The Hungarian

by Victoria Dougherty

  “So what did he do, the man who owns this place?” Adonia not only chewed with her mouth wide open, but spoke with it full. “You know, why’d he go to prison?”

  “He didn’t,” Beryx enlightened her. “Socrates was a teacher who was poisoned in his prison cell a long, long time ago.”

  Adonia grimaced. “They name a restaurant after a guy who was poisoned? That doesn’t seem very smart.” It was only once Beryx heard her say a full sentence—without food in her mouth—that he realized she was no girl from a village. Adonia spoke a lower class Greek dialect direct from the Athens tenement slums.

  “Ew, poison,” she shuddered, looking down at her oily chicken.

  Beryx smirked and ran his crooked index finger from her elbow to her wrist, tracing it all the way down to the tip of her thumb.

  “Are you saying you have no craving for dessert?”

  Adonia knocked back her glass of Retsina and slammed the empty pewter goblet onto the table with gusto.

  “Hell, yes, I want dessert. I want baklava and strong coffee.”

  She laughed and tipped her ear to her shoulder, kicking off her sandal before wedging her foot between his legs and tickling his groin with her big toe.

  “Oh, and I want that kind of dessert, too. I’ve just got to go take a piss first.”

  Eying her ample bottom as she wiggled away from the table, Beryx believed in that moment that if he and Adonia had become acquainted under different circumstances—perhaps at a grocery store or in a doctor’s waiting room—without her madam as a middleman, that she would’ve been with him tonight regardless of whether he was paying her. He could tell by the easy flow of their conversation, and by the way she looked to him for explanations about the simplest things. She wanted him, he was convinced, more than she’d ever wanted any man and would do to him things she’d never done—even to her best customers.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The waiter bowed respectfully and presented Beryx with the key to an airport locker. “The young woman asked me to give this to you. She said not to worry, that a man with a mustache had taken care of her, and that you would know what she meant.”

  Beryx sighed, his fantasies shattered like the carafe of red wine he’d smashed against Etor’s bedroom wall. It was time to go back to work, and Nicolai Ceausescu didn’t pay him to have romantic encounters in foreign cities. He knew exactly what he would find in the airport locker: A photograph of his next mark, a schedule of his usual comings and goings, and a deadline.

  The Hungarian paid the check, leaving a little extra for the waiter, and hailed a cab to the airport. Perhaps on his next visit he could ask for Adonia again, and they could finally consummate their passion.

  Chapter 9

  Moscow

  The chilly, miserable rain that had descended on Moscow in the previous weeks had finally lifted, paving the way for Kosmo Zablov’s favorite time of year in his birth city. It was a shame he couldn’t enjoy it. Not when so much hung in the balance and Pasha Tarkhan was still walking around free to attend lavish functions and accept glorious promotions. Ones that rightfully belonged to Zablov, at least in terms of seniority, and were now looking blurry and distant, like the fine print he could no longer read without a magnifier. What was worse, there seemed to have been a shift in temperament that had occurred at work while he was visiting with the Ceausescus in Romania and plotting the next phase of his career.

  For starters, upon Zablov’s return to Moscow from Bucharest, he knew immediately that his office at KGB headquarters had been searched. He’d sprayed his files ever so lightly with fig leaf oil, so that finger smudges would appear on the manhandled pages within a few hours of contact. An ingenious solution for when he was away on short trips, the sensitive oil would evaporate automatically within a few days if it had never been interfered with.

  The search in and of itself was troubling, although it didn’t necessarily have to mean anything, Zablov reminded himself. Searches were fairly routine, meant to keep people on their toes as much as actually uncover anything. Unless, of course, they wanted to uncover something, but that was another issue entirely. KGB bosses were notorious for “discovering” so-called treachery when they wanted to be rid of someone for one reason or another.

  At that thought, Zablov’s stomach dropped. He began cataloging all of his more recent encounters at headquarters, desperately trying to figure out if he’d tripped over any mines that could’ve been laid for him by a jealous colleague, or a superior with a grudge. Nothing. His only real interactions had been with Pasha Tarkhan in Prague and the Ceausescus in Bucharest. Naturally, he’d made his share of enemies, but Zablov had always been sure to destroy any possible detractors fully.

  “When there’s a snake in your bed,” he murmured. “You cut off its head to kill it, not its tail to teach it a lesson.”

  Zablov’s schedule over the past year had been erratic and international, too, hardly giving him time to cultivate the kinds of resentments needed for a real ambush. But then again, Kosmo Zablov understood that no one ever needed a reason other than self-interest in Russia. What, besides being younger, smarter and more talented, had Pasha Tarkhan ever done to him?

  Zablov’s fear turned to outright terror when Anya, his secretary, informed him that General Pushkin wanted to see him at once.

  “Damn Anya,” he cursed after she closed his door—always so noiselessly—and returned to her desk. She seemed the slightest bit happy whenever there was any possibility of bad news for her boss. And the redhead had appeared especially pleased when she spoke the words “at once” to him. Her top lip had curled, and her sleepy eyelids quivered so that she almost looked like she was batting her eyelashes.

  “Good morning, General. How was your holiday? I hear the Urals are lovely this time of year,” Zablov practiced, before opening his door and marching by Anya’s desk and toward the narrow corridor that lead to his commander’s corner office.

  The general was always angry when coming back from a holiday with his family. He much preferred the company of his mistresses to the whining of the three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter he’d had with his new wife.

  Zablov hated seeing him on the day after his vacation.

  When he caught eyes with the general’s secretaries, his right pinky started to tremble. They both stood, rushing to usher him in without exchanging a single pleasantry. Zablov’s bladder contracted, and he came within a hair of wetting his pants—an involuntary act that would have communicated only one message to his superior: GUILTY.

  “Good Morning, General. How was your—?”

  “Sit down,” General Pushkin ordered, and Zablov obeyed. The general’s cheeks were flushed and his gray eyes had dark, blue rings underneath. He folded his hands in front of him and began to pace, as if he were dictating a letter.

  “Several days ago, a woman named Bick, an architect by trade, was captured trying to enter Germany by crossing the Czech border.” The general paused briefly, taking note of the look on Zablov’s face. He was a master at detecting that tiny glimmer of recognition that registered in the eyes of even the best spy when confronted with a familiar name.

  “After a couple of hours of questioning, this architect revealed that she allowed the house she occupied in Prague to be used as a safe house—mostly for the Americans. Over the next few days, she continued to be generous with her knowledge. Much of it meant little, or was a moot point by now, but she was able to offer one bit of tantalizing information.”

  Zablov did his best not to move a muscle. He knew nothing of this architect woman, nor of the safe house in question, but the very coincidence that he’d been in Prague recently was enough to make him suspect.

  “This architect was able to describe a man we all know quite well. Handsome, in an imperious sort of way. Dark, cultured, well-dressed. These are her words. And quite a lover, she admitted.”

  Bick, Zablov said to himself, or had the general said Buck? Several women he’d had came to mind, but no. No architect, c
ertainly not in a house in Prague! Bick, Beck, Buck, Bock. Nothing. Of course any woman could lie about her name. But good God, whoever she was, she was describing him to a T.

  “A man who she claimed had visited her safe house at least twice very recently,” the general hissed. “A man thought in most of our circles to be beyond reproach.”

  Pretending to adjust his zipper, Zablov squeezed the tip of his penis to block any potential urine flow. He knew he should remain silent, but despite his experience and his training, everything inside him wanted to stand up and scream, “It’s not me! For God’s sake, it’s not me. I’ve been framed!”

  “Architects have sharp memories attuned to detail, wouldn’t you say?” the general asked him. “And our lovely little friend was exceptionally detailed in her description. Unmistakably so.”

  “Could she be a plant?” Zablov inquired, maintaining his regular tone, though softer than usual.

  “No,” the general whispered.

  “Perhaps if my man Jarko could question her? There’s no one better at what he does.”

  General Pushkin shook his head with a measure of genuine sadness. For once, he didn’t seem to be enjoying his work.

  “The architect is dead. Furthermore, her legitimacy has been established.”

  Zablov swallowed and nodded.

  “What I need from you is something else. I need what you allege to be best at—gathering information.”

  The word “allege” was not lost on Zablov. He’d felt the general’s scrutiny before—during one of his most recent “improvisations” when he’d engineered the assassination of a Canadian operative. An annoying, but nonetheless perceptive would-be intellectual had taken the fall for Zablov’s failure to detect an American attempt—no, success—at infiltrating their Canadian operation. The young man had warned Zablov that there was something amiss, but the Russian agent had been too busy fucking the undercover American to pay attention.

  “Anything,” Zablov sighed. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

  What the general said next nearly caused Kosmo Zablov to void both his bowels and his bladder.

  “Then find Pasha Tarkhan and bring him to me.”

  Chapter 10

  Moscow

  Lily and Fedot had started the afternoon by walking around Red Square admiring buildings that looked like elaborate marzipan cakes, but it was so cold that she had to duck into a store called “Textiles” and buy the first coat she could find. It was, quite possibly, the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. Besides keeping her warm, the coat did serve a purpose, though. It made her fit in better. Lily didn’t know if that was good or bad for sure, but Fedot seemed impressed.

  Near the Bolshoi Theater, a tiny woman with a faint mustache was standing, hands stiffly at her sides, singing an operetta. Her eyes followed Lily as her voice swelled, and Lily wondered, for a moment, if the singer was yet another finger of the Soviet police state, or if she was simply intrigued by a foreign-looking woman in a communist-issue coat.

  “Dunayevsky,” Fedot said, smiling.

  “Who?”

  “The song,” he continued. “It’s by Dunayevsky. He died last year. A great Soviet.”

  And so the day went.

  By dinnertime Lily was dying to get away from the little Russian’s constant stream of idioms and helpful observations, but Fedot goaded her into the hotel bar for “just one da-rink.”

  He ordered four vodkas right off the bat.

  “In case our bartender is too busy,” he said, although they were his only patrons.

  The bar itself was a study in assorted reds: blood-red, royal-red, fire-engine-red, claret, ruby, scarlet, crimson, burgundy, cherry. Much like Lily’s suite, it was a mish-mash of old and new, cheap and luxurious. The chairs lining the bar counter were antique and wooden—their cushions covered in an ancient velvet that had worn into the shape of the average buttocks that had graced them. The bar counter, clearly a replacement, was fashioned out of dented metal and what looked like press-in-place tiles. A sickly shade of cement-gray, it was the only thing in the whole room that was conspicuously not red.

  “Fedot,” Lily said, sipping from her shot glass. “What do you know about this Tarkhan fellow? I mean, apart from what you translated for me from the newspaper article.”

  Fedot rubbed his shot glass between his palms and sprouted a closed-lip smile. Right then, he looked no older than twelve.

  “Oh, he’s a fine communist,” he said.

  “Yes, I’m sure he is,” Lily sighed. “But do you know him? Have you seen him around the hotel or around town? Hotel Rude seems to be host to plenty of visiting dignitaries—would a man like Tarkhan come to meet them here?”

  Fedot bobbed his head.

  “A comrade like Tarkhan has many friends, certainly.”

  “Certainly, yes,” Lily concurred. “I, for instance, would like to have a friendly meeting with him here. Is that something you could arrange?”

  A man in a thin, woolen sweater the color of winter grass and crisp, navy trousers sat down next to Lily at the bar. Except for a flash of his vivid green eyes, Lily didn’t get a good look at his face. But his comportment favored a man well into his forties who ate a few too many pastries. The man spread his elbows apart and pushed into Lily, grunting at her.

  “Pardon me,” she said. “I said Pardon me!”

  The man had his back to her and barked out his order for brandy.

  Fedot leaned in to Lily. “A Hungarian, I think,” he said, pointing to the man’s ring. It bore the insignia of the Royal Hungarian Army.

  “You know what they say about Hungarians, don’t you?”

  Lily shook her head.

  “If you see a Hungarian on the street,” Fedot explained, “go to him and slap him. He will know why.”

  Lily laughed. It sounded like something Tony Geiger would say, and she wasn’t sure if Fedot had gotten it from him or the other way around. Tony had always had a way of crystallizing things—observations about situations and people that stung a bit but were largely true. Lily leaned away from the Hungarian fellow and lowered her voice.

  “Fedot,” she whispered. “Why do you think Tony was killed?”

  “Miss Lily,” Fedot replied, his small, wet lips parting just enough to let a word escape. “I am hungry. Are you not?” He flagged down the bartender and ordered a plate of bear meat cutlets.

  Lily tipped back into her bar chair and sighed. No easy answers in Russia. No easy answers about Tony anywhere, but at least she was sure now that Fedot knew Tony was dead. She had a feeling he had known from the moment she walked into the Hotel Rude—even if Pasha Tarkhan had seemed ignorant of the fact.

  “Fedot, do you ever get the feeling that something really big is going to happen?”

  Fedot poured a shot of vodka down his throat and swallowed.

  “I didn’t feel it the night I met with Tony on Monemvasia, but I feel it now. Like I’m at the top of a roller coaster, getting ready to scream.”

  Lily reached for her purse and dug inside, producing her room key and dangling it before Fedot. The keychain was oval and brass, displaying her room number—1036—on both sides. “But not before I get a good night’s rest,” she said.

  Fatigue had come upon her like the flu. Lily felt she couldn’t possibly say one more word, have one more idea, receive one more piece of information, no matter how trivial. Russia had done that to her—its otherness, its complete inversion of the rules she was used to. It was no wonder Tony Geiger seemed to age five years for every one. He was always playing against the rules in places where cheating was like breathing.

  “Good rest is imperative,” Fedot agreed. “But so is good food.”

  The bartender slid the bear meat cutlets in front of them and deposited their silverware in a noisy pile, absent dinner napkins or salt and pepper.

  “Eat, eat,” Fedot encouraged.

  Lily took a halfhearted bite of a lukewarm cutlet and put her fork down.

  “Was it
not the prophet Elijah who was told by the Lord to eat as he awaited word as to whether he would be put to death or saved?” Fedot inquired.

  Lily looked at Fedot—open-mouthed and utterly depleted. “I have no idea,” she said. “I hated Sunday school.”

  “Well,” Fedot continued. “I would say Elijah was waiting for something very big to happen, and he needed food for that very big thing.”

  Lily reached back into her purse, but instead of her room key, this time she removed the metal card Tony had given her. She didn’t know what made her want to take it out and show it to Fedot again, the way she had when she first came to the Hotel Rude. The way Tony had instructed her to do. It was as if a bell rang in her head, signaling that it was time.

  “Miss Lily,” Fedot murmured softly. “I am first and foremost your servant. You must understand this.”

  Lily cupped her hand over the card.

  “It is per my training at Moscow’s finest hotelier school,” Fedot crowed. “Your wishes compel me.”

  Fedot sprang up from his seat and bowed. Without another word, he left the red-hued bar and took his place at the night desk—as if he’d never left it. He made no attempt to catch Lily’s gaze as she walked to the elevator next to his desk and pressed the call button.

  From the bar, the Hungarian watched Lily Tassos step onto the elevator and greet the operator with a weary smile. As the elevator doors closed, he slid the plate of bear cutlets beneath his chin and dug in with Lily’s knife and fork. In less than two minutes, he had consumed everything on the plate—even the garnish of grated carrots soaked in white vinegar.

  The Hungarian then lifted his empty brandy glass and shook it at the bartender, who obliged.

  “Charge it to room 1-0-3-6,” he said, exhibiting the key he’d lifted from Lily’s purse and laying it on the gray-tiled counter. Pasha Tarkhan had left her suite that morning, and her long hair and pretty face were the last images Tony Geiger had seen before it all went black for him. A tourist, Etor had said. Dunce!