The Fourth Courier

by Timothy Jay Smith

  Shops were starting to close for the day. The lights in their windows flickered off, withdrawing their contribution to the corridor’s already dim illumination. The stretches of shadowy interludes grew more frequent the deeper Kurt followed Basia into the underground labyrinth. When she entered Billy’s Bar, he kept walking. He went to the end of the corridor and turned back.

  Billy was sneaking something into Basia’s purse when he entered the bar. He took a seat two down from her and ordered a beer. Billy, so ugly he looked contagious, handed him a bottle, and Kurt wiped its rim clean. Billy’s woman came from behind a curtain and wanted payment. Leave the man alone, Kurt figured him to say, and she shuffled off to dance with a broom.

  “English?” Billy asked. He meant his nationality, what not language he spoke.

  “American,” Kurt told him.

  Basia set her empty glass on the bar. “Give me another drink.”

  “Can I buy it for you?” Kurt asked.

  Billy slid a glass across the bar. “You don’t have to, she’s paid in advance.”

  “I’d still like to buy you a drink.”

  “That’s sweet,” she said.

  “You speak English, too?”

  “You are surprised?”

  “I don’t speak Polish.”

  “You are a capitalist, why should you speak Polish?”

  Kurt laughed.

  “You think I am funny?”

  “Aren’t you trying to be?”

  “Most men have no humor. Are you here on business?”

  “For a couple of days,” Kurt replied. “I’m staying across the street.”

  “At the Marriott, and you came to Billy’s for a drink? Did you hear that, Billy? He’s staying at the Marriott and thinks this dump has more class.”

  “He can pay for class there if he wants. Here he gets beer.”

  “Here’s got prettier women,” Kurt said, flirting.

  Basia laughed. “Isn’t that sweet? Here, sit here.” She tapped the stool between them.

  Kurt slipped over.

  “I’ve always been curious about black men,” she confessed. “Maybe later you can take me to your hotel.”

  Kurt hadn’t expected her quick come-on, and he replied lightheartedly, “It might cost more than I have on me, unless you take traveler’s checks.”

  Basia glared at him. “You think I am a whore?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  She slapped him.

  At that moment, Jacek entered the bar. “Are you making new friends again, sweetheart?” He slung his satchel onto the counter.

  “I’ll put that back here for you,” Billy said and tucked the bag under the bar.

  He asked Basia, “Who’s your nigger friend?”

  Basia tapped out a cigarette. “He might understand you.”

  “Do you speak Polish?” he asked Kurt in English.

  “Sorry, pal.”

  “I didn’t figure as much. You’re in my seat.”

  “It looked empty.”

  “Not after I walked in.”

  Kurt managed a smile. “That’s cool, I don’t think the lady likes me anyway.” He slipped back to the third stool.

  “That’s just her way of saying hello, isn’t it, babe? She likes it rough.”

  “I like it different.”

  “Is black different enough?” asked Kurt.

  Jacek grinned lewdly. “That’d be different, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would,” she said, “only not tonight. Excuse me.”

  Basia slipped off the stool and went down the hall to the WC. Her slick leather miniskirt attracted light until she disappeared.

  “You two are friends, I take it,” said Kurt.

  “Something like that. What makes you interested?”

  “I got eyes, don’t I? What’s her name?”

  “If she wants you to know it, she’ll tell you.”

  Billy told him, “It’s Basia.”

  “It’s a pretty name.”

  Jacek replied, “She’s not responsible for it.”

  “She’s got a pretty face, too. I’ve got a friend who says we’re responsible for our own faces after thirty. You ever hear anyone say that?”

  Jacek’s whole body knotted up. “You talk of my face? I am responsible for it?” He slipped his hand into his coat pocket.

  Billy shot an arm across the bar to restrain him. “It is a joke, yes?”

  “Look at my face,” Kurt said. “Of course it’s a joke.”

  Basia returned to her seat. “What did I miss?”

  “I’ll let your friend tell you. What do I owe you?”

  “Four hundred zlotys,” Billy told him.

  Kurt gave him a five-hundred bill. “Keep the change. Nice meeting all of you.” He walked out of the bar.

  Jacek said to Billy, “Let’s settle up now. The stuff’s in my bag.”

  “Is it good?”

  “Very pure.”

  Billy’s woman wiped down the bar with a wet cloth. “Go in the back, Billy, and taste it.”

  He took Jacek’s bag and went behind a curtain.

  “What the fuck, bitch!” Jacek snapped at Basia. “I walk in here and you’re almost between that darky’s legs!”

  “I’m trying to keep him off guard.”

  “You’ll keep any man off guard with your knee on his cock,” Billy’s woman said.

  “Piss off! He’s been tailing me.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Jacek asked.

  “He drove past my building this morning.”

  “You sure it was him?”

  “How many black men live in my neighborhood?”

  Billy came back to the bar. He showed Jacek the dollars bundled in his satchel. “You see this, baby?” Jacek said to Basia. “In case Mladic doesn’t come through with the million, we got enough to get away and set ourselves up anywhere we want.”

  “I never said I was going anywhere with you,” she said.

  “I know. I’m going with you. You got a villa someplace already picked out?”

  “Mladic will kill you.”

  “Not if I kill him first. And that reminds me,” Jacek said to Billy, “don’t plan on coming to the shack any too early tonight.”

  “Is that the solution you’ve been thinking on so hard?” Basia asked. “Killing Mladic?”

  “There’d be no witnesses. We’d have the money. Who’s to know?”

  “The whole fucking world, that’s who will know. You don’t kill a man like Mladic without someone asking questions.”

  “We’ll be heroes if they ever figure out who did it.”

  “When are you planning to do it?”

  “Tonight,” said Jacek. “I’ll get the suitcase. You call and tell him to meet us at the shack.”

  “What about the black man?” Basia asked.

  “If he’s still tailing you, we’ll let Mladic have some fun with him first. I’ve got tools he can use in the shed.”

  “You got it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “Going away with you is my chance, too. I figure I’m out of chances here.”

  “That’s not especially persuasive.”

  “Tell Mladic to meet us in an hour. That’ll give you and me a little time.”

  A minute later they rode up the escalator. Basia crossed the great hall for the exit while Jacek stayed back. He immediately spotted the black man pretending to read headlines at a newspaper stand while obviously watching for her. He started following her.

  Detective Kulski also saw Basia aiming for the exit and the black man fall in behind her. Was he part of an operation? Probably not, Kulski thought. He was obviously a foreigner, and it dawned on the detective that he could belong to one of the mafias trying to infiltrate Poland. Kulski sensed danger to Basia. Had the tables been turned and she was being chased? He would be remiss if he didn’t act. He stopped the black man at the door and flashed his badge. “Police. Your ID, please.”

  Jacek walked out of the st
ation laughing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  JAY CIRCLED THE BLOCK A third time. A guy, slouched in a car up the street from Dravko’s lodge, hadn’t budged. Jay assumed he was Kurt’s man, watching Mladic while Kurt himself was tailing Director Husarska.

  He checked the time. Lilka would be at work for another half hour. He pulled over to look at a map.

  The background check Kurt had run revealed an address for Lilka. Twenty minutes later, Jay stood outside her building trying to guess which apartment might be hers. She had only mentioned that she lived on the fourth floor with a permanently out-of-service elevator. All the small balconies had different items on them, but Lilka never mentioned if hers had plants, or a drying rack, or the small table with a single chair. He squeezed the key in his pocket, knowing she was at work but clueless whether Jacek might be home. He had to risk it.

  Lilka had described living in an apartment building, not a hideous prefab concrete monolith that leached sweat marks like armpit stains and smelled as unpleasant. He found her name on a letterbox so he knew he was in the right building, but when he had climbed to the fourth floor, he discovered there were no names on the doors. Only letters above them, eerily reminiscent of prison cells. Then he remembered that Jacek had changed the lock. He looked for the shiniest doorknob.

  A woman cracked her door and asked, “Who do you want?” It was in Polish, but the meaning was clear.

  “Well, you see …” he stammered. “English?”

  “Yes, I am a translator.” Agnieszka stepped into the hall.

  “I am a friend of Lilka’s and, um, she asked me to come by and check on something. The toilet. She’s worried her brother forgot to fix it.”

  “Brother-in-law.”

  “Right.”

  “Tolek didn’t forget. He was here.”

  “Right. Well, since Lilka asked me to check, and I’ve come this far …” Jay brandished the key. “I might as well check myself.”

  “It’s F. The door at the end.”

  “Right, thanks.” He took a couple of steps, and turned back to ask, “Is Jacek home now?”

  “No, and don’t let him catch you.” Agnieszka shut her door.

  The tumblers in the new lock turned soundlessly and Jay swung the door open. The apartment was dark. “Hello!” he called and turned on a light. Quickly he scanned the place: bedroom left, kitchen right, bathroom tucked in a corner. It had a tidiness that belied the disharmony of what Lilka had told him of her life. Pictures stuck to the refrigerator’s door drew him into the kitchen. Among them, the bearded man he presumed to be Jacek was the man he had seen working on the white van outside Billy’s shack. Instantly it confirmed his theory of the triangle between Mladic, Basia, and Jacek. All the evidence he needed was inside that apartment.

  The telephone rang once and fell silent. Had it been a signal? It rang again, and he lifted the receiver without speaking.

  “You must leave immediately.” It was the neighbor woman with the lisp. “Jacek’s van is in the parking area. He’s already out of it.”

  Jay replaced the receiver. Automatically his eyes read the numbers scribbled haphazardly on a list pinned to the wall. He saw “BH” next to Basia Husarska’s telephone number. It was proof of their collusion. He ran into the bedroom for the suitcase. It was heavy, and as he was pulling to untangle it from Lilka’s clothes, he had the passing miserable thought: how could she not know about Jacek’s business when the suitcase was in her bedroom closet and Basia’s number on their telephone list?

  Jacek said from the doorway, “Don’t touch the latches. They’re set to make it explode.”

  Jay looked up into Jacek’s gun. Past its nozzle, he saw the grisly trail of botched stitches on Jacek’s clean-shaven face. “Why’d you shave your beard?” he asked.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It won’t keep the witness from recognizing you.”

  “Your witness is dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. Now pick up the suitcase nice and easy by its handle and walk out.”

  Jacek followed him with the gun poking his back.

  “Did Basia Husarska tell you she killed Tommy?” Jay asked.

  “I should shoot you now.”

  “Then you’d have to carry this down yourself.”

  “Who do you think carried it up? Why, is it heavy for you? I thought FBI like Superman!”

  “Too bad about the elevator never working. Not just about lugging a heavy bomb upstairs, which must have been damned inconvenient, but tomatoes can be heavy, too.”

  “Communists make everything bad. Now capitalists make everything bad.”

  “Will Mladic make everything good, Jacek?”

  “Good for me.”

  “You think he will let you live?”

  “Shut up!”

  Outside, Jacek guided them to his white van. He opened the cargo door. “Get in.”

  He did. Jacek slid the door shut and locked it. Not a pinprick of light penetrated the pitch blackness. His eyes had no light to get used to. The engine started, and Jacek jacked up the music until the sides vibrated. He shifted into gear and bounced over the curb leaving the parking lot. His unanticipated turns sent Jay tumbling until he managed to brace himself with outstretched legs between the tire wells. The van’s shock absorbers had long been shot, and each jarring pothole or bump vibrated through the cold metal floor and up his spine. He had no way of knowing where they were headed. His guess was the shack. He rummaged in his daypack for the walkie-talkie. It was easy to turn on and its tiny green light was enough for him to make out the walls of the van.

  He pressed the first button. A burst of static. He pressed the second. “Graceland? Can you read me? This is Cher. Graceland, this is Cher. Can you read me?”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  THE SECOND BURST OF STATIC woke Millie up. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t coming from the television but the duty officer’s radio. She was always willing to volunteer whenever someone was needed, and that night an embassy wedding was preoccupying all the young people. It took her a moment to realize that someone was trying to talk to her. It was Kurt Crawford, he said, or no, he was saying she should contact the black man. He sounded like the other man. The Potter man. Crawford. Crawford. And how to remember? Before she had a clue-minder for Crawford he was saying shack shack shack shack shack … And she wrote down sugar. Sugar shack! She could remember that. But why did she write it down? Sugar?

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  BASIA SAT IN HER CAR, legs tucked beneath her, wrapped in her fur. It was cold, and her breath had condensed on the windows. Occasionally she drew a hand across the driver’s side window to peer at the dark shack, silhouetted by lights on the far side of the river. The rain had stopped and sky had cleared, and the full moon made brief appearances through branches swaying in a rising wind. The dogs skulked about her car, growling, occasionally pouncing at her door, and each time they did, Basia cringed. She saw a light flicker in the toolshed, but no one heard her call for help. She was trapped.

  She turned on the radio, found a blue note. Showtime coming up, she thought. How would it play out? Basia didn’t know herself. Was Jacek right, would killing Mladic set them free? Or was Mladic her best protection? Dravko thought he could forget her, would like to think he was through with her. She doubted it. He’d come for her on her island. How long would the sex hold Jacek? She couldn’t squeeze him tight enough to keep him from eventually running. It was a moment of clarity, like Jacek sometimes talked about: the obvious truth becoming truly obvious.

  Where was he?

  The sonofabitch said he’d be following in ten minutes with the suitcase. With Dravko’s bomb. Could it be possible?

  Basia disliked this part of getting high, the coming down, the thinking part. She wanted another fix. She thought: I have no one to bid goodbye. Family had ceased to matter, and friends were fickle, political, nonexistent. Had she become such a deviant that she had no friends, o
nly partners? Sex partners. Crime partners. Where was the trust of friendship in these?

  Through the trees she saw the van’s approaching lights. The dogs bounded to it and barked furiously until it bounced to a stop. Jacek got out and kicked them back, and they slunk away to snarl in the shadows of his headlights. Basia rolled down her window.

  “You could’ve waited inside,” he said.

  “Your fucking dogs wouldn’t let me out of the car.”

  “I had ’em chained earlier. Aleks must be here. They won’t bother you now.”

  She left the car. “I told Mladic an hour.”

  “Good, we can play first.” Jacek opened the passenger door and gently lifted the heavy suitcase to the ground. He grinned. “Our ticket to hell.”

  “I need a fix.”

  “I figured on it. I pinched some from Billy’s shipment. It’ll cost you.” He pulled her into an embrace and kissed her. A beggar, she returned his passion.

  “I need it now, Jacek.” She meant the drugs.

  “You better start acting like you like me more, or I might be the one leaving you. You don’t have a substitute for nothing.”

  “You won’t leave me. You need me to keep Mladic from killing you.”

  “We’re killing him, remember?”

  She asked, “How do you propose we get to the island? We need Mladic for that.”

  “We don’t need him for anything. We’ve got a hostage.”

  With that, Jacek flung open the cargo door and shone his flashlight in Jay’s face.

  Basia peered at him disbelievingly. “You are a fool. This changes everything.”

  The dogs edged closer, hanging in the shadows like Cerberus, sniffing curiously with growls caught in their throats. Basia and Jacek exchanged angry words. His flashlight bounced around the black sky like klieg lights on opening night. He made sure Jay didn’t move—rather, his gun did—and when he waved him out of the van, he indicated Jay should carry the suitcase inside. The dogs nipped at his heels and Jacek kicked them away. Jay took another step and they attacked. One caught his cuff. The other bit into his wrist.