The Doctor Dines in Prague

by Robin Hathaway

  When she came to the end of the boxes, she turned her feeble beam on the room beyond. It appeared empty, but she decided to make sure. As she stepped around the boxes, she stumbled and almost fell into a hole. Playing her light over it, she judged it was about three feet wide, six feet long, and four feet deep. Casting the beam beyond the cavity, she picked out another hole, identical to the first. Deciding she had seen enough, she withdrew. When she reached the door, she directed her light on a paper sack in the corner. The large block letters spread across the bag were in Czech, but the illustration underneath conveyed the message aptly. It depicted a rodent, with crosses for eyes, its four feet sticking in the air.

  Closing the door to the storage room, Jennifer moved along the wall and back into the kitchen. As she passed the sink, she grabbed a paring knife that was lying there. The quiet murmur of voices reached her. Slowly, she began to distinguish some words. To her relief they were not Czech, but German. The sound grew louder. Ilsa’s angry cry, followed by a slap, propelled Jennifer through the doorway into the room. Ilsa turned and ran smack into her.

  “You!” Ilsa fell back. “How did you get here?”

  Jennifer only had time to see the cots bearing two prostrate forms, before Ilsa pushed her out of the room and shut the door behind her.

  They faced each another.

  “Mew.” The cat came out of nowhere and curled around Ilsa’s ankle. She shook it off, her gaze never leaving Jennifer.

  “I followed you from the cathedral,” Jennifer said simply. “I’m looking for Andrew’s cousins.” What was the point of lying? Ilsa wouldn’t believe anything Jennifer told her, anyway.

  “Andrew?” asked Ilsa.

  Jennifer felt a small flush of triumph. The woman didn’t know his first name. Their relationship couldn’t have been too intimate. “Dr. Fenimore,” she explained.

  Ilsa’s look of chagrin was brief. “You have made a mistake coming here,” she said. “Now you must stay.”

  “Not necessarily.” Jennifer chose this moment to brandish the paring knife.

  Ilsa stepped back.

  Silently, they eyed each other. Jennifer hadn’t the slightest intention of using the knife unless Ilsa attacked first.

  Sensing this, Ilsa relaxed a little. “Let’s talk.” She moved carefully across the room to the table and tentatively pulled out a chair.

  “You first,” Jennifer said.

  Ilsa sat down.

  Her eyes still on Ilsa, Jennifer took the chair opposite.

  “Coffee?” Ilsa asked politely.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Tea?”

  Jennifer shook her head.

  “Where is the doctor now?” Ilsa got down to business.

  While thinking of her answer, Jennifer heard the muffled ring of a telephone. Ilsa opened a drawer in the table and took out a cell phone. “Ja?” Her gaze stayed on Jennifer. Except for a few grunts of surprise, Ilsa listened to her caller in silence. Finally, she said a few words in Czech, which Jennifer did not understand, and hung up. “So. Your Andrew”—she leaned on the name—“is in jail.”

  Jennifer felt cold.

  “He tried to kill my friend.” Ilsa glared at Jennifer. “He is being held for questioning.” She smiled.

  Jennifer remained silent, digesting her words.

  “He pushed Jan off the bridge tower into the river. It’s a miracle he survived.” Becoming quite agitated, she stood up.

  Jennifer rose, too, tightening her grip on the knife.

  A sharp cry came from the next room. They both turned. The cry was repeated. Like two cats, they watched each other as together they moved toward the door.

  When they entered the room, the man was bent over, holding his chest. The woman was leaning over the bed. She raised frightened eyes to them. “He is in great pain!”

  Ilsa went to the cot. Jennifer followed close behind. Ilsa grabbed the man’s hand and felt his wrist for his pulse. Jennifer and the other woman watched intently. Ilsa’s anxious expression gradually disappeared. She dropped the man’s hand. “He’s all right.”

  How do you know? wondered Jennifer. At least Ilsa appeared relieved the man had a good pulse; that must mean she did not intend to kill him. At least—not yet. By this time Jennifer had guessed the identity of the man and woman: Fenimore’s cousins. But this new knowledge was of no use to her. There was no way she could get the information to Fenimore. She was a prisoner.

  This became clearer as the evening wore on. At some point Ilsa heated soup and produced a loaf of bread and cheese. She served small portions of these items to her guests. Vlasta did not eat. Anna and Jennifer did. Jennifer couldn’t remember when she had last eaten. After this meager meal, she asked for a bathroom. Ilsa directed her to the pantry area. The little closet had no light, but Jennifer located the toilet easily by smell. There was a chain for flushing. About an hour later, tiring of her vigil, Ilsa rose and locked the back door; then the door to the cousins’ room. Before ascending the back stairs (to the warm comforts of a feather bed, Jennifer thought ruefully), Ilsa paused and said sweetly, “Sleep well.”

  Jennifer heard the key turn in the door at the top of the stairs. She felt the paring knife in her jacket pocket. A lot of good that had done her! She kept her hand around it, however, as she settled down on a hard kitchen chair for the night.

  CHAPTER 37

  Jennifer must have dozed off. She awoke with a start and realized a sound had awakened her—the sound of a voice … strident, but muffled by thick walls. The voice seemed to be giving a speech, but she couldn’t make out the words. Remembering a trick she had used as a child to facilitate eavesdropping on the brawls of her neighbors in the adjoining apartment, she went to the cupboard and took out a drinking glass. She pressed the open mouth of the glass against the wall and her ear to the base. The sexless voice was ranting in German. It reminded her of Hitler’s speeches in some movies that her teacher had shown to her German class in college. She pressed her ear against the base of the glass until it hurt. The voice grew louder, rising and repeating itself. She was able to translate two phrases that were repeated over and over:

  “Praha belongs to us!

  We will rise again!”

  The last cry was followed by applause, punctuated by a few bravos. Then silence. A few minutes later Jennifer heard an outside door open, and footsteps. She turned out the little lamp on the kitchen table and went over to the barred window. It looked into the passageway through which she had come, but it was a tall window and if she scrunched down, she could see a bit of the lawn up above. She knelt in the dark kitchen, peering upward. The light of the single street lamp was enough to illuminate a series of feet filing out. One pair was a little ahead, leading the others. Jennifer heard the clang of the lock on the wrought-iron gate. She imagined the group disappearing down the alley. Soon, one pair of feet came back to the house. A woman’s feet, wearing woman’s shoes. Ilsa. Like many large women, Ilsa’s feet were dainty and small. Jennifer let out the breath she had not realized she was holding.

  What on earth? A rally of some sort? Of Redik’s followers? Did he have a cult?

  Jennifer tried to put the pieces together. There seemed to be more to this plan than a simple heist. The stacks of programs in the next room. The room of the graves. She shivered. The rally overhead. The two prisoners next door—probably Andrew’s cousins. Could Redik and Ilsa be involved in a conspiracy of some kind? And were the puppets part of it? Andrew had told her how Czechs had used puppets in the past for subversive purposes. Could Redik and Ilsa have cell groups and be planning to overthrow the Czech government? Good grief! She had to warn someone. Andrew? Or President Hável? She looked wildly around the kitchen: at the single window with its iron bars, at the thick wooden door to the passageway with its secure lock, and at the other solid doors leading to various parts of the house—all securely locked. She was sweating and her breath came in short gasps.

  Calm yourself. You’re getting carried away. She forc
ed herself to take deep breaths. It was probably a simple heist, after all. Those stacks of programs were just that—programs for Redik’s traveling puppet shows. And that meeting upstairs—a town meeting to discuss some problem with the sewers or the transportation system. And those pits in the room next door? For trash disposal. Recycling.

  And I’m Marilyn Monroe!

  With a sigh, Jennifer slumped onto one of the kitchen chairs. But this time she didn’t sleep.

  CHAPTER 38

  The footsteps in the corridor came to a stop outside Fenimore’s cell. A guard in a dark green uniform, a rifle slung over his shoulder, opened the lock.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  Fenimore shuffled out and marched a few paces in front of the guard. In less than twelve hours, he had adopted the posture, gait, and resignation of a lifer. In a few more days he would also acquire the prison pallor.

  They passed from the cellblock to an ordinary row of closed doors. The last door stood open. The guard ordered him to enter. Fenimore stood blinking under the bright overhead lights. An uniformed man with a carefully barbered moustache sat behind the desk. Another man, in street clothes, occupied a chair in front of the desk, his back to Fenimore. When the guard announced Fenimore, the latter man turned.

  Redik.

  The official with the moustache pointed Fenimore to an empty chair. “Sit,” he said in Czech.

  Fenimore sat. The guard remained by the door, at attention.

  The official shuffled some papers on his desk. Took off his glasses. Yawned. Stretched. Put his glasses back on. When he spoke, it was in a slow, measured drawl, reminding Fenimore of natives of the southern United States. “Mr. Redik … has decided … to drop all charges.” He read from a paper on his desk.

  Fenimore glanced at Redik. He was staring straight ahead, a faint smile playing about his lips. Could this passive, self-contained man be the maniac Fenimore had encountered on top of the tower a few hours ago?

  “And,” the official continued, “since you have returned the stolen goods”—the police had confiscated the crown when they arrested him—“the State, er, the Czech Republic will not press charges for the theft of the royal crown.”

  Fenimore blinked. Had he heard right? He could understand Redik’s motive for dropping charges: Fenimore might bring kidnapping charges against him. But, “the State”?

  “However …”

  Here it comes, thought Fenimore.

  The official removed his glasses and began polishing them with a dirty handkerchief. He put them on, and for the first time looked directly at Fenimore. “We still hold you responsible for the damage to the crown.” Fenimore was fascinated by the way the light bounced off his lenses. “You will receive a bill for repair of the dent incurred when you dropped it—”

  (When who dropped it?)

  “And this bill must be paid immediately upon receipt.” He shoved a form across the desk at Fenimore. “Please write your American street address, phone number, and e-mail address.”

  Fenimore carefully filled in the appropriate blanks, substituting Jennifer’s e-mail address since he didn’t have one (something he intended to remedy the minute he got home). He returned the form and waited for the axe to fall—his sentence of so many years at hard labor.

  “You may go.”

  Bewildered, Fenimore looked at Redik—his face was impassive. Then at the guard; he was staring fixedly at the floor. Tentatively, Fenimore pushed back his chair, with a scraping sound. Cautiously, he stood up. He knew all about the police getting your hopes up, only to squash them. It was a psychological technique. His mother had told him … .

  Fenimore took a step toward the door. Another step. Another. The guard stood back to let him pass. He was in the corridor. He paused. Surely they would stop him now. It wasn’t possible that he was free to go through that open doorway at the other end of the corridor. The one that was flooded with morning sunlight. He continued to put one foot in front of the other, all the time listening—for footsteps, shouts, gunshots—until he stepped outside. The sights and sounds of a busy commercial street on an ordinary workday rushed past him: the clanging trams, the chugging cars and trucks, the pedestrians striding by on their urgent errands. He stood on the steps, drinking it in—the sweet elixir of a free city, on a fresh morning, going about its business. Then he joined it, on an errand of his own.

  He found a pay phone and, retrieving the scrap of paper on which he had scrawled Jennifer’s hotel number, called her room. No answer. He tried the front desk. No messages. Now what? The last time he had seen her, she was following Ilsa. Where had Ilsa led her? To the University? Ilsa’s home? Where was “home”? He consulted his pocket diary for the University number. He knew it was closed, but surely someone was on duty in the front office who could find Ilsa’s home address for him. He dialed. A recording informed him that the University was closed for spring break from such-and-such a date to such-and-such a date. He hung up. Somewhere in that vast building there must be a human being, he told himself. Last time, he had found Redik! Fenimore would drop by. Taking out his guidebook, he consulted the map. The University was only a few blocks away.

  The front door was open, but there was no one in sight. Not even the sweeper he had run into before. He was considering what to do next, when he heard the soft tap, tap of an old-fashioned typewriter. The Czech Republic was not as high-tech as the United States; some of their typewriters still made noise. He followed the sound, which led him down a long hallway to an office door. There was no name on it, but it was ajar. He knocked.

  “Ano?” A woman’s voice.

  He introduced himself and asked if she had a list of the professors’ addresses and phone numbers. She asked him for some ID. The fact that he had a card stating that he was a cardiologist seemed to satisfy her. She produced a dog-eared booklet from a desk drawer. She watched him flip through it. Ilsa was listed at an apartment house on a street near the University. He jotted down the address. Then he looked for Redik’s. To his disappointment, the only address listed for him was a box number. He returned the booklet. “Dkuji.”

  The woman smiled and went back to her typing.

  Ilsa’s apartment house was shabby, badly in need of paint and repair. The upper half of the entrance door was glass but no one had been able to see through it for some time. The door was open. In the dusty, tiled vestibule, Fenimore scrutinized the battered mailboxes. Some were empty with no names attached. Locating I. TENCEK, he pressed the buzzer. He would wait three minutes, he told himself. While he waited, he thought about what to do next. He could wait here until another tenant came in or out, and try to slip past them. But it might be a long wait. And once he got inside he would probably be faced with another locked door: Ilsa’s. For the first time he missed Horatio and his unique skills. He turned to go. But where?

  Slow down, Fenimore. Think this through. He walked until he found a bench across from the Old Bridge Tower. There, he sat down and closed his eyes. The hum of traffic and the chatter of pedestrians coming to and from the Charles Bridge formed a soothing background for his turbulent thoughts. Methodically he went over the steps that had brought him to this point: why he had come to Prague, what had happened since he had arrived, and what he should do now.

  1. He had come here to find out why his cousins didn’t answer their telephone.

  2. He had discovered Marie, his youngest cousin, in hiding, and learned from her that thugs had kidnapped his cousins.

  3. In his search for his cousins he had met Redik, who had referred him to Ilsa …

  Grimace.

  4 … . who had led him on a wild goose chase!

  5. Which, in turn, had led him and Jennifer to St. Vitus Cathedral and one of the greatest heists of history.

  6. Which had led to his pursuit of Redik, his near murder of same, and his ending up in prison …

  7. and Jennifer chasing Ilsa, and ending up … where?

  Dead end.

  Goals: Find Jen. Find cousi
ns. Find Redik and Ilsa—and bring them to justice!

  Fenimore opened his eyes and stared at the blackened Bridge Tower. Wait a minute. You didn’t go back far enough, Fenimore. What about Tuk? The tower guard who fell from that very roof to his death in the Vltava River. Maybe there was a connection. He looked up at the pinnacles behind which he had so recently stood. Tuk must have had a family. Maybe they could help. “Tuk” was an odd name. There couldn’t be too many of them in Prague. Fenimore strode off, full of renewed purpose, to find a telephone book.

  He found one at a pharmacy and riffled through the T’s. Tuk, Tomas. There it was. Reveling in his good luck, Fenimore hopped a tram to the man’s district.

  This apartment house was much grander than Ilsa’s. From the Baroque period, its stone facade was enlivened by a variety of winged creatures—doves, swans, cupids, angels. He had to hunt for the mailboxes. Of polished brass, they gleamed discreetly in a corner of the spacious lobby. Spying the name A. TUK, he turned to the desk, where a stern concierge eyed him coldly. Fenimore gave the name and cursed himself for not calling the Tuks from a pay phone first.

  “Ms. Tuk will speak with you.” The concierge handed him the house phone receiver.

  “Ano?” A metallic female voice.

  He explained who he was and why he had come, as well as he could in Czech. Switching easily to English, the woman asked him to wait a minute. She was gone so long Fenimore thought she had forgotten him. Finally her voice spoke: “My mother will see you. We are on the fifth floor, apartment five-oh-three.”