Prague Noir

by Pavel Mandys

  “Hi, Dan,” I say. He jerks slightly, but once I am close to him, I can see that his face has formed into a smile.

  “Evening, Bary,” he replies, putting the cigarette into his mouth and offering his hand. I do not like that nickname, but that has never phased him. Today, however, there’s no time for pettiness—more important things await us.

  “Long time no see,” he adds as we shake hands. Yup, long time. Three or four years, perhaps. But as if that time lapse didn’t exist, when I told him where to meet me, he remembered immediately.

  “We could have seen each other a week ago, but you didn’t come,” I remark.

  “A week ago?”

  “At Anton’s funeral,” I remind him.

  He turns his face toward the city and puts his hands on the railing. From the cigarette he holds between his index and middle fingers, a piece of glowing ash falls off onto a wet stone, and is immediately doused.

  “Yup, there.”

  “Yup, there,” I repeat.

  “You know, Bary, I . . . I had to leave the city, and then later . . .” He trails off.

  “Let it be,” I say. He’s lying; I have known that for a long time. He’s always lied, god knows why. Maybe it seems easier to him than explaining or defending something.

  “Dana has kept his ashes; she still doesn’t know what to do with the urn,” I continue.

  “Hmmm,” he mumbles, and inhales the cigarette. He knows Anton’s wife as well as I do.

  We’re silent for a while. A wind has picked up and it moves the treetops at our backs.

  “So why did you want to talk to me?” Dan asks. Apparently he’s already dedicated the required amount of time to the memory of his friend.

  “It has to do with the funeral, actually. Well, more like because of the things that preceded it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Do you know at all how he died?”

  “Hmmm,” he grumbles again in what I take to be acknowledgment.

  Anton was forty-six. In August, his lungs started to feel as if they were on fire. Later, the same feeling erupted in his belly. In September, he lost fifteen kilos; in October, ten more; by the beginning of November, he was hospitalized. Those were the last two weeks of his life.

  “I visited him in the hospital, Dan.”

  “You did? I couldn’t. I couldn’t deal with seeing him like that.”

  Is he lying even now? Maybe yes, maybe no. He throws the glowing butt into the abyss below. As the air hits it, it sparks for a last time before it disappears from view, like a small comet.

  “He wanted to talk to me,” I explain.

  Dan’s face turns toward me. “He wanted to talk to you?”

  “Yeah.” I watch his hands, which he’s putting into his jacket pockets. Does he have a gun? I can’t be sure, but even if he does, we’re just talking.

  “You should have seen him. He looked like an old man—only skin and the skeleton underneath. He was unable to utter a complete sentence, that’s how tired everything made him.”

  Dan turns toward the wall’s ledge and spits over it. “Cancer is a bitch,” he hisses through his teeth.

  “That it is.” I nod and wait for him to ask about Anton’s reason for wanting to talk. But he’s silent; only slowly and lightly nods his head.

  “He apologized to me,” I say after a while.

  Dan’s movements become even slower until they cease completely. “Apologized?”

  “Yeah, apologized. For that.”

  “For what?” he asks carefully, but we both catch the change in his voice.

  “You know for what, Dan.” There’s nothing in the sentence that should scare him. It’s a simple statement of fact. “He apologized for all the shit I had to go through. And also for Jakub.”

  Now he stands with his face turned toward me again. I’m looking into his eyes indifferently, perhaps even placidly, without any spite. His hands are still in his pockets.

  “Anton told me that you knew about it,” I say, and this time I turn my face toward the city. I stand sideways next to Dan, my hands visible to him, and what I am saying sounds ordinary and boring. I do not want a confrontation and I hope he understands that.

  A few seconds pass. If there’s anything in his pockets that would scare me, for now it remains in its place.

  * * *

  An old roadster shot out from a forest road and screeched out onto the pavement in front of a moving armored truck. The truck veered to one side, its right wheels losing the support of the reinforced highway shoulder; in a moment, it was lying on its side like an animal unable to extricate itself from a sophisticated trap. The engine was still running and the wheels were spinning.

  Another car, a gray station wagon, materialized from somewhere, and its driver and passenger jumped out to join the men in balaclavas who had gotten out of the roadster. There were four of them: three men with shotguns, and one with a machine gun. They all aimed inside the truck, where two security guards were crouching behind the reinforced glass. One had a bloody smear on his forehead; the other was holding the top of his head. As the shock of the impact wound down, they noticed the gun barrels aimed directly at them. How many shots could this glass withstand? Who here, in the middle of a forest, would come to help them? Nobody. Surely not fast enough to save them.

  The men outside continued to aim and yell. The two men inside finally did what they had to do. The third member of the crew was in the back, in the cargo space. He was not able to stand up to the aggressive power move either, especially since the impact and the resulting fall to the floor had caused a dislocated shoulder. When the boxes full of money were being transported from the truck to the gray station wagon, one of the gangsters suddenly raised a gun and aimed it at his head.

  * * *

  “Why, Dan?” I ask.

  “What do you want to hear?”

  He lights another cigarette and I put my hands in my pockets. So far it looks like a truce.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about it then?”

  He leans his head back and exhales a column of smoke. “Why?” he repeats my question. “And what would you have done, Bary? Would you have agreed, if we came to you with the idea?”

  “You could have fucking given me a chance!” I’m losing it a bit, I should calm down. I have to keep my head cool; yelling will lead nowhere.

  “We simply were not sure. Don’t look for any other reason in it.”

  “You had no right to decide for me.”

  “Let it go,” he says wearily. “It’s all gone now.”

  “Gone? It depends.”

  “Look, Bary, I am sorry about how it all went wrong. First Jakub and then your problems, but—”

  “Problems? That’s what you call it?” Again, I’m raising my voice—but I can’t help it.

  Only when we got out of the fucking truck did the hell start for me. Jakub’s death, the police investigation, nightmares, depression. Pills, alcohol, and more pills. And finally, a six-month stay at a psychiatric ward, when I could no longer deal with the recurring nightmares of four gun barrels in front of my eyes.

  “Shit, Bary, I . . . Will it help you if I apologize like Anton? Hardly.”

  “You, apologize? And how about Jakub? Will you apologize to him too?”

  We’re looking into each other’s eyes, our faces almost touching. We’re both agitated—I can see how he breathes fast, his nostrils widening with each exhale, but I am not afraid of him. In the past, I used to be scared of nightmares, but if you can survive this, nothing can ever frighten you.

  * * *

  A man in a security uniform was standing with one hand raised, the other hanging limp against his body. Even the smallest movement caused such pain in his shoulder that his eyes teared up. One of the balaclava-clad men was sitting in the driver’s seat of the station wagon, pumping the gas pedal; two others were in the process of transporting the last boxes of cash; the fourth was waiting, his shotgun cocked. Then the shot rang out and dozens o
f lead balls deformed the face of the security guard beyond recognition. As his body started to collapse, the murderer was already on his way to the getaway car.

  * * *

  I do not stop watching him. He’s waiting for me to say something, but I remain silent. After a while, he can’t take it.

  “What do you want from me, Bary? What the hell do you want?”

  I still wake up at night from time to time. I have a feeling that a huge, rusty roadster is charging toward me. I still remember that impact, just as I remember Anton’s reaction, when he turned the wheel sharply to the right. Or . . . perhaps the impact made him lose control of the wheel. I can’t say for sure. Just as I can’t explain why it was him who drove, when it was my turn. It is peculiar that I don’t remember it, because the police asked me about that a few times.

  What do you want from me, Bary? What the hell do you want? I hear it as an echo.

  “I want my share, Dan.”

  “Your share?”

  “Yeah, my share. Compensation for the pain; satisfaction. Call it what you will.”

  “Bary, for god’s sake . . . it’s been five years!”

  “So?”

  “So? How much do you think is left? We got peanuts; back then we were only cogs in the machine.”

  Sure, just cogs in the machine. Dan, the dispatcher—dispatching the cars full of money, and once we drove out, he informed the balaclava-clad men about the chosen route. Anton, who was supposed to assist so that the transport of the cargo would go smoothly. And then, finally, me and Jakub—two fools who did not know about anything and found ourselves in the middle of a storm in which one lost his life and the other lost his sanity.

  “You should have warned us. This was a con, Dan.”

  “Would it have changed anything?” he mumbles.

  “Jakub could have lived.” I am looking at him, but he does not react.

  I don’t know whether Jakub did anything to defend himself back then. Anton and I were lying facedown by the trees at the edge of the forest with our hands tied behind us, and we couldn’t see what was happening behind the car. Or at least I didn’t see it. I dug my face into the dirt and closed my eyes. I had no idea what to expect. I was quiet, and I even prayed silently that I would survive. Then when a shot sounded out of nowhere, I did not understand why I was still alive.

  Dan is silent—I have no idea what’s going through his head.

  “We were not sure with you,” he says after a while. “But Jakub . . . he would not have been able to digest it.”

  He’s right about that. At least as far as Jakub is concerned. Jakub felt as if he was the last one in the world with a sense of justice, so sometimes it was unbearable to be around him. I don’t know what I would have done if Dan and Anton had come to me. But I am sure about what Jakub’s reaction would have been.

  “Moreover,” Dan says, “you knew his family. It simply would not have ended well.”

  Sure—Jakub and his family. Four brothers growing up without parents, the youngest of whom originally worked with the police but then transferred to a security firm, perhaps to compensate for the dirty tricks the remaining three pulled for a living. When I met them at his funeral, my hands started to shake.

  “Maybe we could have avoided it, Dan.”

  “Bullshit,” he answers.

  “You could have done it some other time.”

  “We didn’t plan it! We were only pawns, I told you that already.”

  “Anton said that you brought those people on.”

  Dan takes a drag of his cigarette, and the smoke he exhales dissipates in front of my face. “Yes, that’s true. Those were contacts I had from the past. He had not met them at all, except . . .”

  Except for those three eternal minutes on the highway in the middle of a forest; the longest three minutes of my life.

  “It bothers me a lot, Dan,” I say. “A whole fucking lot!”

  He goes silent again, maybe waiting for me to continue.

  “You did not give us a chance. That’s the worst part—you did not give us a chance, after all that we had been through.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Bary,” he snorts. “What had we been through? Do not turn us into the three fucking musketeers. Maybe that was Jakub’s idea, but . . .” He shakes his head. Another cigarette butt goes flying. The wall ledge we are standing by barely goes up to our thighs. If he pushed me, I would fall twenty meters down to the wall’s base. But today I have no fear. I feel at home here; in this place, I have experienced everything one person can experience. I feel as if my feet have rooted into the million tons of dirt and rocks on which I am standing. As if, even if Dan tried to push me, I would not budge. Not one inch. I used to sit on this low wall at times when it did not matter to me whether or not I fell. In one hand, a bottle, usually; in the other, a cigarette; and in my head, buzzing insects. And now . . .

  Dan is watching me and who knows what he’s thinking. But just as I am not afraid of him, he might not be afraid of me.

  The silence is suffocating us both—for different reasons, but with the same intensity. Only a couple of meters away from us, two inconsequential and transient beings, stands the centuries-old tower of St. Peter and Paul’s Basilica, rising toward the dark sky. Its bells, tolling their welcome during the day, or mourning every passing hour, are silent, just like the two of us.

  “I want money, Dan.”

  “It’s been five fucking years!”

  “So?”

  “I have nothing left.”

  “Do you know what I do now? I slave away in a warehouse. I haul boxes for peanuts. I already lost my apartment. I roam around, renting one place after another, waiting until I can dig myself out of this shit somehow.”

  “And what do I have to do with it, Bary?”

  “Who is going to hire a guy who’s spent time in a nuthouse?”

  “Shit, I . . . I said I’m sorry, so what more should I do? I simply don’t have any money left!”

  “I want my share, Dan. Only my share—nothing more, nothing less. Shared fuck-up, shared money.”

  “I’ve told you already—we’re not musketeers. We’ve never been.”

  We’ve never been? Okay, probably not. But still . . .

  Four cops, in cahoots from their initial training. Uniforms, pistols, cars with lights and sirens. Mostly Anton and I were partnered, and Jakub and Dan, but sometimes we mixed things up.

  We disciplined drivers, chased petty thieves, collected junkies from parks; it was a routine job. After ten years, Dan was the first to give up. He found a job with a security firm guarding department stores and banks, and transporting money. In the following two years, all three of us joined him.

  “I’m serious, Dan.”

  “And I am seriously telling you, again, I have nothing left.”

  He is brusque and uncompromising. This time I know he’s not lying. But that changes nothing.

  “I don’t care.” I shake my head.

  “I told you everything I wanted to,” he closes the discussion, and puts his hands into his pockets again.

  “And I am telling you—you need to take care of this. Do what you can.”

  “Don’t piss me off, Bary!” he hisses, and takes a step toward me. In his agitation he takes his hands out of his pockets again, but they’re empty. “There’s nothing left, don’t you get it?!”

  He turns to leave, so that I really get it.

  “You squander two million,” I place my palm on his back, “but for me—who, other than Jakub, ended up in the deepest shit—you don’t even have spare change?”

  He turns to me again and his eyes are only a few centimeters from mine. “I didn’t get any two million,” he says. “I have no idea what Anton told you, but it was far less.”

  I watch him. He’s upset; he’s speaking with emotion and points a finger in my face.

  “Okay,” I nod, “calm down. He told me exactly the same thing.”

  “What?”

  “That it was
less.”

  It’s starting to drizzle. The droplets are cold. A few of them land on my face.

  “So then why do you keep talking about two million?” Just a moment ago he was staring daggers at me; suddenly, there’s something else in his look. Uncertainty, alertness. He takes a half-step back, perhaps without realizing it.

  “He got that money, but you know that better than me. Supposedly, you exchanged part of your share for a favor.” As I speak, I tense up a bit. I try to ready myself for the blow which, so far, is not coming.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Bary?” His face, tone of voice, eyes . . . everything confirms what Anton said.

  “He told me that you traded a portion of the money for Jakub.”

  He’s quiet and stares at me with piercing eyes. For a while I can stand his look, but then I turn my face toward the city again. I want him to see that he does not have to fear me.

  “I do not want to judge you, Dan. I don’t know what was between the two of you.”

  “Shut up! Shut up, Bary, you never—”

  “It doesn’t matter to me!” I yell at him. “I don’t fucking care, do you understand? Jakub is gone, has been for five years, and I have to take care of myself. Here and now!”

  He’s quiet. He’s standing beside me, breathing excitedly, and he does not seem to notice that the rain has become heavy. It seems to me that the trees in the park lean closer to us and barricade all escape routes. As if they are forgetting their friendliness with which, on sunny days, they hide lovers on the local benches.

  “What exactly did Anton tell you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I just want my share.”

  “What the fuck did he tell you?” He’s seething. I know these states of his. He’s dangerous like that; he has trouble controlling himself.

  I inhale. “Apparently, Jakub found out that you had been involved with one of his brother’s women, and he wanted to tell him. At least according to Anton. I am not quite sure. There had to be something more, but apparently you got scared, so you used the robbery to have him killed. That’s why you got less money.”