For a moment Gordon thought he’d made a mistake. “The gentleman who sent his secretary to see you.”
“Oh, him?” said Pojva, looking up at Gordon. “He also said his boss likes a job done just right. Well, I sure didn’t let him down.”
“You sure taught that girl a lesson. Did he tell you to knock her dead?”
“No,” said Pojva, shaking his head. “Just to give her a scare. How was I supposed to know that dame was such a lightweight?” he asked, talking to the bottle before him. “I barely waved my hand at her, and she up and died. No matter, she was just some slut, anyway.”
“That’s right,” said Gordon with a nod. “Just some slut. And what did you do with the money?”
“What money?”
“Calm down, Pojva, the gentleman doesn’t care about the money. It’s just me who wants to know what happened to it. How much did she have with her? Almost two thousand pengős?”
“Only about a thousand five hundred.”
“And what did you spend it on?” asked Gordon, looking around. “Medicine?”
“What do you care?” snarled Pojva, taking another swig. “Debts. Sharks.”
“Did the gentleman’s secretary say you should take the money?”
“Of course. He said whatever she’s got on her is all mine.”
“How did you do it?” asked Gordon. Something was not right with Pojva’s muddled stare.
“What do you care?”
“We like to know how our employees operate.”
Pojva only shook his head, but then answered all the same. “First I gave her a slap; then I took her purse. She was lying there on the ground, and I took it from her hands.”
“And that’s when you saw how much money was inside?”
“Yep.”
“And that’s when you socked her in the stomach.”
“Yep.”
“After seeing how much money she had with her.”
Pojva nodded.
“And what else did she have in her purse?”
“Just the money, plus a bunch of junk. I gave that stuff to my little woman and the kids.”
“But you left a book inside,” said Gordon.
“Some sort of book,” said Pojva. “I figured as long as she’s dead, they might as well bury her with that. Besides, we don’t read.”
“And you don’t pray.”
“Who am I supposed to pray to?” asked Pojva, staring at an odd-shaped heap of straw in the corner of the room that had once been a piece of furniture but whose cover had long since shredded away.
Gordon followed his eyes, then slowly nodded. He turned to leave, but then called back. “Do a good job tonight, huh?”
“I will. It’s my specialty, after all,” he said, drinking down what remained in the bottle.
Outside, it was starting to rain. Gordon looked inside the pigpen. There he saw not pigs but Pojva’s wife and the two kids. They were cowering in the mud; there was no straw inside, and the cold wind was blowing in through gaps in the walls and the roof. The kids were so used to it that they weren’t even shivering. Gordon leaned inside the pigpen and reached out the money toward the woman. But she only shook her head, her eyes filled with terror.
“Take it already, goddamnit!” bellowed Pojva from the door of the shanty. “And buy some food, too, you hear?!”
The woman took the money. Gordon looked at the two children. “Are your parents still alive?”
“They’re down on the plains,” the woman half whispered with a nod. “If I ever get free of this”—she shook her head toward Pojva—“I’d go back there right away with the kids.”
“Take good care of the money,” said Gordon. “It might yet help get you a train ticket.”
Gordon walked back out to the muddy road, turned up his collar, and headed in the direction of Üllői Street. While waiting for the tram, he looked at his watch. It was just past four. He would get to Gubacsi Road sooner than he’d planned. When the tram reached the corner of Könyves Kálmán Boulevard, he got off and entered a tobacconist’s shop.
“May I use the phone?” he asked, putting a twenty-fillér coin on the counter.
Opening up his notebook, Gordon looked up the number of the maternity home, then dialed. The central switchboard transferred him to the director’s line. His secretary answered.
“The director has already left for the day.”
“My name is Zsigmond Gordon. I’m a journalist for the Evening, and I’m writing an article about the state of affairs at maternity homes. Has the public been in a giving mood lately?”
“Giving?” came the woman’s confused reply.
“Are you getting donations?”
“Once in a blue moon.”
“You haven’t gotten a sizable sum lately?”
“If we had, we’d be heating the bathrooms, too, not just the wards and the operating room.”
“So you haven’t received any big donation.”
“Unless you yourself are planning to help us out,” said the woman in a joking tone of voice.
“I’m planning on it,” Gordon replied. “I am.”
After stepping out of the tobacconist’s shop, Gordon boarded the tram for a short ride along Könyves Kálmán Boulevard. He got off at Mester Street and walked a block toward the Danube to Gubacsi Road. The last workers were straggling home from the oil refinery. The massive iron gate of the factory building beside it was closed, but Gordon noticed that men in groups of two or three began arriving regularly at its side entrance. He drew into the doorway of the building opposite and for a while looked quietly on. Before long, five middle-aged men arrived in the company of a much younger man who looked more like a kid. He proceeded with slow, plodding steps, but his jacket almost burst on his back. One of the shorter men in the group hurried over to the side entrance and went inside. Less than a minute later he gestured for the others to follow him in.
When another group arrived, Gordon hastened over to the other side of the street and stepped up behind them. The man leading the way opened the side gate and waved a hand at the caretaker’s booth. Now inside the grounds, Gordon separated from the group for a look around. But he saw nothing special; nor could he determine exactly what sort of factory this was. Most probably it housed several smaller operations—judging from the smells, a cabinetmaking facility and a furrier, at the very least. Gordon hurried to catch up with the group. They had turned left into an alleyway of sorts, stopping to open a heavy iron door. Gordon waited for the door to slowly close behind him. The group was now well ahead of him, having walked down what seemed to be a pitch-black, narrow hallway. Since Gordon couldn’t see a thing, he edged his way forward, following sounds. Another door opened, then slammed shut. He moved in its direction. Finally, Gordon found the door, on the right side of the hallway, and opened it. He now stood outside or, rather, in the building’s inner courtyard. In fact, he’d gotten there just in time to catch a glimpse of one of the men vanishing from the courtyard into a doorway that, from what he could make out, led down to the cellar. Gordon’s footsteps echoed off the cobblestone courtyard. The barred windows of the five-story building loomed darkly above on all sides.
Gordon opened the cellar door. The smell of sweat struck his nose at once and he heard laughter. Unbuttoning his jacket, Gordon headed down the stairs. At the bottom stood a weasel-faced old codger with a shifty gaze. Gordon took a pengő from his pocket and pressed it into the man’s palm. The man stood aside.
Gordon was surprised by the cellar’s colossal size. Never would he have imagined that such a large space existed under this building. In the middle was a boxing ring surrounded by a throng of men with their coats flung over their shoulders. In one corner a young boy was tapping beer from a keg. Spotting the bookies in the crowd wasn’t hard. With slips of paper in one hand and thick clumps of banknotes in th
e other, each of them kept stridently announcing the ever-changing odds by the minute. Just how they went about calculating was a mystery to Gordon. Pushing his hat up over his forehead, he stepped into a corner, lit a cigarette, and stood there watching. An iron door occupied each corner of the cellar. It took Gordon only a couple of minutes to understand that at least three of these doors were locked. But the fourth soon opened, and out came a boy of around fourteen carrying a bucket of water. The door closed behind the boy, but Gordon walked over and opened it again. He found himself in a hallway occupied by several small groups of men. A scruffy man with thick eyebrows stepped up to Gordon.
“Where to? Let’s have it.”
“Antal Kocsis said this is where I could find Jacek,” Gordon replied.
“You know Kocsis?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
“And what do you want with Jacek?”
“What business is it of yours?”
“Everything here is my business,” said the man, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m here to offer him work.”
“What kind of work? And, anyway, who the hell are you?”
“A little work on the side,” said Gordon, pushing the man out of the way.
“I don’t buy that,” said the man, seizing Gordon’s right arm. The others had meanwhile gone back into the main part of the cellar, leaving Gordon and the man alone in the hallway.
“Let go of my arm.”
“You haven’t told me yet who you are,” hissed the man. “But you don’t have to. I’ll drag it out of you.” Only when Gordon turned toward him did he loosen his grip on Gordon’s arm. Gordon now came so close to the man that their faces were almost touching. “You’ll drag it out of me, will you?” he asked.
“I will,” replied the man. At once Gordon tore himself free of the man’s grip and swung his right fist into the other’s cheekbone. The man staggered and then slumped against the wall but did not fall down. He just stood there, head drooping. Gordon was about to step past him when the man looked up. Gordon did not wait to be attacked. This time he delivered a deep uppercut to the chin. The man’s head hit the wall with a thud, his eyes went blank, and he began sliding toward the floor. His eyes moist and fist sore, Gordon again moved to walk past the man now lying on the floor. With a sudden start, the man grabbed his ankle. Gordon spun to look down at the man. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth to the floor and his eyes were foggy, but his hold did not slacken. Gordon tried to yank away his foot, but the man somehow gripped even tighter. He then leaned up on his left hand and the life returned to his eyes—eyes that looked with such loathing upon his foe that Gordon didn’t hesitate another moment before planting yet another punch on the other’s cheekbone, this time with his left hand and every ounce of strength he had. The man fell flat at once, his head knocking against the floor. The blood trickling from his mouth began to form a little puddle.
Gordon slumped against the wall and slid slowly to his knees. He moved the fingers of his right hand. They worked, but hurt terribly. He could hear the man’s hushed gurgling breaths. Gordon took a deep breath and stood up slowly, shaking and massaging his right hand. He opened the door his attacker had been guarding. Inside the room, a burly man was shadowboxing; his movements were slow but strong. Gordon stepped inside and shut the door behind him. Without saying a thing, Jacek watched Gordon from the corner of his eye. Gordon just stood there by the door, looking on until the boxer finally lowered his arms and, with a slight Polish accent to his otherwise clean, crisp Hungarian, spoke.
“What do you want?”
Gordon pulled out a chair from under a table and straddled it. “I have a business proposal.”
“What sort of business?”
“I heard that the result of this evening’s match has been decided in advance.”
Jacek slammed a fist down on the table. “But we agreed with Pojva that we’d play clean for once.”
“I think you don’t understand. Pojva is bragging that tonight he’s not going to sweat it out, because someone has paid you off.”
“Me?” Jacek flared up. “Me? I never sold a single match in my whole life. Understand?”
“I understand. I’m sure you’re right. But I thought I should let you know.”
“This will be my twelfth match, and I’ve never taken a dive. How dare Pojva say that?” thundered Jacek, veins bulging on his neck.
“That much I don’t know,” said Gordon, rising from the chair. “That’s all I wanted to say,” he said, heading toward the door.
Jacek just stood there stewing helplessly in his rage, but then he called after Gordon: “You mentioned some sort of business.”
“Why of course,” said Gordon, slapping his forehead. He reached in his pocket, took out fifty pengős, and set them down on the table.
“What’s this?” asked Jacek.
“Just a little contribution to Hungarian-Polish relations.”
“To what?” he asked, looking at Gordon with incomprehension.
“To that, son, to that. Besides, you yourself said you never lost a match. So don’t you lose now.”
With that, Gordon stepped out the door. The man was still lying in the hallway. Amid his halting breaths the bleeding had stopped and the puddle was gradually congealing. Gordon stepped over him and went back to the main part of the cellar and the ring.
The match was to begin in a couple of minutes. The room was filled with a terrible cacophony of voices. The bookies were doing their utmost to outshout each other, and the referees were standing in the ring with their sleeves rolled up. The smell of smoke, sweat, and beer permeated the cellar. Gordon passed his eyes over the crowd. Everyone was on hand: factory workers, carriage drivers, office workers, and, of course, more than a few dubious characters. A bit farther from the ring were gentlemen dressed in meticulously tailored, top-quality suits, and Gordon was not surprised to see them there.
The iron door opened at one minute before six. Pojva was the first to come out, with a surprisingly calm expression, and he was followed by Jacek, whose resounding steps were replete with both resolve and rage. His face spoke only of determination.
“Kill him, Pojva!” someone yelled. This voice was now joined by a chorus: “Kill him! No mercy!” At this, the other fighter’s fans broke in: “Show him no mercy, Jacek! Go for the head!”
The two boxers reached the ring. One of the referees lifted the rope, and the fighters stepped in. Jacek was stretching his neck and relaxing his shoulders, while Pojva looked on with a grin. They wore neither gloves nor even handwraps. There was no weighing in, though Pojva and Jacek looked to be about the same weight. The head referee herded them into opposite corners, whereupon an older man in a tux and a top hat stepped into the ring and, shrieking in falsetto, introduced the two fighters.
“In the blue corner we have the famously brutal Pojva, who knows no fear—Pojva, owner of the most dangerous fists around!” The crowd flew into a passion. Now the old fellow moved toward Jacek. “And in the red corner is the butcher and slaughterman from Łódz´, the man whose fists the Poles are so afraid of that he had to come all the way to Budapest—none other than Jacek himself!” More cheers. Men lined up in front of the bookies to place last-minute bets: eyes glittering, they jostled to push their way to the front, waving banknotes. Then the old man in the top hat climbed from the ring, and the head referee called on the boxers to shake hands. Both stepped to the middle of the ring. Pojva reached out his hand while gloating at the crowd. Jacek seized his hand and squeezed it tight. All at once Pojva’s face contorted, and the referee had to push Jacek out of the way. The bell rang, the referee gave the signal, and the boxers moved toward each other again. Pojva began with a few faltering jabs that Jacek effortlessly avoided before going on the attack. With his long arms, he aimed for Pojva’s chin, but missed. Pojva now moved forward, and to the extent
that he could, given his age, he took to dancing about to avoid the other’s punches. But with a well-directed swing, Jacek caught him on the chest, which sent Pojva staggering. He did not fall, but the grin froze right off his face.
Even from a distance, Gordon could see clearly when the two boxers began wrestling, as it were. It seemed as if Pojva had said something to Jacek, who responded by pushing him away and swearing at him. This sent Pojva on the attack. Jacek’s right hand swung, but all at once Pojva caught it under his arm and wouldn’t let go, hitting the Pole with his left elbow. This was too much even for the referee, who separated them. The bell rang again: the round was over.
The two boxers flopped down onto stools in their respective corners. Their assistants washed their faces with ice water and fanned them with towels. Pojva leaned back, eyes shut, gasping for breath. But Jacek shook off the water and sprang to his feet. Pojva stood only at the sound of the bell. The referee gave the signal, and they fell upon each other. Pojva tried every dirty trick in the book. While putting his left arm around Jacek’s waist, he leveled a blow at his opponent’s kidneys. The referee stepped between them. At this, Pojva now let his left fist fly with surprising agility, tearing up Jacek’s eyebrow in an instant. The referee stopped them. He examined the wound but saw that it wasn’t bleeding too much. Jacek shook himself off and moved forward. Pojva gave a desperate knee kick toward the other man’s groin. Again, the referee stepped between them. The crowd was in a rage. Screwed-up faces egged on the boxers, who heard nothing of it. Pojva defended his head with both hands. Jacek had found the right moment. He sent a punch flying at his opponent’s belly, at which Pojva lowered his left hand. At that instant Jacek’s right fist delivered an uppercut onto Pojva’s chin.
Time stopped. Even from afar, Gordon could hear the cracking of bones. Pojva’s head snapped back, his eyes rolled upward, and his arms flopped down lifelessly to his sides. He collapsed like an empty sack of potatoes. For a moment the crowd fell silent and then, all at once, began to roar. Jacek was still standing in the middle of the ring. The referee pushed him into the corner, stepped over to the body lying on the floor, and, kneeling down, put his hand around Pojva’s wrist.
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