The Man Who Went Up In Smoke (7 page)

The man in the gray suit took a calling card out of his top pocket and placed it on the edge of the table. Martin Beck glanced down at it as he rose to his feet. Only a name. Vilmos Szluka.

'May I sit down?"

The man spoke English. Martin Beck nodded.

'I'm from the police."

'So am I," said Martin Beck.

'I realized that. Coffee?"

Martin Beck nodded. The man from the police held up two fingers and almost immediately a waiter hurried forward with two glasses. This was clearly a coffee-drinking nation.

'I also realize that you are here to make certain investigations."

Martin Beck did not reply immediately. He rubbed his nose and thought. Obviously this was the right moment to say, "Not at all—I'm here as a tourist, but I'm trying to get hold of a friend I'd like to see." That was presumably what was expected of him.

Szluka did not seem to be in any special hurry. With obvious pleasure he sipped at his double espresso, however many that made now. Martin Beck had seen him drink at least three earlier in the day. The man was behaving politely but formally. His eyes were friendly, but very professional.

Martin Beck went on pondering. This man was indeed a policeman, but so far as he knew there was no law in the whole world that said that individual citizens should tell the police the truth. Unfortunately.

'Yes," said Martin Beck. "That's correct."

'Then wouldn't the most logical thing to do have been to turn to us first?"

Martin Beck preferred not to reply to that one. After a pause of a few seconds, the other man developed the train of thought himself.

'In the event something that demands an investigation really should have happened," he said.

'I have no official assignment."

'And we have not been notified of any charge. Only an inquiry in very vague terms. In other words, it appears that nothing has happened."

Martin Beck gulped down his coffee, which was extremely strong. The conversation was growing more unpleasant than he had expected. But under any circumstances, there was no reason for him to allow himself to be lectured to in a hotel foyer by a policeman who did not even take the trouble to identify himself.

'Nonetheless, the police here have considered that they had cause to go through Alf Matsson's belongings," he said.

It was a random comment but it struck home.

'I don't know anything about that," said Szluka stiffly. "Can you identify yourself, by the way?"

'Can you?"

He caught a swift change in those brown eyes. The man was by no means harmless.

Szluka put his hand into his inside pocket, withdrew his wallet and opened it, swiftly and casually. Martin Beck did not bother to look, but showed his service badge clipped to his key ring.

'That's not valid identification," said Szluka. "In our country you can buy emblems of different kinds in the toyshops."

This point of view was not entirely without justification and Martin Beck did not consider the matter worth further argument. He took out his identification card.

'My passport is at the reception desk."

The other man studied the card thoroughly and at length. As he returned it, he said, "How long are you planning to stay?"

'My visa is good until the end of the month."

Szluka smiled for the first time during their conversation. The smile hardly came from the heart and it was not difficult to figure out what it meant. The Hungarian sipped up the last drop of coffee, buttoned up his jacket and said:

'I do not wish to stop you although, naturally, I could do it. As far as I can see, your activities are more or less of a private nature. I assume that they will remain so and that they will not harm the interests of the general public or any individual citizen."

'You can always go on tailing me, of course."

Szluka did not reply. His eyes were cold and hostile.

'What do you really think you're doing?" he said.

'What do 
you
 think?"

'I don't know. Nothing has happened."

'Only that a person has disappeared."

'Who says so?"

'I do."

'In that case you should go to the authorities and demand that the case be investigated in the ordinary way," said Szluka stiffly.

Martin Beck drummed on the table with his fingers.

'The man is missing—there's no doubt about it."

The other man was evidently just about to leave. He was sitting absolutely upright in the easychair, with his right hand on the arm.

'By that statement you actually mean—as far as I can make out—that the person in question has not been seen here at this hotel during the last two weeks. He has a valid residence permit and can travel freely within the country's borders. At present there are a couple hundred thousand tourists here, many of them spending their nights in tents or sleeping in their cars. This man might be in Szeged or Debrecen. He might have gone to Lake Balaton to spend his holiday bathing."

'Alf Matsson did not come here to swim."

'Is that so? In any case, he has a tourist visa. Why should he disappear, as you call it? Had he, for instance, booked his return ticket?"

The last question was worthy of some thought. The manner in which it was put indicated that the man already knew the answer. Szluka rose to his feet.

'Just a moment," said Martin Beck. "I'd like to ask you about one thing."

'Please go ahead. What do you want to know?"

'When Alf Matsson left the hotel, he took his room key with him. The next day, it was handed in here by a uniformed policeman. Where did the police get the key from?"

Szluka looked straight at him for at least fifteen seconds. Then he said, "Unfortunately, I cannot answer that question. Good-bye."

He walked swiftly through the lobby, stopped at the coat-check counter, received his gray-brown hat with a feather in it and stood with it in his hand, as if thinking about something. Then he turned around and went back to Martin Beck's table.

'Here is your passport."

'Thank you."

'It wasn't at the reception desk, as you thought. You were mistaken."

'Yes," said Martin Beck.

He found nothing amusing about the other man's behavior and did not bother to look up. Szluka remained standing there.

'What do you think of the food here?" he said.

'It's good."

'I'm delighted to hear it."

The Hungarian said this as if he really meant it, and Martin Beck raised his head.

'You see," explained Szluka, "nothing very dramatic or exciting happens here nowadays—it's not like in your country or in London or New York."

The combination was somewhat bewildering.

'We've had more than enough of that in the past," said

Szluka solemnly. "Now we want peace and quiet, and we take an interest in other things. Food, for instance. I myself had four slices of fat bacon and two fried eggs for breakfast And for lunch I had fish soup and fried, breaded carp. Apple strudel for dessert."

He paused. Then he said thoughtfully, "The children don't like fat bacon, of course. They usually have cocoa and buttered sweet rolls before they go to school."

'Uh-huh."

'Yes. And this evening I'm going to have veal schnitzel with rice and paprika sauce. Not bad. Have you tasted the fish soup here, by the way?"

'No."

Indeed, he had come across this fish soup on his first evening, but he could not see that this had anything to do with the Hungarian police.

'You definitely ought to try it. It's excellent. But it's even better at Matya's, a place quite near here. You ought to take the tune to go there—like most of the other foreigners."

'Uh-huh."

'But I can assure you that I know a place where they have even better fish soup. The best fish soup in all Budapest. It's a little place up on Lajos út. Not many tourists find their way there. You have to go down to Szeged to find a soup like this."

'Uh-huh."

Szluka had become noticeably exhilarated during this report on culinary matters. He appeared to be collecting his thoughts now and looked at his watch. Presumably he was thinking about his veal schnitzel.

'Have you had time to see anything of Budapest?"

'A little. It's a beautiful city."

'Yes, it is, isn't it? Have you been to the Palatine Baths?"

'No."

'They're worth a visit I'm planning to go there myself tomorrow. Perhaps we could go together."

'Why not?"

'Excellent. In that case I'll meet you at two o'clock outside the entrance."

'Good-bye."

Martin Beck remained seated awhile, thinking. The conversation had been unpleasant and disquieting. Szluka's last sudden change in attitude did not in any way alter that impression. More intensely than ever, he had a feeling that something did not fit, and at the same time, his own impotence seemed more and more apparent.

At about half past eleven, the foyer and the dining room began to empty and Martin Beck went up to his room. After he had undressed, he stood for a moment by the open window, inhaling the warm night air. A paddle steamer slid by on the river, brightly illuminated with green, red and yellow lights. People were dancing on the aft deck and the sound of the music came through intermittently across the water.

A few people were still sitting at the tables in front of the hotel, one of them a tall man in his thirties, with dark wavy hair. The man had a glass of beer in front of him and had obviously been home and exchanged his blue suit for a light-gray one.

He shut the window and went to bed. Then he lay in the dark thinking: the police may not be especially interested in Alf Matsson, but they're certainly interested in Martin Beck.

It was a long time before he fell asleep.

Martin Beck sat in the shade by the stone balustrade in front of the hotel, eating a late breakfast. It was his third day in Budapest and it promised to be just as warm and beautiful as the previous ones.

Breakfast was nearly over, and he and an elderly couple, who sat in silence a few tables away, were the only guests. There were a good many people moving about on the street and down on the quay, mostly mothers with children and low streamlined baby carriages like small white tanks.

The tall dark man with a stick was not visible, which in itself did not necessarily mean that he was no longer being watched. The police corps was large and there were no doubt replacements.

A waiter came over and cleared his table.

'Frühstück nicht gut?"

He looked unhappily at the untouched salami.

Martin Beck assured him that the breakfast had been very good. When the waiter had gone away, he took out a picture postcard he had bought in the hotel kiosk. It was of a paddle steamer on its way up the Danube, with one of the bridges in the background. The lady in the kiosk had stamped the card for him and he pondered for a moment over whom he should send it to. Then he addressed it to Gunnar Ahlberg, Police Station, Motala, wrote a few words of greetings on it, and put it back into his pocket.

He had met Ahlberg two summers ago, when the body of a woman had been found in the Göta Canal at Motala. They had become good friends during the six-month investigation and had kept in touch sporadically ever since. At the time the investigation and search for the murderer had become a personal affair for him. It had not been only the policeman in him that caused him to think of nothing else but the case for months on end.

And now, here in Budapest, it was only with the greatest effort that he could summon up any interest for his assignment.

Martin Beck felt stupidly useless as he sat there. He had several hours to dispose of before his meeting with Szluka, and the only constructive thing he could think of doing was putting the postcard to Ahlberg into the mailbox. It annoyed him that Szluka had asked him (before he had thought of it himself) whether he had checked to see if Matsson had booked a return flight. He took out his map and found one of the airline's branch offices near a square close to the hotel. Afterward he got up, walked through the dining room and the foyer, and put the postcard in the red mailbox outside the hotel entrance. Then he began walking in toward town.

The square was large, with shops and travel agencies and a great deal of traffic. Many people were already sitting at a sidewalk café, drinking coffee at the small tables. Outside this café he saw a stairway that led down underneath the street. "Földalatti" appeared on a sign and he supposed that the word meant W. C. He felt sticky and warm and decided to go down there and wash before he visited the airline office. He crossed the street diagonally and followed two gentlemen carrying briefcases down underground.

He descended into the smallest subway he had ever seen. On the platform was a little glassed-in wooden kiosk painted green and white, and the low roof was held up by decorative cast-iron pillars. The train, which was already standing there, looked more like a dwarf-sized train at an amusement park than an efficient means of transportation. He remembered that this subway was the oldest in Europe.

He paid the fare, and got a ticket at the kiosk and stepped into the little varnished wooden car—it could well have been the same one Emperor Frans Joseph had traveled in when he had opened the line some time at the end of the previous century. There was a pause before the doors closed, and the car was full as the train started.

On the small platform in the middle of the car stood three men and a woman. They were deaf-mutes and were carrying on a lively conversation in sign language. When the train stopped for the third time, they got off, still eagerly gesticulating. Before the platform filled up again, Martin Beck had time to notice a man sitting at the other end of the car, half-turned away from him.

The man was dark and sunburned and Martin Beck recognized him at once. Instead of the gray jacket he was now wearing a green shirt, open at the neck. There was probably nothing left of the stick he had been whittling on all the previous day.

Suddenly the train plunged out of the tunnel and slowed down. It rode on into a green park with a big pool, shimmering in the sunlight. Then it stopped and the car emptied. This was evidently the end of the line.

The last to step out of the car, Martin Beck looked around for the dark man. He was nowhere to be seen.

A wide road led into the park, which looked cool and inviting, but Martin Beck decided against any further expeditions. He read the timetable on the platform and saw that the stretch between this park and the square where he had got on was the only line and that the train would be returning in a quarter of an hour.

It was half past eleven when he went into Malev's office. The five girls behind the counter were busy with customers, so Martin Beck sat down by the street window to wait.

He had not succeeded in spotting the man with the dark wavy hair on his return from the park, but he presumed that he was still somewhere in the vicinity. He wondered whether he would be tailing him during his meeting with Szluka too.

One of the chairs by the counter became free and Martin Beck went up to H and sat down. The girl behind the counter had her dark hair done in an elaborate set of curls on her forehead. She looked efficient and was smoking a cigarette with a scarlet filter tip.

Martin Beck carried out his errand. Had a Swedish jour nalist by the name of Alf Matsson booked a flight to Stockholm or anywhere else after the twenty-third of July?

The girl offered him a cigarette and began leafing through her papers. After a while she picked up the telephone and spoke to someone, shook her head and went over to speak to one of her colleagues.

After all five of them had leafed through their lists, it was past twelve o'clock and the girl with the curls informed him that no Alf Matsson had booked a flight on any plane leaving Budapest.

Martin Beck decided to skip lunch and went up to his room. He opened the window and looked down onto the lunch guests below. No tall man in a green shirt was visible.

At one of the tables sat six men in their thirties drinking beer. A thought struck him, and he went over to the telephone and set up a call to Stockholm. Then he lay down on the bed and waited.

A quarter of an hour later the phone rang and he heard Kollberg's voice.

'Hi! How's things?"

'Bad."

'Have you found that chick? Bökk?"

'Yes, but it was nothing. She didn't even know who he was. A musclebound blond boy was standing there feeling her up."

'So it was just a lot of big talk then. He was pretty much of a big mouth, according to his so-called buddies here."

'Have you got a lot to do?"

'Nothing at all. I can go on digging around if you like."

'You can do one thing for me. Find out the names of those guys at the Tankard and what sort of people they are, will you?"

'O.K. Anything else?"

'Be careful. Remember that they probably are journalists, all of them. So long. I'm going swimming now with somebody named Szluka."

'That's a hell of a name for a chick. Martin, listen, have you checked to see if he booked a return flight?"

'Bye," said Martin Beck, and put down the receiver.

He hunted up his bathing trunks from his bag, rolled them up in one of the hotel towels and went down to the boat station.

The boat was called 
Óbuda
 and one of the unpleasant roofed types. But he was late and it had the advantage of being faster than the coal-fired boats. 
60

He stepped ashore below a large hotel on Margaret Island. Then he followed the road toward the interior of the island, walked swiftly beneath the shady trees along a lush green lawn, past a tennis court, and then he was there.

Szluka was standing waiting outside the entrance, his briefcase in hand. He was dressed as on the previous day.

'I'm sorry to have kept you waiting," said Martin Beck.

'I've just come," said Szluka.

They paid and went into the dressing room. A bald old man in a white undershirt greeted Szluka and unlocked two lockers. Szluka took a pair of black bathing trunks out of his briefcase, swiftly undressed and meticulously hung his clothes on a hanger. They pulled on their bathing trunks simultaneously, although Martin Beck had had considerably fewer garments to remove.

Szluka took his briefcase and went ahead out of the dressing room. Martin Beck followed behind with his towel rolled up in his hand.

The place was full of suntanned people. Immediately in front of the dressing room was a round pool with fountains spouting up tall streams of water. Shrieking children were running in and out under the waterfalls. On one side of the fountain pool was a smaller pool with steps sloping down into the water from one end. On the other was a large pool full of clear green water which darkened toward the middle. This pool was full of swimming and splashing people of all ages. The area between the pools and the lawns was covered with stone slabs.

Martin Beck followed Szluka along the edge of the large pool. In front of them and farther on they could see a semi-circular arcade, for which Szluka was evidently heading.

A voice on the loudspeaker called out some information and a mob of people began to run toward the pool with the steps leading down into it. Martin Beck was almost knocked over and followed Szluka's example, stepping to one side until the rush was over. He looked inquiringly at Szluka, who said:

'Wave bathing."

Martin Beck watched the small pool swiftly filling with people, who finally stood packed like sardines. A pair of huge pumps began to swish water toward the high edges of the pool and the human shoal rocked on the high waves, amid cries of delight.

'Perhaps you'd like to go and ride the waves," said Szluka. Martin Beck looked at him. He was quite serious. "No, thank you,"' said Martin Beck.

'Personally, I usually bathe in the sulfur spring," said Szluka. "It is very relaxing."

The spring ran from a stone cairn in the middle of an oval pool—the water was knee-deep there and its far end was shaded by the arcade. The pool was built tike a labyrinth, with walls that rose about ten inches above ground level. The walls formed back supports for molded armchairs in which one sat with the water up to one's chin.

Szluka stepped down into the pool and began to wade between the rows of seated people. He was still holding his briefcase in his hand. Martin Beck wondered if he was so used to carrying it that he had forgotten to put it down, but he said nothing and stepped down into the pool and began to wade along at Szluka's heels.

The water was quite warm and the steam smelled of sulfur. Szluka waded into the colonnade, put down his briefcase on the edge of the wall and sat down in the water. Martin Beck sat down beside him. It was very comfortable in the spacious stone armchair, which had broad arms about six inches below the surface of the water.

Szluka leaned his head against the back and closed his eyes. Martin Beck said nothing and looked at the bathers.

Nearly opposite him sat a small, pale, thin man, bouncing a fat blonde on his knee. They were both looking seriously and absent-mindedly at a little girl who was splashing about in front of them with a rubber ring around her stomach.

A pale, freckled boy in white bathing trunks came slowly wading by. Behind him he was towing a sturdy youth by a loose grip on his big toe. The youth was lying on his back, staring up at the sky, his hands clasped over his stomach.

On the edge of the pool stood a tall sunburned man with wavy dark hair. His bathing trunks were pale-blue with wide flapping legs, more like undershorts than trunks. Martin Beck suspected that this was in fact the case. Perhaps he should have warned him that he was going swimming, so that the man would have had time to go and get his trunks.

Suddenly, without opening his eyes, Szluka said, "The key was lying on the steps of the police station. A patrolman found it there."

Martin Beck looked in surprise at Szluka, who was lying utterly relaxed beside him. The hair on his sunburned chest was fluttering slowly about tike white seaweed in the shimmering green water.

'How did it get there?"

Szluka turned his head and looked at him beneath half-closed lids.

'You won't believe me, of course, but the fact is, I don't know."

A long-drawn-out cry of disappointment, in unison, was heard coming from the smaller pool. The wave bathing was over for this time and the large pool filled up with people again.

'Yesterday you didn't want to tell me where you'd got the key from. Why did you tell me now?" said Martin Beck.

'As you seem to misinterpret most things anyway, and it was a piece of information you could have got hold of elsewhere, I considered it better to tell you myself."

After a while Martin Beck said, "Why are you having me tailed?"

'I don't understand what you're talking about," said Szluka.

'What did you have for lunch?"