Blind Eye lm-5

by Stuart MacBride

  He stared into the depths of his glass. 'People shot in the streets… It was too soon, we did not want this. But Gorzkiewicz say, "This is progress! Now we will have freedom." He want to blow up more police stations… We have no choice.'

  The old man finished his second beer in silence.

  Logan pulled out his notebook and pen, and put them on the table. 'Do you know where Gorzkiewicz is now?'

  Plotkowski scribbled an address down, then got up and left without another word. Logan pushed his way back into the records office. Jaroszewicz was sitting at the same desk as before, the electric fan still making its soporific hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click, hummmmmmm click…

  He pulled out a chair on the other side of the desk and settled into it. 'Find anything?'

  She scowled up at him. 'Nothing. I went to all the places Lowenthal's brother mentioned and no one knows where he is.'

  'That's because Lowenthal's dead. They dragged his beaten body out of the river eight months ago.'

  Jaroszewicz slammed the document she was reading down on the desk, and swore. 'Then it is true,' she said, 'this was all a stupid waste of time!'

  Logan took his notebook from his pocket, opened it at the relevant page, and placed it on the table in front of her.

  She picked it up, frowning as she read. 'What is this?'

  'That's where Rafal Gorzkiewicz lives.'

  And Jaroszewicz started swearing again. 'Why are you looking at me like that?' Jaroszewicz shuffled forward two paces in the queue.

  Logan looked up at the towering bulk of St Mary's Basilica. The huge red-brick cathedral sat at a jaunty angle on the edge of the old town square, surrounded by tourists, bathed in the smell of charcoal-grilled meat. 'You want to pray before we go see Gorzkiewicz?'

  She shuffled forwards again. 'You think you are so perfect.'

  'It's not exactly standard police procedure where I come from.'

  'Well, you are not where you come from. You are where I come from, and this is how we do things.'

  'Thought you said you were from Warsaw.'

  'I moved there when I was a little girl. I was born just outside Krakow.' They were nearly at the entrance now, a pair of stout wooden doors in an ornate hexagonal porch. 'Are you a Catholic?'

  'Nope.'

  'Then you cannot use this door. It is for worshippers only. You will have to wait outside.'

  Logan took another look at the sun-drenched square. 'You going to be long? Only it's baking out here.'

  'Then go and have a beer, or a coffee, or something.' And then she stepped into the darkened porch, leaving Logan on his own outside. Except for the queue of the faithful and another one of those bloody living statues.

  Logan wandered down the side of the cathedral, following a small clot of American tourists to a sign that said visitors were permitted to use the side entrance. If they bought a ticket. Why not?

  Inside it couldn't have been more different from St Peter's back in Aberdeen. Instead of austere white walls, this place was done up in cheery shades of blue and gold, plastered with statues, friezes and paintings of saints. Hundreds of them.

  The nave was cut in half by a waist-high set of wooden barriers, keeping the faithful at the back safe from the heathens at the front. Logan scanned the faces of the men and women deep in prayer on the dark wooden pews, but there was no sign of Jaroszewicz. Probably still in the queue, or lighting a candle or something.

  He found an empty seat and sank into it, looking up at the incredible display of shiny stuff around him. The walls were covered in biblical scenes, all painted directly onto the stonework. The pulpit was festooned with spines and dripped with gold. A huge crucifix hung between the nave and the presbytery, where there was even more gold and gaily coloured paint. Like a gaudy fairground ride, only with pictures of martyrs and Madonnas instead of ripped-off Disney characters.

  He'd never seen anything like it.

  Logan peered back over his shoulder… There she was, just kneeling down on one side of confessional stand number fourteen — it said so on a little beige sign taped to the wooden screen. In a way the setting was appropriate, because God was probably the only person who knew what had got into her. Logan certainly didn't. Ever since he'd shown her Gorzkiewicz's address she'd been twitchy.

  Which probably wasn't a good sign. But it was too late to worry about that now.

  Jaroszewicz was mumbling, head down, hands clasped in prayer… and then Logan realized she was actually fiddling with her mobile phone: texting while she confessed. That was modern Catholicism for you.

  Five minutes later his bum was starting to go numb, so he stood, sneaked his own mobile out of his pocket — if it was good enough for true believers, it was good enough for him — and took a couple of photos while the man in charge of stopping people doing just that was looking the other way. Then Logan wandered back outside into the sunshine. It wasn't long before Jaroszewicz joined him.

  'Right,' she said, sticking her hands deep into her pockets, 'we have to pick up two things, then we can go.'

  Stop number one was the off-licence opposite the hotel, for a litre bottle of good vodka; stop number two was the hotel itself. She told him to wait for her in the lobby, and disappeared into the lift. When she came back her face was set like a painted martyr. The taxi beetled down the dual carriageway, heading East with the sun at its back. Half past six and the traffic was starting to get a little better, even if the road was getting worse — the taxi rolled about on the rutted tarmac like a ship at sea. The driver turned to grin at Logan. Early twenties, long dreadlocks, thin face, and a pierced nose. 'You can always tell when driver is drunk in Poland: he drive in straight line, not swerve to avoid pothole. Ha!' The car bounced through a pothole.

  Sitting in the back seat next to him, Jaroszewicz had gone a worrying shade of grey.

  'Are you OK?'

  She glanced at him and then back out of the window again. 'It is probably nothing. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.'

  'When people tell me not to worry, that's when I start worrying.'

  'It is just not the best part of Krakow…'

  The taxi driver laughed again. 'Is not part of Krakow at all. Is Nowa Huta!' He grinned at Logan again. 'Where you from? America? Like on Friends? Like Joey and Chandler?'

  'No, Scotland, like Sean Connery…'

  'Ah! James Bond. Very good. Shaken not stirred.' And as if to emphasize the point the car lurched through a series of tarmac ruts. 'Nowa Huta is mean: "New Steelworks." Uncle Joe give them as gift to people of Krakow. Make them suffer for being broken bourgeois.' He leant on his horn and hurled abuse as a little black Trabant puttered by on the inside lane. 'You want go to milk bar? I know nice place.'

  Jaroszewicz waved a hand at him. 'Just take us to the address.'

  He shrugged, and the car lurched again.

  She went back to staring out of the window, clutching her massive handbag to her chest.

  Logan was beginning to get a very bad feeling about this.

  46

  The taxi pulled a juddering U-turn on the wide, tree-lined street and roared away in a cloud of oily smoke, leaving Logan and Jaroszewicz standing outside a block of flats. Five storeys of grimy grey, with white-painted window frames. The word 'HUTNIK' was daubed in red paint next to an archway that led all the way through the building and into some sort of square on the other side.

  'This it?'

  Jaroszewicz checked the bit of paper he'd given her, then walked through the archway. On the other side it opened up into a little park of paving slabs and trees, a rickety children's play area that looked about ready to collapse in the corner. The green space was surrounded on all sides by walls of identically bland apartments.

  One half of the square looked much cleaner than the other and when Logan asked why, Jaroszewicz just shrugged, mumbled something about it depending on which way the wind from the Steelworks was blowing, then marched across to a plain blue door.

  She glanced over her s
houlder at the empty windows surrounding them. 'Stalin built it like this so people would spy on their neighbours. Every house overlooks at least a dozen more.' She dug into her handbag, brought out something wrapped in a paisley-pattern handkerchief, and handed it over. 'Here.'

  Heavy. And worryingly familiar.

  Logan peeled back one edge of the cloth and slapped it back again.

  'Why do I need a gun?'

  'Just keep it…' She pointed at his pocket. 'In case.'

  'What's going on, Jaroszewicz?'

  'Please, call me Wiktorja.'

  'Either you tell me what's going on, or I'm turning round and walking out of here.'

  She pulled another bundle from her bag, slipping it into her coat pocket. 'This man, Gorzkiewicz, he is dangerous.'

  'He's blind.'

  'He knows dangerous people. And dangerous people are looking for him.' She blushed. 'I… ahem… I do not want you to get hurt.'

  She scanned the list of names on the intercom, running her finger lightly across the handwritten labels. 'He is not here: no Gorzkiewicz.'

  'Well, if dangerous people are looking for him, he's not going to put his real name on the buzzer, is he?'

  Her finger froze over one. 'Zegarmistrz… Ah.' And then she pressed the button.

  Silence. Then a crackle. Then silence again.

  Logan put a hand on the door and pushed. It swung open.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark. There was a short corridor with a block of letter boxes on one pistachio-green wall, three doors leading off to separate apartments, and a set of concrete stairs with wrought iron balustrades and a scarred wooden handrail.

  Jaroszewicz — Wiktorja — pointed up, then started to climb.

  Each landing had a small square window set into the thick wall at knee height, but they didn't do much more than emphasize how gloomy it was in here. The apartment doors were all different, some elaborately so, trying to impose a little individuality on this communist workers' paradise of grey bland buildings.

  At least the stairwell didn't stink of piss.

  Logan froze. 'Wait a minute, how do you know dangerous people are after him?'

  She kept on going. 'It was in the file.'

  'Then why didn't you say anything about it?'

  'I did not think it mattered — we thought he was too long ago, remember? We were concentrating on Lowenthal. Now come on…'

  They stopped again on the fifth floor, outside the only door that didn't want to be different. It was a plain, bland slab, painted black. 'This is it.'

  Wiktorja reached into her pocket, the one with the gun. Then she knocked.

  A voice muffled out from the inside. 'Otwarte.'

  She tried the door handle and it creaked, then the door swung open, groaning like a sound effect from a horror movie.

  The corridor on the other side was dark and cluttered — piles of old newspapers, a broken sewing machine, shoe boxes, bricks, an ancient radio with the valves poking out. The walls were covered in 70s-style red velveteen wallpaper, the swirly pattern disappearing into the darkness, and the only illumination came from a twisting ribbon of little white fairy lights.

  The same voice as before came from a room further down the hall, saying something about pierogi?

  Wiktorja placed a finger on her lips and crept into the gloom, picking her way around the obstacles. Swearing quietly, Logan followed her, closing the front door behind them — shutting out what little natural daylight had oozed in from the stairwell. And now there was nothing but the fairy lights.

  It was impossible to walk in a straight line, the piles of junk made the confined space into a twisting maze. Claustrophobic.

  Wiktorja held up a hand and stopped, peering through an open door into the room beyond. She stepped inside, motioning for Logan to follow her.

  It was the living room that time forgot, and just as dark as the hallway. More piles of junk, more Christmas lights. And as Logan's eyes slowly grew accustomed to the gloom he could see the stripy wallpaper, the swirly-patterned rug, the fake-teak sideboard, the old Bakelite phone, the framed pictures of Jesus, Pope John Paul II, and the Virgin Mary. The boarded-up windows. A broken alarm-clock-radio sitting on top of a stack of boxes. The man sitting in the armchair pointing a gun at them.

  He had grey hair, liver spots, dark glasses, big rounded shoulders and hands like dinner plates. A bear in a cardigan. A three-quarters empty bottle of vodka sat on the table by his side. He was right in the middle of his maze of junk. A minotaur with a semi-automatic pistol.

  He waggled the gun at them. 'Co zrobiliscie Zytka?'

  Wiktorja answered him in English, 'We have not done anything to Zytka.' She eased her hand slowly out of her pocket — bringing her own gun with it. 'We are not-'

  'Stop right there.' His accent was a strange mix of Polish and American. As if he'd learned to speak the language from watching Hollywood movies. 'You stop, or I will shoot you.'

  She froze. 'I'm not doing anything.'

  He raised his arm and aimed straight for her chest. 'Put it on the floor.'

  She looked back at Logan, then did as she was told, laying the gun down with a clunk on the threadbare carpet.

  'Good, now you sit. Over there, in the seat.' The gun waggled again, this time in the direction of a rickety dining-room chair, hard up against the wall. He kept the gun on her until she was sitting, ignoring Logan. 'You tell that cholernik Ehrlichmann I am not an idiot. He touches one hair on Zytka's head and I'll blow him and his whole pierdolony family back to the Stone Age. Do you understand?'

  'I… I don't know who Ehrlichmann is.'

  Logan stepped into the room. 'She's telling the truth.' And the gun snapped round. Oh God… He was looking right down the barrel. He put his hands up. 'We're not here to hurt anyone.'

  'Where is Zytka?'

  Logan glanced at Wiktorja, and edged a little closer. 'We don't know. We've not seen anyone since we got here.'

  The man grunted. 'Then what do you want?'

  Wiktorja: 'We're police officers.'

  He swung the gun round again. 'Pierdolona suka!'

  Logan lunged.

  47

  He smashed through a stack of hardback books, sending them flying into the shadows. The string of little white lights caught around his waist, hauling things from the walls of the junk-yard maze — a glass lamp hit the floor and shattered — Logan kept on going.

  The gun came back round, the old man was fast, but Logan was already too close.

  He ducked under Gorzkiewicz's arm, grabbed the vodka from the table and swung it like a tennis racket: using the man's head as the ball.

  Only Logan's foot went down on one of the scattered books and it shifted beneath him mid-swing. The bottle missed its target, just catching the edge of Gorzkiewicz's sunglasses as Logan crashed into another pile of junk, sprawling out flat on his back. Something sharp digging into his spine.

  The old man swore, 'Kurwa!' and Logan was looking down the barrel of the gun again. Gorzkiewicz was canted over to one side, clutching the armchair. He was trembling, sunglasses skewed off to one side, exposing a twisted knot of scar tissue where there should have been an eye. 'You made a big mistake, pizdzielec! I'll blow your fucking-' He stopped dead.

  Senior Constable Wiktorja Jaroszewicz had a slab-like chunk of Soviet-built semiautomatic jammed in his cheek hard enough to force his face into a lopsided smile. 'No,' she said, twisting the barrel, 'you are going to drop the gun and hope I do not paint this shitty little apartment with your brains.' The kitchen was another blast from the past: old-fashioned units, painted a sickly shade of avocado, lurked in the darkness; yellow linoleum floor worn almost through to the underlay; a rectangular, mahogany clock with the hands stuck at twenty to two; kitchen gadgets that looked as if they'd fallen off the back of a dinosaur. There was just enough room for three people to sit around a tiny table, bathed in the faint glow of yet more fairy lights, and the gurgling hummmm of an antique refrigerator.r />
  Gorzkiewicz opened a bottle of vodka and poured three stiff measures, keeping a finger on the lip of each shot glass — filling them right up to the brim and never spilling a drop.

  He raised his glass. 'May we live to bury our enemies.'

  Logan and Wiktorja joined the toast — her throwing the drink back in one, Logan taking an experimental sip… then deciding it was probably better not to taste the stuff on the way down. He coughed and spluttered as the alcohol hit: raw and bitter.

  She pounded him on the back. Then asked Gorzkiewicz why all the windows were boarded over. 'I mean,' she said, filling their glasses again, 'I know you are blind, but do you not like to feel the sun on your face?'

  'A sniper's rifle only works if he can see his target.' The old man downed his vodka, then removed his sunglasses. Both eyes were gone, and all that was left were deep furrowed scars, following the contours of the sockets. 'In my line of work, it is not good if people can see you, when you can't see them.'

  'Uh-huh…' Logan looked around the cramped kitchen, 'Your line of work?' Whatever it was it couldn't be paying too well.

  Gorzkiewicz smiled, his teeth too perfect to be true: dentures. 'They call me Zegarmistrz: the Watchmaker.'

  Logan looked over his shoulder at the boarded-up windows. 'So why does a watchmaker need to worry about snipers?'

  'It is a very competitive marketplace.'

  Logan stared at him. Those scarred sockets were the most disturbing things he'd seen in a long time… which was saying something. The longer he looked at them, the more convinced he became that they were staring straight back. He suppressed a shudder. 'Who's Ehrlichmann? He make watches too?'

  'Ehrlichmann is a German… businessman. He is not important.' Gorzkiewicz glanced up at the dead clock. 'What time is it?'

  Logan checked his watch. 'Seven forty-three.'

  Frown. 'Zytka should be here by now.'

  'We want to talk to you about the man who…' Logan tried to think of a tactful way to put it, and couldn't. 'The man who blinded you.'