Passport To Peril

IN THE DRAGNET

I was dog-tired, but it was a long time before sleep came.

I was Hiram Carr’s prisoner, whatever he chose to call it. I might possibly escape him. There were no bars on the window, and it would have been an easy jump from the second floor into the drifted snow. But the alternatives to following Carr’s orders were even less attractive.

First there was the overwhelming possibility that I’d be picked up by the Hungarians or the Russians before I’d moved very far from the house. Without a passport I was lost. If I eluded the police, I’d still have to find food and shelter. The reward offered for my capture would make denunciation certain the minute I appeared in public.

Suppose I left Carr’s house after stealing a gun, then made my way safely across City Park to Schmidt’s place on the Mexikoi ut? How could I get past the old woman in the tenement without alerting the doctor?

I thought of trying to flee Hungary, of making my way to Yugoslavia or Rumania on foot; I knew it was insanity to think of crossing the fortified frontier into Austria. But I had no money other than the traveler’s checks which I had stupidly signed with the name of Marcel Blaye. I knew there was an anti-Russian underground in Hungary but why should I expect any help there, even if I could make contact?

Over and above such considerations, however, I wasn’t ready to abandon the mission for which I’d come to Hungary. I had found it increasingly difficult to live with my feeling of guilt in regard to my brother Bob; to leave Hungary after having started my search would make life impossible. And now there was the added fact of Maria. The thought of leaving her in the custody of Schmidt after all we’d been through together didn’t make sense. If she later proved to be something other than what she had pretended that would be different. For the moment, I had no choice but to stick with Hiram Carr.

It seemed to me my head had just hit the pillow when Walter shook me. After I’d shaved a two-day beard and showered, I found a dinner jacket laid out, complete to boiled shirt, studs, and a black Homburg.

Hiram was in his study, in front of the fireplace when I followed Walter downstairs.

“How do you feel?” he said.

“Not too good,” I said. “I don’t think your idea is too smart. What happens if the police ask for my papers?”

“I’ve taken care of that.” He handed me a passport, another Swiss one. It gave my name as Jean Stodder, address—Geneva, profession—watch and clock exporter.

“Why didn’t you try cheese this time?” I said. I had begun to resent Hiram Carr intensely. I also noticed he’d lifted the photograph from Blaye’s passport which Walter must have taken from my pocket while I was asleep.

“The watch and clock business will give you an angle,” Hiram said. “Maybe you can talk to the countess about Blaye.”

“Look,” I said. I was plenty mad. “I consider this whole scheme of yours insane. How do I meet this woman in the first place? What excuse do I use? What makes you think her escort’s going to welcome a pickup by me?”

Hiram was too smart to laugh out loud, but his blue eyes twinkled through the old-fashioned pince-nez.

“If I know anything about the Countess Anna Orlovska, she’ll spot you the minute you walk in.”

“Walk in where?”

“You’d better try the Arizona first, then the Moulin Rouge. She’ll be in one or the other.”

“Suppose I meet somebody who knows me? I told you I lived here for two years. What do I tell them?”

“Tell them politely they’ve got you mixed with someone else. But you won’t meet anybody you know. The kind of people who hang out in Budapest nightclubs these days were slinking around back alleys in Moscow when you were here last. All the diplomats have changed and the government officials. I don’t think you’ll see any of the same chorus girls after nine years, even in the Arizona.”

“How do I know what this female looks like? How do I identify her?”

“You can’t miss her. She’s tall and blond and she’s always surrounded by a dozen admirers.”

“Why is it,” I said, “that female spies are always tall and blond? If you’d dream up a short, fat, dumpy one, she’d be easier to charm.”

“But not half as much fun,” Hiram said.

“What do I do after I meet her?”

“Arrange to meet her again tomorrow.”

“I can’t walk the streets. Do I come back here tonight?”

“I should say not. You never heard of Hiram Carr and I don’t know Jean Stodder from—from John Stodder. Go to the Hotel Bristol. If you’ll take the trouble to look at your passport, you’ll find you arrived in Budapest by air two days ago and are stopping at the Bristol. The night man knows you well. I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow.”

Hiram gave me a Luger in a shoulder holster and a wad of Hungarian money. Then Walter drove me to within two blocks of the Arizona.

For years I had looked forward to returning to Budapest. I had always liked the Hungarians, their friendliness toward strangers, their carefree attitude. “Let the horse worry,” the Hungarians said, “his head is bigger.” The nightclubs of Budapest, its gypsy bands, its numberless little inns and restaurants and its famous coffeehouses, were unexcelled anywhere in the world. And there had been traditionally warm friendship for Americans.

But I hadn’t counted on coming back to Budapest with a price on my head. The first thing I noticed when Walter let me out of the car was a yellow poster, freshly tacked on a wooden fence:

25,000 Forints Reward for Information Leading to the Arrest of Foreign Agents Guilty of Murdering a Red Army hero on Hungarian Soil.

It followed the radio announcement almost word for word, and there must have been a dozen such posters in the two short blocks to the Nagymezo utca where the nightclubs faced each other across the street.

I went into the Arizona, checked my hat and coat, and went to the bar. I hadn’t been in the place for nearly ten years, but it hadn’t changed. The same two-story room, open booths on raised platforms against the two side walls, the orchestra against the fourth wall opposite the entrance. The turntable dance floor was crowded with officers in uniform, men in dinner jackets, and women in evening gowns. The Arizona had been a mechanical marvel in the old days, and the gadgets still worked, for occasionally, with squeals of delight, the occupants of a booth would push the elevator button and the whole booth would disappear from sight into the cellar, to pop up again when a second button was touched.

I had scarcely time to order a drink before a slim blond girl perched on the bar stool beside me. She said her name was Ilonka and she preferred champagne. I don’t suppose she could have been more than seventeen or eighteen. The orchestra was making such a din in the small room, playing “Deep in the Heart of Texas” for the cavorting Russians and Hungarians, that Ilonka had to shout. I understood her Hungarian but I shook my head. If I admitted speaking the language I’d have to acknowledge previous visits to Budapest. The girl would report our conversation to the headwaiter who informed the police on all newcomers. Ilonka would get a percentage of my bar bill; the more I drank, the more money she made and the more information she would theoretically gather for the headwaiter. She also doubled in the chorus line.

She tried halting German. “You are new in Budapest, is it not so?” The bartender poured her a glass of champagne.

I told Ilonka I’d flown in from Geneva two days before.

“Then you are Swiss?”

I said I was.

“You are an engineer, perhaps?”

“In a way,” I said. “I’m in the watch and clock business.” I glanced at the crowded dance floor and wondered which blonde was Anna Orlovska. “Is this place always so crowded?”

Ilonka tossed down her champagne and ordered another. I told the bartender I’d coast on my whisky.

“The Arizona is always jammed,” the girl said. “It’s always full of diplomats and government people. And black-market operators.”

“I’ve heard Budapest is famous for beautiful women,” I said.

“Thank you,” Ilonka said. “Do you like me?”

“Of course,” I said. “I think you’re charming. But I mean society women. Who are some of those women on the dance floor?”

The girl smiled and slipped her arm through mine.

“You’d better take it easy. The Russians don’t like foreigners staring at their women. You’re too nice to get yourself into trouble.”

“I’m just curious,” I said. “I wondered if there were some famous people here.”

She swung around on the bar stool and nodded toward the booths. “That tall thin man is the minister of finance. That fat woman is his wife.” Ilonka giggled. “Oh, sometimes officials do come here with their wives.”

“Who’s the blonde in the third booth?” I asked. “She’s with the bearded man.”

“Oh, that’s Lilli Karvas. She’s the star of the National Theater. You wouldn’t like her. She throws things.”

“Aren’t there any Russians here?”

Ilonka looked at me curiously. “There aren’t any Russian women,” she said. “The Russians don’t bring their wives and daughters to such places.” She put her hand on my arm. “Are you married?”

“No,” I said, “I’m not married.” I looked across the dance floor. “Who’s that Russian in uniform? The one who’s alone in the booth.”

Ilonka looked the other way. “I like you,” she said. “Let’s dance.”

When we’d left the bar, she put her mouth close to my ear. “You mustn’t ask so many questions. It isn’t healthy in this place.”

The dance floor was jammed, and it was hard to move without getting an elbow in the back or a heel in the ankle. When we came in front of the band Ilonka said, “The Russian is Colonel Lavrentiev.”

“Who’s he?” I said. “He looks as if he were dressed for parade.”

“He’s head of the MVD,” Ilonka said. “Will you please talk about the weather?”

“Does he come for the show?” I asked.

“He’s in love with a Polish countess,” Ilonka said. “She meets him here every night. Now mind your business or I’ll leave you here on the floor.”

When we were back at the bar I made up a lot of fiction about trying to sell Swiss watches and clocks to the Hungarian government. Hiram Carr hadn’t briefed me but I felt I ought to tell Ilonka something she could repeat to the headwaiter. I said I was staying at the Bristol and would make my first visit to the ministry of commerce the next day.

I bought Ilonka another champagne. “You’re afraid of the Russians, aren’t you?” I said. There was no one within earshot. I didn’t realize the place might be wired. “Is everybody afraid to talk here in Hungary?”

Ilonka frowned. I noticed how thin and frail she was. Twelve years of war and occupation represented almost her whole life.

“We’re all afraid,” she said simply. “My father says the evil eye has returned among us.”

“The what?” I said.

“The evil eye. The Magyars fought hundreds of years to get rid of the Turks from the east. Now, my father says, the barbarians are here again.”

“Don’t let them hear you,” I said. “Don’t you know they invented civilization?”

She pointed to a small glass object pinned to her dress. “See?”

“What’s that?”

“That’s the good eye.” She unpinned it and handed it to me. “It protects us from the evil eye.” It was made of blue glass to represent a human eye.

“You don’t believe that?”

“Of course.” Ilonka was surprised. “Don’t Swiss people believe in the evil eye?”

I’d seen the charms in Turkey. I’d had a chauffeur named Murad who refused to drive my car without one on the radiator cap. I knew that Slovak peasants paint their huts blue to keep evil spirits away, that Polish farmers rub garlic on barn doors to keep vampires from milking their cows at night. But Budapest had been a civilized capital when I left in ’41.

“I must get ready for the show,” Ilonka said. She took my hand. “Promise you’ll wait?”

I said I would. I’d have an excuse to sit alone at the bar until the Countess Orlovska showed up. Though I hadn’t the foggiest notion what to do then.

I watched Colonel Lavrentiev’s image in the back-bar mirror. He was a big, broad-shouldered man, the typical square-faced, square-headed blond Slav. Like the late Major Strakhov, Lavrentiev wore a full-dress uniform complete to epaulets and a large patch of decorations. He was the first Russian I’d seen sporting a monocle, an affectation some Red Army officers had picked up from the Prussians. Lavrentiev was apparently a two-fisted drinker. There were four bottles in front of him.

Then the show started, and I forgot Lavrentiev and Herr Doktor Schmidt, Hiram Carr, and Herr Figl, the grave-robbing Austrian, until I caught sight of one of the chorus girls who looked enough like Maria to make me catch my breath. Then the spotlight reflected a mouthful of gold teeth, but the shock was enough to make me feel guilty and highly uncomfortable, sitting in a nightclub drinking whisky when I should have been searching for Maria.

The show was something to see, just the same, the way I’d remembered it from the days before the proletariat ran the place. The prima donna came out of the wings on the back of a baby elephant, chorus girls floated around the ceiling on hidden wires, the dance floor rose ten feet in the air complete with tap dancers, the band thumped joyously through a dozen ancient American tunes. Colonel Lavrentiev clapped and laughed and beat time on the table with a whisky bottle.

I needn’t have worried about identifying the Countess Orlovska. The chorus was wiggling through the finale when I saw Lavrentiev pull himself to his feet. He swept the empty bottles onto the floor, bellowed at the orchestra leader, and turned to face the entrance. The music ceased abruptly with a wail of the saxophone, the chorus line shuffled to a halt on one foot. Lavrentiev fixed his monocle, lifted his left arm in a sort of Roman-emperor gesture, and Anna, the Countess Orlovska, swept across the floor and into his booth. Neither performers nor patrons seemed surprised; if they were they knew better than to show it in front of the chief of the MVD.

It was easy enough to see Anna Orlovska’s attraction for Marcel Blaye, Colonel Lavrentiev, or any other man. Her ash-blond hair, worn in a short pageboy bob, contrasted strikingly with her dark eyes and full red mouth. An off-the-shoulder white satin evening gown set off her dark skin.

If Anna Orlovska was concerned with the disappearance of Marcel Blaye or the murder of Major Strakhov she didn’t show it. She smiled broadly at Lavrentiev as he bent to kiss her hand. She spoke to a couple in the next box and swallowed in one gulp the glass of champagne the colonel offered her.

The show never did pick up again after the colonel stopped it, and Ilonka was back with me in the bar in a few minutes.

“Does the colonel end the show like that every night?” I said. “It must be tiresome for the customers if the countess always enters in the middle.”

“He does it every time she arrives,” Ilonka said, “which is nearly every flight in the week.”

She didn’t smile, and when the bartender went to the other end she said, “There’s something going on.”

“What do you mean?”

“It looks like there’s going to be trouble.”

“Trouble, how?”

“The place is full of policemen.”

“Cops get into nightclubs free all over the world,” I said.

Ilonka shook her head. “It isn’t that. There’s half a dozen backstage. And the headwaiter says two carloads of gendarmes just drove up outside.”

I figured she wouldn’t be telling me if she’d been the one to suspect me.

“What do you think they want?”

“They must be looking for someone,” Ilonka said.

The music started, and I took Ilonka to the dance floor.

I wondered how the police had learned I was at the Arizona. I was sure Walter and I hadn’t been trailed from Hiram Carr’s. I didn’t think I’d said anything to arouse Ilonka’s suspicions. Swiss travelers were certainly common enough in Budapest. I found myself scanning the faces of the dancers, but there wasn’t one I could recall ever having seen before.

When the orchestra started a waltz, Lavrentiev followed Anna onto the floor. My first impulse was to retreat to the bar as fast as possible. But I realized that haste would make me conspicuous and I was sure that neither the Russian nor his partner had ever set eyes on me. Dancing was better than sitting at the bar wondering how long it would take the cops to close in on me.

I tried to keep to the opposite side of the revolving floor, away from Lavrentiev and Anna. It took a lot of maneuvering what with the constant turning of the waltz and the movement of the turntable under my feet. The colonel was remarkably agile despite his size, and I tried to change my pace as he did, anticipating the changes in the music.

I was so occupied with watching Lavrentiev and Anna that I didn’t spot the sour-faced minister of finance and his fat wife until they had stepped onto the floor directly in our path. Ilonka said, “Look out,” and I saw them and managed to pivot past but the movement threw us off stride, and the revolving floor did the rest.

Before I knew what was happening we had crashed squarely into the chief of the MVD and his partner, the two people in all of Hungary I least wanted to see—together.