Requiem for a Gypsy

by Michael Genelin

  “Over here.” Masson walked over to a corner of the room where there were a number of electronic control panels. “Three types of burglar alarms, motion detectors on the walls, and a connection to an immediate-response guard company that sends both armed guards and dogs if it’s triggered. The man was making sure he wasn’t surprised.”

  Jana stared at the material piled in the center of the room. There were a file cabinet, several small cardboard boxes, and papers with folders stacked around them gathered on top of a rug. And laid out on the rug in a large, tiered series of arcs were what looked like bank documents.

  “What you talked to me about?” Jana asked.

  Masson nodded. Both of them sat at the base of the area of documents and Jana began to go through them. They were from different banks all over Europe. All appeared to be versions of bankbooks, in one certificate form or another, listing withdrawals, deposits, transfers, charges, interest payments, and items Jana had no idea about because they were in languages she could not understand. There were some groups of documents that, although differently dated, all came from the same bank. These documents had been piled on top of each other, some canceled, some out of date. There were more than a hundred “books” in total. None of the names on the papers were familiar to Jana except Pascal Dionne, the false name of the man she now knew was really Jindrich Bogan from Slovakia.

  Jana took a scrap of paper and, using the books with the latest dates, tried to do a rough estimate of how much money was currently indicated as deposited in the bank accounts. It took her three hours to make her computations. When she came up with a final figure, it left her stunned. The total was approximately 675 million euros. She showed Masson the figure. He nodded.

  “Mine was slightly under the figure you came up with, but it’s close enough.”

  “Ever see accounts with sums like these before?”

  “Never.”

  “My guess is we’ll never see it again in our lifetime.”

  Jana checked the names of the banks that had extant accounts. Of all the banks Jindrich had used over the course of the years, there were ten banks that now had the majority of the funds. One of those banks was the bank that Yunis had owned in Berlin. The Viennese bank where Radomir Kralik was a vice president was another. The two small French banks that the Bogans were sending their money to were there as well. Jana added them to the list she was making. There was also a bank in Moscow and two banks in the U.S., one in Chicago and the other in Los Angeles. There were three banks in Asia, one in Bangkok, another in Manila, and one in Hong Kong. None of them were well-known banks, but a bank doesn’t have to be a household name to keep funds, or to do whatever it wants to make itself even more money.

  There were large printed notices on the covers or on the first pages of all the bank documents. From the languages she could translate, or guess at, Jana gathered that the documents were non-withdrawal credentials. You couldn’t simply present the passbook or certification to withdraw funds: a special credential was required.

  “Did you find the document that authorizes withdrawal of these funds?”

  Masson leaned back on the couch where he was sitting and threw up his hands in frustration.

  “I went through all the files with three other officers and two accountants. The examination was not as precise as I would have liked, but I’m sure that there was no single, or even multiple, withdrawal authorization or identification contained in the material.”

  “There has to be a bearer document, one that would allow the account holder to go into the bank to withdraw or transfer money,” Jana told Masson.

  “We went through it all, piece by piece. We kept the place looking pretty neat, but we went into every nook and cranny, the clothes in the dressing room, the cereal boxes in the kitchen, the toilet tank, the bedding, even the springs. If there was a hole or a crevice, we went into it. We brought in special equipment to examine the walls and the floors. Nothing! We even looked under the house. Everything was negative.”

  “If it’s not here, it’s out there somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Maybe the Bogans know.” She thought about their next step, not wanting to rush into a meeting with the Bogans until she was absolutely sure of her ground. “I want to walk the apartment myself. Just a quick look, then I think we have to visit Le Meurice and talk to the Bogans.”

  “D’accord,” Masson approved, settling back on the couch, waiting for Jana to finish her examination of the apartment. Jana navigated by instinct, going from the living room into the bathroom, then to the dressing room. She realized that she hadn’t seen anything that was truly personal that could tell her anything of substance about the man. She left the dressing area and went to the bed. The bedclothes were all piled up in the middle of the mattress, parts of the mattress visibly slashed, undoubtedly by the police during their search. She took one step back to survey the whole room.

  Instead of end tables, there were several small built-in shelves at each side of the bed. On one of the shelves was an envelope, and one sheet of paper lay on the floor. The sheet of paper looked like a discard, tossed there after a superficial examination by one of the police officers during the search. To the cop, it had been unimportant. Maybe he hadn’t known enough about the case to make the appropriate decision as to its significance. Jana picked it up and read:

  Grandfather, it’s time for a reckoning on the accounts.

  Immediately. I will not tolerate the status quo. The banks are also in the mix. It’s over. Now! This has to be at once.

  Anything less is unacceptable. The present situation is finished. Zdenko.

  Jana tucked the letter into the envelope, then the envelope into her purse. It’s invariably true: the devil is in the details. She now had a course of questioning to pursue when she met Zdenko.

  Within minutes, they were on their way to Le Meurice.

  Chapter 43

  Le Meurice is one of the so-called palace hotels, overlooking the Tuileries Garden, almost touching the Louvre across the street and just down the block. It is opulent without being lurid, making no bones about catering to the rich. Any guest coming through the front doors for the first time is immediately informed by the marble and terrazzo floors, the crystal chandeliers, the multiplicity of sumptuous fabrics on the lobby furniture, and the huge gilded mirrors on the walls that no expense is going to be spared in making him feel that he is as royal as any one of the monarchs who, in another epoch, lived in the area. The Nazis liked the hotel so much that when they occupied Paris during the Second World War, they requisitioned it for their high command. Of course, when the Allies retook Paris, the liberated French scoured the walls with disinfectant and then made the hotel even more luxurious.

  As they went inside, Masson confessed that this was the first time he’d ever been inside the hotel. Both of them were impressed: the hotel’s display of wealth and cultivated abundance had been tailored to make an impact. The decorator’s final touch was wall-mounted gold-framed mirrors that reflected the guest walking through the lobby, the mirrors artfully placed to bring the guest into the framed display. The management of Le Meurice knew that the affluent loved to display themselves in their privileged circumstances.

  “My mother once came here with a boyfriend who wanted to impress her,” Masson confided to Matinova. “They got married just before I was born. So, by proxy, the hotel is responsible for my existence.”

  “Was it a good marriage?”

  “Better than most. Later they had three daughters, so they obviously didn’t really need the hotel to encourage them.” He thought about it for a moment. “Still, it was their first time, so maybe they did.”

  “Perhaps you should approach the management and offer them your endorsement,” Jana suggested.

  They moved farther into the hotel, trying to look like they belonged.

  Masson had called ahead to get the numbers of the rooms that the Bogans were occupying. In fact, they were in two adjoining presiden
tial suites. He checked with one of the roving hotel floor employees for directions, the man pointing them to the twin suites located on the first floor. Jana and Masson then walked up the stairs to the suites.

  Masson knocked on the first suite’s door and it was opened almost immediately by a man dressed in the livery of a butler: white gloves, checkered vest, and slightly bored look.

  “Yes?” the man said.

  “Is Mr. Bogan in?” Masson requested.

  “If I may, who is asking?”

  Masson held his police credentials up to the man’s eye level, almost pressed against his face.

  “Tell your master that Police Investigator Masson is here.”

  Masson walked past the butler into the suite. Jana stepped in behind him, the butler still standing at the door, unsure as to what to do. He eventually decided to close the door behind them; then he stalked off to get Bogan.

  “I’m already angry at the Bogans,” Masson announced.

  “You haven’t heard enough about them to be angry.”

  “I’m angry that they can afford rooms like these when I can’t even afford to have breakfast or lunch here.”

  Jana half agreed with Masson’s anger. The room was enormous, with inlaid wood floors, furniture in silk damask, everything reeking of comfort and cosseting.

  “We know that the father and son have enough money not to mind spending it in big chunks,” Jana observed. “On the other hand, it’s my guess that they are expecting even more money.”

  “We have most of the bank documents,” Masson reminded Jana.

  “Not the most important one,” Jana responded.

  The butler reentered the room. “Mr. Bogan has just finished his morning ablutions. He’ll be in shortly.” He lifted a silver tray of used breakfast dishes that was resting on a delicate white-and-gold French provincial table and carried them out of the suite, silently closing the door behind him. Oto Bogan came into the room almost immediately after the butler had left.

  Bogan was in a silk dressing robe, a towel around his neck, hair slightly tousled, displaying the same big politician’s personality that Jana had witnessed on the night his wife was shot. He immediately apologized for keeping them waiting and urged them to sit down, offering to call for coffee for them. Both Jana and Masson refused the coffee offer, and Bogan beckoned them again to sit.

  Oto Bogan rambled on about his late rise from sleep due to the bankers’ dinner he’d attended the night before where he’d had too much coffee and alcohol, resulting in too many trips to the bathroom during the night. His chatter ultimately ran down. He turned to Jana, pasting an artificial smile on his face.

  “You’re the commander from Slovakia,” he said. “You look better out of uniform.”

  “Uniforms are a necessary item in my business.”

  “Right.” He suddenly looked as if he’d eaten food that wasn’t as fresh as he’d thought it was. “You did me a service.”

  “Colonel Trokan saved your life.”

  “He did get shot, didn’t he?” Bogan said. “How is the colonel?”

  There was no real concern for Trokan in the man’s voice. He was merely going through the social artifice of being polite. He went on without waiting for Jana to answer the question.

  “I think that the general public never realizes what the police do for them. It took an event like the death of my wife to convince me that your services are absolutely invaluable.”

  “We didn’t seem to help much that night.”

  “That’s because I wouldn’t listen to you. If I’d heeded your warnings, I would never have walked out into the spotlight, and my dear wife Klara would still be with us.”

  “Your wife urged you to go on with the celebration, Mr. Bogan. If anyone was responsible, it would be her.”

  Bogan began looking even more agitated. “She just wanted me to have my party. She didn’t have the slightest thought that those crazy things were going to happen.”

  Jana just smiled at the man. Her silence affected Bogan. He looked from Jana to Masson, then back to Jana again.

  “There must be a reason that you’ve looked me up,” he finally said. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “Your wife was involved in the shooting, Mr. Bogan,” Jana told him. “She helped set it up.”

  Bogan stared at her, not in disbelief, but in fear tinged with dismay. His forehead began to sweat, and he mopped at it with the towel around his neck. “Impossible.”

  Bogan’s inflection sounded tinny, off-kilter. He believed in the possibility of his wife’s being involved in a plot to kill him.

  “There’s no question that she arranged things at the soundstage to facilitate the shooting.” Jana watched Bogan very carefully, checking for the telltale signs that he knew what she was talking about and believed it. “We found the weapons. We have people who will attest to the fact that she created the hiding place for the guns.”

  Bogan’s face had drained of color, looking as if he had ingested poison and was feeling its first terrible effects.

  “Would you like a glass of water, Mr. Bogan?”

  “I’m fine,” he said falteringly.

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I told you … I … had a bad night.”

  “So, we can go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you on good terms with your wife, Mr. Bogan?”

  “The best of terms. I loved her; she loved me. The party she put on is clear evidence of that.”

  “Then why was she living with Radomir Kralik? They were married before she married you. Afterward, they stayed lovers. You knew they continued to be lovers, yet you remained in the marriage. I would hazard a guess that you were always married in name only. I think that was the way your marriage was set up from the very beginning, wasn’t it, Mr. Bogan? You’d both agreed to a marriage of convenience, Mr. Bogan. What was the convenience, the reason for the marriage?”

  Bogan’s eyes had become unfocused, his attention on some inner turmoil. Jana raised her voice, leaning closer, trying to bring the man back to the issue at hand.

  “She wanted you dead, Mr. Bogan. She had decided that you were disposable. An item she was ready to discard. I wonder if the planned shooting had anything to do with the death of your father, Mr. Bogan. Jindrich Bogan was your father, wasn’t he, Mr. Bogan?”

  The mention of Jindrich Bogan snapped Oto’s head up, bringing him back to the moment, his eyes now clear.

  “I didn’t know my father very well,” he said.

  “Hard to know a father who spent so much time away from home, Mr. Bogan.”

  Masson stirred in his chair. “We have a number of passports that belonged to your father. They were under different names. They had many, many entry visas from all over the world. He was constantly on the move.”

  Jana picked up the drumbeat. “We’ve been to his Paris residence. It was a little like a fortress. What was he a part of that made him so afraid?”

  “You would have to ask my father,” Bogan whispered.

  “He’s dead, Mr. Bogan. He was run down by a truck. It’s hard for him to answer under those circumstances.”

  Bogan’s voice stayed at the whisper level. “Then, perhaps, you should talk to my son about all this.”

  “I think your son may have been involved in your father’s murder, Mr. Bogan. That’s why we’re talking to you first. The man you claim as your son seems to be a very dangerous person. You know that, don’t you?”

  Bogan bent forward as if he were suffering from a terrible bellyache, then slowly straightened up, his face haunted.

  “Is he in his suite, Mr. Bogan?”

  Bogan’s eyes said he was. “The last few weeks have been very hard for me,” he whispered. “I’ve been afraid.”

  “I know.” Jana could see the upheaval going on inside the man. All Jana could do for him, at the moment, was to give him a smile of understanding. “You offered to call your son Zdenko. I think that’s a good idea. Call and as
k him to come over.”

  The phone was at his elbow. After a few seconds of ambivalence, Bogan reached for the receiver. Jana held out her hand to momentarily stop him from making the call.

  “If Zdenko was involved in Klara’s murder, you may be setting in motion another attempt, this time against you, if you ask him to come here.” She watched his reaction. He stared at her without surprise. He believed his son was involved in the murder of his wife.

  “Knowing that,” she continued, “why are you here, Mr. Bogan? With your son.”

  He hesitated, a lost look on his face. His words came slowly. “You stay close to your enemy. If I didn’t stay where he could keep an eye on me, he would have killed me long ago. So where else, for me? The police? The banks would come under scrutiny. I go to the police, and everything I have, everything I own, comes tumbling down. Too much in my past; too much now. So, where else for me but here?” He was silent for a moment. “Either way, I’m gone.”

  “Mr. Bogan, if you don’t make the telephone call, he will come for you anyway. Today, tomorrow. Soon.”

  Bogan gave a resigned nod.

  “You have to act, Mr. Bogan. It’s the only way we can do anything to protect you. You understand that?”

  Another nod.

  “What do I say to him?” The words came out of Bogan’s mouth as if they were being filtered over sandpaper. “He doesn’t listen much to me.”

  “Tell him that a serious issue has arisen, and that you need to speak to him. If he tells you to come to his suite, indicate that you have papers and other items here that you’ve set up for him to review. That way he has to come to us. Understand?”

  Bogan nodded again. Jana gestured for him to dial, moving the receiver so that she could listen in as Bogan talked. Zdenko Bogan answered the phone after the first ring. He argued for a moment about coming over, telling his putative father that he was busy, reluctantly agreeing to come over only when Oto went through his ruse of having papers for Zdenko to review.