by Blake Banner
I made a “maybe” face and reached in my jacket pocket. I pulled out my wallet and slipped out the photograph of Blanka that the brigadier had given me. As I did, I said, “You don’t need to sell me anything, Helen. You don’t need to explain anything to me. You need to explain it to her, sell it to her.”
I handed her the picture. She took it slowly and stared at it. “Who is this?”
“Blanka. Your friend Constantino raped and murdered her and her mother. She was four. She was shot in the chest, and her mother was stabbed over twenty times. I don’t think you can dismiss this as people doing ugly things in war. This fragile little girl did not threaten Constantino, or anybody else. That war may have ended twenty years ago, but it hasn’t taken its horrors with it. They live on, in the hearts and minds of every decent human being who has the courage to condemn these monsters.”
I stopped and watched her a moment. She said nothing but stared at the photograph. Finally I said, “And I have a question for you. Who are you to decide that the man who raped and murdered this child and her mother has the right to redemption? Just because you know him and like him, he has the right to be forgiven for this monstrosity?” I shook my head. “I’ll tell you right here, I am not big enough to give that son of a bitch a second chance.”
She dropped the photograph on the bar and closed her eyes. “You can’t know that’s true, that he did that…”
“The charges against him included mass murder, rape and torture. But Blanka’s murder and her mother’s, they were investigated by a friend of mine who was there when it happened, and he spoke to the people who saw the bastards do it.” I gave a small laugh. “Peace brings the chance for redemption? I don’t recall that part of the Nuremberg Trials, and I have a feeling there are several million Jewish families who might disagree with you.”
“All right, stop lecturing me.” She refilled her glass. “Something tells me you’re not exactly qualified to lecture on the subject of redemption.”
“Do you know anyone who is?”
She didn’t answer. She drained her glass. Outside patches of sunlight and darkness were moving across the town, and somewhere a shutter had set up a desultory banging against a wall. I pushed my glass at her and she refilled it.
“Helen, I’m not qualified to do anything but kill. It’s all I’ve ever done since I left school. But I learned something else along the way. I don’t know shit about redemption or forgiveness. I know that there are bastards in this world who take up too much space, and cause nothing but pain and suffering. I have no more and no less right than anybody else to pass judgment on them, but in my book, if you traffic in drugs, if you destroy lives, if you rape and murder women and children, then you are trash, and I am going to take you outside, and dispose of you.”
“Self-appointed judge, jury and executioner.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. You want to tell me who appointed your friend Constantino? Should I go get myself appointed by them?”
“All right, David, you made your point.” She slid the picture back across the bar to me. “Why do you carry that?”
“In case someday I get weak, and start thinking I have the right to forgive these bastards.”
Her voice was neutral when she said, “Nobody has the right to forgive them, huh?”
“The only people who have that right, are all dead.”
She picked up the bottle, then sighed and set it down again. “Do you have to be so dramatic?”
“Are you going to try and stop me from getting to him?”
She shook her head. “You know I’m not. I’m going to take you to him.” She sighed again and now I could smell the alcohol on her breath. “But, not yet. Give me a bit…”
Outside a sudden gust of wind dragged a chair along the terrace at Old Joe’s and crashed it against a table. A few shouts rose on the wind. Then, as though summoned by some silent authority, Nanny’s sons appeared running across the road and started stacking chairs and chaining them down. I watched them, momentarily absorbed, as they went about their task with furious concentration, and no instructions. Then Helen’s voice drew me back.
“You mentioned my father, in your little outburst of pop-psychoanalysis.”
“Yeah. You look like a daddy’s girl.”
She ignored the comment. “He was very old-school. Winchester. That won’t mean anything to you, as an American. Duty, service, loyalty… They were all very important to him. More than important. They were the things that gave life meaning. When he was posted here he tried to make a difference. Most people… Most people here, resign themselves. You accept your lot, play the game, a little corruption here and there does no harm.” She stopped abruptly, then went on, “Like a little rot in a basket of apples does no harm, until suddenly the worms are everywhere, eating everything, and the people you care about have to choose between prostituting themselves for survival, or being disfigured or killed.”
“What happened to your father? He was a cop?”
“He was the chief of police here for twenty years. He wasn’t killed by dealers or anything Hollywood like that. He died of a broken heart, betrayed by his wife,” she eyed me a moment, “as you said, in a million tiny ways every day, and betrayed by the island he loved and had made his home. He tried to fight the invasion of drugs and prostitution, but nobody supported him, and in the end he just gave up and died.”
“And Constantino Marcos?”
She nodded. “Yes, he arrived on my father’s watch. I want to believe he didn’t know.”
“They became friends?”
She nodded at the bar and spoke softly. “Yes, they became friends. Uncle Constantine and my father were very close friends. They both had strict, clear-cut ideas about corruption, drugs, decency, loyalty…”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about. Men like him, men who do that kind of thing, their past always finds them out in the end.”
“Where does he live, Helen?”
She went very still, and after a moment raised her eyes to look into mine. There was real fear there. “I’ll take you and introduce you.”
“No. That’s not necessary.”
Suddenly there were tears in her eyes. They didn’t spill, they just rested on the rim. She licked her lips. “You should talk to him. There might be a mistake.”
A loud bang made me turn. Nanny’s boys had come inside and were slamming the wooden shutters, closing the windows and locking them on the inside. I went to the door and looked up at the sky. In the short while, the clouds, deep blue and gray, had moved in off the Atlantic and were boiling overhead, churning like living things, heavy with destructive power, heavy with death.
A couple of people, indistinct silhouettes battered by the wind, ran here and there searching for shelter, with flapping shirts and sandals. Then a distant mist started to move in off the ocean a couple of miles away, bringing with it the rattle and clatter of raindrops, which turned to a roar as the wind dragged mantels of rain across the houses, turning the streets of beaten earth into rivers of mud, making the palms bow and dance. A shout here, a door slamming there, and suddenly we were in the midst of the storm.
I pulled the shutters closed and closed the door on the inside, then turned to face Helen. She had taken the bottle of Scotch to a table and sat. The two shot glasses were there, and a packet of Camels. She lit up with a match, leaning into the flame, then shook it out and dropped it into a glass ashtray as she inhaled deep and blew smoke at the ceiling, eying me all the while.
She said, “You can’t go tonight.”
I walked to the table and leaned on the back of the chair opposite her. “This is not a major storm. I’ve seen much bigger.”
She shook her head. “It’s big enough. You’d never make it to his house. It’s on the Belle Tout, several miles away, and the roads will be awash. Pretty soon the lights will go, too. You may as well stay and drink with me. It’ll be over in a few hours.”
Behind t
he bar, as though acting out her thoughts, Nanny’s sons were filling petroleum lamps, and putting candles in bottles. The shutters rattled and the rush of rain sighed against the buildings. One of the boys struck a match and put it to the wick and the lights winked out. For a moment there was just the boy in the blackness, held in a halo of flickering light. He put the glass shade over the flame and a dull glow reached out into the room, pressing the shadows into the corners. Another scratch of a match and another lamp glowed. Then the two boys were carrying lamps around the room, placing them on tables and at the corners of the bar.
I sat and the wind groaned outside and whistled high in the power cables. I took the bottle and poured myself a shot. “OK, so we are trapped here until the storm lets us out.” I held her eye for a moment. “Constantino better still be here by then.”
She snorted. “You think he’s going to take a boat in this? Or a plane? Maybe you think he’s going to swim to Barbados.”
“Don’t warn him I’m coming for him, Helen.”
“I’m going to be sitting here with you all the while, and when the storm eases, I’m going to take you to him. What more do you want?”
I sipped the whisky, savored it a moment and set it down. “Keep putting that Scotch away like that, you won’t be taking me anywhere.”
“Yes, daddy, whatever you say, daddy.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass. This isn’t a game.”
A twist of anger distorted her face and made her voice ugly. “I know it’s not a damned game! I have been here before, you know! People get killed and ugly things happen, and it is always because of men like you! I know it is not a bloody game!”
I watched her suppress the anger and tie it down behind the rigid mask of her face. She took another sip, but didn’t knock it back. I said, “Why is protecting Maria so important to you?”
“I told you. She’s a friend and she was in trouble. My father taught me you help friends who are in trouble.” I waited. After a moment she filled the silence. “I told you I was a police officer here. I have seen what the cartels and the gangs can do. A woman who refuses a gang member, especially of high rank, is lucky if she gets away with just being force-fed heroin to make her an obedient slave. The most likely thing is that she gets half her face cut off and fed to the dogs.”
The amber lamplight was wavering over her face and neck. Outside the wind howled like a wounded daemon. I said, “How come they never came after you?”
She snorted. As a laugh it sounded weary. “Come on, David! They go after beautiful women like Maria, with big eyes and perfect bodies. They have no use for a ‘plain Jane’ like me.”
I was surprised and my face must have shown it, because she raised her eyebrows high on her forehead and said, “What?”
“I would not have described you as plain Jane.”
“Please, don’t try to seduce me, David. Far more attractive propositions than you have tried and failed.”
I laughed. “I am not trying to seduce you. I am pretty sure I’d be wasting my time if I did. But the fact is, I think you’re a very attractive woman. A lot more than Maria.”
Confusion and irritation contracted her face and she shook her head. “That’s ridiculous, and what’s more you’re embarrassing me. Please stop.”
“I’m sorry.” I gave it no inflection. It was genuine. We sat in silence, each looking at our glasses. Maybe ten minutes passed like that, and I slowly became aware of a noise. At first it sounded like the wind rattling the shutters. But it soon became a thumping and a pounding on the wood. I stood and crossed the floor, opened the doors and pushed open the left shutter. The gale ripped it from my hands and slammed it against the wall, and hurled needles of rain in my face. I backed up a step and caught sight of a man of medium height, in a large black coat and a black hat clutching at the doorjamb. Behind him was another man, of similar height, but slim, holding up the collar of his coat against the deluge. Both men pushed through the door and stood stamping in the lamplight, while the slimmer of the two men, who I now saw had a large moustache, helped the other off with his hat and coat. As they were removed I saw that he was older than he at first had seemed, in his late seventies or early eighties, slightly stooped, with a big head of leonine white hair swept back from his face, and searching eyes that seemed permanently afraid.
I stepped out, was instantly drenched. I grabbed the shutters and pulled them closed again, then slammed the doors and locked them. The man with the white hair had walked with stiff, unsteady legs to the table and was standing looking down at Helen. The guy with the moustache was methodically stripping off his own hat and coat, and laying them neatly on a table. I ignored him and went to where Helen was sitting, gazing up at the newcomer. She spoke quietly.
“What are you doing out on a night like this?”
His voice, when he answered, was gravelly, deep, scarred by nicotine. “I come to find out if it is true.”
She didn’t say anything, but looked in my direction, then back at the man. He turned to face me. I said, “Who are you?”
“I am Constantino Marcos. I believe you are looking for me.”
Fourteen
I grabbed a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser and dried my hair and my face, glancing occasionally at the old man with the white hair. I dried the back of my neck and said: “Constantino Marcos? Is that your name? I’m looking for Colonel Kostas Marcović.”
He remained immobile, not so much like he hadn’t heard me, but more like he had become frozen in time. I finished drying my face and my hands with the paper towels, poured myself a shot and drained the glass.
“Does that name mean anything to you?”
He gave an almost imperceptible nod. “It was a long time ago, in another life.”
I refilled my glass and sipped. “There is only one life, Colonel, and if you fuck up, sooner or later you have to pay.”
He gave a few more brief nods and his eyes strayed toward a chair. He pulled it over and sat heavily. “That is a harsh view, unforgiving.”
I sat too and leaned toward him across the table. “It’s what I was saying to Helen. The problem with murder is that the only people who can forgive you, are all dead.”
He pointed at the whisky bottle. “May I? It is a terrible night.”
Helen rose and went behind the bar for another glass. She said something to the guy with the moustache and he went into the kitchen. Constantino looked over to Helen, like we were having any old normal conversation. “Is early afternoon, but dark as midnight. Tropical storms… In a few hours is blow over…”
He gave me a wary glance, seemed to remember why he was there and grunted. I repeated the question.
“Does it mean anything to you, Colonel Kostas Marcović?” I let the ambiguity stand and he eyed me resentfully.
“You assume I am Colonel Marcović.”
“Are you?”
“Does it make any difference what I say?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you say. I’m not the one who refused the Red Cross access to prisoners, who transported three hundred men, women and children to a farm and beat them methodically for several hours before taking them to a mass grave to execute them, without defense or trial. So I’d say the question was somewhere between irrelevant and impertinent.”
Helen came back with a cognac glass and a bottle of Courvoisier. She set them in front of him. He didn’t acknowledge her but gestured at me with both hands.
“You see? You assume I am guilty, and because you assume, you also say I have no right to claim innocence! I have no right to claim I am innocent, because you assume I am guilty! And what is your evidence? You have made some inquiries at town hall, and I am Serbian who appeared here, with false name, at same time that Serbians were escaping from former Yugoslavia.”
He uncorked the bottle and poured himself a generous measure. He drew off half and set down the glass with a loud sigh.
“But Serbians, and Croats, Albanians and Montenegran
s…all! Had many reasons to run and hide at this time.” He nodded like he was agreeing with himself. “And not all were hiding. Some were chasing. Some were hunting, like you.”
I frowned. “Hunting?”
He nodded again. “Like you. The Hague can send to prison, but some people think this is not enough. That if you commit genocide or other atrocity, then it is ultimate price you must pay. So, special soldiers, operatives, given this job. This man has kill my family, my cousins, my father, my uncle, my village!” He spat the word. “So now I am go look for him, find him, but I am not me. I lose my self. I am dead. Now I am become Constantino Marcos and I am from Greece, Macedonia, some other place. I am nobody. I live quiet, alone, people forget me. Until one day, bam! I strike. No matter I am old. My gun is not old.”
I stared at Helen. She stared back. This was an angle I had not considered.
“Are you trying to tell me that you have been here for the last ten or fifteen years waiting to kill Colonel Kostas Marcović?”
He shrugged. “What difference if I say this or not? You will not believe. I am Serbian. I am guilty.”
I shook my head. “I don’t buy it.”
“I say! I tell you!”
“OK, I’m listening. If you are not him, where is Colonel Kostas Marcović? Why haven’t you killed him yet? Are you waiting for Jupiter to align with Mars?”
Helen said, “Take it easy…”
I ignored her and waited for Constantino to reply. Before he did, he picked up his glass and looked inside it, like he could see all the pieces of his answer in there and he was trying to fit them together. He sighed and set the glass down again, then eyed me up and down a couple of times.