Protocol for a Kidnapping

18

I waited until the debate about who sat where ended before I said anything and then I said, “You want to clear your throats? Maybe cough a few times?”

Wisdom looked at me from his seat by the window. “What’s your trouble?” He turned toward Knight who was again sprawled on my bed. “Our leader seems to be under a strain. Have you noticed the tight lips, the nervous gestures?”

“He’s probably decided to double-cross someone,” Knight said. “He only wants us to reassure him that it’s all in a good cause.”

“The first plane out of here is at ten fifteen this evening,” I said. “You’d both better catch it. The deal’s gone sour.”

Knight sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “God, St. Ives, when you get noble, you’re really awful.”

“I liked him better when he was a shit like us,” Wisdom said. “I don’t care much for him when he’s Carstairs.”

“Carstairs?” Knight said.

“Carstairs the magnificent. You know Carstairs. When they come to the edge of the desert he’s the one who always turns to his two buddies and says, ‘If you don’t hear from me in three weeks, tell Mary...’ Then he breaks off and goddamned near blushes and says, ‘But you know what to tell her,’ and then one of his buddies, the stupid one, like you, Knight, says, ‘But that’s fifteen hundred miles of burning sand, Carstairs,’ and Carstairs, the prick, shades his eyes with his hand and says, ‘Isn’t that what all of life is?’”

Knight nodded several times. “Now I remember Carstairs. St. Ives does resemble him. The eyes especially.”

“Shifty,” Wisdom said.

“And the chin.”

“Weak.”

“And the mouth.”

“Slack-lipped,” Wisdom said.

“Why don’t you tell us a little about it, Carstairs,” Knight said, “and then we’ll make up our own minds about what we’ll do. Maybe we don’t want to go back to New York via Frankfurt which is a lousy town anyway. Maybe we’ll go to Venice.”

“Or London,” Wisdom said. “I know some girls in London. They’d be fascinated with my adventures in Belgrade — all about how I saw one real mosque and rented a car and got drunk once and then took a tour of the old Kalemegdan fort which is just a hell of a sight. I could tell them that I always have such madcap experiences when I go traveling with my old buddy Carstairs.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it.”

“Just don’t go noble on us,” Knight said.

“I only get those attacks once or twice a year,” I said, and then told them about it — about Stepinac and who he said he was and how he got killed, about Jovan Tavro who needed to get out of the country, and about Anton Pernik who didn’t because he was dead. When I was through they both thought about it for a few moments and then Knight was the first to ask a question.

“Who do you think killed the guy who looked like you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He was supposed to take me to see somebody or meet somebody, but we never made it.”

“Any idea of who it was?” Wisdom said.

I shook my head. “None.”

“So what do you want to do now?” Knight said.

“You know what he’s going to do,” Wisdom said and went over to the dresser and poured himself a shot of the plum brandy.

“I just want to see if he does,” Knight said.

“He’s going to substitute Jovan Tavro for the dead poet,” Wisdom said and downed his drink in a gulp before turning to me. “Right?”

“All by yourself?” Knight said.

“Right,” I said.

“Don’t forget Gordana,” Wisdom said.

“That’s probably why he wants us to catch the plane.”

“Look,” I said, “this was supposed to be something simple. All you’d have to do is switch Gordana and her grandfather for the ambassador and then go on your way. Now it’s something else. It could turn into something messy. I dragged you into it, so it’s only fair that I should tell you why you’d be better off if you caught that plane.”

Wisdom shook his head. “I liked him better when he was noble,” he said. “He’s really impossible when he’s long-suffering.”

Knight lay back down on the bed and folded his arms under his head. “What would you do if you were in our shoes, Phil?”

“Catch the plane,” I said.

“Why’d you ask us to come?”

“I thought I might need some help.”

“What do you think now that you really need it?”

“It’s as I said. You can get into some bad trouble.”

“Let me get a little mawkish for a minute,” Knight said.

“You’re very good when you’re mawkish,” Wisdom said.

Knight spoke to the ceiling. “How long have you known me and my wife?”

I shrugged. “Ten or twelve years.”

“You’d say we’re good friends?”

“Christ,” I said, “don’t start that what are friends for crap with me. This isn’t one of Wisdom’s practical jokes where somebody gets embarrassed, but nobody gets hurt. I don’t know how it’ll wind up, but somebody’s already dead because of it. I don’t want to be responsible for inviting anyone to go along to their own killing.”

Wisdom went back to his chair. “If it’s so tricky, why’re you staying, Phil? The ambassador’s no great pal of yours. From what you’ve told us, he’s a shit. So why don’t you just tell the State Department to find somebody else?”

“It’s not that simple,” I said.

“That’s the part he hasn’t told us,” Knight said, moving his head to look at Wisdom.

“The dirty part,” Wisdom said, “with all the girls.”

“I tell you what, Phil,” Knight said. “If you promise not to go noble on us again, I’ll stay. I’ll stay with the full knowledge that the entire deal is tricky and that I might get into mischief. I’m staying because I’m curious and because I think that you might need the help. Just don’t go noble on us again.”

“Me, too, Carstairs,” Wisdom said. “No speeches, no declarations of friendship, no firm, manly handshakes. Just tell us what to do and we’ll do it.”

“Catch the plane,” I said.

“No.”

“All right,” I said. “You’re both now full partners in the Acme Go-Between Agency, Incorporated. And if I don’t seem grateful, it’s because right up until now I never knew what true friendship really meant and—”

“Now he’s mushy,” Wisdom said. “I liked him better when he was noble.”

“And so,” I said, “when you stub your toe, or the going gets a little difficult, such as when they’re about to toss you out of the airplane, don’t come to me and say, ‘Phil, why didn’t you tell us it was going to be like this?’”

“When do you pull the switch?” Knight said, pulling himself up to sit on the edge of the bed.

“Tonight,” I said. “I meet Tavro at ten o’clock.”

“Then what?”

“Then I meet you a block from Pernik’s apartment.”

“I think I know what you’re going to ask next,” Knight said.

“What?”

“Can I play a seventy-five-year-old man?”

It took me ten minutes to shake my tails this time, and I did it by switching taxis. I arrived at the Impossible Café and sat with a cup of coffee until 10:04 when Jovan Tavro arrived, looking more bitter and unhappy than I remembered. He sat down and a friendly waiter took his order for a cup of coffee.

“Jones got word to me that you wanted to meet,” he said. “He did not say why.”

“I didn’t tell him why.”

“So you can now tell me.”

“We’re going tonight,” I said.

Tavro expressed his reaction by slowing the coffee cup on its trip from the saucer to his mouth. “So soon?” he said.

“So soon.”

“I must make arrangements.”

“You’ve already made them.”

“But there are things that I need to prepare, to pack, to arrange for—”

“There’s nothing,” I said. “You carry what’s on your back and in your pocket. That’s all.”

“But I have papers that are important.”

“Were important,” I said. “They aren’t anymore. You said you want out of Yugoslavia. Here’s your chance. If you don’t want to take it, that’s fine with me.

Tavro took another sip of coffee while he seemed to debate whether to accept my invitation. His narrow face ducked once, then twice. I took it for a sign of agreement.

“Has this place got a back entrance?” I said.

He nodded. “It leads to an alley.”

“Are you still under surveillance?”

He nodded again.

“How long before they’ll notice anything?”

“Perhaps a quarter of an hour. Even more. I usually drop by here every evening.”

“This late?”

“No, not this late, but it’s not that unusual.”

“All right,” I said as I rose. “Let’s go.”

The Café Nemoguće was more crowded than it had been during my last visit, the sign of an approaching weekend. Most of the customers were over thirty, possibly because the café offered no entertainment other than conversation, not even a jukebox. We brushed past waiters as we headed toward the rear of the café, but none of them seemed to pay us any attention.

Tavro turned to me. “We have to go through the kitchen,” he said.

I nodded and motioned him to go ahead. He pushed through some swinging doors into the kitchen which was at least twenty degrees hotter than the café itself. Nobody even looked up as we went through another door and out into an alley.

“Now?” he said.

“Now we look for a cab.”

We walked for fifteen minutes looking for one and all that Tavro did was grouse about there not being more time and worry about who would look after his roses. We finally caught a taxi in front of the Hotel Majestic on Obilicev Venae and I told Tavro to give the driver the directions.

The taxi was an old diesel Mercedes that chugged and gasped as it crept down the almost empty streets. The night had grown colder and the taxi’s heater wasn’t working and our breaths frosted against the windows.

“There should have been more time,” Tavro said, his tone petulant, almost a whine.

“There wasn’t any.”

“Where do we go now?”

“We meet some people.”

“People?”

“Persons.”

“You did not say that there would be anyone else.”

“No,” I said, “I didn’t.”

“Who are they?”

“Friends.”

“I do not like it. I should have been consulted.”

“See whether the driver can go a little faster,” I said.

Tavro spoke to the driver and the car sped up to twenty-three or twenty-four miles an hour. I looked back several times, but there seemed to be no one following. As we drove more deeply into the blocks of apartments and flats, the traffic became almost nonexistent. Belgrade is not known for its night life.

The driver said something over his shoulder to Tavro who replied briefly.

“What did he say?” I said.

“That we are almost there.”

A new blue or black Mercedes sedan was parked at a corner and the taxi drew up behind it. I paid the driver and we got out. Wisdom left the driver’s seat of the new Mercedes and walked back toward us. He held his hands out as if apologizing and when he got closer he said, “We couldn’t help it, Phil. We tried but we honest to God couldn’t help it.”

“Help what?” I said.

The rear door of the new Mercedes opened.

“Help what?” I said again.

“Me,” Arrie Tonzi said as she stood by the car’s open door, smiling prettily at Jovan Tavro.