Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller

by Ridgway, Brady

  We dressed up for a night out. Well Martina dressed up; I was still stuck with the contents of my suitcase. I picked out the least smeggy shirt. The chinos were still doable, so I wore them. Undies and socks had to be recycled but I managed to find some that weren’t too far past their sell-by date. I tipped the rest of my clothing into the hotel’s plastic laundry bag.

  At hotel prices for laundry I could probably buy new clothes for less, but I didn’t have the time to go shopping. I was worrying about laundry prices already; I’d gone from millionaire to miser in less than an afternoon.

  It was chilly outside. Despite the cold we decided to walk. We were less than a kilometre from the Savarin and we both wanted to try to forget about the shit we were in and try to enjoy the Prague atmosphere.

  We walked arm in arm out of the hotel and down the street towards the Old City. The evening crowds swelled down the sidewalks. Lovers huddled together, swaddled against the cold in long winter coats, stared into each other’s eyes, oblivious to anyone around them. Tourists covered random paths like sheep separated from the flock, looking for the next must-see in a city that is all must-see.

  We approached the imposing art nouveau Občení dům. Fused to it, like some ancient appendage, the Prašná braná beckoned us to the Old City. We didn’t get that far. We were both starving. I steered Martina into the French Restaurant inside the Občení dům.

  It was early. There was only a scattering of diners. Columns of chandeliers glittered from the high ceilings. The clatter of cutlery echoed from the marble tables, muting the murmur of conversation. I asked the waiter to seat us in one of the booths next to a window so that we could forget the emptiness and draw life from the street outside. I ordered a bottle of Frankovka. We sat in silence waiting for the wine to arrive, holding hands across the table, staring at each other like a couple on a blind date, neither knowing where to begin.

  Something outside caught my eye. Amid the constant bustle in the street - pedestrians walking past the window, crossing the road, weaving between the cars - there was a curious stillness.. On the other side of the street a man stood hunched up against the wall, staring across at us: a rock in the stream of passers by. The collar of his long grey coat was turned up against the cold, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He was in the shadows, his face obscured.

  I stared at him. Suddenly he pushed himself from the wall and walked purposefully away, towards Na Přikopě.

  The wine arrived. I forgot about the man and clinked glasses with Martina. It was an exceptional red; the people who avoid ‘inferior’ Czech wine don’t know what they’re talking about. It oiled our tongues too. We both spoke at the same time.

  ‘What happen now…? Martina began to ask while I blurted, ‘You were fantast…’

  We both stopped, looked at each other, waited for the other to continue. It was the first awkward pause in our short relationship.

  Martina smiled, waiting for me to continue.

  ‘You were fantastic back therekočka, with the American.’

  ‘I not like him.’ she frowned.

  ‘I could tell. So could he.’

  ‘What happen now… about money?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. If Jahangir contacts me again, I’ll have to get the uranium for him.’

  ‘Then Americans give you money back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘He say they will.’

  ‘Say and do are sometimes different. I can’t make him give it back. Anyway the Americans don’t have my money, the Swiss do.’

  ‘So maybe you not get money?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  She wasn’t happy with that. I detected a pout. ‘Bastards.’ she said.

  I squeezed her hand, ‘Yes. But there’s bugger all we can do about it right now. Let’s just forget about the money and enjoy the evening.’

  ‘Ano. I bloody hungry.’

  I really was worried about the effect I was having on her vocabulary.

  By then I had completely forgotten about the mysterious man across the street. We washed down smoked duck breast and pork tenderloin with more of the Frankovka. Gingerbread cake with fruit sauce and poppy seed ice cream rounded off the meal. I could have sat there all night, drinking wine and staring into the limpid pools of Martina’s eyes. But I was getting drunk and we still had to place an order with Zdeněk at the casino.

  I paid the bill and we wrapped ourselves against the cold before venturing outside again. Evening strollers filled the sidewalk. We followed the flow, on down Na Přikopě, until we reached the pedestrian mall.

  Although most of the shops were closed, the windows were lit. There was a festive atmosphere, everyone braving the cold to enjoy a rare starry night. At the one end of the mall a man was bent over a street organ, grinding its melodies into the night. Further along was the Přikopě sword-swallower: an old cripple with shiny black hair. He was a fixture of the street, pushing impossibly long blades down his gullet and driving nails into his nose in all weathers and seasons.

  We stopped and watched him for a while. With a flourish he chose a claymore, tilted his head right back, slid it all the way down and then, inexplicably, gave a Nazi salute. I tossed a few crowns into his hat and we continued on to the casino.

  Zdeněk’s grizzled face creased into a rare smile when he saw me coming up the stairs. ‘Mister Noah.’He held out his hand, enveloped mine, gripped and shook. Before I could introduce them he looked at Martina,‘Dobrý večer Martina. Jak se mate?’

  I had never taken her to the Savarin before, Zdeněk had never seen us together; but I wasn’t surprised that he knew her. Zdeněk knew everything that was worth knowing in Prague; and everybody worth knowing. He was the moneylender, the moneychanger, the arms dealer, the fixer, the doer. He had eyes like a shithouse rat; I’d once seen him spot a fake euro note two tables away.

  I took Martina through to the bar. I ordered a Kozel and she chose champagne. Unfortunately she had acquired a taste for it.

  I loved the Savarin. I liked all casinos; that was my problem. The seediest dive unfailingly gets my adrenaline squirting the moment I walk in the door. There’s an infectious buzz about gaming tables, especially when they’re humming and the money’s changing hands faster than you can count it.

  You can keep slot machines. In the good old days they were kept separate, out of sight and sound of the gaming tables. But these days you can’t get away from them - the casinos have put them among the tables - their incessant jangling irritates the crap out of me. It’s the rattle of chips and the slap of cards that draws me like a moth to a flame; or like a fly to shit.

  The Savarin was one of the few casinos remaining that retained an air of old world charm. It didn’t have the grandeur of the Pupp in Karlovy Vary but for me it was the best in Prague.

  I took a thousand CIA dollars to the cash desk and changed them for euros. Armed and dangerous, we headed for the tables. We sat down at a roulette table. I gave half the chips to Martina and we bought a colour each.

  I consider myself a bit of a boffin. I like to sit for a while and watch the table, see how the dealer is spinning, wait for a trend to develop. Martina had no such reservations. She plastered all her chips randomly on the table and sat there sipping champagne, waiting for the ball to drop.

  The ball fell in to number 32; and she just happened to have it well covered. I couldn’t believe it. She squealed, gave me a big wet champagne kiss. The dealer took a while to work out the winnings, had to get the Pit Boss to come and check because it was such a large amount.

  I marked the 32 on my card, waited for the next spin. Martina jumped straight in the deep end again, splodged all her chips on the table in big piles, put the rest on red. The ball fell in 32: again. She had left all her chips there from the previous spin and had added loads more.

  Martina’s never been a wallflower. I think they heard her in the Old Town. Her payout was more than doubled.

  She was on her feet, pumped with adrenaline,
jumping up and down, waving her arms about, attracting a crowd. I started to play, trying to stick to my system: being conservative. Martina was leaning over the table, oblivious to the gathering audience, oblivious to the men staring down the front of her dress: she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  I started to get pissed off. Those were my tits; what were all these letches doing staring at my tits? It didn’t help that I was losing.

  Martina saw my lip dropping, saw that I was losing, noticed the leers. She sat down, pulled her top into place, passed me a pile of chips, kissed me on the mouth. I got over myself.

  What a team. We couldn’t go wrong. The pile of chips kept growing. The table ran out of money and had to be replenished; three times. We had so many chips in front of us that I had to keep going to the cash desk to change them for credit notes.

  It was well past midnight and we were still going like gangbusters. The ball had just fallen into a well-stacked number when there was an enormous bang, the grunt of someone being slapped hard by a bullet, a thud as he hit the floor. The casino went completely quiet; everyone looked towards the entrance where the gunshot had come from. A small cloud of blue smoke drifted into the doorway.

  Chapter 29

  No more shots. The players turned back to the table, clamoured for their winnings. I was amazed. No one seemed to care that someone had been shot only metres away. Gamblers! I touched Martina, told her that I was going to investigate. She nodded, turned to collect her winnings.

  I found Zdeněk at the front door, still pointing his pistol at a man writhing in agony at his feet. A dark pool of blood oozed from him onto the tiled floor. A pistol lay nearby, just out of his reach. I picked it up and handed it to Zdeněk. The casino manager arrived, glanced at the wounded man, turned to Zdeněk. ‘What the hell happened?’

  ‘I find gun. I stop him. He push me, grab gun. I shoot him.’ Zdeněk couldn’t have made it clearer.

  The manager rolled his eyes, paid no attention to the man bleeding at his feet. ‘Christ, do you know how much paperwork this is going to cause?’ He glanced down, ‘Oh well, at least you shot him on the tiles. We’d never have got this mess out of the carpet.’ Having taken care of the crisis, he turned and marched off to his office. There was a distant wail of sirens.

  The man on the floor looked at me, recognised me, went pale, looked wildly about for his gun. We were alone for a moment, Zdeněk, the gunman and me. I reached down, flipped his jacket open, rifled his pockets: wallet, cards, cash, passport: Russian. So they were after me.

  He lunged for his ankle. I didn’t let him get that far, kicked him hard in the ribs, right next to his wound. That took the fight out of him. I frisked him properly. There was a small revolver strapped to his ankle. I removed it, holster too; strapped it to my ankle. Zdeněk winked. It was time to leave.

  I fetched Martina. She wasn’t happy. She was still winning. I explained quickly. She understood. We took the remaining chips to the cash desk. They offered us a cheque; I said we’d settle for cash. It came to a little over one hundred and twenty thousand euros. They gave it to us in 500-euro notes. Martina managed to stuff them all into her bag.

  We didn’t want to walk home carrying that much cash, needed to be off the streets and inside the hotel as quickly as possible. But the street outside the casino was a pedestrian mall, the nearest taxi rank just around the corner, at the bottom of Václavské náměstí. We would have to walk, get a cab there. I removed the revolver from its holster, stuck it into the pocket of my coat. I gripped it in my right hand, ready to pull it out if there were any more Russians waiting for us outside.

  Martina took my left arm and we stepped from the casino onto Na Přikopě. The street was deserted. Most of the shop lights were out; only the streetlights cast yellow pools onto the damp cobblestones.

  Our footsteps echoed from the silent buildings. Water dripped somewhere. As we approached Václavské náměstí, before we turned the corner, we heard footfalls behind us. It was probably nothing, just a late night reveller or one of the casino patrons; but I increased our pace.

  We rounded the corner, banged straight into an old beggar who was coming around the corner towards us. Martina yelped, grabbed her leg. The man was blind; she had walked into his white stick, scratched her leg, ripped her stocking.

  The beggar was one of the homeless people that hung around the square during the day, avoiding the police, trying to cadge from the tourists. I pulled Martina out of his way. He flailed wildly with his stick. We jumped aside to avoid being impaled.

  I was more concerned about who might be behind us than the crazy old man. We were close to the corner and anyone coming around it would be on top of us before I could do anything. I grasped the butt of the gun in my pocket, steered Martina away, continued to the taxi rank.

  Although it was late, there was still a cab waiting. We jumped in. ‘Marriottprosím.’ I told the driver, and watched to see that he did not enter the tourist rate into the meter - old habits die hard. When we were on our way Martina examined her leg where the stick had grazed her.

  ‘Curva do piče! These new stockings. Now they buggered.’

  ‘I’ll get you a new pair.’ I said. Then I remembered that for the moment she was the wealthy one. I pointed to her bulging bag. ‘You should have enough there for a pair or two.’

  That brought a smile back.

  ‘Let me see your leg.’ She turned her leg to one side, exposing a flash of white at the top and a two-centimetre scratch on her inner thigh. I tried to concentrate on the scratch. It was superficial, just a thin red line on the top layer of skin. I kissed my fingers and patted the scratch. ‘There it’s better now.’

  She kissed me on the cheek.‘Děkuji.’ We were still snogging when the taxi pulled up in front of the hotel.

  Back in the safety of the room, Martina was wired, pulled the money from her bag, threw the notes into the air. They landed all over the bed like confetti. Then she dived onto the bed and rolled in them, rubbing them over her body. I joined her. We soon forgot about the money.

  Afterwards, when she was in the shower, I retrieved the revolver and holster from my pile of clothes at the end of the bed. It was a Charter Arms .44 Special Bulldog: simple, effective and not very subtle. Baby brother of the .44 Magnum, the .44 Special packs a punch, even from its short barrel. The cylinder carries only five rounds, to keep it small. Some people think that five rounds are not enough. I believe that if you can’t end an argument with five rounds, you shouldn’t have started one in the first place.

  I checked the cylinder. All five chambers were full – unfired. I returned the revolver to its holster and put it on the bedside table.

  When Martina emerged from the shower I helped her gather the money, counted it, put it in the room safe.

  By the time we had cleaned up it was past three in the morning; bed time. Martina’s eyes were beginning to droop. Before I had removed the rest of my clothes she was curled up under the covers, fast asleep.

  I climbed into bed, spooned up next to her, fell asleep too. I slept like the dead. It was already light when my phone woke me. It must have been ringing for a while because it stopped just as I got to it. Martina hadn’t even heard it. She was still under the duvet, dead to the world. The curtains were drawn, but the sun shone on them, lit the room. I pulled the curtains open; and immediately regretted it.

  The sunlight hit my retinas like a bucket full of sulphuric acid, blinding me for a few seconds. When I had regained enough vision to squint at my watch, I saw that it was already past eleven. I retrieved the phone and was looking up the missed call when it rang again; I nearly dropped it. I don’t do mornings.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Salaam.’ It was Jahangir.

  ‘Everything all right?’ I played it cool.

  ‘Yes. You are happy with the last transaction?’

  ‘Very.’ I didn’t think that he would want to be burdened with the freezing of my account, the CIA: that sort of thing. ‘What can I do for you?
’

  ‘Are you able to supply the other product?’

  ‘Of course?’

  ‘ We need to meet.’

  ‘Same place?’

  ‘No. I will call you later to arrange a meeting.’

  At least things were moving again. Martina was still under the covers, fast asleep, so I went for a shower. When I emerged she still hadn’t moved.

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I whipped the duvet off her. She didn’t move. A chill came over me. She was too still. I felt for a pulse, struggled to find one. But it was barely there: faint, thready.

  I rolled her onto her back, pulled an eyelid open. The pupil was dilated, the eye staring, unseeing. Her lips were dry, smeared with a thin white film. She was barely breathing.

  I grabbed the phone, dialled reception, told them to call an ambulance. I stayed with her, waited for the ambulance, checked her pulse, her breathing, covered her nakedness, checked her pulse… checked her pulse… checked her pulse… she stopped breathing.

  Chapter 30

  Fortunately I knew CPR; I’d had to use it in anger before. This was different though; this was my Martina. If I didn’t breathe for her she would die. It didn’t occur to me why she had stopped breathing; right then it didn’t matter. I put one hand under her neck, stretched it to open her airway. She was completely limp - unresisting. I held her nose closed and put my mouth over hers, breathed into her, watched her chest rise, took my mouth away and watched it fall. I breathed for her again and again, pushing oxygen to her lungs.

  Between breaths I reached for the phone, dialled reception again, shouted for an ambulance.

  For fifteen long minutes she clung to life with a tenuous grasp. I kept breathing for her, watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest, waited for the ambulance to arrive.

  There was a loud banging on the door. I grabbed the revolver from the bedside table, thrust it into my pocket - out of sight - shouted for them to come in. They kept banging. There was no way I was going to stop the CPR so I kept going until they found someone to open the door.