Gypsy Hearts

by Robert Eversz

  “I mean, really, we all just want the best for you.”

  “You don’t want the best for me. You want the best for you! You want Nix to straighten up and join the family company. You want Nix in the company straitjacket selling used cars! He won’t do it!”

  “You’re acting, like, seriously paranoid.”

  “You’re acting like a company lackey!”

  “Hey, I just graduated. I don’t even have a job or anything.”

  “Three years, Dickie boy. When I’m walking up the aisle come Oscars time, you’ll be selling Toyota Corollas on some lot in Lawndale.” I flung open the door and was halfway down the hall when he stopped me with a shout.

  “I don’t agree with the family,” he called. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I just think you’re an asshole.”

  I laughed and continued down the hall. A good joke. Not for a second did I think he seriously meant it. I’d hurt him with the family lackey remark. I’d said it for his own good. Maybe it would shake him from the certain orbit of his current life trajectory.

  By coincidence no one manned the front desk when I reached the bottom of the stairs. The Merkur was a small hotel, and when its sole daytime administrative employee felt compelled to attend to biological needs the desk was left unprotected. I tracked the key slots to the number corresponding to Dickie’s room and a small blue booklet. I have a weakness for passports. The area behind the desk was easily accessible; I ducked beneath a barrier and snagged Dickie’s. I had no intention of stealing it. Just a quick look at the photo and border stamps. A flush of plumbing startled me into pocketing the thing and slipping out the door. I didn’t want to get caught in an act that could look illegal, and a quick escape was my best defense against a ridiculous misunderstanding. I fully planned to return the passport to him later that afternoon, or by the next day at the latest. I glanced through the pages and found little of interest. It would serve him right to fly into a panic because of a missing passport. Asshole, indeed. Even meant as a joke the comment was offensive.

  When I slipped it into my coat pocket, my fingers brushed Father’s letter. I briefly read its two pages on the winding walk to my apartment. The usual drivel. How could you … didn’t you think of the consequences … why didn’t you inform me. … all very upsetting … wanted to support you … didn’t raise my son to … in your best interests—I tore the letter into confetti and tossed it into the gutter. How dare he express his venal attempts at control as compassion!

  18

  By the 8 P.M. curtain time the entire cast had assembled at the Hotel Paříž and waited impatiently for the star. Zdeněk bounced on the balls of his feet near the reception desk. Tourists and hotel guests, cast as extras, cluttered the lobby and café. An octogenarian pianist stumbled through one of the hundred variations of the “Blue Danube Waltz,” which by a trick of harmony segued into the melody of “Moon River.” I suffered through my usual case of opening night nerves; twice in my apartment I had stifled anxiety attacks, but since arriving at the hotel I felt a light-headed confidence bordering euphoria. In my front trouser pockets warmed four rectangular tins, each filled with wax and held together by rubber bands. Even if Monika managed to pick the keys cleanly from Zdeněk’s pocket, he might slap his coat minutes later, alerted by a feeling of absence or an unexpected smooth contour. He would not accuse Monika of theft, but unless the keys were promptly found under chair or table he would rush to that which he feared most losing. The shop would be guarded from that moment until the arrival of a locksmith to change the locks.

  My plan dictated that the keys would be missing five minutes, ten minutes at most. Just long enough to press each key between wax blocks and return them to their ring. Later, in the calm of my apartment—I imagined listening to Mozart or Beethoven as I worked—I could carve the flow channels and vent holes required for casting, press the blocks together, and pour in the plaster. The following morning, I would take the plaster casts to a key maker and slip the cutter a few hundred crowns not to ask any questions. With a copy of Zdeněk’s keys in hand, I could safely enter his change booth at leisure. The delay of a day or two would so distance Monika from the theft that he could not possibly suspect her role. It was everything a plan should be: meticulously plotted, imaginative, profitable, and completely safe.

  Monika’s entrance—costumed in stiletto heels, black silk stockings, and a low-cut, thigh-high cocktail dress—agonized the male eye with difficult decisions: Stare first at the wicked stretch of leg, the tantalizing curve of buttocks, the honeyed skin above a delicious rise of breasts, or the delicately sensuous line of bare arm? An elderly Englishman enjoying a quiet drink with his wife choked on the head of his beer. Two German men at the next table fell uncharacteristically silent, save for the popping of vertebrae when she swept past. Zdeněk nearly tripped over tangling feet in rushing to greet her. I’d seen entrances such as hers at the Oscars, from actresses flashing that rare theatrical charisma known as star power. She extended a cool hand to Zdeněk, and when he took it she slowly reeled him in to kiss first one cheek and then the other with the sumptuousness of tasting fruit. His babbling reply carved a smile on her lips. No doubt every man watching concluded he had nothing special except luck. He offered her his arm—a gesture of trite sophistication more than true gentility—and when she took it led her into the restaurant and out of our sight.

  I noted the time on my watch: a quarter past nine. Had I wished, I could have kept them under direct observation, but the restaurant was huge and nearly always empty. Even casual surveillance risked a familiarity of face. If he caught her withdrawing the keys from his pocket and she failed to convince him of the innocence of such a gesture, I would need to appear as “the jealous boyfriend” and threaten him with a thrashing. The odds of such a scene were remote, but I had taken great precautions in imagining every possible scenario and making plans to match, so that should action be required I would not go up, as the theatrical expression goes, but throw myself directly into the role. The greatest risks are always the unknown and taken for granted. I thrust my hands into my trouser pockets and fondled the tin molds to keep the wax warm and supple. It seemed like forever that Monika had already been inside the restaurant. Certainly she should have appeared, keys in hand, if all was going well. What if Monika sat directly across from Zdeněk, and not in the cozy booth I pictured? I bolted to my feet. What pretext could she possibly find to initiate the intimate contact required to pluck the keys from his pocket? I sat down again, aware that people might be staring. Would she spill a drink onto his lap and sneak them out amid vigorous slaps and pats? Excellent idea! I regretted not having thought of it before. Monika relied too often on seduction. I imagined a discomfited Zdeněk having his privates whacked and prodded with a heavy linen napkin. Perhaps I should take a small peek inside the restaurant and, if the situation warranted, signal Monika. I casually rose to my feet, planning how I might wander in just long enough to catch her eye with a significant look. The brass and oak clock above the reception desk read nine-twenty. I double-checked the time against my watch. I sat down again, observed how slowly the second hand beat against the minute, as though even my own watch conspired against me.

  Monika was to hand me the keys outside the door to the women’s room, and, after the leisurely accomplishment of her duties there, meet me by the bank of phones down the hall. The entire operation should have taken no more than five minutes. She so ignored me when at last she clipped through the lobby that I could have been a complete stranger. I did not look at her as I approached, holding out my hand as I turned toward an adjacent door to the men’s room, but instead of keys I felt a rude pull and an urgently whispered sexual demand.

  I stayed in character and stared at her as I would a stranger. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes dilated as if she had ingested a chemical euphoric. What could she possibly be thinking? Of all the contingencies this was one I had not considered. She repeated the demand in even more explicit terms.

&nbs
p; “What, now?” I squeaked.

  Monika pushed me through the door into the men’s room. Her hands were brutally direct, tugging at the loose end of my belt even as I glanced wildly around for other occupants.

  “Where, here?” I squeaked again.

  Monika flung open the door to the stall and shoved me inside. A set of keys clanked to the floor beside the toilet. Her fingers tore at the buttons of my trousers. She had already lifted them! Her lips fastened onto my neck as she threaded me through the fly of my boxers. I began to ask how and when she had managed to pick Zdeněk. She whispered “Shut up” and pushed me to my knees. The moment I saw that above her black stockings and below the hem of her pushed-up minidress lay nothing but an immaculately tended ebony and rose garden I forgot about the plan and with the tip of my tongue navigated the folds and oils of her. I’m as easy to arouse physically as any twenty-something man, but passion is not mere biology and her taste went through me like ambrosia. That she had planned this disturbed and excited me. The feint and thrust of her hips dictated pace and motion. When she began to cry out as though each flick of tongue cut her I didn’t worry that someone might hear and an offended management throw us out; I sought her mouth with my fingers and let her suck. With her hands pressing the back of my head each thrust bruised my lips, and by the delicate shudders between I was certain she could have ascended to Olympus had she wished but instead I was pulled up by my hair and harshly groped. Finding me serviceable, she bit my neck, pushed me against the wall, and spun around to finger herself while bucking against me from behind. She did not ask me to wear a condom nor give me the slightest opportunity to don one. In that anonymous position and in that environment I could have been anyone to her and probably was. I threw myself against her without tenderness, as she wanted, and she met me with equal if not greater force, determined to finish before my premature delight could disappoint her. Moments after swallowed gasps signaled she had reached her objective, she pulled away and pushed down her dress, leaving me to gush, solo and groping embarrassed for the tissue paper.

  Before I finished buttoning my trousers, she cracked open the door and slipped quietly past the urinals. I could scarcely believe in the reality of what had happened. My legs shook so badly I flopped down the lid and sat. My watch read nine-forty. Sex in my experience had always involved aspects of the pornographic; my detached mind watched from above as two bodies, one of which happened to be mine, engaged in activities that stimulated its fantasies. Sex was as real and unreal as film unspooling before a beam of white light. Sex with Monika in a toilet stall was one of my dirtiest encounters and, simultaneously, the least pornographic sex I’d ever had; I felt the experience rather than watched it. After she left, however, my mind returned with a vengeance, questioning whether the incident signaled a change in attitude or if I was merely the beneficiary of an uncontrollable pattern of sexual deviance. I won’t pretend to having enjoyed profound insights; rather, these two possibilities shuttled monotonously one after the other, like an endless loop, until my shoes kicking at the keys on the floor brought me to my senses.

  I carried the keys to the flat surface on the other side of the sink and laid out the tin boxes. The wax inside was warm and supple—neither cold as I might have feared nor molten after our torrid tryst. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and grinned, thinking, Quite an adventure, old boy, a little something for the memoirs! It wasn’t until I examined the keys that I noticed the first small flaw in my plan: The key chain held twelve keys, or three times the number of molds I’d prepared. Only two of the keys could be discounted as belonging to the BMW. I had somehow imagined that there would be fewer keys, and the two required to open the doors to the change booth would be readily identifiable either by age or distinguishing mark. Of the ten remaining keys, two were clearly too old to fit a modern lock, which left eight brand-new identical keys. I stripped one at random from the key ring, laid it on a bed of wax, aligned the second half of the mold on top, and pressed the two firmly together. I’d played the lottery often enough to realize that the chances of selecting not just one but two of the correct keys were slim, even with four molds and four chances. I couldn’t afford to chance failure. If I failed, Monika would return to my apartment just long enough to retrieve her packed suitcase and try to search out Sven. I snapped the key back onto its ring and pocketed the tin boxes. No reason to panic. The measure of true genius is the ability to improvise.

  Monika was not waiting by the phones as arranged when I emerged with the keys. I supposed that our encounter had badly damaged her makeup and she remained in the women’s room making repairs. In the odd way that memory works, the sight of the phones recalled Monika’s phone call that morning. During her partnership with Sven, no doubt she had foreseen the possibility of a forced escape and made provisions to contact him should they be separated. It occurred to me that I should be a good cousin and check in on Dickie; a call from good old Nix would cheer him had he stayed in for the night, brooding about our conversation. Instead of following this good intention, I identified myself as Sven when the receptionist at the Merkur answered. As suspected, Monika had left a message, saying something particularly unkind about me and asking Sven to leave a number where he could be reached. When the receptionist asked if I had a return message, I told her to inform Monika that I was currently in Moscow with a woman who claimed to be related to the Romanovs, and not to expect me back until winter.

  “There’s a change in plan,” I announced, poking my head into the women’s room.

  Monika gave me scarcely a glance in the mirror as she limned her eyes with seductive shades.

  “I didn’t think you liked changes in plan,” she answered.

  Very droll.

  “Why didn’t you tell me he carried so damn many keys?”

  “Why didn’t you ask?”

  “Because I expect just a little help. You could have said something.”

  “Don’t blame me when you fuck up, okay? Take responsibility. Try to be a man, even if the effort is hopeless.”

  It was hard for me to imagine that less than ten minutes previous we had engaged in an act commonly considered one of the most intimate expressions possible between human beings. I silently worked my way through half an alphabet of vulgar epithets before advising her that I’d return the keys in approximately forty minutes, and bolted out the door.

  * * *

  During my preparations it had occurred to me that molding and casting the keys might prove needlessly complicated, but I had discounted the most direct plan as involving an unacceptable level of risk. I had no intention of spending my youth in a Central European jail. Zdeněk’s money-changing booth was a short walk from the Hotel Paříž. I had the keys. Nothing prevented me from walking into his business and cleaning him out immediately except the fear of getting caught. I hurried down Celetná as fast as possible without breaking into a run. A thick flock of tourists migrated toward Staroměstské náměstí, filled it, and spilled into the narrow streets connecting the square with other city monuments. The gothic hands of the clockworks approached the narrow angle of 10 P.M. I had originally planned to break into the money-changing booth at three in the morning, an hour when the only witnesses would be drunk or bleary-eyed. Tourists flocking at the old town hall fluttered maps and snapped flash pictures to the very doorstep of the change booth. In two minutes, the bell tower would begin to chime, the air would vibrate with the chatter of a dozen languages, and all heads would snap to fittingly reverent angles to observe the sounding of the hour.

  What initially seemed a disadvantage was my greatest opportunity. At the first stroke of the bell, every eye turned away from me. Local residents who ventured across the square at that hour were too preoccupied with elbowing through clogs of spectators to notice the baseball-capped fellow in a black windbreaker frantically racing through a set of unfamiliar keys. The lock turned on my fifth try. I squeezed through the door and restrained a triumphant shout as I latched it behind me. Inside
the change booth, the darkness was as thick and black as tar. I unzipped the satchel by feel and cast a spotlight around the room: two chairs, a counter with cash drawers, a shuttered window, and, at the back, a door. I tested the cash drawers. Open but empty. The door was locked. The second key I tried opened it. I slipped inside, shut the door behind me, and panned the light across the walls. No windows. No witnesses. The light switch was next to the door. I switched it on.

  19

  The second flaw in my plan became evident when the contents of the room were fully illuminated. It had never occurred to me that Zdeněk would keep his daily takings in a safe. It was a squat little thing, with a black combination dial that looked like a Cyclops eye on an ugly gray face. I gave it a kick and danced around the room one-footed as reward. Brute force was the refuge of those without imagination. The key to the safe lay in my intellect and not my foot. How many caper films had I seen, and once the gang had finished tunneling and sat before the Bank of Mammon, what had they done? I hadn’t any explosives but I did have ears and fingers. All combination safes employ tumblers. I lay on the floor and pressed my ear to the dial as I randomly spun the numbers. The only clicks came from the dial itself, and even if the tumblers were perceptibly loud I could only guess what one would sound like clicking into place, if that is what tumblers do. I buttressed a leg against the wall, wrapped my arms around the safe, and pulled with all my might. It didn’t move a fraction of an inch. Probably bolted to the floor. Why couldn’t Zdeněk have cooperated by purchasing a safe accessible by key? The thing was impregnable. I pulled again, then pushed, and broke into tears like a five-year-old too short to reach the cookie jar.