows.” In an effort to protect his citizens, Comrade Mayor
Pankov has instituted martial law.
There were no surprises here: no mention of why the crowd was there in the first place; blaming foreigners; and quoting Comrade Mayor Natan Pankov, Tomiak Pankov’s son.
I threw the paper into a wastebasket and brought my cup back to the office, taking yesterday’s day-end report from Katja’s desk. I took a sip of the wretched coffee and tried to focus on the homicide investigation she’d been working on.
Dusan Volan was a seventy-year-old retired judge who had been found Sunday night by the high stone wall that encircled his Thirteenth District estate. A photograph showed how he had fallen, a face-down lump on the grass, and that the bullet had entered his skull through the back. A 9mm.
The ballistics report told me that the bullet that killed the judge was shot from an ASP pistol. I’d never heard of it. ASP: 9x19 mm, 7 rounds. Length: 173 mm. Developed by
American gunsmith Paris Theodore in 1970s. Designed for concealment-i.e., clandestine work. Only 300 on the open market, in USA, the rest supposedly produced for CIA.
It went on, going into the gun’s special snag-proof design, which made it impossible to catch on clothing, the American company that produced it, and the fact that it was last known to be manufactured in 1983. The ballistics specialist added a handwritten side note. Just dumb luck I know this — we’ve got 1 ASP, from a dead American 5 years ago.
My phone rang, and when I picked it up the line was fuzzy, long distance. “Emil?” said a familiar voice.
“Gavra? Is that you?”
“Yes.”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Zagreb,” he lied. “How’s the Kolev report coming?”
“It’s not simple.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. I’m sure.” I told him about the heroin and then heard some voice on his side, a woman over a loudspeaker-she was announcing a flight in English. I didn’t bother asking about that.
There was a rush of static, then he said, “Take down this name: Lebed Putonski.”
I wrote it down as, through my open door, I saw Katja arriving. She smiled at me but looked tired, and I nodded back. I lowered my voice to a whisper: “Who’s Lebed Putonski?”
“Ex-Ministry. Also murdered. I should be home by tonight, but can you pull his file?”
“Is it connected to Kolev?”
“Yes, Emil. Undoubtedly.”
As I hung up, Katja sniffed the air in my office. Her short-cropped blond hair looked disheveled, and her makeup seemed a little off. “Where’s the coffee?”
“Lounge.”
She grabbed her cup from her desk but paused at the door. She looked back at me. “Where’s Berni?”
“Out of town,” I said. “Just you and me.”
“Oh.” She frowned theatrically before continuing to the corridor.
I called Central Archives. A tired woman answered, saying, “Records.”
“I need a file sent over. Name’s Lebed Putonski.”
I started to spell it out, but she interrupted. “You’ll have to fill out the form, Comrade Chief. You know that.”
What I knew was that going through proper channels would take a week. “I don’t have time. Please, just check. I’ll make it worth your trouble.”
“You will, huh?”
“How’s your coffee ration?”
She hummed into the phone. “How much’ve you got?”
“Two kilos,” I said. “I’ll give it to the courier.”
When I hung up, Katja threw herself into the chair that faced my desk, placed an ankle on a knee, and sipped her steaming coffee. She was my most astute detective, as well as the first woman in homicide. Lena often accused me-not without justification-of having a crush on her.
I tapped her day-end report. “How’s this coming?”
She shook her head. “Not well. The wife got hysterical when I asked her questions. I might have been wrong.”
“How?”
“I thought she’d killed her husband.” Katja rocked her head. “He’d been keeping two mistresses for years. But to be honest, I don’t think she gave a damn. I was planning to visit her again today…” She trailed off. “You want to come?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s wait a while. I’m expecting a call.”
“No hurry.” She rubbed her ear with her buffed but unpainted fingernails. She had small hands with smooth, pale skin; they were very pretty. “Any more news from Patak?”
