The Land Across

18 GETTING AHEAD

When the waiter came around with more coffee, Papa Zenon covered the hand with a napkin. That sticks in my memory, and I always want to laugh. Sometimes I do. It is the kind of nervous laugh that comes when I have a really close call but do not get hurt.

When the waiter had gone, Papa uncovered it and bent over the hand looking at the tattoos. “This is no curse.” He pointed to the writing in the palm. “It is a spell to find treasure, first in Greek and after in Latin but the same. Here on the thumb, a prayer to Haaiah. It is very short.”

Naala said, “He is a demon?”

Papa Zenon shook his head, hard. “Three times no. Haaiah is an angel, an angel most honored. The supplicant asks that the strangers become new friends. Nothing is in this prayer I myself would not say on my knees.”

Naala looked like I felt.

“Here.” He squinted at the fine writing on the index finger. “It begs Lamach for peace.” He read the prayer to us in Greek, but I do not remember the words well enough to quote them.

“Another angel?” Naala asked.

“Indeed yes, the guardian of Mars.” Papa Zenon turned the hand over. “You say this moves. It is a dead thing.”

“It moves,” Naala insisted.

I added, “I’ve been sitting pretty still myself.”

He gave me a nice smile, a happy mouse. “All you ask me to do, my son, I will do it for you. You fulfilled your part of our bargain. I strive to fulfill mine.”

I guess the hand ran across the table while Papa Zenon was looking up, but I did not see it. I did not know what had happened until I felt it climb back into my pocket.

He looked down and then stared at me, but I just shrugged.

When he had gone, Naala asked, “You have it, Grafton?”

“Right. In my side pocket. I didn’t know it was in there until we were sitting down in here, and I wasn’t sure I ought to bring it up.”

“It likes you, I think. Even as I. You must keep it most safe for us.”

I said I would.

“Papa is go. Where and to do what? Do you know?”

I shook my head.

“No more do I. What of us? What should we do? I ask the suggestion.”

I said, “Go back to your apartment so I can shave.”

She laughed. “Another.”

“Not me. I gave you mine. What’s yours?”

“The magic shop, of course. You say Rathaus is hide there.”

“No, I didn’t. I say he might have hidden there for a while, or somebody in that shop might know where he is. I think Martya tried to find out where I was, and somebody there recognized my name because Russ had talked about me. Only Russ wasn’t in there when I broke in. I searched the whole place, and I would have found him.”

“You found signs that someone had been hidden there, perhaps?”

“No. Nothing.”

“They clean up most carefully, I think. Often I have find such signs. Bread crusts, perhaps. A blanket hidden it might be.”

I shook my head.

“That I do not like, but we will go even so. The shawl bring you there. This you say.”

“Right. It was from the other shop. There are two shops on that floor, the magic shop and a dress shop.”

“I wish to see both, and they will be open now.”

So off we went, walking pretty fast and not talking much. I was going over everything Papa Zenon had said. I do not know why I did it, except that I had a hunch he knew more than he was telling. He had kept saying that he was telling us all he knew. (I have not told you about a bunch of stuff that turned out not to matter.) When somebody does that, it is usually because they are not. So what could he be hiding? He had read more prayers from the hand to us. I have not told you about those, either, but I went over them in my mind as we walked along.

The only thing I came up with was pretty small. He told us he had watched the archbishop early that morning, and I figured it was probably when he climbed the tower where the bells were. That was all he had said, but he had looked worried. Maybe it was just because the archbishop was pretty old, or because he had been out of breath when he came down. But I wondered.

We got to the building and I showed Naala the sign I had seen, the one with the spotted cat pushing the lilies to one side.

She said, “This is the dress shop upstairs?”

“Right. Papa Iason read the label on the shawl for me. It said Lily and Civet. That’s what he said, so when I saw this sign I got interested.”

“I, too.” Naala smiled. “More interesting even is what is not here. Did you see it?”

I did not know what she meant.

“We go to another magic shop once, it is Left-Hand Magic Supplies. We stop and go back because the Rathaus woman see the sign as we drive.”

“Right.”

“Where is sign for this magic shop you search?”

There was not one, and I mulled that over as we went upstairs.

I had thought that Naala would start with the dress shop, but I was wrong. She went straight to the magic shop. The door I had broken was gone. It had been taken off the hinges and carried away, but you could still see little pieces of broken glass on the floor. We went right in.

A guy came out of the back fast. I suppose he had heard us. He was younger than I would have expected, a lot younger but stooped, and he looked worried.

“Yes. May I help you, madame?”

Naala laughed. “You may show us things if you wish. This I find most interesting.”

“We are closed,” he told her. “Our door would be locked, but…” He let it trail off.

“But you have none. This I see.”

“Someone broke in last night. New glass must be fitted. Mounted also. Next week we are promised.”

“By then you will have nothing left,” Naala told him. “They come back every night and carry away big boxes until all is gone.”

He shook his head. “Whoever broke in took nothing. We have examined and counted all the most valuable things. Nothing is gone.”

“You have not have much time for this.”

“We are two. It is sufficient.”

“Ah! You open most early.”

The young guy shook his head. “In morning we do not open at all.” He cleared his throat. “We are closed. I must ask you go out.”

“I go most gladly,” Naala told him, “when you have told me what you sell here and display for me your wares.”

“You must tell your son to stop poking them.”

I said, “I’m not poking.”

Naala chuckled. “He is a bad boy. His poor mother he never obeys, but he will come with me when I go. This you will see.”

“Soon, I hope.” The young guy was about beaten, and he knew it. “You climb the stair to buy a dress?”

“I did not say, I know.”

“I do not own this shop,” the young guy told her. “To my father it belongs. He is in the dress shop. Go to him and ask to see as you desire. If he says yes, you will see everything.”

“He buys a dress for your mother, I hope.”

“No. Both shops are his.”

I froze when I heard that. When Naala had said we would come here, I thought it was just because she could not think of anything better to do and wanted to keep busy. Now it seemed like a whole bunch of stuff was falling into place in my mind.

Naala was saying, “Then I will speak with your father also,” when I came over and braced the young guy.

“You’re Ferenc Narkatsos.”

He said he was and held out his hand.

I ignored it. “I was a friend of Yelena’s.” I said that as I swung, and this time I did not go for the face. The heart is right in the middle of the chest, right under the breastbone, and that was where I hit him. Everything I had was behind it, and I followed up with my left so fast it caught the right side of his face before he fell.

Naala had her gun out when I looked around. “Stay down!” was what she told Ferenc. Only she did not have to. He was not getting up anytime soon.

“Much you are too rough, Grafton.” She was pushing me back with her free hand, but not looking at me.

“He killed her,” I told Naala. “He killed Yelena. You want a picture? I’ll draw you one.”

Nobody said anything after that, then Naala laughed. “He turn pale. You think you escape the law, Ferenc? It find you out most quick.”

“I—I…” There were tears rolling down his face.

“You will enjoy hell. This I think. There you will find many like yourself. Do you wish to go and see? If no, you must tell us. Otherwise you try to escape and I shoot. You know about this? It is most easy. I am a senior operator of the JAKA. Here! Look!”

You could tell opening her purse with her left hand and getting out her gold badge was no new trick to Naala. She did it so fast and slick I could not believe it.

“I say, ‘I arrest him. We will take him outside and wave to stop a police car, but he run.’ They will say, ‘Good. A trial cost more than bullets.’”

The young guy—Ferenc—did not speak, so I caught both wrists and twisted his arms behind him like Naala told me. He started gasping, and at first I thought it was because I was hurting his arms and backed off a little. As soon as I did, I saw it was not me at all. The hand was just getting a good grip on his throat. I let go of his arms then and clapped my right hand over his mouth. As quick as I could, I grabbed the hand with my left and jerked it away from his throat.

“You do not like,” Naala told him. “Tell us, and you will not see that again.”

After that he said, “She wouldn’t sign. Everything I say to her, it is still no. She wants the police.” There was a lot more after that. That was just the beginning.

Finally we took him downstairs and flagged a car with two cops in it. They put the cuffs on him and one cop got out to make more room.

So it was back to JAKA headquarters. The cop marched him inside, and Naala and I tagged along with me wondering when I would ever get out. And whether.

Next was Baldy’s waiting room, only I did not know it was Baldy’s until we went into his office. We had been parked outside for about an hour.

“Last night there is a death at the Harktay,” Naala told Baldy. “Already it is report a natural death, saying in a young woman the heart fails. This report is what the warden believes.”

“You do not,” Baldy murmured. He had a desk as big as a boat, and a high-backed leather chair that looked like a throne.

“Better we know. It is murder. She is murdered by a youth of the Unholy Way.”

Baldy sat up straighter. “You have identified him?”

Naala nodded. “He is Ferenc Narkatsos.”

“You have proof?”

“He has confessed. To Grafton,” a wave of her hand showed who she meant, “and to me. Intelligence have him now. He will confess to them, also.”

Baldy put his fingertips together. “Tell me of the murder.”

“I have learned from Grafton. I will let him speak.”

I said, “We were interested in a young woman named Rosalee. Blond and quite attractive. She had been a prisoner in the Harktay but had escaped. Naala sent me there to investigate. I was told that a man had entered the building where they sleep in the middle of the night. Everybody else had been asleep, but the woman I spoke to was awake and saw him. He went from bed to bed looking at faces. When he came to a young woman named Yelena, he looked like he was stabbing her in the chest. Naturally, I went to the warden to ask why we had not been informed of the stabbing.”

Baldy nodded.

“She told me there had been no stabbing, but Yelena had collapsed about noon and been taken to the infirmary. I went there to question her. She was weak and couldn’t tell me much, but when I asked whether anybody had it in for her she named Ferenc Narkatsos. He’d had the hots for her and she had turned him down. That was all she was able to tell me before she died.”

Naala started to say something, but Baldy motioned for her to keep quiet and said, “Had she been stabbed? Did you look at her for a stab wound?”

I nodded. “Yes, sir, after she was dead. There was no knife wound in her chest, but there was a little speck of dried blood between her breasts. It looked to me like somebody had stuck a needle in there.”

Naala said, “This concerns the Unholy Way, sir. In them Grafton and I are most interested. Grafton found a shop where many suspicious things are sold. He searched this shop and to me reported much I found of interest. The owner’s name is Abderos Narkatsos.”

“Ah! I see.”

“This morning we go there. Abderos Narkatsos is not present, but his son Ferenc watch the shop. We identify ourselves, and I say you think you kill and escape the law? We have found you most quick. Soon he breaks down, weeps, and confesses, as I have said. In the shop are many poisons. He showed us the one he used and told us how he made a paste of this poison and smeared it on a hat pin. In my purse I have a sample.”

She opened it and got out the little glass vial I had found for her back at the shop. “Here is it, sir. What need have I to tell you be most careful?”

That one made Baldy smile. “I will not open before I turn over to Chem. What about the Unholy Way? Might this man’s father be their Undead Dragon?”

Naala shook her head. “He is not so high, I am sure. We must watch him. He will know his son is of a sudden gone. Perhaps even he learns his son is arrested. He will be most careful or perhaps run. If he runs, where? To whom does he speak? To these the answers will be of much interest.”

Baldy nodded, I think mostly to himself. “You will receive cooperation, operator. I will see to it. This foreigner is useful to you?”

“As you have heard.” Naala smiled. “That, and much more besides. He is of talent.”

Baldy spoke to me. “Already you are working for our JAKA. This you must know.”

I nodded and said I did.

“Now you join us formally. You will be paid, which is always important. More important, you will know we trust you.” He got up and went into a little storeroom or walk-in closet that opened off his office, and came back with a badge in a black leather flip-case and a gun in a black cardboard box. Of course I had to swear and so on, and my fingerprints were taken again, just like they had been at the prison, and there was another mug shot. But I am going to skip all that. It was not very interesting.

There was something else first that was interesting to me. It still is, but I can only tell you about it. If you can explain it, I would like to hear from you.

About the time Baldy handed me the badge case and the box, the door of his office opened and somebody else came in. I wanted to look around at him, but I did not. Only when we left to go get me fingerprinted, I saw him. It was the man who looked a little like my father, I mean the third border guard, who was the man I had seen sometimes riding next to the driver in police cars. He was not in uniform this time, and he looked more than ever like the man on the posters. He was sort of short, and had a round face like my father’s and a stiff black mustache with a little gray in it like his. After that, I saw him pretty often. I will not always mention him, because it would get boring. Once or twice I asked Naala about him, but she did not know what I was talking about.

So anyway, when we got back to Naala’s apartment I opened the badge case first. I wanted to open the black box and have a look at the gun, but I had the feeling it would piss her off, so I did not. My badge was silver instead of gold, and she explained it meant I was a plain operator and not a senior operator. She also showed me the little slot where my ID card would go when it came. It would come by messenger, she said. I put my badge case in the side pocket of my jacket, along with the hand.

After that I got to open the box. My new gun was in there, and it was brand new and very cool. It looked a lot like Naala’s, but not exactly, and I ought to say that. With it was a small box of ammo. I counted them, and it was twenty rounds. There were two holsters, too: a belt holster and an ankle holster that I never did use. I loaded the gun, put it in the belt holster, and put it on.

After that, Naala wanted to know if I was hungry. I said I was not; what I wanted to do was go someplace where I could shoot my new gun enough to get used to it.

“You are thrill.” She grinned at me.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I’ve fired guns before, but I’ve never owned one til now.”

“You do not own that one. It belongs to JAKA, which will take it back when you return to Amerika.”

I nodded. “Sure. They’ll have to, because they’re not allowed on the plane. That’s okay, because it’s mine for as long as I’m here.”

“You wish to shoot.”

“Yeah. A lot.”

“Then I say this. We will go to a range. There I will buy more ammunition, also teach you to shoot. When we are finish, we eat. It will be for us lunch. Dinner also. You agree?”

“Sure,” I said. “Absolutely!”

“After this, you must find Rosalee, if she is still where you say you know. You must bring her to me.”

I said okay, so that is what we did. The range would have been a really stiff hike, but we got lucky and a car stopped for us. It belonged to a guy who was pretty high up in JAKA, according to Naala, although I do not think he was as high as Baldy who was probably the top man. The neat thing about it was that I got to flash my badge, the first time I had ever done it.

The sportsman’s club we were going to was out on the edge of town and about the classiest thing I saw in the whole country. The JAKA had an organizational membership according to Naala. That must have been right, because all we had to do was flash our badges and they let us right in. I got the feeling that most of the members were high up in the government, and the ones who were not, were. You know what I mean. Officially they were not, but they did a lot of favors, and got a lot of favors, too. There was a golf course, a big swimming pool, a casting pool for fishermen, a rifle range, a shotgun range, and a pistol range. All that and more besides, including a bar, a restaurant, a ballroom, and a library. Everything very posh.

Also there was a shop where you could buy various kinds of ammunition, cleaning supplies, and things like that. We rented eye protection and earmuffs, electronic ones that were unbelievably cool.

My gun was a lot simpler than I expected. There was the trigger, the magazine release, and a disassembly lever. That was it. No safety, no grip safety, no little lever in the trigger, nothing like that. Just a long pretty hard trigger pull like you were shooting a revolver double action. The semi-auto I had shot back in the States had a three-position safety lever. Up for safe, down for fire, and down farther for decock. My new JAKA gun did without all that.

That one had a staggered magazine, too, to hold more rounds. This one did not. Just a single column magazine, eight rounds. Like my dad used to say, KISS. It means Keep It Simple, Stupid.

So eight in the magazine, shove the magazine into the grip, shuck a round into the chamber, and off we go. At first I spent way too much time trying to get perfect sight alignment. And to keep it while I pulled that trigger, which was a lot harder. Naala showed me that you did not need it at practical distances. You taught yourself to hold the gun right, got your front sight on the target, and fired. You could not nail the king of hearts that way, but there was not a real good chance the king was going to pull a knife on you. What you could do was score on the chest of somebody with a knife before he got close enough to cut you. Was he going to go down? Probably not, so shoot him again.

So she shot some and I shot some and we had a lot of fun doing it. She was a lot better shot than I was when we started, and when we got finished she was still a better shot. Only just a little, not a lot. Between us we burned up four boxes of ammo, but she said that was good because you wanted to shoot at least a hundred rounds from your new gun to get it running right. Sometimes a new gun would have some problems, like maybe the slide would not close tight now and then for the first forty or fifty rounds, and then the problems would disappear because the parts had smoothed out. That did not happen with my gun, but it got easier to load and the trigger stopped feeling gritty. It still took a pretty hard pull, but the sand was out of the works.

When we got through shooting we went into the dining room and ate. Naala said there was a lot of pricey stuff on the menu, but if we stayed away from it and did not order wine it would not be too stiff. So she had tea and I had coffee and we both had spanakopita with a big salad on the side. When we were about finished, Naala showed me what she had bought for me while I was looking at gun stuff in the shop. It was a watch, not a really nice one but a hell of a lot better than no watch. So I thanked her and we kissed. You know.

After that Naala looked around for a ride home, but she could not find anyone. So we hiked. It had cooled off quite a bit by then and before long the moon rose, so it was not as bad as it sounds. We split up when we got back to the city, me going after Rosalee and Naala home to her apartment.

When I got there empty-handed, she naturally wanted to know what happened. I said, “She wasn’t there, that’s all. The shop was closed, but the lady that ran it was still inside. She let me in when I showed her my badge. I told her I knew all about Rosalee’s hiding there, I was a friend of Rosalee’s, and I wouldn’t bust her if she’d open up with me. But if she wouldn’t, she was going to headquarters. I’d have no other choice but to run her in.”

Naala nodded.

“She opened up. When she had come in that morning, Rosalee had been gone. She had left a note, but the lady couldn’t read it—some foreign language. I said probably I could read it, and she showed it to me. I read it to her, but I kept it. She didn’t mind.”

“You must read it to me also, I think,” Naala said.

So I did: “My husband is ill and needs me. I must go to him. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! If we ever get home I will repay you.” It was signed: “Rosalee Borden Rathaus.”

“This could be the best that could happen for us.” Naala was heading for the phone. A minute later I heard her telling somebody to get on the tracking device they had put on Papa Iason’s bike.

“It does not yet move,” she told me when she hung up. “Soon, I think. Someone know where is Rosalee. About Papa Iason he know, too, I think. Now I go to Papa’s house to watch. You must go to the house near the archbishop’s palace where priests stay. Find Papa Zenon. Tell him what happen and after you do this—”

The door of her apartment opened. It had been locked but not bolted, and maybe I ought to say that. It stayed open for just a second or so while somebody threw something into the room, then it shut quietly. Its quiet click has stayed with me. I still hear it about once a week, when I am almost asleep.

I went to see what had been thrown in, but Naala beat me to it, rolling it over until the face showed. It was somebody’s cut-off head. Thinking back, it seems like it was a long time between the time I realized that and the time I recognized the face. It was Butch Bobokis.