The Woman From Prague

by Rob Hart

  He doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that I know this. He nods and speaks in a hazy mumble. “Dosti. Pretty.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I give message.”

  “What kind of message?”

  He looks around. Doesn’t say anything. I take the roll of money Kaz gave me from my pocket—a little annoyed I’m now spending my own money—and break it in half. More than I want to pay on something like this, but I’ve got plenty more stacks from Kaz stashed away.

  And it works. His eyes go wide and I think there’s a tear forming in one of them as he snatches the wad from my hand. He proceeds to count the money out, giggling as he does it.

  “Tell me the message.”

  “Charles Bridge at four.”

  “Forget that you saw me,” I tell the man, but it’s like he barely hears me. He’s counting the money again. That plus the vodka, I bet he’s going to forget anyway.

  I head back toward the apartment, which is near enough to the Charles Bridge. It’s probably one of the bigger landmarks in the city. Prague Castle complex and the Kafka Museum are on the other side. I always see signs for the Kafka Museum, but I’ve never been able to find it.

  It’s five now. I’m betting four means in the a.m.

  So. Now I have plans for tonight.

  This is suddenly starting to suck less. At least there’s a path to a resolution.

  As I’m turning the corner, I see a man with a top knot and some patchy facial hair. He seems to be looking at me but quickly turns and holds up his cell phone to his ear.

  It takes me a couple of minutes to realize why I recognize him.

  That guy was going into the coffee shop as I was coming out, back on Římská, and here he is, half a city away, trying real hard to not look suspicious.

  I turn, hoping he won’t notice I noticed him.

  He stays where he is on the other end of the block, urgently “talking” into his phone while intensely studying a brick wall. I pull out my phone and look at it so I have an excuse to be standing still, try to get a good look at him without making it obvious. He could be another skinny goofball with a stupid haircut—the top knot is all the rage right now, like suddenly we live in feudal Japan—but after a moment, I’m sure of it.

  Same guy from the coffee place.

  He’s been following me for as long as I’ve been following Samantha. When I broke off, he stuck with me. The fact that he hasn’t engaged makes me think he’s supposed to keep an eye on me. I am not a huge fan of this. I could run over and beat the living fuck out of him until he tells me who he is and what he wants. It comes with the added bonus of working through some of the frustration I’m feeling right now. But I’m committed to living a wiser, less violent lifestyle.

  So, first, I want to see if he keeps following me, rather than go after the homeless guy. There’s a small bookstore-café combo nearby. I head for that, trying really hard not to glance behind me, but as I turn a corner, I manage to sneak a look back, and he’s there, not too far away.

  This is weird. I’ve gotten myself into some tight spots before. I’ve had guns pointed in my face. But I’ve always managed to extricate myself. Not always with an abundance of grace, but I’ve managed.

  This is a whole different kind of game.

  I’ve been chased. I’ve never been hunted.

  The bookstore is crowded, which bodes well, and even better, there’s an exit through the café that you can’t see from the entrance. There’s no way he can cover both, so if he really wants to keep an eye on me, he’ll have to follow me inside. I stroll the shelves and after a few minutes of browsing, find something pretty cool: a story by Raymond Chandler where the prose is in English on the left, with a Czech translation on the right. It’s a slim volume, pocket-sized, and I wish I’d found this two months ago. Maybe it would have helped with my Czech.

  As I move to the counter to pay, I see Top Knot looking at a spinning rack of tourist books by the front entrance, making it a point to not look at me. After I’ve paid, I walk outside, making sure not to get too close. I try to figure out my next step because I would like very much for him not be following me anymore.

  One of Crash Hop’s buildings is only a few blocks away. That could work; I can get in and he can’t.

  When I get there, I take the little fob out of my pocket and press it to the reader on the outside of the door. The lock clicks and I push it open. The hallway is long and narrow and smells like boiling meat, the subway tile lining the walls dirty and scuffed. There are four apartments on each floor. I think the Crash Hop apartment is on the third floor but I’m pretty sure it’s occupied.

  At the far end of the hallway, opposite the staircase, is a rounded mirror, positioned so you can see the hallway as you’re coming down the stairs. I run over and crouch on the first landing and watch the tiny, distorted figure of Top Knot come up to the door and try to open it. I can just wait until he leaves.

  But he’s not going anywhere.

  I can’t tell what he’s doing, but after a few moments, I hear the click of the door opening. I turn and rush up the stairs, trying my best to be quiet. The building is only five floors and the door leading to the roof doesn’t have an alarm. Outside, it’s cold, and there’s a heavy blanket of gray thrown across the sky.

  This works. I can climb across to the next building, take that staircase down, and be gone before he knows where I went. I’m feeling pretty good about it until I find the roof of the next building is about ten feet shorter than the one I’m on, and six feet across a chasm that drops straight down to the street below.

  Ah fuck.

  I have to figure Top Knot is on his way up here. Physics seems to be on my side since the roof is lower and therefore friendly to gravity, so before I have a chance to really mull over how stupid this is, I run and jump, the fear center of my brain shrieking at me.

  My stomach tilts. Then I land hard on the next building, coming down on my knee. I fold and roll to disperse the impact, scramble around a large brick chimney. My heart is slamming into my chest, and over the sound of that I hear the door opening on the other roof.

  I wonder if he thinks I’m dumb enough to make the jump.

  There’s a lot of scratching. He’s walking around, exploring the roof. His footsteps draw closer, toward the edge closest to me. He stops there. I can feel it. He’s looking this way.

  After a few minutes, more scratching, and the door slams again.

  When I look around the chimney, this roof and the building next door are empty. Just me up here.

  This is an interesting development.

  It could be Roman, sending someone to keep tabs on me. That would almost be preferable because then at least I’d know who I was dealing with.

  Otherwise, what the fuck?

  I crawl on my hands and knees over to the edge, to look down and see what it was that I missed. My head spins. It is a long way to the ground. I climb to my feet and look around. Bells clang somewhere in the distance. Orange roofs dusted with snow stretch to the horizon and it is beautiful up here and I cannot wait to leave.

  I settle on an apartment nearby that I know is empty. It’s on the smaller end, and very European—compact, modular, everything straight lines and with the feeling it’s slightly flimsy. There are neon lights built into the tub, which makes me not want to use the tub, because I’m worried about what else it’s been used for. I should tell Kaz about this place, though. He’d get a kick out of it.

  I polish off the mediocre pad thai I picked up on the way over and call up the Charles Bridge on Google Maps on my laptop. There’s not much to see. It’s a bridge. I tell myself I’m going to come up with a plan, but there’s not much to plan. It’s a smash-and-grab job. I scare the shit out of the girl, get her to give me the thing, run like fuck in the other direction, hope Roman keeps his end of the bargain by returning my passport and disappearing from my life forever.

  The idea of scaring Samantha makes me queasy. I’m not a
bully. I’m the guy who stomps the ever-loving shit out of bullies.

  But I remind myself of what Roman’s implied: what she’s doing is very bad.

  Not that it’s a huge comfort, because for all I know he could be full of shit.

  Now that I’ve got a little distance from the nonsense this morning, I remember the little story Roman told and run a search for golems. Mostly out of curiosity because, of course, it turns up nothing of use. There is a famous work called The Golem of Prague, published by Judah Loew ben Bezalel, a rabbi from the sixteenth century. The golem was originally created to protect the Jewish ghettos from anti-Semitic attacks.

  I like that interpretation better than Roman’s.

  Next up, I search for the address of the U.S. Embassy. I’d like to at least know where it is, in case this goes south. That’s the search that makes me get up from the computer and go to the window and stare out it like there’s some kind of answer out there in the sky and snow. But there’s not.

  Every single fiber of my being is telling me to run.

  That it’s a bluff, it has to be.

  Nothing is worth what Roman threatened.

  But instead of running, I sit and wait.

  The alarm rings and I nearly bash my head on the ceiling as I jerk myself into a sitting position. Loft beds are dumb.

  I check the clock to make sure of the time: 3 a.m. More than enough time for me to get dressed and maybe grab a cup of coffee somewhere—I have no idea what’s even open right now—and make it to the Charles Bridge with about twenty minutes to spare.

  On the way out, I find a Cossack hat someone left behind on the coat rack. I put it on and undo the big floppy ears and let them fall down at the side of my head. Most people are going to think I look like an asshole, but the hat is very warm, and I also don’t care what most people think. Anyway, something that obscures my identity a bit is nice.

  I dump my wallet and phone and keep the key fob and a few thousand dollars in crown. I figure it’s better to not have identifying papers on me. Which might be a mistake, but I guess I’ll find out.

  Outside, I’m surprised to find there are still people milling about on the streets, despite the brutality of the wind. My head feels full of sticks and mud, so when I come across a late night store selling snacks and coffee, I am very pleased. I get the largest cup of Americano they’ve got and head onto the darkened streets, which get emptier and emptier as I make it toward the bridge. I step off to the side where I can finish my coffee in a pool of shadow, the massive complex of Prague Castle lit up gold and looming across the water.

  No stars in the sky. Too many clouds.

  As I watch the castle and the sky, my adrenaline revs up, making me feel light-headed.

  This is stupid.

  But it also feels comfortable. A little bit of my old life gleaming through the cracks.

  Point me at a job, I get it done.

  It makes me wonder: What if I did try to do this full time?

  Not the spy thing. That’s ridiculous. But the private investigator thing.

  When you spend a lot of your time cleaning stray hairs off toilet seats and laundering used towels, you can’t do much but think about a life where you’re not doing those things.

  Following people, finding stuff, getting information, it’s something I have a knack for. I never really considered doing it above-board, like a real grown-up job. But eventually I’m going to need one of those. I don’t want to reach the end of my life and find I’m living in a trash can.

  More than that, I don’t want to reach the end of my life and feel like I didn’t actually live a life. Because what I’m doing right now isn’t a life. It’s the bare minimum of what’s required to keep food in my stomach.

  I wonder what private investigators actually make.

  This is not a good time for introspection. There’s work to be done.

  A few minutes from four, I toss my cup into a trash bin and head onto the bridge. It’s a hell of a thing to see during the day—crowded and lined with statues, it looks like the kind of place two warriors would do choreographed battle at the end of a Kung Fu movie. Specifically, a wuxia movie, where people float in the air and leap off blades of grass.

  Right now, it’s empty and slightly foreboding. Like Times Square emptied out. It doesn’t look right.

  The statues, all of them religious figures, take on a sinister hue in the dark. As I walk past them, it feels like they’re accusing me of something, but isn’t that the point of religious imagery?

  About halfway down the bridge, there’s a flash of movement but it’s hard to make out in the darkness. I head for that. Try to calm the thunderstorm of fear and anticipation inside me. Focus on the task.

  A few dozen yards out, I can see Samantha, wearing a long tan coat bunched up against the cold. Her blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. White fuzzy earmuffs. She’s standing under a statue of a cloaked figure with a large, gold cross.

  There’s about an inch of snow on the ground now, more floating in the air around me, and there’s someone else on the bridge, coming from the other side.

  Perfect. Maybe that’s the person making the handoff to Samantha.

  She’s looking in the direction of the other person. There’s something about her posture that feels a little off.

  Like she’s tense. Scared?

  As I get closer, a couple of things happen at once.

  Samantha’s head snaps around and she looks at me and says, “Motherfucker...”

  She’s angry—and looks very much like she recognizes me—which should give me pause, except the other person has broken into a run. From further away, I thought he was wearing a hat, but it’s actually a balaclava, obscuring everything but his eyes.

  That plus the dark clothes paints a not-so-great picture.

  The picture gets a little weirder when I realize he’s carrying a shovel.

  The man raises it, holding it like a baseball bat, aiming it for Samantha, and I yell, “Hey!”

  Samantha ducks away and I dig in, slipping a little on the snow and then running hard at the guy with the shovel. It’s all instinct and muscle memory. I know this isn’t the gig, but I’m not going to stand by and watch her get hurt.

  I brush past Samantha, making brief contact with her, and collide with the guy hard, moving inside his swing so he can’t hit me with the shovel. We tumble to the cobblestones. The Cossack hat goes flying off my head.

  We both get to our feet at the same time. The man takes a little hop forward and reaches back to swing the shovel, so I move close in again, close the arc so he can’t get enough power behind it.

  Except it’s a feint.

  He jabs me hard in the face with the handle and my vision explodes. So fast I barely see it happen. It’s not even a full-on blow, but it’s the hardest I’ve ever been hit.

  The pain is immense.

  Pressure point? Broken bone?

  I take a few steps back, try to put some distance between us, but the man is behind me. Like he snapped his fingers and teleported. He slams the shovel into the back of my knee and I go down hard. The shovel then smacks me in the back of the head, sending my forehead into the stone wall separating us from the Vltava.

  Fists plow into my body like a torrential downpour and my vision swims as I fall to the ground and the man is lifting the shovel over his head, the pointed end of the spade aimed at me. It’s sharpened like an animal’s tooth.

  I throw my foot out, get a lucky shot, and nail him in the kneecap. Something crunches and I crab-walk backward, climb to my feet, preparing for whatever’s next, knowing deep down that there’s not much I can do.

  I’ve been in a lot of fights.

  Some I won, some I lost, but I always walked away.

  This might be the one where I don’t.

  That thought is confirmed when the man comes at me and I throw a serious haymaker, putting my entire weight and hopes and dreams into the point of my fist, but it kisses cold air, like h
e was never in front of me, and suddenly his hand is on my wrist and he twists my arm behind me at such an angle that he can move me like a marionette.

  He yells at me in Russian.

  Except, it doesn’t sound like a he.

  It’s a thick, heavy voice, but it sounds like a woman. Which makes me hesitate, because my brain is hard-wired to not hit women.

  Turns out hesitating is a very bad idea, because she jabs me once, twice, three times in the side of the head, and yells at me again in Russian. She pushes me against the wall and places a knee in my back, so I’m looking out over the black water of the river.

  “What?” I ask, blubbering, tasting blood in my mouth.

  “Who are you?” she asks.

  She flips me around and pushes the wooden handle of the shovel into my throat, my back arched over the stone wall, and I can’t breathe.

  “Who are you?” she asks, letting off the pressure on the handle a little.

  “What…”

  I’m pretty sure this is it. The moment I die.

  Just before dawn, alone on a bridge in a beautiful city.

  As my vision is going wonky, there’s an explosion of light and someone yells, “Policie!”

  The woman looks to the side and I seize on the moment of distraction, try to push her away and fail, but manage to hook a finger into the balaclava and rip it free. I get a look at her face. She’s old. Well past fifty. Sharp and angular and there’s an angry scar crossing her forehead and running down her cheek, like someone tried to carve her face off.

  The scariest part is her eyes. They’re chips of obsidian pressed into her face, small and hard and furious. She is, without a doubt, someone who is prepared to kill these cops, and me, and anyone else she feels like she needs to.

  Well, fuck that.

  I get my foot into her sternum and shove off hard enough to send me over the wall and tumbling toward the lapping waters of the Vltava.

  There are two good things about falling into a river in the middle of the winter when you’ve been beaten nearly to death.

  One is that the cold hits you like a bolt of electricity, snapping every muscle to attention and waking you right the hell up.