Dark Dreams

by Michael Genelin

  No matter how good tails are, if you’re looking, you can generally find them. These two were good. Because of the distance between them, they had to be communicating with each other through a personal audio hookup. If one lost her, the other would pick her up. Jana approved. It was a good procedure. The primary question now was, why were they following her? Jana wanted a closer look at the both the man and the woman. She hailed a cab and, quickly consulting her map, directed the driver from street to street, taking a circular route through the area, forcing her followers to take cabs themselves to keep up.

  It was all in the timing. Jana was not trying to lose them, just to force them to play catchup, perhaps to become careless enough to give her that brief moment she needed to see their faces up close. The circular route through the streets quickly brought them back to the cathedral area and Grand Rue. Jana threw more than enough money at the driver, pointing out where she wanted him to wait for her, then jumped out of the cab before it stopped, ducking behind a service truck, hurrying to a good position from which to see the two trailing her.

  Grand Rue, despite its name, is a fairly narrow picturesque street, lined with small bookstores, art galleries, and antique shops. Within thirty seconds, the first of two cabs arrived, slowing as it passed her parked taxi. A woman got out, her face very clear to Jana. It only took Jana a moment to recognize her. Then she decided it was time to go after the man. She soon spotted him, sitting in a cab, talking into a lapel mike. They were trying to locate her.

  Jana could see his face through the open passenger window of the cab. She walked up to the taxi, half leaning into the window.

  “Good afternoon, Ludovit,” she said.

  The man’s body jolted, his face going white.

  “You and Sabina Postova are doing a fine job following me. I wanted to compliment you. When I get back to Bratislava, I’ll be sure to tell your supervisor that you’re both very diligent.”

  His face slowly reddened. He’d been made to seem less than professional, and his pride could not tolerate it. Ludovit turned to face the other side of the street, ignoring her.

  “You’re not an ostrich, Ludovit. There’s no sand here to put your head in. Besides, who wants to put his head in sand?” She spoke in Slovak.

  “I’m afraid you are mistaken,” said Ludovit in very bad French, refusing to face Jana. “I am not this Ludovit person.”

  The absurdity of the situation kept Jana from becoming angry. “Strange, how you understand Slovak then. You realize, of course, that we are currently in the middle of Geneva in the country of Switzerland?”

  In his badly accented French, still keeping his face averted, Ludovit ordered his taxi driver to drive on. The cab proceeded down the street, stopping momentarily to pick up Sabina, his partner. They would not be a happy couple.

  Jana returned to her taxi, confused. Why was her own police department following her? Why were they so concerned about her activities that they would bear the expense of following her in another country? What reason could they have? Her trip was not a secret, but she hadn’t told many people she was going to Switzerland. How had the people who authorized the surveillance learned of it? She had told Colonel Trokan. Could he have told the anti-corruption section? There was one other, very ugly possibility: could Peter have told them? But why were they following her?

  Perhaps they thought she was visiting her money? “Jana the Corrupt,” coming to visit her safety deposit box or Swiss bank account? I could buy a new water heater if I could only find this phantom account, she thought.

  Jana ordered the driver of her cab to take her back to her hotel. She went up to her room, still mulling over what she now termed the Swiss Watch. Unfortunately, this watch had a bad movement. She smiled at her own joke.

  The desk called to inform her that Mrs. Conrad was waiting for her in the dining room. Jana went downstairs.

  As soon as Jana entered the restaurant, she saw Daniela. Her granddaughter was the very image of her own daughter, Katka, at that age, but with the deep-set eyes of her father and a touch of Jana in the nose and mouth. Jana had seen recent photographs of her, but her posture, the tilt of her head, her expression generated the personality that a photograph lacked, or that a voice on the telephone could not convey.

  Jana was both elated and a little anxious as to how her granddaughter would react to her. She took smaller steps, trying to prepare for the moment when they would face each other, as she slowly walked to the table.

  Daniela was engaged in animated conversation with a white-haired, expensively dressed, rather plain-looking woman. When Daniela finally looked toward Jana, she stopped eating and stood. Mrs. Conrad also rose, although reluctantly.

  Jana was not sure whether to hold out her hand, or to embrace her. Daniela took the initiative, hugging Jana.

  “Hello, Grandma.”

  “Hello, Daniela.”

  Jana broke away from Daniela to extend her hand to Mrs. Conrad, who took it, asking Jana to call her Mimi, trying to be welcoming. They sat stiffly until Daniela broke the silence.

  “I finally get to see both my grandmothers. You look sooooo different.” The elongated “so” made both women smile. “I’m glad you don’t look like each other. It will be easy to tell you apart.” She continued to stare at Jana. “I think you look a little like me.”

  “It would be better to say that you look like Grandmother Jana,” Mimi corrected. “She came first.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Actually, I think you look a lot like your father,” Jana said.

  “Was he beautiful?”

  “Very beautiful.”

  “I agree.” Mimi’s voice had an accent that was softer than most American speech. Jana had seen people in movies who were supposed to be from their South. Mimi’s speech sounded like theirs.

  “Granddaughters are supposed to look like their grandmothers. It says so in all the books,” Mimi joked. “And if they don’t, which very seldom happens because the grandmother’s handbook refuses to let it happen, grandmothers will never admit it.”

  “She looks like both of us,” Jana offered as a compromise.

  “Are you very hungry?” Mimi asked.

  “I’m too excited to eat much.”

  “I ordered a fondue for the three of us, so you can eat as much or as little as you want. It’s supposed to be good here.”

  “The waiter said so,” Daniela chimed in.

  “And here he comes,” Mimi added, as several waiters approached, one carrying a large fondue pot full of cheese. He set it over a portable burner, which he ignited. The two others carried plates filled with chunks of bread. With a touch of panache, the waiter distributing the fondue forks ceremoniously presented one to Daniela after spearing a piece of bread with its prongs.

  “Dip,” he suggested.

  She took the fork and very tentatively dipped it into the fondue mix.

  Daniela blew on the forkful, then gingerly bit a piece of it off, chewing. “It’s good. I like it.”

  Between bites, they talked about simple things, pleasant events, fashion, movies, keeping the conversation light until the fondue serving dish was wiped clean. Mimi finally asked Daniela if she wanted a dessert.

  “I saved space.” Her words were emphatic. “I would like a dessert.”

  Mimi pointed to the other side of the room where a dessert cart stood.

  “Go over there. Look the desserts over very carefully, then choose one that you are sure we’ll all like. When you get back, you can order for all of us.”

  Daniela folded her napkin and put it on the table, then very carefully threaded her way through the other diners to the dessert table. The women exchanged glances. They could now talk freely about issues between them that had to be settled before Daniela came back.

  “My husband sends his apologies for not being here. He had to attend a session of the World Trade Organization. William wanted to meet you in person, but he chairs the working group on Trade, Debt and Finance. Ther
e was no way to break loose.

  “William and I agree, if you feel up to it and you want to try to get closer to Daniela, you can have her all day tomorrow.”

  Jana felt euphoric. “I would like that very much.”

  “We can let you have the car and driver for the day. I can even make a suggestion about where to go, a place that Daniela is dying to visit.” Mimi sighed with regret. “We just haven’t had a free day to take her.”

  “I don’t know Switzerland, so all suggestions will be gratefully received.” Jana reached over and took Mimi’s hand in hers. “Thank you, Mimi.”

  “Nothing to thank me for. A little girl is better off with two grandmothers. Think of all the presents she’ll get.”

  “We can both spoil her.”

  “We already have,” admitted Mimi. “You should see the things William gets her.”

  “I’ll have to work doubly hard, then,” Jana joked, all the while wondering if she would be able to measure up to the Conrads.

  Daniela came back to the table, looking satisfied. “I’ve made my selection.”

  “You considered all of them?” Jana asked, very seriously.

  “All of them.”

  “Then what’s it to be?” Mimi acted excited. “I can’t wait.”

  “It was close, but I chose fudge cake.”

  “Wonderful,” said Mimi.

  “You did it!” exclaimed Jana. “I love fudge cake.”

  Mimi signaled to the waiter.

  “Fudge cake for everyone,” said Daniela.

  Daniela leaned over to Jana, talking in a confidential voice.

  “I knew Mimi liked fudge cake, so I ordered it. I really wanted the apricot tart.”

  Mimi heard her, staring for a moment, not quite approving. “I would have liked the apricot tart as well, Daniela.”

  “You were trying to please Grandmother Conrad.” Jana smiled. “You did a nice thing.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’ve succeeded in pleasing both of us.”

  “Thank you, Daniela,” said Mimi, following Jana’s lead.

  The waiter came back with the three pieces of fudge cake. Daniela was the first to take a bite.

  “It’s very good. So I would like to thank me, too.”

  Chapter 25

  The sun was brilliant in the sky; with its ferocious reflection on the water it made the blue sheet that was Lake Léman hard to look at. Daniela was already in the car when the driver picked Jana up. Their first stop, as Mimi Conrad had suggested the night before, was to be Vevey, a small town halfway around the lake. It was the place that Daniela wanted to see, not because of its charm, although it had charm like most of the other small towns on the lake, but because it had a statue of Charlie Chaplin. Daniela loved Charlie Chaplin.

  There was a movie channel on television “at home” that showed silent comedy films. The Little Tramp had been discovered. Daniela liked Chaplin so much that last Halloween she had dressed like him, moustache, outsized shoes, cane, and all, to go trick-or-treating. Chaplin had once lived on the lake, which was enough to make Daniela happy all the way across the Atlantic: She was going to see Charlie’s home. And today was the day! It was what she had been waiting for.

  There was a small picnic basket in the car. Within a few kilometers, Daniela was diving into the cookies, insisting on Jana trying each of the three types that had been packed. They agreed that a large vanilla wafer with coffee-flavored filling was their favorite.

  “If my mother was your daughter, you must have taken care of her. So, what was my mother like?” Daniela asked with a mouth full of cookie.

  The question generated a jolt in the pit of Jana’s stomach. She expected questions from Daniela, and dreaded not quite knowing how to answer some of them honestly. Jana might be held responsible for not keeping Daniela’s mother safe. Their relationship was very fragile; it could break at the slightest touch.

  Finally, she said, “She left home when she was young, too young. I sent Katka to America, to go to school there. There were problems in Slovakia, so she had to be taught there.”

  “Then what?”

  “She grew up.”

  “Then what?”

  “She married your father.”

  Daniela doggedly kept pursuing her objective. “I know; then I was born. My father got a job in France, Mimi told me. Then he went away. Did my mother go with him?”

  “She did.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  “What has Grandma Mimi told you?”

  “Grandma Mimi says my mother and father had business to take care of and they had to leave me with Grandma Mimi.”

  “I guess that’s right. Grandmas can’t be wrong. We can think of it as a trip.”

  Daniela realized that Jana had finished her cookie, reached inside the basket, and gave her another one.

  “This one is orange.”

  “I like orange, too.”

  “Good.”

  They finally reached Vevey, on the northeast shore of the lake, stopping to watch the swans swim in the little cove on the lakefront before they drove into the town proper. It was, in many respects, a typical French village, with off-white and white one- and two-story buildings, though in a Swiss canton. Vevy also had a major corporate presence, the giant Nestlé’s food company headquarters deliberately concealed so not to spoil the look of the town.

  With the lake on one side, sitting at the foot of Mount Pelerin, the setting was picture-perfect. There was even a small market in progress in the center of the town. The driver parked the car in a lot placed close enough to make it easy for tourists to get to the city center and slumped down in the front seat to wait for them, while Jana and Daniela walked into the town to do their sightseeing.

  They started with the market stalls, looked at the breads and pastries for sale, then the locally made cheeses, at meats in the cases that looked so red, and then they inspected the shops in the village proper. Jana was looking for a present to get Daniela: a pretty gift from her grandmother.

  They eventually looked in a shop window that displayed local, hand-made clothing. Daniela’s eyes lit up as she saw a small, colorfully beaded purse. Jana immediately noted the pleasure in her granddaughter’s eyes and took her into the shop. When they left the store, Daniela was carrying the purse carefully by its little gold chain as they walked hand in hand through the rest of the town until they found the statue of Charlie Chaplin, standing with cane, derby hat, frock coat, and moustache, in front of a culinary museum. Jana assumed that the museum had put up the money for the statue as a tourist attraction. Perhaps that was the only way they could get the people who were passing through town to view their collection.

  Suddenly, Jana saw Sabina, Ludovit’s partner, not two stores down from them, leaning against the shop window, licking a gelato cone, not at all concerned about being seen. Any action Jana might otherwise have taken was out of the question with her granddaughter at her side. She repressed her anger, forcing herself to focus on Daniela. A few seconds later, they walked past Sabina.

  Daniela was not bashful. As soon as she noticed the gelato cone Sabina was eating, she asked if the ice cream was good. Sabina nodded, never taking her eyes off Jana. Daniela insisted that she and Jana find the gelato stand.

  Little girls are supposed to be spoiled by their grandparents, Jana told herself. Cookies, desserts, gelato, the goodies were all intended to make her granddaughter happy. And she truly appreciated the look of pleasure on Daniela’s face when the little girl took her first taste. Jana’s joy was only momentary.

  The two of them had just purchased their cones when Jana saw Ludovit a few feet away, peering through an open stall at Jana. He was glaring daggers. If looks could kill, Jana would have been dead.

  There was nothing she could do.

  She and Daniela walked on.

  On reflection, Jana blamed herself. She should have identified Ludovit but not ridiculed him. He would not forget. He would now think of Jana as a threat.
It would be a black mark on his record if Jana told his supervisors what a fine job of trailing her he had been doing. And if his supervisors told others in the department about it, which they probably would, his associates would laugh at Ludovit. No, what she had done was not smart. As she and Daniela eased past the man, Jana was sure she could feel the heat of his rage.

  Jana and her granddaughter were just approaching the parking lot when they heard a man shout from behind them; then several shots were fired, the light pop-pop of a small-caliber gun. Jana grabbed Daniela, bringing the little girl close to her own body to protect her, then carried her quickly to cover behind a large nearby tree.

  “Stand here, behind the tree,” she ordered Daniela. “I’ll come right back,” she assured her. Jana peered around the tree. Thirty meters away, Jana could see someone lying in the street.

  Wishing she had smuggled her gun into Switzerland despite the Swiss regulations, Jana began to approach the body, first checking to see if anyone was hiding, waiting to take a shot at her. There was no one, so she picked up her pace, jogging to present a fast-moving target if the shooter was still around. She reached the victim just as other pedestrians came running up.

  He lay face down. Jana rolled the man over to look at his face. Ludovit no longer needed to worry about being embarrassed by her. Ludovit was dead.

  Jana chose the largest male she could find in the crowd that gathered, telling him to make sure no one else touched the body; then she walked back to Daniela, picked her up, and told her they would have to wait here a little longer. A man had been hurt. The police would want to ask Jana a few questions about how it had happened.