The Magician's Accomplice

by Michael Genelin

  Walsh sat with his arms folded, a disgruntled look on his face. “The whole organization is like that. The higher up the functionary, the more he quakes at the hint of a reproof.”

  “Watch,” Ilica talked excitedly, bobbing his head, his heavily accented English getting worse. “In a while Mazur, he will call you to his office and he apologize. Not for being wrong, but to give the ‘second chance.’ Then, he give you a task to perform, something small, to show he still has faith in you. Naturally, he expect you to be grateful.”

  “We’ve all been most ‘grateful’ at one time or another,” Paola grimaced.

  “The organization is shit,” Laszlo growled. “There is no real work.”

  Jana reacted to his statement. “What do you mean, no work?”

  “The countries who are signatories to Europol don’t send us cases,” Laszlo explained. “Or they send shit cases no one but God can solve.”

  “The bloody European national police departments don’t want us to be involved in their cases.” Walsh groused. “They want to handle it themselves. No one wants to give their investigations over to us. It’s all about national honor being upheld. If a case has international implications, that country’s police would rather get directly involved with the other countries’ police. On the other hand, the powers-that-be in our organization, those lofty individuals who run Europol, are economical with the truth. They tell lots of big fibs.”

  Jana thought about his characterization of the management at Europol as liars. “They give out misinformation? How?”

  “Statistics,” snorted Walsh.

  “And claims of credit for cases we barely connect with,” Paola affirmed, ruefully shaking her head. “The way they describe the cases we do get, it’s as if we always have remarkable successes. There is never a bad result. If a case turns sour, they string it out under the guise of continuing the investigation, eventually burying it in the back of some report. On the other hand, they blabber about the depths of our involvement when we are only called on for something simple, like checking the file of some second-rate crook involved with the case, or tracing a foreign license plate.”

  “Remember my case on canned goods?” Walsh asked. “I was assigned a query on mislabeled cans of sardines. The Norwegians said they were being sold in Greece under false pretenses since the sardines were really caught and canned by Japanese rover ships, then shipped to Greece falsely advertised as being from Norway. A forty-thousand-euro shipment, very small by international standards, was involved. The Norwegians spent a year, the Greeks a year, with a total cost to the two countries of about 500,000 euros.”

  “More money than that was spent,” Paola corrected Walsh.

  “Probably,” Walsh agreed. “We ran some shipping records for them. Nothing much. It took a couple of hours of my time. When the arrests were made, our head office wrote it up for our public records as if we had solved the whole thing.”

  Laszlo snorted. “If we touch it, no matter how teeny-tiny, we’re the agency that saved the world.”

  “In reality,” Paola added, “most of our jobs are make-work. We fill our own reports with crap to make us look good while we’re really sitting on our hands.”

  “Getting fat-assed,” Walsh appended.

  “Speak for yourself,” Ilica prodded Walsh. “I’m still Mr. Muscle.”

  He brought his arms up, flexing his biceps to show them all how fit he was. There was a chorus of boos, which Ilica enjoyed.

  They began to file out of the room. Paola lingered for a moment, a sly smile on her face.

  “Don’t worry about Mazur. Like Ilica said, he’s going to make nice.”

  They were right. There was a note on Jana’s desk asking her to see Mazur. Paola winked at her as Jana went to his office.

  Mazur rose from behind his desk, handing her a cup of coffee that he had already poured. It was as if he’d forgotten his disapproval of her.

  “I’m so pleased that we have someone like you, a person who understands the command requirements that every supervisor must fulfill,” Mazur declared.

  “What would those requirements be, Assistant Director?” Jana watched him twitch, as if he had been jabbed in the ribs.

  “The prime directive is to make this place run smoothly.” He paused for a moment, as if rehearsing Europol directives in his mind. “I felt that you needed to know what the parameters of conduct were for working here. However, sometimes I am too abrupt in exercising my prerogatives as a supervisor. So if I was, if I spoke perhaps too harshly, I was simply voicing my perceptions.”

  “Perceptions are important,” Jana agreed, wondering if she could keep up her pose of compliance for very much longer.

  “Good. We agree. Some good news, now. Perhaps I should keep this to myself, but I won’t. When I talked to the Dutch police, they personally indicated to me that they did not think they would have a case against you when they completed their assessment of the facts.”

  Then why, Jana wondered, had Mazur spoken as he had in the conference room? He was a frightened martinet, she concluded, covering his posterior in case things might yet turn sour. Another thought intruded. “Was the Dutch officer who contacted you an investigator named Jan Leiden?”

  Mazur looked surprised, and a little anxious. “You know the man?”

  “We met, briefly, over a cup of coffee.”

  “Oh.” Mazur looked more anxious. “A friend?” It would not do for her to establish a back-channel source of information with the Dutch police; she might then possibly undercut him.

  “We’ve just met.”

  “Hmmm.” He fiddled with a pencil, then forced a smile. “I’ve contacted the Slovak police with respect to the mix-up about your inappropriate job skills for the position they sent you to fill at Europol. I’ve received no answer as yet.” He rubbed his hands together in a bad simulation of enthusiasm. “Now, I can’t have you just sitting around not doing anything until I get some ruling on your status. So I have a little assignment for you in the meantime. You’re an expert in homicide investigations. Our people receive continuing training through CEPOL, the European police college headquartered in England. However, since you’re here, I’d like you to prepare and conduct an in-house training session for the people in our unit on how to investigate a homicide case. Merely a cross-training exercise, you understand, until we have further word.”

  Jana agreed, to make peace. The assistant director went back to his work. Jana walked out of Mazur’s office with the realization that the man was a complete imbecile. Even worse, she began to think that this was the most absurd posting she’d ever been given.

  When she got back to her office, Jana began to feel depressed, which set in motion a descent into a well of self-pity. Ultimately, she became angry with herself. Peter would not want her to respond in this way. If there were no chances of being assigned a real case here, maybe she would have time to investigate the cases that were still pending in Slovakia: the killing of Denis Macek, the phone blast that had killed Peter. And, also, the disappearance of Kroslak from The Hague. Fury replaced depression. Yes, she would find a way to work on those cases. There were difficulties, the long distance and a lack of access to witnesses and reports, but she would find a way. Peter would appreciate what she was going to do. Perhaps, even more importantly, she would.

  Others, investigators who were not in her section, began popping in to chat with members of the team over morning coffee. There was Mayer from Austria, a stocky man who smelled of cigar smoke, then Ryan, another Irishman, who apparently shared a mutual antipathy with Walsh, the two of them bristling every time they neared each other, and Gunnar, a Norwegian whose hair and skin were so bleached out that he was almost an albino. They came and went, introducing themselves to Jana, or not, several of them mouthing “See you at 1700 hours” before they left.

  Jana asked Paola what the “1700 hours” was about.

  “Initiation party for the newbie. It’s also an opportunity for everyone to get a litt
le squiffed.”

  Jana winced. She knew who the “newbie” was.

  Paola had a wicked look on her face. Whatever was on the horizon, Paola was going to enjoy it.

  Chapter 11

  The party began at 1700 hours. Everyone gathered at an even larger conference room one floor below. It was a typical cops-only event: vulgar, loud, tinged with anger. Swearing, cursing, and complaining comprised a large portion of the conversation. A large hand-printed sign on one wall said “Welcome Slovakia.”

  The conference table had been pushed to one side, the chairs stacked in the corners. A large punch bowl, filled with a purple-red liquid that looked like it would burn out one’s insides, had been placed in the middle of the table with paper cups surrounding it. Another bowl containing ice cubes sat next to it. Three large thermos jugs stood on the other side of the punch bowl. Paola cautioned Jana not to drink the punch, describing its fiery contents as brewed by a genuine “Lithuanian witch.” Instead, Paola referred her to the “purist’s” choice, the contents of the thermos jugs: red contained scotch, blue vodka, and yellow gin. Jana poured herself a small amount of scotch on the rocks, then went through the usual mingling-with-the-guests process. All of them, not only the ones who had met her earlier, knew her name. This was, indeed, a small world she had come into.

  They were an odd mixture. An Englishman named Peete was eternally embarrassed about something, and looked at the floor when anyone talked to him; a dark-skinned man who was clearly from the Middle East spoke English with a very French accent and was more French in his mannerisms than anyone Jana had ever met; a Slovenian who looked more German than Zimmer, the Prussian, who stood against one of the walls, distancing himself from everyone. Jana tucked away all their names and faces in appropriate compartments of her brain. Most of her new compatriots were cheerful, talkative, and generally outgoing. It looked like it would be pleasant to work with them.

  Everyone was now chattering away, the noise level fueled by the freely flowing alcohol. Jana eventually wandered over to Paola and Walsh, who were engaged in an intense conversation. The subject was Assistant Director Mazur, about whom Paola was ranting.

  “The son-of-a-bitch doesn’t know police work, he’s ready to say ‘no’ at every opportunity, and he stalls or slows every investigation that I’ve ever been involved in.”

  “He’s a little shite, and all little shites aren’t even worth cleaning your ass with. So, take another sip of your gin and forget Mr. Craphead. Am I right, Jana; or am I right?” He flashed her a big smile.

  “You’re right, Aidan.”

  To show her agreement, she took a small sip of her drink. Heeding her example, and to illustrate how seriously he took his own advice, Walsh downed the last of his drink, then moved over to the gin thermos and poured himself another cupful.

  “I’ve not seen Mazur at the party.” Jana looked around the room. “Does that mean he disapproves of newbie parties, or just me?”

  Walsh had returned. “He knows no one likes him, so he’s afraid to come to the shindig. One of our laddies might get too drunk and tell him what he thinks in front of everyone, which would be splendid by me. Unnecessary for me to point out, I suppose, but that would mean lots of laughter at his Highness the Turd’s discomfort.”

  “You’ll notice that Grosjean is also absent,” Paola added. She smirked, a wicked look in her eyes. “I sent him an anonymous letter today.”

  “Who?” asked Walsh.

  “Grosjean. I wrote ‘Stop Eating Shit’.”

  Walsh laughed uproariously. “I love it.” When he quieted down, he leaned toward Paola, lowering his voice. “He’ll know you sent it.”

  “He’ll think I’ve sent it. That’s a big difference.”

  There was a sudden fanfare of music from the speakers lodged in opposite corners of the room. The music stopped; a loud, falsely solemn voice declared, “Silence, and let us all pay reverent homage to the dear departed.”

  A number of men, including Gabi Laszlo and Gyorgi Ilica, slowly entered the room, solemnly carrying a coffin. They set the coffin on the table and reverently backed away, their heads bowed. A cardboard plaque was affixed to the coffin with Kroslak’s name printed on it, rip in gold letters under it.

  Jana stared at the cardboard sign, realizing that the “Initiation for the Newbie” had begun. Law-enforcement officers develop a macabre sense of humor. It is one of the ways they stay sane. She was now to be the butt of that humor.

  The voice blared over the speaker again. “Jana Matinova, replacement for our dearly beloved colleague who is no longer with us, will now come forward.” As Jana hesitated, Walsh prodded her.

  “Go up to the bloody thing.”

  Jana stepped up to the coffin. Everyone in the room looked at her expectantly, trying for mock solemnity.

  The loudspeaker piped up again. “You will now unlock the coffin, Jana Matinova.”

  Jana opened the little chain-bolt that sealed the lid.

  “Open the coffin, Jana Matinova.”

  Jana knew that whatever was coming would happen now.

  She opened the coffin.

  As soon as the lid fell back, music suitable for a bump-and-grind striptease blared out of the speaker and Ryan, the Irishman she had met earlier in the day, jumped up from inside the coffin, grinding away to the music. He was dressed in nothing but a bikini bottom, with false breasts, a long wig, and garish makeup all over his body, a hermaphrodite gargoyle displaying his wares for the world to see. Most noticeable of all was a huge plastic phallus, jutting out from his briefs, waving in the air in rhythm to his gyrations.

  He got closer and closer to Jana, brandishing the phallus until it was almost in her face. Jana knew she was expected to add her own touch to the revelry, perhaps scream, show feminine embarrassment, or fall over in a mock faint. None of those choices was acceptable to her, but she had to do something. Jana casually reached up, grasped the phallus, tore it off its tapes, then offhandedly tossed it into the crowd behind her as a bride would throw her bouquet. Ryan uttered a mock scream, clutching his groin, pretending that his own member had been torn away.

  The people in the room cheered and laughed. A number jumped on the conference table to gyrate, people applauded, screaming for those on the table to “take it off;” others danced around the room, with nothing held back in this sacred moment. Jana moved a few feet from the table.

  Walsh whispered in her ear. “I don’t think I’d like you to get angry at me, Matinova.”

  “If I do it fast, it won’t hurt a bit.”

  “Like hell it wouldn’t.”

  “At least they didn’t want you to take your clothes off.” Paola had to raise her voice to be heard above the din. “To be accepted, you still have to take all this crap from the men.”

  “Well, did you?”

  “Did I do what?”

  “Take them off?”

  “I stopped when I got down to my panties and brassiere.”

  “She looked pretty good in them,” Walsh added.

  “I know,” Paola agreed. “I surprised myself by enjoying it.”

  “I could tell.”

  Paola punched him, and he rolled with the punch, gesturing toward the now phallus-less man standing on the table.

  “This would have been a great party, except for that fat-ass Ryan up there.”

  Ryan was still gyrating away. Someone had tossed the plastic penis back up to him and he was whipping it over his head.

  “For god’s sake, will you stop with your crap about that guy,” Paola snarled.

  “Only when he’s dead.”

  Paola shrugged. “What is it with the Irish and their feuds?”

  Jana did not know the Irish well enough to answer the question. She glanced at the coffin. It still had Kroslak’s name on it, the rip sign now tilted at an angle symbolizing the off-kilter nature of the whole affair, silently asking “Whatever happened to Kroslak?”

  Chapter 12

  Jana’s arrival had ju
st been a pretext for everyone to have fun, so after a reasonable interval she slipped away from the party. By then, nobody missed her.

  She needed to complete her work on the homicide investigation cross-training exercise she had been assigned to conduct for her sectionmates, and although she’d worked on it intermittently all day, she needed to put the finishing touches to her preparation before meeting the professor for dinner. She went back to her hotel room. But the investigation of the two killings in Bratislava and the question of what was happening within her own division in Slovakia kept intruding. She ultimately gave in and made a phone call to Slovakia: to Seges, her warrant officer.

  When she got him on the phone, there was something decidedly different about the man’s attitude. Seges was not only no longer deferential to her as his commander, he was decidedly truculent, with an edge to his answers that projected outright antipathy.

  The first words out of his mouth when he realized it was Jana Matinova calling were, “What is it … Matinova?”

  “I’m still a commander, Seges.”

  “Yes, Commander,” he reluctantly said.

  “Have there been any messages for me?”

  “Nothing. No one has called.”

  There was a long silence.

  “You wanted something?” Seges asked.

  “Any word on the two cases?”

  “Which ones?”

  “The shooting at the hotel; the phone bombing in the prosecutor’s office.”

  “It’s my understanding that we are not supposed to discuss them.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t discuss the cases among each other? That you haven’t heard anything on the office water-cooler telegraph?”

  “Just rumors.”

  “What rumors?”

  “Rumors go in one of my ears and out of the other.”