Lie in the Dark

CHAPTER 11

The drive back from Dobrinja was blessedly uneventful, and by the time Vlado dropped off the car the sun was shining, pouring onto the sugary hillsides where snow fell earliest and deepest. From down in the city the distant clusters of rooftops and balsams resembled miniature Christmas villages, posed for a photograph. One needed a pair of binoculars to see where the scene needed retouching-the holes in the roofs, the burn marks and broken windows. And it would have taken a particularly powerful model, as well as some patience, to pick out the gun barrels here and there, poking from camouflaged burrows.

The Bank of Bosnia, formerly YugoBanka, had been forced into wartime hibernation by a lack of cash and the government’s need for its deep sturdy vaults. They’d been built into the hillside forty years earlier, and it would take a nuclear blast to pry them loose, much less break them apart. So, that’s where the government stored its most valuable treasures, everything from the rarest museum pieces to records for property and finance. And it was here, according to Milan Glavas, that Vlado would find Enver Murovic, the young new director of the National Museum.

Vlado walked through the entrance into an armed camp. Five men slung heavily with machine guns immediately rose to greet him, like a legion of bored shop clerks eager to sell him a suit. The place smelled of a year’s worth of sweat and cigarettes, and a thick layer of dust coated the empty counters and teller cages.

“Enver Murovic,” Vlado asked uncertainly, and when no one answered he added, “I’m Inspector Petric … representing the Interior Ministry police.”

Still no one answered, but one of the men disappeared out a rear door, while three of the others slowly settled back to their roosts. The fifth strode past Vlado without a further look out the front door, taking up a post outside, where he probably should have been all along.

Murovic’s voice preceded him into the room, a fluttery burst of aggrieved authority, uttered with absolute disdain. Vlado picked it up in midsentence.

“… simply can’t have these sorts of interruptions in the future without either better identification or a confirmed appointment.”

He emerged from around the corner into the gloom, a tall man, reed thin, dressed all in black except for his glasses, thick frames in bright magenta. His hair was cut neatly, close to the scalp. That, plus his brisk, officious manner, made him strike Vlado as a refined version of Garovic. His style and image were those of an aesthete, yet somehow he still betrayed the careful, grasping soul of a career bureaucrat on the make. Vlado could very easily imagine this fellow shoving old baggage like Glavas out the door. Or down a long flight of stairs.

Abruptly turning Vlado’s way, Murovic gave him a slow once-over, his gaze sweeping from top to bottom, then back to the face, a look of appraisal that said, No, this won’t do, but we’ll be as courteous as protocol requires.”

“Yes. I’m Mr. Murovic,” he said with a note of impatience.

“Inspector Petric,” Vlado said. “I’m conducting an investigation on behalf of the Interior Ministry.”

“Identification?”

Vlado showed him his battered police warrant card, explaining, “I’ve been temporarily detailed to the Ministry’s special police unit. You can telephone Acting Chief Kasic if you’ve any doubts.”

“No doubts,” he said airily, with the tone of one who’d only been testing, playing a game.

“This way, then. To my office,” he said. He strolled away, glancing over his shoulder to add, “Before we get down to business perhaps you’d like a short tour. It’s quite an impressive little domain, really, and not one that just anybody is privy to. You might as well take advantage of the access while you’re here.”

The invitation, plus the appearance of Murovic’s office-neat, dusted, wastebasket empty, every thin pile of papers stacked just so-made Vlado smile at the initial show of hurry and impatience. This seemed to be a man with little to do but sit and fidget, waiting to impress whatever visitors might drop by, as long as they weren’t “just anybody”

They descended a dank stairway, Murovic flicking on lights, then pushing a few buttons on a small key pad to disarm the alarm system. He unlocked the door onto a cellar of caged rooms leading to the main vault.

He unlocked the first caged entrance and waltzed into a chamber crammed with filing cabinets and stacks of huge cloth-bound books. “Old deeds and property records going back past Tito’s day,” Murovic explained. “Someday they’ll sort it all out, but it will be a hell of a mess. I hadn’t even known these kinds of things survived the last war, much less the last half century.”

He unlocked a second caged door into a larger chamber. Here, leaning against each other, were frames of all sizes, arranged with a cloth between each.

Murovic sighed.

“These are some of the most valuable items from the museum,” he said. “Not with the temperature and humidity controls we’d like, of course, and I’d prefer they weren’t leaning up against each other like this. But space is limited as you can see. I’m afraid it’s the best we can do for now.”

The next room was the main vault, its giant lock shining like the captain’s wheel of a ship. Murovic rapped lightly on the door, producing only a muted click against the thick metal.

“And in here,” he said, “are our most valuable pieces of all. Small treasures that are centuries old. Royal jewelry, the rarest of paintings, an illuminated Jewish Haggadah from the fifteenth century. That alone is worth a few million, and everybody and his brother in the international art community would love to get his hands on it, to protect it until the end of the war, they say But not a chance. If we let it go now that’s the last we’ll see of it.

“No one but me and three others are allowed down here most of the time, so consider this your lucky day. You see, there’s also a small roll-away bed. And that is where our president sleeps when things get especially bad.”

He offered this with an arch smile, as if their leader had perhaps furnished a love nest in there. He seemed quite thrilled by his proximity to this small whiff of power. Vlado could have laughed. He had grown used to seeing the newly powerful in action as they tried to run this country by the seat of their pants. They were pressed together in this city along with everyone else, their world growing more compact by the day, and under those circumstances the nearness of power only made him feel claustrophobic, as did this vault, this tomb with its treasures.

Glavas had been right. Murovic was a bit of a Tutankhamen down here. All that was missing was the golden headdress and the small, thrusting goatee. If an explosion were to somehow seal him in, perhaps he, too, wouldn’t be unearthed for another twenty centuries, left to mummify with his treasures and the bed of his president.

He led Vlado back through the first two rooms, noisily shutting the caged doors behind him, then climbed back upstairs. He then gestured toward an office chair by his desk.

Vlado pulled in a deep breath, feeling a need for fresh, clean air, but receiving only the staleness of a quiet office.

“So,” Murovic said. “An investigation. What sort?”

“One that may have to do with your transfer files, which I understand have gone missing.”

“I’d hardly put it like that. They’re not missing, they’re quite gone. Destroyed in a fire.”

“A tank shell, I believe it was?”

“Tank. Grenade. Mortar. What difference does it make. It came in through the window and everything in the room was gone.”

“Through the window?”

“Yes, a freak shot really. I saw the damage for myself the next morning. The guards even showed me some of the shell fragments they’d found. There’d been a big attack the night before. I’d remembered listening to it in bed.”

“And all of the transfer file was gone? Down to the last card? Even in the worst sort of fires you can usually salvage something.”

“Oh, no. All gone. Practically vaporized. I checked personally. There were only three or four drawers to begin with. Nothing but ashes. That was bad enough, but the drawers with the insurance records were destroyed, too. It’s a tragedy really. It’s the only part of the city’s collection that we don’t have a handle on yet, so we feel vulnerable for the moment.”

“And you say there were guards?”

“Yes. An entire detail.”

“Army? Police?” Although Vlado already knew the answer.

“Some of Zarko’s men, actually” He said this with his gaze boring straight into Vlado, as if daring him to raise an eyebrow.

“You’d probably call them thugs,” he continued. “And that’s what they are, I suppose. But I’d call them saviors first. Cigarette? They’re French. None of those rancid Drinas for me.”

“Because they saved your museum, you mean. Thank you.”

“The museum and everything inside it. We’d spent the three days before the fire moving the best items over here. We’d started with the records as well, the inventories and the insurance appraisals. The transfer files were due to come out the next morning. Another twelve hours and they’d be sitting right downstairs, inside the vault.”

“A freak turn of fortune then.”

“Oh, I realize the odds. And I know what you must be thinking, being a policeman. But these men were quite solicitous, quite willing to take orders from a museum director, vigilant as well. Besides, a handful of men can hardly stop a shell.”

“You weren’t at all suspicious? However vigilant, these men were hardly saints.”

“So everyone says, but as far as I’m concerned their behavior was exemplary. If they’d wanted to take advantage of us they could have looted or walked off with any item they chose, on any given night. But they kept themselves clean. Clean as a whistle.”

“But you said yourself that the files alone were valuable, that the transfer items are quite vulnerable as long as the files are missing.”

Murovic practically sneered. “These men, while courageous, were, how shall I put it, elemental? If they’d been inclined to theft, they would have taken the things that caught their fancy. They never struck me as the type who’d work through some complicated scheme, who might realize the files were a key to something valuable, especially when all those treasures were sitting there right in front of them. It’s the mentality of pirates. Why worry about the tricks of bookkeeping when there’s a chest of gold to be taken?”

“I was thinking more of their boss. I’m sure Zarko was aware of the value of the right information as much as anyone in this town.”

“Yes, but he’s dead now, isn’t he.” And for Murovic this obviously closed the possibility of further suspicion.

“Tell me a little bit more about these men, then. What sort of detail did they usually post overnight?

“Five men, and not just the lowest foot soldiers. Zarko assured me we’d have some of his best people as long as we needed them.”

“His best people. Officers, you mean.”

“His top officer, in fact. On duty every night.”

“His name, if you recall?”

“Halilovic. Lieutenant Neven Halilovic. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

He had. In hearing the name, Vlado felt he was crossing that unseen line in the darkness that had worried him earlier. Halilovic had been Zarko’s right-hand man, jailed since the November raid. Or had he, too, been among those killed in the final assault? Or perhaps later, while “trying to escape,” as with Zarko.

“So he was there when this shell hit?”

“Yes.”

“And were there any casualties among the guard detail?”

“Not as such.”

“No, of course not. Another freak twist of fortune then. And did it occur to anyone afterward, yourself included, Mr. Murovic, to perhaps ask an arson investigator to have a brief look around. If only to protect the good name of the vigilant Mr. Halilovic.”

“As I said, Mr….”

“Petric. Inspector Petric.”

“Inspector Petric. For me there were no doubts. We were in safe hands, hands that had saved virtually everything we had. And being all but on the frontline of a war zone, it didn’t seem practical to have an investigator working in and around the building. And quite frankly, it would have been a very tasteless show of bad faith, an embarrassment, considering all that those men had done for us. Perhaps there were no casualties that night, but they’d suffered others before, and quite literally right on our doorstep. I’m aware of their presumed track record, of their smuggling and their black markets. But for us, as I said. Saviors.”

He pulled down his cigarette for a long, dramatic drag. Vlado scribbled in his notebook, then Murovic asked, “By the way, Mr. Petric, who put you on to all this? Or do you come by your interest in art naturally?”

“One of your former colleagues, actually. Milan Glavas.”

“Ah, yes. Milan. I might have known. He always was quite taken with conspiracy theories. Always guessing at people’s motives, trying to take their measure in an instant. Very much the office politician.”

“Not a very good one, apparently”

“He told you I sacked him, I suppose. And unfairly, no doubt. He had wanted this job, you know. Museum director. But of course he was simply a few years beyond the energy requirements. And let’s face it, Mr. Petric, it didn’t help that he was a Serb. A good one, maybe. But in light of everything that’s happened in the past two years there’s not much room for them in high places right now, at least on this side of the city”

“So you sacked him.”

“Yes. Which embittered him against me forever, no doubt. As if he hadn’t already refused to give me credit for knowing much of anything about my business, or about art at all. But if Milan were half as clever as he thinks he would have known that a copy of the entire transfer file exists in Belgrade.”

Murovic said this with a note of triumph, as if producing the answer to a trick question for an especially dense pupil. A flush of self-congratulatory pride bloomed across his face.

“Belgrade?” Vlado said. He had to admit, he’d been taken by surprise.

This seemed to explain Vitas’ remark to Glavas that the file was-how had he put it? “in safe hands in unsafe surroundings.”

“So,” Vlado said, “Then you do have the files, or at least a copy.”

“Not for another month. As you can imagine, Belgrade hasn’t exactly been eager to cooperate with the newly independent Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose existence it doesn’t even recognize, though from what I hear these files are quite a matter of public record to students or art historians. Just about anyone could probably come in off the street, and if we wanted to be backhanded about it there are people we could send in to copy it out by hand and smuggle us the result. Perhaps I was naive, but I wanted to do things aboveboard. The war won’t last forever, and someday we’ll need to work with those people again. So I decided to first make a good faith effort through the proper international channels.”

“The U.N.?”

“Yes. UNESCO. Belgrade finally agreed, and on February fifteenth a copy of the documents will be shipped via a UNESCO courier.”

“That’s another month. Why the delay?”

“That’s when UNESCO’s grant takes effect. It’s preservation money especially earmarked for Sarajevo. Their man can’t so much as requisition a paperclip, much less book his trains and flights, until the moment the money’s officially available. Then he’s off for Belgrade. And I must say, it will be a relief. For months we’d been figuring we’d eventually have to do it the hard way, by consulting the old timers, Milan included, to try to piece everything together from snatches of tired old memories.”

“Why not do some of that anyway, at least for a few of the more valuable pieces. There are bound to be some that would spring to mind quite readily. Glavas seems to think he could put together quite a bit of it, if he had the time and inclination, and maybe a little help.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt that he does. It sounds like something Milan would claim. A charming man in his own way, really, and full of arcane knowledge, old lore that can be quite engaging when he gets rolling on some story, as long as you have the energy to shut him off. But far less knowledge, I’m afraid, than he’d have us all believe. I think if you were to take him up on his offer you’d come back a few hours later to find him with a few blank sheets of paper and an ashtray full of butts, from your own cigarettes, of course.”

“In fact I have taken him up on his offer. And you’re probably right about the ashtray. We’ll see about the blank pages. But when UNESCO gets here with the copies, I’d like a look, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, but what’s the need? I’m sure with Milan working for you you’ll already have everything you need by then.” He burst into laughter, the sort of venomous chuckle best suited for the corners of cocktail parties and small, chic restaurants.

He guided Vlado toward the door.

“Mind the gunfire today,” he admonished. “Please give Milan my regards. And try not to be too harsh with him when he comes up short.”

He hadn’t asked a single question yet about how Glavas was doing, Vlado noted. Not one query about the old man’s health or safety out in Dobrinja. War had consumed half the city, but it didn’t mean you still couldn’t get caught up in all the old pettiness of peacetime.

But Vlado had at least gained two important pieces of information. The transfer files would be back in hand in another month, meaning if artwork was still being smuggled out of the country, the smugglers probably knew they were working against a deadline, and might be inclined to either sloppiness or desperation.

He’d also learned that Neven Halilovic would be worth talking to, provided he was alive and would open his mouth. Kasic would know where to find him. Perhaps Damir would as well, with all the clubs and coffee bars he frequented.

But Goran Filipovic would know, too.

Goran was a friend of Vlado’s who had spent the first year of the war as an officer in the Croatian brigade. The unit had been disbanded by nervous government officials once Croat-Muslim fighting began in Mostar and central Bosnia. Its soldiers were dispersed into other units, absorbing the Croat threat into the Muslim majority, although the brigade still defiantly kept a small headquarters on the western edge of downtown, a dingy office in an abandoned pizzeria, with the checkerboard Croatian coat of arms flying on a flag out front.

Goran had seized the opportunity to bow out of the army altogether, citing a shrapnel wound to his right leg. It had left him with a limp that worsened at the approach of any superior officer, and somehow no one had ever questioned whether he was still fit for combat.

He’d then pooled the prewar Deutschemark savings of his in-laws and two old aunts to open a small cafe in a low-slung, well-protected building in the city center. He timed it perfectly, opening just as people began seeking night life again, realizing they’d either have to begin imitating the rhythms of a normal life or go crazy in their cellars. The cafe went over so well that he then opened a small cinema in a room across the hallway, stretching a large sheet across the wall at one end for a screen, and rounding up eighty mismatched folding chairs for seating.

Doing any sort of business these days, especially any successful business, inevitably put one into contact with the people running the rackets and black markets, and Goran had used his vantage point and his army contacts to make himself an informal expert on all the various rivalries and relationships. He’d sniffed out the likelihood of the November raid three days before it occurred, and could tell you on any given week who was up, who was down, and who had better be looking for a way out of the city. Through all this he’d developed a knack for knowing when it was okay to keep gossiping and when it was time to stop asking questions, and he knew better than to ever ask for anything more than his own meager piece of the action, just enough to keep his bar and his theater up and running. It was bad enough owing these people money. The last thing you wanted to owe them was a favor.

Nowadays you could usually find him either tending bar or next door in an office across the hall that adjoined the theater, a cramped place smelling of gasoline and throbbing with the pulse of the two generators that kept his business empire going from inside a small closet. He was almost invariably hunched over a computer keyboard, using special software to type subtitles onto the latest videotape he’d managed to smuggle in via a friendly journalist or aid worker. He now had enough extra titles in stock to print up a small schedule covering the next month of showings, and his efforts at marketing and posting signboards around town had paid off. Except on days of heavy shelling the theater was usually a packed house, even at the princely sum of a D-mark a head.

He and Vlado still drank together every now and then, a few beers rather than plum brandy, just enough to work up a belch or two and make the week’s memories shimmer and slide, enough to feel light-headed all the way home, then sink deeply into a yeasty slumber.

Vlado checked first in the cafe, opening the door onto an atmosphere of smoke and noise so thick it seemed he’d have to shove his way through. He scanned the room, every table full, maybe forty people in all. It was only 4:30, but with a 9 p.m. curfew, night life, such as it was, began with the first sign of dusk. The conversation was loud and boisterous. There wasn’t a soul in the place without a cigarette, but Vlado could see only four who’d actually bought a drink-two with beers, two with coffee. The guitars and vocals of an old Yugoslav rock band, No Smoking, blared from giant speakers in each corner. The group had been popular before the war. Now they were disbanded, and the lead singer was in Belgrade. No one here seemed to mind.

Vlado weaved through the tables to the bar, where a young woman stood, looking bored as she searched through a shoebox of cassette tapes for the next selection. He had to shout twice to get her attention.

“Is Goran here?”

“Try next door,” she said. “In the theater.”

Vlado moved into the hallway, elbowing past four revelers just arriving, then approached another doorway where a man sat at a card table having just sold the last ticket for the evening’s first showing.

“Vlado,” the man greeted him, grinning, although Vlado couldn’t recall his name. “You’re looking for Goran?”

“Yes. In his office?”

“On the phone. But I’ll tell him you’re here. Wait inside. You can catch the first few minutes of the movie while I get him. On the house.”

Vlado eased through the door. It was chilly inside, though not so smoky, and apart from the conversation in English blaring occasionally from the movie soundtrack it was quiet as a tomb. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he saw that every seat was filled, a crowd of people still in their heavy coats, the rising vapor of their breath just visible overhead in the wide beam of light from the projector.

From countless other movies and TV shows Vlado could tell right away that this one was set in New York, and by the creeping cadence and low tones of the soundtrack, it was obvious something sinister was afoot, that danger was approaching. But what struck him most about the scene was its neatness and order. Here was a working society with streets uncluttered by shell holes and burned cars. A place with bright lights, glass storefronts. You could walk around the corner and have a beer, a hot meal, a cup of coffee, stay as late as you wanted, and go home to a warm apartment with clean sheets and a light switch on the wall. And all you had to worry about were a few criminals out trying to shoot you. It looked like paradise. Now he realized why these people so willingly gave up a week’s pay for two hours of entertainment.

A hand tapped his right shoulder.

“In here,” a voice whispered. “He can see you now.”

Vlado reluctantly left the streets of New York and walked in to find Goran at the keyboard, muttering, his shirttail hanging through the opening in the back of his folding chair.

He turned, a smile spreading on his broad, unshaven face. “Vlado. Well, it’s about time. For two weeks I can’t get you in here for a beer, and now you pick a day when I’m trying to finish with some comedy I’m not even sure I can translate. Too much American hip-hop language and inside jokes. So where’ve you been?”

“Around.”

“So I’ve heard. The man about town. Keeping late hours at his apartment all by himself. Exciting life, Vlado.”

Vlado smiled. It was an old and frequent topic between them.

“So what’s up, then. Something by the look in your eye tells me you’re not here for a movie or a beer.”

“I’m looking for somebody. Neven Halilovic. I can’t remember what happened after the raid. Whether he was killed, pardoned into the army, or is still in jail.”

“You can stop looking. Last I heard he was dead. He was put in the army, all right, but never made it past the first month. One of those wild attacks across the Jewish cemetery that never comes to anything but more bodies across the graves. But offhand I don’t remember who told me all that, so I can ask around to make sure. Why? You fellows finally getting into corruption cases, or have you joined the special police force without telling me?”

“Only on loan. It’s the Vitas investigation. I guess you heard about him.”

“Only this morning.” He shook his head. “So that’s yours, is it?” Goran paused a moment, then nodded slightly “Yes. I suppose that would figure. Impress the blue helmets with an independent man. Show that we’ve really cleaned up our act in all the right places.” He laughed. “All of which you believe entirely, Vlado, right?”

“As a loyal public servant, I can only wholeheartedly agree.”

“So what’s the story on Vitas? Christ, he wasn’t up to his neck in the local rat’s nest, too, was he?”

He handed Vlado a beer.

“Thanks. I was hoping you might already have formed an educated guess on that yourself. But the Ministry seems to think so. Or at least, Kasic and a few undercover men do.”

“Kasic,” Goran snorted. “As if he would know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing really. I’ve just always thought his machinery was a little too well oiled, a case of style over substance, and it’s always worked for him. One of those fellows who always manages to put himself in the right place for the next promotion.”

“We can’t all sell movies and beer for a living.”

“True. Some of us start painting little French soldiers for our jollies instead.”

Vlado laughed. “Now you’re getting personal. Those are my friends you’re making fun of. More mature conversation than I can get from Damir and not always on the make like Grebo. And I don’t need to spend a month’s salary or a carton of Marlboros to have an evening with them.”

“Now if you could only find a way to paint up one that’s about five-foot-five, a redhead with long legs and a low cut blouse, then you could become a businessman, too. And you could charge a hell of a lot more than a month’s salary.”

“Maybe if I melted down a whole division. The French over at Skenderia aren’t very picky. I could just prop her up on the porch of headquarters next to a price list. I’d have them beating a path of Marlboros to my door.”

“Just make sure you put all the holes in the right places. You can always ask me in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Another few months and I’ll need to.”

“Still that bad, huh?”

Vlado said nothing, just shook his head with a rueful smile.

“What do you hear from Jasmina?” Goran said. It was he who’d had the connections to get her and Sonja on the bus convoy out of town.

“The same. Still settling in. Still learning to speak German. Getting a little bit further from me with every phone call. Sometimes I think I’d be better off in the army. Then maybe at least I could try sneaking out over Igman.”

“That’s assuming you even want to leave this place.”

“What, you think I’m starting to enjoy it here?”

“No. You just couldn’t bear to leave it behind. You’re too scared it might disappear in a cloud of smoke while you’re gone, and you’d come back to a big hole in the ground.”

“You know why I stay-as if I had a choice anyway. Leave now and a family of refugees will be living in my house by the time the war’s over. And with government approval. I’ll be out of a job and, by then, out of money. And probably charged with desertion on top of everything else. Besides, if I can make it through two years of this then I might as well go the distance.”

“For what? The privilege of living here after the war?”

“Why not. It’s my home. Yours too. And if it’s such a good idea to get away why aren’t you sneaking up through the hills?”

“Don’t believe I haven’t thought about it. But right now I’m making money. Real money. Deutschemarks and dollars. To get out I’d need to spend half of it, and wherever I ended up I’d probably have to spend the rest to keep living while I was looking for work. But if this war ended tomorrow I’d be out of here in a shot. Off to Croatia. Or Slovenia. Anything to get out of this place.”

“That’s going to be the time to stay, not leave.”

“You really think so? When’s the last time you took a good, slow walk around your neighborhood.”

“Nobody takes slow walks in my neighborhood anymore.”

“You know what I mean, and you don’t have to take a slow walk to see what I’m talking about. How many of your old neighbors have either been killed or have packed up and gone.”

Vlado shrugged. “Maybe a quarter. Maybe more.”

“Two thirds, more likely, and who moved in after they left? Rurals and refugees. Peasants. All with a chip on their shoulder and an ax to grind. Half of the women wearing headscarves and cursing anybody who’s not just like them. You’re a Catholic with a Muslim wife. Think there’s going to be much tolerance for that around here after the war? Take a look at our government if you’re interested in postwar demo-graphics. The upwardly mobile will be Muslim and politically active, I don’t care how much lip service you hear about a multiethnic society. That died with the first four hundred shells.”

“That’s now. When people don’t have to fight to live, or stand in line for water, or think their children are going to be blown to bits every time they step out the door, they’ll change again.”

“Don’t bet on it. And don’t think these refugees are ever leaving, either. They’ve got it too good. They’re taking all the best jobs, the best empty apartments. And they stick together. When one gets a job so do all his friends and family. Besides, you’re forgetting the way memory works around here. Talked to any old Partisans from the forties who have anything nice to say about the Germans? Or to any old Chetniks who have anything nice to say about Tito? Not to mention the good old fascist Ustasha. This city’s dead, Vlado, and so is everyone in it who sticks around after the fact.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just too stubborn to admit it.”

“Not stubborn. Sentimental. You’re one of those people who’s dug himself deep into his own little bunker and gone to sleep, thinking that if you can just survive the shelling and the sniping then you’ll be able to wake up in a few years and the sun will come out, your family will come home, and you’ll pick up right where you left off.”

“Not right where I left off. I’m not naive. I know things will be different. I won’t be able to speak the same language as my daughter for one thing.”

“That you can fix. That you can repair in a few months, maybe less. But maybe Jasmina had better be wearing a scarf on her head when she comes back. And if you still have any friends over in Grbavica then you better write them a good-bye letter now, ‘cause they’ll either be moving or they’ll be living behind a wall, one running down by the river with a checkpoint at every bridge. If we’re lucky we’ll be the new Berlin, if we’re not we’ll be the next Beirut.

“You’re one of those poor deluded souls who thinks he’s got this figured out, Vlado, who believes that survival is really all there is to it. That as long as you keep your head down, stay off the bottle, and shave every now and then, you’ll come through this just as you were, with nothing worse than a few bad memories to trouble you in the blissful years of peace that lie ahead. That’s you all over, Vlado, painting your soldiers in the dark and running after your petty criminals.”

“So I should drink, then? Or stop doing my job and join the army? Or maybe whore my way around the city every week or so to let me ‘live’ again. Those are your cures for people like me?”

“You should do anything, is all I’m saying. Any act of temporary insanity will do. Anything that will convince me you don’t really believe you’re still the safe, careful man you thought you were at the beginning of this war. Self-control is a virtue, not a religion. Because in a place like this, any move you make-any move-can get you killed, so why not choose a few with some meaning, some passion. Then maybe you won’t wake up some morning ten years from now and discover you’ve buried yourself alive and there’s no one left to dig you out.”

As Vlado fumbled for a reply the office door opened from the darkened theater, and the ticket-taker’s head popped in. “Your scene’s coming up, Goran.”

“Thanks. Be right there.”

Vlado assumed a quizzical look, in welcome for the interruption, feeling awkward, unsettled. “Your scene? You doing a floor show now?”

“A food scene,” Goran answered sheepishly. “It’s part of the movie, and, well, I never like to miss it. Comes right after the shootout. A huge meal for an American holiday. A bird the size of a hatchback Yugo, glazed and brown. Tureens of hot soup, potatoes, vegetables, pastries. Wine, drinks. It’s only a minute or two, but the whole crowd swoons. You can practically hear the drool splattering on the floor. After that who cares about the plot. I’ve seen it nine times already and I still haven’t had enough.”

He rose abruptly to his feet. “But, listen, I’ll run down this Neven tale and get back to you.”

As he moved to the door Vlado remembered something else.

“One other thing,” Vlado said. “Do you remember hearing anything about Vitas’ mother. Where she is. What she’s up to?”

Goran stopped, a hand on the doorknob.

“Yes, she’s dead.”

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be without having seen the body”

“That’s not much assurance, coming from the expert who once said the war would be over in three months. How reliable’s your source?”

“Pretty reliable. Vitas told me.”

“When?”

“Must have been about a year ago. He’d come round here doing something a little bit like you are, searching the family tree of one hood or another. I asked after his family and he mumbled something about his late mother. Said she’d died a few months earlier. Old folks die, you know, even when there isn’t a war on. Especially when they’re bored and lonely, like you. Please, Vlado, don’t forget to call next week or I’ll come pull you out of your flat myself. And I’ll step on some of those little men while I’m there. Now, off to the dining rooms of New York.”

He opened the door to the sound of squealing tires and Hollywood gunshots, which sounded nothing at all like the sharp crack of a sniper rifle. These were soft little pops, the sound of children making believe.

By the time he left Goran’s it was probably too late to catch Damir at the office, and chances were the phones would be down as well, which rankled because now he had plenty to discuss. They’d have to remap their strategy now. If Glavas was able to deliver as promised, they’d have scores of leads to check out around the city from the transfer files, looking for lost paintings.

When he reached his apartment he was cold and bone-weary, the first time in weeks he’d felt so tired, a sensation he might even welcome if a hot bath awaited. Instead there was only a dead phone line. The temperature indoors seemed even colder.

He threw open the oven door and turned the knob for the gas, hearing the weak hiss, then lighting it with a match. He made a mental note to scrounge up some more matches. There were fewer than a dozen left in his box.

A feeble blue ring of flame sprang from the burner. As more families tapped into the pipes the pressure continued to drop, and the supply was prone to frequent interruption, sometimes for days at a time. At this rate it would be twenty minutes before he could boil a pot of water, longer still before he’d actually heat even a corner of the apartment.

He walked to the workbench in the corner of the narrow kitchen, fumbling for a few moments with some half-painted soldiers, but his hands were still too stiff for any detail work.

He sliced a piece of the butcher’s meat and chewed slowly, wrapping the rest back in the rough paper, then swigged some water from a plastic milk jug and tore at a stale heel of bread.

He pulled his bed next to the kitchen door, hoping to capture as much of any heat as possible, and decided to leave the oven on all night. It was a risky proposition. If the gas supply was cut the flame would go out, and if the gas were then turned back on, he’d either suffocate or go up in a ball of flame. One or the other event happened about once a week in the city these days, either from a faulty hookup or from a gamble just like this one. It didn’t help that the local utility had long ago exhausted its supply of the additive that gave gas its tell-tale warning scent, nor would the Serbs be sharing any of theirs any time soon.

Vlado mulled the facts of the case as he pulled down an extra blanket from a closet shelf. It was easy enough to figure where the transfer file must have gotten to. Zarko’s people, with connections to General Markovic and God-knew-who-else had carted it away. Perhaps they were even running competing operations. But how had Vitas gotten a card? Was he a part of it, too? Or had he turned up a card in his own investigation. Maybe he’d gotten it in the October raid on Zarko’s headquarters. Neven Halilovic would know the answers, but he was dead. Everyone who seemed to know anything, in fact, was either dead or on the wrong side of the city. The gallery director, Murovic, would be no further help for at least a month, when the UNESCO grant kicked in. Unless Glavas came through, Vlado would be facing a dead end. And as much as Vlado had taken an instant dislike to Murovic, perhaps he was right about Glavas. Maybe all Vlado would end up with would be an ashtray full of cigarette butts.

But why the stories from the butcher and the cigarette man. And why the show of muscle at his shakedown. They fit with each other but with nothing else. Were they simply opportunists trying to make a few marks, and had Kasic been taken in? Perhaps he, too, was in over his head on this case. The word had always been that Vitas was the brains behind the Interior Ministry, and maybe it was true. Goran had made a worthy point. Kasic had always scored higher marks for style than substance. When all was said and done perhaps he was no sharper than Garovic, just another bureaucrat trying to tread water. The initial reports from the undercover men had seemed like a promising path to a quick finish. He was doubtless under plenty of pressure to wrap this one up in a hurry.

Vlado’s teeth chattered as he climbed into bed, stiff and sore. Tonight there was no radio playing next door. One night of fun and then back to conserving the batteries for more vital purposes. He turned his head on the pillow, peering through the kitchen doorway into the open oven, where the ring of blue flame glowed like the footlights of a darkened theater just before the show danced onto the stage. He drifted off to sleep still waiting for the performance, and soon was dreaming of a woman’s face staring at him from a stage, prim and pale, with heart-shaped lips done up a bit too brightly with lipstick. It was a sweet face, but insinuating as well. It was the woman from Glavas’s apartment, in fact. Or was it a mask? No, it was a face, but suddenly it turned a shocking white, and now it stared up at him from the bottom of a stairwell, emitting a muffled watery sound that was too garbled to understand. Yet, he felt, she had a message for him, if only she could articulate it. The woman pursed her lips, then pressed a finger to her mouth, either in mischief or in warning, while he backed away uneasily, uncertain whether to smile or to show concern. Instead he merely kept moving, as if guided by remote control, moving farther up a stairway that grew colder with every step.