Lie in the Dark

CHAPTER 6

From the cigarette factory, Vlado recrossed town toward the city center, to meet the second of Kasic’s sources. He was a butcher, Muhamer Hrnic, who ran a meat counter in a market hall near the outdoor Markale Market. By now it was midafternoon, so the crowds had peaked out. Only a few dozen people were still walking among the stalls and counters inside the dim, drafty hall. This was the best time of year for the half dozen or so butchers who’d set up shop along the long walls of the building. The weather was cold enough to keep their meat from spoiling even though there was no electricity, and the doors and windows of the building were kept open to keep it that way. As customers stooped to peer into the counter windows their breath fogged the glass.

On the counters in the middle of the hall, a few forlorn women in shawls and head scarves tried to peddle the last of their small piles of loose cigarettes and other odds and ends. Others offered orphaned bottles of Sarajevska Piva, the local beer still being brewed, though lately it tasted sourly of corn and old socks.

Nearby at one end of the room were a few card tables selling old sections of garden hose, plumbing joints, clamps, assorted nuts and bolts, tangled lengths of wire, and light bulbs burned to within a few hours of their expiration. It was as if a crew of handymen had dumped out the contents of their toolboxes. Vlado glanced around for Grebo’s card table, but he and Mycky had either packed it in for the day or were selling outside this afternoon.

Hrnic’s meat counter was at the far end. He was a large man in a white smock streaked with the dried blood of cows, goats, and lambs, darkened into streaks and squirts, then smeared. The smock looked as if it hadn’t been washed in weeks. He had a wide face and gray eyes, and close-cropped silvery hair with lank bangs with a few strands drooping toward his eyebrows like untied shoelaces.

His meat looked reasonably fresh. Two sides of what Vlado supposed was lamb were hanging from hooks, suspended over the counter. In the display case there were a few passable pork chops, and arrayed on top were several large boles of deep brown cured meat, the salty ham that went down best with a little bread and a few belts of plum brandy

The prices never failed to make Vlado gasp, thirty Deutschemarks a pound for the fresh meat, forty and more for the cured ham.

Vlado introduced himself quietly, and Hrnic ordered a teenage girl behind the counter, probably his daughter, into action. She poured hot water from a thermos into a cupful of instant coffee and sugar, then whipped them into a chocolate-colored froth. She brought them over to an empty counter where Hrnic had led Vlado. The butcher then directed his daughter toward the cured meat, holding two fingers apart to indicate the width of how much she should slice. She nimbly wrapped the chunk in white paper and brought it to Vlado.

“For your troubles,” the butcher said.

Everyone was so generous today.

Vlado ignored it for a moment, saying, “I suppose you know why I am here. You’ve supplied us with certain information on Esmir Vitas, and I’m looking for any leads or ideas on why he might have been killed and who might be responsible.”

Hrnic followed with a tale similar to what Vlado had heard from Kupric, only this time Vitas was said to be horning in on the meat trade. He was pushing too hard too fast, not going about it the way one had to these days. Then word filtered out that he would soon be dealt with, that he didn’t have the muscle to back up his title. It was, of course, common knowledge. Then he was dead.

“Tell me, then, if this word was such common knowledge, don’t you suppose a man with the contacts Vitas had would have heard it, too, and would have taken steps to either stop it or fight back? And surely he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to meet someone down by the Miljacka alone and after dark.”

“I suppose you would know these things better than me, being from the Interior Ministry’s special police,” Hrnic said. He said it with a hint of a sneer, as if Vlado was himself damaged goods by having come from the same ship that until yesterday had such a corrupt captain at the helm.

Vlado took a moment to explain his position, and the ministry’s promise of his independence. None of it seemed to inspire anything but further scorn.

“So then you don’t even have good ministry contacts,” Hrnic said.

Vlado was feeling pushed toward a dead end. “No. No ministry contacts to speak of. But we’re here to talk about your contacts. Where does your meat come from?”

“Igman,” he said proudly, like a winemaker who had just mentioned his grapes came from Bordeaux.

“Mount Igman? A dangerous place, by all accounts.”

“Yes. We like to say that depending on which way a lamb falls when he is slaughtered he could end up on the platter of one side or another.”

“In fact, any sort of steady supply from such an unsteady source as Igman would seem to indicate a certain of cooperation with, what should we call it-unfriendly sources? Tell me, do you agree to this cooperation, or does your source do that? Or maybe it’s both of you.”

The smile drained from Hrnic’s face. He looked back toward his meat counter, pretending to check on business, although Vlado saw there were no customers at the moment.

“I cannot tell you for sure of course,” Hrnic continued in a lowered voice. “I only know that my supplier says that Igman is the source. All other arrangements are left to him. I am the last man in a very long chain, so who am I to say where this chain really leads.”

“Unless we decided that for this investigation we should pull in the links of this chain, one by one, which we can do, you know.”

“I was given strict assurances that this would not happen in this case. Strict assurances that my security would be protected,” Hrnic said, his voice rising again, his face reddening.

“Your security” Vlado said, feeling tired. “What good is your security when you have information that the chief of the Interior police is about to be killed and you don’t bother to share it until he is dead. How valuable can it be to ensure the protection of a source such as that?”

“And I am telling you, I’ve been ensured I will be protected.”

“Ensured by who?”

“The Ministry. By the people you don’t really work for, because you are so ‘independent.’ They told me to cooperate with you, but that I was not to jeopardize either my connections or my operation.”

“Yes, your operation,” Vlado said, and a vision came to mind of a rattling contraption with worn belts and pulleys, wheezing and smoking. He looked over at Hrnic’s counter, at its tough husks of cured meat and the stringy lamb, which may have been mutton or even goat for all Vlado knew, and he contemplated the meager profit possibilities at this level of what passed for organized crime.

He sighed, then asked in a weary but pleasant tone, “You can at least disclose the next link up from you. Your supplier. One name only.”

Hrnic said nothing.

“So this is our fine network of undercover men,” Vlado said. “Tell me, having met two of you so far today, are all of you so reluctant to ask questions of your sources, so timid about repeating names of anyone except the recently dead? Are you always rewarded for finding out so little so late?”

“The only way to learn things is to stay quiet,” Hrnic said sternly. “To not ask questions. That’s when things begin to spill out, only when they think you couldn’t care less.”

“And I guess it’s only when they want to grumble about something trivial like the chief of the Interior police being marked for death when they decide to tell you and everyone else about it.”

Hrnic set his mouth in a hard, firm line. Vlado snapped up the white bundle of meat from the counter and dropped it into his zippered briefcase.

“Thanks for the meat,” he said breezily, then strolled away.

He’d walked about thirty feet when the butcher called out.

“Wait,” Hrnic shouted.

Vlado stopped, turning slowly. Perhaps Hrnic was going to ask for the meat back, but Vlado would be damned if he’d return it. There had to be some price for insolence to the police. Besides, he was hungry.

But Hrnic seemed anything but angry. He was grinning, almost wildly, a leering banner of malicious joy.

“You wish to be introduced to the next step up in my ‘chain of command?’ Very well, then. You shall meet him.” He pulled off his grimy apron and tossed it onto a scale. “Mind the counter,” he snapped to his daughter; then he strode past Vlado with the resolve of a man on a mission.

“Follow me,” he said, not turning his head as he passed. “You’ll have your meeting, all right.”

They walked two blocks up a steep hill at a brisk pace, Hrnic panting like an old steam engine that had suddenly found its rhythm after years of disuse. Then they headed down a narrow side street where three young boys kicked a scuffed soccer ball across the cobbles through melting patches of ice. A toothless beggar kneeling in a doorway rose uncertainly to his feet. Seeming to recognize Hrnic, he held out a hand beseechingly.

Hrnic ignored him, striding briskly on without a word until they reached a dented steel doorway halfway up the block. “Wait here,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing inside.

A few moments later he reappeared, calmer now, almost smug in the way he looked Vlado squarely in the eye, as if daring him to turn back now, as if he’d had this scene dreamed up from the very beginning.

“He will see you now,” Hrnic announced with the flourish of a concierge.

Vlado followed him through the door, where a raw, elemental stench nearly knocked him to the floor. This must be their slaughterhouse, for the air reeked of fresh blood. It was the smell of life draining away by the drop, of fluids already rotting as they fall, the essence of animal panic lingering in the air like a ghost. This must be what made the animals bleat before they even saw the glint of a blade, or felt the first jab of metal sliding into their flesh.

They climbed two flights of stairs in the dark, the smell growing stronger as they rose. Then Hrnic shoved Vlado through an open doorway, where two bearded men in faded camouflage jackets frisked him roughly.

“Sit behind the desk and turn your chair to the wall,” one ordered gruffly, and when Vlado hesitated the man picked up a Kalashnikov from a chair and poked it in Vlado’s side.

“Get moving.”

Vlado sat in a creaking office chair, swiveling himself around to face the wall. What had this place once been? A hole for bureaucrats? The business office of some sweatshop? The whole scene seemed mildly absurd, given what he’d seen so far of the two so-called undercover men. He felt more like an errant schoolboy awaiting punishment than someone in trouble with the mob. He wondered just how far they would choose to push their authority with a policeman. Perhaps even they’d be angrier at Hrnic, for bringing him here at all.

Vlado looked over his shoulder, trying to get a better feel for the room.

“You are not to turn your head unless told to do so,” the man with the gun said. Vlado did as he was told without replying, and for a minute or so everyone was still, obviously waiting for someone to arrive. Vlado didn’t know whether Hrnic had left or not, but as the seconds passed he grew fidgety, already impatient with this low-budget attempt at intimidation.

Then, a scuffling of feet as men rose to attention, and the approach of a heavy-booted tread from the hallway. A stern but controlled voice announced, “So this is our Mr. Petric?”

The tone awakened Vlado. This was not the uncertain voice of an amateur. The steps crossed the floor, stopping just behind Vlado.

“And if you please, Mr. Petric, you will not turn your head throughout our conversation unless you wish to end up on the heap with the goats and sheep down the hall.”

A gun barrel shoved firmly into Vlado’s neck, an uncomfortable prod of cool metal. Vlado could hear a crackle of static from a handheld phone-a Motorola, everyone called them-the membership badge of any ranking mob functionary. The phones worked no better than any other part of the local phone system. Their value was for status as much as for communication. In a cafe it was amazing how quickly the service of a sullen waiter improved when a customer pulled a Motorola from his bag.

From the other side of the wall facing Vlado there was suddenly a wild thrashing, a long, high squeal, then the clatter and drumming of hooves before the squeal abruptly turned ragged and guttural, drowning on itself. Gradually it subsided, followed by the noise of a bulky load being heaved upon the floor. Then the muffled scrape and glide of blades easing beneath fur and flesh, or so it sounded to Vlado.

“An unplanned but worthy object lesson,” the voice behind Vlado said. “Perhaps you will keep it in mind throughout our little chat. I am told that you wished to meet me.” The voice took on a trace of amusement. “That you might even be eager to ask me a few questions.”

Vlado said nothing.

“Well, do you or don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“The questions you can forget. All of them. Because I’ll tell you the only answer you need to hear. Especially if you’ve come to ask about Esmir Vitas. And when I’m finished, your path up the chain of command will be at an end as well, unless you wish to feel more of this,” he shoved the gun barrel a little deeper into Vlado’s neck, “only with more of a bite next time.”

Vlado keenly felt his frailness, his recent loss of weight, as if his spine might bend and break with an ounce more of pressure.

“Vitas was scum, do you understand me? A self-righteous little prick who fancied himself a competitor. But he was unworthy competition. So, ultimately, a far worthier competitor killed him. Not me, you understand. Not that I couldn’t have managed it, if I’d wanted. Which should tell you how much help you’ll get from your ministry if you choose to pursue the question of my indentity or my whereabouts any further beyond this meeting. Understood?”

He again pressed forward with the barrel of the gun. Vlado wet his lips to speak, but he was too slow.

“So you understand the way things will work from now on, yes?”

“Yes.”

Let’s get this over with, he thought. These people had long ago stopped being amusing. Hrnic could have his damn meat back as well. Just deliver him from this stench, this pressure at the base of his neck.

“Then you will be moving on now, with your eyes closed and your hands behind your head until you are out of this building. And if anyone in this room ever sees you on this street again, they will kill you on the spot, then flay you to pieces for the rats. Understood?”

“Understood.”

“Very well.”

The pressure of the gun barrel eased, and Vlado felt his entire body relax. He made a tentative motion to stand, but a strong hand fell immediately upon his right shoulder. The gun barrel shoved back into place, and the voice spoke again.

“Don’t be in such a hurry. First you must enjoy a few moments of our hospitality. With our business concluded we can talk as men, as keepers of our families, as fellow patriots. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“We must talk of our wives. Yours, for instance. Jasmina, she is called?”

Vlado didn’t like where this was headed, hinting at resources and connections stretching to God-knows-where.

“She is, I understand, working as a clerk for an architect in Berlin, yes? Some kind of designer. And if I am not mistaken, she is technically an illegal employee, working without the benefit of the proper papers from the German government, which I suppose is all right as long as the authorities don’t find out.”

It was all true. Vlado had gone looking for a secret portal, but now felt instead as if he had tumbled through a trap door, into a pit where all those goats lay below, gutted and sticky with their own fluids, black with flies. What was it Kasic had said? There would be no turning back. Vlado had been glad at the time, excited. It seemed scant comfort now.

The voice continued: “Which reminds me, we should let you go soon or you’ll be late for this month’s phone call. Imagine the unnecessary worry if you failed to call. What would your little daughter think? Sonja, is it?”

Vlado struggled to answer, managing only a dry crackle, barely audible over the static of the Motorola: “Yes. Sonja.”

“A lovely name. So go and make your call. And keep your eyes closed, please, all the way down the stairs, provided those weak legs of yours can still carry you. Eat your meat when you’re home. It will make you stronger. See how even we are doing our part to keep our policemen healthy? Even your friend Mr. Hrnic is a patriot? You do see that now, don’t you Mr. Petric?”

“ Yes.”

“Good. Off with you, then.”

The gun barrel raised him upward like a hook, and Vlado clenched his eyes shut, seeing an apartment in Germany with his wife and daughter, with their circle of friends, other Bosnian refugees mostly, some who they knew, some they didn’t. He began to see how, even here, the influence of a few unsavory people could extend not only across a line of battle but a border. These were not people he cared to know any better. Not for the moment, anyway.