The Confession

83

There was a knock at the door. I pulled out my gun and stood beside it. Leonek had his gun out as well, and Louis shrank into his chair, terrified.

“Ferenc?” It was a woman’s voice. A high squeak.

I put my gun away and opened the door a little. Claudia peered up at me. “Hello, Claudia. I don’t have a lot of time-”

“It’s not that,” she said, and glanced down the stairwell. “I just thought you should know. There was a man here last night.”

“A man?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “A Russian. He knocked on your door, I could hear him from downstairs. Loud, that one. Loud.”

“Do you know what he wanted?”

“How should I know? But he was calling your name. He said he knew you were in. Then he left.”

“That’s all he said?”

“That’s it. You weren’t there, were you?”

I shook my head.

“That’s what I thought. I’d heard you go out earlier. But I wasn’t about to open my door and tell him. I’m not that kind, you see.” She smiled and patted my hand on the door to assure me of this.

“Thank you, Claudia. I appreciate it.”

She tried in vain to peer past me into the apartment, then rocked back on her heels and shrugged. “We’re neighbors, Ferenc. It’s nothing.”

After I’d heard her footsteps descend the steps and her door open and shut, I sat across from Louis. “Did you tell them about this trip?”

“Them?”

“Yalta Boulevard.”

He shook his head. “I stopped that after my last visit. They’ve tried to get me back, but I haven’t done anything for them since.”

Leonek pocketed his pistol. “Louis checked into the Metropol, and the hotel sent in the daily registration report. Of course they know he’s in town.”

I walked over to the radio set. “And when Kaminski went to Louis’s room, the lock was broken and the room was empty. But he didn’t think to check for our names on the register.” I looked at Leonek. “The three of us were very close to death in that hotel.”