Gypsy Hearts

by Robert Eversz

  I struggled to my feet, breathing deeply, breathing evenly, and retrieved from the walk-in closet the rolled-up pair of socks I used to keep my capital hidden from Monika. Six counterfeit bills remained of my original horde, a few Austrian schillings, and about seventy dollars in forints. Train travel within the former Warsaw Pact countries was still cheap. I judged three bills sufficient for two one-way tickets to Kiev or Warsaw and left the rest of the money in place. In front of the mirror, I costumed myself in bright orange shorts and white Nike cross-trainers, an Atlanta Braves baseball cap and a University of Georgia T-shirt, replete with helmeted, football-toting bulldog. With a pair of faux-aviator sunglasses as the final touch, I looked like the type of backpacking dimwit who would consider changing money on the black market a good deal.

  The Gypsy on Vací utca who asked in the tritest of stage whispers if I wanted to change money was true to type, a wolfish man in blue jeans and jacket who leaned against the corner of a Hungarian crafts gallery with no obvious occupation other than watching the crowds of pedestrians. I scrutinized his face carefully before deciding I hadn’t changed money with him on my previous trips to Budapest. I acted slightly nervous, like a high school kid on a drug buy, and agreed to the rate he proposed. Like most money changers he had a friend nearby; the weaselly accomplice who materialized the moment we fixed a price looked uncomfortably familiar. I long suspected money changers were organized by a local mafia. Possibly his accomplice had apprenticed with a changer I’d used before. Their hands were too friendly as they walked me to a side street—undoubtedly the jostles and arm clasps were reconnaissance forays to the suspected positions of my valuables. I was accustomed to such tricks, and had left my wallet and passport at home. When they pulled me up just inside a doorway, I turned away from the accomplice, fearful that he might recognize me just as I thought I might have recognized him. I concentrated on the money changer’s hands, and so intensely watched for the anticipated switch of good bills for bad that I initially failed to notice his pause extend beyond the normal. I glanced to find him watching me with what might have been suspicion, had I been able to read between the inscrutable lines of his face. My best look of startled innocence prompted, if not belief, at least motion. He reached to pluck one of the three hundreds from my thumb and forefinger. I stubbornly held onto the bill, allowing him to test the color and texture, which, as the counterfeit had been made from a bleached dollar bill, had a look and feel identical to a genuine note.

  “Only one hundred,” he said.

  “But I have three!” I protested.

  He shrugged as though that didn’t concern him and counted out his bills. An Olympic judge would have been hard pressed to rule which of us disappeared with the greater speed and agility once the hundred-dollar bill and roll of forints exchanged hands. I glanced over my shoulder as I approached the Vací utca promenade, and saw neither heel nor coattail. One of the skills of the trade, I speculated, was the ability to disappear into the surroundings. In the safety of the crowd I flipped through the roll of bills, and in several worthless Bulgarian notes discovered the cause of their hasty departure. The shortchange was about 20 percent, a common enough trick and difficult to spot under the best of circumstances. About half the money changers managed to cheat me in this way. Although it irritated me to be cheated, the fact that they had accepted the counterfeit bill assured me that I hadn’t been recognized.

  At the far end of Vací utca, I was solicited by a gentleman who, by his polite manner and the businesslike cut of his slacks and sport coat, so distinctively violated the money-changer codes that I was certain I had never seen him before. He was older than the other changers as well, into his forties, and I suspected he might be a plant until, after a few conversational exchanges, I realized I might have discovered the only honest money changer in Central Europe. As he led me to a quiet corner of the public square that fronted Gerbeaud Café, he tried none of the usual dodges of his younger, less reputable colleagues. Although someone could have been watching from a distance, no accomplice was in visual evidence. He unfolded a roll of bills the size of a cabbage, and while asking how I enjoyed my visit and at what hotel I stayed, counted out the two hundred dollars in forints, first to himself, then to me, with meticulous accuracy. The man so completely charmed me I almost regretted cheating him. Before we parted ways, he warned me against taxi drivers and other money changers, whom he considered no better than thieves, and wished me a happy stay in Budapest.

  The citizens of the former Warsaw Pact nations are cramped, cold, and unfriendly sorts, not like Americans, who greet strangers on the street like old friends and casual acquaintances like beloved relatives; the acts of unsolicited kindness I’d experienced since arriving in Central Europe were too infrequent to bother remembering. The old changer’s kindness so disarmed me that I did not pay strict attention to my surroundings and failed to suspect that I was being followed until well advanced into the quiet web of streets between Vací utca and the hotel. I did not panic, though paranoia counseled me to scream and run. For the next block, I vowed not to allow my hyperactive imagination to make a fool of me. At the corner I kneeled suddenly to tie my shoelace and descried in a parked car’s side mirror the image of the weaselly-faced accomplice, who followed thirty yards behind. I didn’t bother with the niceties of reasoning out my predicament, but bolted up and out of the crouch like a sprinter at the starter’s pistol. A hurried glance over my shoulder assured me I had caught him by surprise.

  I was laughing with the exhilaration of escape when a jeans-jacketed figure materialized at the far end of the street and another rounded the adjacent corner. I pulled up, looked about frantically for a side street, alley, or open doorway. The accomplice was a far less imposing physical specimen, and I turned to attack in his direction, but the sight of the two additional thugs who joined him braked me. I backed into the center of the street. At five to one the odds I could prevail were slim to none. I screamed at the top of my lungs and charged the two at the far end, looking once over my shoulder at the motorcycle racing up from behind and not spotting the waved helmet that brought me down until too late to duck.

  I have no interest here in milking to full dramatic effect the beating I took. The only reason the savages didn’t kill me was the time of day and witnesses attracted either by my screams or to the spectacle of my slaughter. I managed to struggle to my feet a few moments before they converged upon me. I didn’t fight back as much as flail out in all directions simultaneously. The image in my mind now is that of a cartoon character trying to vertically climb from the center of a whirling melee of fists, feet, and teeth. When the number and ferocity of blows overwhelmed my defenses, I sank to the pavement and curled into a ball. The kicks and punches stopped hurting after a while, and the attack slowed to a spiteful kick here and there. I felt hands rip at my clothing. It seemed a miracle that I could take such abuse and still live. Fingers pressed at my face. I struggled at first, because I imagined, horrified, that they looked for gold fillings to dig from my teeth, but when I peeled open my eyes I saw the face of the good money changer staring down at me. He smiled. I smiled. He stood and lifted his foot. I read the imprint of his heel as it descended to black out my eyes.

  Sometime later, I found myself staring into a gruel of blood, motor oil, and saliva. I looked up, expecting to be run over the next instant, but some good Samaritan had dragged me out of the street to bleed against the curb. No doubt I had impeded the progress of his vehicle, and he had shown the kindness of dragging my body out of the way rather than running it over. I didn’t manage to hold myself upright on the first try, or even the second, but by persistent effort I pushed myself to a sitting position, and with the help of a car bumper and hood ornament I stood on wobbly legs. The walk from there to the hotel was accomplished with a determination equaled only by desperation. I leaned against buildings, cars—any object that helped me claw another few feet toward the safety of the suite. I had no sensation of a specific pain. I thought
of Arnold Schwarzenegger, severed in half but still crawling in Terminator II. The image struck me as inappropriately funny. Me, Arnold Schwarzenegger! I laughed up blood and bits of tooth. The curious stopped to watch as I made my way, but no one approached or offered to help. Two steps into the suite I passed out on the floor.

  29

  What I experienced couldn’t be considered sleep, as it brought me little rest and no dreams, nor was I completely unconscious; I remained dimly aware, though unable to muster the complexities of the simplest thought. My body felt immensely heavy, as though the blood flowing through my veins had stilled. I did not feel pain or comfort, but something in between that was equally neither. I suspected myself of being dead and wondered if I was in heaven or hell. I feared it might be purgatory, and I was damned to stare out petrified eyes for eternity, mouth mute as the ambulance attendant zips the body bag over my head, deaf to the coroner’s sternum saw raging through my rib cage, and blind to the mortician’s farewell wink as he presses the ashes-to-ashes button on the conveyor belt to the incinerator.

  When I first felt the slow drip of water onto my forehead and glimpsed beneath slit eyes the blurry figure of Bortnyk crouching over me, I did not jerk or cry out in alarm. As a dead man, I was beyond the reach of the living. He balanced a water glass in hand and tipped it out one drop at a time. I felt like a statue might feel; decades of steady dripping might wear a groove in my brow but a few drops couldn’t make flesh of stone. Only as he began to slap me gently about the face did I feel pain and thus disappointedly discover that I had not died. My eyes involuntarily blinked back water. He tossed the balance of the glass into my face. I rolled over and tried to sit up. Bruised, crushed, and severed nerve endings in every quadrant of my body let out a howl.

  Bortnyk said, “When I heard you were in Budapest I was happy that at last I’d have a chance to smash your face, but it looks like somebody has beaten me to the punch.”

  I groaned and could rise no higher than elbows and knees. He could finish me off and not only would I be powerless to prevent him, I might welcome it. My left eye had swollen to a slit. The light striking it splayed out in all directions, like light through a jammed lens. He seemed to be grinning, either with regret at a lost opportunity or at the cleverness of his pun. My ribs ached. I was certain the bastards had cracked at least one and probably more. Any fraction greater than a quarter breath cut flesh on bone. I crawled to the wall and leaned against it. Bortnyk squatted in front of me like one animal cornering another, in no rush to end the hunt with a swift killing.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked.

  “Money changers,” I said, the words dull in my swollen mouth.

  “You tried to change a few American dollars on the street?”

  “With the Gypsies on Vací utca,” I confessed.

  “You mean the Arabs,” he corrected.

  I peered at him through my one good eye, trying to judge by his expression whether he joked with me. I said, “You know, the Gypsies. The guys wearing the blue jeans and jeans jackets. If you look like a tourist, you can’t miss them.”

  “They’re Arabs. Mostly Syrians. Came to town during the time of the great socialist brotherhood. But to you, I guess anyone with dark skin and black hair looks like a Gypsy.”

  Attempting to disorient the suspect is a common police tactic. Confuse a suspect regarding simple facts, and he can’t possibly keep something as complicated as a story straight. I had to remain above simple mind games. I nodded, pretending to agree that I had been mistaken, when it was plain everyone knew they were Gypsies—whoever heard of Arabs in Budapest? I said, “Sure, with the Arabs, then.”

  “Changing money on the black market is illegal,” Bortnyk chided. “I could arrest you for that.”

  I laughed at him. “I’m robbed, beaten within an inch of my life, and you threaten to throw me in jail. The U.S. Embassy would love to hear that one.”

  His expression darkened when I laughed at him. I suspect he thought he could harass me at will. Defiance strengthened me. A cornered animal fights all the fiercer. He dipped his hand into his coat pocket and thrust a small black-and-white portrait of Sven into my face.

  “Know this man?” he asked.

  I hadn’t counted on the possibility that Monika might report Sven missing to the local police. The portrait had been oddly taken, with his eyes shut, and although the photo was perfectly focused, his features looked blurred. I speculated that Bortnyk’s visit was less menacing than it seemed. He investigated Sven’s disappearance, at Monika’s request. He knew nothing about the felonies of the previous evening.

  “Sure,” I said. “That’s Monika’s ex-boyfriend.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  I made a great show of counting days and weeks. “Back in Prague, about a month ago, I guess. At a Gypsy nightclub. I’m sorry, I mean Arab nightclub.”

  “We fished him out of the Danube three weeks ago.”

  Bortnyk pocketed the photo, which, I just then realized, had been taken of Sven’s corpse. Amazing how similar a photograph of a well-prepared corpse looks to that of someone sleeping off a hangover. The discovery of Sven’s body shocked me, though I tried not to show it. I always assumed the thing would float out to the Red Sea, or wherever the Danube flows.

  “We found his wallet, so we knew who he was. But we had trouble getting someone to claim the body. The woman renting this suite was his only relative.”

  “Relative?” I faintly asked.

  “You didn’t know they were brother and sister?”

  “We never discussed him,” I lied. Another attempt to confuse me! I refused to believe it. Monika was a clever liar. Conceivably, she could have convinced even the Danish government they were related if it suited her interests. “How did he die? Did he drown?”

  Bortnyk flipped open a notebook and jotted a few lines. I couldn’t summon the strength or will to move. He asked, “Who knows you were in Prague three weeks ago?”

  I listed the usual names, American, English, and Irish expatriates so frequently drunk they had difficulty remembering with certainty the events of the day before; a month previous was well beyond their range of recall. They could testify on my behalf with coached memories and clean consciences. Wincing at the possibility of a second betrayal, the final name I gave was Andrew’s. That Bortnyk didn’t bother to note any of the names I’d listed made me wary.

  “Passport,” he demanded.

  I fought to hide a triumphant smile. No doubt he hoped amid the border stamps to find proof that I had the opportunity to murder Sven. I cautioned myself that I did not officially know that Sven had been murdered. The precaution I’d taken in securing a fresh passport had saved not just my relationship with Monika, but possibly my life. I wondered if she had seen the offending stamp and tipped off Bortnyk. Paranoia. She hadn’t betrayed me. And if she had, they could prove nothing without a passport. I tried to stand, but searing pain brought me down again with a squeal. I stretched out my left leg. My ankle looked as if it had swallowed a gopher.

  “Must be painful,” Bortnyk observed, backing away.

  I expected a helping hand and received a malicious grin. With the support of the wall I pushed myself to my right foot and hobbled into the bedroom. Determination to wipe the smile from his face proved as fierce as the not inconsiderable pain shooting through my body. My passport was on the nightstand. Flipping first to the pages reserved for border stamps but finding them blank, Bortnyk frowned and, noting the recent date and local issue inside the front cover, inquired, “You lost your passport?”

  “I lost it at the train station to a Gypsy—I mean Arab—pickpocket.” I bit the inside of my cheeks to keep smugness from spreading to a smile.

  He tapped the passport against a clenched fist. “Then you can’t prove you weren’t in Budapest,” he said.

  “I have witnesses in Prague,” I repeated.

  “This is much better than I’d planned,” he said, and jammed my passp
ort into the breast pocket of his wind-breaker. “The lack of an entry stamp in your passport would have been difficult to get around. Our judges might reject a case that depended on you smuggling yourself across the border. Now I can suggest you destroyed your old passport because it contained an incriminating stamp.”

  “But I didn’t!” I protested, though of course that was exactly what I had done.

  “This is very good luck for me, and very bad luck for you. In fact, my good luck is shocking. I come here this morning to identify a dead body, question the relative—all quite boring, routine work—and suddenly out springs your name! My very best friend, here in Budapest, my city, where I can entertain him any way I wish!”

  His ironic tone was too much to tolerate. The man had the emotional maturity of a psychotic three-year-old. Painfully, I lowered myself into a chair.

  “At first, I thought I would beat you up, maybe throw you out the window,” he admitted, pacing the suite with vindictive energy. “But—another stroke of luck—somebody had already beaten you up for me. So I’m thinking now, what can I do that’s new and exciting? I have on one hand a corpse, a murder victim by all outward evidence, and on the other hand, I have you. The two of you, I’m thinking, might just go together.”