The Charlie Parker Collection 2

by John Connolly

  “I mean,” Reid continued, “no decent society would even con —”

  A shape moved against one of the trees, and in the fraction of a second between awareness and response, Reid could have sworn that it descended down the tree trunk headfirst, like a lizard clinging to the bark.

  “Run!” he said. He pushed hard at Bartek, forcing him into the woods, then turned to face the approaching enemy. He heard Bartek call his name, and he shouted: “Run, I said. Run, you bastard!”

  There was a man facing him, a small, pie-faced figure in a black jacket and faded denims. Reid recognized him from the bar, and wondered how long they had been watched by their enemies. The man did not have any weapon that Reid could see.

  “Come on, then,” said Reid. “I’ll have you.”

  He raised his fists and moved sideways, in case the man tried to get past him to follow Bartek, but he stopped short as he became aware of a stench close by.

  “Priest,” said the soft voice, and Reid felt the energy drain from him. He turned around. Brightwell was inches from his face. Reid opened his mouth to speak, and the blade entered him so swiftly that all that emerged from his throat was a pained grunt. He heard the small man moving into the undergrowth, following Bartek. A second figure accompanied him: a woman with long dark hair.

  “You failed,” said Brightwell.

  He drew Reid to him, embracing him with his left arm even as the knife continued to force its way upward. His lips touched Reid’s. The priest tried to bite him, but Brightwell did not relinquish his hold, and he kissed Reid’s mouth as the priest shuddered and died against him.

  Miss Zahn and the small man returned after half an hour. Reid’s body already lay concealed in the undergrowth.

  “We lost him,” she said.

  “No matter,” said Brightwell. “We have bigger fish to fry.”

  He stared out into the darkness, as though hoping that despite his words, he might yet have the chance to deal with the younger man. Then, when that hope proved misplaced, he walked with the others back to their car and they drove south. They had one more call to make.

  After a time, a thin figure emerged from the woods. Bartek followed the line of the trees until he found at last the splayed figure, cast aside amid stones and rotten wood, and he gathered the body to him and said the prayers for the dead over his departed friend.

  Neddo was seated in the little office at the back of his store. It was almost dawn, and the wind outside rattled the fire escapes. He was hunched over his desk, carefully using a small brush to clean the dust from an ornate bone brooch. The door to his place of work opened, but he did not hear it above the howling of the wind, and so engrossed was he in the delicate task before him that he failed to notice the sound of soft footsteps moving through his store. It was only when the curtain moved, and a shadow fell across him, that he looked up.

  Brightwell stood before him. Behind Brightwell was a woman. Her hair was very dark, her shirt was open to her breasts, and her skin was alive with tattooed eyes.

  “You’ve been telling tales, Mr. Neddo,” said Brightwell. “We have indulged you for too long.”

  He shook his head sadly, and the great wattle of flesh at his neck wobbled and rippled.

  Neddo put the brush down. His spectacles had a second pair of lenses attached to them by a small metal frame, in order to magnify the piece upon which he was working. The lenses distorted Brightwell’s face, making his eyes seem bigger, his mouth fuller, and the red and purple mass above his collar more swollen than ever, so that it appeared to be on the verge of an eruption, a prelude to some great spray of blood and matter that would emerge from deep within Brightwell, burning like acid everything with which it came into contact.

  “I did what was right,” said Neddo. “If only for the first time.”

  “What were you hoping for? Absolution?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “‘On earth they shall never obtain peace and remission of sin,’” Brightwell recited. “‘For they shall not rejoice in their offspring; they shall behold the slaughter of their beloved, shall lament for the destruction of their sons, and shall petition for ever, but shall not obtain mercy and peace.’”

  “I know Enoch as well as you, but I am not like you. I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins . . .”

  Brightwell stepped aside, allowing the woman space to enter. Neddo had heard about her but had never seen her. Without foreknowledge, she might have appeared beautiful to him. Now, facing her at last, he felt only fear, and a terrible tiredness that prevented him from even attempting escape.

  “ . . . the resurrection of the body,” Neddo continued, his speech growing faster, “and life everlasting. Amen.”

  “You should have remained faithful,” said Brightwell.

  “To you? I know what you are. I turned to you out of anger, out of grief. I was mistaken.” Neddo commenced a new prayer: “Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for all my sins, because they have offended thee . . .”

  The woman was examining Neddo’s tools: the scalpels, the small blades. Neddo could hear her working her way through them, but he did not look at her. Instead, he remained intent upon completing his act of contrition, until Brightwell spoke and the words died in Neddo’s mouth.

  “We have found it,” said Brightwell.

  Neddo stopped praying. Even now, with death so close, and his protests of repentance still wet upon his lips, he could not keep the wonder from his voice.

  “Truly?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Where was it? I would like to know.”

  “Sedlec,” said Brightwell. “It never left the precincts of the ossuary.”

  Neddo removed his glasses. He was smiling.

  “All of the searching, and it was there all along.”

  His smile grew sad.

  “I should like to have seen it,” he said, “to have looked upon it after all that I have heard and all that I have read.”

  The woman found a rag. She soaked it with water from a jug, then stepped behind Neddo and forced the material into his mouth. He tried to struggle, pulling at her hands and her hair, but she was too strong. Brightwell joined her, pushing Neddo’s hands down into the chair, his weight and strength keeping the smaller man’s body rigid. The cold of the scalpel touched Neddo’s forehead, and the woman began to cut.

  23

  We flew into Prague via London, arriving late in the afternoon. Stuckler was dead. We had hired a car in New York and driven north to his house after our meeting with Bosworth, but by the time we arrived, the police were already there, and a couple of calls confirmed that the collector and his men had all been killed, and that the great bone statue in his treasury now had a hole in its chest. Angel joined us in Boston shortly after, and we left for Europe that night.

  The temptation was to press on for Sedlec, which lay about forty miles east of the city, but there were preparations to be made first. In addition, we were tired and hungry. We checked into a small, comfortable hotel in an area known as Mala Strana, which seemed to translate as “Lesser Town”, according to the young woman at the reception desk. Close by, a little funicular railway ran up Petrin Hill from a street named Ujezd, along which old trams rattled, their connections occasionally sparking on the overhead lines and leaving a crisp, burned smell in the air. There were cobbles on the streets, and some of the walls were obscured by graffiti. Traces of snow still lingered in sheltered corners, and there was ice on the Vltava River.

  While Louis made some calls, I phoned Rachel and told her where I was. It was late, and I was worried that I might wake her, but I didn’t want to just leave the country without letting her know. Her main concern still seemed to be for the dog, but he was safely housed with a neighbor. Sam was doing fine, and they were all planning on visiting Rachel’s sister the next day. Rachel was quieter, but more like her old self.

  “I always wanted to see Prague,” said Rachel, after a time.

  “I know. Maybe
another time.”

  “Maybe. How long will you stay there?”

  “A couple of days.”

  “Are Angel and Louis with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Funny, isn’t it, that you’d be somewhere like Prague with them instead of me?”

  She didn’t sound like she found it funny at all.

  “It’s nothing personal,” I said. “And we have separate rooms.”

  “I guess that’s reassuring. Perhaps, when you get back, you’ll come here and we can talk.”

  I noticed that she didn’t say when, or if, she was coming home, and I didn’t ask. I would go to Vermont when I returned, and we would talk, and maybe I would drive back to Scarborough alone.

  “That might be an idea,” I said.

  “You didn’t say that you’d like to do it.”

  “I’ve never had anyone tell me that we should talk and then come out of it feeling better than when I went in.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way, does it?”

  “I hope not.”

  “I do love you,” she said. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.”

  “That’s what makes it so hard, isn’t it? But you have to choose what life you’re going to lead. We both do, I guess.”

  Her voice trailed off.

  “I have to go,” I said. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “Fine.”

  “Goodbye, Rachel.”

  “’Bye.”

  The hotel booked us a table at a place called U Modre Kachnicky, or the Blue Duckling, which lay on a discreet side street off Ujezd. The restaurant was heavily decorated with drapes and rugs and old prints, and mirrors gave an impression of spaciousness to the smaller, lower level. The menu contained a great deal of game, the house’s speciality, so we ate duck breast and venison, the various meats resting on sauces made from bilberry, juniper, and madeira rum. We shared a bottle of red Frankovka wine, and ate in relative silence.

  While we were still finishing our main courses, a man entered the restaurant and was directed to our table by the hostess. He looked like the kind of guy who sold stolen cell phones on Broadway: leather jacket, jeans, nasty-colored shirt, and a growth of beard that was frozen somewhere between “forgot to shave” and “hobo.” I wasn’t about to point any of this out to him, though. His jacket could easily have contained two of me inside it, as long as someone found a way to release its current occupier from it without tearing it apart in the process, because the leather seemed to be a little tight on him. I wondered if he was somehow related to the Fulcis from way back, maybe from when man first discovered fire.

  His name was Most, according to Louis, who had apparently dealt with him before. Most was a papka, or father, of one of the Prague criminal brigades, related by marriage to the Vor v Zakone, the “Thief in Law” responsible for all homegrown organized crime. Criminal organizations in the Czech Republic were mainly structured around these brigades, of which there were maybe ten in the entire country. They dealt in racketeering, the smuggling of prostitutes from former Eastern Bloc countries, pandering, automobile theft, drugs, and weapons, but the lines of demarcation between criminal gangs were becoming increasingly unclear as the number of immigrants increased. Ukrainians, Russians, and Chechens were now among the main participants in organized crime in the country, and none of them were reluctant to use violence and brutality against their victims or, inevitably, against one another. Each group had its own areas of specialization. The Russians were more involved in financial crime, while the aggressive Ukrainians favored bank raids and serial robberies. The Bulgarians, who had previously concentrated on erotic clubs, had now branched out into auto theft, drug trafficking, and the supply of Bulgarian prostitutes to brothels. The Italians, less numerous, focused on purchasing real estate; the Chinese favored running casinos and illegal brothels, as well as people smuggling and kidnapping, although such activities tended to remain within their own ethnic groups; and the Albanians had a piece of everything from drugs to debt collection and the trade in leather and gold. The homegrown boys were being forced to battle for their turf against a new breed of immigrant criminal that didn’t play by any of the old rules. Compared to the new arrivals, Most was an old-fashioned specialist. He liked guns and women, possibly both together.

  “Hello,” he said. “Is good?”

  He indicated the deer medallions in bilberry sauce on Angel’s plate, surrounded by a pile of spinach noodles.

  “Yeah,” said Angel. “It’s real good.”

  An enormous finger and thumb plucked one of the remaining medallions from Angel’s plate, and dropped it into a mouth like the Holland Tunnel.

  “Hey man,” said Angel, “I wasn’t —”

  Most gave Angel a look. It wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t even mildly menacing. It was the look a spider might have given a trapped fly if the insect had suddenly produced a small bill of rights and begun complaining loudly about infringements on its liberty.

  “— eating that anyway,” finished Angel, somewhat lamely.

  “Way to stand up for your rights,” I said.

  “Yeah, well I don’t know what you’re looking so smug about,” he said. “You’re sharing the rest of yours to make up for it.”

  The big man wiped his fingers on a napkin, then stretched out a hand to Louis.

  “Most,” he said.

  “Louis,” said Louis, introducing Angel and me in turn.

  “Doesn’t ‘Most’ mean ‘bridge?’” I said. I had seen signs on the streets directing tourists to Karluv Most, the Charles Bridge.

  Most spread his hands in the gesture of delight common to all those who find visitors to their land making an effort. Not only were we buying guns from him, we were learning the language.

  “Bridge, yes, is right,” said Most. He made a balancing gesture with his hands. “I am bridge: bridge between those who have and those who want.”

  “Bridge between fucking Europe and Asia if he fell over,” muttered Angel, under his breath.

  “Excuse?” said Most.

  Angel raised his knife and fork, and grinned through a mouthful of deer.

  “Good meat,” he said. “Hmmmm.”

  Most didn’t look convinced, but he let it slide.

  “We should go,” he said. “Is busy time for me.”

  We paid the check and followed Most out to where a black Mercedes was parked on the corner of Nebovidska and Harantova.

  “Wow,” said Angel. “Gangster car. Very low-key.”

  “You really don’t like him, do you?” I said.

  “I don’t like big men who throw their weight around.”

  I had to admit that Angel was probably right. Most was a bit of a jerk, but we needed what he had to offer.

  “Try to play nice,” I said. “It’s not like you’re adopting him.”

  We got in the car, Louis and Angel taking a seat in back while I sat in the passenger seat beside Most. Louis didn’t look uneasy, despite the fact that he didn’t have a gun. This was purely a business transaction for him. In turn, Most probably knew enough about Louis not to screw him around.

  We drove over the Vltava, past bright tourist restaurants and little local bars, eventually leaving behind a big railway station before heading in the direction of the enormous TV mast that dominated the night sky. We turned down some side streets until we came to a doorway with an illuminated sign above it, depicting a figure of Cupid shooting an arrow through a heart. The club was called Cupid Desire, which made a kind of sense. Most pulled up outside and killed the engine. The entrance to the club was guarded by a barred gate and a bored-looking gatekeeper. The gate was opened, Most handed the car keys to his employee, and then we were descending a flight of steps into a small, grimy bar. Eastern European women, some blond, some dark, all bored and worn down, sat in the murk nursing sodas. Rock music played in the background, and a tall, red-haired woman with tattoos on her arms worked the tiny bar. There were no men in
sight. When Most arrived, she uncapped a Budvar for him, then spoke to him in Czech.

  “You want something to drink?” Most translated.

  “No, we’re good,” said Louis.

  Angel looked around the less-than-glorified bordello.

  “‘Busy time’,” he said. “What the hell is it like when it’s quiet?”

  We followed Most into the heart of the building, past numbered doors that stood open to reveal double beds covered only by pillows and a sheet, the walls decorated with framed posters of vaguely artful nudes, until we came to an office. A man sat on a padded chair, watching three or four monitors that showed the gate to the club, what appeared to be the back alley, two views of the street, and the cash register behind the bar. Most passed him and headed to a steel door at the back of the office. He opened it with a pair of keys, one from his wallet and the other from an alcove near the floor. Inside were cases of alcohol and cartons of cigarettes, but they took up only a fraction of the space. Behind them was a small armory.

  “So,” said Most, “what would you like?”

  Louis had said that we would have no trouble acquiring weapons in Prague, and he was right. The Czech Republic used to be a world leader in the production and export of armaments, but the death of Communism led to a decline in the industry after 1989. There were still about thirty arms manufacturers in the country, though, and the Czechs weren’t as particular about the countries to which they exported arms as they should have been. Zimbabwe had reason to thank the Czechs for breaching the embargo on the export of weapons, as had Sri Lanka and even Yemen, that friend to U.S. interests abroad and the target of a nonbinding UN embargo. There had even been attempts to export arms to Eritrea and the Democratic Republic of Congo, facilitated by export licenses covering non-embargoed countries, which were then used to redirect their cargoes to their true destinations. Some of these weapons were legitimately acquired, some were surplus weapons sold to dealers, but there were others that came through more obscure channels, and I suspected that much of Most’s inventory might well have been acquired in this way. After all, in 1995 the Czech national police’s elite anti-terrorist unit, URNA, was discovered to be selling its own weapons, ammunition, and even Semtex explosive to organized crime elements. Miroslav Kvasnak, the head of URNA, was sacked, but that didn’t stop him from later becoming the deputy director of Czech Army Intelligence, and later the Czech defense attaché to India. If the cops were prepared to sell guns to the very criminals they were supposed to be hunting, then the free market appeared to have arrived with a vengeance. If nothing else, the Czechs, flush with the newfound joys of capitalism, clearly understood how to go about creating an entrepreneurial society.