The Magician's Accomplice

by Michael Genelin

  Jana could hear the frustration in the general’s voice. “I’m not so sure. By the time anyone gets around to questioning them, they’ll all have plausible reasons for what they were doing. They’ll claim it was part of an investigation. Or that they were after you as a suspect. We don’t have enough on them yet.” He paused, this time taking an audible breath. “I have more bad news.”

  “What?”

  “Kroslak. He’s dead.”

  It took Jana a while to recover from this blow. Martin Kroslak had been a good man. She had hoped that he would make it out of this alive. Jana fleetingly wondered how Kroslak’s young lover in Amsterdam was going to take the news. Not well. She felt sorry for both men.

  Now their task was going to be even harder. Even worse, she was not sure she and the professor themselves were going to make it out alive.

  “How did he die?”

  “Ligature strangulation.”

  Jana thought of Gizela Dinova, the ligature around her neck, her eyes almost popping from their sockets.

  “Your agent Dinova was killed like that. I think one of them from The Hague did this as well.”

  “Kroslak had been dead for only a short time.”

  “Was he killed yesterday, when the professor and I were out walking?”

  “Probably.”

  “Perhaps that’s why they dropped us and didn’t pick us up again until the evening at the club. His death was more important than ours. So they took him first.”

  “Be very careful, Commander. I have to believe that you are now the first item of business on their murder list.”

  “That depends on who else they have on their list. Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

  “Not very funny,” the general said.

  “It wasn’t meant to be funny.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “I want to view the body. Call the coroner’s office and tell them that we’re coming. I also want access to any of his personal effects that were recovered.”

  There was a grunt of acquiescence.

  “I also want you to call Colonel Trokan in Slovakia.”

  “After what’s happened, I’m not sure he’ll take my call.”

  “Tell him to go to Vienna and register at ‘our’ hotel. He’ll know where it is. I want him there tomorrow. Tell him it’s a matter of my life if he is not there. I’ll contact him.”

  There was another grunt of agreement.

  “I want to thank you for all hospitality we’ve received in Prague. It was a pleasure.”

  The phone stayed silent.

  “That was a joke,” she informed him, hanging up.

  Jana sat at the phone, trying to come to grips with what she’d learned. The professor took in her body posture and the expression on her face.

  “He told you something very bad, didn’t he?” the professor asked.

  “Kroslak, the man we were looking for, is dead.”

  The professor considered what she’d said. “Does that mean we can go home now?”

  “Not quite yet. We have a stop to make at the morgue. Then a brief meeting at a street corner, and then dovidenia to Prague.”

  “I would have hoped you would think of a nicer place to go than the morgue.”

  “Mr. Kroslak would appreciate the attention we are going to give him.”

  “Do I have to look at his body?”

  “No.”

  The professor attempted to cheer himself up as they left the hotel, humming an off-key tune, trying to take the bad news in his stride, pretending just like so many professionals do when they encountered this sort of setback. Jana thought about her own feelings. It was never easy,

  Even more worrisome, sometimes things got even worse.

  Chapter 35

  Prague’s morgue, just like any morgue in a big city, was cold and dreary and very ugly. No perfume that had ever been made could take away the odors in the air or the anguish that had seeped into the walls. Jana and the professor tried to ignore the quick pang of depression they felt as the attendant took them through the halls to the back where the dead were kept. He selected the tray that had the number corresponding to the name Kroslak on his list, then slid the metal gurney out on its rollers and lifted the plastic sheet away so Jana could view the body. The professor hung back, refusing to look at the dead man.

  Jana remembered the last photo she’d seen of Kroslak, taken during promotional evaluations in Slovakia. Hard to compare a picture from a few years back with the body in the drawer, but the high forehead and prominent ears were there, and a mole in the very center of his chin gave her enough to convince her that it was him. “Yes, it’s Kroslak,” she said, more to herself than to the attendant.

  The ligature had been removed, leaving a huge red welt. She quickly checked his face, then the rest of his body. His face was badly bruised, nose broken, large contusions on his body. Several of his ribs must have been broken, probably as the result of kicks. Kroslak had sustained a vicious beating before he’d been garroted. The people who had attacked him with such ferocity might have been trying to force information from him; but from the widespread bruising and the other injuries, Kroslak had been savaged simply to inflict injuries on him. The people who had murdered Kroslak had wanted to hurt him, to avenge themselves on an individual who had been close to them and who had then placed them in jeopardy.

  Jana took a last look at the body before the attendant closed the drawer. She wanted to commit to memory what he looked like after the murderers had been through with him. She would remember Kroslak and Gizela Dinova and the professor’s nephew … and Peter. There were accounts to settle.

  The attendant led them into the property office. A coroner’s report had already been laid out for her. Nothing found by the coroner during the autopsy contradicted Jana’s observations. She tucked the report into her shoulder bag, then gave her attention to the tray which held the property recovered from Kroslak: A wallet without cash, perhaps emptied to make it look like a robbery. Several coins. A cheap digital wristwatch, still running. Crumpled tissues; a cancelled tram ticket; reading glasses, which had been smashed; and a fountain pen. Jana fixed on the pen immediately. It was a sister to the pen that Kroslak used to leave with Willem Albert, the pen in which Kroslak left his love notes for the young man. She picked it up, opened the cap, and tested the nib on a piece of paper. No ink. She unscrewed the barrel of the pen, turned it upside down over the counter top, and shook it. A small roll of microfilm emerged. Jana felt a sudden sense of euphoria. Kroslak had left a posthumous “love” note for her.

  Jana kept the microfilm and the pen. She and the professor then drove to the intersection where she had instructed the general to meet them. Jana parked, as the skies opened up and the rain began to pour down.

  “The heavens are crying for us,” observed the professor.

  “No. Crying for the dead. The gods expect us to take care of ourselves.”

  She saw the general walk across the intersection, carrying a briefcase. He had brought an umbrella but the wind turned it inside out, and he was getting soaked. Following her instructions, he stopped at the corner and stood there for several minutes as the rain pelted down. Jana scanned the street where he’d come from. No car had slowed down or parked. She checked her watch once more. At the exact time she had given him, he began walking again. Jana waited, watching him, checking for anyone following him. She pulled her car out of its parking slot, passing the general, and parked a full block ahead. Again, she scanned the street.

  It was time to make contact. She made a U-turn and parked facing in the opposite direction. Again, no one followed. As the general walked along the other side of the street, Jana beeped the car horn. He waved at her, then angled across the street to Jana’s window.

  “I’m going to die of pneumonia,” he grumbled.

  “Better than death from a bullet or strangulation.”

  He unsnapped his briefcase, pulled out a manila envelope, and han
ded it to her.

  “Five photographs.”

  Jana took them out and examined them. She immediately picked out the man. He was smiling at the photographer as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “This is the man from the club.” Jana handed the photograph to the general.

  “You’re sure.”

  “Very sure,” she said.

  The general cursed. “I’ll stop by his apartment to pay my respects to the sick. Before I’m through, he will have an even bigger headache than the one you gave him when you pistol-whipped the son of a bitch.”

  The wind suddenly whipped the umbrella out of the general’s hands, and he scurried after it, bending down at the rear of her car to retrieve it. He walked back to her, trying to straighten it out.

  “They build them to break. That way, you have to buy another one.” Jana put the car in gear. “I’ll be in touch, General.”

  She pulled away from the curb, leaving him still standing in the rain.

  Jana drove a circuitous route through the city, making doubly sure they weren’t being followed, then headed for the highway that would take them on the road to the south.

  “Where are we going?” the professor asked.

  “Austria,” Jana informed him.

  “Why Austria?” the professor asked.

  “Because I’ve always liked Vienna.”

  The professor grumbled. “I hoped we were going home.”

  “One more small stop, then maybe Bratislava.”

  “I don’t like the word maybe.”

  “Professor, keep good thoughts in your mind and imagine yourself sitting in front of a fire, drinking a glass of warm plum brandy. If the elements are kind, we will be there before you know it.”

  Jana eased her foot down on the accelerator, the car surging forward.

  Good-bye, Prague; hello, Vienna. She kept that thought in mind.

  Chapter 36

  They were on the road for an hour before the car appeared in the rearview mirror. It remained a substantial distance back in its lane. The car was pacing them, seemingly content to stay behind them at a certain distance. She would speed up; it would speed up. She would slow down; the car behind them followed suit. They were being shadowed.

  The professor had produced a deck of cards from some hidden pocket and was now putting them through their paces, using a variety of shuffles which would warn any wary onlooker that this was not a person with whom one wanted to play cards. Every once in a while the professor would blunder, the cards would fall, or his shuffling was clumsy, but on the whole he was doing a very fine imitation of a card shark.

  “Four aces,” he said; and peeled four aces from the top of the deck. “Four kings,” he intoned, peeling four kings off.

  “Impressive,” Jana complimented him, glancing nervously in the mirror.

  “Not to another card man. My fingers are stiff, I have no touch, and my riffs are all rusty from disuse. As a magician, I am not up to showtime speed. It’s all about age. You fumble.”

  “Did you do lots of card tricks in your act?” Jana eyed the reflection in the mirror. The car was still pacing them. “I thought you did illusions.”

  “I did illusions, mind-reading, anything that I managed to fool myself into thinking the audience would appreciate. After all, that’s what it’s all about, making the public like you. Singer, dancer, acrobat, magician, all the acts are the same. We need to please the people who pay the money and fill the seats. No different than good bacon. If the customer likes the way you smoke the bacon, they tell other people, who also buy the bacon. It was the same with us: we please them, they buy, their relatives buy, their friends buy, and pretty soon everybody’s eating your bacon.”

  “I’m not sure I like your comparison.”

  “Good. I didn’t actually like comparing myself to bacon. Who wants to be a piece of fat in a bad stew?”

  He dropped a card, made a rude noise, stopped, then tried again.

  “I retired. Then, suddenly, bang! I was no longer a Clown Professor of Magic. It was time to take off the makeup.” He did a particularly complex shuffle, and the cards flowed in and out of each other. “Not bad,” he complimented himself. “Some of the skill is still there, peeking out.”

  “We’re being followed, Professor.”

  He continued playing with the cards.

  “Aren’t you bothered with the fact that we’re being followed, Professor?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t have that particular note of urgency in your voice that signifies that someone is about to try to kill us.”

  She flicked a glance at the mirror. The car following was still there. A road sign flashed past overhead, listing the cities and towns coming up in the next stretch of highway. Jana glanced at the fuel gauge. They would need to make a stop soon.

  “I’m glad to hear that you have such trust in my ability to sense danger. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that I can save us.”

  The professor shrugged. “If you can’t, then I can’t, so what would be the purpose of my wasting time by worrying?”

  They drove on in silence for a number of kilometers.

  “Are they still there?” he inquired.

  “Still there,” she confirmed.

  The professor finally put the pack of cards away. A coin appeared in his hands. He began playing with it, making it disappear, reappear, roll through his fingers. As with the cards, he would make the occasional mistake, mumble his disappointment at his clumsiness, then rework the trick.

  “Professor, all magic is deception and artifice, correct?”

  “All of it, although I once met a man on the Island of Malta who could do a few things I never figured out, so I’m cautious in my answer. Never make a final judgment. It saves you grief in the long run.” He let out a staccato laugh. “I do have one question, though: why are they content to stay behind us, Commander Matinova?”

  “I don’t know. There’s another question, even more intriguing: how did they find us? I used all the right techniques. I doubled back, watched for all the signs to indicate that we were under surveillance, and then, despite my precautions, that pest suddenly appears, crawling along behind us. One would think it’s magic, except we both concur there is no such thing as real magic … with the exclusion, perhaps of the man on Malta.”

  “Agreed.”

  An ornate road sign announced their imminent arrival in “Ceske Budejovice, the Crown of South Bohemia” in five kilometers.

  “They make Budvar there. It’s a good beer,” the professor said.

  “We have to stop for benzene, not beer.”

  “Why not get both?” The professor licked his lips in anticipation. “Thirst has to be quenched.”

  “And curiosity has to be satisfied,” Jana responded. The off-road ramp was coming up. “There is an answer to everything,” Jana declared rather cryptically. “Even to magic.” Jana turned onto the ramp. A short distance from the E49, Jana pulled in to a large service station. She got out of the car with her bag hanging from her shoulder, her automatic easily accessible, and checked the surrounding area.

  They were near a confluence of rivers, the water flowing past a conglomeration of Gothic buildings fringing the gas station, a clear contrast between their decaying elegance and the grime of the modern benzene station. Jana tried to block out the concrete of the station for the moment, focusing on the adjacent century-old buildings. They projected a sense of peace which, unfortunately, did not match Jana’s need for readiness. Something was coming down the road after them, and she had no time to enjoy the scenery.

  Jana stationed herself at the rear of their car, waiting for the following vehicle to pull off after them. After a few minutes, Jana realized the vehicle hadn’t turned off the highway. Perhaps she had been wrong about it?

  No, everything told her that the auto that had been behind them was intentionally following them. Jana waited a few more seconds, then pulled the
pump handle from its hanger, filled the tank of the BMW, and went into the office to pay, keeping a close watch on the service area of the station through the plate-glass window. She also picked up some packaged sandwiches, candy bars, and two large bottles of water. Jana paid the cashier, then walked back to the BMW. No cars had driven in from the highway. Jana dropped the package of food in the professor’s lap.

  “I thought we were going to get a beer.”

  “It’s not time to celebrate just yet, Professor.”

  Jana walked to the rear of the driver’s side and leaned down to feel around the wheel well of the tire. Almost immediately she felt the small protrusion and pulled it away from the metal.

  “I found the secret to their magic trick.” She dropped the metal disc she’d removed from the wheel well into his lap. “A transponder. This little object has been transmitting our location to the ladies or gentlemen who have been following us. It was inside the tire well.”

  The professor examined it with an expression of distaste, then handed it back to her.

  “How could they have put the miserable little creature in the well? They had no opportunity.”

  “What’s the secret of all good magic, professor? Misdirection. Think back. What was the one moment when I could have been misdirected enough for someone to place a bug on the car while we were in the vehicle?”

  The professor thought for a moment.

  “Of course!” The professor slapped himself on the forehead. “I should have seen it.”

  “We only see when we look, Professor.”

  “The police general!”

  “When he lost his umbrella in the rain, it blew to the rear of the car, and he went back and picked it up … at the same time planting the bug. Voila!”

  “Not too professional, was he?” the professor growled.

  “He almost fooled us.”

  “Almost is not good enough.” He wagged his finger in the air, looking grim. “He’s one of them!”