The Fourth Courier

by Timothy Jay Smith

  Over the sound of the grinding machine, the locksmith wanted to know where he was from, and then if Jay perchance knew his relatives in Chicago. He didn’t, and went to stand by the door to watch shoppers shuffle past. That’s when Jay saw him. The man from the shack with the pinched apple-doll face was coming down the corridor.

  “I’m in a hurry,” he said.

  Billy passed the window.

  “All finished.” With his good hand, the locksmith removed the second copy from the key cutter.

  “How much?”

  The locksmith polished the new keys with a wire brush and handed them to Jay. “Two copies.”

  He turned back to his key cutter just as Billy disappeared around a corner. Jay threw some bills on the counter and dashed after him.

  “Wait!” shouted the locksmith, but Jay was already running. He could keep the change.

  He took the corner too quickly and nearly tripped over an old beggar woman. Billy, halfway down the corridor, opened a door and went inside. Jay dropped coins in the woman’s cup and went after him. He had left the door ajar, and Jay could smell stale beer even before he saw the word BAR stenciled on the window. Behind the counter, Billy was switching on neon beer signs that lit the room with puddles of color. Jay kept walking until he found an escalator that deposited him on the sidewalk outside. He gulped the fresh air hungrily, as Lazarus must have when he emerged from his tomb.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  BASIA HUSARSKA STARED AT THE door. Where was that damn secretary of hers? Kulski had called twenty minutes ago to say he was sending a fax. He had a witness, who saw the murder happen, who could ID the murder … ess. He held the gender tag back a moment, and then trumped his discovery with that revelation. The murderer was a woman. The witness was certain. Dark, sexy, she smoked. There had been a man, too, bearded, the witness never saw his face. It was a break in the case. He needed manpower to cross-check the ballistics fingerprint, assuming it was recovered, with the P-83 prints on file. Of course Basia had to agree. “Whatever it takes,” she told him, and good work on narrowing it down to a woman, that left only half the human race as suspects. He hadn’t laughed at her effort to joke, perhaps because she rarely did. What else did the witness say?

  She lit a cigarette.

  Where was that damn secretary?

  What did the witness see?

  Who was he?

  A gambler, a fraud, a counterfeit, Kulski had told her. Some crazy story of aliases begetting aliases. A spotting scope on a moonlit night her undoing. Her destiny branded by her lighter, revealing her face to a peeper’s secret pleasure. She could have screamed at the injustice of it.

  Where was that damn secretary?

  With the fax.

  With the witness’s statement.

  Witness for the prosecution.

  Damn if Jacek wasn’t delaying the exchange. Fearful of Mladic, he wanted to be able to pretend the fourth courier had crossed on Monday a week later and that’s how he came into possession of the suitcase bomb. They’d sort out some story of what had happened to delay his man. Mladic never met the couriers anyway. Jacek made the pickups and delivered the goods to Basia, who passed them on to Dravko—leaving the guileless couriers in Jacek’s possession to do with them what he wanted, and he had.

  Damn that secretary!

  Damn that witness!

  Where was that damn report?

  Basia flung open her door, startling her secretary, who had raised her hand to knock on it.

  “Give it to me,” she said and grabbed the report from Hanna’s hand.

  Basia slammed her door. Skimmed the statement. Reread his description of her and was relieved it was vague. She couldn’t be identified by it, and even an expedited examination of the bullet would take days. She still had time but she needed a game plan. She was the dealer in a game she had never played and she didn’t know the winning cards. Was Jacek her winner? Or was he the Joker, playing everybody a fool, and mean for the sake of it? Meanness as art. But ready to split a million dollars and say goodbye on a handshake. Only they would be running from Mladic—the king and she his queen—who would have his bomb at any price.

  Basia shuddered.

  She needed a strategy for dealing with Mladic. In Basia’s construct of her island world, he would be an infrequent interruption, coming occasionally and retreating as quickly, leaving behind nothing but stains on her sheets from trying to forestall his faltering heterosexuality. He could masquerade for others, but Basia had known him for too long. When the stunts he wanted her to perform turned demeaning, she recognized it for what it was: degradation of women as permission to desire men. Dravko’s iconoclastic world was a narcissistic one. During his impromptu visits, Basia would play her roles and do her tricks, and when he left, she would gladly return to the beach alone.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  THE LOCKSMITH SMILED WHEN JAY entered his small shop. “I knew you’d be back,” he said. “You ran out of here so fast.” He wiped shoe polish from his hands and picked a key off the lip of his cash register. “Your original.”

  He took the key. “Thanks.”

  “I saw you running after Billy.”

  “Billy?”

  “That’s what he calls himself. Fucking Russian. Illych is probably his real name. He did this to me.” The locksmith brandished his injured arm.

  “He broke it?”

  “Twisted it hard enough. I wouldn’t chase after Billy unless he’s your friend.”

  “I mistook him for someone else.”

  “That’s not a face you easily mistake. Looks like your shoes could use a shine.”

  Jay looked down. “You’re right.” He stepped up to a raised seat and firmly squared his feet on the brass footrests. “Where did you learn English?”

  “I spent ten years in New York working for hotels.”

  “Why’d you come back?”

  “You wanna know the truth? Every boss I had wasn’t white and I got tired of working for ’em. All they wanted to do was kick my ass and tell Polish jokes. Fucking Polish jokes, like I couldn’t be telling jokes about them all day long.”

  “Sounds like here you might be working for Billy.”

  “Fuck that. I got a small shop but it’s mine, no one to tell me what’s what. These guys think they can come here and take over. It’s a crazy world when you gotta pay the same people not to hurt you who will if you don’t.”

  “Did you go to the police?”

  “What, and have my other arm broken? This time, the ugly man wins.”

  “Billy?”

  The locksmith nodded. He couldn’t snap the polish cloth because of his injured arm, but almost as nimbly gave a final burnish to Jay’s shoes, his good elbow jabbing out this way and that. “Finished,” he said, and tapped his sole.

  Jay stepped down and paid him.

  “Don’t be going to Billy’s Bar,” the man warned him again.

  At that moment, Basia Husarska passed his shop. The locksmith snorted scornfully. “That’s where she’s going.”

  “Billy’s Bar?”

  “I’ve seen her a few times. She’s why I don’t go to the police.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She’s police. Everybody around here knows that.”

  “Maybe she’s working undercover.”

  “Sure, like the Pope is Jewish. I seen her walkin’ outta here all times of day, high as a kite.”

  Jay followed the locksmith’s advice and stayed away from Billy’s Bar. If Basia were in it, she could be there for lots of reasons, and none included him. He had his doubts if any of them included police work, either. He lingered in the train station, hoping to catch a glimpse of her coming out of its catacombs. For nearly an hour he feigned an interest in magazines he couldn’t read and watched updates on the arrival/departure board. Not wanting to draw any more attention to himself than he might already have, he left the central station.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THE RECEPTIONIST ADMITTE
D JAY TO the embassy’s secured bowels. He had an overload of information to process with insufficient caffeine in his system and headed for the coffeemaker. He poured a cup and looked both ways before exiting the nook, fortunately so because Libby Barnstable came slinking around the corner looking anywhere but where she was going. Only his quick sidestep saved them from another collision.

  She gave him a petrified look. “Have you seen the visa line?”

  He had not; the line formed at the side entrance. “I came through the front gate,” he said.

  “You’re undone there.”

  “What?”

  “An epaulette, it’s unbuttoned.”

  She craned her neck to get a look at it.

  “Here, let me help,” Jay said, setting his coffee down so he could fix the button on her shoulder.

  Libby seemed to tremble. “Thanks. Oh, I know I’m being … I don’t know, but nothing’s going right and now this visa line! What could so many people want?” She reached for the coffee pot.

  “Visas?” Jay suggested.

  “I know! But so many? What do they think, America is empty?”

  “Or maybe rich enough to house a few more. How about lunch today?” Libby looked panicked.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Jay said. “There’s something I wanted to ask you about.”

  “About work?” she asked.

  “In a way, yes.” Jay tossed a quarter into the tip can with a lonely rattle.

  “The cleaning lady just collected it,” she told him.

  “Noon?” Jay said. Libby froze.

  “Lunch, at noon?” Jay repeated. “I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  WITHIN FIVE MINUTES, KURT SHOWED up in his doorway. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good, I’m glad you’re here,” Jay said. “I have breaking news.”

  “I’ve had a busy twenty-four hours, too.”

  “Translated, what does that mean?”

  Kurt pulled up a chair. “I got into Mladic’s room.”

  “How the fuck did you manage that?”

  “That’s exactly how I did it. By fucking him. Not technically, but in a manner of speaking.”

  “Do I want to hear the details?”

  Kurt laughed. “You sure do!”

  The CIA man explained how he staked out Mladic’s lodge and followed him to the baths. “While we were undressing, I made sure he got a good look at all of me,” Kurt continued. “He was totally dazzled by my black skin.”

  “By only your skin?”

  “We did a little playing around and were ready to get to some serious sex when I suggested we go someplace more private. He thought I meant my room, but the general’s uniform was in his room.”

  “Why was the uniform important?”

  Kurt smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  By the time Kurt concluded the description of his escapade—towering over Mladic in his formal uniform while he scampered around on the floor pathetically pretending to suck himself—Jay couldn’t stop laughing. “That was brilliant! Good thing you knew about the mirrors.”

  “Good thing I knew about the ego. He’s a narcissistic fuck.”

  “The party for Mladic at the ambassador’s tonight might be a tad awkward. You’re supposed to be part of the embassy team.”

  Kurt grinned. “I will be.”

  “After what happened?”

  “Mladic loves me, and besides, I have a plan. Let’s go talk to Carl. He has to buy into it. But tell me your breaking news first.”

  Jay reported on his wake-up call from Ann Rewls that woke him and Lilka, which he described only enough to suggest that any interruption was unwelcome. Then breakfast, also interrupted by a revelatory phone call: their star witness, Tommy Tomski, had returned to the houseboat. He was on the lam from three wives and a gambling habit, and telling an interesting story about witnessing a woman knock off the fourth courier. He’d watched through a spotting scope at midnight with only passing headlights for illumination. The woman looked dark and sexy to him, and he was hopeful he could ID her if they intervened in his legal problems back home. Detective Kulski had joked that even Husarska fit the woman’s description.

  “Does she?” Kurt asked.

  “So does my ex-wife,” Jay replied.

  “Doesn’t the P-83 point you back at the police?”

  “It would, except for the fact that you can buy a P-83 at the Praga market if you flash something other than Monopoly money. Kulski doesn’t like to admit it, it’s a pride thing, but he’s said as much. It’ll be a different story if we get a ballistics match. By the way, Husarska nixed sending the bullet to headquarters for testing.”

  “Did she give a reason?”

  “That we’d only lose two days if the local lab can’t handle it. She’s right, and besides, the bullet is so mangled we’ll be lucky if we can match the make.”

  “Did Tommy see the guy?”

  “A stocky guy with a beard.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “Especially in Poland, but it’s still more than we’ve had. Let’s go see the ambassador. You can tell me your plan for tonight on the way.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “YOU DID WHAT?” AMBASSADOR LERNER demanded, pacing behind his desk and coming about at the flag. “Have you any idea of the repercussions this could have on our foreign policy?” He looked at Kurt as he might a lunatic. “Now you want me to do what?”

  “Introduce me,” said Kurt. “Give me your blessing, and make sure that I have plenty of time to talk up the general.”

  “Damn it, Crawford! It’s one thing to be … to be …”

  “Gay, sir?”

  “Your being gay is one thing, but to mislead a foreign diplomat—”

  “General Mladic has no doubt that I am gay, sir, and no complaints.”

  “To search his room by … by …”

  “Seducing him, sir?”

  “By seducing him, and for Christ’s sake quit calling me sir!” Carl sank into his chair. “So did misleading your way into a diplomat’s room result in anything other than risking an international crisis if any of this is leaked?”

  “I found a suitcase,” Kurt replied.

  “In a hotel room? Now you have my undivided attention.”

  “It’s an unusual suitcase. It’s new but looks like an old steamer trunk with leather belts and brass finishes.”

  “I’m waiting for the punch line.”

  “No punch line, except he seemed to be hiding it in the closet, and it’s heavy. He hasn’t unpacked it.”

  “So what do you guess is in it?”

  “A bomb or a million dollars.”

  “For Christ’s sake! It could be his dirty clothes,” the ambassador said.

  “Probably the money,” Jay said. “If Mladic had the bomb, like we’ve said before, he wouldn’t be sticking around.”

  “He might, now that he’s apparently fallen in love with Kurt. Let’s go over your cockamamie plan.”

  They did, and Kurt rebutted every what-if scenario they threw at him until they finally agreed that his plan might work. Carl would alert Mrs. Ambassador to a salient change or two in Kurt’s biography—such as now having a wife—and otherwise they were set. Nothing in the ambassador’s handshake, however, evinced confidence when they left his office.

  Walking back to their offices, Jay said, “You know, your paranoia is infectious. Last night Lilka described a suitcase she thinks Jacek stole. It sounds like a miniature steamer trunk, too.”

  “It might not be coincidental. Making a switch using identical suitcases is Spycraft 101. No one will notice that an exchange has been made unless they actually see it happen.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Jacek Rypinski showed up on a watch list five years ago at age thirty-one and married. Our file doesn’t show a divorce.”

  “Then your file is wrong.”

  “I’m only reporting.”

/>   “Go ahead and report.”

  “He’d been stopped a couple of times for possession of marijuana and was later busted for dealing. That put him on Langley’s list.”

  “Why? You’re spooks, not policemen.”

  “Drugs lead you to bad guys, and those are the guys we try to ferret out before they end up running whole countries. When we learned he owned a couple of trucks, right there that made it possible for him to graduate to the bigger leagues like weapons smuggling. Or nuclear smuggling.”

  “As far as I know, he has one van, not a couple of trucks, and zero current wife,” Jay replied. “Are you still watching him?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Who would know if he graduated to bigger leagues?”

  “Internal Affairs,” Kurt answered.

  “You mean Minister Brzeski?”

  “And Basia Husarska in Organized Crime.”

  “Are you suggesting there’s a connection between Husarska and Jacek?”

  “I’m just putting it out there to consider.”

  “That’s pretty far-fetched when we don’t really know if the two suitcases are close matches,” Jay pointed out.

  “Can you get inside Rypinski’s apartment and take a picture?”

  “Lilka isn’t going to invite me home with Jacek around. Can you get back into Mladic’s room?”

  “Let’s see what fallout there is from the ambassador’s party.”

  They arrived at Jay’s office.

  “Jay, I know you’re fond of Lilka—”

  “I don’t need the lecture.”

  “I think you do. You have to be open to the possibility that if Jacek is involved in your case, Lilka might be, too.”

  “She’s not.”

  “Too much is at stake if she is and you’re not paying attention. Husarska knew about your arrival. It would be easy enough to stage a missing suitcase, a chance meeting with a beautiful woman, and a love affair intended to derail—or at least spy on—an investigation. She has a lot of resources, spies—and, reliable rumors have it, a whole library of incriminating tapes she uses to call in chits. Apparently it’s pretty extensive.”

  They arrived at Jay’s office.

  “Langley wants to isolate Mladic, stop the weapons flow, and put another foot on the neck of the mafias. They’re the real security risk in this region. They could easily destabilize the whole democratic movement.”