Protocol for a Kidnapping

by Ross Thomas

  “Which way?” Park said.

  “Drive around,” I said, “we haven’t got anything better to do until nine.”

  We drove around for half an hour, slowing down for a look at the fairly new bus station and the Mosque of Gazi Husref Bey which Tavro said was the finest in Sarajevo. It had a flattened dome that sat on an octagonal drum which rested on a square mass. I preferred the Bascarsija Mosque near the market better with its minaret that shot up toward the sky.

  “I like minarets,” Wisdom said. “It’s like they’re always giving somebody the finger.”

  “When you find a place to park this thing,” I said, “we’ll leave it.”

  Wisdom found a spot about a block from the mosque and backed the car into it. “What do I do with the keys?” he said.

  “Mail them.”

  “Putnik’s going to be a little upset.”

  “Did you give them a deposit?”

  “No.”

  “They they’ll be happy to get them back.”

  “I am very hungry,” Gordana said. “Also I must go to the toilet.”

  “Knight, do you want to be tour leader?” I said.

  “You’re doing fine,” he said. “I’ve got some film here that I’d like to get developed.”

  “And I’m hungry, too,” Arrie said.

  “It isn’t going just quite the way I expected it to go, ladies and gentlemen, but if you’ll bear with me for a while, I’ll try to see to it that your bladders are emptied and your stomachs are filled.”

  It was dark now, but the streetlights were on here and there, which gave some illumination to the narrow lanes of the old section called Bascarsija that I herded my charges through like a mean shepherd with five ewes that were about to lamb. If I’d wanted to buy a copper Turkish coffee pot, I could have struck several magnificent bargains. The rug merchants were out in force and there were places to have your fez ironed. Some of the men were down from the hills with their heads wrapped in red and striped turbans. A few wore braided belts and gusseted britches under their long sheepskin-lined coats. Others wore suits that looked as if they came from the state cooperative store while still others, a sinister lot, I thought, wandered about in blue, chalk-striped double-breasted suits that could have been new in 1930 or 1970.

  The women seemed to wear anything that came along although Arrie’s long suede coat got a couple of admiring glances. With the veil still banished, the Muslim women drew their kerchiefs across tìieir mouths. Some wore what looked to be pants suits, but weren’t, and others of the Muslim faith wore bloomers to make sure, the story had it, that no baby who just might be a descendant of the Prophet would touch soil at his birth.

  It was a noisy section, flavored by the Orient as well as the West, and nobody seemed to be much concerned with The Reform. They were there to do business with anyone who came by and if it took six cups of coffee to make a deal, that too was Allah’s will.

  We turned left at a narrow street that had no name, then right on to Asćiluk, and then left to the main road, Vojvode Stepe Obala.

  “It is the bridge across the way that is named for the hero, Gavrilo Princip,” Tavro said mournfully.

  “Is that where he shot the archduke?” Wisdom said.

  “No,” Tavro said, “it is near here where we stand.”

  “What about a café or a restaurant?” I said.

  “There is one called the Dva Ribara,” he said. “It is not far.”

  “Let’s try it,” I said. It seemed to be the first real decision that I’d made all day.

  It wasn’t much of a restaurant, but it offered food, and Henry Knight and I, alone at the table, studied the menus as best we could. Knight folded his and put it down.

  “I’ll let someone else order for me,” he said.

  “What about a drink?”

  “I can order that myself.”

  We tried the plum brandy again. Knight fooled with the stem of his glass, moving it in small loops around the table. “Have you come up with any conclusions?” he said.

  “About the radio story?”

  “Yes.”

  “None.”

  “What about the kidnappers?” he said.

  “You mean will it have scared them off?”

  “That occurred to me.”

  “And me. It was probably meant to.”

  “Could that embassy guy have made a mistake?”

  “You mean an honest one?” I said.

  “Any kind.”

  “It depends on what kind of shape the body was in. Stepinac did resemble me and there could have been some problem about identification. But I don’t think that there was.”

  “But you can’t guess why?”

  “I can guess,” I said.

  “So can I,” he said.

  “What’s yours?”

  “It’s not a guess really. It’s just that somebody wants you dead for a little while. So it’s really not guessing about why but about who.”

  “I can think of several who’s,” I said.

  “Anybody I know?” Knight said.

  “I’m not sure.”

  The table talk was less than brilliant. Tavro appeared to have sunk into one of his despondent moods and spoke only when someone asked him a question, and that wasn’t often. Gordana, still looking lovely, seemed to have lost her appetite, but it may have been the food which she pushed politely back and forth across her plate. Arrie appeared thoughtful. She ate her meal quickly and then sat back, silently smoking a cigarette. Wisdom was still driving the car and his movements were tense and his speech was nervous chatter to which no one much listened, not even himself. Knight was the most relaxed, but then he was an actor and I couldn’t tell how he really felt. I felt rotten.

  The meal dragged on, prolonged by the indifference of the waiters who showed up at odd times, looking as if they’d rather debate management policy than serve the coffee. The restaurant filled up slowly and I called for the check at a quarter after eight and it arrived at eight thirty which I thought was reasonable haste. I showed my appreciation with a ten percent tip.

  We crossed the river near Sarajevo’s municipal museum and started tìirough tìie Gypsy quarter of Dajanil Osmanbeg. It was a steep winding street, almost too narrow for a car. Small, evil-looking alleys led from the street and seemed to disappear into nothing.

  “There is another way,” Tavro said, “but this is quicker.”

  “So is a taxi,” I said.

  We followed him through the street that wound through Bistrik which might have been a suburb of Sarajevo at one time, but now was a collection of shacks and wooden houses that tilted crazily at each other. It was a Muslim district with a sprinkling of miniature mosques and minarets built of wood. The Gypsies were short and swarthy, as most Gypsies are, and they talked to each other in what Arrie claimed to be Tamil. Kids were everywhere, but they were outnumbered by the cats, lean, tough, Gypsy-looking cats that prowled the alleys or sat in doorways and stared up at us with the knowing eyes that a Gypsy cat would have.

  “The Prophet was terribly keen on cats, you know,” Wisdom said as we stumbled over a couple of kittens who pranced around spitting fiercely and arching their backs and puffing up their tails only to forget what they were mad about in the next second.

  “I didn’t,” I said.

  “You can see the mark of His hand on their heads,” Wisdom went on.

  “Truly,” I said.

  “There is a legend.”

  “Ah.”

  “Mohammed cut off a piece of his robe rather than disturb the cat who was sleeping on it.”

  “There must have been an easier way,” I said.

  “Then there would have been no legend.”

  I looked back several times, but if we were being followed, I couldn’t spot the tail in the dim streets. If there were more than one, they could have been ducking in and out of a score of dark alleys and doorways. I didn’t feel as if I were being followed, but then I never did which must indicat
e a low level of paranoia if nothing else.

  “Left at the next street,” Tavro said and we turned out of the quarter and onto a wider thoroughfare that commemorated the Sixth Day of November which, Tavro informed me, was a state holiday whose occasion he couldn’t recall. It was his only failure as a guide thus far and I think it upset him a little.

  “The train station is left at the next corner,” he said and I turned to inspect the group which I reluctantly was beginning to think of as a brood. Wisdom was with Gordana and Knight was with Arrie.

  “This is a dead-end street,” I said. “The train station is about a block up. This time I’ll go by myself. If I’m not back in ten minutes, I suggest that you check in with Traveler’s Aid.”

  “It’s cold here,” Arrie said.

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” I said, turned and walked toward the station. I looked back twice at the five of them who huddled at the corner in a disconsolate group, looking something like a Salvation Army band that had lost its instruments.

  The station was nearly empty except for a couple of Gypsies who were more interested in the tile stove than the next train and a shaggy-haired man in his thirties who wore a long, sheepskin-lined shepherd’s coat, a fur hat, and scuffed leather boots. He looked at me and I looked at him. Then I looked at my watch and wandered over to examine the train schedule.

  “You figure on catching a train?” a voice said and I turned. It was the shaggy-haired man.

  “I hadn’t thought of it,” I said. He needed a shave and maybe a bath, but he probably knew it as well as I did.

  “The radio said you were dead. Hit-and-run.”

  “Then what’re you doing here?”

  “We took a chance.”

  “How’s Killingsworth?”

  “You ever spend a week with him?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t,” he said and looked around the station carefully. “You weren’t followed?”

  “None that I could spot.”

  He was a little shorter than I with dark brown eyes and quick, nervous movements. His hands made rapid, fluent gestures.

  “You’re the Italian,” I said.

  He nodded. “My partner’s staying with Killingsworth. Where’re the rest of them?”

  “At the corner.”

  “How many?”

  “Five. Two women, three men.”

  He rolled his eyes a little at that, but then gave me a magnificent shrug which made it perfectly clear that he considered them to be my foolish responsibility and one which would rest lightly on his shoulders for only a brief time.

  “I got a Volks bus outside,” he said. “We may as well go.”

  I followed him outside to a three- or four-year-old gray Volkswagen microbus that had chains on its rear wheels. I looked around again, but I could still see no one other than the two Gypsies in the train station. The Italian also took his time before climbing up into the driver’s seat.

  “You sure you weren’t followed?” he said, starting the engine.

  “Hell no, I’m not sure.”

  “Cool it, friend, we’re almost home.” He paused a moment and then gruffly asked, “What do you think of my English?”

  “It’s swell.”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “Who?”

  “Killingsworth.”

  “What’s he been doing?” I said.

  “Chopping wood and when he’s not doing that, he talks. He says he’s going to write a story about us.”

  “What do you tell him?”

  “That we’re going to kill him. It keeps him quiet for a little while.”

  “He still thinks it’s for real?”

  “All the way,” the Italian said.

  “What’s the schedule?”

  “I’ll get you up to the castle. Then you’re on your own. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  He pulled the Volkswagen up to the corner and I got out. The two women got in first, then Wisdom and Knight. Tavro seemed to hesitate. “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “I must know your plan,” he said.

  “Get in,” I said, “and I’ll try to think of one.”

  24

  WE WENT SOUTH ALONG the highway that climbs back into the mountains. About ten miles out of Sarajevo we turned east onto a narrow road which the snow plows had given only a lick and a promise. The Italian had to keep the Volks bus in first or second gear most of the time because it was a steep, twisting road with sharp, unannounced cutbacks and nearly right-angled corners. On the right I could see the side of a mountain, on the left I could see nothing—no guardrails, no billboards, only the edge of the road that I was sure dropped straight down for at least half a mile.

  The Italian drove with all the fine, unconcerned flair of his race. I was glad that we were going up instead of down because the grade kept him below forty kilometers per hour most of the time. It took us almost an hour and a half to go what I estimated to be thirty kilometers. The Italian slowed the Volks down to a crawl and we crept through a village that was a cluster of stone houses and what looked to be a combination café and general store.

  “From here we take the horses,” he said.

  “Where’s here?” I asked.

  “It’s called Trnovo,” he said, “and it’s not much.”

  Just past the village we stopped at a small stone house that had a long low shed attached to it.

  “Wait here,” he said and got out.

  He knocked on the door of the house and I caught a glimpse of a tall dark man with a mustache that drooped solemnly down the sides of his heavy chin. Then the Italian was inside the house and the door closed.

  “What is he doing?” Tavro said.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Asking directions maybe.”

  “He said something about horses,” Tavro said.

  “That’s right.”

  “When’s the last time you were on a horse, Phil?” Wisdom said.

  I thought a moment “Nineteen forty-two, in Columbus, Ohio. It wasn’t really a horse though; it was a Shetland pony and it cost a nickel to ride around the ring. I was six or seven, I think.”

  “I’ve never been on a horse,” Arrie said.

  “Maybe you’ll like it,” I said.

  Tavro was sputtering. “It is—it is ridiculous. It is playacting.”

  “It’s the only transportation there is,” I said. “I don’t think we’ll have to go far.”

  “The last time I was on a horse,” Knight said, “was when I rode into Dodge City ten years ago looking for some mean son of a bitch who’d killed my pard.”

  “What were you gonna do if you found him, Rafe?” Wisdom said.

  “As I recollect, I was gonna shoot him down like a yella dog.”

  “The marshal stop you?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, the mean son of a bitch got me first, but then the marshal got him.”

  “Maybe I knew your pard,” Wisdom said. “How’d he call himself?”

  “Went by the name of Carstairs,” Knight said. “Jimmy Carstairs.”

  The Italian came out of the house and opened the door to the Volks. “Around in the back,” he said.

  The snow was almost a foot deep on the path that led to the long low shed and it spilled over into my shoes. My feet were thoroughly wet by the time we entered the shed. I looked around and none of the others wore boots except for the Italian.

  The shed was illuminated by a lone kerosene lamp which was held by the man with the mustache. He hung the lamp on a nail and then busied himself with five small horses that were stabled on the right side of the shed. On the left side was a new tan Porsche. The Italian came over to me and held something out.

  “Here’re the keys to Killingsworth’s car,” he said as I took them. “I expect he wants it back.”

  “What about that guy?” I said, nodding toward the man with the mustache.

  “He won’t be here,” the Itali
an said. “He’s with us.

  “Who owns this place?” I said.

  The Italian looked at me sourly. “When you gonna ask me for my home address?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking of the cops.”

  “Let me worry about them.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I will. How far is it?”

  “To the castle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Five kilometers. Straight up almost.”

  “It sounds like a tough ride.”

  He gave me another sour look. “At least you’ll ride,” he said. “I’ve got to walk.” He turned and looked at the man with the mustache who nodded and slapped one of the horses on the rump. “Okay,” the Italian said. “Get on the horses. Get on from the left side. If you need any help, let me know.”

  Arrie needed help, so did Gordana. I probably did but I was too proud to admit it. The horses were small animals, ponies really, I think, with shaggy coats that smelled of pine trees and manure. The saddles were wooden affairs with splits down their centers. The Italian and the man with the mustache came down the line checking stirrups.

  “You know how to ride?” the Italian asked me.

  “No.”

  He sighed and took my horse by the bridle and led it around the one that Wisdom sat. “Up here with the rest of the girls,” he said to me. “Hold the reins in your left hand. You can hold on to the saddle with your right. Don’t try to tell the horse what to do, just let him follow.”

  I turned to look around. Knight was last, sitting his horse casually, as if he knew what he was doing. Wisdom was in front of him. He’d probably learned to ride at school, but I didn’t ask. Tavro was behind me and it was evident that he knew how to ride. Gordana was in front of me and Arrie was in front of her.

  The Italian looked back at us. He shook his head wearily and then started to speak in that high strained voice that people use who’re not accustomed to speaking to groups of more than three.

  “We’re gonna follow a path for about five kilometers. Try to stay together. If you fall off, try to fall off on the right side. Don’t try nothing fancy. Just stay on your horse. When they go up, lean forward. It’s gonna take about an hour.”