Spies of the Balkans: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  "But not all."

  "Well ..." Sami's mouth stayed open, but no words came out.

  "Sami, please don't fuck with me, all right?"

  "I wasn't, I mean, no, yes, not all of them, do that. One or two of them, um, make their own way."

  "Criminals."

  "Some would say that."

  "This is the favor, Sami. This is what will keep you in this fine city. This is what may stop me from putting your sorry ass on a train up to Geneva. And I can do that, because you were right, I am important, and, just now, very important to you."

  "They are criminals, Captain Zannis. It's how life goes in that city, if you aren't born to a good family, if you don't bow down to the bosses, you have to find a way to stay alive. So maybe you do a little of this and a little of that, and the day comes when you can't go back, your life is what it is, and your friends, the people who protect you, who help you out, are just like you, outside the law. Well, too bad. Because you wind up with the cops chasing you, or, lately, some other guy, from another part of town, putting a bullet in your belly. Then, time to go, it's been great, good-bye world. That's how it is, up there. That's how it's always been."

  "These friends, they're not what you'd call 'lone wolves.'"

  "Oh no, not up there. You won't last long by yourself."

  "So then, gangs? That the word? Like the Sicilians?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "With names?"

  Sami Pal thought it over, either preparing to lie or honestly uncertain, Zannis wasn't sure which. Finally he said, "Sometimes we use the--um, that is, sometimes they use the name of a leader."

  This errant pronoun we interested Zannis. One end of a string, perhaps, that could be carefully pulled until it led somewhere, maybe stolen merchandise or prostitutes traveling between the two cities. And not years ago, this week. But the clue was of interest only to Zannis the detective, not to Zannis the operator of a clandestine network. So he said, "And which one did you belong to, Sami? Back in the days when you lived up there?"

  Sami Pal looked down at the desk. Whatever he was, he wasn't a rat, an informer. Zannis's first instinct was to show anger, but he suppressed it. "He won't be investigated if you tell me his name, Sami. You have my word on that."

  Sami Pal took a breath, looked up, and said, "Gypsy Gus."

  "Who?"

  "Gypsy Gus. You don't know Gypsy Gus?"

  "Why would I? He's a Gypsy?"

  Sami Pal laughed. "No, no. He left Hungary, when he was young, and became a wrestler, a famous wrestler, in America, captain, in Chicago. I thought maybe you would know who he was, he was famous."

  "Then what's his real name?"

  After a moment Sami Pal said, "Gustav Husar."

  Zannis repeated the name, silently, until he felt he'd memorized it. He was not going to write anything down in front of Sami Pal, not yet. "Tell me, what do they do, Husar and his friends."

  "The usual things. Loan money, protect the neighborhood merchants, help somebody to sell something they don't need."

  Zannis had a hard time not laughing at the way Sami Pal thought about crime. Boy scouts.

  "That's the way it used to be, anyhow." In the good old days.

  "And now?"

  "There's bad blood now. Didn't use to be like that, everybody kept to their own part of town, everybody minded their own business. But then, about three years ago, some of the, well, what you call gangs got friendly with a few individuals on the police force, maybe money changed hands, and the idea was to help certain people and maybe hurt some other people. It was after Hitler took over in Germany, sir, we had the same thing in Budapest, guys in uniforms, marching in the streets. There were some people in the city who liked what Hitler said, who thought that was the way life should go in Hungary. But not my crowd, captain, not my crowd."

  "Why not, Sami? Why not your crowd?"

  "Well, we were always over in Pest, across the river from the snobs in Buda. Pest is for the working class, see? And when the politics came in, that's the way we had to go. We're not reds, never, like the Russians, but we couldn't let these other guys get away with it. That meant fighting. Because if the workers were just having a drink somewhere, and here came some guys with iron bars, looking to cause trouble, we helped out. Maybe one of our guys had a gun, and he knew how to use it, understand?"

  Gold! But Zannis merely nodded. "What about the Jews, in Budapest?"

  Sami shrugged. "What about them?"

  "What does ... your crowd, think about them?"

  "Who cares? There was one who used to work with us, he's in jail now, but it didn't matter to anybody, what he was." After a pause, Sami Pal said, "We knew he was a Jew, but he didn't have sidelocks or a beard or anything, he didn't wear a hat."

  Zannis drummed his fingers on the desk. Would it work? "This Gypsy Gus, Gustav Husar," he said. "He looks like a Gypsy?"

  "No, sir." Sami Pal grinned at the idea. "They made him a Gypsy because he came from Hungary, he's got the photographs. Big mustache, like an organ-grinder, a gold hoop in his ear, and he wore a fancy sort of a shirt, and that little hat. You know, captain, Gypsy Gus."

  "And where would I find him, if I went to Budapest?"

  Sami Pal froze. In his mind's eye, he saw his old boss taken by the police--guns drawn, handcuffs out--and all because it was Sami Pal who'd sold him to the cops in Salonika.

  Zannis read him perfectly. With hand flat, palm turned toward the desk, he made the gesture that meant calm down. And softened his voice. "Remember my promise, Sami? I meant it. Nobody's going to do anything to your friend, I only want to talk to him. Not about a crime, I don't care what he's done, I need his help, nothing more. You know the sign on your door, in Vardar Square? It says CONFIDENTIAL INQUIRIES? Well, now you've had one." He paused to let that sink in, then continued. "And I mean confidential, Sami, secret, forever, between you and me. You don't go blabbing to your girlfriends, you don't go playing the big shot about your friend on the police force. Understand?"

  "Yes, sir. I have your promise." He sounded like a schoolboy.

  "And ...?"

  "It's called Ilka's Bar. When Gypsy Gus was a strong man in the circus, in Esztergom, before he went to Chicago, Ilka was his, um, assistant, on the stage, with a little skirt."

  Now Zannis set pad and pencil on the desk in front of Sami Pal. "Write it down for me, Sami, so I don't forget. The name of the bar and the address."

  "I can only write in Hungarian, captain."

  "Then do that."

  Zannis waited patiently while Sami Pal carved the letters, one at a time, onto the paper. "Takes me a minute," Sami said. "I don't know the address, I only know it's under the Szechenyi Bridge, the chain bridge, on the Pest side, in an alley off Zrinyi Street. There's no sign, but everybody knows Ilka's Bar."

  "And how does it work? You leave a message at the bar?"

  "No, the bar is his ... office, I guess you'd call it. But don't show up until the afternoon, captain. Gypsy Gus likes to sleep late."

  11 December. Now for the hard part. He had to tell Vangelis. He could do what he meant to do behind the back of the entire world--all but Vangelis. Zannis telephoned, then walked up to the office in the central police headquarters on the same square as the municipal building. Vangelis was as always: shaggy white hair, shaggy white mustache stained yellow by nicotine because he'd smoked his way through a long and eventful life, and more and more mischief in his face, in his eyes and in the set of his mouth, as time went by--I know the world, what a joke. Vangelis had coffee brought from a kafeneion, and they both lit Papastratos No. 1 cigarettes.

  They spent a few minutes on health and family. "Your brother makes a wonderful tram conductor, doesn't he?" Vangelis said, his pleasure in this change of fortune producing a particularly beatific, St. Vangelis smile. Which vanished when he said, "The mayor is still telephoning me about his niece, Costa. The lost parakeet?"

  Zannis shook his head. "Write another report? That we're still looking?"

&n
bsp; "Anything, please, to get that idiot off my back."

  Zannis said he would write the report, then told Vangelis what he was going to do. No names, no specifics, just that he intended to help some of the fugitives moving through the Balkans, and to that end he might be spending a day or two in Budapest.

  Vangelis didn't react. Or perhaps his reaction was that he didn't react. He took a sip of coffee, put the cup down and said, "A long time, the train to Budapest. If it's better for you not to be away from your work for so long, perhaps you ought to fly. The planes are flying again, for the moment."

  "I don't think I have the money for airplanes."

  "Oh. Well. If that's all it is." He reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and brought out a checkbook. As he wrote, he said, "It's drawn on the Bank of Commerce and Deposit, on Victoros Hougo Street, near the Spanish legation." Carefully, Vangelis separated the check from the stub and handed it to Zannis. The signature read Alexandros Manos, and the amount was for one thousand Swiss francs. "Don't present this at the cashier's window, Costa. Take it to Mr. Pereira, the manager."

  Zannis looked up from the check and raised his eyebrows.

  "Did you know Mr. Manos? A fine fellow, owned an umbrella shop in Monastir. Been dead for a long time, sorry to say."

  "No, I didn't know him," Zannis said, echoing the irony in Vangelis's voice.

  "One must have such resources, Costa, in a job like mine. They've been useful, over the years. Crucial."

  Zannis nodded.

  "And, Costa? Gun and badge for your trip to Hungary, my boy, servant of the law, official business."

  "Thank you, commissioner," Zannis said.

  "Oh, you're welcome. Come to think of it, maybe the time has come for you to have one of these accounts for yourself, considering ... your, intentions. Now, let, me, see ..." Vangelis thought for a time, leaning back in his chair. Then he sat upright. "Do you know Nikolas Vasilou?"

  "I know who he is, of course, but I've never met him." Vasilou was one of the richest men in Salonika, likely in all Greece. He was said to buy and sell ships, particularly oil tankers, like penny candy.

  "You should meet him. Let me know when you return and I'll arrange something."

  Zannis started to say thank you once more but Vangelis cut him off. "You will need money, Costa."

  Zannis sensed it was time to go and stood up. Vangelis rose halfway from his chair and extended his hand. Zannis took it--frail and weightless in his grasp. This reached him; he never thought of the commissioner as an old man, but he was.

  Vangelis smiled and flipped the backs of his fingers toward the door, shooing Zannis from his office. Now go and do what you have to, it meant, a brusque gesture, affectionate beyond words.

  He was busy the following day. For one thing, because of absent personnel--the war, the fucking war, how it manifested itself--the office had to handle a few commonplace criminal investigations. So now they'd been assigned a murder in Ano Toumba, a dockworker found stabbed to death in his bed. Nobody had any idea who'd done this, or why. By noon, Zannis and Saltiel had talked to the stevedores on the wharf, then some of the man's relatives. He wasn't married, couldn't afford it, didn't gamble or patronize the girls up in the Bara, gave no offense to anybody. He worked hard, played dominoes in the taverna, such was life. So, why? Nobody knew, nobody even offered the usual dumb theories.

  After lunch he cashed Vangelis's check, visited the Hungarian legation and was given a visa, then bought a ticket at the TAE office: up to Sofia, then Lufthansa to Budapest. The ticket in his hand was not unexciting--he'd never flown in an airplane. Well, now he would. He wasn't afraid, not at all.

  It was after six by the time he got to his front door, greeted the waiting Melissa, trudged up the stairs, and found his door unlocked and Tasia Loukas naked in his bed. "I remembered your key," she said. "Above the door." She was propped on one elbow, wearing her tinted glasses and reading the Greek version of one of Zannis's French spy novels, The Man from Damascus. "You aren't sorry to see me, are you?"

  He drew the sheet down to her waist and kissed her softly, twice, by way of answer. Then he went into the kitchen, gave Melissa a mutton bone, a hunk of bread, and two eggs. "I have to take a shower," he said as he returned to the bedroom. "Really I have to, it's been that kind of day."

  "I have a surprise for you," Tasia said.

  "Oh?"

  "But not until later. At eleven we have to go back out."

  "What is it?"

  "You'll see. It's a nice surprise."

  He began to unbutton his shirt, she watched attentively as he undressed.

  "I see you're ironing your own clothes now," she said.

  The iron was still sitting on the table in the kitchen. "Yes," he said. "A small economy."

  "I'd like to watch you do it," she said, amused at the idea. "Can you?"

  "I'm learning," he said. He stepped out of his underpants and bent over to pick them up.

  "Come and sit with me for a little," she said. "I don't care if you smell."

  How to say no?

  He sat on the edge of the bed, she began to stroke him, observing the result like an artist. "I daydreamed all day, at work," she said, voice tender. "A little voice in my head. It kept saying, 'Tasia, you need a good fucking,' so here I am. Did you think you were too tired?"

  "I did wonder."

  "But you are not, as we can see."

  He woke up suddenly and looked at his watch. 9:33. He could hear rain pattering down on Santaroza Lane, a gentle snore from Melissa, which now stopped abruptly because she'd also woken up, the instant after he had. She always knew. How? A dog mystery. Tasia was asleep on her stomach, arm beneath the pillow, mouth open, face delicately troubled by a dream. Her lips moved, who was she talking to? As he watched, one eye opened. "You're awake," she said.

  "It's raining." The first attack of a campaign to stay home.

  She sat up, sniffed, then got out of bed and, haunches shifting, walked to the bathroom, closed the door almost all the way, and called out, "What time is it?"

  "Nine-thirty."

  "Hmm."

  When she emerged, she began to sort through her clothes, which lay folded on a chair. "I have a funny story for you," she said, stepping into her panties.

  Oh no, she still wants to go out. They had eaten nothing, so he'd have to take her somewhere, though, for him, making love was a substitute for food. "You do?"

  "I forgot to tell you," she said.

  He waited as she put on her bra, hooking it in front then twisting it around.

  "I have a little nephew. A cute kid, maybe four years old. And you know what he did? You won't believe it when I tell you."

  "What?"

  "He tried to kill Hitler."

  "He what?"

  "Tried to kill Hitler. Really. They have one of those shortwave radios, and they were listening to some music program. Eventually the news came on and there was Hitler, shouting and screaming, the crowd cheering. You know what it sounds like. Anyhow, the kid listens for a while, then he picks up a pencil and shoves it into the speaker."

  Tasia laughed. Zannis laughed along with her and said, "That's funny. It really happened?"

  "It did," she said. She put on a black sweater, combing her hair back in place with her fingers once she had it on. "Aren't you hungry?" she said.

  The surprise was, in truth, a surprise. They left the apartment, then stopped at a taverna for fried calamari and a glass of wine, and Tasia told him what she'd planned. A friend of hers owned the movie theatre in what had been, until the population exchange of 1923, a Turkish mosque, and he had gotten hold, somehow, of a print of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. "It won't have subtitles," she said, "but you understand English, don't you?"

  "Some. Not much."

  "Never mind, you'll manage. He's showing it for friends, so we'll at least have a chance to see it. Otherwise, we'd have to wait a long time, for the official release."

  The film was accompanied by consid
erable whispering, as people asked their neighbors to explain the dialogue, but that didn't matter. Hitler was called Adenoid Hynkel, Mussolini appeared as Benzino Napaloni, which Zannis supposed was amusing if you spoke English. Mussolini teased and tormented and manipulated his fellow dictator--that didn't need translation either. Still, even though it was Chaplin's first talking picture, the physical comedy was the best part. Everybody laughed at the food fight and applauded Hitler's dance with an inflated globe, literally kicking the world around. The political speech at the end was spoken out in Greek by the theatre owner, who stood to one side of the screen and read from notes.

  Zannis didn't find it all that funny, the way Mussolini provoked Hitler. The movie was banned in Germany, but Hitler would no doubt be treated to a private screening--trust that little snake Goebbels to make sure he saw it. Hitler wouldn't like it. So, some comedian thought the Axis partners were comic? Perhaps he'd show him otherwise. When the movie was over, and the crowd dispersed in front of the mosque, Zannis wasn't smiling. And in that, he saw, he wasn't alone.

  "So!" said a triumphant Tasia. "What will Adolf think of this?"

  "I wouldn't know," Zannis said. "I'll ask him when he gets here."

  14 December. The Breguet airplane bumped and quivered as it fought the turbulence above the mountains. Zannis was alarmed at first, then relaxed and enjoyed the view. Too soon they descended above Sofia airport, then zoomed toward the runway--too fast, too fast--and then, just as the wheels bounced on the tarmac and Zannis held a death grip on the arms of his seat, something popped in his left ear and the sound of the engines got suddenly louder. He could hear in both ears! He was overjoyed, smiling grandly at a dour Bulgarian customs official, which made the officer more suspicious than usual.

  It was dusk when they landed in Budapest. Zannis took a taxi to the railway station and checked into one of the travelers' hotels across the square. In his room, he looked out the window. Looked, as big windblown snowflakes danced across his vision, at the people hurrying to and from their trains, holding on to their hats in the wind. Looked for surveillance, looked for men watching the station. What happened to the fugitives who came here? Who was hunting them? How was it managed?