“She is planning to quit her job and move to Paris,” Attila said. “And she wants to know what your best offer is by tomorrow morning. She has suggested we meet for coffee to discuss it.”
Vaszary sat down hard and stared at Attila as if he were looking at him for the first time. “Oh,” he said again. “What else did she say?” he asked quietly, looking around his spacious office as if to make sure they were alone.
“There was the matter of the painting,” Attila said.
“What about the painting?”
“Not much. Only that you needed Magoci to sell it for you.”
They sat in silence as Vaszary swivelled his chair so as to present his back to the room. He stared out the window at the river. “That’s all she said?” he asked quietly.
Attila debated whether to keep guessing but decided it was pointless. He would be more likely to get a clear answer from Monique Audet if he pretended to play her game. “That, and her offer to sell it to you for the right price.”
“Did she mention the price?” Vaszary asked faintly.
“No. She wants to hear your offer.”
“I cannot meet with her,” Vaszary said.
“You don’t have to. She suggested breakfast at eight, and I can go for you, but you have to come up with the number. How much are you willing to pay for the recordings?”
Vaszary intertwined his fingers on his belly, and they sat that way for several minutes. “I will have to make some calls,” he said, finally. “This is all very unfortunate. For all of us.”
Attila was hoping that there would be some explanation of who “all of us” entailed, but there was none.
“Please wait outside,” Vaszary asked politely, and he watched Attila leave the office. He was already reaching for his phone when the door clicked shut.
Not only were the walls thick, the door had been soundproofed as well. Although Attila lingered nearby, he heard nothing. He paced and worried about Helena, stared out the green-tinted windows at the river, and tried to imagine what his daughters would have said to their mother about their time together. Would they tell her that he had abandoned them at a playground? Would they mention Helena? And if they did, would Bea seek revenge by not allowing him to take them to Strasbourg to show them his tidy room at the B & B?
To distract himself, he called Tóth to tell him that he would not be able to make it to Budapest the next morning because he had an important errand to run for Vaszary. No, it could not be put off, and Attila said he was not in a position to question Vaszary’s judgment in this matter — or any other matter, really, as even Tóth would be able to understand. “Is the man who was shot in the balls still alive?”
“Yes, but our doctors say he can’t be moved.”
“Why would you want to move him?”
“The Russian embassy wants to move him, not me.”
“Why?”
“They insist he would get better care in Moscow. And they say he has now confessed that he shot himself accidentally, that he had been confused and hallucinating. But he says there was no woman.”
“He says, or they say he says?”
“The embassy says. The man doesn’t speak Hungarian; barely speaks anything except Russian.”
“He spoke enough to say he had been shot by a woman?”
“One of the ambulance guys spoke a little Russian. We looked at CCTV footage and no doubt there was a woman. Too dark to see much of her but she was very . . . agile. Good legs. Wore a bandana. Shortish hair, but she still looked like your friend to me.”
“Not my friend . . .”
“Since you got her involved in this thing with the Vaszarys, I assume you can find her.”
“I got her involved?”
“Jeezus, you must have known I would find out! You brought her to Strasbourg to look at the Vaszarys’ painting. And one more thing. Your other friend at the Russian embassy . . .”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Fehér! Your haver who likes to dress like he was some kind of European royalty. Or a model, except he is too old to be a model. Ask him why his fucking embassy wants to move this son-of-a bitch and what he knows about him. Then call me.”
“If by my so-called friend you mean Alexander Merezhkov, the undersecretary for government relations at the Russian embassy . . .”
“That FSB bastard, by whatever official name. Or do you have a lot of friends to choose from at the Russian embassy?” Tóth shouted. “And one more thing, Fehér, no matter what shit you’re doing for Vaszary, it would be healthy for you to remember that you work for me. He is not going to need you when all this is over.”
“All this?”
Tóth hung up just as Vaszary came out of his office. He didn’t look well. A film of sweat on his forehead, damp stains on his shirt front, his collar unbuttoned.
“You meet her tomorrow,” he said. He made no effort to hide his anxiety, rubbing his hands together as if he had soaped them. “You will find out what she wants.”
“I think the only way to find out is to offer her something and see if she accepts,” Attila suggested. “The problem with bribes, Mr. Vaszary, is that people who take bribes usually want more than what you can comfortably offer.” He emphasized “comfortably.”
“That will simply not do,” Vaszary said.
“An apartment in Paris would cost a lot, and she said she wanted one on the Île Saint-Louis, an island in the middle of the Seine in the middle of Paris. Very, very expensive, I think.”
“How expensive?” Vaszary asked.
“I would think millions even for a small—”
“How many millions?” Vaszary’s voice dropped to almost a whisper.
“I really don’t know, Mr. Vaszary.” The man was so distressed, Attila didn’t want to tell him that a small apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, near Helena’s office, was advertised
