Invisible Murder

HE CAR THAT had come to get Sándor was a dark-blue Volkswagen Touareg. A chocolate labrador was sitting in the back. It breathed on him the whole way, heavy and wet down the back of his neck. Mounted in the back seat next to Sándor was an infant’s car seat, which reassured him. One of the two men seemed perfectly ordinary, unthreatening and reasonably trustworthy. Probably in his mid-forties, blond, casually dressed in deck shoes, khaki chinos, and a thin, navy blue wool sweater with a little Ralph Lauren polo player embroidered on the chest.

“Frederik,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Sándor Horváth.”

“So you’re Tamás’s brother?”

Sándor nodded. The driver hadn’t greeted him. He was a skinny, not particularly tall man whose face was partly hidden in the shadow of a cowboy hat that would have made John Wayne jealous. So far he had completely ignored Sándor.

“We’re glad you came,” Frederik said. “Has Tamás filled you in on the situation?”

“Not really,” Sándor replied evasively. “He just said he was feeling terrible and needed help.”

“Yeah, unfortunately that’s true. Don’t really know what he’s got. It would probably be best to get him a doctor.”

Sándor thought about what Tamás had written: I can’t stand. Having trouble seeing.

“Shouldn’t he go to the hospital?”

The man turned around so far that Sándor could see his whole calm, neatly shaven face.

“Let’s just cut the crap,” he said. “Your brother can’t go to a normal hospital. But we know a doctor who’d be happy to treat him, discreetly, you understand.”

“Well, do that then.”

“That’s what we want to do, but it’s not cheap. And his sponsor has put his wallet back in his pocket.”

Sponsor? What did they mean by that?

“Bolgár? Do you mean Bolgár?”

The man in the Ralph Lauren sweater smiled guardedly.

“We don’t need to mention too many names now, do we? But yes. He paid for your brother’s trip and room and board, but he drew the line at the expense of a private clinic. That kind of thing is expensive.”

“How much?” Sándor asked, feeling the rage smoldering just below the surface. His brother was sick, very sick, and now this man was sitting here saying, sure they wanted to help him—just as long as they were paid for it. Money Sándor didn’t have.

“A considerable sum. Several thousand Euros.”

Sándor’s heart sank.

“I don’t have that much.”

“No, we realize that. But luckily your brother has a valuable item that he can sell. As you well know.”

Sándor didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to say yes, but it also didn’t make much sense to deny it.

“So sell it,” he said hoarsely. Preferably without involving me.…

“What we’re missing,” Frederik said, “is the contact information for the buyer. Your brother entrusted you with that particular key, he said. So we thought that if we helped your brother get some medical attention now, then one favor could repay the other, if you catch my drift. It’s a very nice place, private clinic and all that, better than a big public hospital.”

“I would really like to talk to my brother first,” Sándor said insistently.

There was a little pause. The streetlights alternated in a Morse-like rhythm as the car slid through traffic, light-dark, light-dark, light-light-dark. Sándor cautiously leaned his head back against the cream-colored headrest and was suddenly dead tired of sitting in big German cars and being blackmailed.

The driver pulled something out of the chest pocket of his fringed cowboy leather jacket and handed it to Frederik. A mobile phone, it looked like. One of those ones that was practically a small computer, with a flip out keypad and double-sized screen.

“I have a video I think you should see,” Frederik said. He held the phone’s screen up so Sándor could look at it.

It was Tamás, of course. A close-up of his face, grainy and overexposed, but still frighteningly clear. His eyes were closed; no, more than closed, glued shut by some kind of goopy, yellow infection that stuck to his eyelashes in clumps. A tear track that was reddish from blood and pus ran down along the side of his nose. Little reddish-brown splotches covered the skin around his eyes like freckles, and he could hear a wheezing, gurgling sound that must be Tamás’s breathing. His lips were cracked and bloody, and it didn’t seem like he was aware of what was going on around him.

It was at that instant that Sándor remembered what mamioro meant: a spirit who brings deadly disease.

Frederik turned off the phone’s video function and passed it back to the driver.

“I don’t think there’s a lot of time for the doctor,” he said, sounding just as friendly and calm as before. A thump-thump-thump came from where the dog was sitting. The Lab was wagging because he had heard his master’s voice.

“I don’t have any keys,” Sándor said desperately.

“Well, I hope you do,” Frederik said. “It’s a short list, I believe. With some phone numbers and dates on it.”

Sándor closed his eyes. Oh, yes, I had one of those. In the pocket of the jacket that’s in the nurse’s car.