Snow Job

by William Deverell

  Someone asked about the Calgary Five.

  “Mad Igor may be crazy but he’s not dumb,” Clara said. “Dead hostages, no bargaining chips.”

  “And what about those poor women from Saskatchewan?”

  Foreign Minister Sonja Dubjek passed around copies of a letter. “Dr. Svetlikoff just received this. From his wife, Jill. It was mailed from Kazakhstan, probably smuggled out, but it confirms the women were in Bhashyistan as of December first and in good health.”

  Thiessen was too sapped to follow much of this, but gathered the women were hiding out in a farm near Igorgrad. Something about bribing a Bhashyistan immigration officer and staying in a yurt. The letter ended, We’re sticking it out until peace has been declared, which produced big sighs of relief.

  “We’ll pray for their continued safety,” Gracey said. Then, with uncharacteristic fervour: “We are not going to be slapped around any more by some two-bit psychopathic tyrant. If any Canadians get touched, we’ll bomb the crap out of Igorgrad.” Cheers, people rising, applauding.

  Thiessen was impressed by this new version of Clara Gracey, the Amazon warrior. But as discussion continued, he was assailed by mental flashes of Stonewell and the stripper and the hookah pipe. If it got out on the street, how would he ever explain it to his mother?

  Suddenly he turned white, a spine-stiffening, anus-clenching surge powering him to his feet. He made a beeline to the door. “Sorry, not feeling too good. Forgot something. Son of a bitch!”

  The tape recorder …

  24

  It was a hazy, grey Thursday morning as Arthur and DiPalma boarded the ferry to cross the mile of choppy blue water from the Greek holiday island of Corfu to the hardscrabble republic of Albania. DiPalma went below, away from the smokers, but Arthur stayed above with his phrasebook, packing burley into his pipe bowl, and was soon watching Corfu’s tony villas fade into the mist.

  After a three-day Greek layover, the adventure had begun, with Arthur feeling amazed at himself, at his spunk in undertaking so perilous an errand. But it had to be done — not just out of professional duty but for pride. A Thirst for Justice deserved a nobler ending than a nosedive into obscurity behind the ever-extending shadow of the hero’s rookie M.P. wife.

  Ray DiPalma was the catalyst for this, cockily sure he could worm his way into the confidence of Abzal Erzhan’s keepers. Trust me, he kept insisting, eager for intrigue, eager to prove his global spying expertise. But for the moment, the poor fellow was doing battle below, conquering his pain, at the very nadir of nicotine withdrawal, though still on the patch.

  The mainland loomed, the customs dock, a welter of tumbledown structures by the shoreline. Arthur tamped out his pipe as DiPalma, breathing heavily, burst outside and advanced toward the railing with cold determination.

  Aghast, Arthur feared he was about to drown his misery by jumping, but it was the nicotine patch, ripped from his arm, that went overboard. DiPalma grimly pulled a pack of Greek cigarettes from a duty-free bag, refusing to meet Arthur’s censorious eye. His first effort at ignition failed, either because of the breeze or his shaking hands. He squatted in a corner like a whipped dog and finally got a cigarette going, pulling on it ravenously.

  By mid-afternoon, they were in the Gjirokaster Hills. Their clanking taxi made slow headway among the grunting transports and donkey carts and errant flocks of sheep. Arthur’s impression was of a country bypassed by the modern world, so derelict as to seem barely recovered from the last world war.

  But the sense of timelessness was lulling, and while DiPalma, fully re-addicted now, chain-smoked his foul-smelling cigarettes, Arthur sat back and enjoyed the views as they twisted up a tall range of hills to the town of Gjirokaster, a jumble of rectangular, slate-roofed Ottoman houses strewn haphazardly about steep, cobblestoned streets — a wonkily attractive town, crowned by a massive fortress.

  They disembarked at the Gjirokaster Hotel, four storeys, a look of ill-restored elegance. It was opposite an empty plaza that, DiPalma explained, had once been dominated by a statue of Enver Hoxha, the despised native son of this town.

  Free enterprisers had displaced the dictator — the plaza hosted a dozen hawkers and food vendors, the aromas from their braziers sending enticing greetings to Arthur’s empty stomach. The nearest of them called out. “Very good lamb shish kebab. Beef, goat, chicken. Excellent price. Name is Djon. Speak English.” Middle-aged with thick glasses, a paunch, and a Salvador Dali moustache. He waved a thickly laden skewer. “Here, try, on my house.”

  Arthur and DiPalma sent the porter into the hotel with their bags and crossed the street. The braised chunks of lamb looked delicious and the posted price ludicrously low.

  “Also change dollars. Arrange excursions. Help with translation. Anything you want. Best prices for souvenirs. Girls also.”

  They ordered two lamb skewers to go. Djon held Arthur’s ten-euro bill close to his astigmatic eyes, examining it for flaws. “Not able making change right now.” When told he could keep the bill, he shook Arthur’s hand powerfully.

  The shish kebabs had been honestly advertised, and were gone by the time they entered the Turkish-style lobby. “Well coming in,” said the clerk. “Best rooms for you top floor, only fifty dollars, includes satellite TV and hair blower. Sorry, no elevator working.”

  They were escorted up three flights to side-by-side rooms, baronial with carved wood ceilings, that rewarded with balcony views of twisting, serpentine streets, hillside forests, and promises of Ionian sunsets beyond the foothills.

  It was too late to seek out Hanife Bejko. DiPalma planned to reconnoitre his neighbourhood the next day, then they might come calling in the evening. They’d speculated a lot about Bejko — had he shared a prison with Erzhan? As an enemy of the state? An Albanian mafia figure? A murderer now paroled?

  They spent the remaining daylight hours puffing up and down the unforgiving cobblestones, then settled into a restaurant to try its specialty, yogurt soup and tongue of veal. DiPalma washed down his with a jug of wine, all the while flirting with a comely barmaid, who couldn’t have been older than twenty and wasn’t inhibited in response.

  Sipping an after-dinner slivovitz, DiPalma adjusted his glasses to better view the young woman’s bottom as she leaned over a counter. “God, she’s hot.” He butted his cigarette, and wandered over to engage her, winning a smile and a whispered word in his ear.

  “Ledjina, entrancing name,” DiPalma said on his return. “Speaks excellent English — she’s taking day classes for a degree in tourism. She wants to practise on me tomorrow, show me around town.”

  The next day, while DiPalma went dallying off with Ledjina, Arthur explored Epirus’s rocky coast and its preserved Greek and Roman temples — the Troy reborn so celebrated by the Aeneid. On wearily returning to his floor, he paused to rap on DiPalma’s door. No response.

  He lay down for a catnap, a refresher before the business planned for the evening, the Bejko visit, and in seconds was carried off by the Lethean current, past pillared shrines and palaces from which the shadowy figure of Abzal Erzhan flitted into view, then vanished in the mists.

  It was already night when he was aroused by DiPalma’s reverent roar from the next room. “Sweet Jesus!” That was followed by female laughter.

  As Arthur rose to shower, he glanced at the bedside clock: eight-thirty. He’d slept three hours and missed dinner. They must head out directly — Hanife Bejko might be an early sleeper. He hammered the wall with a shoe, shouted a summons to meet in the lobby.

  It was after nine as Arthur paced impatiently near the front entrance — DiPalma was taking an inordinate time parting from Ledjina. Grumbling under his breath, he stepped outside, lit his pipe. His stomach was vocalizing too, responding to the kebab vendor across the street: “You, friend. Best lamb, pork, chicken killed today, two-for-one Christmas special.”

  Arthur had developed a taste for these greasy, meaty morsels, and in short time was nibbling from a skewer, nodding or shaking his hea
d in response to Djon’s interrogation.

  “Not American? Not English? Ah, Canadian, very good. Am giving deep regrets over your prime minister kicking bucket. Now you have lady like Maggie Thatcher, except more pretty. Djon Bajramovic is my name, student of politics, keep up with world, support Canada in war with Bhashyistan. You come as tourist? No? You look like professor. Wrong guess. Businessman then, what else is left? So what business?”

  Arthur swallowed. “We build resorts.” It was an uncomfortable lie. What was that false front of DiPalma’s? Apex something.

  “So is obvious you need translator, yes? Also I speak Italian and Greek, some Serbian. Many contacts, in Gjirokaster province, in capital city Tirana, whole country. Can get best property agents, best lawyers, help with bribes.”

  The multitalented Djon Bajramovic began a cheerful story of his decline and fall. “My father was partisan, good communist, never liquidated in purges. Yours truly also was big wheel in party, managed state farm after cultural revolution. Now Socialist Party is out, Democrats in. Now no government job, no work, because of bourgeois revanchists. But still many connections.” He stroked his long curling moustache.

  Here was DiPalma shuffling across the street, pausing to take some cellphone photos of the busy stalls, then to examine a vendor’s array of handmade scarves and woollen caps. He finally presented himself, nonchalantly lighting a cigarette and ordering chicken with a side of cabbage.

  Arthur took him aside. “I suggest we scrub Mr. Bejko. It’s well after nine o’clock.”

  “Whoa, this town stays up late, that’s when the important business is done. This is the best time, not so many people about.” Contradicting himself, still in rut, his mind clouded.

  Djon called: “Is done to perfection. Two for one, only fifty leks.” Less than a dollar. “Anything else, I am faithful servant. Contacts in hotel industry, Adriatic resorts? I got. Djon Bajramovic has answer for every need. Can be dangerous here, maybe you need bodyguard.”

  DiPalma ate on the go as they strolled across the plaza, toward the old town. “One of your more engaging Albanian street swindlers,” he said, his mouth full of cabbage. “I’m planning to meet Ledjina’s parents tomorrow, if that’s okay with you. She told them I’m head of Apex International Getaways — I gave her a copy of the brochure. I feel a little sneaky about it, but I’ll straighten it out later.”

  Arthur was becoming impatient with his easily sidetracked companion. “You located Hanife Bejko’s house?”

  “A two-storey duplex. Nicely restored, balcony overhanging the street. I took pictures there this afternoon.”

  He pulled out his cellphone. The screen showed the last photo taken, Ledjina, bra askew, a breast bared, miming a puckered kiss. “Never mind.” He stuffed the incriminating device back in his pocket, embarrassed, talking fast. “Anyway, his digs are across from an antique store. You might want to rummage in there — they’ve got some great carved furniture, some copperware Margaret might like, some handcrafted jewellery, but watch out, a lot of collectables here are fake.”

  “Any sign of activity at Bejko’s house?”

  “Yeah, his wife, I guess it was, a short, hefty woman, nice smile, she took a jaunt to a deli down the street, picked up some sausages.”

  A short walk took them to an area under restoration, scaffolding everywhere, tarps on windows. Some bars and tea rooms were busy, but the streets weren’t. The several rectangular windows of Bejko’s residence were curtained, upstairs and down, as was the glass in the front door. But lights were on within, and a bulb was burning outside, as if in welcome.

  DiPalma drew Arthur into the shadows and whispered: “If something fouls up, we make like jackrabbits for that tavern over there.”

  This was unexpected and unnerving. “If what fouls up?”

  “If this turns out to be a trick of some kind.”

  Arthur had no time to weigh that consideration because DiPalma was already at the door, poking a button that produced the unlikely sound of distant cowbells. No immediate answer, no other sounds from within.

  “The good news is they’ve got no guard dog.” DiPalma sounded the cowbells again, and after several seconds the curtain opened to reveal a sturdy, middle-aged woman, presumably Mrs. Bejko. DiPalma put on his politest face and showed her his passport. She looked confused until he laid a copy of Bejko’s handwritten note flat against the glass.

  She nodded, raised a finger: one minute. Soon a bony, greying man took his place behind the glass, his outstanding feature a bristle moustache that extended two inches from either cheek. DiPalma showed the note, then urged Arthur to the glass with passport, business card, a photo of Erzhan, another of his wife and children — if Bejko owned a television he ought to have seen, on CNN and elsewhere, some coverage of them.

  The door opened. “I am Hanife. Come quick inside.”

  Arthur hadn’t taken five steps into the house before it was confirmed that Bejko indeed owned a TV — in fact about a dozen of them, stacked around the living room, some boxed, some not, mostly high-end flat sets — along with several stereos and DVD players, a home theatre sticking from a crate, and a shiny new BMW motorcycle.

  “Hanife the thief,” DiPalma whispered.

  Arthur, a connoisseur of thieves and receivers, was impressed. Bejko hurried them up a staircase, to an office that looked out over a clump of pine trees behind the house. More electronic goods here, smaller items: laptops, Blackberrys, cellphones. No telfon here — meaning, presumably, don’t telephone me here.

  Bejko waved them to a couple of plush armchairs and sat behind his carved walnut desk. Arthur introduced himself as Erzhan’s lawyer, DiPalma as his assistant. All this in crude Albanian, an effort that caused Bejko’s moustache tips to wiggle as he suppressed a smile.

  “I sorry Pomeroy not come. Abzal, he very much love Mr. Pomeroy. He is the best.”

  “Mr. Pomeroy sent Mr. Beauchamp,” DiPalma said. “He is second best.”

  “I am hoping honest lawyer, if so, first in history in Albania. They sell you for song. Abzal, he not do this thing, he is, how you say …”

  “Scapegoat,” Arthur ventured.

  “Exactly. But I say nothing to no one, wait for you. I am in jail two months but meet Abzal only three days. Was drugged and put on plane, he says, and this I believe, so after I pay off warden to get back on street, I mail note to Mr. Pomeroy.”

  “Excellent,” Arthur said. “And in business again so quickly. You put to shame my most valued clients.”

  Bejko beamed, threw an arm out expansively. “This? It is nothing. You should see in warehouse the cars, Lexus, Mercedes, Porsche, new, right off ship. But too many middlemen, too much overhead. Bribes alone eat half of profit. Is why I get arrest, not pay enough to police chief.”

  A bottle was produced, unlabelled, but when uncorked it smelled of a powerful brandy. Arthur said simply, unapologetically: “I don’t drink.”

  “Bad luck. You, my friend, Mr. Ray, must make up for second-best lawyer.” Bejko filled a glass and passed it to DiPalma, who choked on the first sip.

  “Warms stomach, yes?” Bejko found a ginger ale for Arthur, and clicked glasses with them. “To freedom for Abzal.” A second toast: “To great country you belonging, Canada.” Bejko expanded on this tribute, extolling the Canadian military for emptying the Bhashyistan jail. “Smart move.”

  Bejko topped up DiPalma’s brandy, then accepted a cigarette from him. DiPalma’s hand trembled as he held his lighter, a typical Parkinson’s effect. Increasingly often, Arthur had observed, DiPalma would keep his hands in his pockets or otherwise out of view.

  Bejko blew out a gust of smoke, then described how he’d spent two months of a three-year term in an institution known simply as Prison 303. Half a day’s drive from here, into the mountains between Korça and the Macedonian border.

  Three days before Bejko’s release, Erzhan had been thrown into an adjoining cell. “He looked like drugged. He demand, why am I here, I am simple teacher, Can
adian citizen, and they beat him, but only use rubber cables.”

  He’d seen no Western agents, nor had Erzhan been taken away for questioning. The police laid into Abzal for two days, though to what purpose Bejko couldn’t explain, other than, “Is standard procedure.” By the third day, they’d tired of the sport. “No one is knowing this Erzhan, or why he in jail. No criminal charge, no lawyer, no nothing. Everyone confuse, even police, guards. No one have much English for talking him.”

  Black and blue but finally left in peace, Erzhan was able to tell his neighbour what he remembered of his abduction. A grey sedan pulled up and a front-seat passenger leaned out to ask directions to the nearest liquor store. Without waiting for an answer, that passenger got out of the car and another from the back. A sudden blow to the back of his neck, as if from the edge of a hand, paralyzed him. He fought for consciousness but all went blank as he was bundled into the vehicle.

  This was in finer detail than Iqbal Zandoo’s account, but despite losses in translation and Zandoo’s distant perspective, the two versions meshed well. Arthur asked if Erzhan had described any of the three men.

  The one who asked about the liquor store was tall, thin-faced. The one from the back seat, Erzhan’s attacker, “looked like heavyweight boxer.”

  “And the driver?” Arthur asked.

  “He not ever see.”

  He came to fifteen hours later, naked, groggy, in a police van, just as it was rolling into Prison 303 under a raised steel gate.

  “What day was this?” Arthur asked.

  Bejko rummaged in a drawer for an old desk calendar. “I am release November thirty. So three days before, on twenty-seven.”