Requiem for a Gypsy

by Michael Genelin

  Jana walked in, asking the woman acting as a receptionist at the front where she could find Kralik. The nameplate on the desk read: ELKE RILKE. It was the same woman who had taken Jana’s call about arranging the appointment with Kralik. Rilke directed Jana to a larger-than-usual desk in the rear of the bank, the desk protected by a surround of tubular chrome railing that declared the importance of the desk and its occupant. As Jana approached, she could make out Radomir Kralik’s name and his title, Vice President, in slightly larger type than on the other desk nameplates, another sign of rank for anyone who might notice.

  A man came from the rear of the bank and approached the desk at the same time as Jana, taking a seat behind it just before she got there. Kralik, realizing she was the appointment he was expecting, immediately stood back up, extended his hand, and gave her a hearty Grüss Gott, the standard Austrian greeting.

  Speaking in fluent German, Kralik told the receptionist to hold all calls, then switched to Slovak to talk with Jana. “Very happy to meet you, Commander. I was shocked, terribly shocked by the death of Mrs. Bogan. She was very important to this bank, and we are all grieving her loss.” Kralik had a black armband around his upper left arm to signify mourning. “The way she died was unbelievable.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Thank you,” Kralik responded, his face and voice taking on the tone of sorrow appropriate for the moment. Within seconds, though, he was back to his standard cordial vice president’s mien. “So, you’ve come to ask questions which have been raised by the murder. Feel free to ask me anything.”

  “Anything?”

  “Of course. We have nothing to hide.”

  “Good.” Jana settled back in her chair. “How long had you known the Bogans, Mr. Kralik?”

  Kralik looked surprised. “You haven’t come to discuss Mr. Bogan’s involvement in the bank? That’s what I prepared for.”

  “Not this visit. At a later time.” She watched Kralik. He hadn’t anticipated that she might be here to talk about his personal relationship to the Bogans, and he didn’t quite like it. “I’m aware that you’ve known them for a number of years. The ‘problem’ that generated the attack may have emerged from their past. That’s the purpose of my visit.”

  “I see.” Kralik’s tone was worried. “I prefer not to get into their personal lives.”

  “Is there something in their personal lives which you feel should be kept private?”

  Kralik looked like a deer who suddenly realizes he’s framed in the gunsight of a hunter. Jana made matters worse for him: “I understand you had a relationship with Mrs. Bogan of long standing. Can you describe that relationship?”

  It took him a while to get the words out.

  “I … we were married at one time,” he finally said. “However … we remained good friends afterward.”

  “All three of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were divorced from Klara?”

  “Yes.”

  “An amicable divorce?”

  “We were both reasonable people.”

  Elke Rilke came up to Kralik and placed a document on a letterhead in front of him to sign. She murmured an apology for interrupting. Kralik signed the paper without even reading what was written on it. Rilke nodded her thanks to Jana for waiting, then walked back to her station.

  “An efficient woman,” Jana commented.

  “Very trustworthy,” Kralik acknowledged. Kralik’s eyes had taken on a glazed look, not from any of the secretary’s actions, but because of the subject that Jana had brought up.

  “I see there are lots of items for you to attend to,” Jana said. “This shouldn’t take too long.”

  “Good.”

  Jana was silent for a few seconds, watching Kralik. He was apprehensive, moving too much in his chair, trying to deal with whatever emotions her questions had generated. “Mr. Kralik, you and Klara were still lovers, weren’t you?”

  Kralik’s eyes snapped back to attention. He was rocking slightly. He started to stutter a denial, then cut himself off, then began again, this time forcing himself to be open.

  “I always loved her. Always.”

  “She’s the one who wanted the original divorce?”

  “She’d met Bogan. They saw something in each other which they needed. Suddenly, I was a divorced man. It was business for them. I was last year’s goods.”

  Kralik ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Then later, you became a couple again,” Jana suggested.

  “They no longer needed or wanted each other for closeness. He had other women when he wanted one. That was all right with Klara. Klara found me again.”

  “And that was okay with Bogan?”

  He hesitated. “Even better.”

  “How was it better?”

  “He had Klara as a loyal helpmate, a partner who made no demands on him. She had me, so she didn’t need Bogan in that way. I had Klara back again, which was good. And Bogan could depend upon me in every way as far as business matters were concerned, since I was involved with Klara.”

  “Your apartment on Gumpendorfer was purchased by the Bogans?”

  Kralik tried to answer the question without embarrassing himself. He couldn’t quite do it. “Klara wanted a nice place for us.”

  “And your bank position here? A happy family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Their son. Is he part of their business?”

  “Zdenko.” He paused, as if having a problem conjuring up their son in his mind. “I seldom dealt with Zdenko. But, to answer your question, I don’t think so.” He searched through his memory. “Perhaps the bank dealt with him on one or two things, but not through me.”

  “Are any other of the Bogans’ relatives still alive?”

  “Klara never spoke of any. It never came up with Bogan.” “I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to talk to their son in Berlin. Do you have any phone numbers for him? Perhaps his place of business?”

  Kralik went into his desk and came out with a file card. After a period of hesitation, as if he didn’t want to part with the card, he handed it to Jana. “Keep it. I have no reason to contact him.”

  Kralik’s voice had grown hoarse, his body shrinking into itself as if he loathed what he had just done.

  “Did you get along with Klara’s son Zdenko, Mr. Kralik?”

  There was no answer. Jana became more insistent.

  “Can you answer the question, Mr. Kralik?”

  He did not answer Jana’s question directly. “He’s Klara’s son. That’s enough for me.”

  “Do you have any idea why anyone would have wanted to kill Mr. Bogan?”

  “None.”

  “Were you aware of all the business dealings Mr. and Mrs. Bogan had?”

  “I came into Bogan’s business life quite late, so the answer is no.”

  “And Klara. Why would anyone want to kill her?”

  Kralik looked at Jana as if he couldn’t quite understand what she was saying. “I thought she was killed because she got in the way during the shooting.”

  “The news media surmised that. We have reason to believe otherwise.”

  Kralik appeared deeply shaken by the information. His lips quivered, and his head wobbled slightly on his neck, as if it had developed loose ball bearings at the base. “I can’t think of any reason.”

  Jana didn’t believe him. The man had thought of a reason Klara Boganova might have been killed, but he couldn’t get it past his lips so that Jana could hear it.

  “You were invited to the party, Mr. Kralik. Why didn’t you go?”

  He shrugged as if to suggest he didn’t know. Everything about the man’s demeanor now indicated that he was emotionally, and conversationally, moving further away from Jana.

  “What are you thinking, Mr. Kralik?”

  Kralik pulled himself together. “My thoughts are mine. Private matters are private.”

  “Not if they’re also police issues.”

  “I have work
to do, Commander. There is nothing more I can add.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing, Commander.”

  Jana plunged on, but the well had dried up, Kralik answering her questions in a monotone with “I don’t know” and “I have no information about that” answers. She needed to find the lever that would pry the man’s now-sealed collaboration back open. Perhaps Klara’s son, she thought. Whatever it was that Jana had triggered within Kralik, it was eating at him now.

  A few minutes later, after a very wet and very slack handshake from an extremely nervous Kralik, Jana stepped out of the bank. She walked toward where she knew she could get a taxi, about thirty meters away, planning to catch a ride to the train terminal and head back to Bratislava. The street had become busier, and Jana was nudged aside by a large woman trying to get into the first taxi just before the initial bullet burned through the surface of the dorsal side of her upper arm. It pulled her around slightly so that the second bullet came at her face, nicking her under the chin and leaving a wound that looked like a shaving cut on a man having a very bad razor day.

  Jana scrambled to the side of the road, ducking into an open children’s furniture shop. The customers, all of them either pregnant women looking to fill out their baby-furniture needs or mothers-in-law trying to ingratiate themselves with their new daughters-in-law, stared at the bleeding woman who had suddenly dropped in on their lives to spoil their innocent pleasures. Someone called the police. A few minutes later, both an ambulance and the Austrian police arrived to take Jana to the hospital.

  For the moment, Jana was very glad to have a police escort. Under the circumstances, it provided a certain amount of comfort.

  Chapter 20

  Trokan was frantic, much more worried than Jana was. He called half a dozen Austrian officials to make sure that she was not only protected in the hospital but that she got absolutely the best doctors. He called her hospital room every two hours, which began to annoy her, but he was her colonel so she tolerated it.

  The Austrian police were professional but starchy, as the Austrians always are, and they got even starchier when they realized she was a police officer. Jana tried, unsuccessfully, to explain that she was not in Austria to create problems. The Austrians became even more unhappy when they discovered that she hadn’t bothered to clear her presence as a Slovak investigator in their country before interrogating a witness; they weren’t even placated by the fact that the witness she had questioned was a Slovak. Her saving moment arrived when a call eventually came in, alerting the Austrian officers that Jana had friends in high places on their own police force. It had to be Trokan at work behind the scenes. Jana silently thanked him.

  Unfortunately, when the Austrians tried to question Kralik at the bank, they found that he’d absented himself. He had told his staff he was going to visit his old and sick mother. When they contacted her, she cheerfully informed the police that she wasn’t sick and hadn’t heard from her son in months. After the Viennese police had finished with their initial shooting-scene examination, they told Jana they had no idea who had shot her, or even where the shots had come from.

  Jana’s wounds were not serious. There was no severe muscle impairment in the arm, and the bullet had gone straight through. The doctors simply sewed up the wound. The lesion under her chin worried her more because she thought it might leave a significant scar. The plastic surgeon they brought in for a quick consultation assured her it would merely leave a thin scar that would be virtually invisible, unless, he added jokingly, her lover kissed her on the neck. He chuckled at his own humor all the way down the hospital corridor.

  Early the next morning, Jana slipped out of the hospital and went to the train depot, taking the first scheduled train of the day to Bratislava. She had parked at Petržalka when she’d gone to Vienna, and she quickly found her car when she arrived. She drove directly to the Obchodna business district and left the vehicle in a no-parking zone, setting her police permit on the dashboard to avoid problems with the parking police. She then walked to a newspaper, magazine, and periodical store across from the women’s clothing shop that had placed the largest earring order with Em. There was a large picture window in the front of the magazine store which had just enough space around the advertisements taped to it to allow Jana a clear view across the street.

  Snow had started falling again, beginning to cover the grime that coats the streets after a day of normal urban life in a business district. Jana plucked one of the magazines from a wall rack, browsing through it as she waited, watching the pedestrian traffic. It wasn’t until the third or fourth tram that Jana saw Em through the increasing snowfall. The girl hopped off the Number 8 tram coming from the direction of Bratislava Castle and went directly to the clothing shop. Jana put her magazine back in the rack, walked out of the shop, and went across the street to the clothing store. The first thing she saw when she went inside was Em arguing with the manager.

  Jana used the mat to kick the snow off her shoes, then walked over to the register where the store manager and Em were having their confrontation. Em noticed Jana coming and gave her a brief smile, not surprised to see her. Em turned in triumph to the manager as if Jana’s appearance had been planned.

  “I told you I wouldn’t let you cheat me.” She turned back to Jana. “This woman has sold eight pairs of my earrings and refuses to pay me the money she owes me. So pull out your gun and shoot her.” She folded her arms across her chest, waiting for Jana to comply.

  Jana stared at the girl just long enough for Em to understand that what she was requesting was ridiculous. “I’m not about to shoot anyone to satisfy your business needs,” she snapped. Then she addressed the manager. “Did you sell eight pairs of her earrings?”

  The manager nodded. “It’s just that I need the owner’s authorization to pay out what she’s owed,” she murmured by way of explanation.

  “I’m leaving the city,” Em announced. “So I can’t wait for the owner to say it’s okay to pay what’s due me. If it’s owed, it should be paid.”

  “I agree. Pay her!” Jana insisted. “Take it out of the register and tell your boss to call me if she has any doubts.” She turned back to Em. “And you are not leaving the city.”

  “I have to go.”

  “No, you don’t. Remember, I’m allowed to shoot fugitives, so I can shoot you if you run. Understood?”

  “You wouldn’t shoot a child.”

  “Okay,” Jana said, “I won’t shoot a child. On the other hand, I can beat you in all the places that won’t show. So, I would advise you to quietly come with me to a small snack place four doors down where we can eat and talk.” She looked back at the manager. The woman hadn’t moved to pay what was owed to Em. “I said pay her,” Jana growled.

  The manager quickly opened the register and counted out the few bills that the store owed Em, sliding the money over to her. Jana scooped up the money before Em could and started walking toward the front door. Em darted after her.

  “That’s my money.”

  “Who says?”

  “You told the manager to pay me. You approved it.”

  “And you agreed to live up to your bargain with me, and you didn’t. You left before you completed it.”

  They reached the front door, the snow outside now coming down as hard as it had been doing when Em had first stumbled into Jana’s house.

  “Come on,” Jana yelled at Em, dashing out into the snow and down the block. After a moment’s hesitation, Em ran after her. Jana led them into the small snack shop that she’d mentioned. The old man behind the counter raised a hand in greeting. Without waiting for an order, he poured a large mug of coffee, then set it at the end of the counter. Jana sat on the stool in front of it. Em looked the place over. She continued to stand, not quite sure what to do.

  “Sit down, young lady,” the old man suggested.

  Jana placed the money the store manager had given her on the counter in front of the stool next to hers. She gestured an invitatio
n to Em to sit on the stool. “All you have to do is sit, then eat and drink what the old man gives you. So talk to me and it’s yours.”

  “She looks like the hot chocolate type,” the old man said, quickly fixing a mug of hot chocolate and setting it next to the money. “You think she wants a pastry?” he asked Jana.

  “All teenagers want pastries.”

  He looked at his small display of pastries, selected one, plated it, and placed it next to the hot chocolate. “Winter berries. It’s fresh. Good with the hot chocolate.”

  Jana handed him a bill, and the old man pulled change from his pocket to give to her. Another customer came in, stamping the snow from his shoes, slapping at his jacket to get the flakes off before they thawed enough to soak the wool. He took a seat at a small table near the rear. “He’s a tea man,” the owner mumbled to Jana, preparing a cup of tea.

  Em reluctantly reached a decision, sliding onto the stool next to Jana. She stared at the money. “That’s mine.”

  “If you want it that much, take it.”

  Em made no move for the money. “I’ll take it when I want to.”

  “Do you want to know how I knew where to find you?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “The store owed you money, so I knew you’d come. All I had to do was wait.”

  The girl pretended she didn’t care, looking in every direction but at Jana.

  “I want to know what you were doing at the meeting when Sipo got the information about the plan to kill the Bogans.” Jana used her best police voice, her tone indicating that she would brook no argument. “Tell me.”

  “The Turk asked me there.”

  “The Turk didn’t ask you there. Another man did.”