Attila composed his face into what he hoped was sufficiently keen, without being an easy mark. The longer he held out, the more the minister would reveal. He was already close to admitting that he had Magoci killed.
“What is it, exactly, minister, that you are offering, and what are you expecting of me?”
“Well now,” Magyar said, leaning back in Vaszary’s chair, he knew how to sink into this sort of negotiation. “We wanted the . . .” Was he searching for the right word or playing for time? He settled on “elimination” and smiled, “of this unsavoury character. Usually, you understand, Attila, we would be on the side of law enforcement, but this is a completely different matter. The man was a pariah. A waste of fresh air.”
“I am not sure I understand,” Attila said, drawing out the moment and building Magyar’s confidence.
“It’s like this,” Magyar said. “He had interfered in what was none of his business.”
“The painting,” Attila prompted.
“The sale of the painting — which did not belong to him; therefore, he had no right.”
“Vaszary’s painting?”
“Vaszary’s?” Magyar snorted. “That’s the point I am trying to make here, Attila. Not Vaszary’s. That fool . . .”
“He told me he bought it from Biro.”
“That’s another thing we need to settle, Attila. We were surprised you took it upon yourself to track down Biro, and then your little friend” — emphasis on the little — “followed our man in Budapest. We hadn’t expected her to get into the middle of this. But we are willing to overlook that. For your sake.”
“Berkowitz was working for you,” Attila said.
Magyar sighed ostentatiously, as if he had finally succeeded in making his point with his rather thick pupil.
“So, it was you who had Magoci killed,” Attila said.
Magyar placed an envelope on the desk in front of Attila. They both stared at it for about a minute before he motioned toward it with his chin and said, “You can look inside.”
Attila picked up the envelope. It was full of purple euro notes.
“You can count it,” Magyar said. He rose from Vaszary’s chair, walked around to Attila’s side of the desk, and stood, his butt leaning against the desk, looking down at Attila.
Attila stroked the flap as he positioned the envelope back on the desk, slowly, hesitantly, still staring at it. He thought there could be at least forty banknotes inside. Twenty thousand euros.
“I need to think,” Attila said.
“Not much to think about, but if you need a couple of hours, that’s okay. For the little we expect. All you need do is stop mucking around in this business. That local policeman who has been asking questions, you can convince him this thing has nothing to do with Hungary. It’s not the place for him to look. We told that idiot Tóth, but I am not sure your man, Hébert, will listen to Tóth. Get him to look for other suspects. There are a lot of people this son of a bitch dealt with who could have wanted him dead.”
Attila was nodding.
“Two hours,” Magyar said, sweeping the envelope off the table and pocketing it.
When Attila drove to the house on Rue Geiler, it was overcast with a sprinkle of rain. He had suggested to Helena that she should arrive about fifteen minutes after him. That would give him a chance to talk to the Vaszarys in Hungarian about Mademoiselle Audet’s dismissive attitude to Iván’s generous offer. The question was, What had Vaszary been saying to Magoci that was worth more than half a million euros? And how exactly did Magyar fit into the picture? Now that he knew that the hit on Magoci had been engineered by Magyar (and whomever he had included in this “we”), what was Magyar’s expectation of the painting? Attila had called Hébert, but he did not mention Helena. He was reluctant to drop her into the soup Magyar and his cohorts were cooking.
Hilda, not wearing her full maid’s uniform today — no apron, only the black dress — opened the door. “I think, finally, I will be able to visit my mother in Karcag,” she said. “She has been ill for the past week, but they wouldn’t give me time off until I told them I would quit if they didn’t. I have not had one day free since we came here. Why do you work for these elfajult rohadékok?” she asked.
“Same as you, I think,” Attila said. “I need the money. And did you quit?”
“Not yet. I agreed to stay if they give me the bonus they promised when we moved to this wretched place and I get two weeks off to go to Karcag. They were all excited about some higher-up’s visit. They wanted little sandwiches and cakes. I think they would have given me much more if I had had sense enough to ask.”
“Then you are coming back?”
“Not if I can get another job.”
Lucy followed Attila into the living room, sniffing loudly up and down Attila’s trouser legs from the ankle to below the knees at about Gustav’s full height. It was not a friendly sniff. Ignoring Hilda’s warnings, Lucy accompanied him to the living room.
The room was strangely still and murky with the rain now beating on the windows. No one had turned on the lights. The Vaszarys were sitting on the sofa, holding hands. A third person, a tall man wearing a suit with an old-fashioned long jacket, stood facing the painting, his back to the door. He did not turn when Attila entered.
“We were not expecting you,” Iván Vaszary said in Hungarian. “At least not here.” He spoke so quietly that Attila had to approach the sofa to hear him. “You were supposed to come to my office.” He looked down at his wife’s fingers woven through his own.
“I did,” Attila said, “but you were not there.”
“So you came
