Hard Case Crime: Passport To Peril (13 page)

“Well, come on, Herr Stodder,” the orderly said. “It’s time you were getting to bed.”

This time I laughed. I knew enough about 60 Stalin ut to make his remark very funny. A lot of things would happen to me but not bed.

The orderly stuck his head out the door and called, “Jozsef, Jozsef.” But instead of one of the gendarmes, the grubby doorman appeared.

“A taxi, Jozsef, for Herr Stodder.” I didn’t know who the orderly thought he was kidding, me or Jozsef, but I didn’t miss the wink he gave the doorman.

“I thought you’d rather leave in a taxi, Herr Stodder,” the orderly said.

“Very considerate of you,” I said. “I appreciate the courtesy.”

Well, the doorman returned and the orderly showed me out the door and there
was
a taxi drawn up at the curb. The ranks of the gendarmes had parted to let me through. I got into the cab and moved over, but the orderly slammed the door after me, touched his cap, and said, “Hotel Bristol,” to the driver.

It was my turn to faint and I damned near did. But I knew I had to get that driver to move his antique cab before Anna Orlovska had time to tell her story. He had hopped out and was spinning the crank, it was that old a car.

“Hurry up,” I said. “I’ve got to get to the Bristol in a hurry.” I spoke Hungarian and I didn’t care who heard me.

I ought to have realized what had been going on. I should have known it from the minute Colonel Lavrentiev turned his back on me on the dance floor. I was being kicked out of the Arizona as a foreign drunk who had had the ill manners to upset the chief of the MVD and his partner, I was a harmless drunk as far as they were concerned. They were looking for someone in the Arizona all right. They knew I was there. But they hadn’t put two and two together. What man in my position, the presumed murderer of Major Ivan Strakhov, would have the stupidity to come to the Arizona in the first place, then crash into the head of the secret police in the second?

Anna Orlovska was the only one who’d recognized me and she’d passed out before she’d had a chance to say a word. My only hope was to get that taxi out of there before she came to and blabbed to the police. Hiram Carr had sent me to meet her but he hadn’t foreseen what would happen. I’d failed and now I had the right to save my own life.

“What’s the matter?” I yelled to the driver. “Let’s get out of here.”

He was spinning the crank for all he was worth and blasting the night air with Hungarian oaths, the choicest on earth. I hopped out and got in the front seat but the ignition key was turned on. I moved the spark back and forth but still nothing happened.

There wasn’t another cab in sight. The only vehicles were the two Hungarian police cars.

I went up to the captain of the gendarmes. Since I was supposed to be a drunk, I was careful to lurch appropriately. I made the Hungarian language lurch, too.

“Excellency Captain,” I said. “Knowing the great and unbounded hospitality of the Hungarian people, may I ask one favor for an enchanted traveler?”

An American cop might have said, “G’wan, beat it,” but the Hungarian smiled indulgently. A foreigner who takes the trouble to learn a small country’s language can have almost anything he wants from the flattered natives.

“Might one of your mighty cars give this miserable cab a push?”

I watched the door of the nightclub out of the corner of my eye. I expected to see Lavrentiev or his orderly or one of the detectives emerge any minute. Orlovska couldn’t stay in a faint forever. She’d put the finger on me the moment she came to. I thought of walking, but it was snowing again. I also had no intention of going to the Bristol. As soon as the taxi was out of sight of the Arizona, I would tell the driver to take me to Hiram Carr’s. I’d done what he asked. It wasn’t my fault I’d failed. The next move was up to him. I’d been wasting my time in a nightclub when I ought to have been looking for Maria Torres.

The captain of the gendarmes ordered one of his cars to push the cab. The taxi driver was so disgusted he threw his crank into a snowbank before he got behind the wheel. I huddled in the back seat, by this time shivering from a combination of frayed nerves and the cold.

The military car hit the back of the taxi hard enough to break our necks, then churned snow until I couldn’t see through the windows. We slid and slithered, moved ahead and slipped back in convulsive jerks, the cab driver cursing at the top of his lungs, the gendarmes urging on the pushing car with alternate cheers and groans. I don’t suppose any hunted man in the annals of crime ever attempted a getaway in such circumstances.

Within a few minutes we’d collected a good-sized crowd, passers-by, customers in evening dress leaving the Arizona and the Moulin Rouge across the street, just plain derelicts who were glad to forget for the moment their lack of shelter, mixed with the gendarmes and the policemen off the beat. Everyone shouted advice, the cab driver cursed and thanked each one in turn, and the driver of the gendarme car spun his wheels until his tires were smoking. But all the effort was a waste of time. Nothing but a snowplow or a derrick could have budged that taxi.

I stepped out of the cab and sank into the snow up to my waist. The crowd got a big laugh out of that, too, but they hauled me out and onto the sidewalk.

“Tough luck,” one of the gendarmes said, helping me to brush the snow off my clothes.

“What are you guys doing here?” a man in a derby asked the gendarme. “Since when does the gendarmery pull taxis out of the snow?”

The gendarme laughed. “The Russians have some guy bottled up in the Arizona. They wanted to make sure he wouldn’t get away.” He leaned toward us. “Confidentially, it’s the foreigner who murdered the Russian on the train.” He pointed to the postered wall adjoining the Arizona. “You must have seen the notices. I could sure use that reward. They say he’s a tough guy but I’d like to see him get past me.”

“I think I’ll stick around and watch,” the man in the derby said.

“I wouldn’t,” the gendarme said. “There’s apt to be a lot of shooting. Didn’t you see where it says he’s heavily armed?” He pulled his coat collar tighter around his throat. “Anybody’s a damn fool to be out this time of night in this weather if he can stay home.”

I said good night as casually as I could and started to work my way through the crowd. They’d heard about the murderer inside the Arizona. They were no longer interested in the minor drama of a foreign drunk in evening clothes and a snowbound taxicab.

I got through the crowd and started down the Nagymezo utca. My impulse was to run but I was afraid the gendarmes might be watching and I didn’t dare look back. I must have exaggerated the lurching gait of a drunk; I’d never been more sober in my life. It was hard to force myself to go slowly, but I knew I’d give in to blind terror if I didn’t.

I measured my progress toward the end of Nagy-mezo utca by the yellow posters on the walls: 25,000
Forints Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest
—I wondered how long it would take them to dig up a photograph of me. It would be strange to see your own face staring at you from a thousand walls and fences.

I had almost reached the corner when I heard the shouts behind me.

Then I did run.

I made the corner all right without a shot being fired but I ran smack into the arms of a policeman.

“What’s your hurry?” he said. He clamped an enormous fist around my wrist. I couldn’t have reached my gun, and he carried a .45 in a holster outside his fur-collared greatcoat.

There was no longer any shouting behind me. Maybe he hadn’t heard it. Maybe he was just pounding his beat.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Pardon me.” I tried to edge past him but he blocked the way.

“What’s your business?” he said. “Explain yourself.”

I knew as well as he that gentlemen in evening clothes don’t run out of the Nagymezo utca at three o’clock in the morning. And he knew I wasn’t a native because I spoke Hungarian with an accent.

“I’m cold,” I said lamely. “My taxi got stuck in the snow. Ask the gendarmes if you don’t believe me. I’m walking back to the Hotel Bristol. I decided to run to get warm.”

He was short and squat, and his slant eyes showed his Tartar ancestry. His eyes also showed he didn’t believe a word I’d said.

“Where are you coming from?” he said, although he must have known there was nothing in the Nagymezo utca except the Arizona and the Moulin Rouge.

“The Arizona,” I said. “I stopped in for a drink.”

“Maybe you’re all right,” he said, “but I think we’d better go back to the Arizona and be sure.”

“I’m a guest of your country,” I said. “What’s wrong with running to keep warm? I’m not used to your cold weather, that’s all. You’ve no right to treat me as a suspicious character. I don’t think your superiors would understand such behavior on your part.”

Then he wasn’t so sure. Perhaps I was a Russian. Hungarian public servants who crossed the Russians usually regretted it. After all why risk trouble? Even if I had done something wrong, he could always deny having seen me.

He shifted uncertainly from foot to foot and then the argument became strictly academic because a third person rounded the corner from the Nagymezo utca and joined our little group.

It was Anna Orlovska, wrapped from head to foot in sables. The cop, who knew quality when he saw it, clicked his heels and saluted. Hungarian Communists click their heels and salute the aristocrats, even when they’re nabbing them for the hangman.

“Thank you, Officer,” Orlovska said sweetly. She called the cop
Rendör bacsi,
which means Uncle Policeman. Hungarian children call policemen Uncle.

“Your Highness,” the policeman said. He wasn’t going to make another mistake. If the lady was the wife or the mistress of a commissar, so much the better. “Your Highness, may I be of service?”

I expected half a dozen gendarmes to follow Orlovska around the corner at any moment.

“You have been of service, Uncle Policeman,” Orlovska said sweetly. “You have done me a great service in detaining this gentleman.”

All the countess had to do was to point to the yellow poster on the wall behind us. Twenty years of walking a beat at night, arbitrating Mrs. Kovacs’s disputes with her drunken husband, chasing sneak thieves and threatening suspicious gypsies was about to end. The arrest of a public enemy of such magnitude, the murderer of a Russian major, the stealer of the soon-to-be-famous Manila envelope, would mean a promotion to the rank of sergeant, a raise in pay, a medal, perhaps even nomination as Hero of the People’s Democracy.

Perhaps Uncle Policeman had a premonition of the fame which was about to be thrust upon him. At any rate, he moved his revolver from the holster.

“You won’t need your gun,” the countess said. Then some of her friends
were
around the corner. I couldn’t imagine why she hadn’t called them. I had to admit she’d had a lot of courage to turn that corner alone, whatever her obscure purpose. She couldn’t have known the policeman was there. Or was it part of the general deployment aimed at my capture? Maybe they’d deliberately let me out of the Nagymezo utca. They didn’t want to risk a gun battle in the Arizona?

“You see, Uncle Policeman,” Orlovska said, “this gentleman ran away from me in the Arizona. We’re old friends. If you hadn’t stopped him, I wouldn’t have known where to find him.”

The revolver went back into the holster; the cop clicked his heels again and saluted. Orlovska gave him a broad smile, slipped her arm through mine, and said, “And now, Uncle Policeman, if you’ll be so kind, please tell my chauffeur to bring the car. He’s just around the corner.”

I followed Orlovska into the car. By this time I wasn’t sure whether such things were really happening to me or whether I’d lost my mind. Until I found the answer I was determined to keep my mouth shut. The longer I stayed away from the police or the MVD, the greater chance I’d have to make a getaway.

I expected Orlovska to tell the chauffeur, “Sixty Stalin ut,” but she told him to drive home. In a few minutes we crossed the Danube, climbed the Rose Hill through devastated Buda, and headed for the higher hills to the west. There was a roadblock at the beginning of open country, but the gendarmery captain waved the driver on although half a dozen cars had been halted and lined up at the side of the road.

Neither Orlovska nor the chauffeur had any comment. There wasn’t a word spoken until we turned off the highway onto a gravel road and the car had stopped under a porte-cochere. Then, when Orlovska and I had gotten out, the countess told the driver to return to Budapest.

“See that Colonel Lavrentiev gets to his apartment,” Orlovska said. “Tell his orderly to fill him with aspirin.”

She opened the door with a key, then switched on the lights. We were in a long hallway, apparently running the depth of the house, with a stairway in the far right corner. There was a dining room through an archway to the left; to the right was a small sitting room with a larger living room beyond. After I’d hung up my hat and coat, Orlovska went into the sitting room. There was a long sofa facing a huge open fireplace with a freshly kindled blaze.

Orlovska spoke directly to me for the first time. She spoke excellent English.

“Make yourself at home. I’ll be down in a few minutes. You’ll find whisky and ice on the end table. I think there are some American cigarettes there, too.”

She left the room then, and I heard her climb the stairs.

I needed a whisky badly at that point but the first thing I did was to reach for my gun and knock off the safety catch before I replaced it in the shoulder holster.

Then I tiptoed to the hallway. There wasn’t a sound from upstairs. I went to the front door and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked.

I walked softly over to the clothes rack, put on my hat and coat. I went to the front door, opened it, and stepped out on the porch. There wasn’t a sound.

I started to pull the door shut behind me.

Where would I go once the door was closed? I was a good ten miles from the center of Budapest. I couldn’t risk thumbing a ride even assuming there was any traffic at that time of the morning. Even if some motorists hadn’t heard the broadcasts or seen the yellow posters, I couldn’t attempt to pass the roadblock. I’d have to walk but I couldn’t go cross-country because of the snow and the highway was out.