Protocol for a Kidnapping Page 13

  He shrugged. “You don’t owe me nothing.”

  I found a hundred dinars and handed them to him. “It was an unforgettable experience. Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Down there toward the river,” he said, pointing to a narrow street that sloped toward the Danube. He leaned forward to peer at me. “You know something?” he said.

  “What?”

  “The guy who gave me the letter.”

  “What about him?”

  “He looks a lot like you. But he’s younger.”

  “Everybody is,” I said and turned, heading for the narrow street. The kid said good-bye with a couple of varooms that blasted off the buildings.

  The street had no name that I could see, not even one written in the usual Cyrillic letters which make finding any place in Belgrade twice as much fun. The street was bordered by two large brick warehouses. I walked down it slowly, listening to the sound of my leather heels as they struck the pavement, making measured and solemn echoes.

  There were no windows in the warehouses and the street that ran between them was barely wide enough to permit the passage of trucks. I noticed that in several places the bricks were scarred where drivers had misjudged either the width of their trucks or the narrowness of the street. I kept walking, listening to the sound of my footsteps. At the end of the street between two buildings was a darker patch of something that I took to be a slice of the Danube.

  He came from the left, out of the setback in a warehouse. “Keep on walking,” he said. It was Stepinac and he fell into step with me as we neared the end of the narrow street which really wasn’t much more than an alley.

  “I got your note,” I said.

  “The boy was the only messenger I could find,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  “What about?”

  “About Anton Pernik who’s dead.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “It doesn’t change your plans?”

  “No,” I said. “Not really.”

  “I do not like what you are doing to Gordana.”

  “I don’t like it much myself.”

  “She said that you are going to take her to New York.”

  “Take isn’t quite the right word,” I said. “I’m going to try to see that she gets there.”

  “I have just come from her,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “She made me promise not to report her grandfather’s death.”

  I could have wondered how she made him promise that, but instead I said, “Your note said that you wanted to talk about Pernik.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “My superiors are not at all satisfied with the kidnapping.”

  “They don’t like the technique?”

  “The technique does not disturb them. The motive does.”

  “A million dollars adds up to a lot of motive,” I said.

  “Anton Pernik adds up to nothing.”

  “You’d better spell it out for me,” I said.

  “Very well. Just before your ambassador was kidnapped, I had spent many hours interviewing Anton Pernik about his past and present associations. A day would have been sufficient really, but I dragged the sessions out because of Gordana.”

  “Pernik told me about them,” I said.

  “Yes. Well, I came to know more about Anton Pernik than I really wanted to. Incidentally, he was a terrible poet. I also discovered two things. The first is that the American ambassador is in love with Anton Pernik’s granddaughter.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be much of a secret,” I said. “The only ones who didn’t seem to know about it were you and Pernik.”

  “I didn’t quite tell you the truth in New York, Mr. St. Ives,” Stepinac said. “One of the principal reasons that I spent so much time interviewing Pernik is because we were curious why the American ambassador should take such an interest in him.”

  “And you learned that he was interested in the granddaughter instead.”

  Stepinac stopped and looked up and down the alley as if to make sure that no one was around. He needn’t have bothered. It was still deserted. “I also learned,” he said, “that there is no one—no one in the entire world—who’d risk kidnapping a United States ambassador just to secure the release of that old man from house arrest.”

  “Maybe that wasn’t their motive,” I said.

  “That’s right. It wasn’t their motive. It wasn’t the poet that the kidnappers wanted, it was the granddaughter.”

  “There’s another possibility,” I said.

  “What?”

  “They may have wanted to use Pernik as a hostage, to make sure that the million dollars was paid.” I’d just used the same theory on Bartak. I decided to see how it worked with Stepinac. It didn’t go over.

  “I might have accepted that theory yesterday, or even the day before,” Stepinac said.

  “But not now?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of your own peculiar actions, Mr. St. Ives. You have been under surveillance, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you are getting yourself into something which could prove most dangerous—and which really has nothing to do with either Pernik or his granddaughter.”

  “I’m not sure that I follow you.”

  “I thought that might be your reaction,” Stepinac said. “That’s why I decided to convince you.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll call it a direct confrontation,” he said.

  “With whom?”

  We were at the end of the alleylike street. Stepinac stopped and looked at his watch. “We’ll make our confrontation in exactly five minutes,” he said.

  “Where?”

  He nodded across the street. “There.” It was a small house, a cottage really, with mullioned windows that occupied a narrow lot between two buildings which looked like some more warehouses. It was an anachronism snuggled in between two symbols of industrial progress and because of it, I had been able to catch my glimpse of the Danube. The cottage was snow-covered now and its lot seemed to run right down to the river’s edge. At its rear I could see a small greenhouse and at the right of its front door was a fan-shaped trellis that might have borne climbing roses in the spring but was as bare now as the three large chestnut trees which grew in its small yard. A single light showed in one of the cottage’s windows.

  “Who lives there?” I said.

  Stepinac looked at his watch again. “You’ll know in five minutes.”

  We waited in the entrance of the alley, not talking, and when the five minutes were nearly up, Stepinac started across the street. I followed just as the lights of a car parked at the curb switched on. The car sped away from the curb quickly and I hesitated. Stepinac was already in the middle of the street. The whine of the engine shifted into a roar and Stepinac looked to his left. It may have been because he was tired, but he didn’t move as fast as he had in New York, not nearly as fast, and the gray Mercedes smashed into him with its bumper and grill and slammed him flat on the pavement. It may have made a sound, but I couldn’t hear it over the noise of the engine. The Mercedes didn’t stop.

  He wasn’t dead when I got to him. His eyes were open, but I’m not sure that they saw anything. He muttered something, but I couldn’t understand what it was. I put my ear close to his mouth and he seemed to mutter again and it sounded something like, “It was no accident this time,” but perhaps that’s only what I expected him to say. I’m still not sure. He had no other dying words, no revelations, no confession. Some blood came out of his mouth and ran down his chin. His mouth widened and for a moment I thought he was trying to smile, but he wasn’t. He was dying instead and the stretched mouth was only a dead man’s rictus.

  I rose and crossed the street and knocked on the door of the cottage for a long time, but no one answered. I went back to the street and waited for a car to come by so that I could hail it, but none came. So I left him there in the street l
ike that and walked up the alley and all the way back to the Metropol hotel.

  18

  I WAITED UNTIL THE debate about who sat where ended before I said anything and then I said, “You want to clear your throats? Maybe cough a few times?”

  Wisdom looked at me from his seat by the window. “What’s your trouble?” He turned toward Knight who was again sprawled on my bed. “Our leader seems to be under a strain. Have you noticed the tight lips, the nervous gestures?”

  “He’s probably decided to double-cross someone,” Knight said. “He only wants us to reassure him that it’s all in a good cause.”

  “The first plane out of here is at ten fifteen this evening,” I said. “You’d both better catch it. The deal’s gone sour.”

  Knight sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “God, St. Ives, when you get noble, you’re really awful.”

  “I liked him better when he was a shit like us,” Wisdom said. “I don’t care much for him when he’s Carstairs.”

  “Carstairs?” Knight said.

  “Carstairs the magnificent. You know Carstairs. When they come to the edge of the desert he’s the one who always turns to his two buddies and says, ‘If you don’t hear from me in three weeks, tell Mary …’ Then he breaks off and goddamned near blushes and says, ‘But you know what to tell her,’ and then one of his buddies, the stupid one, like you, Knight, says, ‘But that’s fifteen hundred miles of burning sand, Carstairs,’ and Carstairs, the prick, shades his eyes with his hand and says, ‘Isn’t that what all of life is?’”

  Knight nodded several times. “Now I remember Carstairs. St. Ives does resemble him. The eyes especially.”

  “Shifty,” Wisdom said.

  “And the chin.”

  “Weak.”

  “And the mouth.”

  “Slack-lipped,” Wisdom said.

  “Why don’t you tell us a little about it, Carstairs,” Knight said, “and then we’ll make up our own minds about what we’ll do. Maybe we don’t want to go back to New York via Frankfurt which is a lousy town anyway. Maybe we’ll go to Venice.”

  “Or London,” Wisdom said. “I know some girls in London. They’d be fascinated with my adventures in Belgrade—all about how I saw one real mosque and rented a car and got drunk once and then took a tour of the old Kalemegdan fort which is just a hell of a sight. I could tell them that I always have such madcap experiences when I go traveling with my old buddy Carstairs.”

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it.”

  “Just don’t go noble on us,” Knight said.

  “I only get those attacks once or twice a year,” I said, and then told them about it—about Stepinac and who he said he was and how he got killed, about Jovan Tavro who needed to get out of the country, and about Anton Pernik who didn’t because he was dead. When I was through they both thought about it for a few moments and then Knight was the first to ask a question.

  “Who do you think killed the guy who looked like you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He was supposed to take me to see somebody or meet somebody, but we never made it.”

  “Any idea of who it was?” Wisdom said.

  I shook my head. “None.”

  “So what do you want to do now?” Knight said.

  “You know what he’s going to do,” Wisdom said and went over to the dresser and poured himself a shot of the plum brandy.

  “I just want to see if he does,” Knight said.

  “He’s going to substitute Jovan Tavro for the dead poet,” Wisdom said and downed his drink in a gulp before turning to me. “Right?”

  “All by yourself?” Knight said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Don’t forget Gordana,” Wisdom said.

  “That’s probably why he wants us to catch the plane.”

  “Look,” I said, “this was supposed to be something simple. All you’d have to do is switch Gordana and her grandfather for the ambassador and then go on your way. Now it’s something else. It could turn into something messy. I dragged you into it, so it’s only fair that I should tell you why you’d be better off if you caught that plane.”

  Wisdom shook his head. “I liked him better when he was noble,” he said. “He’s really impossible when he’s long-suffering.”

  Knight lay back down on the bed and folded his arms under his head. “What would you do if you were in our shoes, Phil?”

  “Catch the plane,” I said.

  “Why’d you ask us to come?”

  “I thought I might need some help.”

  “What do you think now that you really need it?”

  “It’s as I said. You can get into some bad trouble.”

  “Let me get a little mawkish for a minute,” Knight said.

  “You’re very good when you’re mawkish,” Wisdom said.

  Knight spoke to the ceiling. “How long have you known me and my wife?”

  I shrugged. “Ten or twelve years.”

  “You’d say we’re good friends?”

  “Christ,” I said, “don’t start that what are friends for crap with me. This isn’t one of Wisdom’s practical jokes where somebody gets embarrassed, but nobody gets hurt. I don’t know how it’ll wind up, but somebody’s already dead because of it. I don’t want to be responsible for inviting anyone to go along to their own killing.”

  Wisdom went back to his chair. “If it’s so tricky, why’re you staying, Phil? The ambassador’s no great pal of yours. From what you’ve told us, he’s a shit. So why don’t you just tell the State Department to find somebody else?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I said.

  “That’s the part he hasn’t told us,” Knight said, moving his head to look at Wisdom.

  “The dirty part,” Wisdom said, “with all the girls.”

  “I tell you what, Phil,” Knight said. “If you promise not to go noble on us again, I’ll stay. I’ll stay with the full knowledge that the entire deal is tricky and that I might get into mischief. I’m staying because I’m curious and because I think that you might need the help. Just don’t go noble on us again.”

  “Me, too, Carstairs,” Wisdom said. “No speeches, no declarations of friendship, no firm, manly handshakes. Just tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”

  “Catch the plane,” I said.

  “No.”

  “All right,” I said. “You’re both now full partners in the Acme Go-Between Agency, Incorporated. And if I don’t seem grateful, it’s because right up until now I never knew what true friendship really meant and—”

  “Now he’s mushy,” Wisdom said. “I liked him better when he was noble.”

  “And so,” I said, “when you stub your toe, or the going gets a little difficult, such as when they’re about to toss you out of the airplane, don’t come to me and say, ‘Phil, why didn’t you tell us it was going to be like this?’”

  “When do you pull the switch?” Knight said, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the bed.

  “Tonight,” I said. “I meet Tavro at ten o’clock.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I meet you a block from Pernik’s apartment.”

  “I think I know what you’re going to ask next,” Knight said.

  “What?”

  “Can I play a seventy-five-year-old man?”

  It took me ten minutes to shake my tails this time, and I did it by switching taxis. I arrived at the Impossible Café and sat with a cup of coffee until 10:04 when Jovan Tavro arrived, looking more bitter and unhappy than I remembered. He sat down and a friendly waiter took his order for a cup of coffee.

  “Jones got word to me that you wanted to meet,” he said. “He did not say why.”

  “I didn’t tell him why.”

  “So you can now tell me.”

  “We’re going tonight,” I said.

  Tavro expressed his reaction by slowing the coffee cup on its trip from the saucer to his mouth. “So soon?” he said.

  “So soon
.”

  “I must make arrangements.”

  “You’ve already made them.”

  “But there are things that I need to prepare, to pack, to arrange for—”

  “There’s nothing,” I said. “You carry what’s on your back and in your pocket. That’s all.”

  “But I have papers that are important.”

  “Were important,” I said. “They aren’t anymore. You said you want out of Yugoslavia. Here’s your chance. If you don’t want to take it, that’s fine with me.

  Tavro took another sip of coffee while he seemed to debate whether to accept my invitation. His narrow face ducked once, then twice. I took it for a sign of agreement.

  “Has this place got a back entrance?” I said.

  He nodded. “It leads to an alley.”

  “Are you still under surveillance?”

  He nodded again.

  “How long before they’ll notice anything?”

  “Perhaps a quarter of an hour. Even more. I usually drop by here every evening.”

  “This late?”

  “No, not this late, but it’s not that unusual.”

  “All right,” I said as I rose. “Let’s go.”

  The Café Nemoguće was more crowded than it had been during my last visit, the sign of an approaching weekend. Most of the customers were over thirty, possibly because the café offered no entertainment other than conversation, not even a jukebox. We brushed past waiters as we headed toward the rear of the café, but none of them seemed to pay us any attention.

  Tavro turned to me. “We have to go through the kitchen,” he said.

  I nodded and motioned him to go ahead. He pushed through some swinging doors into the kitchen which was at least twenty degrees hotter than the café itself. Nobody even looked up as we went through another door and out into an alley.

  “Now?” he said.

  “Now we look for a cab.”

  We walked for fifteen minutes looking for one and all that Tavro did was grouse about there not being more time and worry about who would look after his roses. We finally caught a taxi in front of the Hotel Majestic on Obilicev Venae and I told Tavro to give the driver the directions.

  The taxi was an old diesel Mercedes that chugged and gasped as it crept down the almost empty streets. The night had grown colder and the taxi’s heater wasn’t working and our breaths frosted against the windows.