The Fourth Courier

by Timothy Jay Smith

  “Oh no, he’s dead. Very dead. In fact, he’s the fourth dead man. But I can say no more than that about the case.”

  “Gentlemen, my wife is waiting to bid General Mladic goodnight,” the ambassador said. “When I say, General, that I hope all our plans work out, I cannot be more sincere. Kurt has our confidence, of course, and as the senior American diplomat in the country, I am speaking for the President of the United States.”

  He held the library door open for Dravko to lead everyone out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  BILLY’S WOMAN WIPED THE BAR with a scowl. You watch yourself.

  Basia’s laughter floated away, boomeranged back to make her laugh again.

  Jacek doesn’t like his women too free.

  Her head swayed to music only she could hear.

  Who gave her the shit?

  She recognized Jacek’s voice.

  And opened her eyes just as his slap stung her.

  “Let her be,” Billy’s woman said.

  “Fuck you, woman! You dragging that sourpuss around like the mop you never use.”

  Basia held a hand to her jaw. “You sonofabitch.”

  “How much did you sell her?” Jacek asked Billy, who was behind the bar washing glasses.

  “Ask her.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  “She’ll tell you if she wants to.”

  “I told you not to be coming here without me.”

  “I was waiting for you,” Basia said.

  “You came early to score.”

  “What if I did?”

  “I told you, you coming around for stuff is fucking with my business. Nobody wants a cop around, not even a turned one.”

  “Our business is almost over,” she sneered.

  “What’re we waiting for? I bet he has a suitcase full of money in his room.”

  “I saw it. It looks exactly like all the other couriers’ suitcases.”

  “Then fuck it, let’s just take it. The old fuck at the front desk will let you in his room.”

  “I’ve told you, double-cross Mladic, you end up eating your own guts.”

  “He doesn’t even have to know. You carry one suitcase in, the other suitcase out, and Mladic won’t know until he opens it up. Fuck, that might surprise him. Boom!”

  “Let’s solve another problem first. Did you bring it?”

  Jacek reached into his coat and handed her a gun.

  “Does it have a history?”

  “You think the seller’s going to tell me if it’s hot?”

  “Give me another shot, Billy,” she ordered.

  “Take her home, Jacek. I don’t want her puking on my floor.”

  Basia got to her feet. “I’m not going home with him.”

  Jacek helped her into her fur coat. “That’s it tonight? Just the gun? Not even a thank you?”

  “Thank you.”

  “You can’t do better than that?”

  “What do you want, a blow job in the toilet?”

  She walked out of the bar.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  THE CAR KEPT FOGGING UP, and Jay and Kurt cleared small patches on the windows to see if anything was happening. The icy rain pinging on the car’s roof made it almost impossible to hear what the other said without shouting, and the whole point was to not make themselves obvious. Up the street, the hotelier briefly opened the lodge’s door and a square of yellow light fell into night. “You think Mladic will take the bait?” Jay asked.

  “We threw too much his way for him not to do something.”

  “I’d like to have seen his face when you walked into the room. Do you think he bought your story?”

  “He wants to believe it.”

  A car turned the corner, went a block, and turned again. “Male driver, Warsaw tags,” Jay reported and checked his watch. “It’s been over an hour.”

  “He’s inside sweatin’ over something,” Kurt said, “and I’m hoping it’s over me. I’m counting on fucking with his head enough that he makes a wrong move.”

  “Watch it,” Jay alerted him. “Someone’s coming up behind us.”

  An old woman in a rain bonnet tugged a reluctant dog along the sidewalk. She stopped at their bumper and encouraged the dog to do his business. Another car turned into the street; its headlights illuminated their interior. “Shit,” Kurt murmured, and they hunched lower.

  “Chodz! Chodz!” the old woman commanded. She yanked on the dog’s leash as they retreated down the street.

  The men sat taller. The other car was turning the corner.

  “Red?” asked Kurt.

  “Or reflection of the taillights,” Jay replied. “I can’t tell.”

  They sat and waited, and nothing happened. Finally Jay asked, “If you’re so well-adjusted to being gay, why tell Mladic you have a wife?”

  “To put him at ease. Closeted guys like to think their occasional dalliances are just that, dalliances, nothing defining. Even when they get their butts plugged, they still want to believe they can walk away straight.”

  “You think he’ll show at the baths tomorrow?”

  “The guy trembles every time he’s near me. You don’t get that excited about someone and turn down sex. What’s your take on him now?”

  “You saw his expression when he looked at the newspaper,” Jay answered. “He recognized the courier.”

  “Now are you convinced that he’s involved with the murders?”

  “I’d like to have the one thing that’s missing: evidence. Look ahead.”

  A woman, shielded by a wide umbrella, stopped on the corner. She crossed the road and approached the lodge. Her steps were cautious, uncertain, teetering on high heels as she dodged puddles. She made a blurry reconnaissance of the street and rang the lodge’s bell. The hotelier swung open the door, throwing a rectangle of light over her. She faced the street to shake out her umbrella, and in that moment the light revealed her face.

  “Fuck!” Jay exclaimed.

  “You know her?”

  “That’s Basia Husarska.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  A THIN STREAM OF SMOKE rose from an ashtray in the overheated foyer. By rote Basia drifted toward Dravko’s room as the sleepy-eyed hotelier took in the open fur coat kicking at her ankles. Slowly the gray opiatic miasma in which she was traveling started admitting colors. Her heel snagged a tear in the carpet and she steadied herself with a hand on the yellow wall. She knocked on Dravko’s door, uncertain how she had made it there from Billy’s Bar, only vaguely recollecting his summons on the telephone: “You must come immediately.”

  Basia stepped into the room.

  Dravko slapped her hard. She fell against the bureau, pressing a hand to her jaw.

  He knocked back a swallow of scotch.

  His reflections in the many mirrors spun around her. “You sonofabitch,” she snarled at all of them.

  “You’re double-crossing me,” Dravko accused her.

  Basia pulled herself together. “What are you talking about?”

  “Sergej Ustinov is dead. I saw his autopsy photos.”

  She sat on the loveseat and wrapped her fur cocoon-like around her. “Give me a drink,” she said and lit a cigarette.

  He plunked down the vodka bottle and handed her a glass. She poured a shot with a shaky hand and downed it. “It’s Jacek who’s double-crossing you. He took the bomb.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “The million dollars.”

  “What million dollars?”

  “The million dollars in your fancy suitcase that your dead man told him about. I was going to warn you.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I swear it’s the truth. Jacek is a little crazy. He cuts them, do you know that?”

  “I saw what he did to Sergej.”

  “I’ve been afraid to tell you.” Basia willed her eyes to tear up.

  “You’re a mess tonight.” He knocked back another shot. “The other three are dead, too.”

  “I know.
”

  “Did you kill them?”

  “I gave them to Jacek. He wanted them.”

  “He wanted them?”

  “I didn’t ask the details.”

  “Did he tell you he planned to kill them?”

  “Why would I care? Three less witnesses and they all saw me.”

  “I should have been told,” Dravko complained. “Where’s the bomb?”

  “Jacek has it. Your man Sergej was drunk and told him about the million dollars. He killed him and took his suitcase. Is it really a bomb?”

  “Yes.”

  “An atomic bomb?”

  “Yes.”

  “You are Mad Max.”

  Dravko ignored her and asked, “What is Jacek’s plan?”

  “He’s going to wait until Monday and contact you, pretending Sergej crossed a week late.”

  “Why does he play such a game with me?”

  “I told him, bring the bomb and you’ll give him the money. I told him you don’t fucking care about the couriers, but he’s afraid that if you know he took it, you’ll kill him.”

  “I will kill him, as soon as I have the bomb.”

  All of Basia’s deceits caught up with her in that room. Dravko’s threat to kill Jacek might as easily have been directed at her. She had connived, whored herself, and done anything she needed to do to survive communism’s misogyny and deadening mediocrity. The Soviet Woman was expected to be even more tedious and cowed than the Soviet Man. Eventually, Basia’s determination to survive (albeit with some flair) had become its own end and turned her heart cold. In that room, she had one more charade to play out.

  She reached for Dravko’s hand, pulled him to the loveseat, and put his meaty hands around her neck as if he were strangling her. “You won’t abandon me, will you? There’s nothing left for me here except probably prison.” She pressed on his hands. “Kill me now, if you’re not going to take me with you.”

  Dravko hardly heard her. His reverie started when he knew the bomb could be retrieved, though now, thanks to the African, he would have all the weapons he needed. American weapons. The bomb, of course, would be his coup de grace. So engrossed was Dravko in such thoughts that he hardly noticed when she fiddled with his belt buckle and unzipped him, freeing him, and speaking to his desires as her lips closed on him. “You still want Basia,” she murmured, but it was not her lips he wanted. He screwed his eyes tight, and in the blackness he felt the African’s lips on him. It was the African’s tongue that teased him and made his legs tremble. It was for the African that he cried out.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  TOO LONG IN THE PARKED car, they risked discovery, so they left to find a bar without waiting for Basia to emerge from the lodge. Was she involved in Mladic’s weapons smuggling, or the murders, or both? Or were they only lovers? It seemed unlikely but not impossible. At the very least, Kurt was certain, she had helped Mladic move his guns over the borders. Tommy’s account implicated her as well—the long coat, the small, possibly red car. Long into the night, they mulled over scenarios that condemned and then exonerated her. They were still spinning webs of coincidences when Basia left the lodge. A moon broke through the clouds and she lifted her bruised face to it. The wind blew raindrops from the trees, sprinkling her face with the tears she wouldn’t cry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EVA NERVOUSLY BIT HER LIP. “I am so sorry, Pani Husarska. Was Detective Kulski expecting you?”

  “I thought so.”

  “He has rehabilitation on Friday mornings.”

  Basia managed a withering smile. “I am unfamiliar with his schedule.”

  “I was only trying to explain.”

  “I will wait in his office.”

  “But Pani Husarska …”

  Basia closed the door in the girl’s face.

  Of course she knew the detective’s schedule. That was precisely why she was there. She took a drag on her cigarette and noticed his No Smoking sign. She looked for a place to extinguish it and stuck it in the soil of a potted plant. Its lipsticked filter could almost be mistaken for a red bud.

  The secretary peered in.

  Basia swung around, clutching her shoulder bag. “What is it?”

  “Does Pani Director want coffee?”

  “Yes, please,” Basia said, dispatching her.

  The door closed and Basia crossed to the closet. Its handle gave way. If Kulski’s gun was inside, he had left it unsecured, contrary to regulations. A common oversight that Basia counted on that morning. She patted down his jacket and felt the heavy bulge of his holster. Quickly she removed the gun, exchanging it for the P-83 in her purse. She closed the closet.

  Jay walked in, startling her. Her heavy makeup failed to conceal the bruise on her jaw. “Good morning, Pani Director,” he said brightly. “The fur was a good choice today. There’s a cold wind outside.”

  Her deer-in-headlights gaze gradually hardened into a glare. “I am waiting to speak with Leszek.”

  “About our case?”

  “We have many cases, Agent Porter.”

  “I’d be interested in hearing about them.”

  “Leszek reports that you are making progress,” Basia said.

  “Every day, another small step.”

  “Then you believe you will identify the murderer?”

  “We have a witness.”

  “I understand he is not reliable.”

  “His character, no, but his eyes are pretty good.”

  “And your mad Russian, Agent Porter, have you identified him?”

  “Only as a dead man. You’re right, the Russians are not so helpful.”

  Basia made a point of glancing at a wall clock. “I have waited too long.”

  “Detective Kulski should be here in ten minutes. We have an appointment.”

  “I, too, have an appointment. Goodbye, Agent Porter.”

  He stepped aside to let her out the door. “Director Husarska, by any chance do you know General Dravko Mladic?”

  She hesitated. “What is his name?”

  He repeated it.

  She considered it and said, “It is not a Polish name.”

  “Yugoslavian. He’s head of their state security. I suppose that means secret police.”

  “Why should I know him?”

  “I met him at the ambassador’s last night. He seemed to know you.”

  His lie was a gamble and it paid off. Basia paled and said, “Perhaps his name is familiar.”

  Again she turned to leave.

  “Did you meet him at Piła?” Jay’s question was another stab in the dark.

  Basia rocked on her heels. Her eyes burned into him. “What do you know about Piła?”

  “It has quite a reputation,” Jay replied. “For a long time, it was—and maybe still is—the best police academy in the East bloc for learning how to conduct undercover investigations. It makes sense you would go. General Mladic mentioned it, too.” He had not. Jay had read it in Kurt’s dossier on him.

  “It was a long time ago,” said Basia.

  “Just curious.” He smiled benignly.

  “You are too curious, Agent Porter.”

  With Basia in retreat, he quickly scanned Detective Kulski’s office, wondering about her real purpose for being there that morning. If things were disturbed on his desk, he couldn’t know. The rusty red butt of a cigarette caught his eye, and he plucked it from the pot and dropped it in a pocket. He would bet money that it was Basia Husarska’s.

  Kulski entered, limping badly.

  “Did you have an accident?” Jay asked.

  “It always hurts after rehab. Where is Eva?”

  “Making coffee, I think. Director Husarska was here.”

  “She was?”

  Eva entered carrying a tray with two coffees. “Where is Pani Husarska?” she asked.

  “She left for another appointment,” Jay said and took a cup when the tray was offered.

  “I’ll take hers,” Kulski said. “She must have forgotten that I ha
ve rehab on Fridays.”

  “I reminded her,” Eva said on her way out.

  Kulski sat and stretched out his painful leg. “The laboratory has sent the evidence. It is trash, I think. Eva will show you the examination room. We have plastic gloves for you. Do you have news?”

  “No new news.” Of course he did, certainly suspicions and speculations, but nothing he could report to Kulski. He was suspect by association. The more the noose fit around Basia Husarska (and she had given it her own hardy tug by denying an acquaintance with Mladic), the more suspicious he had to be of anyone around her. Of course, she might have had an altogether different assignation at the lodge—they could not with certainty say which room she had visited—but that was an evidentiary argument, and they were running on intuition. Jay’s intuition said to trust that Kulski was on their side. His training said to wait for proof.

  Kulski suggested, “If you are ready, I will have Eva show you the way. She is single, you know, and a very sweet girl.”

  “I’m sure she is, only I’ve met someone else. Another sweet girl. Poland seems to be full of them.”

  “She made me promise to say something.”

  Eva led the way to the evidence room. He sensed her nervousness but had no flair for flirting that morning. His thoughts were far from her shapely legs, though not so far that he didn’t notice them. She left him alone in the room with four wooden boxes on a table. To their left was a stack of butcher-paper squares, to their right a collection of tweezers, magnifying glasses, and feather brushes. He pulled on rubber gloves and flipped open all the boxes. In one was a shoe, curled with age and mildew. Another held a plastic bag with three spent condoms, two so rotted the pleasure was long forgotten. A third contained two dozen or more cigarette butts, the fourth a stubby metal pipe. Kulski’s men had collected everything within a five-meter radius of the body, and anything else they found nearby that potentially related to the crime. Trash indeed.

  Jay spread a sheet of butcher paper on the table and gingerly dumped out the collection of cigarette butts. Immediately the smell and taste of stale ashes assailed him. He spread them out with tweezers.

  Two matched. He placed them side by side.

  He pulled Basia’s butt from his pocket and placed it alongside them.

  They all matched. The same brand. The same color lipstick.